It was noon of the next day when two horsemen gained the heights above
La Rochette and paused to breathe their nags and take a survey of the
little township in the plain at their feet. One of these was Monsieur
de Garnache, the other was his man Rabecque. But it was no longer the
travestied Garnache that Condillac had known as “Battista” during the
past days, it was that gentleman as he had been when first he presented
himself at the chateau. Rabecque had shaved him, and by means of certain
unguents had cleansed his skin and hair of the dyes with which he had
earlier overlaid them.
That metamorphosis, of itself, was enough to set Garnache in a good
humour; he felt himself again, and the feeling gave him confidence.
His mustachios bristled as fiercely as of old, his skin was clear and
healthy, and his dark brown hair showed ashen at the temples. He
was becomingly arrayed in a suit of dark brown camlet, with rows of
close-set gold buttons running up his hanging sleeves; a leather jerkin
hid much of his finery, and his great boots encased his legs. He wore a
brown hat, with a tallish crown and a red feather, and Rabecque carried
his cloak for him, for the persistent Saint Martin’s summer rendered
that day of November rather as one of early autumn.
A flood of sunshine descended from a cloudless sky to drench the country
at their feet, and all about them the trees preserved a green that was
but little touched by autumnal browning.
Awhile he paused there on the heights; then he gave his horse a touch
of the spur, and they started down the winding road that led into La
Rochette. A half-hour later they were riding under the porte cochere of
the inn of the Black Boar. Of the ostler who hastened forward to take
their reins Monsieur de Garnache inquired if the Marquis de Condillac
were lodged there. He was answered in the affirmative, and he got down
at once from his horse. Indeed, but for the formality of the thing, he
might have spared himself the question, for lounging about the
courtyard were a score of stalwart weather-tanned fellows, whose air and
accoutrements proclaimed them soldiers. It required little shrewdness
to guess in them the personal followers of the Marquis, the remainder of
the little troop that had followed the young seigneur to the wars when,
some three years ago, he had set out from Condillac.
Garnache gave orders for the horses to be cared for, and bade Rabecque
get himself fed in the common room. Heralded by the host, the Parisian
then mounted the stairs to Monsieur de Condillac’s apartments.
The landlord led the way to the inn’s best room, turned the handle, and,
throwing wide the door, stood aside for Monsieur de Garnache to enter.
From within the chamber came the sounds of a scuffle, a man’s soft
laugh, and a girl’s softer intercession.
“Let me go, monsieur. Of your pity, let me go. Some one is coming.”
“And what care I who comes?” answered a voice that seemed oppressed by
laughter.
Garnache strode into the chamber--spacious and handsomely furnished as
became the best room of the Auberge du Sanglier Noir--to find a meal
spread on the table, steaming with an odour promising of good things,
but neglected by the guest for the charms of the serving-wench, whose
waist he had imprisoned. As Garnache’s tall figure loomed before him he
let the girl go and turned a half-laughing, half-startled face upon the
intruder.
“Who the devil may you be?” he inquired, and a brown eye, rakish and
roving in its glance, played briskly over the Parisian, whilst Garnache
himself returned the compliment, and calmly surveyed this florid
gentleman of middle height with the fair hair and regular features.
The girl scurried by and darted from the room, dodging the smiting hand
which the host raised as she flew past him. The Parisian felt his gorge
rising. Was this the sort of fever that had kept Monsieur le Marquis at
La Rochette, whilst mademoiselle was suffering in durance at Condillac?
His last night’s jealous speculations touching a man he did not know had
leastways led him into no exaggeration. He found just such a man as he
had pictured--a lightly-loving, pleasure-taking roysterer, with never a
thought beyond the amusement which the hour afforded him.
With curling lip Garnache bowed stiffly, and in a cold, formal voice he
announced himself.
“My name is Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache. I am an emissary
dispatched from Paris by her Majesty the Queen-mother to procure the
enlargement of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye from the durance in which she
is held by madame your stepmother.”
The pleasant gentleman’s eyebrows went up; a smile that was almost
insolent broke on his face.
“That being so, monsieur, why the devil are you here?”
“I am here, monsieur,” answered him Garnache, throwing back his head,
his nostrils quivering, “because you are not at Condillac.”
The tone was truculent to the point of defiance, for despite the firm
resolve he had taken last night never again to let his temper overmaster
him, already Garnache’s self-control was slipping away.
The Marquis noted the tone, and observed the man. In their way he
liked both; in their way he disliked both. But he clearly saw that this
peppery gentleman must be treated less cavalierly, or trouble would come
of it. So he waved him gracefully to the table, where a brace of flagons
stood amid the steaming viands.
“You will dine with me, monsieur,” said he, the utmost politeness
marking his utterance now. “I take it that since you have come here in
quest of me you have something to tell me. Shall we talk as we eat? I
detest a lonely meal.”
The florid gentleman’s tone and manner were mollifying in the extreme.
Garnache had risen early and ridden far; the smell of the viands had
quickened an appetite already very keen; moreover, since he and this
gentleman were to be allies, it was as well they should not begin by
quarrelling.
He bowed less stiffly, expressed his willingness and his thanks, laid
hat and whip and cloak aside, unbuckled and set down his sword, and,
that done, took at table the place which his host himself prepared him.
Garnache took more careful stock of the Marquis now. He found much to
like in his countenance. It was frank and jovial; obviously that of
a sensualist, but, leastways, an honest sensualist. He was dressed
in black, as became a man who mourned his father, yet with a striking
richness of material, whilst his broad collar of fine point and the lace
cuffs of his doublet were worth a fortune.
What time they ate Monsieur de Garnache told of his journey from Paris
and of his dealings with Tressan and his subsequent adventures at
Condillac. He dwelt passingly upon the manner in which they had treated
him, and found it difficult to choose words to express the reason for
his returning in disguise to play the knight-errant to Valerie. He
passed on to speak of last night’s happenings and of his escape.
Throughout, the Marquis heard him with a grave countenance and a sober,
attentive glance, yet, when he had finished a smile crept round the
sensual lips.
“The letter that I had at Milan prepared me for some such trouble as
this,” said he, and Garnache was amazed at the lightness of his tone,
just as he had been amazed to see the fellow keep his countenance at
the narrative of mademoiselle’s position. “I guessed that my beautiful
stepmother intended me some such scurviness from the circumstance of her
having kept me in ignorance of my father’s death. But frankly, sir, your
tale by far outstrips my wildest imaginings. You have behaved very--very
bravely in this affair. You seem, in fact, to have taken a greater
interest in Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye’s enlargement than the Queen
could have a right to expect of you.” And he smiled, a world of
suggestion in his eyes. Garnache sat back in his chair and stared at the
man.
“This levity, monsieur, on such a subject, leaves me thunderstruck,” he
said at last.
“Diable!” laughed the other. “You are too prone, after your trials; to
view its tragic rather than its comic side. Forgive me if I am smitten
only with the humour of the thing.”
“The humour of the thing!” gurgled Garnache, his eyes starting from his
head. Then out leapt that temper of his like an eager hound that has
been suddenly unleashed. He brought down his clenched hand upon the
table, caught in passing a flagon, and sent it crashing to the floor. If
there was a table near at hand when his temper went, he never failed to
treat it so.
“Par la mort Dieu! monsieur, you see but the humour of it, do you? And
what of that poor child who is lying there, suffering this incarceration
because of her fidelity to a promise given you?”
The statement was hardly fully accurate. But it served its purpose. The
other’s face became instantly, grave.
“Calm yourself, I beg, monsieur,” he cried, raising a soothing hand. “I
have offended you somewhere; that is plain. There is something here that
I do not altogether understand. You say that Valerie has suffered on
account of a promise given me? To what are you referring?”
“They hold her a prisoner, monsieur, because they wish to wed her to
Marius,” answered Garnache, striving hard to cool his anger.
“Parfaitement! That much I understood.”
“Well, then, monsieur, is the rest not plain? Because she is betrothed
to you--” He paused. He saw, at last, that he was stating something not
altogether accurate. But the other took his meaning there and then, lay
back in his chair, and burst out laughing.
The blood hummed through Garnache’s head as he tightened his lips and
watched this gentleman indulge his inexplicable mirth. Surely Monsieur
de Condillac was possessed of the keenest sense of humour in all France.
He laughed with a will, and Garnache sent up a devout prayer that the
laugh might choke him. The noise of it filled the hostelry.
“Sir,” said Garnache, with an ever-increasing tartness, “there is a
by-word has it ‘Much laughter, little wit.’ In confidence won, is that
your case, monsieur?”
The other looked at him soberly a moment, then went off again.
“Monsieur, monsieur!” he gasped, “you’ll be the death of me. For the
love of Heaven look less fierce. Is it my fault that I must laugh? The
folly of it all is so colossal. Three years from home, yet there is
a woman keeps faithful and holds to a promise given for her. Come,
monsieur, you who have seen the world, you must agree that there is in
this something that is passing singular, extravagantly amusing. My poor
little Valerie!” he spluttered through his half-checked mirth, “does she
wait for me still? does she count me still betrothed to her? And because
of that, says ‘No’ to brother Marius! Death of my life! I shall die of
it.”
“I have a notion that you may, monsieur,” rasped Garnache’s voice, and
with it rasped Garnache’s chair upon the boards. He had risen, and he
was confronting his merry host very fiercely, white to the lips, his
eyes aflame. There was no mistaking his attitude, no mistaking his
words.
“Eh?” gasped the other, recovering himself at last to envisage what
appeared to develop into a serious situation.
“Monsieur,” said Garnache, his voice very cold, “do I understand that
you no longer intend to carry out your engagement and wed Mademoiselle
de La Vauvraye?”
A dull flush spread upon the Marquis’s face. He rose too, and across the
table he confronted his guest, his mien haughty, his eyes imperious.
“I thought, monsieur,” said he, with a great dignity, “I thought when
I invited you to sit at my table that your business was to serve me,
however little I might be conscious of having merited the honour. It
seems instead that you are come hither to affront me. You are my guest,
monsieur. Let me beg that you will depart before I resent a question on
a matter which concerns myself alone.”
The man was right, and Garnache was wrong. He had no title to take up
the affairs of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But he was past reason now,
and he was not the man to brook haughtiness, however courteously it
might be cloaked. He eyed the Marquis’s flushed ace across the board,
and his lip curled.
“Monsieur,” said he, “I take your meaning very fully. Half a word with
me is as good as a whole sentence with another. You have dubbed me
in polite phrases an impertinent. That I am not; and I resent the
imputation.”
“Oh, that!” said the Marquis, with a half-laugh and a shrug. “If you
resent it--” His smile and his gesture made the rest plain.
“Exactly, monsieur,” was Garnache’s answer. “But I do not fight sick
men.”
Florimond’s brows grew wrinkled, his eyes puzzled.
“Sick men!” he echoed. “Awhile ago, monsieur, you appeared to cast a
doubt upon my sanity. Is it a case of the drunkard who thinks all the
world drunk but himself?”
Garnache gazed at him. That doubt he had entertained grew now into
something like assurance.
“I know not whether it is the fever makes your tongue run so--” he
began, when the other broke in, a sudden light of understanding in his
eyes.
“You are at fault,” he cried. “I have no fever.”
“But then your letter to Condillac?” demanded Garnache, lost now in
utter amazement.
“What of it? I’ll swear I never said I had a fever.”
“I’ll swear you did.”
“You give me the lie, then?”
But Garnache waved his hands as if he implored the other, to have
done with giving and taking offence. There was some misunderstanding
somewhere, he realized, and sheer astonishment had cooled his anger. His
only aim now was to have this obscure thing made clear.
“No, no,” he cried. “I am seeking enlightenment.”
Florimond smiled.
“I may have said that we were detained by a fever; but I never said the
patient was myself.”
“Who then? Who else?” cried Garnache.
“Why, now I understand, monsieur. But it is my wife who has the fever.”
“Your--!” Garnache dared not trust himself to utter the word.
“My wife, monsieur,” the Marquis repeated. “The journey proved too much
for her, travelling at the rate she did.”
A silence fell. Garnache’s long chin sank on to his breast, and he stood
there, his eyes upon the tablecloth, his thoughts with the poor innocent
child who waited at Condillac, so full of trust and faith and loyalty to
this betrothed of hers who had come home with a wife out of Italy.
And then, while he stood so and Florimond was regarding him curiously,
the door opened, and the host appeared.
“Monsieur le Marquis,” said he, “there are two gentlemen below asking to
see you. One of them is Monsieur Marius de Condillac.”
“Marius?” cried the Marquis, and he started round with a frown.
“Marius?” breathed Garnache, and then, realizing that the assassins
had followed so close upon his heels, he put all thoughts from his mind
other than that of the immediate business. He had, himself, a score
to settle with them. The time was now. He swung round on his heel, and
before he knew what he had said the words were out:
“Bring them up, Monsieur l’Hote.”
Florimond looked at him in surprise.
“Oh, by all means, if monsieur wishes it,” said he, with a fine irony.
Garnache looked at him, then back at the hesitating host.
“You have heard,” said he coolly. “Bring them up.”
“Bien, monsieur,” replied the host, withdrawing and closing the door
after him.
“Your interference in my affairs grows really droll, monsieur,” said the
Marquis tartly.
“When you shall have learned to what purpose I am interfering, you’ll
find it, possibly, not quite so droll,” was the answer, no less tart.
“We have but a moment, monsieur. Listen while I tell you the nature of
their errand.”