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 favour, 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 goodnature 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 Etoile, 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 bid 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, 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 postillion 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 endeavouring 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 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 some one who enjoys everything
spontaneously. Farewell; we meet to-night."
By this time I was standing _on_ the road; I shut the
carriage-door; bid him good-bye; and away he drove.