MY LADY’S LADY
Thibault was delighted at seeing what had happened to the young Baron,
whose hand, anything but light, had so shortly before made use of his
whip on Thibault’s shoulders, which still smarted with the blow. The
latter now ran at full speed to see how far Monsieur Raoul de Vauparfond
was injured; he found a body lying insensible, stretched across the
road, with the horse standing and snorting beside it.
But Thibault could hardly believe his senses on perceiving that the
figure lying in the road was not the same as had, but five minutes
previously, ridden past him and given him the lash with the whip. In the
first place, this figure was not in the dress of a gentleman, but
clothed like a peasant, and, what was more, the clothes he had on seemed
to Thibault to be the same as he himself had been wearing only a moment
before. His surprise increased more and more and amounted almost to
stupefaction on further recognising, in the inert, unconscious figure,
not only his own clothes, but his own face. His astonishment naturally
led him to turn his eyes from this second Thibault to his own person,
when he became aware that an equally remarkable change had come over his
costume. Instead of shoes and gaiters, his legs were now encased in an
elegant pair of hunting boots, reaching to the knee, as soft and smooth
as a pair of silk stockings, with a roll over the instep, and finished
off with a pair of fine silver spurs. The knee-breeches were no longer
of corduroy, but of the most beautiful buckskin, fastened with little
gold buckles. His long coarse olive-coloured coat was replaced by a
handsome green hunting-coat, with gold lace facings, thrown open to
display a waistcoat of fine white jean, while over the artistically
pleated shirt hung the soft wavy folds of a cambric cravat. Not a single
article of dress about him but had been transformed, even to his old
lantern-shaped hat, which was now a three-cornered one, trimmed with
gold lace to match the coat. The stick also, such as workmen carry
partly for walking and partly for self-defence, and which he had been
holding in his hand a minute before, had now given place to a light
whip, with which he gave a cut through the air, listening with a sense
of aristocratic pleasure to the whistling sound it made. And finally,
his slender figure was drawn in at the waist by a belt, from which hung
a hunting-knife, half-sword, half-dagger.
Thibault was pleased beyond measure at finding himself clothed in such a
delightful costume, and with a feeling of vanity, natural under the
circumstances, he was overcome with the desire to ascertain without
delay how the dress suited his face. But where could he go to look at
himself, out there in the midst of pitch darkness? Then, looking about
him, he saw that he was only a stone’s throw from his own hut.
“Ah! to be sure!” he said, “nothing easier, for I have my glass there.”
And he made haste towards his hut, intending, like Narcissus, to enjoy
his own beauty in peace and all to himself. But the door of the hut was
locked, and Thibault felt vainly for the key. All he could find in his
pockets was a well-filled purse, a sweet-meat box containing scented
lozenges, and a little mother-of-pearl and gold penknife. What could he
have done then with his door-key? Then suddenly a bright thought
occurred to him--possibly the key was in the pocket of that other
Thibault who was lying out there in the road. He went back and felt in
the breeches pocket, where he discovered the key at once, in company
with a few sous. Holding the rough clumsy thing in the tips of his
fingers, he returned to open the door. The inside of the hut was even
[Illustration: THE BARON’S HORSE SHIED, THROWING THE RIDER OVER ITS
HEAD]
darker that the night outside, and Thibault groped about to find the
steel, the tinder and flint, and the matches, and then proceeded to try
and light the candle, which consisted of an end stuck into an empty
bottle. In a second or two this was accomplished, but in the course of
the operation Thibault was obliged to take hold of the candle with his
fingers.
“Pah!” he said, “what pigs these peasants are! I wonder how they _can_
live in this dirty sort of way!”
However, the candle was alight, which was the chief matter, and Thibault
now took down his mirror, and bringing it to the light, looked at
himself in it. His eye had scarcely caught sight of the reflected image,
than he uttered a cry of astonishment, it was no longer himself that he
saw, or rather, although it was still Thibault in spirit, it was no
longer Thibault in body. His spirit had entered into the body of a
handsome young man of twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, with blue
eyes, pink fresh cheeks, red lips, and white teeth; in short, it had
entered into the body of the Baron Raoul de Vauparfond. Then Thibault
re-called the wish that he had uttered in his moment of anger after the
blow from the whip and his collision with the horse. His wish had been
that for four and twenty hours he might be the Baron de Vauparfond, and
the Baron de Vauparfond be Thibault, which now explained to him what had
at first seemed inexplicable, why the unconscious man now lying in the
road was dressed in his clothes and had his face.
“But I must not forget one thing,” he said, “that is, that although I
seem to be here, I am not really here, but lying out there, so I must be
careful to see that during the twenty-four hours, during which I shall
be imprudent enough to be away from myself, no irreparable harm comes to
me. Come now, Monsieur de Vauparfond, do not be so fastidious; carry the
poor man in, and lay him gently on his bed here.” And, although with his
aristocratic instincts Monsieur de Vauparfond found the task very
repugnant to him, Thibault, nevertheless, courageously took up his own
body in his arms and carried himself from the road to the bed. Having
thus placed the body in safety, he blew out the light, for fear that any
harm should come to this other self before he came to; then, carefully
locking the door, he hid the key in the hollow of a tree, where he was
in the habit of leaving it when not wishing to take it with him.
The next thing to do was to get hold of the horse’s bridle and mount
into the saddle. Once there, Thibault had a preliminary moment of some
uneasiness, for, having travelled more on foot than on horseback, he was
not an accomplished rider, and he naturally feared that he might not be
able to keep his seat when the horse began to move. But it seemed, that,
while inheriting Raoul’s body, he also inherited his physical qualities,
for the horse, being an intelligent beast, and perfectly conscious of
the momentary want of assurance on the part of his rider, made an effort
to throw him, whereupon Thibault instinctively gathered up the reins,
pressed his knees against the horse’s sides, dug his spurs into them,
and gave the animal two or three cuts of the whip, which brought it to
order on the spot.
Thibault, perfectly unknown to himself, was a past master in
horsemanship. This little affair with the horse enabled Thibault more
fully to realise his duality. As far as the body was concerned, he was
the Baron Raoul de Vauparfond from top to toe; but as far as the spirit
was concerned, he was still Thibault. It was, therefore, certain that
the spirit of the young lord who had lent him his body was now sleeping
in the form of the unconscious Thibault which he had left behind in the
hut.
The division of substance and spirit between himself and the Baron,
however, left him with a very vague idea of what he was going, or would
have, to do. That he was going to Mont-Gobert in answer to the
Countess’s letter, so much he knew. But what was in the letter? At what
hour was he expected? How was he to gain admission to the Castle? Not
one of these questions could he answer, and it only remained for him to
discover what to do, step by step, as he proceeded. Suddenly it flashed
across him that probably the Countess’s letter was somewhere on his
person. He felt about his dress, and, sure enough, inside the side
pocket of his coat was something, which by its shape, seemed to be the
article he wanted. He stopped his horse, and putting his hand into his
pocket, drew out a little scented leather case lined with white satin.
In one side of the case were several letters, in the other only one; no
doubt the latter would tell him what he wanted to know, if he could
once get to read it. He was now only a short distance from the village
of Fleury, and he galloped on hoping that he might find a house still
lighted up. But villagers go to bed early, in those days even earlier
than they do now, and Thibault went from one end of the street to the
other without seeing a single light. At last, thinking he heard some
kind of movement in the stables of an Inn, he called. A stable boy
sallied out with a lantern, and Thibault, forgetting for the moment that
he was a lord, said: “Friend, could you show me a light for a moment?
You would be doing me a service.”
“And that’s what you go and call a chap out of bed for?”--answered the
stable-boy rudely. “Well, you are a nice sort of young’un, you are!” and
turning his back on Thibault he was just going to re-enter the stable,
when Thibault, perceiving that he had gone on a wrong tack, now raised
his voice, calling out:
“Look here, sirrah, bring your lantern here and give me a light, or I’ll
lay my whip across your back!”
“Ah! pardon, my lord!” said the stable-boy. “I did not see who it was I
was speaking to.” And he immediately stood on tip-toe holding the
lantern up as Thibault directed him:
Thibault unfolded the letter and read:
“MY DEAR RAOUL,
“The goddess Venus has certainly taken us under her protection. A grand
hunt of some kind is to take place to-morrow out in the direction of
Thury; I know no particulars about it, all I do know is, that _he_ is
going away this evening. You, therefore, start at nine o’clock, so as to
be here at half-past ten. Come in by the way you know; someone whom you
know will be awaiting you, and will bring you, you know where. Last time
you came, I don’t mean to upbraid you, but it did seem to me you stayed
a long time in the corridors.
“JANE.”
“Devil take it!” muttered Thibault.
“I beg your pardon, my lord?” said the stable-boy.
“Nothing, you lout, except that I do not require you any longer and you
can go.”
“A good journey to you, my lord!” said the stable-boy, bowing to the
ground, and he went back to his stable.
“Devil take it!” repeated Thibault, “the letter gives me precious little
information, except that we are under the protection of the Goddess
Venus, that _he_ goes away this evening, that the Comtesse de
Mont-Gobert expects me at half-past ten, and that her Christian name is
Jane. As for the rest, I am to go in by _the way I know_, I shall be
awaited by _someone I know_, and taken _where I know_.” Thibault
scratched his ear, which is what everybody does, in every country of the
world, when plunged into awkward circumstances. He longed to go and wake
up the Lord of Vauparfond’s spirit, which was just now sleeping in
Thibault’s body on Thibault’s bed; but, apart from the loss of time
which this would involve, it might also cause considerable
inconvenience, for the Baron’s spirit, on seeing its own body so near to
it, might be taken with the desire of re-entering it. This would give
rise to a struggle in which Thibault could not well defend himself
without doing serious harm to his own person; some other way out of the
difficulty must therefore be found. He had heard a great deal about the
wonderful sagacity of animals, and had himself, during his life in the
country, had occasion more than once to admire their instinct, and he
now determined to trust to that of his horse. Riding back into the main
road, he turned the horse in the direction of Mont-Gobert, and let it
have its head. The horse immediately started off at a gallop; it had
evidently understood. Thibault troubled himself no further, it was now
the horse’s affair to bring him safely to his destination. On reaching
the corner of the park wall the animal stopped, not apparently because
it was in doubt as to which road to take, but something seemed to make
it uneasy, and it pricked its ears. At the same time, Thibault also
fancied that he caught sight of two shadows; but they must have been
only shadows, for although he stood up in his stirrups and looked all
around him, he could see absolutely nothing. They were probably poachers
he thought, who had reasons like himself for wishing to get inside the
park. There being no longer anything to bar his passage, he had only, as
before, to let the horse go its own way, and he accordingly did so. The
horse followed the walls of the park at a quick trot, carefully choosing
the soft edge of the road, and not uttering a single neigh; the
intelligent animal seemed as if it knew that it must make no sound or
at least as little sound as possible.
In this way, they went along the whole of one side of the park, and on
reaching the corner, the horse turned as the wall turned, and stopped
before a small breach in the same. “It’s through here, evidently,” said
Thibault, “that we have to go.”
The horse answered by sniffing at the breach, and scraping the ground
with its foot; Thibault gave the animal the rein, and it managed to
climb up and through the breach, over the loose stones which rolled away
beneath its hoof. Horse and rider were now within the park. One of the
three difficulties had been successfully overcome: Thibault had got in
by the _way he knew_; it now remained to find the person _whom he knew_,
and he thought it wisest to leave this also to his horse. The horse went
on for another five minutes, and then stopped at a short distance from
the Castle, before the door of one of those little huts of rough logs
and bark and clay, which are built up in parks, as painters introduce
buildings into their landscapes, solely for the sake of ornament.
On hearing the horse’s hoofs, someone partly opened the door, and the
horse stopped in front of it.
A pretty girl came out, and asked in a low voice, “Is it you, Monsieur
Raoul?”
“Yes, my child, it is I,” answered Thibault, dismounting.
“Madame was terribly afraid that drunken fool of a Champagne might not
have given you the letter.”
“She need not have been afraid; Champagne brought it me with the most
exemplary punctuality.”
“Leave your horse then and come.”
“But who will look after it?”
“Why Cramoisi, of course, the man who always does.”
“Ah, yes, to be sure,” said Thibault, as if these details were familiar
to him, “Cramoisi will look after it.”
“Come, come,” said the maid, “we must make haste or Madame will complain
again that we loiter in the corridors.” And as she spoke these words,
which recalled a phrase in the letter which had been written to Raoul,
she laughed, and showed a row of pearly white teeth, and Thibault felt
that he should like to loiter in the park, before waiting to get into
the corridors.
Then the maid suddenly stood still a moment with her head bent,
listening.
“What is it?” asked Thibault.
“I thought I heard the sound of a branch creaking under somebody’s
foot.”
“Very likely,” said Thibault, “no doubt Cramoisi’s foot.”
“All the more reason that you should be careful what you do ... at all
events out here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you not know that Cramoisi is the man I am engaged to?”
“Ah! to be sure! But when I am alone with you, my dear Rose, I always
forget that.”
“I am called Rose now, am I! I never knew such a forgetful man as you
are, Monsieur Raoul.”
“I call you Rose, my pretty one, because the rose is the queen of
flowers, as you are the queen of waiting-maids.”
“In good truth, my Lord,” said the maid, “I have always found you a
lively, witty gentleman, but you surpass yourself this evening.”
Thibault drew himself up, flattered by this remark--really a letter
addressed to the Baron, but which it had fallen to the shoe-maker to
unseal.
“Let us hope your mistress will think the same!” he said.
“As to that,” said the waiting maid, “any man can make one of these
ladies of fashion think him the cleverest and wittiest in the world,
simply by holding his tongue.”
“Thank you,” he said, “I will remember what you say.”
“Hush!” said the woman to Thibault, “there is Madame behind the
dressing-room curtains; follow me now staidly.”
For they had now to cross an open space that lay between the wooded part
of the park and the flight of steps leading up to the Castle. Thibault
began walking towards the latter.
“Now, now,” said the maid, catching hold of him by the arm, “what are
you doing, you foolish man?”
“What am I doing? well, I confess Suzette, I don’t know in the least
what I _am_ doing!”
“Suzette! so that’s my name now, is it? I think Monsieur does me the
honour of calling me in turn by the name of all his mistresses. But
come, this way! You are not dreaming I suppose of going through the
great reception rooms. That would give a fine opportunity to my lord
the Count, truly!”
And the maid hurried Thibault towards a little door, to the right of
which was a spiral staircase.
Half-way up, Thibault put his arm round his companion’s waist, which was
as slender and supple as a snake.
“I think we must be in the corridors, now, eh?” he asked, trying to kiss
the young woman’s pretty cheek.
“No, not yet,” she answered; “but never mind that.”
“By my faith,” he said, “if my name this evening were Thibault instead
of Raoul, I would carry you up with me to the garrets, instead of
stopping on the first floor!”
At that moment a door was heard grating on its hinges.
“Quick, quick, Monsieur!” said the maid, “Madame is growing impatient.”
And drawing Thibault after her, she ran up the remaining stairs to the
corridor, opened a door, pushed Thibault into a room, and shut the door
after him, firmly believing that it was the Baron Raoul de Vauparfond
or, as she herself called him, the most forgetful man in the world, whom
she had thus secured.