THE DUKE'S BRIDE
The Duc Desparre was making his toilette for his approaching
marriage--about to take place at midday at the church of St. Gervais,
which was conveniently placed between the streets in which his mansion
and Vandecque's new apartments were situated.
Strange to say, Monsieur was in a bad temper for such a joyous
occasion, and, in consequence, his valet was passing an extremely bad
time. Many things had conspired to bring about this unfortunate state
of affairs, the foremost of which was that there had been a great fall
in the value of "Mississippians" or "Louisiana" stock, owing to the
fact that adverse accounts were reaching France as to the state of the
colony. Some of the settlers, who had gone out within the last two or
three years, had but recently returned and given the lie to all the
flourishing accounts so assiduously put about. There were, they said,
neither gold mines nor silver to be found there, as had been stated;
the Indians, especially the Natchez, were in open warfare with the
French and slaughtering all who came in their way; the soil was
unproductive, marshy and feverous--the colonists were dying by
hundreds. Law, the great promoter of the Louisiana scheme, was a liar,
they said, while, La Salle and Hennepin, the Franciscan monk who had
sent home such flourishing accounts to the late king, were, they
added, the same; and so were all who held out any hopes that Louisiana
could ever be aught to France but a suitable place to which to send
its surplus population, there to find death. It is true these
wanderers had been flung into the Bastille for daring to return and
promulgate such statements--but, all the same, those statements had
their effect on the funds, and "Mississippians" had fallen.
Wherefore the Duc Desparre was a poorer man on this, his wedding morn,
than he had been yesterday, by one-half his newly acquired wealth, and
he was in a great state of irritation in consequence. While, also, he
remembered at this moment that Vandecque had had a deal of money from
him, none of which he was ever likely to see the colour of again. So
that, altogether, he was in a very bad humour--and there were other
things besides to annoy him.
"Have you sent this morning to enquire how Mademoiselle Vauxcelles
is?" he asked of his valet, who at this moment was affixing a patch to
his face. "She has not been well for four days, and has been
invisible. I trust her health is restored. What is the answer?"
"Mademoiselle is better, Monsieur," the man replied, "much better."
"Is that the answer? No message for me?"
"None was delivered to me from her, Monsieur le Duc. But Monsieur
Vandecque sent his compliments and said he expected you eagerly."
"Did he? Without doubt! Perhaps, too, he expects a little more money
from me." This he whispered to himself. "Well, he will find himself
disappointed. If he requires more he may go seek it at the gambling
tables, or of the devil; he will get nothing further from me.
Henceforth it will be sufficient to have to support his niece."
Then, his toilet being completed, he asked the valet if the company
were below and the carriages ready to convey them to the church where
the bride was to be met?
"They assemble, Monsieur le Duc, they assemble. Already the
distinguished relatives of Monsieur are arriving, and many friends
have called to ask after Monsieur's health this morning, and have
proceeded to the church," while, as the little clock struck eleven in
silvery tones, the man added, "If Monsieur is agreeable it will be
well to descend now, perhaps."
"So," said Desparre, rising, "I will descend. Yet, before I go, give
me my tablets, let me see that everything has been carried out as I
ordered," while, taking from the servant's hand a little ivory
notebook, he glanced his eye over it.
"Yes," he muttered. "Yes. Humph! Yes. Rosina's allowance to be paid
monthly--ha!--curse her!--yet, otherwise, she would not hold her
tongue. The exempt to sell up the widow Lestrange if she pays not by
the 31st. Good! Good! The outfitters to be told that I will not pay
for the new furniture until the end of the year; ha! but I shall not
pay it then, though." And, so, he read down his tablets until he had
gone through all his notes. When, bidding his man perfume his ruffles
and lace pocket-handkerchief, he descended to the salon to greet his
relatives and guests; those dearly beloved relatives, who, he strongly
believed and hoped, were cursing themselves and their fate at this
very moment.
In spite of their intense disapproval of the union which Desparre was
about to enter into, a union with the niece of a man whose reputation
was of the worst--which really would not have mattered much had he
belonged to the aristocracy!--those relatives had not thought it
altogether advisable to abstain from gracing the impending ceremony
with their presence. For Monsieur was the head of a great house, of
their great house, he had interest unbounded. And he was the Regent's
friend. He was almost one of the most prominent of the roués. What
might he not still do for them, in spite of this atrocious misalliance
he was about to perpetrate, if only they kept on friendly terms with
him? Then again, he was, as they supposed, enormously wealthy, rumour
saying that he had made some millions over Law's system--in which case
rumour, as usual, exaggerated--and, above all, he was approaching old
age; he was, and always had been, a dissolute man; there was little
likelihood that he would leave any heirs behind him. And, if so, there
would be some fine pickings for the others. Wherefore they swallowed
their disapproval and disgust of this forthcoming mésalliance and
trooped to his house to wish him that joy which they earnestly hoped
he would never experience, notwithstanding that it was a cruel, bitter
winter and that, unfortunately, wedding ceremonies took place at an
hour when most of them were accustomed to be snoring in their beds.
These relatives formed a strange group; a strange collection of beings
which, perhaps, no other period than that of the Regency, five years
after the death of Louis XIV., could have produced. There were old
women present, including his paternal aunt, the Dowager Duchesse
Desparre, whose lives had been one long sickening reek of immorality
and intrigue under The Great King; women who, as she had done, had
struggled and schemed for that king's favours--or for what was almost
as good, the reputation of having gained those favours. Women who had
betrayed their husbands over and over again, women who had sinned
against those husbands with the latters' own consent, so long as the
deception had aided their fortunes. Yet, withal, their manners were
those of the most perfect ease and grace which the world has ever
known, and which are now to be found only amongst dancing mistresses
and masters of ceremonies.
Amidst them all, however, the battered, half-worn-out roué moved with
a grace equal to theirs, he having become a very prince of posturers;
while bowing to one old harridan in whose veins ran the blood of
crusading knights and--some whispered--even of Henry of Navarre;
kissing the hand of another who had tapped the late Dauphin on the
cheek with her fan when he asked her if she liked hunting, and had
made answer that "innocent pleasures were not pleasure to her;"
leering at a younger female cousin in a manner that might almost have
made the Duc de Richelieu himself jealous, but which did not disturb
the fair recipient of the ogle at all. And he kissed the hand of the
Dowager Duchess with respectful rapture (though once she had refused
to let the impoverished soldier into her house), while he regretted
that such a trifle as his marriage should have brought her forth from
her home that morning; he carried a glass of tokay to one aunt and
ordered his servant to hand a cup of chocolate to another--the
distinction being made because the rank of this latter was not quite
so exalted as that of the former.
He was revelling in his revenge! And then, suddenly, his face dropped
and he stood staring at the door. Staring, indeed, with so ghastly a
look upon that face that a boon companion of his began to think that,
after all, an apoplectic fit was about to seize him, and that leeches
to his head and a cupping would more likely be his portion than a
wedding on that day.
For, at the door, was standing Vandecque, alone--and on his face was a
look which told the Duke very plainly that something had happened.
"What is it?" he muttered, as he came close to him, while lurching a
little in his gait, as the boon companion thought--as though he had
fetters about his feet--and while his words came from his mouth with
difficulty. "Speak. Speak. Curse you! speak. Why are you here
when--when--you should be with her--at--the--church?"
And all the time the eyes of the old and young members of his family
were looking at him, and the Dowager Duchess was wondering if the
bride had committed suicide sooner than go to his arms, while the
battered hulk who had been drinking the chocolate was raising the
wrinkles in her brow as much as she dared do without fear of cracking
her enamel, and leering at the other worn-out wreck whose shaking hand
held the glass of tokay.
"There is no Duchess yet," she whispered to a neighbour, through her
thin lips, "and my boy, Henri, is second in succession." And again she
leered hideously.
"Speak, I say," Desparre continued. "Something has happened. I can see
it in your face. Quick."
"She--she--is--gone. Escaped. Married," Vandecque stammered.
"Married!" And Desparre's face worked so that Vandecque turned his
eyes away while he muttered. "Alas! Yes. This morning."
"To whom? Tell me. Tell me. I--did--not--know--she had a lover."
"Nor I. Yet it appears she had. She loved him all the time. That
Englishman. Walter Clarges."
There was a click in the Chevalier's throat such as a clock makes ere
it is about to strike, and Vandecque saw the cords twitching in that
throat--after which Desparre gasped, "And I have called them here to
see my triumph!" and then glanced his eyes round his great salon. Then
he muttered, "Married!" and, controlling himself, walked steadily out
into the corridor and to a chair, into which he sank.
"Tell me here," he whispered, "here. Where they cannot see my face,
nor look at me."
"The woman found this in her room when she went to warn her the time
was near. She had no maid; therefore, I had engaged one from the
person who made the bridal dress. It was on her mirror. Look. Read."
Desparre took the paper in his hands; they were shaking, but he forced
them to be still; then he glanced at it. It ran:--
"I refuse to be sold to the man who would have bought me from you.
Therefore I have sought a lesser evil. I am gone to be married to
another man whom, even though I do not love him, I can respect. An
hour hence I shall be the wife of Monsieur Clarges. He has loved me
for a year; now, his love is so strong, or, I should better say, his
nobility is so great, that he sacrifices himself to save me. God
forgive me for accepting the sacrifice, but there was no other way
than death."
The Duke's hand fell to his knee while still holding the paper in it,
after which he raised his eyes to the other's face.
"You suspected nothing; knew nothing of this?" he asked, his lips
still twitching, his eyes half-closed in a way peculiar to him when
agitated or annoyed.
"Nothing. I swear it. Do you think that, if I had dreamed of such a
catastrophe, I would not have prevented it? It was to you I wished her
married--to you."
"Ay," Desparre answered, "no doubt. We have worked together in
other things--you--but no matter for that now." Then he raised his
half-hidden eyes to the other. "Where does this man live?" he asked.
"I do not know. Yet his address can be found. There are many to whom
he is known. Why do you ask?"
"Why!" and now there was another look in Desparre's face that
Vandecque did not understand. "Why! I will tell you. Yet, stay; ere I
do so send those people all away. Go. Tell them--damn them!--there is
no marriage to-day, nor--for--me--on any other day. Get rid of them.
Bid them pack. Then return," while, rising from the antique chair into
which he had dropped in the corridor, he went slowly into another
room, feeling that his feet dragged under him, that they were heavy as
lead.
"By night," he murmured, "it will be all over Paris--at Versailles and
St. Germain--the Palais Royal. The Regent will laugh and make merry
over it with La Phalaris--countless women whom I have cast off will be
gloating over it, laughing at the downfall, the humiliation of
Desparre--the fool, Desparre, who had boasted of the trick he was to
play on his kinsfolk. _Dieu!_ to be fooled by this beggar's brat. Yet.
Yet. Yet--well! let Orleans laugh--still--he shall help me to be
avenged. He shall. He must. Or--I will tell my tale, too. Sirac and I
know as much as he about the deaths of the Duc and Duchesse de
Bourgogne and the Duc de Bretagne--about the Spanish snuff. Ha! he
must avenge me on these two--he shall."
Vandecque came back now, saying that the company was departing, but
that some of the ladies, especially the Dowager Duchess, were very
anxious to see him and express their sympathy. Would he receive them?
"Sympathy, faugh! Let them express their sympathy to the Devil,
their master. Now, Vandecque, listen to me. There is but one way of
re-establishing myself in the eyes of Paris. By retaliation,
punishment--swift, hard, unceasing. You understand?"
Vandecque nodded.
"Good. If you did not understand I should have to assist your memory
with reminders of other things--which would have been no more
remembered had all gone well--and of several little matters in your
past known to me. However, you need no reminders such as those, I
think."
Again Vandecque showed by a nod that such was the case.
"Good. Therefore, you will assist me to rehabilitate myself. So. So.
Very well. We must begin at once. Because, Vandecque, I am not well,
this has been a great shock to me--and--and, Vandecque, I had
a--perhaps it was an apoplectic seizure six months ago, when--when--I
was falsely accused of--but no matter. I am afraid I may have another
ere long. I feel symptoms. My feet are heavy, my speech is uncertain.
I must not leave the thing undone."
"What," asked the other, "will you do?"
"What!" Desparre paused a moment, and again the twitching came to his
lips; then, when it was over, he went on. "What! Vandecque," speaking
rapidly this time, "do you love your niece at all?"
"Passably," and he shrugged his shoulders, "she was beloved of my dead
wife, and she was useful. Also, I hoped great things from her
marriage."
"Those hopes are vanished, Vandecque. So, too, for the matter of that,
is your niece. Therefore, it will not grieve you never to see her
again?"
"I shall never see her again. You forget she has a husband."
"No, Vandecque. No! I do not forget. It is that which I am
remembering."
"What do you mean, Monsieur?"
"Later on you will know. Meanwhile," and he put a finger out and
touched him, "do you love this Englishman, who has spoilt your niece's
chances?"
"Love him!" exclaimed Vandecque. "Love him! Ah! do I love him!" while,
as he spoke, he looked straight into Desparre's eyes.