DAME TILLERY PIQUED.
Marguerite was still at the Swan, waiting with great anxiety for the
appearance of Jacques, for the landlady of the hotel had so often
repeated and improved upon the exploits of the day before, that she was
getting weary of the subject and almost ashamed of the whole affair. She
had noticed that the chamber which she occupied was by no means
exclusive to herself. Dame Tillery not only kept coming and going, but
now and then other persons would drop in with her, and remain to listen
while she related the wonderful exploits which had lifted her into
sudden notoriety. But in this she satisfied her conscience by mystifying
the position, and speaking of the queen as if she were some court lady
walking by the place where Dame Tillery was milking quite by chance.
The truth was, Dame Tillery was almost as shrewd as she was loquacious.
She dearly loved talking, especially about herself; but she also knew
the danger there was in handling the name of the queen with too great
familiarity; still she managed to win considerable glory out of her
confreres by weaving her narrative up into a half romance, in which the
queen was shadowed out as a high court lady, whom she had rescued from
the most imminent peril by rolling in the grass, throwing her milking
stool in the right direction, and performing other great feats of valor.
Sometimes the dame would appeal to Marguerite to confirm her story,
which grew and grew till the young girl became weary of hearing it, and
shrunk from giving the confirmation so often demanded. When this
happened, the dame would laugh, and repeat herself again with liberal
additions. Thus the time was spent between young Richelieu’s visit and
the return of Jacques.
Among the persons who came and went so unceremoniously to her room,
Marguerite noticed a little creature scarcely larger than a child, but
with the lines and expression of a man past thirty-five in his dark and
shrunken face. Threads of gray were in the coarse, black hair, which
fell a good deal over his forehead, and that sharp, fox-like look of the
eyes no child ever possessed. It could only have been learned by
experience in the world. This little personage never spoke, and seemed
scarcely to listen; but occasionally Marguerite caught a glance of those
keen eyes, and wondered who he was, and why he regarded her so furtively
all the while Dame Tillery was talking.
At last Jacques came, breathless with haste and bespattered with mud,
for he had traveled at a furious rate, and almost despaired of reaching
Versailles in time for the promised interview. The little personage we
have spoken of was lingering near the door when Jacques passed through,
and placed himself in a position to listen so quietly that no one
observed him.
“I am ready!” exclaimed Monsieur Jacques, wiping the beaded perspiration
from his face.
“The horse I rode fell lame; for the roads are heavy and I pressed him
hard.”
Marguerite sprang up all in a glow of expectation when she saw Jacques.
She had waited so long, and watched so earnestly, that it seemed like a
release from prison when his kind face beamed upon her.
“You have been to Paris?” she said. “You have seen my mother? She knows
that I am safe?”
“Yes, I have seen your mother. She knows that you are safe. I left her
upon her knees, thanking the blessed Virgin for the great hope I brought
her.”
“But you should not have been so certain—my heart fails me when I think
of going to the palace. While she is beaming with hope, I may bring
nothing but disappointment.”
Monsieur Jacques saw that the nerves of this poor girl were shaken with
too much thought; suspense had left her almost hopeless. He sat down by
her side and kindly encouraged her. During the conversation he spoke of
her father by name. “When this great and good man was set free, some
clue would be found to the person who had sent him there, and who had
torn out so many years of his life. That person, whoever he or she was,
should meet with severe punishment—the people would attend to that. For
his part, to avenge the wrongs of this one man should be the object of
his life.”
Jacques, supposing himself alone with Marguerite, spoke in his natural
voice, and with some energy. All the time that Indian dwarf lingered
near the door and listened. As the conversation went on his face
contracted, and his eyes gleamed—the words he gathered interested him
deeply, there could be no doubt of that.
After awhile Dame Tillery presented herself, ready for an excursion to
the palace. The amplitude of her dress, and the gorgeous incongruity of
colors with which she arrayed her person, fairly brightened the old
rooms and filled them with the bustle of her presence, as she passed
through into the chamber where Marguerite was sitting.
“Ah, monsieur!” she said, in high good-humor, “I am glad you are ready,
for we should have been greatly put about for some one to give us
countenance before the king, not that it is needed, now that we are
friends with her majesty, but one likes to go with a party. Besides, you
were of some use. I shall take great pleasure in saying that much to
their majesties, you can depend on me for that.”
Monsieur Jacques looked at the woman from head to foot, half in anger,
half in amusement.
“Are you prepared for a visit to the palace, dame?” he inquired.
“What—me? Who else should go? Did not her majesty say to her deliverers,
‘Come in the morning that the king may thank you?’”
“But she spoke particularly to the demoiselle, as I understood it.”
Dame Tillery turned scarlet in an instant; all her garments began to
flutter ominously. She turned upon Marguerite.
“Does the demoiselle, then, reject my company? Does she fancy herself
able to penetrate to the presence of the queen without me, that is what
I wish to know?”
This terrified the girl. She turned pale and shrunk away from that angry
face.
“After taking her with me to that little cottage, and placing her in the
way of favor; after saying what I did about her resemblance to my own
precious niece, who will this day protest in heaven against such
ingratitude to her poor aunt; after adopting her, as it were, into the
very bosom of The Swan, she empowers this rude man to say that she alone
was invited to the presence—that I am nobody. I, who flung myself
headlong in the path of that infuriated cow. Oh! the ingrate—the
ingrate!”
Here the dame flung herself upon a chair, took out a voluminous
pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her face, while heaving sobs shook
her frame.
Marguerite was distressed by all this. She arose and laid her fair hand
caressingly on the dame’s shoulder.
“You mistake,” she said. “I do wish your company. You were kind—very
kind to me. I shall never forget it. My good friend here meant nothing
that could wound you. Perhaps he is a little too thoughtful of me over
others; but you will forgive that—you who are so kind.”
Dame Tillery wiped her face, hushed the sobs that were heaving her broad
bosom, and opening her arms, gathered Marguerite into a warm embrace.
“I knew—I knew she could not look so much like my niece and be an
ingrate,” she said. “It was all a mistake. Monsieur meant no harm. It is
only my sensitive nature, that is my chief fault. I strive to conquer
it, but cannot. Kiss me, child, and we will think no more about it. You
understand, all is forgiven, forgotten? It must not wound her majesty by
anything that seems like discord—we who saved her life only yesterday.”
Marguerite obeyed this request, and kissed the plump lips of the dame,
casting a pleading look at Monsieur Jacques, who was by no means
satisfied with the conclusion of this little scene, but would rather
have died than dispute that lovely girl in anything.
“Now it is all over, except that crying always makes my poor eyes as red
as a ferret’s; but a little fresh wind will change all that,” murmured
the dame, drawing forth a huge green fan, with which she deliberately
commenced cooling her face, the motive power being one fat hand laid in
her lap, which moved the enormous fabric with a slow, continuous motion,
that kept all her ribbons in a flutter, and soon reduced the redness of
her face into a glow of self-complacency.