THE DAME OF THE DAIRY.
Dame Tillery called her household together, maids, grooms, and helpers,
and standing at a long table in one end of the most public room in her
house, proclaimed to them the high honor that day conferred on her by
the queen.
“Not altogether to myself has her majesty done this honor,” she said,
lifting her closed fan on high, and looking around benignly on her
retainers; “but as the sun sheds light on the weeds and the grass, as
well as the flowers, my glory shall, in some sort, fall on the humblest
of my servants; from this hour you may look upon yourselves as next in
service to the retainers of the high nobility of France. I have not
decided yet upon a livery or a badge, all that will be left to more cool
deliberation; but you can go forth with a feeling of high preferment;
and as such honors can no longer be kept secret, you have my free
permission to promulgate this good news throughout the town as occasion
may offer. Now, my humble friends, you may disperse for a holiday. In
the tap-room a cask of wine has been broached, free to every man and
woman in my employ. All that I ask is, that you drink the health of
their majesties, and your liege lady, The Dame of the Dairy.”
Dame Tillery opened her fan with the slow spread of a peacock’s tail,
waved it once or twice with superb dignity, and closing it into a baton
again, retired amid the bewildered shouts of her household. On her way
from the room she met the strange page, who came in hurriedly and
flushed with excitement. He was about to pass the landlady, but she
stood smiling in his way, and rendered that impossible.
“You had an audience, and such an one as no other person outside the
court could have obtained for you,” she said, in high good-humor. “Did
her majesty speak of the great honor conferred on your humble servant?
Did she say that, in her serene goodness, she had lifted Dame Tillery,
who stands here before you, into the nobility of France? Did she tell
you that this day a new order has been created, and Dame Tillery, of The
Swan, stands at its head?”
The page listened impatiently and did not seem to comprehend what the
woman was talking about; but, with a sudden start of memory, he drew a
rouleau of gold from his pocket and handed it to her.
“What is this? For whom is it intended?” she inquired, drawing her
portly figure up with a swell of importance.
“It is the gold I promised for the service you have rendered me, with
enough added to cover the cost of my lodging here,” answered the page.
“I give it now, because in a few minutes I shall take the road again.”
“Nay,” replied the dame, waving the gold aside with her fan, “that was
all well enough yesterday, when I was only mistress of The Swan; but I
have my doubts about it now. Can a person of my rank receive money in
her own person? I—I am in doubt—I think not.”
“I crave pardon,” said the page, and a laughing imp came dancing into
his eyes. “If there is any person in your household who can act as
treasurer, I will give the money to him.”
Dame Tillery, who had been all the while eyeing the rouleau of gold
askance, broke into an approving smile, and called aloud for one of the
men she had left in the public room, whom she ordered to take charge of
the money, and see that it was properly bestowed in her strong coffer;
then she turned to address the page again, but he was gone.
“Zamara.”
The dwarf started up and opened the door through which the page came in
haste.
“Zamara, I have failed; the ring is on her finger, but I cannot get it
off. Oh, Zamara! how often I have wished that wretched man had never
crossed my path!”
“It was a great misfortune, my lady. Nothing seems to have gone well
with us since that terrible ring was taken from his finger.”
“If we could only get it back again—if we could devise some way. Zamara,
can you think of no device by which it can be obtained? The poor queen
has given us nothing but kindness, and to her we have brought perpetual
disappointment—perhaps undreamed of trouble. Try, marmosette. In the old
times you were never at loss for invention—help me in this strait. I
cannot go away and leave that accursed serpent clinging to her hand.”
Tears stood in this hard woman’s eyes, she was passionately in earnest.
Zamara started up, and seizing her hand, kissed it with heathenish
devotion.
“Madame has spoken; Zamara has seen her tears, and will give his soul to
the task she appoints him.”
“My good Zamara, my kind, kind friend! I know that you will wrest this
talisman from her hand, if human ingenuity can do it. If I have trust in
mortal being, it is in you, my poor marmosette. But to help me in this
you must stay at Versailles, while I go up to Paris. Ah! this task of
uprooting the wrongs one has perpetrated is a hard one. Something
baffles me ever when I strive to do good, while it was so easy to be
kicked. Why is this, I wonder! Ah me! how different it might have proved
had I been born among the great, rather than forced upon them.”
“Madame, I hear some one at your chamber-door.”
“Go, go. It is doubtless that tiresome woman.”
The next moment Zamara stood by Dame Tillery, who was knocking loudly at
the door of Madame Du Berry’s chamber.
“Ah!” he said, “let me congratulate you, Dame; all the house is in
commotion—such joy, such unheard-of good fortune. Why, it is like being
made a princess. They wanted me to come down into the public room and
drink to this new dignity—but I said no. When madame herself appears, I
will drink to her health, but not with servants, only in her own august
presence. This was what I said, madame.”
Zamara pressed a tiny hand upon his heart, and bent low as he finished
speaking.
“That was the thought of a person endowed with most gentle breeding,”
said the dame, wheeling from the door full of hospitable thoughts. “Come
with me to my own room, where you will find something better than the
people down yonder would know how to relish. You shall taste of Burgundy
from the best bin in my cellar, the more readily because I wish to send
a flask to your mistress. It was this that took me to her door but now.”
Zamara stood by bowing and smiling, while the dame filled a goblet with
wine from a bottle that seemed to have rested years in her cellar, and,
though compelled to hold it between both hands, he drained it to the
bottom.
“Now,” said the dame, giving him a salver to carry, on which she had
placed a second bottle and glasses. “Follow me to madame’s room; she
must not be neglected when the lowest scullion in the kitchen rejoices.”
There was no difficulty of access now. The page had disappeared. His
clothes lay huddled in Zamara’s closet, and Madame Du Berry was in bed,
resting in a recumbent position on her pillows in a demi-toilet, but
with her hair less elaborately arranged than usual. She received Dame
Tillery with a smile, congratulated her warmly when she heard the good
news, tossed off a goblet of the sparkling Burgundy, and declared that
the exaltation of her friend had made her well—so well that she would
start for Paris within the hour, leaving Zamara behind to arrange the
baggage, and follow her when she should send for him.
Dame Tillery expostulated a little; but finding her guest positive,
allowed her to depart, but not till the bottle of Burgundy had been
drained in honor of her new dignity. What Du Berry refused to drink, the
jovial dame insisted on dividing with Zamara, whose eyes twinkled with
infinite mischief when she sat down with the bottle on her knee, and
proposed that he should drain glass for glass with her.
So confused became the happy landlady of The Swan before the hour was
gone, that she arose in the morning with a vague idea that the page had
left rather abruptly, but of the period when Madame Du Berry took her
departure, she had no recollection at all.