The Indiscretion of the Duchess/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
An Unparalleled Insult
WAS thoughtful as I walked across the place in front of the church in the full glare of the afternoon sun. It was past four o’clock; the town was more lively, as folk, their day’s work finished, came out to take their ease and filled the streets and the cafés. I felt that I also had done something like a day’s work; but my task was not complete till I had lodged my precious trust safely in the keeping of the duchess.
There was, however, still time to spare, and I sat down at a café and ordered some coffee. While it was being brought my thoughts played round Marie Delhasse. I doubted whether I disliked her for being tempted, or liked her for resisting at the last; at any rate, I was glad to have helped her a little. If I could now persuade her to leave Avranches, I should have done all that could reasonably be expected of me; if the duke pursued, she must fight the battle for herself. So I mused, sipping my coffee; and then I fell to wondering what the duchess would say on seeing me again so soon. Would she see me? She must, whether she liked it or not; I could not keep the diamonds all night. Perhaps she would like.
“There you are again!” I said to myself sharply, and I roused myself from my meditations.
As I looked up, I saw the man Lafleur opposite to me. He had his back toward me, but I knew him, and he was just walking into a shop that faced the café and displayed in its windows an assortment of offensive weapons—guns, pistols, and various sorts of knives. Lafleur went in. I sat sipping my coffee. He was there nearly twenty minutes; then he came out and walked leisurely away. I paid my score and strolled over to the shop. I wondered what he had been buying. Dueling pistols for the duke, perhaps! I entered and asked to be shown some penknives. The shopman served me with alacrity. I chose a cheap knife, and then I permitted my gaze to rest on a neat little pistol that lay on the counter. My simple ruse was most effective. In a moment I was being acquainted with all the merits of the instrument, and the eulogy was backed by the information that a gentleman had bought two pistols of the same make not ten minutes before I entered the shop.
“Really!” said I. “What for?”
“Oh, I don’t know, sir. It is a wise thing often to carry one of these little fellows. One never knows.”
“In case of a quarrel with another gentleman?”
“Oh, they are hardly such as we sell for dueling, sir.”
“Aren’t they?”
“They are rather pocket pistols—to carry if you are out at night; and we sell many to gentlemen who have occasion in the way of their business to carry large sums of money or valuables about with them. They give a sense of security, sir, even if no occasion arises for their use.”
“And this gentleman bought two? Who was he?”
“I don’t know, sir. He gave me no name.”
“And you didn’t know him by sight?”
“No, sir; perhaps he is a stranger. But indeed I’m almost that myself: I have but just set up business here.”
“Is it brisk?” I asked, examining the pistol.
“It is not a brisk place, sir,” the man answered regretfully. “Let me sell you one, sir!”
It happened to be, for the moment, in the way of my business to carry valuables, but I hoped it would not be for long, so that I did not buy a pistol; but I allowed myself to wonder what my friend Lafleur wanted with two—and they were not dueling pistols! If I had been going to keep the diamonds—but then I was not. And, reminded by this reflection, I set out at once for the convent.
Now the manner in which the Duchess of Saint-Maclou saw fit to treat me—who was desirous only of serving her—on this occasion went far to make me disgusted with the whole affair into which I had been drawn. It might have been supposed that she would show gratitude; I think that even a little admiration and a little appreciation of my tact would not have been, under the circumstances, out of place. It is not every day that a lady has such a thing as the Cardinal’s Necklace rescued from great peril and freely restored, with no claim (beyond that for ordinary civility) on the part of the rescuer.
And the cause did not lie in her happening to be out of temper, for she greeted me at first with much graciousness, and sitting down on the corn bin (she was permitted on this occasion to meet me in the stable), she began to tell me that she had received a most polite—and indeed almost affectionate—letter from the duke, in which he expressed deep regret for her absence, but besought her to stay where she was as long as the health of her soul demanded. He would do himself the honor of waiting on her and escorting her home, when she made up her mind to return to him.
“Which means,” observed the duchess, as she replaced the letter in her pocket, “that the Delhasses are going, and that if I go (without notice anyhow) I shall find them there.”
“I read it in the same way; but I’m not so sure that the Delhasses are going.”
“You are so charitable,” said she, still quite sweetly. “You can’t bring yourself to think evil of anybody.”
The duchess chanced to look so remarkably calm and composed as she sat on the corn bin that I could not deny myself the pleasure of surprising her with the sudden apparition of the Cardinal’s Necklace. Without a word, I took the case out of my pocket, opened it, and held it out toward her. For once the duchess sat stock-still, her eyes round and large.
“Have you been robbing and murdering my husband?” she gasped.
With a very complacent smile I began my story. Who does not know what it is to begin a story with a triumphant confidence in its favorable reception? Who does not know that first terrible glimmer of doubt when the story seems not to be making the expected impression? Who has not endured the dull dogged despair in which the story, damned by the stony faces of the auditors, has yet to drag on a hated weary life to a dishonored grave?
These stages came and passed as I related to Mme. de Saint-Maclou how I came to be in a position to hand back to her the Cardinal’s Necklace. Still, silent, pale, with her lips curled in a scornful smile, she sat and listened. My tone lost its triumphant ring, and I finished in cold, distant, embarrassed accents.
“I have only,” said I, “to execute my commission and hand the box and its contents over to you.”
And, thus speaking, I laid the necklace in its case on the corn bin beside the duchess.
The duchess said nothing at all. She looked at me once—just once; and I wished then and there that I had listened to Gustave de Berensac’s second thoughts and left with him at ten o’clock in the morning. Then having delivered this barbed shaft of the eyes, the duchess sat looking straight in front of her, bereft of her quick-changing glances, robbed of her supple grace—like frozen quicksilver. And the necklace glittered away indifferently between us.
At last the duchess, her eyes still fixed on the whitewashed wall opposite, said in a slow emphatic tone:
“I wouldn’t touch it, if it were the crown of France!”
I plucked up my courage to answer her. For Marie Delhasse’s sake I felt a sudden anger.
“You are pharisaical,” said I. “The poor girl has acted honorably. Her touch has not defiled your necklace.”
“Yes, you must defend what you persuaded,” flashed out the duchess. “It’s the greatest insult I was ever subjected to in my life!”
Here was the second lady I had insulted on that summer day!
“I did but suggest it—it was her own wish.”
“Your suggestion is her wish! How charming!” said the duchess.
“You are unjust to her!” I said, a little warmly.
The duchess rose from the corn bin, made the very most of her sixty-three inches, and remarked:
“It’s a new insult to mention her to me.”
I passed that by; it was too absurd to answer.
“You must take it now I’ve brought it,” I urged in angry puzzle.
The duchess put out her hand, grasped the case delicately, shut it—and flung it to the other side of the stable, hard by where an old ass was placidly eating a bundle of hay.
“That’s the last time I shall touch it!” said she, turning and looking me in the face.
“But what am I to do with it?” I cried.
“Whatever you please,” returned Mme. de Saint-Maclou; and without another word, without another glance, either at me or at the necklace, she walked out of the stable, and left me alone with the necklace and the ass.
The ass had given one start as the necklace fell with a thud on the floor; but he was old and wise, and soon fell again to his meal. I sat drumming my heels against the corn bin. Evening was falling fast, and everything was very still. No man ever had a more favorable hour for reflection and introspection. I employed it to the full. Then I rose, and crossing the stable, pulled the long ears of my friend who was eating the hay.
“I suppose you also were a young ass once,” said I with a rueful smile.
Well, I couldn’t leave the Cardinal’s Necklace in the corner of the convent stable. I picked up the box. Neddy thrust out his nose at it. I opened it and let him see the contents. He snuffed scornfully and turned back to the hay.
“He won’t take it either,” said I to myself, and with a muttered curse I dropped the wretched thing back in the pocket of my coat, wishing much evil to everyone who had any hand in bringing me into connection with it, from his Eminence the Cardinal Armand de Saint-Maclou down to the waiter at the hotel.
Slowly and in great gloom of mind I climbed the hill again. I supposed that I must take the troublesome ornament back to Marie Delhasse, confessing that my fine idea had ended in nothing save a direct and stinging insult for her and a scathing snub for me. My pride made this necessity hard to swallow, but I believe there was also a more worthy feeling that caused me to shrink from it. I feared that her good resolutions would not survive such treatment, and that the rebuff would drive her headlong into the ruin from which I had trusted that she would be saved. Yet there was nothing else for it. Back the necklace must go. I could but pray—and earnestly I did pray—that my fears might not be realized.
I found myself opposite the gun-maker's shop; and it struck me that I might probably fail to see Marie alone that evening. I had no means of defense—I had never thought any necessary. But now a sudden nervousness got hold of me: it seemed to me as if my manner must betray to everyone that I carried the necklace—as if the lump in my coat stood out conspicuous as Mont St. Michel itself. Feeling that I was doing a half-absurd thing, still I stepped into the shop and announced that, on further reflection, I would buy the little pistol. The good man was delighted to sell it to me.
"If you carry valuables, sir," he said, repeating his stock recommendation, "it will give you a feeling of perfect safety."
"I don't carry valuables," said I abruptly, almost rudely, and with most unnecessary emphasis.
"I did but suggest, sir," he apologized. "And at least, it may be that you will require to do so some day."
"That," I was forced to admit, "is of course not impossible." And I slid the pistol and a supply of cartridges into the other pocket of my coat.
"Distribute the load, sir," advised the smiling nuisance. "One side of your coat will be weighed down. Ah, pardon! I perceive that there is already something in the other pocket."
"A sandwich-case," said I; and he bowed with exactly the smile the waiter had worn when I said that I came from Mont St. Michel.