The Indiscretion of the Duchess/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
A Reluctant Intrusion.
S Bontet the inn-keeper set the wine on the table before the Duke of Saint-Maclou, the big clock in the hall of the inn struck noon. It is strange to me, even now when the story has grown old in my memory, to recall all that happened before the hands of that clock pointed again to twelve. And last year when I revisited the neighborhood and found a neat new house standing on the site of the ramshackle inn, I could not pass by without a queer feeling in my throat; for it was there that the results of the duchess’ indiscretion finally worked themselves out to their unexpected, fatal, and momentous ending. Seldom, as I should suppose, has such a mixed skein of good and evil, of fatality and happiness, been spun from material no more substantial than a sportive lady’s idle freak.
“By the way, Mr. Aycon,” said the duke, after we had drunk our toast, “I have had a message from the magistrate at Avranches requesting our presence to-morrow morning at eleven o’clock. An inquiry has to be held into the death of that rascal Lafleur, and our evidence must be taken. It is a mere formality, the magistrate is good enough to assure me, and I have assured him that we shall neither of us allow anything to interfere with our waiting on him, if we can possibly do so.”
“I could have sent no other message myself,” said I.
“I will also,” continued the duke, “send word by Bontet here to those two friends of mine at Pontorson. It would be dull for you to dine alone with me, and, as the evening promises to be fine, I will ask them to be here by five o’clock, and we will have a stroll on the sands and a nearer look at the Mount before our meal. They are officers who are quartered there.”
“Their presence,” said I, “will add greatly to the pleasure of the evening.”
“Meanwhile, if you will excuse me, I shall take an hour or two’s rest. We missed our sleep last night, and we should wish to be fresh when our guests arrive. If I might advise you”
“I am about to breakfast, after that I may follow your advice.”
“Ah, you’ve not breakfasted? You can’t do better, then. Au revoir;” and with a bow he left me, calling to Bontet to follow him upstairs and wait for the note which was to go to the officers at Pontorson. It must be admitted that the duke conducted the necessary arrangements with much tact.
In a quarter of an hour my breakfast was before me, and I seated myself with my back to the door and my face to the window. I had plenty to think about as I ate; but my chief anxiety was by some means to obtain an interview with Marie Delhasse, not with a view to persuading her to attempt escape with me before the evening—for I had made up my mind that the issue with the duke must be faced now, once for all—but in the hope of discovering why she had allowed herself to be persuaded into leaving the convent. Until I knew that, I was a prey to wretched doubts and despondency, which even my deep-seated confidence in her could not overcome. Fortunately I had a small sum of money in my pocket, and I felt sure that Bontet’s devotion to the duke would not be proof against an adequate bribe: perhaps he would be able to assist me in eluding the vigilance of Madame Delhasse and obtaining speech with her daughter.
Bontet, detained as I supposed by the duke, had left a kitchen-girl to attend on me; but I soon saw him come out into the yard, carrying a letter in his hand. He walked slowly across to the stable door, at which the face, suddenly presented and withdrawn, had caught my attention. He stopped before the door a moment, then the door opened. I could not see whether he opened it or whether it was unlocked from within, for his burly frame obstructed my view; but the pause was long enough to show that more than the lifting of a latch was necessary. And that I thought worth notice. The door closed after Bontet. I rose, opened my window and listened; but the yard was broad and no sound reached me from the stable.
I waited there five minutes perhaps. The inn-keeper did not reappear, so I returned to my place. I had finished my meal before he came out. This time I was tolerably sure that the door was closed behind him by another hand, and I fancied that I heard the click of a lock. Also I noticed that the letter was no longer visible—of course, he might have put it in his pocket. Jumping up suddenly as though I had just chanced to notice him, I asked him if he were off to Pontorson, or, if not, had he a moment for conversation.
“I am going in a few minutes, sir,” he answered; “but I am at your service now.”
The words were civil enough, but his manner was surly and suspicious. Lighting a cigarette, I sat down on the window-sill, while he stood just outside.
“I want a bedroom,” said I. “Have you one for me?”
“I have given you the room on the first floor, immediately opposite that of the duke.”
“Good. And where are the ladies lodged?”
He made no difficulty about giving me an answer.
“They have a sitting room on the first floor,” he answered, “but hitherto they have not used it. They have two bedrooms, connected by an interior door, on the second floor, and they have not left them since their arrival.”
“Has the duke visited them there?”
“I don’t think he has seen them. They had a conversation on their arrival;” and the fellow grinned.
Now was my time. I took a hundred-franc note out of my pocket and held it in my hand so that he could see the figures on it. I hoped that he would not be exorbitant, for I had but one more and some loose napoleons in my pocket.
“What was the conversation about?” I asked.
He put out his hand for the note; but I kept my grasp on it. Honesty was not written large—no, nor plain to read—on Bontet’s fat face.
“I heard little of it; but the young lady said, as they hurried upstairs: ‘Where is he? Where is he?’”
“Yes, yes!”
And I held out the note to him. He had earned it. And greedily he clutched it, and stowed it in his breeches pocket under his blouse.
“I heard no more; they hurried her up; the old lady had her by one arm and the duke by the other. She looked distressed—why, I know not; for I suppose”—here a sly grin spread over the fellow’s face—“that the pretty present I saw is for her.”
“It’s the property of the duke,” I said.
“But gentlemen sometimes make presents to ladies,” he suggested.
“It may be his purpose to do so. Bontet, I want to see the young lady.”
He laughed insolently, kicking his toe against the wall.
“What use, unless you have a better present, sir? But it’s nothing to me. If you can manage it, you’re welcome.”
“But how am I to manage it? Come, earn your money, and perhaps you’ll earn more.”
“You’re liberal, sir;” and he stared at me as though he were trying to look into my pocket and see how much money was there. I was glad that his glance was not so penetrating. “But I can’t help you. Stay, though. The old lady has ordered coffee for two in the sitting-room, and bids me rouse the duke when it is ready: so perhaps the young lady will be left alone for a time. If you could steal up”
I was not in the mood to stand on a punctilio. My brain was kindled by Marie’s words, “Where is he?” Already I was searching for their meaning and finding what I wished. If I could see her, and learn the longed-for truth from her, I should go in good heart to my conflict with the duke.
“Go to your room,” said Bontet, whom my prospective largesse had persuaded to civility and almost to eagerness, “and wait. If madame and the duke go there, I’ll let you know. But you must risk meeting them.”
“I don’t mind about that,” said I; and, in truth, nothing could make my relations with the pair more hostile than they were already.
My business with Bontet was finished; but I indulged my curiosity for a moment.
“You have a good stable over there, I see,” I remarked. “How many horses have you there?”
The fellow turned very red: all signs of good humor vanished from his face; my bribe evidently gave me no right to question him on that subject.
“There are no horses there,” he grunted. “The horses are in the new stable facing the road. This one is disused.”
“Oh, I saw you come out from there, and I thought”
“I keep some stores there,” he said sullenly.
“And that’s why it’s kept locked?” I asked at a venture.
“Precisely, sir,” he replied. But his uneasy air confirmed my suspicions as to the stable. It hid some secret, I was sure. Nay, I began to be sure that my eyes had not played me false, and that I had indeed seen the face I seemed to see. If that were so, friend Bontet was playing a double game and probably enjoying more than one paymaster.
However, I had no leisure to follow that track, nor was I much concerned to attempt the task. The next day would be time—if I were alive the next day: and I cared little if the secret were never revealed. It was nothing to me—for it never crossed my mind that fresh designs might be hatched in the stable. Dismissing the matter, I did as Bontet advised, and walked upstairs to my room; and as luck would have it, I met Mme. Delhasse plump on the landing, she being on her way to the sitting room. I bowed low. Madame gave me a look of hatred and passed by me. As she displayed no surprise, it was evident that the duke had carried or sent word of my arrival. I was not minded to let her go without a word or two.
“Madame” I began; but she was too quick for me. She burst out in a torrent of angry abuse. Her resentment, dammed so long for want of opportunity, carried her away. To speak soberly and by the card, the woman was a hideous thing to see and hear; for in her wrath at me, she spared not to set forth in unshamed plainness her designs, nor to declare of what rewards, promised by the duke, my interference had gone near to rob her and still rendered uncertain. Her voice rose, for all her efforts to keep it low, and she mingled foul words of the duchess and of me with scornful curses on the virtue of her daughter. I could say nothing; I stood there wondering that such creatures lived, amazed that Marie Delhasse must call such an one her mother.
Then in the midst of her tirade, the duke, roused without Bontet’s help, came out of his room, and waited a moment listening to the flow of the torrent. And, strange as it seemed, he smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders, and I found myself smiling also; for disgusting as the woman was, she was amusing, too. And the duke went and caught her by the shoulder and said:
“Come, don’t be silly, mother. We can settle our accounts with Mr. Aycon in another way than this.”
His touch and words seemed to sober her—or perhaps her passion had run its course. She turned to him, and her lips parted with a smile, a cunning and—if my opinion be asked—loathsome smile; and she caressed the lapel of his coat with her hand. And the duke, who was smoking, smoked on, so that the smoke blew in her face, and she coughed and choked: whereat the duke also smiled. He set the right value on his instrument, and took pleasure in showing how he despised her.
“My dear, dear duke, I have such news for you—such news?” she said, ignoring, as perforce she must, his rudeness. “Come in here, and leave that man.”
At this the duke suddenly bent forward, his scornful, insolent toleration giving place to interest.
“News?” he cried, and he drew her toward the door to which she had been going, neither of them paying any more attention to me. And the door closed upon them.
The duke had not needed Bontet’s rousing. I did not need Bontet to tell me that the coast was clear. With a last alert glance at the door, I trod softly across the landing and reached the stairs by which Mlle. Delhasse had descended. Gently I mounted, and on reaching the top of the flight found a door directly facing me. I turned the handle, but the door was locked. I rattled the handle cautiously—and then again, and again. And presently I heard a light, timid, hesitating step inside; and through the door came, in the voice of Marie Delhasse:
“Who’s there?”
And I answered at once, boldly, but in a low voice:
“It is I. Open the door.”
She, in her turn, knew my voice; for the door was opened, and Marie Delhasse stood before me, her face pale with weariness and sorrow, and her eyes wide with wonder. She drew back before me, and I stepped in and shut the door, finding myself in a rather large, sparely furnished room. A door opposite was half-open. On the bed lay a bonnet and a jacket which certainly did not belong to Marie.
Most undoubtedly I had intruded into the bedchamber of that highly respectable lady, Mme. Delhasse. I can only plead that the circumstances were peculiar.