The Unspeakable Gentleman/Chapter 10
X
Mademoiselle, who had risen from her chair, where she had listened, only half understanding the conversation in a tongue foreign from hers, stared at the closed door, her lips parted, and her forehead wrinkled.
"What have they been saying?" she asked. "Why are they afraid? Is everyone afraid of this father of yours?"
And then, impulsively, she seized me by the arm.
"But it makes no difference. Come, it is our one chance; come quickly, Monsieur. I must speak to you, where he will not disturb us."
"But where?" I asked, still staring straight before me; and then I noticed a bolt on the morning room door. I sprang toward it and drew it hastily. "It will do no good to talk, Mademoiselle. If you had understood" And as I spoke, the enormity of the thing loomed still larger before me.
"Mademoiselle, this morning he has robbed my uncle of a fortune, snatched it from him here in this very room, and now he has threatened to move his ships into midstream, and to open fire on the town! And Mademoiselle, he means to do it. I thought once—but he means to do it, Mademoiselle."
She pursed her lips, and looked at me from the corner of her eye.
"Pouf!" she said. "So you are growing frightened also. Yet I can understand. The Marquis always said that Captain Shelton could frighten the devil himself."
"Frightened!" I echoed, and the blood rushed into my cheeks.
"Mon Dieu! Perhaps you are not. Listen, Monsieur, I am not taunting you. I am not saying he will not. He is serious, Monsieur, and you must leave him alone, or perhaps I shall not get the paper after all, and remember, I must have it. My brother must have it, and he shall, only you must not disturb him. He may shoot at the town, if he cares to, or murder your uncle. He has often spoken of it at Blanzy, but the paper is another matter. You must leave it to me."
"To you!" I cried.
"Precisely," said Mademoiselle. "You—what can you do? You are young. You are inexperienced. Pardon me, but you would be quite ineffective."
My cheeks flamed again. Somehow no sarcasm of my father's had bitten as deep as those last words of hers. I do not know whether it was chagrin or anger that I felt at the bitter sense of my own futility. And she had seen it all. As coldly and as accurately as my father, she had watched me, and as coldly she had given her verdict. She was watching me now with a cool, confident smile that made me turn away.
"Ah," she said, "I have hurt you, and believe me, I did not mean to."
Something in the polite impersonality of her voice gave me a vague resentment. She had moved nearer, and yet I could not meet her glance.
"I am sorry" she said, and paused expectantly, but I could only stare at the floor in silence.
"Believe me, I am sorry."
It might have been different if I had detected the slightest contrition, but instead I seemed only to afford her mild amusement.
"There is no need to be sorry" I replied.
"Ah, but there is!" she said quickly, "Last night you were very kind. Last night you tried to help me."
I seemed to see her again, standing pale and troubled, while my father watched her, coldly appraising, and Brutus grinned at her across the room.
"Mademoiselle" I began, "Anything that I did last night"
"Was quite unnecessary," she said, "And very foolish."
I drew a sharp breath. The bit of gallantry I had on my mind to speak seemed weak and useless now.
"Mademoiselle is mistaken" I lied smoothly, "Nothing that I did last night was on her account."
"Nothing!" she exclaimed sharply, "I do not understand."
"No, nothing," I said, "Pray believe me, anything I did, however foolish, was solely for myself. I have my own affair to settle with my father."
"Bah!" cried Mademoiselle, tapping her foot on the floor, and oddly enough my reply seemed to have made her angry, "So you are like all the rest of them, stupid, narrow, calculating!"
"If Mademoiselle will only listen," I began, strangely puzzled and singularly contrite.
"Listen to you!" she cried, "No, Monsieur, I have listened to you quite long enough to know your type. I see now you are quite what I thought you would be. I say you are entirely ineffective, and must leave your father alone. You do not understand him. You do not even know him. With me it is different. I have seen the world. He is temperamental, your father, a genius in his way, and a little mad, perhaps. Leave him to me, Monsieur, and it will be quite all right. Last night, it was so sudden, that I was frightened for a moment. I should have remembered he is erratic and apt to change his mind. I should have guessed why he changed it. It is you, Monsieur. You have had a bad effect upon him. You have made him turn suddenly grotesque. What did you do to him last evening?"
"Do to him?" I asked, stupidly enough. "Why, nothing. I listened to him, Mademoiselle, just as I have been listening to him all this morning."
"And yet," she said, "it is your fault. Usually he is most well behaved. He is moderate, Monsieur. At Blanzy a glass of wine at dinner was all he ever desired. For days at a time, I have hardly heard him say a word. The Marquis would call him the Sphinx, and what has he been doing here? Drinking bottle after bottle, talking steadily, acting outrageously. What is more, he has been doing so ever since he spoke of returning home. I tell you, Monsieur, you must keep away from him, or perhaps he will do with the paper exactly what he says. Pray do not scowl. Laugh, Monsieur, it is funny."
"Funny?" I exclaimed, as stupidly as before. Mademoiselle sighed.
"If the Marquis had only lived—how he would have laughed. It was odd, the sense of humor of the Marquis. Strange how much alike they were, the Marquis and your father."
"It is pleasant that Mademoiselle and I should have something in common," I said. Her gaze grew very soft and far away.
"Not as much as they had. We never shall. I think it was because they both were embittered with life, both a trifle tired and cynical. My father thought there should be a king of France, and yet I think he knew there could not be one. Your father—it is another story."
"Quite," I agreed. "And yet Mademoiselle will pardon me—I fail to see what they had in common."
"You say that," said Mademoiselle, "because you do not know him as well as I do. Do you not see that he is a bitter, disappointed man? They were both disappointed."
I examined the bolt on the door, and found it firm, despite its age. I glanced over the long, low studded room, and moved a chair from the center to a place nearer the wall. Her glance followed me inquiringly, but I forestalled her question.
"Mademoiselle," I observed, "was pointing out that she found something droll in the situation."
"And is it not droll you should have changed him?" she inquired, and yet I thought she looked around uneasily. "You have, Monsieur. He was cautious before this. He foresaw everything. He was willing to risk nothing. He even warned the Marquis against attacking the coach."
I began to perceive why the Marquis honored my father with his friendship.
"Was attacking coaches a frequent habit of the Marquis?" I asked.
"Has he not told you?" she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows.
"One would hardly call our conversation confidential," I explained. "Is that what you find so droll?"
And indeed, she seemed in a rare good humor, and inexplicably gay. A curious Mona Lisa smile kept bending her lips and twinkling in her eyes. The lowering clouds outside, the creakings of the beams and rafters under the east wind, nor even the drab gloom of her surroundings seemed to dampen her sudden access of good nature. The events she had witnessed seemed also to please her. Was it spite that had made her smile when she watched my father and his visitors? Was it spite that made her smile now, as she gazed at the room's battered prosperity, and at my grandfather's portrait above the mantlepiece, in the unruffled dignity of its blackening oils?
"I was the coach," said Mademoiselle, "of Napoleon at Montmareuil. A dozen of them set upon the coach. The lead horses were killed, and in an instant they were at the doors. They flung them open, but he was not inside. Instead, the coach was filled with the consular police. The paper, the paper they had signed, was at Blanzy, and your father had agreed to rescue it in case of accident. He would not leave me, Monsieur, and he would not destroy the paper."
She paused, and regarded me with a frown that had more of curiosity in it than displeasure.
"I was all well enough," she added, "until he heard of you, until you and he had dinner. It is something you did, something you said, that has made it all different. I ask you—what have you done to him? He was our friend before he saw you. Or why would he have ridden through half of France with Napoleon's police a half a league behind him? Why did he risk everything to bring out the paper when he might have burned it? Why did he not sell it there? He might have done so half a dozen times. Why does he wait till now?
"Do you know what I would say if you were older and less transparent? Do you know?"
An imperious, ringing note had entered into her voice, which made me regard her with a sudden doubt. About her was the same charm and mystery that had held me silent and curious, the same unnatural assurance, and cold disregard of her surroundings; but her eyes had grown watchful and unfriendly.
"I would say that you had turned him against us, and if you had"
"Mademoiselle is overwrought," I said.
She tapped her foot on the floor impatiently, and compressed her lips.
"I am never overwrought," said Mademoiselle. "It is a luxury my family has not been allowed for many years. I say your father was an honest man, as men go, and a brave one too, and that you have changed him, and I warn you to leave him alone in the future. You do not know him, or how to deal with him. I tell you his trifling about the paper is a passing phase, and that you must not disturb him. No, no, do not protest. I know well enough you are not to blame. You must leave him to me. That is all."
"I pains me not to do as Mademoiselle suggests," I said.
"You mean you will not?" she flashed back at me angrily.
"I mean I will not," I answered with sudden heat, "No," I added more harshly, as she attempted to interrupt, "Now you will listen to me. You say I am a fool. You say I can do nothing against him. Perhaps not, Mademoiselle, but what I see is this: I see you in a dangerous situation through no fault of your own, and whether you wish it or not, I am going to get you out of it. He has done enough, Mademoiselle, and this is going to be the end. By heaven, if he looks at you again"
"But you said—" she interrupted.
I did not have the chance to continue, for a hand was trying the latch of the door, and then a sharp knock interrupted me. My father was standing on the threshold. With a smile and a nod to me, he entered, and proceeded to the center of the room, while I closed the door behind him, and bolted it again. If he noticed my action, he did not choose to comment. Instead, he continued towards the chair where Mademoiselle was seated.
"I had hoped that you might get along more pleasantly, you and my son," he observed. "Surely he has points in his favor—youth, candor, even a certain amount of breeding. You have been hard on him, Mademoiselle. Take my word for it—he is to blame for nothing."
"So you have been listening," she said.
"As doubtless Mademoiselle expected," said my father. "I had hoped"
"And so had I," I said.
He turned and faced me.
"Hoped," I continued, raising my voice, "that you might enter here, and leave your servant somewhere else. I have wanted to have a quiet talk with you this morning."
If he noted anything unusual in my request, he did not show it, not so much as by a flicker of an eyelash.
"I has hardly been opportune for conversation," he admitted. "But now, as you say, Brutus is gone. He is out to receive a message I am expecting, which can hardly be delivered at the front door. You were saying—Doubtless Mademoiselle will pardon us"
"Mademoiselle," I went on, "will even be interested. I have wanted to speak to you so that I might explain myself. Since I have been here I fear I have been impulsive. You must lay it to my youth, father."
He nodded a grave assent.
"You must not apologize. It has been quite refreshing."
"And yet I am not so young. I am twenty-three."
"Can it be possible?" exclaimed my father. "I had almost forgotten that I was so near the grave."
"I came to see you here," I continued, "because, as my uncle said, you are my father. I came here because—because I thought—" I paused and drew a deep breath, and my father smiled.
"Why I came is aside from the point, at any rate," I said.
"Indeed yes," agreed my father, "and have we not been over the matter before?"
"If you had accorded me one serious word, it might have been different," I continued; "but instead, sir, you have seen fit to jest. It is not what you have done this morning, sir, as much as your manner towards me, which makes me take this step. That you have brought a lady from France and robbed her, that you have robbed my uncle, and have threatened to fire on the town—somehow they seem no particular affair of mine except for this: You seem to think that I am incapable of doing anything to hinder you, and frankly, sir, this hurts my pride. You feel that I am going to sit by passively and watch you."
I came a step nearer, but he did not draw back. He only continued watching me with a patient intentness, which seemed gradually to merge into some more active interest. His interest deepened when I spoke again, but that was all.
"You feel I am going to be still, and do nothing, even after you drugged me last evening. Did you think I would not resent it? You are mistaken, father."
My father rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"I had not thought of it exactly so," he said, "yet I had to keep you quiet."
"So, if the tables were turned, and I were you, and you were I, you would hardly let matters go on without joining in?"
"Hardly," he agreed. "You have thought the matter out very prettily, my son. It is an angle I seem to have neglected. It only remains to ask what you are going to do. Let us trust it will be nothing stupid."
"I am glad you understand," I said, "because now it will be perfectly clear why I am asking you for the paper, and you will appreciate any steps I may take to get it."
He cast a quick glance around the room, and seemed satisfied that we were quite alone.
"Do I understand," he inquired, "that you have asked me for the paper?"
I nodded, and his voice grew thoughtfully gentle.
"You interest me," he said. "I have a enchant for mysteries. May I ask why you believe I shall give it to you?"
"I shall try to show you," I said, and tossed aside my coat and drew my small sword.
He stood rigid and motionless, and his face became more set and expressionless than I had ever seen it; but before he could speak, Mademoiselle had sprung between us.
"You fool!" she cried. "Put up your sword. Will you not be quiet as I told you?"
"Be seated, Mademoiselle," said my father gently. "Where are your senses, Henry? Can you not manage without creating a scene? Put up your sword. I cannot draw against you."
Mademoiselle, paler than I had seen her before, sank back into her chair.
"I am sorry you find yourself unable," I said, "because I shall attack you in any event."
"What can you be thinking of?" my father remonstrated. "Engage me with a small sword? It is incredible."
"I have been waiting almost twelve hours for the opportunity," I replied. "Pray put yourself on guard, father."
His stony look of repression had left him. The lines about his mouth relaxed again. For a moment I thought the gaze he bent upon me was almost kindly. Then he sighed and shrugged his shoulders, and began slowly to unwind a handkerchief which he had tied about his right hand, disclosing several cuts on his knuckles.
"I forgot that Captain Tracy might have teeth," he said. "Positively, my son, you become disappointing. I had given you credit for more imagination, and instead you think you can match your sword against mine. Pray do not interrupt, Mademoiselle," he added, turning to her with a bow, "it will be quite nothing, and we have neither of us had much exercise."
He paused, and carefully divested himself of his coat, folding it neatly, and placing it on the table. When it was placed to advantage, he drew his sword, and tested its point on the floor.
"Who knows," he added, bending the blade, "perhaps we may have sport after all. Lawton was never bad with the foils."
We had only crossed swords long enough for me to feel the supple play of his wrist before I began to press him. I feinted, and disengaged, and a second later I had lunged over his guard, and had forced him to give back.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed my father gaily. "You surprise me. What! Again? Damn these chairs!"
A fire of exultation leapt through me. I grinned at my father over the crossed blades, for I could read something in his face that steadied my hand. My best attack might leave him unscathed, but I was doing more, much more, than he had expected. I lunged again, and again he stepped back, thrusting so quickly that I had barely time to recover.
"Excellent!" said my father. "You are quick, my son. You even have an eye."
"Mademoiselle!" I called sharply. "The paper! In the breast pocket of his coat. Take it out and burn it."
"Good God!" exclaimed my father.
"You see," I said, "I have my points."
"My son," he said, parrying the thrust with which I ended my last words, "pray accept my apologies and my congratulations. You have a better mind and a better sword than I could reasonably have expected. Indeed, you quite make me extend myself. But you must learn to recover more quickly, Henry, much more quickly. I have seen too many good men go down for just that failing. It may be well enough against an ordinary swordsman, my son, or even a moderately good one, but as for me, I could run you through twice over. Indeed I would, if us"
"The paper, Mademoiselle," I called again. "Have you got it?"
"Exactly," said my father, "The paper." If the paper were in my pocket, you, my son, would now be in the surgeon's hands. The paper, however, is upstairs in my volume of Rabelais. And now"
His wrist suddenly stiffened. He made a feint at my throat, and in the same motion lowered his guard. As I came on parade, my sword was wrenched from my grasp. At the same time I stepped past his point, and seized him around the waist.
"You heard, Mademoiselle," I cried; "The door!" and we fell together.
My father uttered something which seemed very near a curse, and clutched at my throat. I loosened my grasp to fend away his hand, and he broke away from my other arm, and sprang to his feet. Just as he did so there was a blow, a splintering of wood. The door was carried off its hinges, and Brutus leapt beside him. The floor had not been clean. My father brushed regretfully at the smudges on his cambric shirt.
"My coat, if you please, Mademoiselle," he said. "I see you have it in your hands. Gad, my son! It was a nearer thing than I expected. On my word, I did not know that Brutus was back."
"He is like you, captain," said Mademoiselle, handing the coat to him. "You are both stubborn."
For some reason I could not fathom, her good nature had returned. It was relief, perhaps, that made her smile at us.
"It is a family trait," returned my father.
As though kicking down the door had been a simple household duty, Brutus turned from it with quiet passivity, and adjusted the folds of the blue broadcloth with an equal thoroughness, while my father straightened the lace at his wrists.
"Huh," said Brutus suddenly. Then I noticed that his stockings were caked with river mud, and that he had evidently been running. My father, forgetful of his coat for the moment, whirled about and faced
"To think I had forgotten," he cried. "What news, you black rascal?"
"Huh," said Brutus again, and handed him a spotted slip of paper. My father's lips parted. He seized it with unusual alacrity, read it, and tossed it in the fire. Then he sighed, like a man from whose mind a heavy weight of care has been lifted. The tenseness seemed to leave his slim figure, and for an instant he locked as though the day had tired him, and as though another crisis were over.
"He's there?" he demanded sharply.
"Huh," said Brutus.
"Now heaven be praised for that," said my father, with something that was a close approach to fervor. "I was beginning to wonder if, perhaps, something had happened."
Mademoiselle looked up at him demurely.
"The captain has good news?" she asked.
He turned to her and smiled his blandest smile.
"Under the circumstances," he said, "the best I could expect."
Still smiling, he smoothed his coat and squared his shoulders.
"Our little melodrama, my lady, is drawing to its close."