"A hundred thanks, monsieur le chevalier. Is there any message for Palin? _Pouf!_ But I forget. What has a handsome young spark like you got in common with an old greybeard? You will be at court in a week; and they will all be there--bright-eyed D"Entragues, Mary of Guise, Charlotte de Givry, and----"
"Maitre Pantin, these details of the court do not interest me. Tell Palin I would see him as soon as he arrives. Ask him as a favour to come here. He said you were discreet----"
"And I know that Monsieur le Chevalier is likewise." With a quick movement of the hand the short grey goatee that Pantin wore vanished from his chin, and there was before me not the face of the notary, but that of Annette. She laughed out at the amaze in my look, but quickly changed her tone.
"Maitre Palin said you were to be trusted utterly, monsieur, and you see I have done so. Your message will be safely delivered, and I promise he will see you. But have you no other?"
"None," I answered, a little bitterly.
"I have, however, and it is this," and she placed in my hand a little packet. "Monsieur may open that at his leisure," and she turned as if to go.
"One moment--I do not understand. What is the meaning of this masquerade?"
"Only this, that my husband will appear to have been at the same time at the Quartier du Marais as well as the Faubourg St. Germain. I would add that Monsieur would be wise to keep indoors as he is doing. We have found out that the house is being watched. Good-night, monsieur,"
and, with a nod of her wrinkled face, this strange woman vanished.
I appeared in truth to be the sport of mystery, and it seemed as if one of those sudden gusts of anger to which I was subject was coming on me. I controlled myself with an effort, and with a turn of my fingers tore open the packet, and in it lay my lost knot of ribbon.
For a moment the room swam round me, and I became as cold as ice. Then came the revulsion, and with trembling fingers I raised the token to my lips and kissed it a hundred times. There were no written words with it; there was nothing but this little worn bow! but it told a whole story to me. It had come down to me, that ribbon that Marescot said was hung too high for de Breuil of Auriac; and G.o.d alone knows how I swore to guard it, and how my heart thanked him for his goodness to me. For ten long minutes I was in fairyland, and then I saw myself as I was, proscribed and poor, almost in the hands of powerful enemies, striving to fight an almost hopeless cause with nothing on my side and everything against me. Even were it otherwise, the rock of Auriac was too bare to link with the broad lands of Pelouse and Bidache, and, love her as I did, I could never hang my sword in my wife"s halls. It was impossible, utterly impossible. So I was tossed now one way, now another, until my mental agony was almost insupportable.
The next day nothing would content me but that I must repair to the Rue Varenne, and, if possible, get a glimpse of Madame as she arrived.
I left instructions that Palin should be asked to wait for me if he came during my absence; for my impatience was too great to admit of my staying in for him. I was not, however, in so great a hurry as to entirely neglect the warnings I had received, and dressed myself as simply as possible, removing the plumes from my hat, and wearing a stout buff coat under my long cloak. Thus altered I might be mistaken for a Huguenot, but hardly anyone would look for a former cavalier of the League in the solemnly-dressed man who was strolling to the end of the Malaquais. There I took a boat and went by river the short distance that lay between me and the jetty at the Rue de Bac. At the jetty I disembarked, and went leisurely towards the Rue Varenne. As I was crossing the Rue Grenelle, hard by the Logis de Conde, a half-dozen gentlemen came trotting by and took up the road. I stopped to let them pa.s.s, and saw to my surprise that amongst them were my old comrades in arms, de Cosse-Brissac, Tavannes, and de Gie. I was about to wave my hand in greeting, when I recognised amongst them the sinister face of Lafin riding on the far side of me. Quick as thought I pretended to have dropped something, and bent down as if to search for it. The pace they were going at prevented anyone of them, not even excepting Lafin, with his hawk"s eye, from recognising me; but it did not prevent Tavannes from turning in his saddle and flinging me a piece of silver with the gibe, "Go on all fours for that, maitre Huguenot." I kept my head low, and made a rush for the silver, whilst they rode off laughing, a laugh in which I joined myself, though with different reasons. On reaching the Rue Varenne I had no difficulty in finding the house I sought; the arms on the entrance gate gave me this information; and I saw that Madame had only just arrived, and had I been but a half-hour earlier I might have seen and even spoken with her. I hung about for some minutes on the chance of getting a glimpse of her, with no success; then finding that my lounging backwards and forwards outside the gates was beginning to attract attention from the windows of a house opposite, I took myself off, feeling a little foolish at what I had done.
I came back the way I went, and as I walked down the Malaquais met master Jacques taking an airing with two companions. In one of them I recognised Vallon, my old friend de Belin"s man; the other I did not know, though he wore the _sang-de-b[oe]uf_ livery of the Compte de Belin. Having no particular interest in lackeys I paid him no further attention, though, could I but have seen into the future, it would have been a good deed to have killed him where he stood.
On seeing me Vallon and Jacques both stopped, and I signalled to them to cross over the road to me, as I was anxious to hear news of Belin, who was an intimate friend. This they did, and on my inquiry Vallon informed me that Belin was at his hotel in the Rue de Bourdonnais, and the good fellow urged me to come there at once, saying that his master would never forgive him were he not to insist on my coming. I was truly glad to hear Belin was in Paris. He was a tried friend, whose a.s.sistance I could rely on in any emergency; and, telling Vallon I would be at the Rue de Bourdonnais shortly, I went on to my lodging, followed by Jacques, leaving Vallon to go onwards with his companion.
On coming home I found, as might be expected, that there was no sign of Palin, and, after waiting for him until the dinner hour, gave him up for the present and rode off to the Two Ecus; and when my dinner, a very simple one, was finished, took my way to the Rue de Bourdonnais, this time mounted on Couronne, with Jacques, well armed, on the sorrel.
The hotel of the Compte de Belin lay at the west end of the Rue de Bourdonnais, close to the small house wherein lived Madame de Montpensier of dreadful memory; and on reaching it I found that it more than justified the description Belin had given of it to me, one day whilst we were idling in the trenches before Dourlens. It stood some way back from the road, and the entrance to the courtyard was through a wonderfully worked iron gateway, a counterpart, though on a smaller scale, of the one at Anet. At each corner of the square building was a hanging turret, and from the look of the windows of one of these I guessed that my friend had taken up his quarters there.
I was met by Vallon, who said he had informed his master of my coming; and, telling a servant to hold my horse, he ushered me in, talking of a hundred things at once. I had not gone ten steps up the great stairway when Belin himself appeared, running down to meet me. "_Croix Dieu!_" he burst out as we embraced. "I thought you were with the saints, and that de Rone, you and a hundred others were free from all earthly troubles."
"Not yet, de Belin. I trust that time will be far distant."
"Amen! But you as good as buried yourself alive, at any rate."
"How so?"
"Vallon tells me you have been a month in Paris, and you have never once been to the Rue de Bourdonnais until now. You might have known, man, that this house is as much yours as mine."
"My dear friend, there were reasons."
He put a hand on each of my shoulders, looked at me in the face with kind eyes, and then laughed out.
"Reasons! _Pardieu!_ I can hardly make you out. You have a face a half-toise in length, never a plume in your hat, and a general look of those hard-praying and, I will say, hard-fighting gentry who gave the King his own again."
"How loyal you have become."
"We were all wrong--the lot of us--and I own my mistake; but you--you have not turned Huguenot, have you?"
"Not yet," I smiled; "and is Madame de Belin in Paris?"
"_Diable!_ and he made a wry face. "Come up to my den, and I"ll tell you everything. Vallon, you grinning ape, fetch a flask of our old Chambertin--I will show M. le Chevalier up myself."
And linking me by the arm, he led me up the stairway, and along a n.o.ble corridor hung on each side with the richest tapestry, until we reached a carved door that opened into the rooms in the turret.
"Here we are," Belin said, as we entered. "I find that when Madame is away these rooms are enough for me. _Tiens!_ How a woman"s presence can fill a house. Sit down there! And here comes Vallon. Set the wine down there, Vallon, and leave us."
He poured out a full measure for me, then one for himself, and stretched himself out in an armchair, facing me. I always liked the man, with his gay cynicism--if I may use the phrase--his kind heart and his reckless life; and I knew enough to tell that if Madame la Comptesse had been a little more forbearing she might have moulded her husband as she willed.
"Belin," I said," I am so old a friend, I know you will forgive me for asking why, if you miss Madame"s presence, you do not have her here?"
"Oh, she has got one of her fits, and has gone to grow pears at Belin.
It was all through that fool Vallon."
"Vallon!"
"Yes. Ba.s.sompierre, de Vitry, myself, and one or two others, had arranged a little supper, with cards to follow, at More"s. You don"t know More"s, but I"ll take you there. Well, to continue: I had gone through about three weeks of my own fireside before this arrangement was made, and longed to stretch my legs a little. To tell Sophie would only cause a discussion. It is as much as I can do to get her to the Louvre accompanied by myself. So when the evening arrived I pleaded urgent business over my steward"s accounts, and, giving orders that I was not to be disturbed under any circ.u.mstances, came here to my study, a duplicate key to the door of which Sophie keeps. I put Vallon in that chair there before the writing-table, after having made him throw on my _robe-de-chambre_, and gave him instructions to wave his hand in token that he was not to be disturbed if Madame la Comptesse came in, and, after thoroughly drilling the rascal, vanished by the private stair--the entrance to that is just behind my wife"s portrait there."
"And then?"
"Well, we had as pleasant an evening as might be expected. I won five hundred pistoles and came home straight to my study, and on entering it imagine my feelings on seeing Sophie there--and you can guess the rest."
"Poor devil," I laughed, "so your little plan failed utterly."
"Vallon failed utterly. It appears that Sophie came up about ten, and, being waved off, went away. She returned, however, about an hour later to find Monsieur Vallon, who had got tired of his position, asleep with his mouth open in the chair in which you are sitting. She refused to believe it was only a card party--though I said I would call the Marshal and de Vitry to witness--burst into tears, and in fine, my friend, I had a bad quarter of an hour, and Sophie has gone off to Belin."
"And the pistoles?" I asked slily.
He looked at me, and we both laughed.
"She took them," he answered.
"Belin," I said after a moment, "will you ever change?"
"_Ventre St. Gris!_ As the King swears. Why should I? After all, Sophie will come round again. I really am very happy. I have many things to be thankful for. I can always help a friend----"
"I know that," I interrupted, "and I want your help."
"How much is it? Or is it a second?"
"Neither, thanks. Though in either case I would come to you without hesitation. The fact is--" and I explained to him my difficulty in providing for Marie, without, however, going into other matters, or giving him any account of my troubles.
When I ended, Belin said. "What you want, then, is a trustworthy fellow."
"At least that is what Jacques wants. I can get on well enough."
"_Morbleu!_ It is more than I could; but, as it happens, I have the very thing for you. Pull that bell-rope behind you, will you? and oblige a lazy man."