That Francis left me with cold shivers running down my back.
XVI.
A PUBLIC MAN.
The luminous warmth of a bright May afternoon made the lofty windows of the hotel de Mora as hot as the gla.s.s roof of a greenhouse; its transparent hangings of blue silk could be seen from without between the branches, and its broad terraces, where the exotic flowers, brought into the air for the first time, ran like a border all the length of the quay. The great rakes sc.r.a.ping among the shrubs in the garden left on the gravelled paths the light footprints of summer, while the soft pattering of the water from the sprinklers on the green lawn seemed like its revivifying song.
All the magnificence of the princely abode shone resplendent in the pleasant mildness of the temperature, borrowing a grandiose beauty from the silence, the repose of that noonday hour, the only hour in the day when one did not hear carriages rumbling under the arches, the great doors of the reception-room opening and closing, and the constant vibration in the ivy on the walls caused by the pulling of bells to announce somebody"s coming in or going out, like the feverish throbbing of life in the house of a leader of society. It was well known that until three o"clock the duke received at the department; that the d.u.c.h.ess, a Swede still benumbed by the snow of Stockholm, had hardly emerged from behind her somnolent bed-curtains; so that no one came, neither callers nor pet.i.tioners, and the footmen, perched like flamingoes on the steps of the deserted stoop, alone enlivened the scene with the slim shadows of their long legs and the yawning ennui of their idleness.
It happened however, on that day, that Jenkins" maroon-lined _coupe_ was waiting in a corner of the courtyard. The duke, who had been feeling badly the day before, felt still worse when he left the breakfast table, and lost no time in sending for the man of the pearls in order to question him concerning his singular condition. He had no pain anywhere, slept well and had his usual appet.i.te; but there was a most extraordinary sensation of weariness and of terrible cold, which nothing could overcome. So it was that, at that moment, notwithstanding the lovely spring sunshine which flooded his room and put to shame the flame blazing on his hearth as in the depth of winter, the duke was shivering in his blue firs, between his little screens, and as he wrote his name on divers doc.u.ments for a clerk from his office, on a low lacquered table that stood so near the fire that the lacquer came off in scales, he kept holding his benumbed fingers to the blaze, which might have scorched them on the surface without restoring circulation and life to their bloodless rigidity.
Was it anxiety caused by the indisposition of his ill.u.s.trious patient?
At all events Jenkins seemed nervous, excited, strode up and down the room, prying and sniffing to right and left, trying to find in the air something that he believed to be there, something subtle and intangible, like the faint trace of a perfume or the invisible mark left by a pa.s.sing bird. He could hear the wood snapping on the hearth, the sound of papers hastily turned, the duke"s indolent voice, indicating in a word or two, always concise and clear, the answer to a letter of four pages, and the clerk"s respectful monosyllables: "Yes, Monsieur le Ministre." "No, Monsieur le Ministre." Outside, the swallows whistled merrily over the water, and some one was playing a clarinet in the direction of the bridges.
"It is impossible," said the minister abruptly, rising from his chair.
"Take them away, Lartigues. You can come again, to-morrow. I can"t write, I am too cold. Just feel my hands, doctor, and tell me if you would not say they were just out of a pail of iced water. My whole body has been like that for two days. It"s absurd enough in such weather!"
"It doesn"t surprise me," growled the Irishman in a surly, short tone, very unusual in that mellifluous voice.
The door had closed behind the young clerk, who carried away his doc.u.ments with a majestic stiffness of bearing, but was very happy, I fancy, to feel that he was at liberty, and to have the opportunity, before returning to the department, to saunter for an hour or two in the Tuileries, overflowing at that hour with spring dresses and pretty girls seated around the still unoccupied chairs of the musicians under the flowering chestnut trees, which quivered from top to bottom with the glad thrill of the month of nests. He was not frozen, not he.
Jenkins examined his patient without speaking, ausculted him, percussed him, then, in the same rough tone, which might possibly be ascribed to anxious affection, to the irritation of the physician who finds that his instructions have been disregarded, he said:
"In G.o.d"s name, my dear Duke, what sort of a life have you been leading lately?"
He knew from ante-room gossips--the doctor did not despise them in the households of those of his patients with whom he was on intimate terms--he knew that the duke had a _new one_, that this caprice of recent date had taken possession of him, excited him to an unusual degree, and that information, added to other observations made in other directions, had sown in Jenkins" mind a suspicion, a mad desire to know the name of this _new one_. That is what he was trying to read on his patient"s pale brow, seeking the subject of his thoughts rather than the cause of his illness. But he had to do with one of those faces peculiar to men who are successful with women, faces as hermetically sealed as the caskets with secret compartments which contain women"s jewels and letters,--one of those reticent natures locked with a cold, limpid glance, a glance of steel against which the most perspicacious cunning is powerless.
"You are mistaken, Doctor," replied His Excellency calmly, "I have not changed my habits in any respect."
"Very good! you have done wrong, Monsieur le Duc," said the Irishman bluntly, furious at his inability to discover anything.
But the next moment, realizing that he had gone too far, he tempered his ill-humor and the brutality of his diagnosis with a bolus of trite, axiomatic observations.--He must be careful. Medicine was not magic. The power of the Jenkins Pearls was limited by human strength, the necessities of advancing age, the resources of nature, which, unhappily, are not inexhaustible. The duke interrupted him nervously:
"Come, come, Jenkins, you know that I don"t like fine phrases. They don"t go with me. What is the matter with me? What is the cause of this coldness?"
"It"s anaemia, exhaustion--a lowering of the oil in the lamp."
"What must I do?"
"Nothing. Absolute rest. Eat and sleep, nothing more. If you could go and pa.s.s a few weeks at Grandbois--"
Mora shrugged his shoulders.
"What about the Chamber, and the Council, and--Nonsense! as if it were possible!"
"At all events, Monsieur le Duc, you must put on the drag, as someone said, you must absolutely give up--"
Jenkins was interrupted by the entrance of the usher, who glided softly into the room on tiptoe, like a dancing-master, and handed a letter and a card to the minister who was still shivering in front of the fire.
When he saw that envelope, of a satiny shade of gray, and of peculiar shape, the Irishman involuntarily started, while the duke, having opened his letter and glanced over it, rose to his feet full of animation, on his cheeks the faint flush of fact.i.tious health which all the heat from the fire had failed to bring to them.
"My dear Doctor, you must at any cost--"
The usher was standing near, waiting.
"What is it?--Oh! yes, this card. Show him into the gallery, I will be there in a moment."
The Duc de Mora"s gallery, which was open to visitors twice a week, was to him a sort of neutral territory, a public place where he could see anybody on earth without binding himself to anything or compromising himself. Then, when the usher had left the room:
"Jenkins, my good friend, you have already performed miracles for me. I ask you to perform another. Double my dose of the pearls, think up something, whatever you choose. But I must be in condition Sunday. You understand, in perfect condition."
And his hot, feverish fingers closed upon the little note he held with a shudder of longing.
"Beware, Monsieur le Duc," said Jenkins, very pale, his lips pressed tightly together, "I have no desire to alarm you beyond measure concerning your weak state, but it is my duty--"
Mora smiled, a charming, mischievous smile.
"Your duty and my pleasure are two, my good fellow. Let me burn my life at both ends if it amuses me. I have never had such a fine opportunity as I have now."
He started.
"The d.u.c.h.ess!"
A door under the hangings had opened, giving pa.s.sage to a dishevelled little head of fair hair, like a ma.s.s of vapor amid the laces and furbelows of a royal _deshabille_.
"What is this I hear? You haven"t gone out? Pray scold him, Doctor.
Isn"t he foolish to listen to his own fears so much? Just look at him.
He looks in superb health."
"There! You see," said the duke, with a laugh, to the Irishman. "Aren"t you coming in, d.u.c.h.ess?"
"No, I am going to take you away, on the contrary. My uncle d"Estaing has sent me a cage filled with birds from the Indies. I want to show them to you. Marvels of all colors, with little eyes like black pearls.
And so cold, so cold, almost as sensitive to cold as you are."
"Let us go and see them," said the minister. "Wait for me, Jenkins; I will come back."
Then, realizing that he still had his letter in his hand, he tossed it carelessly into the drawer of the little table on which he had been signing doc.u.ments, and went out behind the d.u.c.h.ess, with the perfect _sang-froid_ of a husband accustomed to such manoeuvres. What marvellously skilful workman, what incomparable maker of toys was able to endow the human countenance with its flexibility, its wonderful elasticity? Nothing could be prettier than that great n.o.bleman"s face, surprised with his adultery on his lips, the cheeks inflamed by the vision of promised delights, and suddenly a.s.suming a serene expression of conjugal affection; nothing could be finer than the hypocritical humility of Jenkins, his paternal smile in the d.u.c.h.ess"s presence, giving place instantly when he was left alone, to a savage expression of wrath and hatred, a criminal pallor, the pallor of a Castaing or a Lapommerais devising his sinister schemes.
A swift glance at each of the doors, and in a twinkling he stood before the drawer filled with valuable papers, in which the little gold key was allowed to remain with an insolent negligence that seemed to say:
"No one will dare."
But Jenkins dared.
The letter was there, on top of a pile of others. The texture of the paper, the three words of the address dashed off in a plain, bold hand, and the perfume, that intoxicating, conjuring perfume, the very breath from her divine mouth. So it was true, his jealous love had not led him astray, nor her evident embarra.s.sment in his presence for some time past, nor Constance"s mysterious, youthful airs, nor the superb bouquets strewn about the studio, as in the mysterious shadow of a sin. So that indomitable pride had surrendered at last! But in that case why not to him, Jenkins? He who had loved her so long, always in fact, who was ten years younger than the other, and who certainly was no shiverer? All those thoughts rushed through his brain like arrows shot from a tireless bow. And he stood there, riddled with wounds, torn with emotion, his eyes blinded with blood, staring at the little cold, soft envelope which he dared not open for fear of removing one last doubt, when a rustling of the hangings, which made him hastily toss the letter back and close the smoothly-running drawer of the lacquer table, warned him that somebody had entered the room.