The Modern Library Children's Classics
Page 96
“What horses?” Athos demanded.
“Two horses that Monsieur de Tréville puts at my disposal,” D’Artagnan explained suavely. “I am off for a jaunt to Saint-Germain.”
“What on earth are you going to do at Saint-Germain?” Athos inquired.
D’Artagnan told him how he had seen the lady of Meung. It was not she, beautiful though she was, whom he sought to find again but his arch-enemy, the man in the black cloak, the man with the scar near his temple.
“I see,” Athos observed contemptuously, his manner suggesting a vast pity for humanity in general. “You are in love with this lady as deeply as you were once in love with Madame Bonacieux.”
“Nonsense, Athos! All I want is to clear up the mystery in which she plays a part. I cannot explain why, but I have a curious feeling that this woman, strangers though we are, exercises a powerful influence upon my life.”
“Undoubtedly, D’Artagnan. Why bother to look for a woman once she is lost? Madame Bonacieux is lost, so much the worse for her. Let her shift for herself.”
“No, Athos, you are mistaken. I love my poor Constance more than ever. Alas, if I knew where she was, I would cheerfully go to the ends of the earth to save her from her enemies. But I know nothing; all my investigations have proved useless. And after all a man must find amusement somewhere.”
“Very well, amuse yourself with Milady, my dear fellow; I wish you the best of luck.”
“Come, Athos, instead of shutting yourself up here as though you were under arrest, why not go for a ride with me through the forest of Saint-Germain?”
“My dear D’Artagnan, I ride when I own a horse. When I have none, I walk.”
Such misanthropy would have offended D’Artagnan from any one but Athos. He smiled.
“That is where we differ,” he said, “I am not so proud as you; I ride any nag I can get. Good-bye, Athos.”
“Good-bye to you, lad!” the musketeer replied, motioning to Grimaud to uncork the bottle he had just brought in.
D’Artagnan and Planchet set off briskly toward Saint-Germain. All along the road the young Gascon reflected upon what Athos had said about Madame Bonacieux. Although not given to sentimentality, D’Artagnan had been deeply stirred by the beauty and charm and loyalty of the haberdasher’s wife. As he said, he was ready to go to the ends of the earth in quest of her; but the earth being round has very many ends, so he knew not which way to turn. Meanwhile he proposed to investigate Milady. She had spoken to the man in the black cloak, therefore she must know him. And D’Artagnan was certain that the man in the black coat had carried off Madame Bonacieux the second time, just as he had carried her off the first. Thus when D’Artagnan told himself that by going in search of Milady he was going in search of Constance, he was lying only by half, which does not make a man much of a liar.
Lost in these thoughts and occasionally spurring on his horse in his impatience of a solution, D’Artagnan soon reached Saint-Germain. He passed the lodge where Louis XV was to be born ten years later. Then as he rode up a quiet, deserted street, looking to right and left in hope of finding some trace of the beautiful Englishwoman, suddenly he drew up his horse. On the ground floor of a pretty house which, as was then the fashion, had no window looking out onto the street, he fancied he recognized a familiar face. Immediately Planchet verified his suspicion by drawing D’Artagnan’s attention to that face rising up from amid the flowers lining a small terrace.
“Look, Monsieur,” Planchet said, “do you recall that gaping, blinking face?”
“I cannot say for sure, I thought I—”
“I know, Monsieur, it’s poor old Lubin, the lackey of the Comte de Vardes whose score you settled so nicely a month ago at Calais on the road to the Governor’s country house!”
“Of course, so it is. Now I recognize him. Do you suppose he will recognize you?”
“I doubt it, Monsieur. He was having much too hard a time of it to remember who it was drubbed him.”
“Well, go talk to the fellow and try to find out if his master is dead.”
Planchet dismounted and walked up to Lubin, who, as he had expected, failed to identify him. The two lackeys engaged in friendly conversation while D’Artagnan turned the two horses into a lane, circled the house, and returned to listen to the conference from behind a hedge of hazel bushes. Presently he heard the rumble of a carriage approaching and he saw Milady’s coach draw up in front of him. He was absolutely certain it was she because he had an unobstructed view of her. D’Artagnan crouched down to avoid observation.
Milady leaned out of the window, her lovely blonde head clearly visible, to give orders to her maid, a most attractive girl in her early twenties, spry and alert, the typical soubrette of a lady of quality. The maid jumped from the step upon which, according to the custom of the times, she had been sitting, and made for the terrace where D’Artagnan had first caught sight of Lubin.
D’Artagnan followed the girl’s progress with his eyes when suddenly an order from within the house summoned Lubin indoors; Planchet, left alone, stared about him to try to find out which way his master had gone. The maid then approached Planchet, whom she mistook for Lubin, and handed him a note.
“This is for your master,” she said.
“For my master?” Planchet replied in astonishment.
“Yes. The message is urgent, too. Take it quickly.”
Then she ran back to the carriage which had turned around and was headed homeward, jumped onto the step, and the carriage drove off.
Planchet twirled the note between his fingers. Then, accustomed as he was to passive obedience, he jumped down from the terrace, ran toward the lane and met D’Artagnan some sixty feet away.
“A note for you, Monsieur.”
“For me? Are you sure?”
“Certainly, Monsieur. The soubrette said: ‘For your master!’ I have no other master but you, so … A fetching little baggage, that maid!”
D’Artagnan opened the letter and read:
A person who takes more interest in you than she is willing to confess, wishes to know on what day it would suit you to take a walk in the forest of Saint-Germain.
Tomorrow at the Hostelry of the field of the Cloth of Gold a lackey in black and red livery will await your reply “Ha, things are warming up considerably!” D’Artagnan exclaimed. “It seems that both Milady and I are anxious about the health of the same person. Tell me, Planchet, how is our good Monsieur de Vardes? Apparently very much alive.”
“Indeed yes, Monsieur, that is as alive as can be expected, what with the wounds of four neat sword-thrusts. I fear the dear gentleman is still very weak thanks to your treatment, for he has lost buckets of blood. As I expected, Lubin did not recognize me. He told me our adventure from beginning to end.”
“Bravo, Planchet, you are the monarch of lackeys. Now to horse again and let us overtake that carriage.”
This did not take long; within a few minutes they sighted the carriage drawn up by the roadside, an elegantly dressed cavalier at the door. The conversation between Milady and the gentleman was so animated that D’Artagnan stopped on the far side of the carriage without being noticed by anyone but the pretty soubrette. Milady and the stranger were talking in English, a language D’Artagnan did not understand. But from the intonation and pitch of her voice, D’Artagnan easily perceived that the beautiful Englishwoman was very angry indeed. And she concluded her remarks with a gesture that left him in no uncertainty about the nature of her feelings, as she rapped her fan so forcefully on her knee that the delicate feminine weapon broke into a thousand pieces.
The cavalier laughed heartily which seemed still further to exasperate Milady. D’Artagnan, believing it was high time he intervene, drew up to the door on his side of the carriage and, doffing his hat respectfully, said:
“Madame, may I offer you my services? I notice this gentleman has incurred your displeasure. Speak but one word, Madame, and I will undertake to chastise him for his lack of courtesy.”
“Monsieur,” she replied in excellent French, “I should welcome your protection but for the fact that the person I am quarreling with is my brother.”
“Pray excuse me, then, Madame; you must realize I was ignorant of that.”
The stranger bent low over his horse’s head to look through the carriage window.
“What is this simpleton talking about?” he asked. “Why doesn’t he go about his business?”
D’Artagnan in turn leaned down to look through the carriage window from his side, and:
“Simpleton, yourself!” he declared. “I am staying here because such is my good pleasure.”
The cavalier spoke a few words in English to his sister.
“I am addressing you in French,” D’Artagnan remonstrated. “Pray do me the favor of replying in the same language. You may be Madame’s brother but you are not mine, thank God!”
It might be thought that Milady, timid as women generally are, would interfere at this point in order to prevent the quarrel from going too far. On the contrary, she threw herself back in the carriage and called coolly to the coachman:
“Home, Basque, at once!”
As the carriage drew away, the pretty soubrette, clearly impressed by D’Artagnan’s good looks, cast an anxious glance of farewell at him. The horses trotted off, leaving the two men face to face with no material obstacle between them.
The cavalier made a move as if to follow the carriage but D’Artagnan caught at his bridle and stopped him dead. For, angry as he was, he was further enraged on recognizing in the stranger the Englishman of Amiens who had won his horse outright from Athos and come perilously close to winning D’Artagnan’s diamond.
“Monsieur,” D’Artagnan cried, “you seem to be even more of a simpleton than I am: you have forgotten a previous quarrel that we have not yet settled.”
“So it is you, my friend,” the Englishman answered, recognizing our Gascon. “It looks as though you must always be playing at some game or other.”
“Indeed, yes. You may recall it is time I had my inning. I am eager to find out, Monsieur, whether you handle a sword as adroitly as you handle a dice box?”
“You can see perfectly well that I carry no sword. Do you enjoy playing the braggart before a man unarmed?”
“I trust you have a sword at home, Monsieur. If not, I happen to have two and we can dice for who is to wield which.”
“That is quite needless,” the Englishman answered haughtily. “I have plenty of such playthings.”
“Well then, Monsieur, pray pick out your longest toy and let me see the color of it this evening.”
“Where, if you please?”
“Behind the Luxembourg, a delightful place indicated in every way for the game I suggest we play.”
“Agreed: I shall be there.”
“Your hour?”
“Six o’clock.”
“By the by, Monsieur, you doubtless have one or two friends to second you?”
“I have three who will be honored to join in our amusement.”
“Three? Splendid! The very thing! I too have three friends who will support me. I might add that three is my lucky number.”
“May I ask who you are, Monsieur?”
“I am Monsieur D’Artagnan, a Gascon gentleman, serving in the Royal Guards; my Commanding Officer is Monsieur des Essarts.”
“I am Lord Winter, Baron of Sheffield.”
“Your servant, Monsieur le Baron, though your names are hard to remember.”
Whereupon D’Artagnan bowed, set spurs to his horse and galloped off toward Paris. As usual when a crisis occurred he made straight for the Rue Férou where he found Athos reclining on a large sofa, waiting, as he said, for his campaign equipment to come to find him. D’Artagnan related all that had happened save the circumstance of Milady’s letter to Monsieur de Vardes.
Athos was delighted to learn that he was to fight against an Englishman; it represented his sole ambition and delight in life. They lost no time in dispatching the lackeys for Porthos and Aramis who were speedily informed of the situation.
Porthos drew his sword from his scabbard and made passes at the wall, springing back from time to time to flex his knees like a dancer … Aramis, who was still working on his poem, closeted himself in the room Athos used for a study, requesting to be left alone until the moment came to draw swords … Athos motioned to Grimaud for a bottle … and D’Artagnan, elaborating a promising and pleasurable little plan of his own, smiled now and again in anticipation of future joys.…
XXXI
ENGLISHMEN AND FRENCHMEN
At the appointed hour our four friends and their lackeys repaired behind the Palais du Luxembourg to an inclosure used as grazing ground for goats. Athos gave the herder a coin to insure his withdrawal; the lackeys were posted as sentinels. Soon another party of four drew up in a coach, entered the enclosure and joined the musketeers. Then, according to English custom, introductions were in order.
The Englishmen, all men of high rank, were not only surprised but considerably disturbed by the odd names of their adversaries. When Athos, Porthos and Aramis announced their names Lord Winter objected.
“But, gentlemen, we do not know who you are. We refuse to fight against persons with such names; they are names of shepherds!”
“As you have guessed, Milord, these are but names we have assumed,” Athos explained.
“That makes us the more eager to know your real names,” the Englishman answered.
“You were perfectly willing to gamble with us, whatever our names,” Athos objected. “In fact, you won our horses without being particularly formal about it.”
“True, but we risked only our money; now we are risking our lives. A gentleman gambles with anybody, he fights only with his fellow-gentlemen.”
“True enough!” Athos conceded, and, drawing his own adversary aside, he whispered his real name. Porthos and Aramis followed suit and three of the four Englishmen were convinced they were not dealing with shepherds.
“Are you satisfied?” Athos asked his adversary. “Do you consider me noble enough to condescend to cross swords with me?”
“Certainly, Monsieur,” said the Englishman, bowing.
“Well then, may I tell you something?” Athos asked coldly.
“If you will.”
“I say this: You would have done better not to ask me who I am.”
“Pray why?”
“Because I am down on the records as a dead man and I propose to remain so. I shall therefore be compelled to kill you in order to keep my life a secret.”
The Englishman smiled as at a joke but Athos spoke in deadly earnest.
“Are you ready, gentlemen?” Athos asked and, as friend and foe agreed, “On guard, then!” he cried.
At once eight swords flashed across the rays of the setting sun and the combat began with a fury natural between men who had double reason to be vindictive. Athos fenced calmly and methodically as at a practice bout in a fencing hall; Porthos, sobered by his mishap at Chantilly, sparred with careful strategy; Aramis, Canto III of his poem unfinished, hastened to get done with the fighting.
Athos was the first to dispatch his adversary. One thrust sufficed; as he had prophesied, the Englishman fell dead, pierced through the heart. Porthos was the second to settle his opponent, who fell to the grass with a wound in the thigh. The Englishman meekly surrendered his sword and Porthos, picking him up in his arms, carried him back to his coach. Aramis harried his opponent so forcefully that the Englishman, having retreated over fifty paces, took frankly to his heels amid the jeers of the lackeys.
As for D’Artagnan, he first stood purely and simply on the defensive; eventually, when he saw he had exhausted his opponent, he disarmed him with a flanconade, a turn of the wrist in quarto. The Englishman, swordless, took a few steps backward, but his foot slipped and he fell to the ground. One leap and D’Artagnan was on him, his sword point on
the other’s throat.
“I could kill you, Monsieur,” cried the Gascon, “for you are at my mercy. But I prefer to grant you your life for the sake of your sister.”
D’Artagnan smiled as widely in triumph of the fulfilment of his plans as he had smiled in hatching them.
Delighted with his opponent’s courtesy, the Englishman rose, embraced D’Artagnan, shook hands all round and patted the three musketeers on the back. Then, since Porthos had already carried his adversary back to an alarmed English coachman and Aramis had put his Englishman to flight, they turned their attention to the dead man.
As Porthos and Aramis undressed him, hoping desperately that he was not mortally wounded, a heavy purse fell to the ground. D’Artagnan picked it up and handed it to Lord Winter.
“What the devil shall I do with that?” the Englishman asked.
“Will you be so kind as to return it to his family?”
“His family would not be interested,” the Englishman answered. “His death brings them fifteen thousand louis a year. Give the purse to your lackeys for a tip.”
D’Artagnan pocketed it.
“And now my friend, if I may call you so,” Lord Winter said to D’Artagnan, “I shall present you to my sister, Lady Clark, this very evening. I should like her to feel as cordially toward you as I do. She is not out of favor at Court; indeed, she might well put in a word for you that might serve in the future.”
D’Artagnan, blushing, made a bow. Suddenly Athos came up to him.
“What about the purse?” he whispered.
“I was planning to give it to you, my dear Athos.”
“To me? Why, pray?”
“Because you killed him. The spoils of victory—”
“Can you imagine me stripping an enemy? What do you take me for?”
“You know the customs and fortunes of war,” D’Artagnan explained. “Do not those customs apply to dueling?”
“I never did that even on the battlefield!”
Porthos shrugged his shoulders; Aramis, pursing his lips, showed approval.