The Duke's Motto: A Melodrama

"Come to the window, dear;Listen and lean while I sayA Romany word in your ear,And whistle your heart away."

XIII

CONFIDENCES

Before she had finished the last line of the verse the curtains of a window in the second story of the Inn parted and another young girl showed herself through the lattice. This girl was dark-haired like the gypsy, and bright-eyed like the gypsy, and, like the gypsy, she seemed to be some eighteen years of age, but beyond these obvious features resemblance ceased. The girl who looked down from the window of the Inn was of a slenderer shape than the gypsy, of a more delicate complexion, of a grace and bearing that suggested different breeding and another race than that of the more exuberant Gitana. The girl at the window spoke in a clear, sweet voice to the singer: "I thought it must be you, Flora."

Flora called back to her: "Come down to me, Gabrielle."

The girl Gabrielle shook her head. "Henri does not wish me to go abroad while he is absent."

Flora made a little face. "Our friends do keep us prisoners. There is not a soul about."

Gabrielle smiled and consented. "I will come for a moment."

She withdrew from the window, and in a few minutes she appeared at the Inn door and joined her impatient friend. Flora kissed her affectionately, and asked, between kisses: "Are you not angry with Henri for keeping you thus caged?"

Gabrielle smiled an amused denial. "How could I be angry with Henri? He has good reasons for his deeds. We are in great danger. We have enemies."

Flora stared at her wild-eyed. "Who are your enemies?"

Gabrielle looked about her, as if to be assured that no one was within hearing, and then whispered into Flora’s ear: "Henri will never tell me, but they hunt us down. Ever since I was a child we have fled from place to place, hiding. I have often been roused at night by clash of swords and Henri’s voice, crying: ’I am here!’ But his sword is always the strongest, and we have always escaped."

"Surely you will be safe in Paris," Flora said.

Gabrielle sighed. "Why, it seems we dare not enter Paris yet. When we left Madrid in your company Henri told me we were journeying to Paris, but now we linger here outside the walls until Henri has seen some one – I know not who; and while we linger here I must keep in-doors."

Flora looked mischievous. "Perhaps Henri is jealous, and tells this tale to keep you to himself."

Gabrielle sighed again: "Henri only thinks of me as a child."

Flora still was mischievous. "But you know you are not his child, and I am sure you do not think of him as a father."

Gabrielle turned upon her friend with an air of dainty imperiousness. "Flora, Flora, you may be a witch, but there are some thoughts of mine you must not presume to read."

Flora laughed. "You command like a great lady. ’Must not,’ indeed, and ’presume’! Let me tell you, pretty Gabrielle, that I am the great lady here."

Gabrielle was instantly winning and tender again. "You are my sweet friend, and I did not mean to command you."

Flora laughed good-humoredly. "You should have seen your air of greatness. But I am speaking seriously. I believe I am the long-lost daughter of a great lord."

Gabrielle stared, amazed. "Really, Flora, really? Are you in earnest? Tell me all about it."

Flora looked like a gypsy sphinx. "Oh, but I may not. I should not have spoken of it at all, but I am so mad and merry at the good news that out it slipped."

Gabrielle softly patted her cheek. "I am glad of anything that makes you happy."

Flora tried to look magnificent. "Do not you envy me? Would not you like to be a great lady, too? I am afraid you look more like it than I do."

Gabrielle spoke again in a whisper: "I will tell you my secret in return for yours. So long as I can be by Henri’s side I envy no one – ask nothing better of fortune."

Flora smiled knowingly. "Do you call that a secret? I have known that ever since I first saw you look at him."

Gabrielle looked pained. "Am I so immodest a minion?"

Flora protested: "No, no. But your eyes are traitors and tell me tales."

"I must be wary," Gabrielle said, "that they tell no tales to – to others."

Flora shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Lovers are droll. A maid may love a man, and a man may love a maid, and neither know that the other is sick of the same pip, poor fowls."

"What do you mean, witch?" Gabrielle questioned.

Flora twirled a pirouette before she replied: "Nothing – less than nothing. I dance here by-and-by to please a grandee. Will you peep through your lattice?"

"Perhaps," Gabrielle answered, cautiously. Then she gave a little start. "Some one is coming," she said, and, indeed, some one was coming. A man had just mounted the bridge from the Neuilly road and stood there for an instant surveying the two girls. He was a modish young gentleman, very splendidly attired, who carried himself with a dainty insolence, and he now came slowly towards the girls with an amiable salutation.

"Exquisite ladies," he said, "I give you good-day."

At the sound of his voice and the sight of his figure Gabrielle had disappeared into the Inn as quickly as ever rabbit disappeared into its hole. Flora had no less nimbly run down to the caravan; but when she reached it she paused on the first step, attracted by the appearance of the handsomely dressed young gentleman, who appealed to her earnestly: "Why do you scatter so rashly? I should be delighted to talk with you."

Flora mocked him: "Perhaps we do not want to talk to you."

The new-comer would not admit the possibility. "Impossible," he protested. "Let me present myself. I am the Marquis de Chavernay. I am very diverting. I can make love to more ladies at the same time than any gentleman of my age at court."

Flora laughed. "Amiable accomplishment," she said, mockingly; but while she mocked her quick eyes were carefully noting every particular of the stranger’s appearance, from the exquisite laces at his throat and wrists to the jewels on his fingers, and finding all very much to her taste, and the appropriate adornments for a young gentleman of so gallant a carriage and so pleasantly impertinent a face. She had never cast her eyes upon any youth in Madrid that had captivated her fancy so mightily, and she thought to herself that when the time came for her to have a lover here was the very lover she would choose. And then she remembered, with a fluttering heart, that she was likely to become a great lady and the peer of this fascinating dandiprat. As for him, he returned her gaze with a bold stare of approval.

The Marquis de Chavernay agitated his dainty hands in delicate assurance. "Agreeable, believe me," he asserted; and then asked: "Why has your sister nymph retreated from the field? I could entertain the pair of you."

As Flora’s only answer to this assurance was a further, though perhaps not very earnest, effort to enter the caravan, he restrained her with appealing voice and gesture: "Please do not go."

Flora looked at him quizzically. "Why should I stay, pretty gentleman?"

The little marquis made her a bow. "Because you can do me a service, pretty lady. Is there an inn hereabouts at the sign of the Three Graces?"

Flora was curious. "Why do you want to know?"

The little marquis wore a mysterious look, as if all the political secrets of the period were shut in his heart or head, and he lowered his voice as he answered: "Because I am commissioned to ascertain its whereabouts for a friend."

Flora laughed, and pointed to the Inn into which Gabrielle had retreated. "You have not far to seek to oblige your friend," she said. "There it stands behind you."

Chavernay swung round on his heels, and surveyed the modest little hostelry with amusement. "The shelter of the fugitive nymph. Oh, now I understand my friend’s anxiety! Pretty child, my duty forces me to leave you when my inclination would fling me into your arms. If I may wait upon you later – "

This time Flora had evidently made up her mind that it would be indiscreet of her further to prolong the colloquy. She dipped him a courtesy, half mocking and half respectful, wished him good-day, and, diving into the caravan, slammed the door in his face. The little marquis seemed at first astonished at the austerity of the gypsy girl.

"Dido retires to her cave," he thought to himself. "Shall Æneas pursue?" He made for a moment as if to advance and force his company upon the seeming reluctant damsel. Then his volatile thoughts flickered back to the girl who had entered the Inn. "Methinks," he reflected, "I would as soon play Paris to yonder Helen. But I must not keep his Majesty waiting. No wonder he seeks the Inn of the Three Graces." For it was plain to the little gentleman that he had now discovered the reason why his august master and sovereign had done him the honor to select him as scout to find out the whereabouts of the unknown tavern.

XIV

"I AM HERE!"

Pleased at the success of his mission, although disappointed at not having made further progress in the graces of the two girls whom he was pleased to regard as shepherdesses, he cast his eye first to the shut door of the caravan and then to the silent face of the tavern, and was about to rejoin his illustrious master with all speed when his attention was arrested by a singular figure advancing towards him from the Paris road. This person was tall and thin and bony, with a weakly amiable face fringed with flaxen hair, and timid eyes that blinked under pink eyelids. He was dressed in black clothes of an extreme shabbiness, and the only distinguishing feature of his appearance was a particularly long and formidable sword that flapped against his calves. The fellow was at once so fantastic and so ridiculous that Chavernay, whose sense of humor was always lively, regarded him with much curiosity and at the same time with affected dismay.

"Is this ogre," he wondered to himself, "one of the protecting giants who guard the fair nymphs of this place, or is he rather some cruel guardian appointed by the enchanter, who denies them intercourse with agreeable mankind?" Thus Chavernay mused, affecting the fancies of some fashionable romance; and then, finding that his attentions appeared strangely to embarrass the angular individual in black, he turned on his heels to make for the bridge, and again came to a halt, for on the bridge appeared another figure as grotesque as the first-comer, but grotesque in a wholly different manner.

This second stranger was as burly as the first was lean, and as gaudy in his apparel as the first was simple. The petals of the iris, the plumes of the peacock seemed to have been pillaged by him for the colors that made up his variegated wardrobe. A purple pourpoint, crimson breeches, an amber-colored cloak, and a huge hat with a blue feather set off a figure of extravagantly martial presence. Where the face of the first-comer was pale, insignificant, and timid, that of the second-comer was ruddy, assertive, and bold. The only point in common with his predecessor was that he, too, swung at his side a monstrous rapier. The sight of this whimsical stranger was too much for Chavernay’s self-restraint, and he burst into a hearty fit of laughter, which he made no effort to control.

"What a scarecrow!" he muttered, looking back at the individual in black. "What a gorgon!" he continued, as his eyes travelled to the man in motley. "Gog and Magog, by Heavens!" he commented, as he surveyed the astonishing pair.

Then, still laughing, he ran across the bridge and left the two objects of his mirth glaring after him in indignation. Indeed, so indignant were they, and so steadily did they keep their angry eyes fixed upon the retreating figure of the marquis, while each continued his original course of progression, that the two men, heedless of each other, ran into each other with an awkward thump that recalled to each of them the fact that there were other persons in the world as well as an impertinent gentleman with nimble heels. The man in black and the man in many colors each clapped a hand to a sword-hilt, only to withdraw it instantly and extend it in sign of amicable greeting.

"Passepoil!" cried the man in many colors.

"Cocardasse!" cried the man in black.

"To my arms, brother, to my arms!" cried Cocardasse, and in a moment the amazing pair were clasped in each other’s embrace.

"Is it really you?" said Cocardasse, when he thought the embrace had lasted long enough, holding Passepoil firmly by the shoulders and gazing fixedly into his pale, pathetic face.

Passepoil nodded. "Truly. What red star guides you to Paris?"

Cocardasse dropped his voice to a whisper. "I had a letter."

Passepoil whispered in reply: "So had I."

Cocardasse amplified: "My letter told me to be outside the Inn of the Three Graces, near Neuilly, on a certain day – this day – to serve the Prince of Gonzague."

Passepoil nodded again. "So did mine."

Cocardasse continued: "Mine enclosed a draft on the Bank of Marseilles to pay expenses."

Passepoil noted a point of difference: "Mine was on the Bank of Calais."

"I suppose Gonzague wants all that are left of us," Cocardasse said, thoughtfully.

Passepoil sighed significantly. "There aren’t many."

Cocardasse looked as gloomy as was possible for one of his rubicund countenance and jolly bearing. "Lagardere has kept his word."

"Staupitz was killed at Seville," Passepoil murmured, as one who begins a catalogue of disasters.

Cocardasse continued: "Faenza was killed at Burgos."

Passepoil went on: "Saldagno at Toledo."

Cocardasse took up the tale: "Pinto at Valladolid."

Passepoil concluded the catalogue: "Joel at Grenada, Pepe at Cordova."

"All with the same wound," Cocardasse commented, with a curious solemnity in his habitually jovial voice.

Passepoil added, lugubriously: "The thrust between the eyes."

Cocardasse summed up, significantly: "The thrust of Nevers."

The pair were silent for an instant, looking at each other with something like dismay upon their faces, and their minds were evidently busy with old days and old dangers.

Passepoil broke the silence. "They didn’t make much by their blood-money."

"Yes," said Cocardasse; "but we, who refused to hunt Lagardere, we are alive."

Passepoil cast a melancholy glance over his own dingy habiliments and then over the garments of Cocardasse, garments which, although glowing enough in color, were over-darned and over-patched to suggest opulence. "In a manner," he said, dryly.

Cocardasse drew himself up proudly and slapped his chest. "Poor but honest."

Passepoil allowed a faint smile, expressive of satisfaction, to steal over his melancholy countenance. "Thank Heaven, in Paris we can’t meet Lagardere."

Cocardasse appeared plainly to share the pleasure of his old friend. "An exile dare not return," he said, emphatically, with the air of a man who feels sure of himself and of his words. But it is the way of destiny very often, even when a man is surest of himself and surest of his words, to interpose some disturbing factor in his confident calculations, to make some unexpected move upon the chess-board of existence, which altogether baffles his plans and ruins his hopes. So many people had crossed the bridge that morning that it really seemed little less than probable that the appearance of a fresh pedestrian upon its arch could have any serious effect upon the satisfactory reflections of the two bravos. Yet at that moment a man did appear upon the bridge, who paused and surveyed Cocardasse and Passepoil, whose backs were towards him, with a significant smile.

The new-comer was humbly clad, very much in the fashion of one of those gypsies who had pitched their camp so close to the wayside tavern; but if the man’s clothes were something of the gypsy habit, he carried a sword under his ragged mantle, and it was plain from the man’s face that he was not a gypsy. His handsome, daring, humorous face, bronzed by many suns and lined a little by many experiences – a face that in its working mobility and calm inscrutability might possibly have been the countenance of a strolling player – was the face of a man still in the prime of life, and carrying his years as lightly as if he were still little more than a lad. He moved noiselessly from the bridge to the high-road, and came cautiously upon the swashbucklers at the very moment when Passepoil was saying, with a shiver: "I’m always afraid to hear Lagardere’s voice cry out Nevers’s motto."

Even on the instant the man in the gypsy habit pushed his way between the two bandits, laying a hand on each of their shoulders and saying three words: "I am here!"

Cocardasse and Passepoil fell apart, each with the same cry in the same amazed voice.

"Lagardere!" said Cocardasse, and his ruddy face paled.

"Lagardere!" said Passepoil, and his pale face flushed.

As for Lagardere, he laughed heartily at their confusion. "You are like scared children whose nurse hears bogey in the chimney."

Cocardasse strove to seem amused. "Children!" he said, with a forced laugh, and it was with a forced laugh that Passepoil repeated the word "Bogey."

For a moment the good-humor faded from the face of Lagardere, and he spoke grimly enough: "There were nine assassins in the moat at Caylus. How many are left now?"

"Only three," Cocardasse answered.

Passepoil was more precise. "Cocardasse and myself and Æsop."

Lagardere looked at them mockingly. "Doesn’t it strike you that Æsop will soon be alone?"

Cocardasse shuddered. "It’s no laughing matter."

Lagardere still continued to smile. "Vengeance sometimes wears a sprightly face and smiles while she strikes."

Passepoil was now a sickly green. "A very painful humor," he stammered.

There was an awkward pause, and then Cocardasse suddenly spoke in a decisive tone. "Captain, you have no right to kill us," he growled, and Passepoil, nodding his long head, repeated his companion’s phrase with Norman emphasis.

Lagardere looked from one to the other of the pair, and there was a twinkle in his eyes that reassured them. "Are you scared, old knaves? No explanations; let me speak. That night in Caylus, seventeen years ago, when the darkness quivered with swords, I did not meet your blades."

Cocardasse explained. "When you backed Nevers we took no part in the scuffle."

"Nor did we join in hunting you later," Passepoil added, hurriedly.

Lagardere’s face wore a look of satisfaction. "In all the tumult of that tragic night I thought I saw two figures standing apart – thought they might be, must be, my old friends. That is why I have sent for you."

"Sent for us?" Cocardasse echoed in astonishment.

"Was it you who – " Passepoil questioned, equally surprised.

"Why, of course it was," Lagardere answered. "Sit down and listen."

He led the way to the very table at which, such a short time before, Æsop had sat with Peyrolles. Now he and Cocardasse and Passepoil seated themselves, the two bravos side by side and still seemingly not a little perturbed, Lagardere opposite to them and studying them closely, resting his chin upon his hands.

"Ever since that night I have lived in Spain, hunted for a while by Gonzague’s gang, until, gradually, Gonzague’s gang ceased to exist."

"The thrust of Nevers," Cocardasse commented, quietly.

Lagardere smiled sadly. "Exactly. I had only one purpose in life – to avenge Nevers and to protect Nevers’s child. I abandoned my captaincy of irregulars when the late cardinal quarrelled with Spain. I did not like the late cardinal, but he was a Frenchman, and so was I. Since then I have lived as best I could, from hand to mouth, but always the child was safe, always the child was cared for, always the child was in some obscure hands that were kind and mild. Well, the child grew up, the beautiful child dawned into a beautiful girl, and still I kept her to myself, for I knew it was not safe to let Gonzague know that she lived. But the girl is a woman now; she is the age to inherit the territories of Nevers. The law will shield her from the treason of Gonzague. The king will protect the daughter of his friend."

The Norman shook his head, and the expression of his face was very dubious. "Gonzague is a powerful personage."

Cocardasse did not appear to be so much impressed by the power of Gonzague, but then it must be remembered that he came from Marseilles, while Passepoil arrived from Calais, which is more impressed by Paris. What the Gascon wanted to know was how his old friend and one-time enemy had contrived to appear so opportunely.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

Lagardere explained. "There was a gypsy lass in Madrid of whom by chance Gabrielle had made a friend. Poor girl, she could not have many friends. One day this girl told us that she and her tribe were going to Paris on some secret business of their own. Here was an opportunity for the exiles to return, unseen, to France. As gypsies, we travelled with the gypsies. I have been a strolling player, and as a strolling player I helped to pay my way. Before we left Madrid I wrote you those letters. As a result of all this delicate diplomacy, here I am, and here you are."

Cocardasse still was puzzled. "But our letters spoke of the service of Gonzague?"

Lagardere laughed as he answered the riddle. "Because, dear dullards, I want you to enter the service of Gonzague. If I return to France to right a wrong, I know the risk I run and the blessing of you two devils to help me."

Each of the two bravos extended his right hand. "Any help we can give," protested Cocardasse – "is yours," added Passepoil.

Lagardere clasped the extended hands confidently. "I take you at your words. Gonzague is at the fair yonder in attendance upon the king. You may get a chance to approach him. He can hardly refuse you his favor."

"Hardly," said Cocardasse, grimly, and – "hardly," echoed Passepoil, with a wry smile.

Lagardere rose to his feet. "Go now. I shall find means to let you know of my whereabouts and my purposes later. Till then – "

"Devotion!" cried Cocardasse.

"Discretion!" cried Passepoil, and each of the men saluted Lagardere with a military salute. Then the two bravos, linking arms, crossed the bridge together and made for the fair, conversing as they went of the wonderful chance that had brought Lagardere back to Paris and their own good-fortune in having been able to prove themselves innocent of complicity in the murder of Nevers.

When they were gone, Lagardere walked slowly up and down beneath the trees, reflecting deeply. He had gained one point in the desperate game he had set himself to play. He had found two adherents upon whose hands, whose hearts, and whose swords he could count with confidence, and he felt that he had succeeded, in a measure, in planting adherents of his own in the enemy’s camp. But he had another point in his desperate game to win that morning. He had written a letter, he had requested a favor, he had made an appointment. Immediately on arriving in the neighborhood of Paris he had caused a letter to be despatched to the king’s majesty – not to the king direct, indeed, but to the king’s private secretary, whom Lagardere knew by repute to be an honorable and loyal gentleman, who could be, as he believed, relied upon, if he credited the letter, to keep it as a secret between himself and his royal master. It was a bold hazard, although the letter was weighted with the talisman of a name that must needs recall an ancient friendship. Would that letter be answered? Would that favor be granted? Would that appointment be kept?

For some time Lagardere paced the grass thoughtfully; for some time – perhaps for a quarter of an hour – his solitude was undisturbed. At the end of that time he emerged from the shadow of the trees, and, standing at the foot of the bridge, surveyed the road that led to Neuilly. What he saw upon the road seemed to give him the greatest satisfaction. Three gentlemen were walking together in the direction of the Inn. One was a very dandy-like young gentleman, very foppishly habited, who seemed to skip through existence upon twinkling heels. Another was a stiff, soldierly looking man of more than middle age, whom Lagardere knew to be Captain Bonnivet, of the Royal Guards. The third, who was the first of the group, was a man who, though still in the early prime of life, looked as if he were fretted with the cares of many more years than were his lot. He was a slender personage, with a long, pale face. He was clad entirely in black, in emphasis of a mourning mind, and as he walked he coughed from time to time, and shivered and looked about him wistfully. But at the same time he seemed to affect a gay manner with his companions, as one that aired a determination to be entertained. It was seventeen years since Lagardere had seen the king, and he was saddened at the change that the years had made in him. He could only pray that those changing years had wrought no alteration in the affection of Louis of France for Louis of Nevers.