The Indiscretion of the Duchess Part 19

"There is nothing else for it!" I exclaimed, as I set out for the hotel.

"I'll go back to England."

I could not resist the conclusion that my presence in Avranches was no longer demanded. The d.u.c.h.ess had, on the one hand, arrived at a sort of understanding with her husband; while she had, on the other, contrived to create a very considerable misunderstanding with me. She had shown no grat.i.tude for my efforts, and made no allowance for the mistakes which, possibly, I had committed. She had behaved so unreasonably as to release me from any obligation. As to Marie Delha.s.se, I had had enough (so I declared in the hasty disgust my temper engendered) of Quixotic endeavors to rescue people who, had they any moral resolution, could well rescue themselves. There was only one thing left which I might with dignity undertake--and that was to put as many miles as I could between the scene of my unappreciated labors and myself. This I determined to do the very next day, after handing back this abominable necklace with as little obvious appearance of absurdity as the action would permit.

It was six o'clock when I reached the hotel and walked straight up to my room in sulky isolation, looking neither to right nor left, and exchanging a word with n.o.body. I tossed the red box down on the table, and flung myself into an armchair. I had half a mind to send the box down to Marie Delha.s.se by the waiter--with my compliments; but my ill-humor did not carry me so far as thus to risk betraying her to her mother, and I perceived that I must have one more interview with her--and the sooner the better. I rang the bell, meaning to see if I could elicit from the waiter any information as to the state of affairs on the first floor and the prospect of finding Marie alone for ten minutes.

I rang once--twice--thrice; the third was a mighty pull, and had at last the effect of bringing up my friend the waiter, breathless, hot, and disheveled.

"Why do you keep me waiting like this?" I asked sternly.

His puffs and pants prevented him from answering for a full half-minute.

"I was busy on the first floor, sir," he protested at last. "I came at the very earliest moment."

"What's going on on the first floor?"

"The lady is in a great hurry, sir. She is going away, sir. She has been taking a hasty meal, and her carriage is ordered to be round at the door this very minute. And all the luggage had to be carried down, and--"

I walked to the window, and, putting my head out, saw a closed carriage, with four trunks and some smaller packages on the roof, standing at the door.

"Where are they going?" I asked, turning round.

The waiter was gone! A bell ringing violently from below explained his disappearance, but did not soothe my annoyance. I rang my bell very forcibly again: the action was a welcome vent for my temper. Turning back to the window, I found the carriage still there. A second or two later, Mme. Delha.s.se, attended by the waiter who ought to have been looking after me, came out of the hotel and got into the carriage. She spoke to the waiter, and appeared to give him money. He bowed and closed the door. The driver started his horses and made off at a rapid pace toward the carriage-road down the hill. I watched till the vehicle was out of sight and then drew my head in, giving a low puzzled whistle and forgetting the better part of my irritation in the interest of this new development.

Where was the old witch going--and why was she going alone?

Again I rang my bell; but the waiter was at the door before it ceased tinkling.

"Where's she going to?" I asked.

"To the house of the Duke of Saint-Maclou, sir," he answered, wiping his brow and sighing for relief that he had got rid of her.

"And the young lady--where is she?"

"She has already gone, sir."

"Already gone!" I cried. "Gone where? Gone when?"

"About two hours ago, sir--very soon after I saw you go out, sir--a messenger brought a letter for the young lady. I took it upstairs; she was alone when I entered. When she looked at the address, sir, she made a little exclamation, and tore the note open in a manner that showed great agitation. She read it; and when she had read it stood still, holding it in her hand for a minute or two. She had turned pale and breathed quickly.

Then she signed to me with her hand to go. But she stopped me with another gesture, and--and then, sir--"

"Well, well, get on!" I cried.

"Then, sir, she asked if you were in the hotel, and I said no--you had gone out, I did not know where. Upon that, she walked to the window, and stood looking out for a time. Then she turned round to me, and said: 'My mother was fatigued by her walk, and is sleeping. I am going out, but I do not wish her disturbed. I will write a note of explanation. Be so good as to cause it to be given to her when she wakes.' She was calm then, sir; she sat down and wrote, and sealed the note and gave it to me. Then she caught up her hat, which lay on the table, and her gloves; and then, sir, she walked out of the hotel."

"Which way did she go?"

"She went, sir, as if she were making for the footpath down the hill. An hour or more pa.s.sed, and then madame's bell rang. I ran up and, finding her in the sitting room, I gave her the note."

"And what did she say?"

"She read it, and cried 'Ah!' in great satisfaction, and immediately ordered a carriage and that the maid should pack all her luggage and the young lady's. Oh! she was in a great hurry, and in the best of spirits; and she pressed us on so that I was not able to attend properly to you, sir. And finally, as you saw, she drove off to the house of the duke, still in high good humor."

The waiter paused. I sat silent in thought.

"Is there anything else you wish to know, sir?" asked the waiter.

Then my much-tried temper gave way again.

"I want to know what the devil it all means!" I roared.

The waiter drew near, wearing a very sympathetic expression. I knew that he had always put me down as an admirer of Marie Delha.s.se. He saw in me now a beaten rival. Curiously I had something of the feeling myself.

"There is one thing, sir," said he. "The stable-boy told me. The message for Mlle. Delha.s.se was brought from a carriage which waited at the bottom of the hill, out of sight of the town. And--well, sir, the servants wore no livery; but the boy declares that the horses were those of the Duke of Saint-Maclou."

I muttered angrily to myself. The waiter, discreetly ignoring my words, continued:

"And, indeed, sir, madame expected to meet her daughter. For I chanced to ask her if she would take with her a bouquet of roses which she had purchased in the town, and she answered: 'Give them to me. My daughter will like to have them.'"

The waiter's conclusion was obvious. And yet I did not accept it. For why, if Marie were going to the duke's, should she not have aroused her mother and gone with her? That the duke had sent his carriage for her was likely enough; that he would cause it to wait outside the town was not impossible; that Marie had told her mother that she had gone to the duke's was also clear from that lady's triumphant demeanor. But that she had in reality gone, I could not believe. A sudden thought struck me.

"Did Mlle. Delha.s.se," I asked, "send any answer to the note that came from the carriage?"

"Ah, sir, I forgot. Certainly. She wrote an answer, and the messenger carried it away with him."

"And did the boy you speak of see anything more of the carriage?"

"He did not pa.s.s that way again, sir."

My mind was now on the track of Marie's device. The duke had sent his carriage to fetch her. She, left alone, unable to turn to me for guidance, determined not to go; afraid to defy him--more afraid, no doubt, because she could no longer produce the necklace--had played a neat trick. She must have sent a message to the duke that she would come with her mother immediately that the necessary preparations could be made; she had then written a note to her mother to tell her that she had gone in the duke's carriage and looked to her mother to follow her. And having thus thrown both parties on a false scent, she had put on her hat and walked quietly out of the hotel. But, then, where had she walked to? My chain of inference was broken by that missing link. I looked up at the waiter. And then I cursed my carelessness. For the waiter's eyes were no longer fixed on my face, but were fastened in eloquent curiosity on the red box which lay on my table. To my apprehensive fancy the Cardinal's Necklace seemed to glitter through the case. That did not of course happen; but a jewel case is easy to recognize, and I knew in a moment that the waiter discerned the presence of precious stones. Our eyes met. In my puzzle I could do nothing but smile feebly and apologetically. The waiter smiled also--but his was a smile of compa.s.sion and condolence. He took a step nearer to me, and with infinite sympathy in his tone observed:

"Ah, well, sir, do not despair! A gentleman like you will soon find another lady to value the present more."

In spite of my vanity--and I was certainly not presenting myself in a very triumphant guise to the waiter's imagination--I jumped at the mistake.

"They are capricious creatures!" said I with a shrug. "I'll trouble myself no more about them."

"You're right, sir, you're right. It's one one day, and another another.

It's a pity, sir, to waste thought on them--much more, good money. You will dine to-night, sir?" and his tone took a consolatory inflection.

"Certainly I will dine," said I; and with a last nod of intelligence and commiseration, he withdrew.

And then I leaped, like a wildcat, on the box that contained the Cardinal's Necklace, intent on stowing it away again in the seclusion of my coat-pocket. But again I stood with it in my hand--struck still with the thought that I could not now return it to Marie Delha.s.se, that she had vanished leaving it on my hands, and that, in all likelihood, in three or four hours' time the Duke of Saint-Maclou would be scouring the country and setting every spring in motion in the effort to find the truant lady, and--what I thought he would be at least anxious about--the truant necklace. For to give your family heirlooms away without recompense is a vexatious thing; and ladies who accept them and vanish with them into s.p.a.ce can claim but small consideration. And, moreover, if the missing property chance to be found in the possession of a gentleman who is reluctant to explain his presence, who has masqueraded as a groom with intent to deceive the owner of the said property, and has no visible business to bring or keep him on the spot at all--when all this happens, it is apt to look very awkward for that gentleman.

"You will regret it if you don't start with me;" so said Gustave de Berensac. The present was one of the moments in which I heartily agreed with his prescient prophecy. Human nature is a poor thing. To speak candidly, I cannot recollect that, amid my own selfish perplexities, I spared more than one brief moment to gladness that Marie Delha.s.se had eluded the pursuit of the Duke of Saint-Maclou. But I spared another to wis.h.i.+ng that she had thought of telling me to what haven she was bound.

CHAPTER XI.