Part 15
De Guiche led Raoul into an adjoining room and made him sit down.
“How well you look!” he said to him.
“That is rather strange,” Raoul replied, “for I am far from cheerful.”
“It is the same with me, is it not, Raoul? Love goes ill.”
“So much the better, on your side, Count; the worst news, that which could sadden me most, would be good news.”
“Oh! then do not grieve, for not only am I very unhappy, but I also see happy people around me.”
“That is what I no longer understand,” Raoul answered; “explain, my friend, explain.”
“You shall understand. I have vainly fought against the feeling you saw born in me, grow in me, seize hold of me; I have called upon all counsel and all my strength at once; I have well considered the misfortune into which I was entering; I have sounded it, it is an abyss, I know it; but no matter, I shall pursue my path.”
“Madman! You cannot take one step further without willing your ruin today, your death tomorrow.”
“Come what may!”
“De Guiche!”
“All reflection is done; listen.”
“Oh! you think you will succeed, you think Madame will love you!”
“Raoul, I believe nothing, I hope, because hope is in man and he lives by it until the tomb.”
“But I admit that you obtain this happiness you hope for, and you are even more surely lost than if you do not obtain it.”
“I beg you, do not interrupt me again, Raoul, you will not convince me; for, I tell you in advance, I do not wish to be convinced; I have advanced so far that I cannot retreat, I have suffered so much that death would seem a blessing to me. I am no longer merely in love to the point of delirium, Raoul, I am jealous to the point of fury.”
Raoul struck his two hands together with a feeling that resembled anger.
“Good!” said he.
“Good or ill, it matters little. Here is what I ask of you, of my friend, of my brother. For three days, Madame has been in festivity, in rapture. The first day, I dared not look at her; I hated her for not being as unhappy as I. The next day, I could no longer lose sight of her; and on her side, yes, I thought I noticed, at least, Raoul, on her side, she looked at me, if not with some pity, at least with some gentleness. But between her glances and mine there came to interpose a shadow; the smile of another provokes her smile. Beside her horse gallops eternally a horse that is not mine; at her ear vibrates incessantly a caressing voice that is not my voice. Raoul, for three days my head has been on fire; it is flame that flows in my veins. This shadow, I must drive it away; this smile, I must extinguish it; this voice, I must stifle it.”
“You wish to kill Monsieur?” cried Raoul.
“Eh! no. I am not jealous of Monsieur; I am not jealous of the husband; I am jealous of the lover.”
“Of the lover?”
“But did you not notice him here, you who yonder were so clear-sighted?”
“You are jealous of Mr. de Buckingham?”
“To the point of death!”
“Still.”
“Oh! this time the matter will be easy to settle between us, I have taken the lead, I have sent him a note.”
“You wrote to him? it was you?”
“How do you know that?”
“I know it, because he told me. See.”
And he held out to De Guiche the letter he had received almost at the same time as his own. De Guiche read it avidly.
“It is from a brave man and above all a gentleman,” said he.
“Yes, certainly, the Duke is a gentleman; I need not ask if you wrote to him in equally good terms.”
“I will show you my letter when you go to him on my behalf.”
“But that is almost impossible.”
“What?”
“That I go to him.”
“How?”
“The Duke consults me, and you too.”
“Oh! you will give me the preference, I suppose. Listen, here is what I beg you to say to His Grace… It is quite simple… One of these days, today, tomorrow, the day after, whichever suits him, I wish to meet him at Vincennes.”
“Reflect.”
“I thought I had already told you my reflections were complete.”
“The Duke is a foreigner; he has a mission that makes him inviolable… Vincennes is quite near the Bastille.”
“The consequences concern me.”
“But the reason for this meeting? what reason do you wish me to give him?”
“He will not ask you for one, be at ease… The Duke must be as weary of me as I am of him; the Duke must hate me as much as I hate him. So, I beg you, go to the Duke, and, if I must supplicate him to accept my proposal, I shall supplicate him.”
“It is useless… The Duke anticipated me in wishing to speak with me. The Duke is at the King’s gaming table… Let us both go there. I will draw him aside in the gallery. You will remain apart. Two words will suffice.”
“Very well. I shall take De Wardes with me to serve as a pretext for my composure.”
“Why not Manicamp? De Wardes will always rejoin us, were we to leave him here.”
“Yes, that is true.”
“He knows nothing?”
“Oh! absolutely nothing. You are still on cold terms, then!”
“He has told you nothing?”
“No.”
“I do not like that man, and, as I have never liked him, it results from this antipathy that I am no more on cold terms with him today than I was yesterday.”
“Let us depart then.”
All four went down. De Guiche’s carriage waited at the door and conveyed them to the Palais-Royal.
On the way, Raoul forged a plan for himself. Sole depositary of both secrets, he did not despair of concluding an arrangement between the two parties. He knew himself influential with Buckingham; he knew his ascendancy over De Guiche: things did not therefore appear to him desperate.
Upon arriving in the gallery, resplendent with light, where the most beautiful and illustrious women of the court moved like stars in their atmosphere of flames, Raoul could not help forgetting De Guiche for an instant to look at Louise, who, amid her companions, like a fascinated dove, devoured with her eyes the royal circle, all dazzling with diamonds and gold.
The men were standing, the King alone was seated. Raoul caught sight of Buckingham.
He was ten paces from Monsieur, in a group of French and English who admired the noble bearing of his person and the incomparable magnificence of his attire.
Some of the old courtiers remembered having seen the father, and this memory did no discredit to the son.
Buckingham was talking with Fouquet. Fouquet was speaking to him aloud of Belle-Île.
“I cannot approach him at this moment,” said Raoul.
“Wait and choose your opportunity, but settle everything on the spot. I am burning.”
“See, there is our savior,” said Raoul, catching sight of D’Artagnan, who, magnificent in his new uniform as captain of the musketeers, had just made a conqueror’s entrance into the gallery.
And he directed himself toward D’Artagnan.
“The Count de La Fère was looking for you, Chevalier,” said Raoul.
“Yes,” D’Artagnan answered, “I have just left him.”
“I had thought you were to spend part of the night together.”
“A rendezvous is made to meet again.”
And while answering Raoul, D’Artagnan let his distracted glances wander right and left, seeking someone in the crowd or something in the apartment.
Suddenly his eye became fixed like that of the eagle who perceives his prey.
Raoul followed the direction of that gaze. He saw that De Guiche and D’Artagnan were saluting each other. But he could not distinguish to whom the captain’s so curious and so proud glance was addressed.
“Mr. Chevalier,” said Raoul, “there is none but you who can do me a service.”
“Which one, my dear Vicomte?”
“It is a matter of going to disturb Mr. de Buckingham, to whom I have two words to say, and as Mr. de Buckingham is talking with Mr. Fouquet, you understand that it is not I who can throw myself into the middle of the conversation.”
“Ah! ah! Mr. Fouquet; he is there?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Do you see him? There.”
“Yes, faith! And you think I have more right than you?”
“You are a more considerable man.”
“Ah! that is true, I am captain of the musketeers; they promised me that rank for so long and I have held it so short a time, that I always forget my dignity.”
“You will do me this service, will you not?”
“Mr. Fouquet, the devil!”
“Have you anything against him?”
“No, it would rather be he who would have something against me; but after all, as it must come one day or another…”
“See, I believe he is looking at you; or else would it be?…”
“No, no, you are not mistaken, it is indeed to me that he does that honor.”
“The moment is good, then.”
“You think so?”
“Go, I beg you.”
“I am going.”
De Guiche never lost sight of Raoul; Raoul signaled to him that all was arranged.
D’Artagnan walked straight to the group, and saluted Mr. Fouquet civilly like the others.
“Good day, Mr. d’Artagnan. We were speaking of Belle-Île-en-Mer,” said Fouquet with that ease in the world and that science of the glance which require half a life to be well learned, and to which certain people, despite all their study, never attain.
“Of Belle-Île-en-Mer? Ah! ah!” made D’Artagnan. “It belongs to you, I believe, Mr. Fouquet?”
“The gentleman has just told me he gave it to the King,” said Buckingham. “Your servant, Mr. d’Artagnan.”
“Do you know Belle-Île, Chevalier?” asked Fouquet of the musketeer.
“I have been there but once, sir,” answered D’Artagnan as a man of wit and a gentleman.
“Did you remain there long?”
“Scarcely a day, my lord.”
“And what did you see there?”
“All that can be seen in a day.”
“That is much for a day when one has your glance, sir.”
D’Artagnan bowed.
During this time, Raoul was signaling to Buckingham.
“Mr. Superintendent,” said Buckingham, “I leave you the captain, who knows better than I about bastions, scarps and counterscarps, and I am going to rejoin a friend who signals to me. You understand…”
Indeed, Buckingham detached himself from the group and advanced toward Raoul, but while stopping an instant at the table where Madame, the Queen Mother, the young Queen and the King were playing.
“Come, Raoul,” said De Guiche, “there he is; be firm and quick!”
Buckingham, in fact, after presenting a compliment to Madame, continued his way toward Raoul.
Raoul went to meet him. De Guiche remained in his place. He followed him with his eyes. The maneuver was so combined that the meeting of the two young men took place in the space left empty between the gaming group and the gallery where some brave gentlemen walked, stopping from time to time to converse.
But, at the moment when the two lines were about to unite, they were broken by a third.
It was Monsieur who was advancing toward the Duke of Buckingham. Monsieur had upon his rose and pomaded lips his most charming smile.
“Eh! my God!” said he with an affectionate politeness, “what have I just been told, my dear Duke?”
Buckingham turned round: he had not seen Monsieur approach; he had heard his voice, that was all.
He started in spite of himself. A slight pallor invaded his cheeks.
“My lord,” he asked, “what has been said to Your Highness that seems to cause you such great astonishment?”
“A thing that despairs me, sir,” said the prince, “a thing that will be a mourning for the whole court.”
“Ah! Your Highness is too good,” said Buckingham, “for I see she wishes to speak of my departure.”
“Exactly.”
“Alas! my lord, having been in Paris scarcely five or six days, my departure can be a mourning only for me.”
De Guiche heard the word from where he had remained and started in his turn.
“His departure!” he murmured. “What is he saying?”
Philippe continued with his same gracious air:
“That the King of Great Britain recalls you, sir, I conceive that; it is known that His Majesty Charles II, who knows gentlemen, cannot do without you. But that we should lose you without regret, that cannot be understood; receive therefore the expression of mine.”
“My lord,” said the Duke, “believe that if I leave the court of France…”
“It is that you are recalled, I understand that; but after all, if you believe my desire has some weight with the King, I offer to entreat His Majesty Charles II to leave you with us some time longer.”
“So much kindness overwhelms me, my lord,” answered Buckingham; “but I have received precise orders. My stay in France was limited; I prolonged it at the risk of displeasing my gracious sovereign. Only today do I recall that, for four days, I should have been gone.”
“Oh!” made Monsieur.
“Yes, but,” added Buckingham, raising his voice, even so as to be heard by the princesses, “but I resemble that man of the Orient who, for several days, went mad from having had a beautiful dream, and who, one fine morning, awoke cured, that is to say reasonable. The court of France has intoxications that may resemble that dream, my lord, but one finally awakes and departs. I could not therefore prolong my stay as Your Highness is kind enough to ask of me.”
“And when do you depart?” asked Philippe with an air full of solicitude.
“Tomorrow, my lord… My equipages have been ready for three days.”
The Duke of Orleans made a movement of the head which signified:
“Since it is a resolved decision, Duke, there is nothing to say.”
Buckingham raised his eyes to the queens; his glance met that of Anne of Austria, who thanked him and approved him by a gesture. Buckingham returned this gesture, hiding beneath a smile the tightening of his heart.
Monsieur withdrew by the way he had come. But at the same time, from the opposite side, De Guiche was advancing. Raoul feared that the impatient young man might come to make the proposal himself, and threw himself before him.
“No, no, Raoul, all is useless now,” said De Guiche, stretching his two hands to the Duke and drawing him behind a column… “Oh! Duke, Duke!” said De Guiche, “pardon me for what I wrote you; I was a fool! Give me back my letter!”
“It is true,” replied the young Duke with a melancholy smile, “you can no longer bear me ill will.”
“Oh! Duke, Duke, excuse me!… My friendship, my eternal friendship…”
“Why indeed would you bear me ill will, Count, from the moment I leave her, from the moment I shall see her no more?”
Raoul heard these words, and, understanding that his presence was henceforth useless between these two young men who had only friendly words left, he stepped back a few paces.
This movement brought him near De Wardes. De Wardes was speaking of Buckingham’s departure. His interlocutor was the Chevalier de Lorraine.
“A wise retreat!” said De Wardes.
“Why so?”
“Because it spares the dear Duke a sword thrust.”
And all began to laugh.
Raoul, indignant, turned round, his brow furrowed, the blood at his temples, his mouth disdainful.
The Chevalier de Lorraine pivoted on his heels; De Wardes remained firm and waited.
“Sir,” said Raoul to De Wardes, “you will not then unlearn the habit of insulting the absent? Yesterday it was Mr. d’Artagnan; today it is Mr. de Buckingham.”
“Sir, sir,” said De Wardes, “you know well that sometimes I also insult those who are present.”
De Wardes touched Raoul, their shoulders leaned one against the other, their faces bent toward each other as if to inflame each other reciprocally with the fire of their breath and their anger. One felt that the one was at the height of his hatred, the other at the end of his patience.
Suddenly they heard a voice full of grace and politeness which said behind them:
“I was named, I believe.”
They turned round: it was D’Artagnan, who, his eye smiling and his mouth pursed, had just laid his hand upon De Wardes’s shoulder. Raoul stepped aside a pace to make room for the musketeer. De Wardes shuddered through all his body, paled, but did not move.
D’Artagnan, still with his smile, took the place Raoul abandoned to him.
“Thanks, my dear Raoul,” said he. “Mr. de Wardes, I have to speak with you. Do not go away, Raoul; everyone may hear what I have to say to Mr. de Wardes.”
Then his smile faded, and his glance became cold and sharp as a blade of steel.
“I am at your orders, sir,” said De Wardes.
“Sir,” resumed D’Artagnan, “for a long time I have sought the occasion to speak with you; only today have I found it. As for the place, it is ill chosen, I grant; but if you will take the trouble to come as far as my rooms, my home is precisely in the staircase which leads to the gallery.”
“I follow you, sir,” said De Wardes.
“Are you alone here, sir?” made D’Artagnan.
“Not at all, I have Mr. Manicamp and Mr. de Guiche, two of my friends.”
“Good,” said D’Artagnan; “but two persons, that is few. You will find some more still, will you not?”
“Certainly!” said the young man, who did not know where D’Artagnan wished to arrive. “As many as you wish.”
“Friends?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good friends?”
“Doubtless.”
“Well! lay in a stock of them, I pray you. And you, Raoul, come… Bring Mr. de Guiche also; bring Mr. de Buckingham, if you please.”
“Oh! my God, sir, what a fuss!” answered De Wardes, trying to smile.
The captain made him a little sign with the hand to recommend patience.
“I am always impassive. So, I await you, sir,” said he.
“Await me.”
“Then, farewell!”
And he directed himself toward his apartment. D’Artagnan’s chamber was not solitary: the Count de La Fère awaited, seated in the embrasure of a window.
“Well?” he asked D’Artagnan on seeing him return.
“Well!” said the latter, “Mr. de Wardes is kind enough to grant me the honor of paying me a little visit, in company with some of his friends and ours.”
Indeed, behind the musketeer appeared De Wardes and Manicamp.
De Guiche and Buckingham followed them, quite surprised and not knowing what was wanted of them.
Raoul came with two or three gentlemen. His glance wandered, on entering, over all parts of the chamber.
He perceived the Count and went to place himself near him.
D’Artagnan received his visitors with all the courtesy of which he was capable.
He had preserved his calm and polite physiognomy. All those who were there were men of distinction holding a post at court. Then, when he had made his excuses to each for the disturbance he caused him, he turned back toward De Wardes, who, despite his command over himself, could not prevent his physiognomy from expressing a surprise mingled with uneasiness.
“Sir,” said he, “now that we are outside the King’s palace, now that we may speak aloud without failing in propriety, I am going to make known to you why I took the liberty of begging you to pass by my rooms and to convene these gentlemen there at the same time. I have learned, from Mr. the Count de La Fère, my friend, the injurious rumors that you were spreading about my account; you told me that you held me for your mortal enemy, seeing that I was, you say, that of your father.”
“It is true, sir, I said that,” replied De Wardes, whose pallor colored with a slight flame.
“Thus, you accuse me of a crime, a fault or a cowardice. I pray you to specify your accusation.”
“Before witnesses, sir?”
“Yes, doubtless, before witnesses, and you see that I have chosen them expert in matters of honor.”
“You do not appreciate my delicacy, sir. I accused you, it is true; but I kept secret the accusation. I entered into no detail, I contented myself with expressing my hatred before persons for whom it was almost a duty to make it known to you. You did not credit me with my discretion, though you were interested in my silence. I do not recognize there your habitual prudence, Mr. d’Artagnan.”
D’Artagnan bit the corner of his mustache.
“Sir,” said he, “I have already had the honor of begging you to articulate the grievances you had against me.”
“Aloud?”
“Parbleu!”
“I shall speak, then.”
“Speak, sir,” said D’Artagnan, bowing, “we all listen to you.”
“Well! sir, it is a matter, not of a wrong toward me, but of a wrong toward my father.”
“You have already said that.”
“Yes, but there are certain things one approaches only with hesitation.”
“If this hesitation exists indeed, I pray you to overcome it, sir.”
“Even in the case where it were a shameful action?”
“In all cases.”
The witnesses of this scene began by looking at each other with a certain uneasiness. However, they reassured themselves on seeing that D’Artagnan’s face manifested no emotion. De Wardes kept silence.
“Speak, sir,” said the musketeer. “You see well that you make us wait.”
“Well! listen. My father loved a woman, a noble woman; this woman loved my father.”
D’Artagnan exchanged a glance with Athos. De Wardes continued.
“Mr. d’Artagnan surprised letters which indicated a rendezvous, substituted himself, in a disguise, for the one who was expected, and abused the darkness.”
“It is true,” said D’Artagnan.
A slight murmur was heard among the assistants.
“Yes, I committed that bad action. You should have added, sir, since you are so impartial, that at the time when the event you reproach me with took place, I had not yet twenty-one years.”
“The action is none the less shameful,” said De Wardes, “and the age of reason suffices a gentleman not to commit an indelicacy.”
A new murmur was heard, but of astonishment and almost of doubt.
“It was a shameful trick, indeed,” said D’Artagnan, “and I have not waited for Mr. de Wardes to reproach me with it in order to reproach myself with it, and bitterly. Age has made me more reasonable, more honest above all, and I have expiated that wrong by long regrets. But I appeal to you, gentlemen; this took place in 1626, and it was a time—happily for you, you know of it only by tradition—and it was a time when love was not scrupulous, when consciences did not distill, as today, venom and myrrh. We were young soldiers always fighting, always beaten, always the sword out of the scabbard or at least half drawn, always between two deaths; war made us hard, and the cardinal made us hurried. Finally, I repented, and, more than that, I still repent, Mr. de Wardes.”
“Yes, sir, I understand that, for the action warranted repentance; but you have nonetheless caused the ruin of a woman. She of whom you speak, veiled by her shame, bowed beneath her affront, she of whom you speak fled, she left France, and no one ever knew what became of her…”
“Oh!” made the Count de La Fère, extending his arm toward De Wardes with a sinister smile, “indeed, sir, she was seen, and there are even here some persons who, having heard tell of her, may recognize her by the portrait I am about to draw. She was a woman of five-and-twenty, slender, pale, blonde, who had married in England.”
“Married?” made De Wardes.
“Stories of the world, in your language.”