Part 52
A somewhat better-furnished room looking upon the Rue de Provence would serve, as would the drawing-room upon the ground floor, for the reception of strangers and guests. Privy Councilor Abeken would occupy the bedroom next to this, also with an outlook upon the Rue de Provence. A tiny cell near the back stairs, only big enough to hold a bed, chest of drawers, and washstand, was set apart for Secretary Bolsing. Upon the second floor Dr. Busch or Privy Councilor Bucher would occupy the best bedroom, the two Prussian body servants from the Wilhelm-Strasse sleeping in the attic overhead. The two remaining chambers on the second floor--small, angular, ill-ventilated places--the women of the house were free to move into, and retain, if they desired. "Only in that case," said the masterful voice, "they must contribute their services toward keeping the house in order. Where I live, there must be no idlers. That is understood!"
Below in the hall, White Shawl and Madame Potier heard his strong laugh echoing amid the empty chambers and his heavy stride shaking the rafters above their heads.
"I am pleased with my room, though it has a window opening toward the stables, where the detachment of troops supplying the sentries will be quartered for the present, with my orderly and coachman and the two grooms. But common sights do not annoy me, any more than common noises, and there are two other windows overlooking the park. The trees in their autumn coloring will remind me of my own woodlands at home. Altogether the place has been chosen intelligently. A more roomy and better-furnished house might afford spiteful people an excuse to accuse the Chancellor of the Confederated States of luxury--the love of which has never been a besetting sin of mine. True, I must have a table supplied well, punctually, and generously.... That is always an understood thing. A _sine qua non_, in fact.... The King is quite aware of this.... I told him again yesterday, ... '_Sire, I must be fed properly if I am to make proper terms of peace!_'"
His great laugh sounded again as he came trampling downstairs, bringing with him a masculine perfume of Russian leather and cigars of super-excellent quality. And Hatzfeldt was saying in his languid, well-bred accents:
"With Your Excellency's permission, I will now take leave of you--I must go and see the place where I am quartered. It is at No. 25, Avenue St. Cloud."
"So, then.... A pretty good distance from the Chancellor of the Confederation, should he require at some unusual hour the services of his First Secretary.... You will have to find the Count more convenient lodgings." The Minister turned to the Intendant General, who barked:
"At Your Excellency's honorable orders, the change shall be immediately made!"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, not to-night!" expostulated Hatzfeldt, with graceful peevishness. "I am horribly done up with the heat and the dust we had on our way here. Why should the King have dragged us to Choissy-le-Roi, in order to see the troops? Cannot he see troops every hour of his existence? Ah, by the way! Did Your Excellency notice that at Villeneuve St. George the bridge of boats had been blown up?"
The Minister shrugged:
"Who can understand this destructive mania? It is a national disease peculiar to the French. Since the beginning of the war, they have destroyed bridges and railways to the tune of millions--for the sheer pleasure, one would suppose, of building them up again. Well, good night!" He held out his hand pleasantly to Hatzfeldt. "Good night to you, Herr Intendant General!"
The Intendant saluted stiffly and barked in his peculiar style:
"I wish a very good night to Your Excellency!" Then he clanked down the steps after Hatzfeldt and over the gravel walk to the front gate.
"I know what Count Paul has it in his mind to do," chuckled Bismarck-Böhlen, looking after them. "He will take a bath and dine at the Hôtel des Réservoirs."
"It would not be a bad plan to follow his example," said the Minister, "since some of the Foreign Office _fourgons_ may be late in getting here. Unless Madame Tessier is prepared to supply us with a dinner upon the spur of the call?"
He added:
"Come, shut the hall door. I see they have already placed sentries. The grooms and Niederstedt will bring in the luggage by the back door and up the servants' staircase." He continued as Bismarck-Böhlen obeyed: "They are particular about such matters in French houses, where there is so much wax polishing of the floors and woodwork. Where are the women? ... There were two. A _bonne_ and her mistress, the proprietress...." His powerful glance fell upon them standing near the doorway of the dining-room. He motioned them to enter, and followed them in.
"Madame Tessier!" he began, taking as by right the chair at the head of the long shining dinner table, upon which the tapestry cloth had not yet been replaced. He looked at White Shawl. The shrill voice cackled:
"Madame Tessier is in Belgium.... I am Madame Charles Tessier, the wife of Monsieur, her son!"
He said in his excellent French, laying on the table the flat white Cuirassier cap he had removed on entering:
"I congratulate M. Tessier! Can your servant cook, Madame?"
The shrill voice responded:
"Monseigneur must be judge of that when he has tried her dishes. She does her best--the excellent Jeannette! But if Monseigneur is to be served as befits his state and consequence ... I should prefer to cook for him myself!"
"_So!_" He leaned one elbow on the table, meditatively regarding the speaker, and the lambent blue flame of humor danced and flickered in his eyes: "Since we do not require you and your domestic to leave the house--only to confine yourselves to the two smaller bedrooms on the second floor--it may be as well that you should assist to a degree in the kitchen.... But for all that does not require women we have our servants--you understand? And the _chef_ attached to the service of the Prussian Chancellery is extremely competent. He is--rather a personage in his way!"
Bismarck-Böhlen sniggered in his characteristic fashion.
White Shawl shrilled, gesticulating with a hand that resembled a claw:
"If your Prussian cooks better than I do--or even the _chef_ of our _gredin_ of an Emperor, he may call me a Bonapartist and I will not slap his face!"
The Minister drew his well-shaped sunbrowned hand over his mustache, perhaps to hide a smile at the epithet. He asked with his powerful glance intent upon Madame Charles Tessier:
"So, then, you are not a lover of the Bonapartes? What is your party? Are you Republican or Monarchist?"
She shrieked with raucous energy:
"I am a patriot, and a citizeness of the French Republic! All my life I have execrated the Bonapartes. See you well--I do not love Prussians!... But you have humiliated and dethroned this sacred pig of a Napoleon.... And for that I could kiss the hand that received his sword!"
The person to whom the shrill tirade was addressed listened with imperturbability, although Bismarck-Böhlen, standing on the other side of the table, between the windows, involuntarily clapped his hands to his sorely sacrificed ears.
Now the Minister said in his suavest French accents:
"The hand was not mine, Madame, I beg to assure you, but that of the King of Prussia, who is hardly likely to pay us a visit here.... Should His Majesty elect to do so, your ambition may be partially gratified. You will see the monarch who has paid your Imperial bugbear so thoroughly well in his own coin."
Here Bismarck-Böhlen broke in.... "Excellency! ... talking of coin ... you told me to remind you of what happened the other day...."
"Ah, so I did!" said he. "It is a mere coincidence, but worth remembering.... Upon leaving the weaver's hovel, near the village of Donchery, outside which you and Leverstrom waited while I discussed the terms of the capitulation with Napoleon in a garret containing a table, a bed, and two rush-bottomed chairs, the French Emperor presented five pieces of gold to the weaver, which Leverstrom afterward told me he vainly endeavored to buy of the man. His stupidity or the weaver's, we will not say now which was the greater!... But the coins displayed in unbroken sequence--the portraits of five rulers of France. There was Napoleon I., imperially wreathed, on a fine fat piece of 1820; a Louis XVIII., inane and aristocratic; a Charles X., with the knob in his nose; a Louis Philippe, looking like a bourgeois, and Napoleon III., Emperor of Ready-Made Plebiscites...." He broke off to say: "And now, Madame, what news of this dinner? Can you supply it, or must we go elsewhere? Decide. I am always an economist of time!"
And the penetrating glance shaded by the shaggy eyebrows of the Minister questioned the meager peaked countenance of which merely a wedge showed between the curtaining folds of the white shawl.... Lover of good cheer as he was, he was perhaps asking himself whether a creature so mean and pinched-looking could set before him the nourishing, well-flavored, well-cooked dishes, calculated to restore energy to his giant's frame. She was studying the face revealed in the circle of light cast downward by the shaded lamps of the gasalier above the dinner table, half loathing, half fascinated by the tremendous personality now revealed.
How much the published portraits of the man lacked, she realized now, clearly. What mental and physical power, and force, and energy were indicated in the lines of the great domed skull and the astonishing frontal development. What audacious courage and ironic humor were in the regard of the full blue eyes that rested lightly upon her own insignificance.... What deeply cut, pugnacious nostrils he had; what a long stern upper lip the full gray mustache curtained! He had a cleft in his chin that reminded her of a friend she loved....
This last and the other characteristics of the visage that confronted her were fuel to her roaring furnace of hate. A baleful light blazed in the eyes she curtained from him. Her heart seemed a goblet brimmed with intoxicating, poisoned wine. And then a little thing tamed the snake in her. It drew in its quivering, forked tongue, covered the fangs that oozed with venom, lowered its hooded head, and sank down, palpitating among its cold and scaly coils.
With all its power, the profound weariness of his face had suddenly come home to and arrested her. He looked, as was indeed the fact, like a man who had not known a good night's rest for weeks. There were sagging pouches of exhaustion under the masterful eyes, and the lines about the forehead and mouth and jaws were deeply trenched with fatigue and anxiety. With pain, too, for he was suffering from facial neuralgia brought on by nervous strain and overexposure, and divers galls and blisters, the result of days spent in the saddle by an elderly heavy-weight. Now he yawned and leaned back in his creaking chair, and suddenly was no despot helmed with terrors, armed with power, mantled with ruthlessness, but a man fagged out, and tired and hungry, athirst for rest and the comforts of home.
He had a wife living, she knew, and sons serving in the Prussian Army. Perhaps he had a daughter who loved him, too.... Perhaps she was thinking of him ... praying for his return in safety.... Oh, God!... The dreadful thought was not to be tolerated.... It must be driven away ... banished from the mind, if one was to carry out the plan....
All these thoughts volted through the brain under the white shawl in the passing of an instant. The next, she heard the shrill voice say:
"It is for Monseigneur to decide!... There is no difficulty about dinner--that is, provided Monseigneur can eat a good soup of artichokes made with cream!..."
His startlingly blue eyes laughed. He acquiesced, seeming to snuff the air with his deeply cut nostrils.
"There is nothing better than puree of artichokes--provided it serves as the prelude to a solid, sustaining, and well-cooked meal."
White Shawl shrilled:
"There might follow a six-pound trout, boiled, with sauce _à la Tartare_.... One came in this afternoon, fresh to a miracle, a fish from the Gauche near Montreuil."
He said to Bismarck-Böhlen:
"The trout of the Cauche are capital eating ... especially those caught in the upper part of the stream, a mile below Parenty. What else, Madame?"
She proclaimed in the raucous voice that made Bismarck-Böhlen grimace and shudder:
"A dish of cutlets and a _ragoût_ of partridges with little cabbages. It is now upon the fire, simmering in the casserole--I meant it for next day!"
Like the trout, it had been designed for P. C. Breagh's delectation.
She added:
"And there are a cold ham, a peach tart, and a jelly of Maraschino, and I could toss up a savory omelette to follow the sweet dishes. As for dessert ... we have pears and plums from the garden.... But, Monseigneur..." It was greed that made the woman's strange eyes glitter so intolerably--"I shall be well paid for the excellent food and all my trouble, shall I not, Monseigneur? ... In good French money--not in Prussian notes?"
Under the heavy mustache he showed his sound, even teeth in a laugh of enjoyment.
"In good French money. You have my promise. So--you do not like our Prussian notes?"
White Shawl screamed:
"They are good where they come from, it may be, Monseigneur!... But here--the people would as soon take dead leaves for pay!..."
He thrust his hand in his breeches pocket, pulled out a gold Napoleon, and threw it ringing on the shining table. Her eyes snapped. The little clawlike hand darted from the folds of the enveloping white shawl and pounced on the gold piece. She curtsied like an elder-pith puppet to the great figure sitting at the table head, and with the extraordinary gait that combined a hitch, twist, and shuffle, hobbled out of the room, shrilling as the door closed behind her:
"Jeannette! Jeannette! Monseigneur will dine here! Make you up the kitchen fire! I will go myself to the cellar and get the fruit.... And the wine ... Monseigneur will certainly require some wine! Later on you must help me get ready the bedrooms. Put out sheets and pillow cases to air!"
Bismarck-Böhlen was saying, as he followed his great relative into the drawing-room, and extended himself upon the green plush sofa, as the Minister selected the largest armchair, and lighted one of his huge cigars:
"What a woman! What a voice!"
The other laughed through the fragrant smoke rings:
"You could say no more and no less of an operatic _diva_, had you recently fallen a victim to her charms. My landlady pleases me. My tastes, as you know, are somewhat peculiar.... But you need not feel anxious on the Countess's behalf. My sentiments in this instance are highly platonic." He added, smoking and speaking almost dreamily: "If in cookery Madame's performance equals her promise, what with trout, and partridges _aux petit choux_--cold ham to fall back on, and a savory omelette, we ought not to do badly at all!... With half a dozen bottles of that champagne we brought from Rheims, and a little of the Epernay..."
He added, yawning and stretching his great limbs: "I am not usually poetical, but I have a fancy with regard to the deep blue, green-fleshed grapes of the country, that their color affects the river into which the hillside vineyards drain. The Marne water is as brilliant and green as though it were made of melted emeralds. And the must from those grapes yields the best champagne of Rheims and Epernay...." He yawned again and went on: "There is something in surroundings! In this house I feel that I can work comfortably. The view of old trees, and bushes and flower beds from the room I have chosen as a bedroom and study will make one feel almost at home. Two of my servants shall sleep upstairs in the attics--of which there are several, and my coachman Niederstedt--who was my porter at the Wilhelm Strasse, shall have a shakedown somewhere belowstairs. He is as strong as Goliath and as sharp as a needle. An unusual combination of qualities, because giants are supposed by little people to be dull-witted and easily taken in!"
He sent out a long column of fragrant blue vapor, and added, looking at the antique bronze clock surmounted by its grotesque bat-winged shape: "A fallacy, since I myself belong to the family of the Anakim. Do you observe that my landlady's familiar spirit appears to be winking at what I have just said?... Kobold or gnome, there is a family resemblance between his countenance and Madame's. I must get her to sell him to me, to carry home to Berlin."
LXV
P. C. Breagh had gone back to his bedroom at the gardener's cottage, under the garret where had slumbered the unlucky Jean Jacques Potier. The pet rabbits of the young man were even now in a hutch in the stable yard, and his striped house jacket and the green baize apron he used to wear when cleaning the Tessier silver hung on a hook in Madame Potier's closet, with the civil integuments of M. Potier, now deceased.
It was too early to go to bed. He pulled off jacket and waistcoat, filled and lighted the venerable briar root, and, sitting on his bed, re-perused by the light of his tallow candle a letter in headings, and bearing the date of September 23rd, which may be reproduced as written, here:
288 GREAT CORAM STREET, LONDON, W.C.
"MY DEAR YOUNG MAN!
I WAS SURPRISED AND GRATIFIED
To Receive Letters dated respectively July 28th, 31st, August 4th, 11th, 26th, Sept. 5th, 19th, from:
ONE WHO HAD VANISHED SWALLOWED ALIVE BY THE ROARING WHIRLPOOL OF WAR. THEY ARE SLAP-UP AND NO MISTAKE! ROBUST TO BRUTALITY! THEY HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED PUBLISHED AND PAID FOR! BY THREE SUBURBAN EDITORS SIMULTANEOUSLY. A NEW IDEA LONG CHERISHED BY SOLOMON KNEWBIT. A MAN BORN BEFORE HIS AGE! THE BOSS OF A FLEET ST. WEEKLY IS NOW NIBBLING AT 'BANG! A DOG'S TALE.' I Have Recovered My Fifteen Shiners And Have Cash in Hand For My Young Swell WHEN HE COMES MARCHING HOME! MARIA SAYS YOU HAD BETTER LOOK SHARP!
AN IMPORTANT CLUE DISCOVERED! MYSTERY OF LOST FORTUNE ABOUT TO BE CLEARED UP! ABSCONDING TRUSTEE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED IN ECCENTRIC LODGER BY THE LANDLADY! PROOFS IN A SEALSKIN WAISTCOAT! BE READY! AT ANY MOMENT THE SUMMONS MAY COME!
I remain, My dear young man, Truly and faithfully yours, SOLOMON KNEWBIT."
At the bottom of the last page was written in a curious up-and-down handwriting:
"Dr mr Breagh,
"yu kno How mr Knewbit Has a Way of Puting Things queer but it Wold be Best For you To Come Home it Realy Wold. There Is a Pore Siner only Wating To maik Amens wich Is Mind must alwais Have Bean weak and People Puting There Afares in the Hands of sutch a Trustea Can ixpect Nothing but Truble, mr Chown of Furnival's Inn is To Be let kno If He Gives Warning to Leeve the House wich i think never will Drink being got Hold of him to sutch an xtent dear mr Breagh you have thought you were Pore. But your Fortune of 7,000 lbs was only took awai by the Almighty Goodness to Be Given back again, trust and beleive. I am Dr mr Breagh,
"Respectfully and afexnly "Maria Ling."
P. C. Breagh folded up the pregnant pages--owing to Mr. Knewbit's professional predilection for capitals and spacings, the double letter covered a good number--and put them away and began to think.
Would it not be best that Juliette should return to her husband in Belgium, since M. Tessier gave no sign of returning? And whether she agreed with the notion of leaving Versailles or not, was it wise of P. C. Breagh to stay?
He loved her. He would love her always. There were times when her eyes had tenderness in them for him. Those unforgettable days passed together ... those strange and dreadful sights seen in common, those perils mutually encountered had made a bond between them that might never be broken now.
But was it wise to remain near her, breathing her atmosphere, drinking in her rare, delicate, exquisite beauty, and growing more besotted in his worship of it with every day? He knew that it was not. By the anguish the mere thought of leaving her cost him, he realized how deeply the love of Juliette Tessier had taken root in his heart.
His nature, as simple as hers was complex, made it easy to hold her blameless in all. She had not led him on. They had been flung together by force of circumstances. That there was something guileful in her very guilelessness never suggested itself to Breagh.
The gate bell pealed as he sat ruminating, causing him nearly to leap out of his skin. That M. Tessier had returned was the possibility that instantly suggested itself. He knelt by the window of the low-ceiled cottage chamber and leaned out into the deepening dusk.
German voices at the gate, the stamping of horses, and the clinking of bridles.... The grinding of heavy boots on gravel, the jingle of spurs and the sound of scabbards scraping against the ground, rapping against the steps. A pause and a voice he knew said clearly and resonantly:
"The Herr Intendant General may spare himself the trouble. I will interview the people of the house myself!"
A loud voice barked out something unintelligible to the listener, ending with "insolence." The voice of the Man of Iron returned:
"In that case, my Excellency will take the risk. There are only women in the house, and, should they offer violence, I have Count Hatzfeldt and Count Bismarck-Böhlen here."
If there were any further words, the listener missed them, so deafeningly loud was the drumming of the blood in his ears.... The door was opened. There was a gleam of something white in the dusky hail place. And _He_ entered and the other men followed him.... What did they there? What was it best to do?...
Now one by one the upper rooms were illuminated. The house door was opening. Two men came out and descended the steps. One who walked lightly and hummed a tune between the whiffs of his cigar passed away, still humming, toward the Avenue St. Cloud. The second who trailed a clanking sword gave harsh-voiced orders in the staccato tone of Prussian military authority to some persons in the street outside, mounted a charger held by an orderly, and rode jingling away toward the Boulevard de la Reine. His helmet and his orderly's could be seen bobbing over the top of the wall that screened the Tessier house from the Rue de Provence, and the dark silhouettes of the heads and bodies of men who crowded the double box seats of two private luggage vans that waited beyond the _porte cochère_ under an escort of cavalry. No doubt they were _fourgons_ sacred to the traveling Foreign Office of the Minister, bearing, besides the material of diplomatic labor, a working staff of Chancery clerks. Other vehicles were waiting, and videttes of cavalry were posted at each end of the quiet street. The trampling of their horses could be heard distinctly, with certain gruff admonitions, presumably addressed to pedestrians desirous of using the thoroughfare.