CHAPTER VI

THE COMTESSE DE BÉARN

To present the mentality of the Comtesse de Béarn one would have to reconstruct the lady, and rebuild from all sorts of medieval constituents her mind, person and dress. Feudal times have left us cities such as Nuremberg and Vittoria standing just as they stood in the twilight of the Middle Ages, but the people have vanished, only vaguely to be recalled.

The Comtesse de Béarn was medieval, and carried the twelfth century clinging to her coif and mantelet right into the heart of the Paris of 1770. Arrogant, narrow, superstitious and proud as Lucifer, this old lady, impoverished by years of litigation with the family of Saluce, inveigled up to Paris by a false statement that her lawsuit was about to be settled to her advantage, entertained by the Dubarrys and filled by them with promises and hopes, had agreed to act as introducer to the Comtesse. She disliked the business, but was prepared to swallow it for the sake of the lawsuit.

Choiseul’s note conveyed in the basket of flowers had acted with withering effect. It was written by a master mind that understood finely the mind it was addressing, and its one object was to convey the sentence: “You have been tricked.”

She saw the truth at once; she had been fetched up to Paris to act as a servant in the Dubarrys’ interests; she had been outwitted, played with. In an instant, twenty obscure and dubious happenings fell into their proper place, and she saw in a flash not only the deception but the fact that when she was done with she would be cast aside like a sucked orange; returned to her castle on the banks of the Meuse.

The unholy anger that filled the old lady’s mind might have led her at once to open revolt had she not possessed a lively sense of the power of the Dubarrys, and an instinctive fear of the Vicomte Jean. To revolt and say: “I will take no part in the presentation,” would have led to a pitched battle, in which she felt she would be worsted. She was too old and friendless to fight all these young, vigorous people who were on their own ground. But she would not present the woman who had tricked her at the Court of Versailles.

She boiled a pot of chocolate, and poured the contents over her foot and leg. The physical agony was nothing to the satisfaction of her mind. Madame Dubarry’s face when she saw the wound was more soothing than all the cold cream that Noirmont, the Dubarrys’ doctor, applied to the scald; and this morning, stretched on her back, with her leg swathed in cotton and the pain eased, she revelled in the thought of her enemy’s discomfiture. She felt no fear; they could not kill her; they could not turn her out of the house; she was an honoured guest, and she lay waiting for the distraction and the wailing and tears of the Dubarry woman, and the storming of the Vicomte Jean.

Instead of these came, at twelve o’clock or thereabouts, Noirmont, the physician, accompanied by Chon Dubarry, who had just arrived from Luciennes. The charming Chon seemed in the best spirits, and was full of solicitation and pity for her “dear Comtesse.”

Noirmont examined the leg, declared that his treatment had produced a decidedly beneficial effect, and, without a word as to when the patient might expect to be able to walk again, bowed himself out, leaving Chon and the Comtesse together.

“You see, my dear lady,” said the old woman, “how fallible we all are to accident. But for that unlucky pot of chocolate, I would now be dressed, and ready to pay my _devoirs_ to Madame la Comtesse; as it is, if I am able to leave my bed in a week’s time I will be fortunate, and even then I will, without doubt, have to be carried from this house to my carriage.”

“Madame,” said Chon devoutly, “we are all in the hands of Providence, whose decrees are inscrutable. Let us, then, bear our troubles with a spirit, and hope for the best.”

“Oh, _mon Dieu_!” cried the old woman, irritated at the extraordinary cheerfulness of the other, and feeling instinctively that some new move of the accursed Dubarrys was in progress, “it is easy for the whole in body and limb to dictate cheerfulness to the afflicted. Here am I laid up, and my affairs needing my attention in the country; but I think less of them than of the Court to-night, which I am unable to attend, and of the presentation which I am debarred from taking my part in. Not on my own account, for I have long given up the vanities of the world, but on account of Madame la Comtesse Dubarry.”

“Truly, there seems a fate in it,” said Chon, with great composure and cheerfulness. “Everything seemed going on so happily for your interests and ours. Well, it cannot be helped; there is no use in grumbling. The great thing now, dear Madame de Béarn, is your health, which is, after all, more important to you than money or success in lawsuits. Can I order you anything that you may require?”

The only thing Madame de Béarn could have wished for at the moment was Madame Dubarry’s head on a charger, but she did not put her desire in words. She lay watching with her bright old eyes whilst Chon, with a curtsey, turned and left the room. Then she lay thinking.

She was beaten. The Dubarrys had in some way found a method of evading defeat. Unfortunate Comtesse! When she had put herself to all this pain and discomfort she little knew that she was setting herself, not against the Dubarrys alone, but against de Sartines, and all the wit, ingenuity and genius of the Hôtel de Sartines. Moss-grown in her old château by the Meuse, she knew nothing of Paris, its trickery and its artifice. She had all this yet to learn.

All that she knew now was the fact that the plans of her enemies were prospering, and the mad desire to thwart them would have given her energy and fortitude enough to leave her bed, and hobble from the house, had she not known quite well that such a thing was impossible. The Dubarrys would not let her go.

Then a plan occurred to her. She rang the bell which had been placed on the table beside her, and when the maid entered, ordered her to fetch at once Madame Turgis, the old lady from her province who had sent her the basket of flowers.

“She lives in the Rue Petit Picpus, No. 10,” said she. “And ask her to come at once, for I feel worse.”

The maid left the room, promising to comply with the order. Five minutes passed, and then came a knock at the door, which opened, disclosing the Vicomte Jean. He was all smiles and apologies and affability. Did the Comtesse feel worse? Should they send again for Noirmont? The maid had gone to fetch Madame Turgis, who would be here no doubt immediately. Would not Madame la Comtesse take some extra nourishment? Some soup?

Then he retired as gracefully as he had entered, and the Comtesse de Béarn waited. At one o’clock the maid came back. Madame Turgis was from home, but the message had been left, asking her to call at once on her return.

“Ah, _mon Dieu, mon Dieu_!” cried the old woman recognizing at once that she had been tricked again, and that the maid had doubtless never left the house, seeing also her great mistake in not having used bribery. “And here am I lying in pain, and perhaps before she comes I may be gone, and my dying bequests will never be known. But wait.”

She took something from under her pillow. It was a handkerchief tightly rolled up. She unrolled the handkerchief carefully. There were half a dozen gold coins in it—_louis d’or_, stamped with the stately profile of the fourteenth Louis. It was part of the hoard which she kept at the Château de Béarn, on which she had drawn for travelling contingencies. Taking a louis, and folding up the rest, she held it out between finger and thumb.

“For you,” said she.

The maid advanced to take the coin.

“When Madame Turgis arrives,” finished the old woman, with a snap, withdrawing the coin and hiding her hand under the bed-clothes. “So go now, like a good girl, or find some messenger to go for you. Tell Madame Turgis that the Comtesse de Béarn has need for her at once. Then the louis will be yours to do what you like with, eh? ’Tis not often a louis is earned so cheap. You’ll have a young man of your own, and nothing holds ’em like a bit of fine dress; and I’ll look among my things and see if I can’t find you a bit of lace, or a trinket to put on top of the louis. And—put your pretty ear down to me—_don’t let anyone know I’ve sent to Madame Turgis. It’s a secret between us about some property in the country._ You understand me?”

Jehanneton, the maid, assented, and left the room, nodding her head, to acquaint immediately the powers below of this attempt at bribery and corruption.

At five o’clock a new maid arrived with a tray containing soup and minced chicken.

“What has become of Jehanneton?” asked the old woman.

“Jehanneton went out, and has not yet come back,” replied the other. “I do not know where she has gone to. Does Madame feel better?”

The invalid drank her soup and ate her chicken. She had been duped again, and she knew it. Her only consolation was the fact that she had not parted with the louis.

At six she rang for a light. The maid who answered the summons not only brought a lamp, but put a lighted taper to all the candles about the dressing-table.

“_Ma foi_!” cried the Comtesse. “I did not tell you to light those.”

“It is by my mistress’s orders,” replied the maid, lighting, as she spoke, several more candles that stood on the bureau, till the room had almost the appearance of a _chapelle ardente_—an appearance that was helped out by the corpse-like figure on the bed. Then the maid went out.