Александр Дюма
The Mesmerist's Victim
CHAPTER XIII
NICOLE IS VALUED PROPERLY
THE only guest left in the palace was Cardinal Rohan redoubting his gallantry towards the princess, who received him but cooly. As the Dauphin retired he feared it would look bad to remain, so he took leave with all the tokens of the most profound but affectionate respect.
As he was stepping into his coach, a waiting woman slipped up and all but entering the vehicle, she whispered:
“I have got it.”
She put a small packet in the prince’s hand, wrapped in tissue paper, and it made him start.
“Here’s for you, an honorable salary,” he replied, giving her a heavy purse.
Without losing time, the cardinal ordered his coachman to go on to Paris where, at the toll-bar he gave him fresh orders to drive to St. Claude Street. On the way, he had in the darkness felt the paper, and kissed it as a lover would a keepsake.
Soon after he was treading the parlor carpet of the mysterious house where La Dubarry and Duke Richelieu had been appalled by Balsamo’s power. It was he who appeared to welcome the cardinal but after some delay, for which he excused himself as he had not expected visitors so late. It was nearly eleven.
“It is so, and I ask pardon, baron,” said the other; “but you may remember that you told me that you could reveal certain secrets if you had a tress of the hair of the person – ”
“Of whom we spoke,” interrupted the magician guardedly, as he had already caught sight of the little parcel in the simple prelate’s hand. “It is very good if you have brought it.”
“Shall I be able to have it again after the experiment?”
“Unless we have to test it with fire – ”
“Never mind, then, for I can get some more. Can I have the answer to-night – I am so impatient.”
“I will try, my lord. At all events, midnight is the spirit’ hour.”
He took the packet which was a lock of hair and ran up to Lorenza’s room.
“I am going to learn the secret about this dynasty,” he said on the way. “The hidden design of the Supreme Architect.”
Before he opened the secret door he put the medium into the magnetic sleep. Hence she who hated him when in her senses greeted him with a tender embrace. With difficulty he tore himself from her arms but it was imperative – only a child or a virgin can be used to the utmost extent for clairvoyance. It was hard to tell which was more painful to the poor mesmeriser, the abuse of the Italian wife when awake or her caresses when asleep.
Putting the paper in her hand, he asked:
“Can you tell me whose hair this is?”
She laid it on her breast and on her forehead, for it was there she saw though her eyes were open.
“It comes from an illustrious head.”
“Is she going to be happy?”
“So far, no cloud hovers over her.”
“Though she is married?”
“Yes, she is married, but, like me, she is still a virgin – purer than I, for I love my husband.”
“Fatality!” muttered the wizard. “Thank you, Lorenza, I know all I wanted.”
He kissed her, put the hair carefully in his pocket, and cutting a small tress from the Italian’s head, he burnt it in a candle. The ashes, wrapped in the paper, he gave to the cardinal when with him once more. On the way down stairs he awakened Lorenza.
“The oracle says that you may hope, prince,” said Balsamo.
“It said that?” cried the ravished prince.
“Your highness may conclude so, as it said that she does not love her husband.”
“Joy!” said Rohan.
“I had to burn the lock to obtain the verdict by the essence,” explained the necromancer, “but here are the ashes which I scrupulously preserved for each grain is worth a thousand.”
“Thank you, my lord; I shall never be able to repay you.”
“Do not let us speak of that. One piece of advice, though: Do not wash the ashes down with wine as some lovers do; it is a mistaken course for it might make your love incurable and turn the object cold.”
“I shall take care not to do that,” said the prelate; “Farewell, count!”
Twenty minutes after, his carriage crossed that of Duke Richelieu, which it almost upset into one of the pits where they were excavating for a house, much building going on.
“Why, prince!” cried the older peer, with a smile.
“Hush, duke!” replied Rohan, laying a finger on his lips.
And away they were carried in opposite directions.
Richelieu was going to Baron Taverney’s residence in Coq-Heron Street.
The baron was seated before a dying fire, lecturing Nicole, or rather, chucking her under her pretty chin.
“But I am dying of weariness here, master,” she protested with wanton swinging of her hips in protest, “it was promised me that I should go to the palace with my mistress.”
It was at this point that the old rake fondled her, no doubt to cheer her up.
“Here I am between four ugly walls,” she went on wailing her fate: “no society – not enough air to breathe. But at Trianon, I should have people around me, and see luxury – stare and be stared at.”
“Fie, little Nicole!”
“Oh, I am only a woman like the rest of us.”
“No, you are more tempting than the rest,” said the old reprobate. “I only wish I were younger and rich again for your sake.”
At this juncture the door-bell rang and startled the master and maid.
“Run and see who can come at half-past eleven, girl.”
Nicole went out and through the passage by the house on the other street, and through the door which she left open. Richelieu saw a shadow of military aspect flit. This shadow and the face of Nicole, lighted up by her candle, enabled the old noble to read her character at a glance.
“Our old scamp of a Taverney spoke about his daughter, but he never breathed a word about the pretty maid,” he muttered.
“The Duke of Richelieu!” Nicole announced, not without a flutter of the heart, for the lady-killer was notorious.
It produced such a sensation on the baron that he got up and went to the door without believing his ears.
“Do you know what has brought me,” said the duke, giving hat and cane to Nicole to be more at ease in a chair. “Or rather what I have brought my old brother-officer? why, the company you asked the other day for your son. The King has just given it. I refused to act then for I was likely to be the Prime Minister but now that I have declined the post I can ask a favor. Here it is.”
“Such bounty on your part – ”
“Pooh! it is the natural outcome of my duty as a friend. But mark that the King does this more to spite Lady Dubarry than to oblige me. He knows that your son offended the Lady by quarreling with her bully of a brother on the highway. That is why she takes me in off-dudgeon at present.”
“You want me to believe that you serve me to spite the Dubarry woman?”
“Have it so. By the way, you have a daughter as well as a son.”
“Yes.”
“She is sixteen, fair as Venus, and – ”
“You have seen her?”
“At Trianon, where I passed the evening with her – and the King and I talked about her by the hour together. Are you vexed at this?”
“Certainly not; but the King is accused of having – ”
“Bad morals? is that what you were about to say?”
“Lord forbid! I would not speak ill of his Majesty, who has the right to have any kind of morality he likes.”
“What is the meaning of your astonishment, then? do you intend to assert that Mdlle. de Taverney is not an accomplished beauty and that consequently the King has not the right to look at her with an admiring eye?”
Taverney simply shrugged his shoulders and fell into a brown study, watched by Richelieu’s pitilessly prying eye.
“All right! I guess what you would say if you spoke aloud,” continued the marshal, “to wit that the King is habituated to bad company. That he likes the mud, as they say; but would be all the better if he turned from salacious talk, libertine glances, and the common woman’s jests to remark this treasure of grace and charm of every kind – the nobly-born young lady with chaste affections and modest bearing – ”
“You are truly a great man, duke, for you have guessed aright,” answered Taverney.
“It is tantamount to saying that it is high time for our master no longer to force us, nobles, peers and companions of the King of France, to kiss the base and harpy hand of a courtesan of the Dubarry type. Time that he danced to our piping, and that after falling from the Marchioness of Chateauroux, who was fit to be a duchess, to the Pompadour, who was the daughter and wife of a cook, then from her to Dubarry, and from her again to some kitchen wench or dairymaid. It is humiliating to us, baron, who wear coronets round our helmets, to bend our heads to such jades.”
“Ah, here be truths well spoken,” said Taverney, “and it is clear that a void is made at court by these low fashions.”
“With no queen, no ladies; with no ladies, no courtiers; and the commoners are on the throne in Jeanne Vaubernier, now Dubarry, a seamstress at Paris.”
“Granting things stand so, yet – ”
“There is a fine position at present. I tell you, my lord, for a woman of wit to rule France – ”
“Not a doubt of it, but the post is held,” said Taverney with a throbbing heart.
“A woman,” pursued the marshal, “who, without vice, would have the far-reaching views, calculation and boldness of these vixens; one who would so adorn her fortune that she would be spoken of after the monarchy ceased to exist. Has your daughter brightness and sense?”
“Yes.”
“And she is lovely, of the charming and voluptuous turn so pleasing men; with that virginal flower of candor which imposes respect on women themselves. You must take care of your treasure, my old friend.”
“You speak of her with an animation which – ”
“Why, I am madly in love with her and would marry her to-morrow if I could get rid of my seventy-four years. But is she well off? has she the luxury round her which so fair a blossom deserves? Nay, my dear baron, this evening she went to her lodgings, without a maid, or footman, and one of the Dauphin’s henchmen carried a lantern before her – it looked like some girls of middleclass life.”
“How can one help it when not rich?”
“Rich or not, Taverney, you must have a waiting-maid for her.”
“I know she ought to have one,” sighed the old noble.
“Why, what is this sprightly Abigail who opened the door to me,” said Richelieu, “cunning and pretty, on my word!”
“She is her maid but I dared not send her to the palace.”
“I wonder why, when she seems cut out for the part?”
“Have you looked on her face and not noticed the resemblance to – come here, Nicole!”
Nicole came quickly for she was listening at the door. The duke took her by both hands and held her between his knees; but she was not daunted by the great lord’s impertinent gaze and was not put out for an instant.
“By Jove, you are right, there is a resemblance,” he said.
“You know to whom, and how impossible it is to risk the rise of my house on some ugly trick of chance. Is it the thing that this little down-at-the-heel hussy Nicole should look like the highest head in France?”
“Pish!” exclaimed Nicole, tartly, as she disengaged herself to reply more easily to her master, “is it a fact that the hussy does so closely resemble the illustrious lady? Has she the low shoulder, quick eye, round leg and dimpled arm of the hussy? In any case, my lord, if you run me down, it is not because you can have any hope to catch me!” She finished in anger which made her red and consequently splendid in beauty.
The duke caught her again and said as he gave her a look full of caresses and promises:
“Baron, to my idea, Nicole has not her like at court. As for the touch of likeness, we will manage about that. Pretty Nicole has admirable light hair and nose and eyebrows quite imperial – but in a quarter of an hour before a toilet glass these blemishes will disappear, as the baron reckons them such. Nicole, my dear, do you want to go to the palace?”
“Oh, don’t I though!” cried the girl with all her greedy soul in the words.
“You shall go, my pet: and make a fortune there, without doing any harm to the advancement of others. Trot away, little one; the rest does not concern you. A word with you, my lord.”
“I venture to urge you to send some one to wait upon your daughter,” said the duke when alone with his friend, “because she must make a brave show and the King is not afraid of beauty-guards with knowing phizzes. Besides, I know how the wind blows.”
“Let Nicole go to the Trianon, since you think it will please the King,” replied Taverney with his pimp’s smile.
“Write to your daughter that a maid named Nicole is coming. Another than Nicole would not fill the place so well. On my honor, I believe so.”
The baron wrote a note which he handed to Richelieu.
“I will give the instructions to Nicole, who is intelligent.”
The baron smiled.
“So you will trust her with me?”
“Do what you can.”
“You are to come with me, miss, and quick,” said the duke.
Without waiting for the baron’s consent, Nicole got her clothes together in five minutes and as light as if she flew, she darted upon the box beside the ducal driver. The tempter took leave of his friend, who reiterated his thanks for the service rendered Philip of Redcastle. Neither said a word about Andrea; there was no need between them.
CHAPTER XIV
ONE MAN’S MEAT IS ANOTHER’S POISON
AT ten in the morning, Andrea was writing to her father to inform him of the happy news which Richelieu had already communicated to him.
Her room, in the corridor of the chapel, was not grand for a rival princess’s lady of attendance but it was a delightful abode for one who liked repose and solitude.
Andrea had obtained permission to breakfast in her rooms whenever she liked; this was a precious boon as it gave her the mornings to herself. She could read or go out for a saunter in the park, and come home without being annoyed by lord or lackey.
Suddenly a tapping at the door, discreetly given, aroused her attention. She raised her head as the door opened, and uttered a slight cry of astonishment as the radiant face of Nicole appeared from the little antechamber.
“Good morning, mistress! yes, it is I,” said the girl, with a merry courtsey which was not free from apprehension, knowing her lady’s character.
“You – what wind brings you?” replied Andrea, laying down her pen to talk.
“I was forgotten, but I have come. The baron said I was to do so,” said Nicole, bending the black eyebrows which Richelieu’s hair-dye had made; “you would not turn me back, when I only wanted to please my mistress. This is what one gets for loving her betters!” sighed the girl, with an attempt to squeeze a tear out of her fine eyes.
The reproach had enough feeling in it to touch Andrea.
“My child, I am waited on here, and I cannot think of charging the Dauphiness with an additional mouth.”
“Not when it is not so large a one?” questioned the maid, pouting the rosebud mouth in argument, with a winsome smile.
“No matter, your presence here is impossible on account of your likeness – ”
“Why, have you not looked on my face? it has been altered by a fine old nobleman who came to see master and tell him of Master Philip’s getting a company of soldiers from the King. As he saw master was sorrowing about you being alone, he heard the reason and said that nothing was easier than to change light to dark. He took me to his house where his valet turned me out as you behold me.”
“You must love me,” said Andrea smiling, “to come and be a prisoner shut up with me in this palace.”
“The rooms are not lively,” said Mdlle. Legay, after a swift glance round them, “but you will not be always mewed up here.”
“I may not, but you will not go out for the promenade with the princess, the parties, cardplay, and social gatherings; your place would be here to die of weariness.”
“Oh, there must be a peep at something through the windows. If one can see out, others can see me. That is good enough for Nicole – do not fret about me.”
“Nicole, I cannot do it without express order.”
The maid drew a letter from the baron from her tucker which settled the dispute. It was thus conceived:
“MY DEAR ANDREA: I know, and it has been remarked, that you do not hold the station at the Trianon which your birth entitles you to do: you lack a maid and a pair of lackeys as I do twenty thousand a year; but in the same way as I content myself with a thousand, you must shift with one maid – so take Nicole who will do you all the service requisite. She is active, intelligent and devoted; she will quickly pick up the tone and manners of the palace; take care not to stimulate but enchain her good-will to yourself. Keep her and do not fear that you are depriving me. A good friend gives me the advice that his Majesty, who has the kindness to think of us and to remark you on sight, will not let you want for the proper outfit for your appearance at court. Bear this in mind as of the highest importance. YOUR AFFECTIONATE FATHER.”
This threw the reader into painful perplexity. Poverty was pursuing her into her new prosperity, and making that a blemish which she considered merely an annoyance. She was on the point of angrily breaking her pen, and tearing the commenced letter in order to reproach her father with such an outburst of disinterested philosophical denial as Philip would have freely signed. But she seemed to see her father’s ironical smile when he should read this masterpiece and away fled her intention. So she answered with the following record of what was passing:
“FATHER: Nicole has just arrived and I receive her as you desire it; but what you write on the subject, drives me to despair. Am I less ridiculous with this little rustic girl as waiting-woman than alone among these rich ladies waited on hand and foot? Nicole will be miserable at my humiliation for servants smile or frown as their masters are looked upon. She will dislike me. As for the notice of his Majesty, allow me to tell you, father, that the King has too much intelligence to try to make a great lady of one so unfitted, and too much good nature to notice or comment on my poverty – far from it to want to change it into ease which your title and services would legitimatise in everybody’s eyes.”
It must be confessed that this candid innocence and noble pride mated the astuteness and corruption of her tempters.
Andrea spoke no more against Nicole but kept her. She confined herself to her corner so as to remind one of the Persian’s roseleaf floated on the goblet of rosewater brimfull, to prove that a superfluous joy may be added to perfect content.
When Nicole was left to herself she made a survey of the neighborhood. This did not promise much fun. But at an upper window over the stables she caught a glimpse of a man’s face which made her have recourse to a scheme to draw it out. She hid behind the curtains of the window left wide open.
She had to wait some time, but at length appeared a young man’s head; timid hands rested on the window-sill, and a face rose with caution.
Nicole nearly fell back flat on her two shoulders for it was Gilbert, her former companion on the manor of Taverney.
Unfortunately he had seen her, and he disappeared. He would rather have seen old Nick himself.
“What use now is my foolish discovery of which I was so proud? In Paris my knowledge that Nicole had a sweetheart whom she let into her master’s house gave me a hold on her. But out here, she has hold on me.”
Serving as lash to his hate, all his self-conceit boiled his blood with extreme vehemence. He felt sure that war was declared between him and the maid; but as he was a prudent youth who could be politic, he wanted to open hostilities in his own way and at his own time.
Watching night and day for a week, without showing himself again, Gilbert at last caught sight of the plume of the guards corporal which was familiar to him. It was indeed that of Corporal Beausire, the trooper who had followed the court from Paris to the Trianon.
Nicole played the coldly cruel for a while but in the end accorded Corporal Beausire an appointment. Gilbert followed the loving pair on the shady avenue leading to Versailles. He felt the ferocious delight of a tiger on a trail. He counted their steps, and sighs; he learnt by heart what they whispered to each other; and the result must have made him happy for he went up to his garret singing. Not only had he ceased to be afraid of Nicole but he impudently showed himself at the window.
She was taking up “a ladder” in a lace mitten of her mistress at her window, but she looked up on hearing him singing a song of their old times in the country when he was courting her.
She made a sour face which proclaimed her enmity. But Gilbert met it with so meaning a smile and his song and mien were so taunting that she lowered her head and colored up.
“She has understood me,” said Gilbert; “this is quite enough.”
Indeed she had the audacity to creep to his room door, but he had the prudence to deny her entrance, dangerous as was the temptation.
It was only after many a mine and counter-mine that at last chance made them meet at the chapel door.
“Good evening, Gilbert: are you here?”
“Oh, Nicole, good evening – so you’ve come to Trianon?”
“As you see, our young lady’s maid still.”
“And I our Master’s gardener’s-man.”
Whereupon she dropped an elaborate courtsey which won his bow like a courtier’s; and they went their ways. But each was but pretending for, Gilbert, following the girl, saw her once more go to meet a man in one of the shady walks.
It was dark but Gilbert noticed that this was not the trooper; rather an elderly man, with a lofty air and dainty tread spite of age. Going nearer and passing under his nose with audacity he recognized him as the Duke of Richelieu.
“Plague take her! after the corporal a Marshal of France – Nicole is aiming high in the army!” he said.
