CHAPTER XLVII. A DRAWN GAME.
Le Gardeur was too drunk to catch the full drift of the Intendant'sreference to the Bourgeois under the metaphor of Actaeon torn in piecesby his own dog. He only comprehended enough to know that something wasintended to the disparagement of the Philiberts, and firing up at theidea, swore loudly that "neither the Intendant nor all the Grand Companyin mass should harm a hair of the Bourgeois's head!"
"It is the dog!" exclaimed De Pean, "which the Company will hang, nothis master, nor your friend his son, nor your friend's friend the oldHuguenot witch! We will let them hang themselves when their time comes;but it is the Golden Dog we mean to hang at present, Le Gardeur!"
"Yes! I see!" replied Le Gardeur, looking very hazy. "Hang the GoldenDog as much as you will, but as to the man that touches his master, Isay he will have to fight ME, that is all." Le Gardeur, after one ortwo vain attempts, succeeded in drawing his sword, and laid it upon thetable.
"Do you see that, De Pean? That is the sword of a gentleman, and I willrun it through the heart of any man who says he will hurt a hair of thehead of Pierre Philibert, or the Bourgeois, or even the old Huguenotwitch, as you call Dame Rochelle, who is a lady, and too good to beeither your mother, aunt, or cater cousin, in any way, De Pean!"
"By St. Picot! You have mistaken your man, De Pean!" whispered Cadet."Why the deuce did you pitch upon Le Gardeur to carry out your brightidea?"
"I pitched upon him because he is the best man for our turn. But I amright. You will see I am right. Le Gardeur is the pink of morality whenhe is sober. He would kill the devil when he is half drunk, but whenwholly drunk he would storm paradise, and sack and slay like a Germanritter. He would kill his own grandfather. I have not erred in choosinghim."
Bigot watched this by-play with intense interest. He saw that Le Gardeurwas a two-edged weapon just as likely to cut his friends as his enemies,unless skilfully held in hand, and blinded as to when and whom he shouldstrike.
"Come, Le Gardeur, put up your sword!" exclaimed Bigot, coaxingly; "wehave better game to bring down to-night than the Golden Dog. Hark! Theyare coming! Open wide the doors, and let the blessed peacemakers enter!"
"The peacemakers!" ejaculated Cadet; "the cause of every quarrel amongmen since the creation of the world! What made you send for the women,Bigot?"
"Oh, not to say their prayers, you may be sure, old misogynist, but thisbeing a gala-night at the Palace, the girls and fiddlers were orderedup by De Pean, and we will see you dance fandangoes with them untilmorning, Cadet."
"No you won't! Damn the women! I wish you had kept them away, that isall. It spoils my fun, Bigot!"
"But it helps the Company's! Here they come!"
Their appearance at the door caused a hubbub of excitement among thegentlemen, who hurried forward to salute a dozen or more women dressedin the extreme of fashion, who came forward with plentiful lack ofmodesty, and a superabundance of gaiety and laughter.
Le Gardeur and Cadet did not rise like the rest, but kept their seats.Cadet swore that De Pean had spoiled a jolly evening by inviting thewomen to the Palace.
These women had been invited by De Pean to give zest to the wild orgiethat was intended to prepare Le Gardeur for their plot of to-morrow,which was to compass the fall of the Bourgeois. They sat down with thegentlemen, listening with peals of laughter to their coarse jests, andtempting them to wilder follies. They drank, they sang, they danced andconducted, or misconducted, themselves in such a thoroughly shamelessfashion that Bigot, Varin, and other experts of the Court swore that thepetits appartements of Versailles, or even the royal fetes of the Parcaux cerfs, could not surpass the high life and jollity of the Palace ofthe Intendant.
In that wild fashion Bigot had passed the night previous to his presentvisit to Angelique. The Chevalier de Pean rode the length of the GrandeAllee and returned. The valet and horse of the Intendant were stillwaiting at the door, and De Pean saw Bigot and Angelique still seated atthe window engaged in a lively conversation, and not apparently noticinghis presence in the street as he sat pulling hairs out of the mane ofhis horse, "with the air of a man in love," as Angelique laughinglyremarked to Bigot.
Her quick eye, which nothing could escape, had seen De Pean the firsttime he passed the house. She knew that he had come to visit her,and seeing the horse of the Intendant at the door, had forborne toenter,--that would not have been the way with Le Gardeur, she thought.He would have entered all the readier had even the Dauphin held her inconversation.
Angelique was woman enough to like best the bold gallant who carries thefemale heart by storm and puts the parleying garrison of denial to thesword, as the Sabine women admired the spirit of their Roman captors andbecame the most faithful of wives.
De Pean, clever and unprincipled, was a menial in his soul, as cringingto his superiors as he was arrogant to those below him.
"Fellow!" said he to Bigot's groom, "how long has the Intendant beenhere?"
"All the afternoon, Chevalier," replied the man, respectfully uncoveringhis head.
"Hum! and have they sat at the window all the time?"
"I have no eyes to watch my master," replied the groom; "I do not know."
"Oh!" was the reply of De Pean, as he suddenly reflected that it werebest for himself also not to be seen watching his master too closely.He uttered a spurt of ill humor, and continued pulling the mane of hishorse through his fingers.
"The Chevalier de Pean is practising patience to-day, Bigot," said she;"and you give him enough time to exercise it."
"You wish me gone, Angelique!" said he, rising; "the Chevalier de Peanis naturally waxing impatient, and you too!"
"Pshaw!" exclaimed she; "he shall wait as long as I please to keep himthere."
"Or as long as I stay. He is an accommodating lover, and will make anequally accommodating husband for his wife's friend some day!" remarkedBigot laughingly.
Angelique's eyes flashed out fire, but she little knew how true a wordBigot had spoken in jest. She could have choked him for mentioning herin connection with De Pean, but remembering she was now at his mercy, itwas necessary to cheat and cozen this man by trying to please him.
"Well, if you must go, you must, Chevalier! Let me tie that string,"continued she, approaching him in her easy manner. The knot of hiscravat was loose. Bigot glanced admiringly at her slightly flushed cheekand dainty fingers as she tied the loose ends of his rich steinkirktogether.
"'Tis like love," said she, laughingly; "a slip-knot that looks tieduntil it is tried."
She glanced at Bigot, expecting him to thank her, which he did witha simple word. The thought of Caroline flashed over his mind likelightning at that moment. She, too, as they walked on the shore of theBay of Minas had once tied the string of his cravat, when for the firsttime he read in her flushed cheek and trembling fingers that she lovedhim. Bigot, hardy as he was and reckless, refrained from touching thehand or even looking at Angelique at this moment.
With the quick perception of her sex she felt it, and drew back a step,not knowing but the next moment might overwhelm her with an accusation.But Bigot was not sure, and he dared not hint to Angelique more than hehad done.
"Thanks for tying the knot, Angelique," said he at length. "It is a hardknot, mine, is it not, both to tie and to untie?"
She looked at him, not pretending to understand any meaning he mightattach to his words. "Yes, it is a hard knot to tie, yours, Bigot,and you do not seem particularly to thank me for my service. Have youdiscovered the hidden place of your fair fugitive yet?" She said thisjust as he turned to depart. It was the feminine postscript to theirinterview.
Bigot's avoidance of any allusion to the death of Caroline was aterrible mark of suspicion; less in reality, however, than it seemed.
Bigot, although suspicious, could find no clue to the real perpetratorsof the murder. He knew it had not been Angelique herself in person. Hehad never heard her speak of La Corriveau. Not the smallest ray of lightpenetrated the dark mystery.
 
; "I do not believe she has left Beaumanoir, Bigot," continued Angelique;"or if she has, you know her hiding-place. Will you swear on my book ofhours that you know not where she is to be found?"
He looked fixedly at Angelique for a moment, trying to read herthoughts, but she had rehearsed her part too often and too well to lookpale or confused. She felt her eyebrow twitch, but she pressed it withher fingers, believing Bigot did not observe it, but he did.
"I will swear and curse both, if you wish it, Angelique," replied he."Which shall it be?"
"Well, do both,--swear at me and curse the day that I banished LeGardeur de Repentigny for your sake, Francois Bigot! If the lady begone, where is your promise?"
Bigot burst into a wild laugh, as was his wont when hard-pressed. Hehad not, to be sure, made any definite promise to Angelique, but he hadflattered her with hopes of marriage never intended to be realized.
"I keep my promises to ladies as if I had sworn by St. Dorothy," repliedhe.
"But your promise to me, Bigot! Will you keep it, or do worse?" askedshe, impatiently.
"Keep it or do worse! What mean you, Angelique?" He looked up in genuinesurprise. This was not the usual tone of women towards him.
"I mean that nothing will be better for Francois Bigot than to keep hispromise, nor worse than to break it, to Angelique des Meloises!" repliedshe, with a stamp of her foot, as was her manner when excited.
She thought it safe to use an implied threat, which at any rate mightreach the thought that lay under his heart like a centipede under astone which some chance foot turns over.
But Bigot minded not the implied threat. He was immovable in thedirection she wished him to move. He understood her allusion, but wouldnot appear to understand it, lest worse than she meant should come ofit.
"Forgive me, Angelique!" said he, with a sudden change from frigidity tofondness. "I am not unmindful of my promises; there is nothing better tomyself than to keep them, nothing worse than to break them. Beaumanoiris now without reproach, and you can visit it without fear of aught butthe ghosts in the gallery."
Angelique feared no ghosts, but she did fear that the Intendant's wordsimplied a suggestion of one which might haunt it for the future, ifthere were any truth in tales.
"How can you warrant that, Bigot?" asked she dubiously.
"Because Pierre Philibert and La Corne St. Luc have been with the King'swarrant and searched the chateau from crypt to attic, without finding atrace of your rival."
"What, Chevalier, searched the Chateau of the Intendant?"
"Par bleu! yes, I insisted upon their doing so; not, however, till theyhad gone through the Castle of St. Louis. They apologized to me forfinding nothing. What did they expect to find, think you?"
"The lady, to be sure! Oh, Bigot," continued she, tapping him with herfan, "if they would send a commission of women to search for her, thesecret could not remain hid."
"No, truly, Angelique! If you were on such a commission to search forthe secret of her."
"Well, Bigot, I would never betray it, if I knew it," answered she,promptly.
"You swear to that, Angelique?" asked he, looking full in her eyes,which did not flinch under his gaze.
"Yes; on my book of hours, as you did!" said she.
"Well, there is my hand upon it, Angelique. I have no secret to tellrespecting her. She has gone, I cannot tell WHITHER."
Angelique gave him her hand on the lie. She knew he was playing withher, as she with him, a game of mutual deception, which both knew to besuch. And yet they must, circumstanced as they were, play it out tothe end, which end, she hoped, would be her marriage with thisarch-deceiver. A breach of their alliance was as dangerous as it wouldbe unprofitable to both.
Bigot rose to depart with an air of gay regret at leaving the companyof Angelique to make room for De Pean, "who," he said, "would pull everyhair out of his horse's mane if he waited much longer."
"Your visit is no pleasure to you, Bigot," said she, looking hard athim. "You are discontented with me, and would rather go than stay!"
"Well, Angelique, I am a dissatisfied man to-day. The mysteriousdisappearance of that girl from Beaumanoir is the cause of mydiscontent. The defiant boldness of the Bourgeois Philibert is another.I have heard to-day that the Bourgeois has chartered every ship that isto sail to France during the remainder of the autumn. These things areprovoking enough, but they drive me for consolation to you. But foryou I should shut myself up in Beaumanoir, and let every thing gohelter-skelter to the devil."
"You only flatter me and do not mean it!" said she, as he took her handwith an over-empressement as perceptible to her as was his occasionalcoldness.
"By all the saints! I mean it," said he. But he did not deceive her. Hisprofessions were not all true, but how far they were true was a questionthat again and again tormented her, and set her bosom palpitating as heleft her room with his usual courteous salute.
"He suspects me! He more than suspects me!" said she to herself as Bigotpassed out of the mansion and mounted his horse to ride off. "He wouldspeak out plainer if he dared avow that that woman was in truth themissing Caroline de St. Castin!" thought she with savage bitterness.
"I have a bit in your mouth there, Francois Bigot, that will foreverhold you in check. That missing demoiselle, no one knows as you do whereshe is. I would give away every jewel I own to know what you did withthe pretty piece of mortality left on your hands by La Corriveau."
Thus soliloquized Angelique for a few moments, looking gloomy andbeautiful as Medea, when the step of De Pean sounded up the broad stair.
With a sudden transformation, as if touched by a magic wand, Angeliquesprang forward, all smiles and fascinations to greet his entrance.
The Chevalier de Pean had long made distant and timid pretensions to herfavor, but he had been overborne by a dozen rivals. He was incapable oflove in any honest sense; but he had immense vanity. He had been barelynoticed among the crowd of Angelique's admirers. "He was only food forpowder," she had laughingly remarked upon one occasion, when a duel onher account seemed to be impending between De Pean and the young Captainde Tours; and beyond doubt Angelique would have been far prouder of himshot for her sake in a duel than she was of his living attentions.
She was not sorry, however, that he came in to-day after the departureof the Intendant. It kept her from her own thoughts, which were bitterenough when alone. Moreover, she never tired of any amount of homage andadmiration, come from what quarter it would.
De Pean stayed long with Angelique. How far he opened the details ofthe plot to create a riot in the market-place that afternoon can onlybe conjectured by the fact of her agreeing to ride out at the hourdesignated, which she warmly consented to do as soon as De Pean informedher that Le Gardeur would be there and might be expected to have ahand in the tumult raised against the Golden Dog. The conference over,Angelique speedily dismissed De Pean. She was in no mood for flirtationwith him. Her mind was taken up with the possibility of danger to LeGardeur in this plot, which she saw clearly was the work of others, andnot of himself, although he was expected to be a chief actor in it.