The Englishman, relieved to find himself in the hands of such a good-natured gentleman, embraced d’Artagnan heartily and paid a thousand compliments to the victorious musketeers.
Then, since Porthos’s adversary was already installed in his carriage and Aramis’s had scampered away, they had only to think about the dead man. As Porthos and Aramis were opening his clothes in hopes that the wound wasn’t mortal, a heavy purse dropped from his belt. D’Artagnan scooped it up and presented it to Lord Winter.
“And what the devil do you want me to do with this?” said the Englishman.
“You can return it to his family,” said d’Artagnan.
“His family could care less about such a paltry sum, especially since they’ll inherit fifteen thousand crowns a year from him. Keep the purse for your lackeys.”
D’Artagnan put the purse in his pocket.
“And now, my young friend, as I hope you’ll permit me to call you,” said Lord Winter, “if you like, I’ll present you this evening to my sister, Lady Clarice.84 I’d like her to take you under her wing. She’s by no means out of favor at Court and might, perhaps, be able to put in a good word for you at some point in the future.”
D’Artagnan blushed with pleasure and bowed his assent.
Just then, Athos came up to d’Artagnan. “What are you planning to do with that purse?” he whispered.
“I intended to give it to you, my dear Athos.”
“To me? Why me?”
“Dame! You’re the one who killed him; they’re the spoils of war.”
“Me, loot an enemy!” said Athos. “What do you take me for?”
“It’s the custom in wartime,” said d’Artagnan. “Why shouldn’t it be the custom in a duel?”
“I’ve never done that, even on the field of battle,” said Athos. Porthos shrugged his shoulders. Aramis, with a little nod, supported Athos.
“All right, then,” said d’Artagnan, “give the money to the lackeys, as Lord de Winter suggested.”
“I agree, let’s donate the purse,” said Athos, “not to our lackeys, but to the Englishmen’s lackeys.” He took the purse and tossed it into the hands of the coachman. “For you and your comrades,” he said.
Such majestic grandeur from a man entirely destitute impressed even Porthos, and Athos’s Gallic generosity was applauded by everyone, including Lord Winter and his wounded friend, with the notable exception of Messieurs Grimaud, Mousqueton, Planchet, and Bazin.
Lord Winter, taking his leave of d’Artagnan, gave him his sister’s address: she lived in the Place Royale,85 which was then a most fashionable neighborhood. In addition, he offered to come with d’Artagnan to present him to his sister. D’Artagnan agreed to meet him at eight o’clock, at Athos’s house.
This imminent introduction to Milady filled the young Gascon’s head. He thought about the strange way this woman had become mixed up in his destiny. He was convinced that she was some creature of Cardinal Richelieu’s, yet he found himself inescapably drawn to her by a feeling impossible to explain. His only fear was that Milady would recognize him from Meung or Dover. Then she’d know that he was attached to Monsieur de Tréville and therefore belonged body and soul to the king. This would level the playing field by eliminating one of his main advantages, which was that he knew more of Milady than she knew of him.
As to competition from the incipient amour between Milady and the Comte de Wardes, d’Artagnan wasn’t the least bit concerned, though the count was young, handsome, rich, and in favor with the cardinal. It’s something indeed to be only twenty years old, especially if one was born at Tarbes.
D’Artagnan went home and groomed himself until he shone. Then he returned to Athos’s place and, as usual, told him everything. Athos listened to his plans, then shook his head and warned him, with a touch of bitterness, that he’d better be careful. “What, you lose one woman, whom you said was good, charming, even perfect, and now you run after another?”
D’Artagnan was stung by the truth of this reproach. “I loved Madame Bonacieux with my heart, while I love Milady only with my head,” he said. “Through this introduction to her, I’m merely trying to determine what role she plays at Court.”
“What role she plays! Pardieu! That’s not hard to divine, after everything you’ve told me. She’s some agent of the cardinal’s, a woman who will draw you into a trap, in which you’ll most likely leave your head.”
“The devil! It seems to me you always see the dark side of things, Athos.”
“I distrust all women, my friend. What would you have? I paid a high price for my knowledge of the fair sex—especially the blond ones. Milady is fair, you said?”
“She has the most beautiful blond hair you’ve ever seen!”
“Oh, my poor d’Artagnan,” said Athos.
“Listen, I want to go to clear something up. When I’ve learned what I want to know, I’ll take my leave.”
“Go learn, then,” Athos said phlegmatically.
Lord Winter arrived shortly thereafter, but Athos, warned in time, ducked into a back room, so the baron found d’Artagnan alone. It was nearly eight o’clock, so he took the young man with him.
An elegant carriage waited below, and as it was drawn by two excellent horses, they were soon at the Place Royale.
Milady Clarice received d’Artagnan graciously. Her hôtel was remarkably sumptuous. Due to the impending war most of the English had already left France, or were about to leave it, but Milady was in the process of expensive renovations. This clearly showed that the measures driving the other English from France didn’t apply to her.
“You see before you,” said Lord Winter, presenting d’Artagnan to his sister, “a young gentleman who has held my life in his hands, but who refused to take advantage though we were enemies twice over, as I’m English and it was I who insulted him. Thank him, Madame, if you have any affection for me.”
Milady knit her brows slightly, a cloud momentarily passed across her face, followed by a smile so strange that the young man, noticing the quick change of expressions, nearly shuddered.
The brother saw nothing; he had turned around to play with Milady’s favorite monkey, which had tugged on his doublet.
“You are very welcome, Monsieur,” said Milady in a voice whose sweetness contrasted strangely with the signs of displeasure d’Artagnan had noticed. “Today you have acquired the right to my eternal gratitude.”
Lord Winter then described the combat, leaving out not a single detail. Milady listened attentively, yet it was easy to see, despite the effort she made to conceal it, that she was not at all happy with the story. The blood rose to her face and her foot beat an impatient tattoo beneath her gown.
Lord Winter noticed none of this. His tale finished, he went over to a table bearing glasses and a bottle of Spanish wine. He filled two glasses and invited d’Artagnan with a gesture to drink with him.
D’Artagnan knew that the English considered it rude to refuse a toast, so he approached the table and took a glass. However, he never lost sight of Milady, and watching her in a mirror saw a change come over her features. Now that she thought herself unobserved her face was animated with ferocity and she tore at her handkerchief with her beautiful teeth.
The pretty little soubrette, whom d’Artagnan had already noticed, now came into the room. She spoke a few words in English to Lord Winter, and he immediately turned and asked d’Artagnan’s permission to withdraw, excusing himself due to an urgent matter that called him away and begging his sister to ask his pardon of d’Artagnan. The young Gascon shook hands with the baron and then returned to Milady, whose surprisingly mobile features had regained their gracious expression. Only some small red spots on her handkerchief indicated she had bitten her lips until they bled.
Those lips were magnificent, the color of coral.
The conversation took a playful turn. Milady appeared entirely recovered. She explained that Lord Winter was her brother-in-law, not her brother: she had married a younger broth
er of the family who had left her a widow with an infant. If the baron didn’t marry, this child was the sole heir to Lord Winter.
All this persuaded d’Artagnan that there was a veil hiding something here, but he couldn’t yet make out what it hid.
At the end of another half-hour’s conversation d’Artagnan was convinced that Milady was French, not English. She spoke French with a purity and elegance that left no doubt in his mind.
D’Artagnan made any number of gallant speeches and protestations of devotion. Milady replied to all this nonsense with a benevolent smile. The end of the evening arrived and d’Artagnan took his leave of Milady, leaving her salon the happiest of men.
On the stairs he encountered the pretty soubrette, who brushed softly against him in passing and then, blushing to her eyes, begged his pardon for having touched him—all in a voice so sweet that the pardon was instantly granted.
D’Artagnan returned the following day and was even better received than the day before. Lord Winter was out, so it was Milady who did all the honors that evening. She appeared to take a great interest in him, asking him where he came from, who his friends were, and whether he’d ever thought of taking service with Monsieur le Cardinal.
As has been said, d’Artagnan was very prudent for a twenty-year-old Gascon, and this reminded him of his suspicions regarding Milady. He made a speech about the greatness of His Eminence, and said that he would certainly have joined the Cardinal’s Guard rather than the king’s if he’d happened to know Monsieur de Cavois instead of Monsieur de Tréville.
Milady smoothly changed the subject, asking d’Artagnan nonchalantly if he’d ever been to England. D’Artagnan replied that he’d been sent there by Monsieur de Tréville to negotiate the purchase of some horses and that he’d returned with four to try out.
As he related this, Milady bit her lip two or three times. She was dealing with a Gascon who played his cards close to his chest.
D’Artagnan took his leave at the same hour as the previous evening. In the corridor he again met the pretty Kitty, as the soubrette was called. She looked at him with a warmth impossible to mistake, but d’Artagnan was so preoccupied with the mistress of the house that he noticed no one but her.
D’Artagnan returned to Milady’s hôtel the next day, and the day after that, and each time Milady received him more graciously. And each time, whether in the antechamber, the corridor, or on the stairs, he met the pretty soubrette. Poor Kitty was persistent, but d’Artagnan still paid her no attention.
XXXII
Dinner at the Prosecutor’s
No matter how gratifying Porthos’s part in the duel with the English had been, it couldn’t make him forget the dinner he’d been invited to by the prosecutor’s wife. The next day, right on time, Mousqueton gave him a final once-over, and then he made his way toward the Rue aux Ours, walking like a man who was the darling of Fortune.
His heart pounded—but not like d’Artagnan’s, with young, impatient love. No, a more material attraction stirred his blood: he was finally about to cross that mysterious threshold and climb the same secret stairs that the coins of Master Coquenard had climbed, one by one.
He was about to see, in reality, a certain chest he’d beheld twenty times in his dreams: a chest long and deep, padlocked, bolted, and fastened to the floor; a chest about which he’d heard so much, and which the hands of the prosecutor’s wife—somewhat wrinkled, it’s true, but still elegant—were about to open to his admiring eyes.
And then he, a man without fortune, a man without family, a virtual vagabond, a soldier used to inns, cabarets, and taverns, a gourmet who most of the time had to eat whatever came to hand— he was going to sit down to a family meal. He was going to sit and savor the environment of home and wallow in those small pleasures that, as the old soldiers say, the tougher you are, the more they soften you.
To appear in the capacity of a cousin and sit down every day to a good table; to soothe the wrinkled brow of the aged prosecutor; to fleece the young clerks by teaching them basset, hazard, and lansquenet,86 taking as an honorarium, for the lesson he’d given them, their savings for the month—the thought of all this brought a smile to Porthos’s face.
The musketeer was well aware of the bad reputation lawyers and attorneys had at that time for stinginess, parsimony, and even fasting. However, except for a marked tendency to economize that Porthos had always found in bad taste, Madame Coquenard had been over all rather generous—for a prosecutor’s wife, that is. He hoped to find her household run on a comfortable footing.
However, at the door the musketeer began to have his doubts. The entrance was not particularly promising: a dark and stinking alley, at the end of which was a badly lit staircase leading up to a low door studded with enormous nails, looking all too much like the main gate of the Grand Châtelet, Paris’s foremost prison.
Porthos knocked. The door was opened by a tall, pale clerk, his face shadowed by a mop of shaggy hair. He bowed as if obliged to, faced with his guest’s great size, which showed strength; his dress, which showed his rank; and his ruddy complexion, which showed that he was used to living well.
Another, shorter clerk was behind the first, a taller one behind the second, and a twelve-year-old apprentice behind the third. In total, three clerks and a half, which, for the time, indicated that this lawyer had a sizable practice.
Though the musketeer wasn’t due to arrive before one o’clock the prosecutor’s wife had been on the lookout since noon, reckoning that the heart, or maybe the stomach of her paramour would bring him to her early. Madame Coquenard thus arrived at the inner door of the office at the same time her guest arrived at the stairway entrance. The appearance of the worthy lady saved Porthos from an awkward moment. The clerks were staring at him curiously and he, not quite knowing what to say to this assortment of gnomes and beanpoles, stood his ground silently.
“It’s my cousin!” cried madame. “Come in, come in, Monsieur Porthos.”
The name Porthos struck the clerks as funny, and they began to laugh, but Porthos turned on them ominously and their faces quickly resumed their humorless stares.
After having passed through the antechamber where they’d found the clerks, and the office where they should have been, they arrived in the prosecutor’s study, a dark chamber that seemed furnished mainly with untidy stacks of paper. Beyond the study was the parlor, with the kitchen on the right.
None of these rooms made a particularly good impression on Porthos. Private conversation could be heard through all these open doors even at a distance. Furthermore, in passing he’d taken a quick look into the kitchen, and he had to admit, to his great regret and to the shame of the prosecutor’s wife, that he didn’t see that fire, that animation, that flurry of activity that indicates, in a well-run home, that a fine dinner is imminent.87
The prosecutor had doubtless been warned of his visit, as he showed no surprise at the sight of Porthos, who approached him with a familiar air and bowed politely.
“So, it seems we’re cousins, Monsieur Porthos?” said the prosecutor, raising himself by his arms from the seat of his wicker chair.
The old man, enveloped in an oversized black doublet that entirely swallowed his gaunt frame, was alert and in charge of his wits. His little gray eyes glittered like carbuncles and seemed, with his grimacing mouth, to be the only parts of his face that were still alive. Unfortunately his legs had been refusing their service to this machine of bones for the last five or six months, and this weakness had made the worthy prosecutor a virtual slave to his wife. The “cousin” was accepted with resignation, at best. A more spry Master Coquenard would have denied all relationship with Monsieur Porthos.
“Yes, Monsieur, we are cousins,” said Porthos, unruffled, as he’d never expected an enthusiastic reception from the husband.
“On my wife’s side, I believe?” said the prosecutor maliciously.
Porthos missed this stab’s double meaning, taking it for evidence of naïveté, and chuckled be
hind his immense mustache. Madame Coquenard, who knew that naïve prosecutors were rare members of the species, smiled a little, and blushed rather more.
Since the arrival of Porthos, Master Coquenard had been glancing uneasily at a large armoire next to his oaken writing desk. Porthos realized that this armoire, though it didn’t look much like the chest he’d seen in his dreams, must be the blessed coffer, and he congratulated himself that the reality was six feet taller than the chest he’d dreamed of.
Master Coquenard didn’t press his genealogical interrogations any further. Changing his uneasy gaze from the armoire to Porthos, he contented himself with saying, “Monsieur our cousin, before his departure for the campaign, will do us the honor to dine with us at another time, won’t he, Madame Coquenard?”
This time, Porthos felt the blow right in his stomach, and it hurt. Apparently Madame Coquenard felt it too, for she added, “My cousin won’t return at all if we mistreat him. In truth, he’ll be in Paris for such a short time that we should beg him to spare every moment he can for us before he departs.”
“Oh, my poor legs,” murmured Coquenard. “Where are you, now that I need you?” He tried to smile.
Porthos, who’d seen all his gastronomic hopes threatened, was exceedingly grateful to madame for rescuing him.
The dinner hour soon arrived. They went into the dining room, a large dark chamber opposite the kitchen.
The clerks, who had apparently smelled unusual aromas wafting through the house, arrived with military punctuality and stood with their stools in their hands, eager to seat themselves. Their jaws worked with a frightful urgency.
God’s wounds! thought Porthos, when he saw the three starvelings —apparently the demi-clerk wasn’t to be admitted to the honors of the prosecutorial table—God’s wounds! If I were in my cousin’s place, I wouldn’t keep such gluttons as these around. They act like shipwrecked sailors who’ve had nothing to eat for six weeks.
Master Coquenard entered, pushed in his rolling chair by Madame Coquenard. Porthos helped the lady roll her husband up to the table. As soon as he entered the room, his jaws began working just like his clerks’. “Oh ho!” he said. “Now there is a soup to savor!”