St. Martin's Summer Part 13

"I am honoured in that you should have borne me in your memory, monsieur," said he. He was about to add that he would be overjoyed if it should happen that Monsieur Gaubert was travelling to Paris, since he might give himself the pleasure of his company on that tedious journey; but he checked himself betimes. He had no reason to suspect this gentleman; and yet, all things considered, he bethought him suddenly that he would do well to observe the greatest circ.u.mspection. So with a pleasant but meaningless civility touching Monsieur Gaubert's presence in those parts, Garnache pa.s.sed on and gained the door. He paused in the porch, above which the rebus-like sign of the Sucking Calf creaked and grated in each gust of the chill wind that was blowing from the Alps.

The rain had ceased, but the sky was dark and heavy with great banks of scudding clouds. In the street the men of his escort sat their horses, having mounted at his bidding in readiness for the journey. A word or two he exchanged with the sergeant, and then with a great rumble the clumsy carriage from the Auberge de France heralded its approach. It rolled up the street, a vast machine of wood and leather, drawn by three horses, and drew up at the door of the inn. Out sprang Rabecque, to be immediately sent by his master to summon mademoiselle. They would set out upon the instant.

Rabecque turned to obey; but in that same moment he was thrust rudely aside by a man with the air of a servant, who issued from he inn carrying a valise; after him, following close upon his heels, with head held high and eyes that looked straight before him and took no heed of Garnache, came the foreigner of yesternight.

Rabecque, his shoulders touching the timbers of the porch, against which he had been thrust, remained at gaze, following with resentful eye the fellow who had so rudely used him. Garnache, on the other side, watched with some wonder the advent of the ingenuous-looking stranger, but as yet with no suspicion of his intent.

Not until the servant had thrown open the door of the coach and deposited within the valise he carried, did Garnache stir. Not, indeed, until the foreigner's foot was on the step preparatory to mounting did Garnache speak.

"Hi! monsieur," he called to him, "what is your pleasure with my carriage?"

The stranger turned, and stared at Garnache with a look of wonder that artfully changed to one of disdainful recognition.

"Ah?" said he, and his eyebrows went up. "The apologetic gentleman! You said?"

Garnache approached him, followed a step not only by Rabecque, but also by Monsieur Gaubert, who had sauntered out a second earlier. Behind them, in the porch, lounged now the foreigner's friend, and behind him again was to be seen the great face and staring, somewhat startled eyes of the landlord.

"I asked you, monsieur," said Garnache, already at grips with that quick temper of his, "what might be your pleasure with my coach?"

"With your coach?" echoed the other, his superciliousness waxing more and more offensive. "Voyons! on! my apologetic friend, do all things in Gren.o.ble belong to you?" He turned to the post-boy, who looked on stolidly. "You are from the Auberge de France, are you not?" quoth he.

"I am, monsieur," replied the man. "This carriage was ordered last night by a gentleman lodging at the Veau qui Tete?"

"Perfectly," replied the stranger, in a tone of finality. "It was ordered by me." And he was about to turn away, when Garnache approached him by yet another step.

"I will ask you to observe, monsieur," said he and for all that his tone and words were civil, that they were forcedly so was obvious from their quiver--"I will ask you to observe that the carriage was fetched by my own man there, who rode hither in it."

The stranger looked him up and down with a curling lip.

"It seems, sir," said he, with a broad sneer, "that you are one of those impertinent fellows who will be for ever thrusting themselves upon gentlemen with an eye to such profit as they can make." He produced a purse and opened it. "Last night it was my supper you usurped. I suffered that. Now you would do the same by my coach, and that I shall not suffer. But there is for your pains, and to be quit of your company." And he tossed a silver coin at the Parisian.

There was an exclamation of horror in the background, and Monsieur de Gaubert thrust himself forward.

"Sir, sir," he exclaimed in an agitated voice, "you cannot know whom you are addressing. This is Monsieur Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache, Mestre-de-Champ in the army of the King."

"Of all those names the one I should opine might fit him best, but for his ugliness, is that of Marie," answered the foreigner, leering, and with a contemptuous shrug he turned again to mount the carriage.

At that all Garnache's self-control deserted him, and he did a thing deplorable. In one of his blind accesses of fury, heedless of the faithful and watchful Rabecque's arresting tug at his sleeve, he stepped forward, and brought a heavy hand down upon the supercilious gentleman's shoulder. He took him in the instant in which, with one foot off the ground and the other on the step of the carriage, the foreigner was easily thrown' off his balance; he dragged him violently backward, span him round and dropped him floundering in the mire of the street-kennel.

That done, there fell a pause--a hush that was ominous of things impending. A little crowd of idlers that had gathered was quickly augmenting now, and from some there came a cry of "Shame!" at Garnache's act of violence.

This is no moment at which to pause to moralize. And yet, how often is it not so? How often does not public sympathy go out to the man who has been a.s.saulted without thought of the extent to which that man may have provoked and goaded his a.s.sailant.

That cry of "Shame!" did no more than increase the anger that was mastering Garnache. His mission in Gren.o.ble was forgotten; mademoiselle above-stairs was forgotten; the need for caution and the fear of the Condillacs were forgotten; everything was thrust from his mind but the situation of the moment.

Amid the hush that followed, the stranger picked himself slowly up, and sought to wipe the filth from his face and garments. His servant and his friend flew to his aid, but he waved them aside, and advanced towards Garnache, eyes blazing, lips sneering.

"Perhaps," said he, in that soft, foreign tone of his, laden now with fierce mock-politeness, "perhaps monsieur proposes to apologize again."

"Sir, you are mad," interposed Gaubert. "You are a foreigner, I perceive, else you would--"

But Garnache thrust him quietly aside. "You are very kind, Monsieur Gaubert," said he, and his manner now was one of frozen calm--a manner that betrayed none of the frenzy of seething pa.s.sion underneath.

"I think, sir," said he to the stranger, adopting something of that gentleman's sardonic manner, "that it will be a more peaceful world without you. It is that consideration restrains me from apologizing. And yet, if monsieur will express regret for having sought, and with such lack of manners, to appropriate my carriage--"

"Enough!" broke in the other. "We are wasting time, and I have a long journey before me. Courthon," said he, addressing his friend, "will you bring me the length of this gentleman's sword? My name, sir," he added to Garnache, "is Sanguinetti."

"Faith," said Garnache, "it sorts well with your b.l.o.o.d.y spirit."

"And will sort well, no doubt, with his condition presently," put in hawk-faced Gaubert. "Monsieur de Garnache, if you have no friend at hand to act for you, I shall esteem myself honoured." And he bowed.

"Why, thanks, sir. You are most opportunely met. You should be a gentleman since you frequent the Hotel de Bourgogne. My thanks."

Gaubert went aside to confer with Monsieur Courthon. Sanguinetti stood apart, his manner haughty and impressive, his eye roaming scornfully through the ranks of what had by now become a crowd. Windows were opening in the street, and heads appearing, and across the way Garnache might have beheld the flabby face of Monsieur de Tressan among the spectators of that little scene.

Rabecque drew near his master.

"Have a care, monsieur," he implored him. "If this should be a trap."

Garnache started. The remark sobered him, and brought to his mind his own suspicions of yesternight, which his present anger had for the moment lulled. Still, he conceived that he had gone too far to extricate himself. But he could at least see to it that he was not drawn away from the place that sheltered mademoiselle. And so he stepped forward, joining Courthon and Gaubert, to insist that the combat should take place in the inn--either in the common room or in the yard. But the landlord, overhearing this, protested loudly that he could not consent to it. He had his house to think of. He swore that they should not fight on his premises, and implored them in the same breath not to attempt it.

At that Garnache, now thoroughly on his guard! was for putting off the encounter.

"Monsieur Courthon," said he--and he felt a flush of shame mounting to his brow, and realized that it may need more courage to avoid an encounter than to engage in one--"there is something that in the heat of pa.s.sion I forgot; something that renders it difficult for me to meet your friend at present."

Courthon looked at him as he might look at an impertinent lackey.

"And what may that be?" he inquired, mightily contemptuous. There was a sn.i.g.g.e.r from some in the crowd that pressed about them, and even Monsieur Gaubert looked askance.

"Surely, sir," he began, "if I did not know you for Monsieur de Garnache--"

But Garnache did not let him finish.

"Give me air," he cried, and cuffed out to right and left of him at the grinning spectators, who fell back and grinned less broadly. "My reason, Monsieur de Courthon," said he, "is that I do not belong to my self at present. I am in Gren.o.ble on business of the State, as the emissary of the Queen-Regent, and so it would hardly become me to engage in private quarrels."

Courthon raised his brows.

"You should have thought of that before you rolled Monsieur Sanguinetti in the mud," he answered coldly.

"I will tender him my apologies for that," Garnache promised, swallowing hard, "and if he still insists upon a meeting he shall have it in, say, a month's time."

"I cannot permit--" began Courthon, very fiercely.

"You will be so good as to inform your friend of what I have said,"

Garnache insisted, interrupting him.

Cowed, Courthon shrugged and went apart to confer with his friend.

"Ah!" came Sanguinetti's soft voice, yet loud enough to be heard by all present. "He shall have a caning then for his impertinence." And he called loudly to the post-boy for his whip. But at that insult Garnache's brain seemed to take fire, and his cautious resolutions were reduced to ashes by the conflagration. He stepped forward, and, virulent of tone and terrific of mien, he announced that since Monsieur Sanguinetti took that tone with him, he would cut his throat for him at once and wherever they should please.

At last it was arranged that they should proceed there and then to the Champs aux Capuchins, a half-mile away behind the Franciscan convent.