The Helmet of Navarre Part 56

"No," said M. etienne, carelessly, not deigning to anger; "but there is my dinner for you, an you like. I have paid for it, but I have other business than to eat it."

Bidding a waiter serve M. Peyrot, he walked from the room without other glance at him. A slight shade fell over the reckless, scampish face; he was a moment vexed that we scorned him. Merely vexed, I think; shamed not at all; he knew not the feel of it. Even in the brief s.p.a.ce I watched him, as I pa.s.sed to the door, his visage cleared, and he sat him down contentedly to finish M. etienne's veal broth.

My lord paced along rapidly and gladly, on fire to be before Monsieur with the packet. But one little cloud, transient as Peyrot's, pa.s.sed across his lightsome countenance.

"I would that knave were of my rank," he said. "I had not left him without slapping a glove in his face."

That Peyrot had come off scot-free put me out of patience, too, but I regretted the gold we had given him more than the wounds we had not. The money, on the contrary, troubled M. etienne no whit; what he had never toiled for he parted with lightly.

We came to our gates and went straightway up the stairs to Monsieur's cabinet. He sprang to meet us at the door, s.n.a.t.c.hing the packet from his son's eager hand.

"Well done, etienne, my champion! An you brought me the crown of France I were not so pleased!"

The flush of joy at generous praise of good work kindled on M. etienne's cheek; it were hard to say which of the two messieurs beamed the more delightedly on the other.

"My son, you have brought me back my honour," spoke Monsieur, more quietly, the exuberance of his delight abating, but leaving him none the less happy. "If you had sinned against me--which I do not admit, dear lad--it were more than made up for now."

"Ah, Monsieur, I have often asked myself of late what I was born for.

Now I know it was for this morning."

"For this and many more mornings, etienne," Monsieur made gay answer, laying a hand on his son's shoulder. "Courage, comrade. We'll have our lady yet."

He smiled at him hearteningly and turned away to his writing-table. For all his sympathy, he was, as was natural, more interested in his papers than in Mlle. de Montluc.

"I'll get this off my hands at once," he went on, with the effect of talking to himself rather than to us. "It shall go straight off to Lemaitre. You'd better go to bed, both of you. My faith, you've made a night of it!"

"Won't you take me for your messenger, Monsieur? You need a trusty one."

"A kindly offer, etienne. But you have earned your rest. And you, true as you are, are yet not the only staunch servant I have, G.o.d be thanked.

Gilles will take this straight from my hand to Lemaitre's."

He had inclosed the packet in a clean wrapper, but now, a thought striking him, he took it out again.

"I'd best break off the royal seal, lest it be spied among the president's papers. I'll scratch out my initial, too. The cipher tells nothing."

"He is not likely to leave it about, Monsieur."

"No, but this time we'll provide for every chance. We'll take all the precautions ingenuity can devise or patience execute."

He crushed the seal in his fingers, and took the knife-point to sc.r.a.pe the wax away. It slipped and severed the cords. Of its own accord the stiff paper of the flap unfolded.

"The cipher seems as determined to show itself to me again as if I were in danger of forgetting it," Monsieur said idly. "The truth is--"

He stopped in the middle of a word, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the packet, slapping it wide open, tearing it sheet from sheet. Each was absolutely blank!

XXIV

_The Florentines._

M. etienne, forgetting his manners, s.n.a.t.c.hed the papers from his father's hand, turning them about and about, not able to believe his senses. A man hurled over a cliff, plunging in one moment from flowery lawns into a turbulent sea, might feel as he did.

"But the seal!" he stammered.

"The seal was genuine," Monsieur answered, startled as he. "How your fellow could have the king's signet--"

"See," M. etienne cried, scratching at the fragments. "This is it. Dunce that I am not to have guessed it! Look, there is a layer of paper embedded in the wax. Look, he cut the seal out, smeared hot wax on the false packet, pressed in the seal, and curled the new wax over the edge.

It was cleverly done; the seal is but little thicker, little larger than before. It did not look tampered with. Would you have suspected it, Monsieur?" he demanded piteously.

"I had no thought of it. But this Peyrot--it may not yet be too late--"

"I will go back," M. etienne cried, darting to the door. But Monsieur laid forcible hands on him.

"Not you, etienne. You were hurt yesterday; you have not closed your eyes for twenty-four hours. I don't want a dead son. I blame you not for the failure; not another man of us all would have come so near success."

"Dolt! I should have known he could not deal honestly," M. etienne cried. "I should have known he would trick me. But I did not think to doubt the crest. I should have opened it there in the inn, but it was Lemaitre's sealed packet. However, Peyrot sat down to my dinner: I can be back before he has finished his three kinds of wine."

"Stop, etienne," Monsieur commanded. "I forbid you. You are gray with fatigue. Vigo shall go."

M. etienne turned on him in fiery protest; then the blaze in his eyes flickered out, and he made obedient salute.

"So be it. Let him go. I am no use; I bungle everything I touch. But he may accomplish something."

He flung himself down on the bench in the corner, burying his face in his hands, weary, chagrined, disheartened. A statue-maker might have copied him for a figure of Defeat.

"Go find Vigo," Monsieur bade me, "and then get you to bed."

I obeyed both orders with all alacrity.

I too smarted, but mine was the private's disappointment, not the general's who had planned the campaign. The credit of the rescue was none of mine; no more was the blame of failure. I need not rack myself with questioning, Had I in this or that done differently, should I not have triumphed? I had done only what I was told. Yet I was part of the expedition; I could not but share the grief. If I did not wet my pillow with my tears, it was because I could not keep awake long enough.

Whatever my sorrows, speedily they slipped from me.

I roused with a start from deep, dreamless sleep, and then wondered whether, after all, I had waked. Here, to be sure, was Marcel's bed, on which I had lain down; there was the high gable-window, through which the westering sun now poured. There was the wardrobe open, with Marcel's Sunday suit hanging on the peg; here were the two stools, the little image of the Virgin on the wall. But here was also something else, so out of place in the chamber of a page that I pinched myself to make sure it was real. At my elbow on the pallet lay a box of some fine foreign wood, beautifully grained by G.o.d and polished by grateful man. It was about as large as my lord's despatch-box, bound at the edges with s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s and having long bra.s.s hinges wrought in a design of leaves and flowers. Beside the box were set three shallow trays, lined with blue velvet, and filled full of goldsmith's work-glittering chains, linked or twisted, bracelets in the form of yellow snakes with green eyes, buckles with ivory teeth, glove-clasps thick with pearls, ear-rings and finger-rings with precious stones.

I stared bedazzled from the display to him who stood as showman. This was a handsome lad, seemingly no older than I, though taller, with a shock of black hair, rough and curly, and dark, smooth face, very boyish and pleasant. He was dressed well, in bourgeois fas.h.i.+on; yet there was about him and his apparel something, I could not tell what, unfamiliar, different from us others.

He, meeting my eye, smiled in the friendliest way, like a child, and said, in Italian:

"Good day to you, my little gentleman."

I had still the uncertain feeling that I must be in a dream, for why should an Italian jeweller be displaying his treasures to me, a penniless page? But the dream was amusing; I was in no haste to wake.

I knew my Italian well enough, for Monsieur's confessor, the Father Francesco, who had followed him into exile, was Florentine; and as he always spoke his own tongue to Monsieur, and I was always at the duke's heels, I picked up a deal of it. After Monsieur's going, the father, already a victim, poor man, to the falling-sickness, of which he died, stayed behind with us, and I found a p.r.i.c.king pleasure in talking with him in the speech he loved, of Monsieur's Roman journey, of his exploits in the war of the Three Henrys. Therefore the words came easily to my lips to answer this lad from over the Alps: