Under the Red Robe by Stanley John Weyman (positive books to read txt) 📕

And full of black rage! Had she only reproached me, or, turning on me in the hour of MY victory, said all that she had now said in the moment of her own, I could have borne it. She might have shamed me then, and I might have taken the shame to myself and forgiven her. But, as it was, I stood there in the gathering dusk, between the darkening hedges, baffled, tricked, defeated! And by a woman! She had pitted her wits against mine, her woman’s will against my experience, and she had come off the victor. And then she had reviled me! As I took it all in, and began to comprehend also the more remote results, and how completely her move had made further progress on my part impossible, I hated her. She had tricked me with her gracious ways and her slow-coming smile. And, after all—for what she had said—it was this man’s life or mine. ‘What had I done that another man would not do? MON DIEU! in the future there was nothing I would not do. I would make her smart for those words of hers! I would bring her to her knees!

Still, hot as I was, an hour might have restored me to coolness. But when I started to return, I fell into a fresh rage, for I remembered that I did not know my way out of the maze of rides and paths into which she had drawn me; and this and the mishaps which followed, kept my rage hot. For a full hour I wandered in the wood, unable, though I knew where the village lay, to find any track which led continuously in one direction. Whenever, at the end of each attempt, the thicket brought me up short, I fancied that I heard her laughing on the farther side of the brake; and the ignominy of this chance punishment, and the check which the confinement placed on my rage, almost maddened me. In the darkness I fell, and rose cursing; I tore my hands with thorns; I stained my suit, which had suffered sadly once before. At length, when I had almost resigned myself to lie in the wood, I caught sight of the lights of the village, and, trembling between haste and anger, pressed towards them. In a few minutes I stood in the little street.

The lights of the inn shone only fifty yards away; but before I could show myself even there pride suggested that I should do something to repair my clothes. I stopped, and scraped and brushed them; and, at the same time, did what I could to compose my features. Then I advanced to the door and knocked. Almost on the instant the landlord’s voice cried from the inside, ‘Enter, Monsieur!’

I raised the latch and went in. The man was alone, squatting over the fire warming his hands. A black pot simmered on the ashes, As I entered he raised the lid and peeped inside. Then he glanced over his shoulder.

‘You expected me?’ I said defiantly, walking to the hearth, and setting one of my damp boots on the logs.

‘Yes,’ he answered, nodding curtly. ‘Your supper is just ready. I thought that you would be in about this time.’

He grinned as he spoke, and it was with difficulty I suppressed my wrath.

‘Mademoiselle de Cocheforet told you,’ I said, affecting indifference, ‘where I was?’

‘Ay, Mademoiselle—or Madame,’ he replied, grinning afresh.

So she had told him; where she had left me, and how she had tricked me! She had, made me the village laughing-stock! My rage flashed out afresh at the thought, and, at the sight of his mocking face, I raised my fist.

But he read the threat in my eyes, and was up in a moment, snarling, with his hand on his knife.

‘Not again, Monsieur!’ he cried, in his vile patois. ‘My head is sore still raise your hand and I will rip you up as I would a pig!’

‘Sit down, fool,’ I said. ‘I am not going to harm you. Where is your wife?’

‘About her business.’

‘Which should be getting my supper,’ I retorted.

He rose sullenly, and, fetching a platter, poured the mess of broth and vegetables into it. Then he went to a cupboard and brought out a loaf of black bread and a measure of wine, and set them also on the table.

‘You see it,’ he said laconically.

‘And a poor welcome!’ I replied.

He flamed into sudden passion at that. Leaning with both his hands on the table he thrust his rugged face and blood-shot eyes close to mine. His moustachios bristled, his beard trembled.

‘Hark ye, sirrah!’ he muttered, with sullen emphasis, ‘be content! I have my suspicions. And if it were not for my lady’s orders I would put a knife into you, fair or foul, this very night. You would lie snug outside, instead of inside, and I do not think anyone would be the worse. But as it is, be content. Keep a still tongue; and when you turn your back on Cocheforet to-morrow keep it turned.’

‘Tut! tut!’ I said—but I confess that I was a little out of countenance. ‘Threatened men live long, you rascal!’

‘In Paris!’ he answered significantly. ‘Not here, Monsieur.’

He straightened himself with that, nodded once, and went back to the fire; and I shrugged my shoulders and began to eat, affecting to forget his presence. The logs on the hearth burned sullenly, and gave no light. The poor oil-lamp, casting weird shadows from wall to wall, served only to discover the darkness. The room, with its low roof and earthen floor, and foul clothes flung here and there, reeked of stale meals and garlic and vile cooking. I thought of the parlour at Cocheforet, and the dainty table, and the stillness, and the scented pot-herbs; and though I was too old a soldier to eat the worse because my spoon lacked washing, I felt the change, and laid it savagely at Mademoiselle’s door.

The landlord, watching me stealthily from his place by the hearth, read my thoughts and chuckled aloud.

‘Palace fare, palace manners!’ he muttered scornfully. ‘Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride—back to the inn!’

‘Keep a civil tongue, will you!’ I answered, scowling at him.

‘Have you finished?’ he retorted.