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

‘True,’ I said overlooking his manner. ‘But better late than never. I am not sure, now I think of it, that my duty to Monseigneur will let me fight.’

‘You will swallow the blow?’ he cried, spitting on the ground offensively. ‘DIABLE!’ And the Lieutenant, standing on one side with his hands behind him and his shoulders squared, laughed grimly.

‘I have not made up my mind,’ I answered irresolutely.

‘Well, NOM DE DIEU! make it up,’ the Captain replied, with an ugly sneer. He took a swaggering step this way and that, playing his weapon. ‘I am afraid, Lieutenant, that there will be no sport to-day,’ he continued in a loud aside. ‘Our cock has but a chicken heart.’

‘Well,’ I said coolly, ‘I do not know what to do. Certainly it is a fine day, and a fair piece of ground. And the sun stands well. But I have not much to gain by killing you, M. le Capitaine, and it might get me into an awkward fix. On the other hand, it would not hurt me to let you go.’

‘Indeed!’ he said contemptuously, looking at me as I should look at a lackey.

‘No!’ I replied. ‘For if you were to say that you had struck Gil de Berault and left the ground with a whole skin, no one would believe you.’

‘Gil de Berault!’ he exclaimed frowning.

‘Yes, Monsieur,’ I replied suavely. ‘At your service. You did not know my name?’

‘I thought that your name was De Barthe,’ he said. His voice sounded queerly; and he waited for the answer with parted lips, and a shadow in his eyes which I had seen in men’s eyes before.

‘No,’ I said; ‘that was my mother’s name. I took it for this occasion only.’

His florid cheek lost a shade of its colour, and he bit his lips as he glanced at the Lieutenant, trouble in his eyes. I had seen these signs before, and knew them, and I might have cried ‘Chicken-heart!’ in my turn; but I had not made a way of escape for him—before I declared myself—for nothing, and I held to my purpose.

‘I think you will allow now,’ I said grimly, ‘that it will not harm me even if I put up with a blow!’

‘M. de Berault’s courage is known,’ he muttered.

‘And with reason,’ I said. ‘That being so suppose that we say this day three months, M. le Capitaine? The postponement to be for my convenience.’

He caught the Lieutenant’s eye and looked down sullenly, the conflict in his mind as plain as daylight. He had only to insist that I must fight; and if by luck or skill he could master me his fame as a duellist would run, like a ripple over water, through every garrison town in France and make him a name even in Paris. On the other side were the imminent peril of death, the gleam of cold steel already in fancy at his breast, the loss of life and sunshine, and the possibility of a retreat with honour, if without glory. I read his face, and knew before he spoke what he would do.

‘It appears to me that the burden is with you,’ he said huskily; ‘but for my part I am satisfied.’

‘Very well,’ I said, ‘I take the burden. Permit me to apologise for having caused you to strip unnecessarily. Fortunately the sun is shining.’

‘Yes,’ he said gloomily. And he took his clothes from the sundial and began to put them on. He had expressed himself satisfied, but I knew that he was feeling very ill-satisfied, indeed, with himself; and I was not surprised when he presently said abruptly and almost rudely, ‘There is one thing that I think we must settle here.’

‘Yes?’ I said. ‘What is that?’

‘Our positions,’ he blurted out, ‘Or we shall cross one another again within the hour.’

‘Umph! I am not quite sure that I understand,’ I said.

‘That is precisely what I don’t do—understand!’ he retorted, in a tone of surly triumph. ‘Before I came on this duty, I was told that there was a gentleman here, bearing sealed orders from the Cardinal to arrest M. de Cocheforet; and I was instructed to avoid collision with him so far as might be possible. At first I took you for the gentleman. But the plague take me if I understand the matter now.’

‘Why not?’ I said coldly.

‘Because—well, the question is in a nutshell!’ he answered impetuously. ‘Are you here on behalf of Madame de Cocheforet, to shield her husband? Or are you here to arrest him? That is what I do not understand, M. de Berault.’

‘If you mean, am I the Cardinal’s agent—I am!’ I answered sternly.

‘To arrest M. de Cocheforet?’

‘To arrest M. de Cocheforet.’

‘Well—you surprise me,’ he said.

Only that; but he spoke so drily that I felt the blood rush to my face.

‘Take care, Monsieur,’ I said severely. ‘Do not presume too far on the inconvenience to which your death might put me.’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘No offence,’ he said. ‘But you do not seem, M. de Berault, to comprehend the difficulty. If we do not settle things now, we shall be bickering twenty times a day.’

‘Well, what do you want?’ I asked impatiently.

‘Simply to know how you are going to proceed. So that our plans may not clash.’

‘But surely, M. le Capitaine, that is my affair,’ I said.

‘The clashing?’ he answered bitterly. Then he waved aside my wrath ‘Pardon,’ he said, ‘the point is simply this. How do you propose to find him if he is here?’

‘That again is my affair,’ I answered. He threw up his hands in despair; but in a moment his place was taken by an unexpected disputant.

The Lieutenant, who had stood by all the time, listening and tugging at his grey moustache, suddenly spoke.

Look here, M. de Berault,’ he said, confronting me roughly, ‘I do not fight duels. I am from the ranks. I proved my courage at Montauban in ‘21, and my honour is good enough to take care of itself. So I say what I like, and I ask you plainly what M. le Capitaine doubtless has in his mind, but does not ask: Are you running with the hare, and hunting with the hounds in this matter? In other words, have you thrown up Monseigneur’s commission in all but name, and become Madame’s ally; or—it is the only other alternative—are you getting at the man through the women?’

‘You villain!’ I cried, glaring at him in such a rage and fury that I could scarcely get the words out. This was plain speaking with a vengeance! How dare you?