“How so, if he loved her?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Wait!” said Athos. “He took her to his chateau, and made her the first lady in the province; and in justice, it must be allowed she supported her rank becomingly.”
“Well?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Well, one day when she was hunting with her husband,” continued Athos, in a low voice, and speaking very quickly, “she fell from her horse and fainted. The count flew to her help; and as she appeared to be oppressed by her clothes, he ripped them open with his poniard, and in so doing laid bare her shoulder. Guess, D’Artagnan,” said Athos, with a loud burst of laughter—“guess what she had on her shoulder.”
“How can I tell?” said D’Artagnan.
“A fleur-de-lis!” said Athos. “She was branded!”
And Athos emptied at a single draught the glass he held in his hand.
“Horrors,” cried D’Artagnan. “What are you telling me?”
“The truth. My friend, the angle was a demon. The poor young girl had been a thief.”
“And what did the count do?”
“The count was a great noble. He had on his estates the right of life and death. He tore the countess’s dress to pieces, tied her hands behind her, and hanged her on a tree!”
“Heavens, Athos, a murder!” cried D’Artagnan.
“Yes, a murder—nothing else,” said Athos, pale as death. “But methinks I am left without wine!” And he seized by the neck the last bottle that remained, put it to his mouth, and emptied it at a single draught, as he would have emptied an ordinary glass.
Then he let his head fall on his two hands, while D’Artagnan sat facing him, overwhelmed with dismay.
“That has cured me of beautiful, poetical, and loving women,” said Athos, getting to his feet, and neglecting to pursue the apologue of the count. “God grant you as much! Let us drink!”
“Then she is dead?” stammered D’Artagnan.
“Zounds!” said Athos. “But hold out your glass. Some ham, my man!” cried Athos; “we can drink no longer!”
“And her brother?” asked D’Artagnan timidly.
“Her brother?” replied Athos.
“Yes, the priest.”
“Oh, I inquired after him for the purpose of hanging him likewise; but he was beforehand with me—he had quitted the curacy instantly.”
“Was it ever known who this miserable fellow was?”
“He was doubtless the fair lady’s first lover and accomplice—a worthy man, who had pretended to be a curate for the purpose of getting his mistress married and securing her a position. He has been quartered before this time, I hope.”
“My God! my God!” cried D’Artagnan, quite stunned by the relation of this horrible adventure.
“Pray eat some of this ham, D’Artagnan; it is exquisite,” said Athos, cutting a slice, which he placed on the young man’s plate. “What a pity it is there are only four like this in the cellar! I could have drunk fifty bottles more.”
D’Artagnan could no longer endure this conversation, which would have driven him crazy. He let his head fall on his hands and pretended to go to sleep.
“Young men no longer know how to drink,” said Athos, looking at him pityingly, “and yet this is one of the best of them, too!”
Their only anxiety now was to depart. D’Artagnan and Athos soon arrived at Crévec?ur. From a distance they perceived Aramis, seated in a melancholy manner at his window, looking out, like Sister Anne, at the dust in the horizon.
“Hello, ha, Aramis!” cried the two friends.
“Ah, it is you, D’Artagnan, and you, Athos,” said the young man. “And so, my friends, we are returning, then, to Paris? Bravo! I am charged his bill, and then set forward to join Porthos.
They made a halt for an hour to refresh their horses. Aramis discharged his bill, and then set forward to poin Porthos.
They found him up, not so pale as when D’Artagnan left him, and seated at a table, on which, though he was alone, was spread dinner enough for four persons. This dinner consisted of meats nicely dressed, choice wines, and superb fruit.
“Ah, by Jove!” said he, rising, “you come in the nick of time. Gentlemen, I was just at the soup, and you will dine with me.”
The four friends, having set their minds at ease with regard to the future, did honour to the repast, the remains of which were abandoned to MM. Mousqueton, Bazin, Planchet, and Grimaud.
On arriving in Paris, D’Artagnan found a letter from M. de Tréville, informing him that, at his request, the king had just promised him his immediate admission into the musketeers.
As this was the height of D’Artagnan’s worldly ambition—apart, of course, from his desire of finding Madame Bonacieux—he ran, full of joy, to seek his comrades, whom he had left only half an hour before. He found them very sad and deeply preoccupied. They were assembed in council at the residence of Athos, which always indicated an event of some seriousness.
M. de Tréville had just informed them that since it was his Majesty’s fixed intention to open the campaign on the first of May, they must immediately get ready all their equipments.
The four philosophers looked at one another in a state of bewilderment. M. de Tréville never joked in matters relating to discipline.
“And what do you reckon your equipments will cost?” said D’Artagnan.
“Oh, we can scarcely venture to say. We have just made our calculations with Spartan niggardliness, and we each require fifteen hundred livres.”
“Four times fifteen make sixty—ah! six thousand livres,” said Athos.
“For my part, I think,” said D’Artagnan, “with a thousand livres each—it is true I do not speak as a Spartan, but as a procureur—”
The word procureur roused Porthos.
“Stop!” said he; “I have an idea.”
“Well, that’s something. For my part, I have not the shadow of one,” said Athos coolly. “But as to D’Artagnan, the hope of soon being one of us, gentlemen, has made him crazy. A thousand livres! I declare I want two thousand myself.”
“Four times two make eight, then,” said Aramis. “It is eight thousand that we want to complete our outfit.”
“One thing more!” said Athos, waiting till D’Artagnan, who was going to thank M. de Tréville, had shut the door, “one thing more—that beautiful diamond which glitters on our friend’s finger. What the devil! D’Artagnan is too good a comrade to leave his brothers in embarrassment while he wears a king’s ransom on his middle finger.”
Chapter 26 - Milady
As porthos had first found his idea, and had thought of it earnestly afterwards, he was the first to act. This worthy Porthos was a man of execution. D’Artagnan perceived him one day walking toward the church of St. Leu, and followed him instinctively. He entered the holy place. D’Artagnan entered behind him. Porthos went and leaned against one side of a pillar. D’Artagnan, still unperceived, leaned against the other side of it.
There happened to be a sermon, and this made the church very full of people. Porthos took advantage of this circumstance to ogle the women.
D’Artagnan observed, on the bench nearest to the pillar against which he and Porthos were learning, a sort of ripe beauty, rather yellow and rather dry, but erect and haughty under her black hood. Porthos’s eyes were furtively cast upon this lady, and then roved about at large over the nave.
On her side, the lady, who from time to time blushed, darted with the rapidity of lightning a glance toward the inconstant Porthos, and then immediately Porthos’s eyes went wandering over the church anxiously. It was plain that this was a mode of proceeding that deeply piqued the lady in the black hood, for she bit her lips till they bled, scratched the end of her nose, and sat very uneasily in her seat.
Porthos, seeing this, began to make signals to a beautiful lady who was near the choir, and who was not only a beautiful lady, but also, no doubt, a great lady, for she had behind her a negro boy, who had brought the cushion on which she knelt, and a female servant, who held the emblazoned bag in which was placed the book from which she followed the service.
The lady of the red cushion produced a great effect—for she was very handsome—on the lady in the black hood, who saw in her a rival to be really dreaded; a great effect on Porthos, who thought her much prettier than the lady in the black hood; a great effect upon D’Artagnan, who recognized in her the lady of Meung, of Calais, whom his persecutor, the man with the scar, had saluted by the name of milady.
The sermon over, the solicitor’s wife advanced toward the font of holy water. Porthos went before her, and instead of a finger, dipped his whole hand in.
“Eh, Monsieur Porthos, you don’t offer me any holy water?”
Porthos, at the sound of her voice, started like a man awakening from a sleep of a hundred years.
“Ma—madame!” cried he, “is that you? How is your husband, our dear Monsieur Coquenard? Is he still as stingy as ever? Where can my eyes have been not to have perceived you during the two hours the sermon has lasted?”
“I was within two paces of you, sir,” replied the solicitor’s wife; “but you did not perceive me, because you had eyes only for the pretty lady.”
Porthos pretended to be confused.
“Ah,” said he, “you have noticed—”
“I must have been blind if I had not.”
“Yes,” said Porthos carelessly, “that is a duchess of my acquaintance, whom I have great trouble to meet on account of her husband’s jealousy, and who sent me word that she would come to-day, solely for the purpose of seeing me in this poor church, in this vile quarter.”
“Monsieur Porthos,” said the procureuse, “will you have the kindness to offer me your arm for five minutes? I have something to say to you.”
“Certainly madame,” said Porthos, winking to himself, as a gambler does who laughs at the dupe he is about to pluck.
At that moment D’Artagnan was passing in pursuit of milady. He cast a glance at Porthos, and beheld his triumphant look.
“Ah, ha!” said he to himself, reasoning in accordance with the strangely easy morality of that gallant period, “here is one of us, at least, on the road to be equipped in time.”
D’Artagnan had followed milady, without being perceived by her. He saw her get into her carriage, and heard her order the coachman to drive to St. Germain.
It was useless to endeavour to keep pace on foot with a carriage drawn by two powerful horses, so D’Artagnan returned to the Rue Férou.
In the Rue de Seine he met Planchet, who had stopped before a bake-shop, and was contemplating with ecstasy a cake of the most appetizing appearance.
D’Artagnan and Planchet got into the saddle, and took the road to St. Germain.
Milady had spoken to the man in the black cloak, therefore she knew him. Now, in D’Artagnan’s opinion it was certainly the man in the black cloak who had carried off Madame Bonacieux the second time, as he had carried her off the first.
Thinking of all this, and from time to time giving his horse a touch of the spur, D’Artagnan completed his journey, and arrived at St. Germain. He was riding along a very quiet street, when from the ground floor of a pretty house, he saw a form appear that looked familiar. This person in question was walking along a kind of terrace, ornamented with flowers. Planchet recognized who it was first.
“Why, it is poor Lubin,” said Planchet, “the lackey of the Comte de Wardes, whom you so well accommodated a month ago at Calais, on the road to the governor’s country house.”
“So it is,” said D’Artagnan; “I know him now. Do you think he would recollect you?”
“’Pon my word, sir, he was so greatly disturbed that I don’t think he can have retained a very clear recollection of me.”
“Well, go and get into conversation with him, and find out, if you can, whether his master is dead or not.”
Planchet dismounted and went straight up to Lubin, who did not recognize him, and the two lackeys began to chat with the best understanding possible, while D’Artagnan turned the two horses into a lane, and went round the house so as to be present at the conference, coming back to take his place behind a hedge of hazels.
After a moment’s watching from behind the hedge he heard the noise of a carriage, and saw milady’s coach stop in front of him. He could not be mistaken; milady was in it. D’Artagnan bent over on his horse’s neck in order to see everything without being seen.
Milady put her charming fair head out at the window, and gave some orders to her maid.
D’Artagnan followed the maid with his eyes, and saw her going towards the terrace. But it happened that some one in the house had called Lubin, so that Planchet remained alone, looking in all directions for D’Artagnan.
The maid approached Planchet, whom she took for Lubin, and holding out a little note to him,
“For your master,” said she.
Thereupon she ran toward the carriage, which had turned round in the direction it had come; she jumped on the step, and the carriage drove off.
Planchet turned the note over and over; then, accustomed to passive obedience, he jumped down from the terrace, ran through the lane, and at the end of twenty paces met D’Artagnan, who, having seen all, was coming to him.
“D’Artagnan opened the letter and read these words:
“A person who takes more interest in you than she is willing to confess wishes to know on what day you will be in condition to walk in the forest. To-morrow, at the H?tel Field of the Cloth of Gold, a lackey in black and red will wait for your reply.”
“Oh, ho!” said D’Artagnan, “this is rather lively. It appears that milady and I are anxious about the health of the same person.—Well, Planchet, how is our good M. de Wardes? He is not dead, then?”
“Oh no, monsieur; he is as well as a man can be with four sword-wounds in his body—for you, without question, inflicted four upon the dear gentleman, and he is still very weak, having lost almost all his blood. As I told you, Lubin did not know me, and he related to me our adventure from one end to the other.”
“Well done, Planchet! you are the king of lackeys. Now jump up on your horse, and let us overtake the carriage.”
This they soon did. At the end of five minutes they perceived the carriage drawn up by the roadside. A cavalier richly dressed was close to the coach door.
The conversation between milady and the cavalier was so animated that D’Artagnan stopped on the other side of the carriage without any one but the pretty maid being aware of his presence.
The conversation took place in English—a language which D’Artagnan could not understand; but by the accent the young man plainly saw that the beautiful Englishwoman was in a great rage. She terminated it by a gesture which left no doubt as to the nature of this conversation: this was a blow with her fan, applied with such force that the little feminine weapon flew into a thousand pieces.
The cavalier broke into a loud laugh, which appeared to exasperate milady.
D’Artagnan thought this was the moment to interfere. He approached the other door, and taking off his hat respectfully,
“Madame,” said he, “will you permit me to offer you my services? This cavalier seems to have made you very angry. Speak one word, madame, and I will take it on myself to punish him for his lack of courtesy.”
