Bardelys the Magnificent (7 page)

On the day after Rodenard's departure I dined with the family, and met again Mademoiselle de Lavédan, whom I had not seen since the balcony adventure of some nights ago. The Vicomtesse was also present, a lady of very austere and noble appearance—lean as a pike and with a most formidable nose—but, as I was soon to discover, with a mind inclining overmuch to scandal and the high-seasoned talk of the Courts in which her girlhood had been spent.

From her lips I heard that day the old, scandalous story of Monseigneur de Richelieu's early passion for Anne of Austria. With much unction did she tell us how the Queen had lured His Eminence to dress himself in the motley of a jester that she might make a mock of him in the eyes of the courtiers she had concealed behind the arras of her chamber.

This anecdote she gave us with much wealth of discreditable detail and scant regard for either her daughter's presence or for the blushes that suffused the poor child's cheeks. In every way she was a pattern of the class of women amongst whom my youth had been spent, a class which had done so much towards shattering my faith and lowering my estimate of her sex. Lavédan had married her and brought her
into Languedoc, and here she spent her years lamenting the scenes of her youth, and prone, it would seem, to make them matter for conversation whenever a newcomer chanced to present himself at the château.

Looking from her to her daughter, I thanked Heaven that Roxalanne was no reproduction of the mother. She had inherited as little of her character as of her appearance. Both in feature and in soul Mademoiselle de Lavédan was a copy of that noble, gallant gentleman, her father.

One other was present at that meal, of whom I shall have more to say hereafter. This was a young man of good presence, save, perhaps, a too obtrusive foppishness, whom Monsieur de Lavédan presented to me as a distant kinsman of theirs, one Chevalier de Saint-Eustache. He was very tall—of fully my own height—and of an excellent shape, although extremely young. But his head if anything was too small for his body, and his good-natured mouth was of a weakness that was confirmed by the significance of his chin, whilst his eyes were too closely set to augur frankness.

He was a pleasant fellow, seemingly of that negative pleasantness that lies in inoffensiveness, but otherwise dull and of an untutored mind—rustic, as might be expected in one the greater part of whose life had been spent in his native province, and of a rusticity rendered all the more flagrant by the very efforts he exerted to dissemble it.

It was after madame had related that unsavoury anecdote touching the Cardinal that he turned to ask me whether I was well acquainted with the Court. I was near to committing the egregious blunder of laughing in his face; but, recollecting myself betimes,
I answered vaguely that I had some knowledge of it, whereupon he all but caused me to bound from my chair by asking me had I ever met the Magnificent Bardelys.

"I—I am acquainted with him," I answered warily. "Why do you ask?"

"I was reminded of him by the fact that his servants have been here for two days. You were expecting the Marquis himself, were you not, Monsieur le Vicomte?"

Lavédan raised his head suddenly, after the manner of a man who has received an affront.

"I was not, Chevalier," he answered, with emphasis. "His intendant, an insolent knave of the name of Rodenard, informed me that this Bardelys projected visiting me. He has not come, and I devoutly hope that he may not come. Trouble enough had I to rid myself of his servants, and but for Monsieur de Lesperon's well-conceived suggestion they might still be here."

"You have never met him, monsieur?" inquired the Chevalier.

"Never," replied our host in such a way that any but a fool must have understood that he desired nothing less than such a meeting.

"A delightful fellow," murmured Saint-Eustache—"a brilliant, dazzling personality."

"You—you are acquainted with him?" I asked.

"Acquainted?" echoed that boastful liar. "We were as brothers."

"How you interest me! And why have you never told us?" quoth madame, her eyes turned enviously upon the young man—as enviously as were Lavédan's turned in disgust. "It is a thousand pities that Monsieur
de Bardelys has altered his plans and is no longer coming to us. To meet such a man is to breathe again the air of the grand monde. You remember, Monsieur de Lesperon, that affair with the Duchesse de Bourgogne?" And she smiled wickedly in my direction.

"I have some recollection of it," I answered coldly. "But I think that rumour exaggerates. When tongues wag, a little rivulet is often described as a mountain torrent."

"You would not say so did you but know what I know," she informed me roguishly. "Often, I confess, rumour may swell the importance of such an affaire, but in this case I do not think that rumour does it justice."

I made a deprecatory gesture, and I would have had the subject changed, but ere I could make an effort to that end, the fool Saint-Eustache was babbling again.

"You remember the duel that was fought in consequence, Monsieur de Lesperon?"

"Yes," I assented wearily.

"And in which a poor young fellow lost his life," growled the Vicomte. "It was practically a murder."

"Nay, monsieur," I cried, with a sudden heat that set them staring at me; "there you do him wrong. Monsieur de Bardelys was opposed to the best blade in France. The man's reputation as a swordsman was of such a quality that for a twelvemonth he had been living upon it, doing all manner of unseemly things immune from punishment by the fear in which he was universally held. His behaviour in the unfortunate affair we are discussing was of a particularly shameful
character. Oh, I know the details, messieurs, I can assure you. He thought to impose his reputation upon Bardelys as he had imposed it upon a hundred others, but Bardelys was over-tough for his teeth. He sent that notorious young gentleman a challenge, and on the following morning he left him dead in the horse-market behind the Hôtel Vendôme. But far from a murder, monsieur, it was an act of justice, and the most richly earned punishment with which ever man was visited."

"Even if so," cried the Vicomte in some surprise, "why all this heat to defend a brawler?"

"A brawler?" I repeated after him. "Oh, no. That is a charge his worst enemies cannot make against Bardelys. He is no brawler. The duel in question was his first affair of the kind, and it has been his last, for unto him has clung the reputation that had belonged until then to La Vertoile, and there is none in France bold enough to send a challenge to him." And, seeing what surprise I was provoking, I thought it well to involve another with me in his defence. So, turning to the Chevalier, "I am sure," said I, "that Monsieur de Saint-Eustache will confirm my words."

Thereupon, his vanity being all aroused, the Chevalier set himself to paraphrase all that I had said with a heat that cast mine into a miserable insignificance.

"At least," laughed the Vicomte at length, "he lacks not for champions. For my own part, I am content to pray Heaven that he come not to Lavédan, as he intended."

"Mais voyons, Gaston," the Vicomtesse protested, "why harbour prejudice? Wait at least until you have seen him, that you may judge him for yourself."

"Already have I judged him; I pray that I may never see him."

"They tell me he is a very handsome man," said she, appealing to me for confirmation.

Lavédan shot her a sudden glance of alarm, at which I could have laughed. Hitherto his sole concern had been his daughter, but it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps not even her years might set the Vicomtesse in safety from imprudences with this devourer of hearts, should he still chance to come that way.

"Madame," I answered, "he is accounted not ill-favoured." And with a deprecatory smile I added, "I am said somewhat to resemble him."

"Say you so?" she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows, and looking at me more closely than hitherto. And then it seemed to me that into her face crept a shade of disappointment. If this Bardelys were not more beautiful than I, then he was not nearly so beautiful a man as she had imagined. She turned to Saint-Eustache.

"It is indeed so, Chevalier?" she inquired. "Do you note the resemblance?"

"Vanitas, vanitate," murmured the youth, who had some scraps of Latin and a taste for airing them. "I can see no likeness—no trace of one. Monsieur de Lesperon is well enough, I should say. But Bardelys!" He cast his eyes to the ceiling. "There is but one Bardelys in France."

"Enfin," I laughed, "you are no doubt well qualified to judge, Chevalier. I had flattered myself that some likeness did exist, but probably you have seen the Marquis more frequently than have I, and probably
you know him better. Nevertheless, should he come this way, I will ask you to look at us side by side and be the judge of the resemblance."

"Should I happen to be here," he said, with a sudden constraint not difficult to understand, "I shall be happy to act as arbiter."

"Should you happen to be here?" I echoed questioningly. "But surely, should you hear that Monsieur de Bardelys is about to arrive, you will postpone any departure you may be on the point of making, so that you may renew this great friendship that you tell us you do the Marquis the honour of entertaining for him?"

The Chevalier eyed me with the air of a man looking down from a great height upon another. The Vicomte smiled quietly to himself as he combed his fair beard with his forefinger in a meditative fashion, whilst even Roxalanne—who had sat silently listening to a conversation that she was at times mercifully spared from following too minutely—flashed me a humorous glance. To the Vicomtesse alone—who in common with women of her type was of a singular obtuseness—was the situation without significance.

Saint-Eustache, to defend himself against my delicate imputation, and to show how well acquainted he was with Bardelys, plunged at once into a thousand details of that gentleman's magnificence. He described his suppers, his retinue, his equipages, his houses, his châteaux, his favour with the King, his successes with the fair sex, and I know not what besides—in all of which I confess that even to me there was a certain degree of novelty. Roxalanne listened with an air of amusement that showed how well she
read him. Later, when I found myself alone with her by the river, whither we had gone after the repast and the Chevalier's reminiscences were at an end, she reverted to that conversation.

"Is not my cousin a great fanfarron, monsieur?" she asked.

"Surely you know your cousin better than do I," I answered cautiously. "Why question me upon his character?"

"I was hardly questioning; I was commenting. He spent a fortnight in Paris once, and he accounts himself, or would have us account him, intimate with every courtier at the Luxembourg. Oh, he is very amusing, this good cousin, but tiresome too." She laughed, and there was the faintest note of scorn in her amusement. "Now, touching this Marquis de Bardelys, it is very plain that the Chevalier boasted when he said that they were as brothers—he and the Marquis—is it not? He grew ill at ease when you reminded him of the possibility of the Marquis's visit to Lavédan." And she laughed quaintly to herself. "Do you think that he so much as knows Bardelys?" she asked me suddenly.

"Not so much as by sight," I answered. "He is full of information concerning that unworthy gentleman, but it is only information that the meanest scullion in Paris might afford you, and just as inaccurate."

"Why do you speak of him as unworthy? Are you of the same opinion as my father?"

"Aye, and with better cause."

"You know him well?"

"Know him? Pardieu, he is my worst enemy. A worn-out libertine; a sneering, cynical misogynist; a
nauseated reveller; a hateful egotist. There is no more unworthy person, I'll swear, in all France. Peste! The very memory of the fellow makes me sick. Let us talk of other things."

But although I urged it with the best will and the best intentions in the world, I was not to have my way. The air became suddenly heavy with the scent of musk, and the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache stood before us, and forced the conversation once more upon the odious topic of Monsieur de Bardelys.

The poor fool came with a plan of campaign carefully considered, bent now upon overthrowing me with the knowledge he would exhibit, and whereby he looked to encompass my humiliation before his cousin.

"Speaking of Bardelys, Monsieur de Lesperon—"

"My dear Chevalier, we were no longer speaking of him."

He smiled darkly. "Let us speak of him, then."

"But are there not a thousand more interesting things that we might speak of?"

This he took for a fresh sign of fear, and so he pressed what he accounted his advantage.

"Yet have patience; there is a point on which perhaps you can give me some information."

"Impossible," said I.

"Are you acquainted with the Duchesse de Bourgogne?"

"I was," I answered casually, and as casually I added, "Are you?"

"Excellently well," he replied unhesitatingly, "I was in Paris at the time of the scandal with Bardelys."

I looked up quickly.

"Was it then that you met her?" I inquired in an idle sort of way.

"Yes. I was in the confidence of Bardelys, and one night after we had supped at his hôtel—one of those suppers graced by every wit in Paris—he asked me if I were minded to accompany him to the Louvre. We went. A masque was in progress."

"Ah," said I, after the manner of one who suddenly takes in the entire situation; "and it was at this masque that you met the Duchesse?"

"You have guessed it. Ah, monsieur, if I were to tell you of the things that I witnessed that night, they would amaze you," said he, with a great air and a casual glance at Mademoiselle to see into what depths of wonder these glimpses into his wicked past were plunging her.

"I doubt it not," said I, thinking that if his imagination were as fertile in that connection as it had been in mine he was likely, indeed, to have some amazing things to tell. "But do I understand you to say that that was the time of the scandal you have touched upon?"