Volume Iii Part 3 (1/2)
Laying down her embroidery as she reviewed these things, Gabrielle would clasp her hands behind her head, and marvel, as others in similarly incongruous situations have done, whether Providence is not a myth. Every fibre of the human soul revolts against the monstrous doctrine that the innocent shall suffer for the guilty, and yet every day we see that it obtains, and always has obtained from the time of Adam downwards. Such gloomy reflections should not perplex young and pretty heads, and yet the marquise was unable to conquer melancholy.
Perhaps it was induced by the season, perhaps by the germs of illness.
She must have dreamed too long in the moat garden without being provided with sufficient wraps. Certainly she had caught a chill, for when Toinon brought her as usual her morning chocolate, a few days after the marquis's departure, she found her s.h.i.+vering and feverish, with chattering teeth and laboured breath. Drawing aside the heavy curtains of the ancestral bed, Toinon gazed long and anxiously at her mistress, who said, turning impatiently, ”You stare as if I were a ghost!”
”Madame thinks she has caught cold?” Toinon agreed quietly. ”Madame was always too fond of sitting in the open air.”
”I knew I was going to be unwell,” her mistress observed drowsily, ”for last night I could scarce touch my supper. When the palate is affected, things taste quite differently. The good Bertrand sent up some of my favourite cakes, as light as if made by fairies, and somehow they seemed quite coppery. Do something, Toinon; give them to your dog, for the dish is scarcely touched, and I would not have Bertrand think I am ungrateful.”
”And you were always so partial to those cakes!” drily remarked Toinon, with a peculiar smile. ”Yes, I will give them to the dog.”
”First make me some tisane,” entreated Gabrielle. ”I am languid and feverish, and my throat is parched and burning.”
Toinon slowly shook her head and went straight into the adjoining boudoir, where the light refection described as supper was always laid out on a low table. Her movement was so abrupt that had she not been much preoccupied, she could not have failed to perceive the whisk of a black coat-tail, as it disappeared into the long saloon. Had she opened the door four minutes earlier, she would have seen a dapper figure clad in black leaning over the plate that held the confectionery, and have heard a soft voice mutter, ”Only half a cake.
It must have had a peculiar taste.”
As it was, Toinon saw nothing of this, but finding the room empty, moved swiftly to the tray, took up a cake and smelt it. A thin, pale face was watching her through a door-c.h.i.n.k with gleaming eyes.
She again shook her head, and murmuring, ”Can they be so wicked?”
carried the plate away.
Along the corridor she sped, and down the stairs, unconscious of a dark shadow moving noiselessly, till she reached her own apartment. At sound of the well-known footstep, an animal within, hitherto quiescent, began to whine and yelp, and beat itself against the door.
”Patience, patience--poor hound,” Toinon said aloud. ”Is it wise to be in so great a hurry? Even now, I cannot believe it!”
She turned the handle and the boisterous dog dashed the plate from her hand with its great paws. She picked up two of the cakes which had remained whole, and with the same peculiar smile of meaning she had worn above, watched the hound as he ravenously devoured the fragments.
There was still a piece left--a large one--and she pushed it towards him with her foot.
”Poor dog! Forgive me, Jean,” she said, ”if what I think is true.”
The shadow without gazed in on the scene with craning neck. ”She suspects,” the abbe muttered. ”What will she do with the others?”
As though in direct answer to the question, Toinon turned rapidly from the animal which she had been eyeing with a suspicious frown, and carefully taking up the remaining pieces of confectionery wrapped them in paper. Then she stood stroking her chin irresolute. The dog approached and wagged his tail, rubbing his muzzle in her hand, as his way was when he wanted something. ”What is it, poor fellow?” she enquired, stroking his head. ”Water! I thought as much!” Filling a basin, she placed it on the floor, and the dog drank eagerly till the last drop was drained, then curled himself up to sleep.
Starting, the abigail took up the parcel, went to a cupboard, selected a bottle from a row and mixed some of its contents with water.
”Mustard,” murmured the abbe, slinking into the shade. ”That stupid woman said there was no especial taste. See what it is to have to deal with bunglers.”
Wearing his most unpleasant scowl, and grinding his sharp teeth, he stole along the corridor, and moving up a step or two turned and came down again humming a blythesome stave, just as Toinon appeared at the bottom, holding the parcel and a gla.s.s.
”Our pretty Toinon is vastly occupied,” he laughed, merrily. ”But for fear of the stalwart arm of burly Jean, I would steal a kiss from those sweet lips.”
”Maybe you will feel that arm sooner than you expect,” she said, scarce able to steady her voice; ”make way, and if you dare to touch me, I will spit in your villain's face.”
This was clearly not the moment for persiflage, so with a careless shrug of indulgence for the coa.r.s.e manners of the lower cla.s.ses, the abbe stood aside. ”What a dear darling little vixen,” he shouted up the stairs. ”I pity poor Jean Boulot, despite his thews and sinews.”
The first attempt was a failure, an egregiously contemptible and inartistic failure, and all due to that inveterate bungler. Had not mademoiselle's coadjutor suggested that liquid is preferable to solid, for the purpose they both had at heart, since you only munch a biscuit, whereas you take a preliminary sip at a liquid and then, your mouth feeling a trifle dry, take a longer gulp before remarking that the taste is peculiar? And the execrable Algae had insisted on the cakes, declaring that if you are fond of a particular cake, you will indulge in several before any little peculiarity can manifest itself.