Books: The Guest of Quesnay
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"Oil Poicy," echoed Miss Elliott, turning to me in genuine astonishment.
"Mr. Earl Percy," I translated.
"Oh, RAPTUROUS!" she cried, her face radiant. "And WON'T Mr. Percy give
us his opinion of my Art?"
Mr. Percy was in doubt how to take her enthusiasm; he seemed on the
point of turning surly, and hesitated, while a sharp vertical line
appeared on his small forehead; but he evidently concluded, after a deep
glance at her, that if she was making game of him it was in no ill-
natured spirit--nay, I think that for a few moments he suspected her
liveliness to be some method of her own for the incipient stages of a
flirtation.
Finally he turned again to the easel, and as he examined the painting
thereon at closer range, amazement overspread his features. However,
pulling himself together, he found himself able to reply--and with great
gallantry:
"Well, on'y t' think them little hands cud 'a' done all that rough
woik!"
The unintended viciousness of this retort produced an effect so marked,
that, except for my growing uneasiness, I might have enjoyed her
expression.
As it was, I saved her face by entering into the conversation with a
question, which I put quickly:
"You intend pursuing your historical researches in the neighborhood?"
The facial contortion which served him for a laugh, and at the same time
as a symbol of unfathomable reserve, was repeated, accompanied by a
jocose manifestation, in the nature of a sharp and taunting cackle,
which seemed to indicate a conviction that he was getting much the best
of it in some conflict of wits.
"Them fairy tales I handed you about ole Jeanne d'Arc and William the
Conker," he said, "say, they must 'a' made you sore after-WOIDS!"
"On the contrary, I was much interested in everything pertaining to your
too brief visit," I returned; "I am even more so now."
"Well, m'friend"--he shot me a sidelong, distrustful glance--"keep yer
eyes open."
"That is just the point!" I laughed, with intentional significance, for
I meant to make Mr. Percy talk as much as I could. To this end,
remembering that specimens of his kind are most indiscreet when
carefully enraged, I added, simulating his own manner:
"Eyes open--and doors locked! What?"
At this I heard a gasp of astonishment from Miss Elliott, who must have
been puzzled indeed; but I was intent upon the other. He proved
perfectly capable of being insulted.
"I guess they ain't much need o' lockin' YOUR door," he retorted darkly;
"not from what I saw when I was in your studio!" He should have stopped
there, for the hit was palpable and justified; but in his resentment he
overdid it. "You needn't be scared of anybody's cartin' off THEM
pitchers, young feller! WHOOSH! An' f'm the luks of the CLO'ES I saw
hangin' on the wall," he continued, growing more nettled as I smiled
cheerfully upon him, "I don' b'lieve you gut any worries comin' about
THEM, neither!"
"I suppose our tastes are different," I said, letting my smile broaden.
"There might be protection in that."
His stare at me was protracted to an unseemly length before the sting of
this remark reached him; it penetrated finally, however, and in his
sharp change of posture there was a lightning flicker of the experienced
boxer; but he checked the impulse, and took up the task of obliterating
me in another way.
"As I tell the little dame here," he said, pitching his voice higher and
affecting the plaintive, "I make no passes at a friend o' her--not in
front o' her, anyways. But when it comes to these here ole, ancient
curiosities"--he cackled again, loudly--"well, I guess them clo'es I
see, that day, kin hand it out t' anything they got in the museums!
'Look here,' I says to the waiter, 'THESE must be'n left over f'm ole
Jeanne d'Arc herself,' I says. 'Talk about yer relics,' I says. Whoosh!
I'd like t' died!" He laughed violently, and concluded by turning upon
me with a contemptuous flourish of his stick. "You think I d'know what
makes YOU so raw?"
The form of repartee necessary to augment his ill humour was, of course,
a matter of simple mechanism for one who had not entirely forgotten his
student days in the Quarter; and I delivered it airily, though I
shivered inwardly that Miss Elliott should hear.
"Everything will be all right if, when you dine at the inn, you'll sit
with your back toward me."
To my shamed surprise, this roustabout wit drew a nervous, silvery
giggle from her; and that completed the work with Mr. Percy, whose face
grew scarlet with anger.
"You're a hot one, you are!" he sneered, with shocking bitterness.
"You're quite the teaser, ain't ye, s'long's yer lady-friend is lukkin'
on! I guess they'll be a few surprises comin' YOUR way, before long.
P'raps I cudn't give ye one now 'f I had a mind to."
"Pshaw," I laughed, and, venturing at hazard, said, "I know all YOU
know!"
"Oh, you do!" he cried scornfully. "I reckon you might set up an' take a
little notice, though, if you knowed 'at I know all YOU know!"
"Not a bit of it!"
"No? Maybe you think I don't know what makes you so raw with ME? Maybe
you think I don't know who ye've got so thick with at this here Pigeon
House; maybe you think I don't know who them people ARE!"
"No, you don't. You have learned," I said, trying to control my
excitement, "nothing! Whoever hired YOU for a spy lost the money. YOU
don't know ANY-thing!"
"I DON'T!" And with that his voice went to a half-shriek. "Maybe you
think I'm down here f'r my health; maybe you think I come out f'r a
pleasant walk in the woods right now; maybe you think I ain't seen no
other lady-friend o' yours besides this'n to-day, and maybe I didn't see
who was with her--yes, an' maybe you think I d'know no other times he's
be'n with her. Maybe you think I ain't be'n layin' low over at Dives!
Maybe I don't know a few real NAMES in this neighbourhood! Oh, no, MAYBE
not!"
"You know what the maitre d'hotel told you; nothing more."
"How about the name--OLIVER SAFFREN?" he cried fiercely, and at last,
though I had expected it, I uttered an involuntary exclamation.
"How about it?" he shouted, advancing toward me triumphantly, shaking
his forefinger in my face. "Hey? THAT stings some, does it? Sounds kind
o' like a FALSE name, does it? Got ye where the hair is short, that
time, didn't I?"
"Speaking of names," I retorted, "'Oil Poicy' doesn't seem to ring
particularly true to me!"
"It'll be gud enough fer you, young feller," he responded angrily. "It
may belong t' me, an' then again, it maybe don't. It ain' gunna git me
in no trouble; I'll luk out f'r that. YOUR side's where the trouble is;
that's what's eatin' into you. An' I'll tell you flat-foot, your gittin'
rough 'ith me and playin' Charley the Show-Off in front o' yer lady-
friends'll all go down in the bill. These people ye've got so chummy
with--THEY'LL pay f'r it all right, don't you shed no tears over that!"
"You couldn't by any possibility," I said deliberately, with as much
satire as I could command, "you couldn't possibly mean that any sum of
mere money might be a salve for the injuries my unkind words have
inflicted?"
Once more he seemed upon the point of destroying me physically, but,
with a slight shudder, controlled himself. Stepping close to me, he
thrust his head forward and measured the emphases of his speech by his
right forefinger upon my shoulder, as he said:
"You paint THIS in yer pitchers, m' dear friend; they's jest as much law
in this country as they is on the corner o' Twenty-thoid Street an' Fif'
Avenoo! You keep out the way of it, or you'll git runned over!"
Delivering a final tap on my shoulder as a last warning, he wheeled
deftly upon his heel, addressed Miss Elliott briefly, "Glad t' know YOU,
lady," and striking into the by-path by which he had approached us, was
soon lost to sight.
The girl faced me excitedly. "What IS it?" she cried. "It seemed to me
you insulted him deliberately--"
"I did."
"You wanted to make him angry?"
"Yes."
"Oh! I thought so!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "I knew there was
something serious underneath. It's about Mr. Saffren?"
"It is serious indeed, I fear," I said, and turning to my own easel,
began to get my traps together. "I'll tell you the little I know,
because I want you to tell Mrs. Harman what has just happened, and
you'll be able to do it better if you understand what is understandable
about the rest of it."
"You mean you wouldn't tell me so that I could understand for myself?"
There was a note of genuine grieved reproach in her voice. "Ah, then
I've made you think me altogether a hare-brain!"
"I haven't time to tell you what I think of you," I said brusquely, and,
strangely enough, it seemed to please her. But I paid little attention
to that, continuing quickly: "When Professor Keredec and Mr. Saffren
came to Les Trois Pigeons, they were so careful to keep out of
everybody's sight that one might have suspected that they were in
hiding--and, in fact, I'm sure that they were--though, as time passed
and nothing alarming happened, they've felt reassured and allowed
themselves more liberty. It struck me that Keredec at first dreaded that
they might be traced to the inn, and I'm afraid his fear was justified,
for one night, before I came to know them, I met Mr. 'Percy' on the
road; he'd visited Madame Brossard's and pumped Amedee dry, but clumsily
tried to pretend to me that he had not been there at all. At the time, I
did not connect him even remotely with Professor Keredec's anxieties. I
imagined he might have an eye to the spoons; but it's as ridiculous to
think him a burglar as it would be to take him for a detective. What he
is, or what he has to do with Mr. Saffren, I can guess no more than I
can guess the cause of Keredec's fears, but the moment I saw him to-day,
saw that he'd come back, I knew it was THAT, and tried to draw him out.
You heard what he said; there's no doubt that Saffren stands in danger
of some kind. It may be inconsiderable, or even absurd, but it's
evidently imminent, and no matter what it is, Mrs. Harman must be kept
out of it. I want you to see her as soon as you can and ask her from me--
no, persuade her yourself--not to leave Quesnay for a day or two. I
mean, that she absolutely MUST NOT meet Mr. Saffren again until we know
what all this means. Will you do it?"
"That I will!" And she began hastily to get her belongings in marching
order. "I'll do anything in the world you'll let me--and oh, I hope they
can't do anything to poor, poor Mr. Saffren!"
"Our sporting friend had evidently seen him with Mrs. Harman to-day," I
said. "Do you know if they went to the beach again?"
"I only know she meant to meet him--but she told me she'd be back at the
chateau by four. If I start now--"
"Wasn't the phaeton to be sent to the inn for you?"
"Not until six," she returned briskly, folding her easel and strapping
it to her camp-stool with precision. "Isn't it shorter by the woods?"
"You've only to follow this path to the second crossing and then turn to
the right," I responded. "I shall hurry back to Madame Brossard's to see
Keredec--and here"--I extended my hand toward her traps, of which, in a
neatly practical fashion, she had made one close pack--"let me have your
things, and I'll take care of them at the inn for you. They're heavy,
and it's a long trudge."
"You have your own to carry," she answered, swinging the strap over her
shoulder. "It's something of a walk for you, too."
"No, no, let me have them," I protested, for the walk before her WAS
long and the things would be heavy indeed before it ended.
"Go your ways," she laughed, and as my hand still remained extended she
grasped it with her own and gave it a warm and friendly shake. "Hurry!"
And with an optimism which took my breath, she said, "I know YOU can
make it come out all right! Besides, I'll help you!"
With that she turned and started manfully upon her journey. I stared
after her for a moment or more, watching the pretty brown dress flashing
in and out of shadow among the ragged greeneries, shafts of sunshine now
and then flashing upon her hair. Then I picked up my own pack and set
out for the inn.
Every one knows that the more serious and urgent the errand a man may be
upon, the more incongruous are apt to be the thoughts that skip into his
mind. As I went through the woods that day, breathless with haste and
curious fears, my brain became suddenly, unaccountably busy with a dream
I had had, two nights before. I had not recalled this dream on waking:
the recollection of it came to me now for the first time. It was a usual
enough dream, wandering and unlifelike, not worth the telling; and I had
been thinking so constantly of Mrs. Harman that there was nothing
extraordinary in her worthless ex-husband's being part of it.
And yet, looking back upon that last, hurried walk of mine through the
forest, I see how strange it was that I could not quit remembering how
in my dream I had gone motoring up Mount Pilatus with the man I had seen
so pitiably demolished on the Versailles road, two years before--
Larrabee Harman.
CHAPTER XVII
Keredec was alone in his salon, extended at ease upon a long chair, an
ottoman and a stool, when I burst in upon him; a portentous volume was
in his lap, and a prolific pipe, smoking up from his great cloud of
beard, gave the final reality to the likeness he thus presented of a
range of hills ending in a volcano. But he rolled the book cavalierly to
the floor, limbered up by sections to receive me, and offered me a
hearty welcome.
"Ha, my dear sir," he cried, "you take pity on the lonely Keredec; you
make him a visit. I could not wish better for myself. We shall have a
good smoke and a good talk."
"You are improved to-day?" I asked, it may be a little slyly.
"Improve?" he repeated inquiringly.
"Your rheumatism, I mean."
"Ha, yes; that rheumatism!" he shouted, and throwing back his head,
rocked the room with sudden laughter. "Hew! But it is gone--almost! Oh,
I am much better, and soon I shall be able to go in the woods again with
my boy." He pushed a chair toward me. "Come, light your cigar; he will
not return for an hour perhaps, and there is plenty of time for the
smoke to blow away. So! It is better. Now we shall talk."
"Yes," I said, "I wanted to talk with you."
"That is a--what you call?--ha, yes, a coincidence," he returned,
stretching himself again in the long chair, "a happy coincidence; for I
have wished a talk with you; but you are away so early for all day, and
in the evening Oliver, he is always here."
"I think what I wanted to talk about concerns him particularly."
"Yes?" The professor leaned forward, looking at me gravely. "That is
another coincidence. But you shall speak first. Commence then."
"I feel that you know me at least well enough," I began rather
hesitatingly, "to be sure that I would not, for the world, make any
effort to intrude in your affairs, or Mr. Saffren's, and that I would
not force your confidence in the remotest--"
"No, no, no!" he interrupted. "Please do not fear I shall
misinterpretate whatever you will say. You are our friend. We know it."
"Very well," I pursued; "then I speak with no fear of offending. When
you first came to the inn I couldn't help seeing that you took a great
many precautions for secrecy; and when you afterward explained these
precautions to me on the ground that you feared somebody might think Mr.
Saffren not quite sane, and that such an impression might injure him
later--well, I could not help seeing that your explanation did not cover
all the ground."
"It is true--it did not." He ran his huge hand through the heavy white
waves of his hair, and shook his head vigorously. "No; I knew it, my
dear sir, I knew it well. But, what could I do? I would not have telled
my own mother! This much I can say to you: we came here at a risk, but I
thought that with great care it might be made little. And I thought a
great good thing might be accomplish if we should come here, something
so fine, so wonderful, that even if the danger had been great I would
have risked it. I will tell you a little more: I think that great thing
is BEING accomplish!" Here he rose to his feet excitedly and began to
pace the room as he talked, the ancient floor shaking with his tread. "I
think it is DONE! And ha! my dear sir, if it SHOULD be, this big Keredec
will not have lived in vain! It was a great task I undertake with my
young man, and the glory to see it finish is almost here. Even if the
danger should come, the THING is done, for all that is real and has true
meaning is inside the soul!"
"It was in connection with the risk you have mentioned that I came to
talk," I returned with some emphasis, for I was convinced of the reality
of Mr. Earl Percy and also very certain that he had no existence inside
or outside a soul. "I think it necessary that you should know--"
But the professor was launched. I might as well have swept the rising
tide with a broom. He talked with magnificent vehemence for twenty
minutes, his theme being some theory of his own that the individuality
of a soul is immortal, and that even in perfection, the soul cannot
possibly merge into any Nirvana. Meantime, I wondered how Mr. Percy was
employing his time, but after one or two ineffectual attempts to
interrupt, I gave myself to silence until the oration should be
concluded.
"And so it is with my boy," he proclaimed, coming at last to the case in
hand. "The spirit of him, the real Oliver Saffren, THAT has NEVER
change! The outside of him, those thing that BELONG to him, like his
memory, THEY have change, but not himself, for himself is eternal and
unchangeable. I have taught him, yes; I have helped him get the small
things we can add to our possession--a little knowledge, maybe, a little
power of judgment. But, my dear sir, I tell you that such things are
ONLY possessions of a man. They are not the MAN! All that a man IS or
ever shall be, he is when he is a baby. So with Oliver; he had lived a
little while, twenty-six years, perhaps, when pft--like that!--he became
almost as a baby again. He could remember how to talk, but not much
more. He had lost his belongings--they were gone from the lobe of the
brain where he had stored them; but HE was not gone, no part of the real
HIMSELF was lacking. Then presently they send him to me to make new his
belongings, to restore his possessions. Ha, what a task! To take him
with nothing in the world of his own and see that he get only GOOD
possessions, GOOD knowledge, GOOD experience! I took him to the
mountains of the Tyrol--two years--and there his body became strong and
splendid while his brain was taking in the stores. It was quick, for his
brain had retained some habits; it was not a baby's brain, and some
small part of its old stores had not been lost. But if anything useless
or bad remain, we empty it out--I and those mountain' with their pure
air. Now, I say he is all good and the work was good; I am proud! But I
wish to restore ALL that was good in his life; your Keredec is something
of a poet.--You may put it: much the old fool! And for that greates'
restoration of all I have brought my boy back to France; since it was
necessary. It was a madness, and I thank the good God I was mad enough
to do it. I cannot tell you yet, my dear sir: but you shall see, you
shall see what the folly of that old Keredec has done! You shall see,
you shall--and I promise it--what a Paradise, when the good God helps,
an old fool's dream can make!"
A half-light had broken upon me as he talked, pacing the floor,
thundering his paean of triumph, his Titanic gestures bruising the
harmless air. Only one explanation, incredible, but possible, sufficed.
Anything was possible, I thought--anything was probable--with this
dreamer whom the trump of Fame, executing a whimsical fantasia,
proclaimed a man of science!
"By the wildest chance," I gasped, "you don't mean that you wanted him
to fall in love--"
He had reached the other end of the room, but at this he whirled about
on me, his laughter rolling out again, till it might have been heard at
Pere Baudry's.
"Ha, my dear sir, you have said it! But you knew it; you told him to
come to me and tell me."
"But I mean that you--unless I utterly misunderstand--you seem to imply
that you had selected some one now in France whom you planned that he
should care for--that you had selected the lady whom you know as Madame
d'Armand."
"Again," he shouted, "you have said it!"
"Professor Keredec," I returned, with asperity, "I have no idea how you
came to conceive such a preposterous scheme, but I agree heartily that
the word for it is madness. In the first place, I must tell you that her
name is not even d'Armand--"
"My dear sir, I know. It was the mistake of that absurd Amedee. She is
Mrs. Harman."
"You knew it?" I cried, hopelessly confused. "But Oliver still speaks of
her as Madame d'Armand."
"He does not know. She has not told him."
"But why haven't you told him?"
"Ha, that is a story, a poem," he cried, beginning to pace the floor
again--"a ballad as old as the oldest of Provence! There is a reason, my
dear sir, which I cannot tell you, but it lies within the romance of
what you agree is my madness. Some day, I hope, you shall understand and
applaud! In the meantime--"
"In the meantime," I said sharply, as he paused for breath, "there is a
keen-faced young man who took a room in the inn this morning and who has
come to spy upon you, I believe."
"What is it you say?"
He came to a sudden stop.
I had not meant to deliver my information quite so abruptly, but there
was no help for it now, and I repeated the statement, giving him a terse
account of my two encounters with the rattish youth, and adding:
"He seemed to be certain that 'Oliver Saffren' is an assumed name, and
he made a threatening reference to the laws of France."
The effect upon Keredec was a very distinct pallor. He faced me silently
until I had finished, then in a voice grown suddenly husky, asked:
"Do you think he came back to the inn? Is he here now?"
"I do not know."
"We must learn; I must know that, at once." And he went to the door.
"Let me go instead," I suggested.
"It can't make little difference if he see me," said the professor,
swallowing with difficulty and displaying, as he turned to me, a look of
such profound anxiety that I was as sorry for him now as I had been
irritated a few minutes earlier by his galliard air-castles. "I do not
know this man, nor does he know me, but I have fear"--his beard moved as
though his chin were trembling--"I have fear that I know his employers.
Still, it may be better if you go. Bring somebody here that we can ask."
"Shall I find Amedee?"
"No, no, no! That babbler? Find Madame Brossard."
I stepped out to the gallery, to discover Madame Brossard emerging from
a door on the opposite side of the courtyard; Amedee, Glouglou, and a
couple of carters deploying before her with some light trunks and bags,
which they were carrying into the passage she had just quitted. I
summoned her quietly; she came briskly up the steps and into the room,
and I closed the door.
"Madame Brossard," said the professor, "you have a new client to-day."
"That monsieur who arrived this morning," I suggested.
"He was an American," said the hostess, knitting her dark brows--"but I
do not think that he was exactly a monsieur."
"Bravo!" I murmured. "That sketches a likeness. It is this 'Percy'
without a doubt."
"That is it," she returned. "Monsieur Poissy is the name he gave."
"Is he at the inn now?"
"No, monsieur, but two friends for whom he engaged apartments have just
arrived."
"Who are they?" asked Keredec quickly.
"It is a lady and a monsieur from Paris. But not married: they have
taken separate apartments and she has a domestic with her, a negress,
Algerian."
"What are their names?"
"It is not ten minutes that they are installed. They have not given me
their names."
"What is the lady's appearance?"
"Monsieur the Professor," replied the hostess demurely, "she is not
beautiful."
"But what is she?" demanded Keredec impatiently; and it could be seen
that he was striving to control a rising agitation. "Is she blonde? Is
she brunette? Is she young? Is she old? Is she French, English, Spanish--"
"I think," said Madame Brossard, "I think one would call her Spanish,
but she is very fat, not young, and with a great deal too much rouge--"
She stopped with an audible intake of breath, staring at my friend's
white face. "Eh! it is bad news?" she cried. "And when one has been so
ill--"
Keredec checked her with an imperious gesture. "Monsieur Saffren and I
leave at once," he said. "I shall meet him on the road; he will not
return to the inn. We go to--to Trouville. See that no one knows that we
have gone until to-morrow, if possible; I shall leave fees for the
servants with you. Go now, prepare your bill, and bring it to me at
once. I shall write you where to send our trunks. Quick! And you, my
friend"--he turned to me as Madame Brossard, obviously distressed and
frightened, but none the less intelligent for that, skurried away to do
his bidding--"my friend, will you help us? For we need it!"
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