CHAPTER XXVII.
DAME TILLERY PIQUED.
Marguerite was still at the Swan, waiting with great anxiety for the appearance of Jacques, for the landlady of the hotel had so often repeated and improved upon the exploits of the day before, that she was getting weary of the subject and almost ashamed of the whole affair. She had noticed that the chamber which she occupied was by no means exclusive to herself. Dame Tillery not only kept coming and going, but now and then other persons would drop in with her, and remain to listen while she related the wonderful exploits which had lifted her into sudden notoriety. But in this she satisfied her conscience by mystifying the position, and speaking of the queen as if she were some court lady walking by the place where Dame Tillery was milking quite by chance.
The truth was, Dame Tillery was almost as shrewd as she was loquacious. She dearly loved talking, especially about herself; but she also knew the danger there was in handling the name of the queen with too great familiarity; still she managed to win considerable glory out of her confreres by weaving her narrative up into a half romance, in which the queen was shadowed out as a high court lady, whom she had rescued from the most imminent peril by rolling in the grass, throwing her milking stool in the right direction, and performing other great feats of valor.
Sometimes the dame would appeal to Marguerite to confirm her story, which grew and grew till the young girl became weary of hearing it, and shrunk from giving the confirmation so often demanded. When this happened, the dame would laugh, and repeat herself again with liberal additions. Thus the time was spent between young Richelieu’s visit and the return of Jacques.
Among the persons who came and went so unceremoniously to her room, Marguerite noticed a little creature scarcely larger than a child, but with the lines and expression of a man past thirty-five in his dark and shrunken face. Threads of gray were in the coarse, black hair, which fell a good deal over his forehead, and that sharp, fox-like look of the eyes no child ever possessed. It could only have been learned by experience in the world. This little personage never spoke, and seemed scarcely to listen; but occasionally Marguerite caught a glance of those keen eyes, and wondered who he was, and why he regarded her so furtively all the while Dame Tillery was talking.
At last Jacques came, breathless with haste and bespattered with mud, for he had traveled at a furious rate, and almost despaired of reaching Versailles in time for the promised interview. The little personage we have spoken of was lingering near the door when Jacques passed through, and placed himself in a position to listen so quietly that no one observed him.
“I am ready!” exclaimed Monsieur Jacques, wiping the beaded perspiration from his face.
“The horse I rode fell lame; for the roads are heavy and I pressed him hard.”
Marguerite sprang up all in a glow of expectation when she saw Jacques. She had waited so long, and watched so earnestly, that it seemed like a release from prison when his kind face beamed upon her.
“You have been to Paris?” she said. “You have seen my mother? She knows that I am safe?”
“Yes, I have seen your mother. She knows that you are safe. I left her upon her knees, thanking the blessed Virgin for the great hope I brought her.”
“But you should not have been so certain—my heart fails me when I think of going to the palace. While she is beaming with hope, I may bring nothing but disappointment.”
Monsieur Jacques saw that the nerves of this poor girl were shaken with too much thought; suspense had left her almost hopeless. He sat down by her side and kindly encouraged her. During the conversation he spoke of her father by name. “When this great and good man was set free, some clue would be found to the person who had sent him there, and who had torn out so many years of his life. That person, whoever he or she was, should meet with severe punishment—the people would attend to that. For his part, to avenge the wrongs of this one man should be the object of his life.”
Jacques, supposing himself alone with Marguerite, spoke in his natural voice, and with some energy. All the time that Indian dwarf lingered near the door and listened. As the conversation went on his face contracted, and his eyes gleamed—the words he gathered interested him deeply, there could be no doubt of that.
After awhile Dame Tillery presented herself, ready for an excursion to the palace. The amplitude of her dress, and the gorgeous incongruity of colors with which she arrayed her person, fairly brightened the old rooms and filled them with the bustle of her presence, as she passed through into the chamber where Marguerite was sitting.
“Ah, monsieur!” she said, in high good-humor, “I am glad you are ready, for we should have been greatly put about for some one to give us countenance before the king, not that it is needed, now that we are friends with her majesty, but one likes to go with a party. Besides, you were of some use. I shall take great pleasure in saying that much to their majesties, you can depend on me for that.”
Monsieur Jacques looked at the woman from head to foot, half in anger, half in amusement.
“Are you prepared for a visit to the palace, dame?” he inquired.
“What—me? Who else should go? Did not her majesty say to her deliverers, ‘Come in the morning that the king may thank you?’”
“But she spoke particularly to the demoiselle, as I understood it.”
Dame Tillery turned scarlet in an instant; all her garments began to flutter ominously. She turned upon Marguerite.
“Does the demoiselle, then, reject my company? Does she fancy herself able to penetrate to the presence of the queen without me, that is what I wish to know?”
This terrified the girl. She turned pale and shrunk away from that angry face.
“After taking her with me to that little cottage, and placing her in the way of favor; after saying what I did about her resemblance to my own precious niece, who will this day protest in heaven against such ingratitude to her poor aunt; after adopting her, as it were, into the very bosom of The Swan, she empowers this rude man to say that she alone was invited to the presence—that I am nobody. I, who flung myself headlong in the path of that infuriated cow. Oh! the ingrate—the ingrate!”
Here the dame flung herself upon a chair, took out a voluminous pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her face, while heaving sobs shook her frame.
Marguerite was distressed by all this. She arose and laid her fair hand caressingly on the dame’s shoulder.
“You mistake,” she said. “I do wish your company. You were kind—very kind to me. I shall never forget it. My good friend here meant nothing that could wound you. Perhaps he is a little too thoughtful of me over others; but you will forgive that—you who are so kind.”
Dame Tillery wiped her face, hushed the sobs that were heaving her broad bosom, and opening her arms, gathered Marguerite into a warm embrace.
“I knew—I knew she could not look so much like my niece and be an ingrate,” she said. “It was all a mistake. Monsieur meant no harm. It is only my sensitive nature, that is my chief fault. I strive to conquer it, but cannot. Kiss me, child, and we will think no more about it. You understand, all is forgiven, forgotten? It must not wound her majesty by anything that seems like discord—we who saved her life only yesterday.”
Marguerite obeyed this request, and kissed the plump lips of the dame, casting a pleading look at Monsieur Jacques, who was by no means satisfied with the conclusion of this little scene, but would rather have died than dispute that lovely girl in anything.
“Now it is all over, except that crying always makes my poor eyes as red as a ferret’s; but a little fresh wind will change all that,” murmured the dame, drawing forth a huge green fan, with which she deliberately commenced cooling her face, the motive power being one fat hand laid in her lap, which moved the enormous fabric with a slow, continuous motion, that kept all her ribbons in a flutter, and soon reduced the redness of her face into a glow of self-complacency.