The Flight.
NICOLE WAS a conscientious girl. She had received M. de Richelieu’s money, and received it in advance too, and she felt anxious to prove herself worthy of this confidence by earning her pay. She ran therefore as quickly as possible to the gate, where she arrived at forty minutes past seven, instead of at half-past. Now, M. Beausire, who, being accustomed to military discipline, was a punctual man, had been waiting there for ten minutes. About ten minutes before, too, M. de Taverney had left his daughter, and Andree was consequently alone. Now, being alone, the young girl had closed the blinds.
Gilbert, as usual, was gazing eagerly at Andree from his attic, but it would have been difficult to say if his eyes sparkled with love or hatred. When the blinds were closed Gilbert could see nothing. Consequently he looked in another direction, and, while looking, he perceived M. Beausire’s plume, and recognized the exempt, who was walking up and down, whistling an air to kill time while he was waiting.
In about ten minutes, that is to say, at forty minutes past seven, Nicole made her appearance. She exchanged a few words with M. Beausire, who made a gesture with his head as a sign that he understood her perfectly, and disappeared by the shady alley leading to the Little Trianon. Nicole, light as a bird, returned in the direction she had come.
“Oh, oh!” thought Gilbert. “Monsieur the exempt and mademoiselle the femme-de-chambre have something to do or to say which they fear to have witnessed! Very good!”
Gilbert no longer felt any curiosity with respect to Nicole’s movements, but actuated by the idea that the young girl was his natural enemy, he merely sought to collect a mass of proofs against her morality, with which proofs he might successfully repulse any attack, should she attempt one against him. And as he knew the campaign might begin at any moment, like a prudent soldier he collected his munitions of war.
A rendezvous with a man, in the very grounds of Trianon, was one of the weapons which a cunning enemy such as Gilbert could not neglect, especially when it was imprudently placed under his very eyes. Gilbert consequently wished to have the testimony of his ears as well as that of his eyes, and to catch some fatally compromising phrase which would completely floor Nicole at the first onset. He quickly descended from his attic, therefore, hastened along the lobby, and gained the garden by the chapel stairs. Once in the garden, he had nothing to fear, for he knew all its hiding-places, as a fox knows his cover. He glided beneath the linden-trees, then along the espalier, until he reached a small thicket situated about twenty paces from the spot where he calculated upon seeing Nicole.
As he had foreseen, Nicole was there. Scarcely had he installed himself in the thicket when a strange noise reached his ears. It was the chink of gold upon stone — that metallic sound of which nothing, except the reality, can give a correct idea.
Like a serpent, Gilbert glided along to a raised terrace, out-topped by a hedge of lilacs, which at that season (early in May), diffused their perfume around, and showered down their flowers upon the passers who took the shady alley on their way from the Great to the Little Trianon.
Having reached this retreat, Gilbert, whose eyes were accustomed to pierce the darkness, saw Nicole emptying the purse which M. de Richelieu had given her, upon a stone on the inner side of the gate, and prudently placed out of M. Beausire’s reach.
The large louis-d’ors showered from it in bright profusion, while M. Beausire, with sparkling eye and trembling hand, looked at Nicole and her louis-d’ors as if he could not comprehend how the one should possess the other.
Nicole spoke first.
“You have more than once, my dear M. Beausire,” said she, “proposed to elope with me.”
“And to marry you,” exclaimed the enthusiastic exempt.
“Oh! my dear sir, that is a matter of course; just now, flight is the most important point. Can we fly in two hours?”
“In ten minutes, if you like.”
“No; I have something to do first, which will occupy me two hours.”
“In two hours, as in ten minutes, I shall be at your orders, dearest.”
“Very well. Take these fifty louis.”
Nicole counted the fifty louis, and handed them through the gate to M. Beausire, who, without counting them, stuffed them into his waistcoat pocket.
“And in an hour and a half,” continued she, “be here with a carriage.”
“But—” objected Beausire.
“Oh! if you do not wish, forget what has passed between us, and give me back my fifty louis.”
“I do not shrink, dearest Nicole; but I fear the result.”
“For whom?”
“For you.”
“For me?”
“Yes; the fifty louis — once vanished, and vanished they will soon be — you will complain — you will regret Trianon — you will—”
“Oh! how thoughtful you are, M. Beausire! But fear nothing; I am not one of those women who are easily made miserable. Have no scruples on that score; when the fifty louis are gone, we shall see.”
And she shook the purse which contained the other fifty. Beausire’s eyes were absolutely phosphorescent.
“I would charge through a blazing furnace for your sake!” exclaimed he.
“Oh! content you — I shall not require so much from you, sir. Then it is agreed you will be here with the chaise in an hour and a half, and in two hours we shall fly?”
“Agreed!” exclaimed Beausire, seizing Nicole’s hand, and drawing it through the gate to kiss it.
“Hush!” said Nicole, “are you mad?”
“No; I am in love.”
“Hum!” muttered Nicole.
“Do you not believe me, sweetheart?”
“Yes, yes, I believe you — above all, be sure to have good horses.”
“Oh! yes.”
And they separated.
But a moment afterward. Beausire returned quite alarmed.
“Hist!” whispered he.
“Well, what is it?” asked Nicole, already some distance off, and putting her hand to her mouth, so as to convey her voice farther.
“And the gate?” asked Beausire, “will you creep under it?”
“How stupid he is!” murmured Nicole, who at this moment was not ten paces distant from Gilbert. Then she added in a louder tone:
“I have the key.”
Beausire uttered a prolonged “Oh!” of admiration, and this time took to his heels for good and all. Nicole hastened back with drooping head and nimble step to her mistress.
Gilbert, now left sole master of the field, put the following four questions to himself:
“Why does Nicole fly with Beausire, when she does not love him?
“How does Nicole come to possess such a large sum of money?
“Why has Nicole the key of the gate?
“Why does Nicole return to Andree, when she might go at once?”
Gilbert found an answer to the second question, but to the others he could find none.
Thus checked at the commencement, his natural curiosity and his acquired distrust were so much excited that he determined to remain in the cold, beneath the dew-covered trees, to await the end of this scene, of which he had witnessed the commencement.
Andree had conveyed her father to the barriers of the Great Trianon, and was returning alone and pensive, when Nicole appeared issuing from the alley leading to the famous gate where she had been concerting her measures with M. Beausire.
Nicole stopped on perceiving her mistress, and upon a sign which Andree made to her, she followed her to her apartment.
It was now about half-past eight in the evening. The night had closed in earlier than usual; for a huge cloud, sweeping from south to north, had overspread the whole sky, and all around, as far as the eye could reach over the lofty forest of Versailles, the gloomy shroud was gradually enveloping in its folds the stars, a short time before sparkling in the azure dome. A light breeze swept along the ground, breathing warmly on the drooping flowers, which bent their heads, as if imploring Heaven to send them rain or dew.
The threatening aspect of the sky did not hasten Andree’s steps; on the contrary, melancholy and thoughtful, the young girl seemed to ascend each step leading to her room with regret, and she paused at every window as she passed to gaze at the sky, so much in harmony with her saddened mood, and thus to delay her return to her own little retreat.
Nicole, impatient, angry, fearing that some whim might detain her mistress beyond the usual hour, grumbled and muttered, as servants never fail to do when their masters are imprudent enough to satisfy their own caprices at the expense of those of their domestics.
At last, Andree reached the door of her chamber, and sank rather than seated herself upon a couch, gently ordering Nicole to leave the window, which looked upon the court, half open. Nicole obeyed; then, returning to her mistress with that affectionate air which the flatterer could so easily assume, she said:
“I fear mademoiselle feels ill this evening; her eyes are red and swollen, yet bright. I think that mademoiselle is in great need of repose.”
“Do you think so?” asked Andree, who had scarcely listened.
And she carelessly placed her feet upon a cushion of tapestry work.
Nicole took this as an order to undress her mistress, and commenced to unfasten the ribbons and flowers of her headdress — a species of edifice which the most skillful could not unbuild in less than a quarter of an hour. While she was thus employed, Andree did not utter a word, and Nicole, thus left to follow her own wishes, hastened the business, without disturbing Andree, whose pre-occupation was so great that she permitted Nicole to pull out her hair with impunity.
When the night toilet was finished, Andree gave her orders for the morrow.
In the morning some books were to be fetched from Versailles which Philip had left there for his sister, and the tuner was to be ordered to attend to put the harpsichord in proper order.
Nicole replied, that if she were not called during the night, she would rise early, and would have both these commissions executed before her young lady was awake.
“To-morrow also I will write to Philip,” said Andree, speaking to herself; “that will console me a little.”
“Come what will,” thought Nicole, “I shall not carry the letter.”
And at this reflection the girl, who was not quite lost yet, began to think, in saddened mood, that she was about for the first time to leave that excellent mistress under whose care her mind and heart had been awakened. The thought of Andree was linked in her mind with so many other recollections, that to touch it was to stir the whole chain which carried her back to the first days of infancy.
While these two young creatures, so different in their character and their condition, were thus reflecting beside each other, without any connection existing between their thoughts, time was rapidly flying, and Andree’s little timepiece, which was always in advance of the great clock of Trianon, struck nine.
Beausire would be at the appointed place, and Nicole had but half an hour to join her lover.
She finished her task as quickly as possible, not without uttering some sighs which Andree did not even notice. She folded a night-shawl around her mistress, and as Andree still sat immovable, with her eyes fixed on the ceiling, she drew Richelieu’s phial from her bosom, put two pieces of sugar into a goblet, added the water necessary to melt it, and without hesitation, and by the resolute force of her will, so strong in one so young, she poured two drops of the fluid from the phial into the water, which immediately became turbid, then changed to a slight opal tint, which soon died away.
“Mademoiselle,” said Nicole, “your glass of water is prepared, your clothes are folded, the night-lamp is lighted. You know I must rise very early to-morrow morning; may I go to bed now?”
“Yes,” replied Andree, absently.
Nicole curtseyed, heaved a last sigh, which, like the others, was unnoticed, and closed behind her the glass door leading to the anteroom. But instead of retiring into her little cell adjoining the corridor and lighted from Andree’s anteroom, she softly took to flight, leaving the door of the corridor ajar, so that Richelieu’s instructions were scrupulously followed.
Then, not to arouse the attention of the neighbors, she descended the stairs on tiptoe, bounded down the outer steps, and ran quickly to join M. Beausire at the gate.
Gilbert had not quitted his post. He had heard Nicole say that she would return in two hours, and he waited. But as it was now ten minutes past the hour, he began to fear that she would not return.
All at once, he saw her running as if some one were pursuing her.
Nicole approached the gate, passed the key through the bars to Beausire, who opened it, rushed out, and the gate closed with a dull, grating noise. The key was then thrown among the grass in the ditch, near the spot where Gilbert was stationed. He heard it fall with a dead sound, and marked the place where it had dropped.
Nicole and Beausire in the meantime gained ground; Gilbert heard them move away, and soon he could distinguish, not the noise of a carriage, as Nicole had required, but the pawing of a horse, which, after some moment’s delay — occupied doubtless by Nicole in recrimination, who had wished to depart, like a duchess, in her carriage — changed to the clattering of his iron-shod feet on the pavement, and at last died away in the distance.
Gilbert breathed freely; he was free, free from Nicole — that is to say, from his enemy. Andree was henceforth alone.
He took the contrary direction from the one Nicole was pursuing, and hurried toward the offices of Trianon.