Читать книгу The Poisoners - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

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As the coach came swinging round the corner the young man pushed his companion still further behind him and held out his cloak in an effort to protect her, but in vain, the wheels of the vehicle, which was swinging heavily on its leathers, splashed over the broken cobbles and cast a shower of liquid filth over the girl's camelot dress of blue and silver.

"My birthday gown!" she cried in dismay, "and your new cloak, Charles!"

The occupant of the coach had seen the accident and putting her head out of the window called to the coachman to stop. He had gone some yards however before he could rein up the spirited animals, and when the vehicle had come at length to a halt the young couple had regained their good temper.

The girl's first thought had been for her ruined finery, which had not been bought easily or without considerable self-sacrifice; her second thought had been to laugh away the little misfortune in case her husband should be involved in a humiliating and dangerous dispute with a social superior.

"It is nothing," she said with her hand on his arm, "I can wipe it off. Let us go away quietly. Your cloak, too—that will brush."

"What are you frightened of?" he smiled good-humouredly. "There's no one in the coach but a woman. See, she is beckoning to us, she is sorry for what has happened."

Solange Desgrez was still for withdrawal, but her husband took her hand firmly through his arm and led her towards the coach. This was handsomely gilded and painted and bore on the doors a massive coat-of-arms. The coachman, and the footmen who hung behind, were in liveries of maroon and gold: they stared impassively in front of them, while their mistress leaned out of the window and spoke to the two people in their mud-splashed clothes.

"I am sorry, Madame, and for you too, Monsieur. We were driving too fast, we took the corner too suddenly—I had no idea there was anyone there. Your beautiful dress, it is ruined!"

She paused, biting her full underlip in embarrassment. She was very young, and it was clear she did not know what to do. Her sole companion was an elderly woman, who was nursing a frail-looking monkey on a cushion of saffron-coloured velvet. This person, who appeared to be half asleep, offered no help.

Charles Desgrez, curious and amused, waited, his hat in his hand. His wife, also embarrassed and wishing to end the scene, tried to draw him away; but she, too, was interested in the occupant of the coach, despite her desire to efface herself and be civil. An aristocrat, thought Solange, one of the great ladies of the Court, and she noted shrewdly what the other girl, who was about her own age, wore, and how she looked.

Her appearance was singularly fascinating, though she was hardly beautiful; her features were so soft, her complexion was so pale, her hair so light that she gave the impression of extreme, almost exasperating, fragility. An expression of timidity and stupidity, and a slight blurring of the lines of her face prevented her from being lovely; she was rather like a wax doll that had been placed in front of a fire and was beginning to melt. Yet there was an obvious attraction in her air of gentleness and candour and her figure was graceful; she was dressed in purple velvet, with a satin tie under her cravat; all this was far too gloomy and heavy a style for her years, which could not have been more than eighteen or twenty.

"What shall I do?" she sighed, half to herself. "What shall I do?"

The smile of Charles Desgrez deepened; he knew what was in the lady's mind; she saw that she could not offer them money since they had pretensions to gentility; she also saw that they were so poor that the damaged clothes would be to them a considerable loss.

Taking no heed either of her embarrassment or of the whispers of his wife, who wished to end the scene, the shrewd young Frenchman stood his ground and waited, courteous but firm.

"I shall be late," said the lady at length; she unclasped a string of sapphires that she wore over her light doeskin glove, and with an appealing look handed it to Madame Desgrez. "Please accept this—no reparation, of course, but a gift from a friend."

"No, Madame, indeed I would rather not," began Solange; but the lady told the coachman to drive on. With further murmured apology she bowed to the young couple, then with drew into the interior of the coach, which was richly lined and padded with celestial blue velvet and knots of orange braid.

Solange, moving from the roadway and standing against the heavy porch of a dark church, held out the string of blue stones and looked at her husband reproachfully:

"You should not have allowed me to take it. It is very valuable, it must be worth more than the dress and my cloak and your mantle all put together."

"I daresay it is," replied Monsieur Desgrez drily, "but the lady can afford to give it, and you, my dear, cannot afford to lose your frock. You know how long it took you to save up for it."

"But I hope she did not know that," remarked Solange apprehensively.

"No, she does not think of such things. She tried to do something graceful and courteous."

"Oh, yes," agreed Solange warmly. "She meant it in kindness, and in kindness I take it. But I do not like to accept any thing so valuable. See, they are fine, square Indian sapphires held together by little diamonds."

She gave the ornament to her husband, who examined it with a business-like air.

"Yes, I think it is quite valuable, Solange. The price of it will buy you one or two new frocks, and perhaps another piece of furniture for the salon. Or would you like it yourself—it is the sort of ornament," he said, with a harsh tenderness, "that I should like to have given you."

"It is the sort of ornament," replied the young wife quickly, "that I should not want, even if you ever could give it to me, Charles."

"I am afraid you will have a long time to wait before I can buy you anything like that." The smile on his thin lips was stern. "Yes, I should like to see you wearing this, Solange, I should like to see you in a coach like that, with three liveried servants and an old woman with a pet monkey, or any other nonsense you might want."

"Hush, Charles. It is like blaspheming our happiness. Let us thank the good God for what we have. If you know who the lady is, I think we should return the jewel—it might belong to her husband or her father, who would miss it and scold her."

"Yes, I know who the lady is," replied M. Desgrez. "She has no husband. That is Mademoiselle de Fontanges, one of the Queen's waiting women." He paused a second, then added with a cynical glance: "and one of the King's—"

"Oh, no." interrupted Solange. "That's not true!"

"You are her champion," laughed M. Desgrez, "because she gave you this valuable ornament and spoke kindly to you! Well, perhaps it is not true. Come along, my dear, there is a storm rising."

They stood for a moment in the thick shadow of the church porch in the twisting street, while the young man put the jewel carefully away in the inner pocket of his coat. It was winter and the filth in the roadway was coated with thin ice. The narrow street was flanked by the dark, grim facades of hôtels, with their iron gates and porters' lodges. Above the church porch frowning images of saints rose into the grey air. Black clouds driven by a bitter wind were rising over Paris. There were few people abroad, and those few went quickly, with cloaks held over their faces and heads bent before the grim lash of the wind.

Solange wore a grey cloak over the blue and silver dress that had been so splashed; her fine leather shoes were protected by wooden clogs; a dark silk hood was drawn closely under her chin and a coarse goat-skin muff hung by a cord round her neck served to guard her hands from the weather.

Her young husband's glance took in anew all these details which told of their poverty. He contrasted her in his mind with the woman who had given them the bracelet, and bitter regret and resentment rose in his soul, hardening his fine features and narrowing his light-grey eyes. He was a Lieutenant in the city Police or Watch, and he had no means beyond his salary.

Solange was the daughter of a magistrate at Caen, and her dowry had been small, only sufficient to furnish the very modest two rooms in which they lived. Charles Desgrez knew that his wife might have married better; she had left her native town, her relations, the friends of her youth, her home, all the opportunities that lay before a young, pretty and popular woman, to share his fortunes in Paris; and his pride was stung and his ambitions aroused because of her smiling, uncomplaining love and his narrow, mean and poor prospects; his wife's pressure on his arm checked his thoughts.

"Come," she said, shuddering. "The storm is certainly approaching." She glanced up almost fearfully into the blue-black clouds overhead. "How dark and horrible Paris can be on a day like this!"

"You regret Normandy?" her husband asked, pressing her hand to his side, and hastening her along over the dirty cobbles, where the gutter full of filth and rubbish, overflowed from the late rains.

"No, Charles, I regret nothing. But Paris somehow seems to overwhelm me, it is so strange and sinister."

"Paris, why, you know nothing of it, my dear. What if you had seen that side of it which I have!"

"Paris is where horrible things happen." she whispered, settling closely to his side. "Where they used to happen. I am glad that is all over."

"Glad that what is over, Solange?"

"I was thinking," replied the young wife, "of Madame de Brinvilliers. You know. I am glad I was not in Paris when she was put to death, though she was a wicked woman, who poisoned so many people."

"She was a monster," said the young police officer briefly. "But she has been destroyed and there is an end of that. We have no such criminals in Paris now."

"Why, you speak almost regretfully, Charles!"

"Perhaps I do. If I could discover some such crime, if I could track some such criminal, why, I might be able to get you a coach and pair and three liveried servants, and plenty of clothes and a sapphire bracelet, Solange."

"I would rather you did not, Charles, I would rather no such chance came your way, for such work must be difficult and perilous."

"Don't you wish difficult and perilous things for me, Solange? Do you want me to be content and quiet? I am only twenty-five, and I married you."

She pressed his arm in silence, not wishing him to be different, proud indeed that he showed ambition and resolution. Yet she was happy as she was, for she loved this man and never regretted that she had left her pleasant town of Caen to come to this strange, bewildering and unfriendly Paris; even though her husband's duties took him away from their little home so often and she spent many hours alone, Solange was content.

The inner radiance of this contentment made her oblivious of the darkening day, of the gathering strength of the gusts of wind, of the increasing gloom as they proceeded through the sombre streets of Paris.