Читать книгу The Iron Mistress - Paul Iselin Wellman - Страница 22

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They greeted Narcisse with warmth, tingeing off into coolness toward Bowie as introductions were made. At once they ignored the American as they turned to his friend in a volley of French.

“You’ve heard about the latest challenge?” asked Armand Lebain.

“No.”

“Colonel Claridge and Belmonte. Pistols,” said Vanderlyn.

“The quarrel?”

“Last night,” Contrecourt said. “St. Sylvain’s. Cards.”

“Claridge will down him,” said Narcisse.

“I’m not so certain,” said Cabanal. “Belmonte’s a big target, but he spends much time at the salle d’armes.”

“Five to four Claridge does,” Narcisse said.

Cabanal glanced at Contrecourt, who lifted his eyebrows. “Give us a better price, Narcisse,” he said. “Look at your advantage. Belmonte’s wide as a hogshead. It’s like putting up a barn door before a broom-stick.”

There was a laugh. “Something in what you say,” Narcisse agreed.

“What price then?” asked Cabanal.

“Eight to five on Claridge.”

“Taken—for a hundred!”

Lebain said, “Another hundred—at the same odds.”

A chorus of voices:

“A hundred and fifty here!”

“Louis Chailleau and I will take that between us!”

“A hundred more at Narcisse’s price!”

“Done!”

Wallets were out and notations made on a tablet brought by a waiter.

Cabanal smiled at Narcisse. “If I win from you, I’ll only be getting back what you’ve cost me.”

“How’s that, Philippe?”

“Mon Dieu, you’re bankrupting us all with those new styles. That spencer coat you brought from London, for instance. I’ve ordered one—so have all of us. A round hundred it’ll cost me. And Cocquelon, my tailor, says he can’t possibly get it out for a fortnight, he’s so swamped with orders.”

Narcisse laughed, looking down at the short, tailless jacket he wore, a precurser of the mess jacket of the future, just then completely new in New Orleans.

“You’ve heard how this style started?” he asked.

“No. But I do know it’s damnably smart.”

“Lord Spencer, who’s something of an arbiter in London, wagered that he could set a fashion wholly meaningless and unnecessary that would be popular in a fortnight. With that, he called for a pair of shears, whacked off the tails of his coat at the waist, donned his hat, and went for a stroll in Hyde Park. He is, as you know, noted for his taste. Within three days several London dandies were seen wearing the ‘spencers.’ In two weeks all London had donned the garment.”

They laughed, and drank. Bowie sat back, studying the company. Never had he seen young men so gay as these of New Orleans, with minds so occupied with trivialities, so quick to laugh, yet so quick to fury, with faces growing fierce and deadly all in a moment.

A quality of extraordinary vanity here. The code duello hung on the air, they moved in an aura of constant danger and seemed actually contemptuous of death, so long as it occurred in the classic manner on the dueling field. A thing pitched to fanaticism. Any affront, however slight and sometimes even unmeant, might send youths out to shed one another’s blood: somewhat theatrically, perhaps, but nevertheless with deadly willingness. Yet these men were perhaps no braver than any others when death confronted them in other form than the fashionable and highly stylized duel.

Since the duel bulked so large, it followed that New Orleans was a gathering place for maîtres d’armes from all parts of the world: gentry like the man Contrecourt, sitting across from Bowie, twisting his pointed mustaches, hard and dangerous.

Bowie’s thoughts were interrupted when Philippe Cabanal leaned over to him. “Narcisse has just told me that you’re on your way to the Maison de Bornay.”

“So I understand.”

“You will meet the divine Judalon. She has New Orleans at her feet, monsieur, myself among others. I even had hopes——” He laughed. “But that’s another matter. Mademoiselle Judalon is to my thinking the most beautiful woman in the entire city.”

Bowie smiled slightly. “Narcisse insists she has a bad temper.”

“Ah?” Cabanal’s delicate eyebrows arched. “A lady like this can be forgiven a bad temper—though I do not think Judalon has any more of it than the others. Money—enough money—can compensate for much, even if a woman be clubfooted and hunchbacked. But this woman is beautiful—a perfect divinity. If she wore linsey, she would still be beautiful. It happens, however, that she was born to wear silks, and the silks are fortunate that she wears them!”

Cabanal raised his glass as if toasting the absent lady. Bowie raised his glass also. At that moment he met the eyes of Contrecourt, the swordsman, and with surprise encountered in them a hard glint of dislike.