Angelique - Part 6. The Inn of the Red Mask Chapter 9 - Read online

ANGELIQUE WAITED FOR DESGREZ IN HIS NEW HOUSE. The decor had changed since that first visit which Angelique had paid him, years ago, in one of the tumbledown houses on the Petit-Pont.
He now had a house of his own on the very rich Pont Notre-Dame, which was almost new and displayed the gaudy taste of wealthy bour¬geois, its house-fronts adorned with terminals in the forms of gods hold¬ing fruit and flowers, its medallions of kings, its statues, all painted in gaudy natural* colours.
The room into which Angelique had been shown by the caretaker reflected the same middle-class affluence. But the young woman hardly cast a glance at the vast bed with its canopy supported by twisted columns or at the writing-desk covered with objects in gilt-bronze. She did not ask herself any questions about the circumstances to which the lawyer could owe this modest wealth. Desgrez was both a presence and a memory. She had the impression that he knew everything about her, and this was restful. He was hard and indifferent, but solid as a rock. With her last message in his hands, she could die with her mind at peace: her children would not be abandoned.
The open window overlooked the Seine. The sound of oars could be heard. It was a fine day. The air was warm. A gentle autunm sun shone on the black-and-white stone floor.
At last Angelique heard in the passage the clicking spurs of a resolute stride. She recognised Desgrcz’s step. He came in, and showed no surprise.
“I greet you, Madame. Sorbonne, my friend, stay outside, with your muddy feet.”
Once again, he was dressed, if not elegantly, at least prosperously. A black velvet braid emphasised the collar of the ample coat which he threw over a chair. But she recognised the old Desgrez by the casual way in which he tossed off his hat and his wig. Then he unfastened his sword. He seemed in an excellent mood.
“I’ve just come back from Monsieur d’Aubray’s. Everything is going splendidly. My dear, you are going to meet all the notables of commerce and finance. There is even talk of Monsieur Colbert himself attending the meeting.” .
Angclique smiled politely. These words seemed futile to her and did not shake her out of her stupor. She would not have the honour of making Monsieur Colbert’s acquaintance. At the very hour when these omni¬potent persons would foregather, the body of Angclique de Sancc, Comtesse dc Peyrac, Marquise of the Angels, would drift upon the current between the golden banks of the Seine. She would be free then; out of reach of all. And perhaps Joffrey would come to meet her. . . .
She gave a start, for Desgrez was still talking.
“What were you saying?”
“I was saying that you were early for the appointment, Madame.”
“Actually, that’s not what brings me here. I was only passing, for a charming dandy is waiting to take me to the Palace arcades, where I want to have a look at the latest novelties. I might even go on to the Tuileries afterwards. These amusements will help me spend the time till the fateful hour of the meeting. But I have an envelope here that rather encumbers me. Could you keep it for me? I’ll collect it on my way back.”
“At your service, Madame.”
He took the sealed envelope and, going to a small strong-box on a side- table, he opened it and put the envelope inside. *
Angclique turned away to pick up her fan and gloves. It wTas all quite simple. Just as simply, she would go for her walk, without hurrying. All that was needed, at a given moment, was to swerve a little towards the Seine. . . . The sunshine would make the water gleam like a black-and- white stone floor. . . .
A creaking sound made her lift her head. She saw that Desgrez wras turning the key in the door. Then, with a very natural air, he slipped the key into his pocket and came back towards the young woman.
He towered over her. He was smiling, but his eyes had a red glow. Before she could make a gesture of defence, lie picked her up in his arms. He murmured, his face over hers:
“Come, my pretty little animal.”
“I don’t want you to talk to me in this way!” she shouted.
And she burst into sobs.
It had come over her all of a sudden. A storm of tears, a cloudburst of sobs, tearing her heart out, choking her.
Desgrez carried her to the bed. For a long while he sat looking at her quietly, with close attention. Then, when the violence of her despair had calmed down a little, he began to undress her. She felt the touch of his fingers on her neck as he unfastened her bodice with the dexterity of a chambermaid. Bathed in tears, she no longer had the strength to resist.
“You are wicked, Desgrez,” she sobbed.
“No, my sweet, no, I’m not wicked.”
“I thought that you were my friend. . . . I thought that Oh! my
God! I am so unhappy.”
“Tut! Tut! what an idea!” he said in a tone of scolding indulgence.
With a nimble hand, he raised the wide petticoats, unfastened her garters, rolled down her silk stockings, removed her shoes.
When she had nothing left but her shift, he stepped aside and she heard him undressing, whistling, and flinging his boots, his singlet, his belt into the four comers of the room. Then, with a leap, he joined her on the bed and pulled the curtains.
In the warm twilight of the alcove, Desgrez’s hairy body seemed red under a black velvety bloom. The man had lost none of Ins dash.
“Hopla, my girl! What’s all this moaning about? No more weeping! We’re going to have a good laugh. Come over here!”
He pulled off her shift and at the same time gave her such a resounding wallop on the back that she rounded, raging with humiliation, and dug her sharp little teeth into his shoulder.
“Oh! you bitch!” he cried. “This deserves punishment!”
But she was struggling fiercely. They grappled. She shouted the lowest invectives that she could think of. Polack’s entire vocabulary poured forth, and Desgrez laughed like mad. This outburst of laughter, the sparkle of the white teeth, the acrid smell of tobacco which mingled with his virile perspiration, shook Angclique to the marrow. She was sure she hated Desgrez, even wished his death. She shouted that she would kill him with her knife. He laughed even more. At last he managed to crush her under him and sought her lips.
“Kiss me,” he said. “Kiss the policeman. . . . Obey, or I’ll give you such a thrashing that you’ll be sore for three days. . . . Kiss me. Better than that. I am sure you can kiss very well. . . .”
She could no longer resist the imperious commands of that mouth which was biting her pitilessly at every refusal. She yielded. ’
She yielded so completely that, a few moments later, her desire flung her blindly against the body that had vanquished her. Desgrez’s gaiety in love was prodigious, inexhaustible. Angflique caught it like a fever. The young woman told herself that Desgrez was treating her without any respect, that nobody had ever treated her thus, not even Nicholas, not even the captain. But, with her head thrown back against the edge of the bed, she heard herself laughing like a shameless strumpet. She felt very hot now.
At last the man pulled her back to him. For a second, she glimpsed a different face: closed eyelids, a passionate gravity, a face from which all cynicism had faded, all irony had vanished under the urge of a single feeling. The next moment she felt that she was his. And he laughed again, a gluttonous, savage laughter. She hated him for it. Just then she yearned for tenderness. A new lover always roused in her, after the first embrace, a reflex of astonishment and fright, perhaps of revulsion.
Her excitement subsided. A leaden fatigue came over her.
She let herself be taken, inertly, but he did not seem to take offence. She had the impression that he was treating her like any street-walker. She pleaded, tossing her head from side to side.
“Let me alone . . . let me alone!”
But he persisted.
Everything went black. The nervous tension that had sustained her during the last days snapped before a crushing fatigue. She was at the end of her tether. She was emptied of strength, of tears, of passion. . . .
When she awoke, she was sprawled on the devastated bed, her arms and legs flung out like a starfish, in the very position in which slumber had caught her. The bed-curtains were tucked up. A circle of pink sunshine was dancing on the stone floor. She could hear the water of the Seine under the arches of the bridge of Notre Dame. Another sound mingled with it, closer by: a sort of busy, muffled scratching.
She turned her head and saw Desgrez, who was writing at his desk. He was wearing his wig and a starched white neck-band. He seemed very calm and absorbed in his work. She gazed at him without understanding. Her memories remained indistinct. Her body seemed of lead, but her head felt quite light. She became aware of her unchaste posture and drew her legs together.
At that moment Desgrez raised his head. Seeing that she was awake, he put down his pen on die ink-stand and came over to the bed.
“How are you? Did you sleep well?” he asked in a perfeedy courteous and natural voice.
She stared at him stupidly. She was not quite certain about him.
Where had she seen him terrifying, brutal, lecherous? In her dream, probably.
“Sleep?” she stammered. “Did I sleep? For how long?”
“Well, for three hours now I’ve had this charming spectacle before my »»
eyes.
“Three hours!” repeated Angelique, pulling up the sheet to cover herself. “But that’s terrible! What about the appointment with Monsieur Colbert?”
“You have an hour left to get ready.”
He went into the next room.
“I have a comfortable bathroom and all that a lady requires for her toilet: rouge, powder, patches, perfume.”
He came back, holding on his arm a silky dressing-gown, which he flung to her. .
“Put that on and hurry up, my dear.” .
A little dazed and with die feeling that she was moving on a cloud of cottonwool, Angelique proceeded to bathe and dress. Her clothes were carefully folded on a trunk. Before the mirror was set out a great array of accessories which were, to say the least, astonishing in this bachelor’s ward-robe: jars of white and vermilion paints, black cream for eyelids, a whole range of scent-botdes.
Slowly, Angelique’s memory returned. Not without difficulty, for her mind seemed unable to collect her thoughts. She remembered the re¬sounding slap with which the policeman had stunned her. Oh! it was abominable! He had treated her like a slut, without any respect. She was sure now that he knew that she was the Marquise of the Angels. What was he going to do with her now . . . ?
She heard die goose-quill scratch. Desgrcz got up and inquired:
“Can you manage? Can I serve as a lady’s-maid?”
Without waiting for her answer, he came in and began skilfully to tie the laces of her petticoat.
Angelique no longer knew what to think.
At the recollection of the caresses he had forced upon her, she felt numbed by shame. But Dcsgrez’s mind seemed to be on other things altogether. She would have thought she had dreamed it, had not die mirror shown her the face of a sensual, sated woman, her eyelids dark from the fatigue of lust and lips swollen from the sting of kisses. What a disgrace! Even for the least knowing eyes, her features bore the mark of the violent love-making into which Dcsgrez had driven her. Mechanic¬ally, she put two fingers over her swollen lips, which continued to smart painfully.
She met Desgrez’s eyes in the mirror. He gave a little smile.
“Oh yes! it shows/’ he said. “But it’s of no importance. The grave persons whom you are going to meet will be all the more impressed . . . and perhaps vaguely envious.”
Without answering, she smoothed her curls and stuck a patch on her cheek. The policeman had fastened his belt and was picking up his hat. ... He really did look elegant, although his dress maintained a sombre, somewhat austere note.
“You are mounting the rungs of the social ladder, Monsieur Desgrez,” said Angelique, with an effort to imitate his casualness. “Here you are, wearing a sword, and your apartment is that of a prosperous bourgeois.” “I receive a good many visitors. And, you see, their type is changing peculiarly. Is it my fault if the tracks I follow lead to ever higher places? Sorbonne is getting old. When he dies, I won’t replace him, for it isn’t the slums any more thatjiide the worst murderers of our times. One has to look for them in other places.”
He seemed to ponder, then added, nodding his head:
“In the drawing-room, for instance. . . . Are you ready, Madame?” Angelique picked up her fan and motioned ‘yes*.
“Shall I return your envelope to you?”
“What envelope?”
“The one you entrusted to me when you came here.”
The young woman frowned. Then she remembered, and a slight flush rose to her forehead. Was it the envelope which contained her last will and which she had handed to Desgrez with the intention of killing herself afterwards?
Kill herself? What a peculiar idea! Why ever had she wanted to kill herself? This really wasn’t the moment for it. When for the first time in years she was at last on the point of seeing the successful end of all her endeavours, when she held the King of France practically at her mercy! . . .
“Yes, yes,” she said hurriedly. “Give it back to me.” •
He opened the strong-box and held the sealed envelope out to her. But he held on to it just as Angelique was about to grasp it, and she looked up at him inquiringly. Desgrez’s gaze had its red glint again which seemed to penetrate like a shaft of light into the very depths of her soul.
“You wanted to die, didn’t you?”
Angelique stared at him like a child caught in the act. Then she dropped her head and nodded.
“And now?”
“Now . . . ? I don’t know any more. At any rate, I certainly don’t intend to forgo turning to account the cravenness of these people when I can use it to my advantage. It’s a unique opportunity and I am convinced that, if I manage to start a fad for chocolate, I’ll be able to rebuild my fortune.”
“Excellent.”
He took back the envelope and threw it into the fire. Then he came back towards her, still calm 4nd smiling.
“Desgrez,” she whispered, “how did you guess? . . .”
“Oh, my dear!” he exclaimed, laughing. “Do you think I’m fool enough not to fmd there’s something suspicious about a woman who comes to me with a wild look and no powder or rouge on her face and who tells me she has a date to strut along the Palace arcades? . . . Besides ”
He seemed to hesitate.
“I know you too well,” he pursued. “I saw straightway that something was up, that it was serious, and needed prompt and vigorous action. In view of my friendly intentions, you will forgive me, won’t you, Madame, for having somewhat maltreated you?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said, with a rankling grudge. “I shall think it »
over.
But Desgrez began to laugh, with a warm, friendly look in his eyes. It humiliated her. But at the same time she told herself that she had no better friend in the world. He added:
“One more bit of advice, Madame, if you will allow a modest police¬man to make so free: always look ahead. Don’t ever turn back towards your past. Avoid stirring up its ashes—those ashes that were scattered to the four winds. For every time you think of it, you will have a longing for death. And I shall not always be there to rouse you in time. . . .”
Masked and, as a further precaution, with blindfolded eyes, Angelique was taken in a carriage with drawn curtains to a small house in the suburb of Vaugirard. The bandage over her eyes was removed only when sh$ found herself in a drawing-room lighted by a few torches, in which four or five wigged persons were assembled. Stiff and formal, they seemed rather vexed at seeing her.
Had it not been for Desgrez’s presence, Ang£lique would have feared that she had been lured into an ambush which she would not leave alive, but there was nothing underhand about the intentions of Monsieur Colbert, a bourgeois with a cold, stem face. None more than this com¬moner, who disapproved of the licentiousness and squandering at Court, could admit the merits of Angelique’s petition to the King. The sovereign
himself had realised it, somewhat perforce, it is true, under the impact of the Gutter-Poet’s scandal-sheets. Angilique was quick to sense that the arguing was merely a matter of form. Her own position was impreg-nable.
When she left the learned gathering two hours later, she took with her the promise that a gift of 50,000 livres would^e remitted to her from the King’s own coffers for the reconstruction of the tavern of‘The Red Mask*. The letters patent for the manufacture of chocolate, granted to young Chaillou’s father, would be confirmed. Ang£lique would be mentioned by name, and it was specified that she would not come under the juris-diction of any guild.
All kinds of facilities for obtaining the raw materials were granted to her. Finally, by way of reparation, she asked to become the owner of one share in the newly-founded East India Company. This last request caused some surprise. But these financiers saw that the young woman was very well primed on business affairs. She pointed out that as her business was particularly concerned with exotic commodities, the East India Company would surely welcome a client who had every interest in seeing the Company prosper and enjoy the support of the greatest fortunes of the kingdom.
Monsieur Colbert admitted, with a growl, that the claims of this young person, though obviously considerable, were relevant and well-founded. She got all she asked for. In exchange, Police Lieutenant d'Aubray’s minions were to proceed to a hovel in the open country, where they would find a case filled with leaflets which bore in bold letters the names of the Marquis de La Valliere, the Chevalier de Lorraine, and of Monsieur, the King’s brother.
In the same carriage with closed shutters that took her back to Paris, Angclique tried to contain her elation. It did not seem proper to be happy, especially when she remembered from what horrors this triumph had emerged. But, after all, if everything proceeded as planned, there was little to stop her from becoming one of the richest women in Paris. She would go to Versailles, she would be presented to the King, she would re¬capture her rank, and her sons would be brought up as young noblemen.
For the return journey her eyes were not blindfolded, for the night was black. She was alone in the carriage, but, absorbed in her dreams and calculations, the journey seemed short to her. Around her she heard the clattering hooves of the horses of a small escort.
Suddenly the carriage stopped and one of the curtains was raised. In the light of a lantern she saw Desgrez’s face leaning through the carriage- window. He was on horseback.
“I leave you here, Madame. The carriage will take you home. In two days I shall see you again to hand you what is your due. Is all well?”
“I think so. Oh! Desgrez, it’s wonderful. If I can manage to get this chocolate venture started, I am sure I'll make a fortune.”
“You'll manage. Three cheers for chocolate!” said Desgrez.
He doffed his hat and, bowing, kissed her hand.
“Farewell, Marquise of the Angels!”
She gave him a little smile.
“Farewell, policeman!”