Captain Caution (25 page)

"I'm glad to hear it," Marvin said. "He owes my father eleven dollars."

Argandeau examined Marvin carefully from head to foot. "EIeven dollars, now that we have spent everything on your clothes, is a great deal, and I wish we had it; but it is true that your clothes were worth the price. If you were older, with a red face and a puffy nose and a swollen stomach, you would look like a general or an admiral yourself, or a duke maybe. It is a pity you are not seeking help from a beautiful woman rather than from this great gentleman, who is able to talk anyone into thinking that black is white, or that it is possible to live without money. My Spanish rabbit, she had a proverb about

CAPTAIN CAUTION 433

such an affair. 'There are some men,' she said, 'who would not loan you fifty pesetas even though they were offered the Alhambra as security; but almost any woman, provided she is over ten and under ninety-eight, will lend you all she possesses on no greater security than a mouthful of lies about love.'"

Marvin rubbed the dust from his boots with a wisp of grass, carefully brushed the tight dark-blue trousers that were strapped beneath them, ran his finger around the inside of the high stock that rose above his frilled shirt, and examined his snugly fitting, long-tailed coat for blemishes. "Look here," he told Argandeau. "Look at me carefully. Be sure there is nothing about me to prevent this great man from listening attentively to what I say."

He placed his cocked hat a little on the side of his head, thumped his gold-topped cane in the dust of the road, rested one hand on his hip and stared almost defiantly at his companion.

Argandeau walked slowly around him. "It is perfect," he insisted. "Perfect! The seals of your watch, they look entirely real. There is nobody who would think the head of your cane was anything but gold. Also you carry this cane with an air, and the shoulders of your coat are narrow, so that you have a look of delicacy almost nothing at all like a man who could put Little White under hatches in three rounds."

"Then try to find the door of this building and get me into it," Marvin told him, "so I can forget my clothes and do what I've come for."

He took off his hat, placed it, folded, under his arm, nourished his cane experimentally and glanced expectantly at Argandeau. Argandeau, however, seemed to have forgotten his existence; for he was staring, with eyes as large and round as plums, at the boxwood hedge that bordered the avenue.

Turning quickly, Marvin saw, above the clipped top of the hedge, a woman's face. In the very moment that he turned, an expression of annoyance crossed it, and it sank slowly from sight, leaving in his mind's eye a picture of black hair piled in a high knot, a pointed chin and large blue eyes beneath black brows as curved and slender as a bent hunting bow.

From beyond the hedge there came the sound of soft-voiced expostulation, followed by rapid protestations in the voice of another woman.

"Two rabbits!" Argandeau murmured. "One held up the other to look over, but let her slip."

434 CAPTAIN CAUTION

"Sir from Americal" called the soft voice from beyond the hedge. "It is the duke you visit?"

Marvin cleared his throat. "Talleyrand, ma'am."

"Yes," the soft voice continued. "You walk straight ahead through the great gates into the cour d~honneur. Across the court, on the right, is the perron of the vestibule. Do not go beneath the arch, or you will lose yourself."

"Thank you, ma'am," Marvin said. "I've been afraid I might not find him." He took Argandeau by the arm and set off up the avenue toward the imposing bulk of carved grey stone.

"Wait one moment!" the soft voice called. Then, closer to them, it added: "It may be you meet delay if you go to the vestibule. M. de Talleyrand is amused to see Americans, always; but he is here not often; and since you arrive on foot, the guards at the vestibule might neglect, you understand. The King of Spain, he is detained here, and so there are guards. Walk to the gates, therefore, and wait. I take you to another entrance, more quick."

"Thank you, ma'am," Marvin said again. He moved quickly to the opposite side of the avenue, drawing Argandeau after him. Argandeau skipped a little, and blew a kiss toward the sky. "Two rabbits!" he whispered ecstatically. "It was a proverb with my Spanish rabbit: 'Push Lucien Argandeau into a gutter and he will come out sweet with muskl'"

"You fooll" Marvin said. "You'd want to talk about women if you were caught in the breakers and next door to deathl God knows what harm you've done us with your gabbler Get back to the inn and wait there for mel"

"But there are two of theml" Argandeau protested. "While you are engaged with one, it may be that I can secure the cost of our lodgings from the other. Have you forgotten that we have not one sou in the world? Not one son among the pair of us?"

His protests, however, were vain; for Marvin, his cane swinging jauntily and his cocked hat somewhat aslant, went briskly from him toward the distant gates without a backward glance.

The two women came through an opening in the boxwood hedge, chattering to each other as if they could never find time to finish what they were saying; and to Marvin it seemed they were little more than girls, pretending, with youthful coquetry, to have forgotten he was to wait for them at the gates. Yet there was nothing of coquetry in the glance the black-haired girl turned suddenly toward him; only inquiry and something of puzzlement.

CAPTAIN CAUTION 435

"The other," she asked. "He does not wish to visit the duke alsoY' Marvin shook his head. "He came to keep me company. He went back to the inn."

"Le Roi d'EspagneP" she asked. "You are remaining at Le Roi d'EspagneP You will be uncomfortable, I think."

When he was silent, she turned from him and slipped her arm in that of her companion, saying over her shoulder: "You come with us, please. We take you to the tower, where the duke sits in the afternoon." She chattered a little to her companion, a round, brown girl whose brown hair was piled in a knot even higher and more pointed than that of the black-haired girl; then to Marvin, as if to put him at his ease, she said: "How far have you come?"

"From Calais," he told her. "From Calais since Tuesday."

"Then you have good horses," she said, "but I fear you break all your springs."

"No, ma'am. We came on foot."

The black-haired girl halted her companion and spoke rapidly to her; then stared at Marvin. "What is this you say? You walk from Calais to Valen,cay? And since Tuesday? Is it possible that a man can do this? I think no horse could do ill"

"No, ma'am," Marvin agreed, "but it was more important for me than it would be for any horse."

Again the black-haired girl spoke volubly to her companion, whereupon the two of them scrutinised Marvin as if in search of something about him that had hitherto escaped them. "It must be indeed important," the black-haired girl said. "Do you come direct from America to this place?"

"No, ma'am. From England."

"From Englandl But you are at war with Then I ask you, do you come direct to England from America?"

"No, ma'am. From China."

"From China? I do not know where ah, la Chinel Ah-hahl Then it is important because you are diplomatique, eh? Nol That is not so! If you were diplomatique, you would come here in a coach, and drive about this court with a great fracas, cracking the whip and blowing the horn and frightening the sparrows for two daysl You cannot be diplomatiquel But still the matter is important! Now I must think what it is so important as to bring a gentleman on foot from Calais to Valen,cay. Either it must be - " She stopped and eyed Marvin absently. At length, still silent, she drew her companion onward once more and, followed by Marvin, continued through the

436 CAPTAIN CAUTION

formal gardens that lay between the court of honorand the squat, round-topped tower in which the chateau ended.

At the angle between the tower and the main wall of this vast grey building there was a small door; and at the door the round, brown girl turned away, running lightly toward the main entrance. The black-haired girl looked gravely at Marvin. "Now you go in to see M. de Talleyrand. Perhaps you like better to tell everything to me, so that I help you with him?"

"Thank you, ma'am," Marvin said. "I wouldn't want to trouble

you'd

"But it is no troublel Come; you tell me, and I shall see whether I have guessed correctly why your visit is important. Then I help you with the duke."

Marvin coughed. "I think, ma'am no offence meant that it would be better if I told Talleyrand himself. It's he that must help me."

She smiled faintly. "You are cautious, and it is no great fault to be cautious at the proper time. I think it would make a difference, perhaps, if I say to you that I am a member of the duke's household. It is possible you consider me a servant."

"No, nol" Marvin said. "I can see you're a great lady! But a lady can't ah, that is to say, if I can't convince the duke, how can a lady convince him for me?"

The black-haired girl opened her eyes wide. "How? You do not seriously ask me howl Surely you do not think there is any wise man but knows he can do better at anything at all by taking the advice of a womanl Surely you know that any wise woman can persuade a man into doing whatever she desires!"

"That's no doubt true," Marvin admitted, "but it's my belief that for every wise woman there are fifty foolish ones who consider themselves wise."

He shot a quick glance at her, and found her smiling more broadly.

"And I am one of the fifty?" she asked.

"How can I tell, ma'am? You know it's important I should see Talleyrand, and still you keep me from him. Is that wisdom, ma'am?"

She shrugged, opened the door in the angle of the wall and preceded Marvin into a small vestibule, where she dropped her long brown cloak on a table. Marvin saw then that her yellow dress had next to no sleeves, and that, on one side, the skirt was slashed as high as the knee, almost as though a small staysail had been cut from it.

She arranged her hair, looking up at him from beneath her elbow.

CAPTAIN CAUTION 437

"It may be," she said, "that the King of Spain is with him also the one who was stolen by " She wagged her head, frowned severely, thrust one hand into the front of her gown and the other behind her back, and puffed out her cheeks, so that she had a look of Bonaparte about her. "If he is there," she added sedately, "do not be disturbed by him. He is not much of a king."

She opened another door on the far side of the vestibule and went quickly into a circular chamber so large that for a moment it seemed to Marvin an empty blur of enormous pale carpets and gilded furniture heavily garnished with lions' heads. Out of the blur came a vast hooded fireplace, and windows opening onto an ancient and heavy cloister. Near the fireplace was a table at which sat a man with a face like parchment, his chin propped so high by a thick collar that he had an air of disliking the odor of the place. Yet his features were so placid as to seem lifeless, and his eyes peered out of the blank whiteness of his face like black paper pasted behind the eyeholes of a mask. In a reclining chair on the opposite side of the fireplace lay a swarthy, sulky-seeming young man, rubbing a finger moodily over the strings of a guitar.

The black-haired girl curtsied quickly to the gentleman at the desk. "Uncle Maurice," she said, "I have found this young man from America with something important to say to you: something so important that he cannot tell it to any woman only to M. de Talleyrand himself so I think it must be the most important thing that ever was known."

xxv

1ALLEYRAND rose from his desk, smiling with an exquisite gentleness, but he did not move forward to greet his guest; and Marvin noticed that one of the shoes the great man wore was misshapen, as if the foot within it were crippled. The voice was rich and of a silken suavity:

"From Americal I find this a great honor that a gentleman from your fine young country should come here to Valencay to see me a great honor, and a surprise as well. Sit, please, and tell me who has sent you, and how do you learn I am hereP It is almost never I come, and it is only four days since my niece and I set out to escape the turmoil of the Rue St. Florentin."

Marvin, uncomfortably erect in a small, hard chair, glanced from the smiling, mask-like face of Talleyrand to the black-haired girl, who had gone with the sulky man to stand beside a roulette wheel at a long window through which appeared the broad expanse of park, a dark belt of forest beyond, and, most distant of all, the little town of Valencay, its white roofs and Gothic church spire glistening in the afternoon sun.

"Why," he said, "nobody sent me. I came because - " He broke off and stared at the brilliant bindings of the books that encircled the room, and at the painted nymphs rioting on the ceiling. "It's a mistake, of courser We had a brig, the Talleprand, named for a Frenchman who came to Arundel and was taken by my father to buy land from General Knox, years ago. I thought it was you; but surely it was never you who needed to buy lands in Mainel"

As if to himself and almost as an afterthought, he added: "And owed my father eleven dollars. It's not likely!"

Talleyrand lowered himself to a chair beside Marvin and looked intently into his eyes. "Eleven dollars?" he asked politely. "I have no recollection of - " He paused. "It is true, certainly; for no one would spuriously imagine the peculiar sum of eleven dollars; but it is strange that I Perhaps you remember your father telling the circumstances of those eleven dollars?"

"It was a wager," Marvin said. "You wagered that a certain Cap

CAPTAIN CAUTION 439

Huff could eat no more than twenty-four ears of corn. He ate thirtyfive, my father said, and so you lost eleven dollars."

Talleyrand nodded. "It is the truth! I remember ill After he had eaten the corn, he wished your father to wager me that he could also eat two pies of squashes. It all comes backl Dear mel Dear met And you say I did not pay this wager?"

"My father said it was because of the buttered rum," Marvin said. "You went away early the next morning; and my father said any man might be forgetful in the early morning, especially after being free with the buttered rum. He said, always, it was worth more to him to be able to say Talleyrand owed him eleven dollars than to say Talleyrand had paid him eleven dollars."