Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/45

Rh "There you are again asking impossibilities. It has taken me half an hour to read the paper over to you, and I shall require at least an hour to make a fair copy."

"If you only know what a hurry I am in! Look here, you dictate to me, and I will write out the whole will in my own hand."

"No, no, no, sir! Your eyes look red and inflamed already; before you have been at it ten minutes, you will be in a high fever on top of the headache you have brought on already.

"What am I to do for the hour you say will be needed."

"Why, walk up and down the lawn in the fresh air with Madame la Marquise. Meantime I will butt and cut my pens; then woe to the paper! I shall blacken more all by myself than three lawyer's clerks put together."

The Marquis did as he was told, but reluctantly; he felt somehow oppressed and disturbed in mind.

"Calm yourself," Bonbonne told him soothingly; "are you afraid you won't have time to sign? I say an hour; deuce take it, Marquis, you are good to live another one and sixty minutes!"

"You are quite right," the Marquis agreed, and he went down into the garden, to find the Marquise waiting for him. Seeing him more composed and looking less unhappy.

"Well, sir!" she asked, "have you worked to good purpose?"

"Oh! yes. Marquise, yes, an excellent piece of work, for which you and your boys will be thankful, I hope and believe."

"Very good! Your arm; the conservatories are open, shall we pay them a visit?"

"Whatever you wish, Marquise, whatever you wish."

"You will sleep all the better for our little walk. If you could only see how delighted your valets were to make the great state bed."

"Marquise, I am going to sleep as I have not done this ten years; I tremble with joy at the mere thought of it."

"You don't think you will find life too tiresome with us here?"

"No, no. Marquise, no."

"And you will get used to our country neighbours?"

"Yes, very easily. And if the King (I fear I treated him rather unceremoniously perhaps), if the King forgets me, so much the better."

"The King? ah! Marquis," said Madame de Chauvelin softly, "you gave a sigh when you spoke of the King."

"I love His Majesty, Marquise; but rest assured . . ."

The sentence remained unfinished. The crack of a whip and the jingle of a horse's bells interrupted the Marquis.

"What is that? " he asked.

"A mounted messenger; they are opening the gates for him now," the Marquise replied. " Did you send him? "

"No. Very strange; a messenger to whom everybody bows low and who is admitted to the private gardens can only come from ..."

"From the King," faltered the Marquise, turning pale.

"In the King's name!" cried the horseman in a loud, clear voice.

"In the King's name!"—and Monsieur de Chauvelin ran forward to meet the horseman, who had already handed his letter to the major domo.

"A letter from the King! " cried the Marquis to Père Delar, whom the news of the despatch had brought to the spot with the rest of the household.

The Marquis offered to the courier wine in a silver cup,—a compliment justified by the respect paid by every man of birth to the King, even when represented by a servant. Then he opened the letter, which was written wholly in the Monarch's own hand, and ran as follows:

",—It is scarce four and twenty hours since you left us; yet I feel as though I had not seen you for months. Old people who love each other should not part, as they may never have the time to come together again. I am fit to die of melancholy. I need you, so you must come. Never rob me of a friend under pretext of wishing to defend my crown. No, you are going the surest way to attack it; so long as you sustain it by your presence, I shall know it is firmer and stronger than ever. Let me see you to-morrow when I meet my Court on rising; it will be the signal for a happy day. Your friend,"

"The King recalls me to his side," exclaimed Chauvelin, deeply moved. "I must set off this very instant; he cannot do without me. Bid them put to the horses."