Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the whole road as far as the bend at which Monsieur d’Epernon had hidden with his men.
‘Ah!’ said the duke suddenly. ‘Here’s Francinette coming back.’ And he stared at Nanon, who was obliged to look away from the road and respond to the duke. Her heart was beating fit to burst. She had only managed to see Francinette, while the person she wanted to see was Canolles, to discover some reassuring sign on his face.
Someone was coming up the stairs. The duke prepared a smile that was both noble and friendly. Nanon fought back the blushes that were rising to her cheeks and prepared for battle.
Francinette lightly knocked on the door.
‘Come in!’ the duke said.
Nanon honed the famous speech with which she was to greet Canolles.
The door opened. Francinette was alone. Nanon looked eagerly into the antechamber, but there was no one there, either.
‘Madame,’ Francinette said with the imperturbable poise of a lady’s maid in a comedy. ‘Monsieur the Baron de Canolles is no longer at the inn of the Golden Calf.’
The duke opened his eyes wide, then scowled.
Nanon looked heavenwards and breathed again.
‘What!’ said the duke. ‘Is the Baron de Canolles really not at the inn of the Golden Calf?’
‘You must surely be mistaken, Francinette,’ Nanon added.
‘Madame,’ Francinette replied. ‘I am merely repeating what Monsieur Biscarros himself told me.’
‘Dear Canolles,’ Nanon murmured under her breath. ‘He must have guessed everything. He is as clever and wise as he is brave and handsome.’
‘Go and fetch Master Biscarros at once,’ said the duke, with the look of a man who has got out of bed on the wrong side.
‘Oh, I should imagine that he realized you were here,’ said Nanon quickly. ‘And he was afraid he might disturb you. He is so shy, poor Canolles!’
‘Shy, is he?’ said the duke. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard, I think.’
‘No, Madame,’ said Francinette. ‘The baron really has left.’
‘But, Madame,’ said d’Epernon, ‘how is it that the baron was afraid of me, since Francinette was only instructed to invite him on your behalf? So you told him that I was here, did you, Francinette? Tell me!’
‘I could not tell him, Duke, because he wasn’t there.’
Though Francinette’s reply came with all the speed of truth and honesty, the duke seemed no less suspicious. Nanon was so happy that she did not have the strength to say a word.
‘Do I still have to go back and call Master Biscarros over here?’ Francinette asked.
‘Yes, more than ever,’ said the duke, emphatically. ‘Or rather… wait a moment. You stay here, your mistress may need you. I will send Courtauvaux.’
Francinette vanished and five minutes later, Courtauvaux was scraping on the door.
‘Go and tell the innkeeper at the Golden Calf to come and speak to me,’ said the duke. ‘And when he comes, let him bring a breakfast. Give him these ten louis, so that he will make it a good one. Off you go.’
Courtauvaux put the money in the pocket of his tailcoat and set off at once to carry out his master’s orders. He was a valet who came from a good house and knew his job well enough to teach it to all the Crispins and the Mascarilles of his day.41 He went to find Biscarros and told him: ‘I’ve managed to persuade his lordship to order your best breakfast. He gave me eight louis, and naturally I am keeping two as my commission, so here are six for you. Come at once.’
Biscarros, trembling with joy, tied a white apron around his waist, pocketed the six louis, shook Courtauvaux by the hand and set off behind the groom, who led him at the double to the door of the little house.
VIII
This time, Nanon was not worried, Francinette’s confidence having completely calmed her. She even felt the strongest desire to chat with Biscarros, so he was shown in as soon as he arrived, apron smartly tucked up in his belt and hat in hand.
‘Yesterday,’ said Nanon, ‘you had staying with you a young gentleman, the Baron de Canolles, didn’t you?’
‘What’s happened to him?’ the duke asked.
Biscarros, quite uneasy because the groom and the six louis had made him wary of the great gentleman behind the dressing gown, at first replied evasively:
‘But, Monsieur, he has left.’
‘Left?’ said the duke. ‘He has really left?’
‘Really.’
‘Where did he go?’ Nanon asked in her turn.
‘That I can’t tell you, because in truth I don’t know, Madame.’
‘You must at least know which road he took?’
‘The Paris road.’
‘And at what time did he take this road?’ asked the duke.
‘Around midnight.’
‘Did he say nothing?’ Nanon asked shyly.
‘Nothing. He just left a letter with instructions that it should be given to Mademoiselle Francinette.’
‘And why did you not give her the letter, you rascal?’ asked the duke. ‘Is that how you show your respect for a gentleman’s orders?’
‘But I did give it to her, Monsieur, I did.’
‘Francinette!’ the duke yelled.
Francinette, who had been listening, moved in a trice from the antechamber into the bedroom.
‘Why did you not give your mistress the letter that Monsieur de Canolles left for her?’ the duke asked.
‘But, Monseigneur…’ the chambermaid said, terrified.
‘ “Monseigneur!” ’ Biscarros thought, quite overcome, shrinking into the most remote corner of the room. ‘Monseigneur! He must be a prince in disguise.’
‘I didn’t ask her for it,’ Nanon said hastily, the colour leaving her face.
‘Give it to me,’ the duke said, holding out a hand.
Poor Francinette slowly reached out her hand with the letter in it, while looking at her mistress with an expression that meant: ‘You can see that it’s not my fault; it is that idiot Biscarros who has ruined everything.’
A double flash darted from Nanon’s eyes and pierced Biscarros in his corner. The poor fellow was sweating heavily and would have given the six louis in his pocket to be in front of his stove holding the handle of a saucepan.
Meanwhile, the duke took the letter, opened it and started reading. As he was doing so, Nanon, upright, paler and colder than marble, felt that only her heart was alive.
‘What does this gibberish mean?’ the duke asked.
Those five words told Nanon that the letter did not compromise her.
‘Read it out aloud and I may be able to explain,’ she said.
‘ “Dear Nanon,” ’ the duke read, and after that turned towards the young woman, who, increasingly reassured, bore his look with admirable effrontery.
‘ “Dear Nanon,”’ the duke repeated and continued. ‘ “I am taking advantage of the leave of absence you have given me, and I am going for a gallop along the Paris road for a while to amuse myself. Au revoir, I recommend my fortune to you.”
‘Well, I never. He’s mad, your Canolles.’
‘Mad? Why?’ said Nanon.
‘Who goes off like that at midnight for no reason?’ the duke asked.
‘Who, indeed?’ said Nanon to herself.
‘Come on! Explain this behaviour.’
‘Why, nothing could be more simple, Monseigneur,’ Nanon said with a charming smile.
‘She calls him “Monseigneur” as well!’ muttered Biscarros. ‘He’s definitely a prince.’
‘So, tell me.’
‘Why! Don’t you see what’s going on?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Well, Canolles is twenty-seven. He is young, handsome and carefree. So what do you suppose is his favourite folly? Love! So he must have seen some pretty young traveller riding past Master Biscarros’s inn and followed her.’
‘In love! Do you think so?’ the duke exclaimed, quite naturally smiling at the
notion that if Canolles was in love with some passing traveller, he was not in love with Nanon.
‘Of course, in love. Isn’t that right, Master Biscarros?’ said Nanon, delighted at seeing the duke accept her idea. ‘Come on, tell us honestly: haven’t I guessed correctly?’
Biscarros decided that the moment had come to get back into the young woman’s good graces by backing her up, and so, with a smile four inches wide bursting on his lips, he said: ‘Indeed, Madame could very well be right.’
Nanon took a step towards the innkeeper, and, shivering despite herself, she asked: ‘I am right, am I not?’
‘I think so, Madame,’ said Biscarros with a shrewd look.
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes, one moment… Yes, now you mention it, I see what was going on…’
‘Ah, then tell us about it, Biscarros,’ Nanon continued, starting to feel the first pangs of jealous suspicion. ‘Let’s see: what lady travellers stopped at your inn last night?’
‘Yes, do tell us,’ said d’Epernon, stretching his legs and leaning on a chair.
‘No lady travellers came,’ said Biscarros. Nanon breathed more easily. ‘However,’ the innkeeper went on, not realizing the effect that his every word had on Nanon’s beating heart, ‘a little blond gentleman, a pretty fellow, plump, who didn’t eat anything, didn’t drink and who was afraid to continue on his way at night… A gentleman who was afraid,’ said Biscarros, giving a little nod of the head that was full of meaning. ‘You see what I mean?’
‘Ha, ha!’ said the duke, completely swallowing the bait, with splendid hilarity.
Nanon replied to his laugh with a sort of grunt.
‘Carry on,’ she said. ‘This is charming! And no doubt the little fellow was waiting for Monsieur de Canolles?’
‘No, not at all. He was expecting to dine with a tall gentleman with a moustache and was even quite brusque with Monsieur de Canolles, who wanted to take supper with him. But he was not put off by such a small thing, the fine gentleman… He’s an enterprising chap, by all appearances… And so after the tall man had left and turned right, he sped off after the little one who had gone to the left.’
At this Rabelaisian42 conclusion, Biscarros noticed the delight on the face of the duke and felt entitled to burst out in a cacophony of laughs so thunderous that they made the window-panes shudder.
The duke, entirely reassured, would have embraced Biscarros had the latter been in the slightest bit a gentleman. As for Nanon, she had gone pale, and her lips were fixed in a convulsive smile: she was hanging on every word that fell from the innkeeper’s lips with that consuming passion that drives a jealous lover to drink deeply, right to the dregs, the poison that is killing her.
‘But what makes you think,’ she asked, ‘that this little gentleman was a woman and that Monsieur de Canolles is in love with her and that he is not riding around the countryside out of boredom, on some idle whim?’
‘What makes me think so?’ Biscarros replied, determined to convince his audience. ‘Wait and I’ll tell you…’
‘Yes, do tell us, my good friend,’ said the duke. ‘You really are most entertaining…’
‘His lordship is too kind,’ said Biscarros. ‘Well, now…’ (The duke was very attentive, while Nanon listened with clenched fists.) ‘I didn’t suspect a thing. I had simply assumed that the little blond gentleman was a man, when I met Monsieur de Canolles in the middle of the staircase, with a candle in his left hand and in his right one a little glove, which he was looking at and sniffing in a passionate manner…’
‘Ho, ho!’ said the duke, laughing fit to split his sides, now that he was no longer worried for himself.
‘A glove!’ Nanon repeated, trying to remember if she had not left a small token in her beau’s possession. ‘A glove like one of these?’
She showed the innkeeper one of her gloves.
‘No, no,’ said Biscarros. ‘A man’s glove.’
‘A man’s glove! Monsieur de Canolles looking at a man’s glove… passionately sniffing a man’s glove! You must be mad!’
‘Not at all, because it was one of the little gentleman’s gloves, belonging to the pretty blond fellow, who didn’t drink, who didn’t eat and who was afraid of the dark… A tiny little glove, which would hardly have fitted Madame’s hand… even though Madame certainly has a most pretty hand…’
Nanon gave a dull little cry, as though she had been struck by an invisible dart.
‘I hope that you are now sufficiently informed, Monseigneur,’ she said, making a tremendous effort to control herself. ‘And that you know all that you wished to know.’
And, with trembling lips, clenched teeth and staring eyes, she pointed Biscarros to the door – while he, seeing these signs of anger on the young woman’s face, was completely nonplussed and stayed on the spot, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
‘Well,’ he thought, ‘if the gentleman’s absence is such a dreadful misfortune, then his return will be most welcome. Let’s offer the noble lord some sweet hope, to give him a good appetite.’
Reasoning in this way, Biscarros adopted his most serious expression and stepping forward with the most graceful movement of his right leg, he said: ‘After all, the rider left and he may come back at any moment…’
The duke smiled at this beginning.
‘True,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t he come back? Perhaps he already has. Go and see, Monsieur Biscarros, and let me know.’
‘What about breakfast?’ said Nanon sharply. ‘I’m dying of hunger.’
‘Quite right,’ said the duke. ‘Courtauvaux will go. Come here, Courtauvaux: go to Master Biscarros’s inn and see if the Baron de Canolles has come back. If he is not there, ask about, enquire, look around… I want to take breakfast with the gentleman. Off you go.’
Courtauvaux left, and Biscarros, noticing the embarrassed silence of the couple, looked as though he were about to make a new suggestion.
‘Can’t you see that Madame is signalling to you to leave?’ said Francinette.
‘One moment, one moment!’ the duke exclaimed. ‘What on earth’s going on? You are losing your head too, my dear Nanon… What about the menu? I’m like you, I could eat a horse… Come here, Master Biscarros, add these six louis to the rest: they’re to pay for the amusing story that you have just told us.’
Then he demanded that the historian give way to the cook, and, we hasten to say, Biscarros was no less outstanding in the second role than in the first.
Meanwhile, Nanon had reflected and in a flash summed up the whole situation in which Biscarros’s assumption put her. First of all: was the assumption correct? And then, even if it should be so, wasn’t Canolles pardonable? After all, their failed meeting was a cruel disappointment for a gallant fellow like himself. And what an insult the Duke d’Epernon’s surveillance was, not to mention the fact that he, Canolles, was (as it were) forced to witness his rival’s triumph! Nanon was so much in love that by attributing Canolles’s flight to a rush of jealousy, not only did she excuse him, but also felt sorry for him, almost applauding the fact that she was so loved by him as to inspire this little act of revenge. But now, before anything else, the evil had to be nipped in the bud and the development of this newly emergent amour had to be cut short.
Here, a dreadful thought entered Nanon’s mind and almost struck the poor woman down. Suppose that Canolles’s meeting with the little gentleman had been prearranged? But, no: she was going mad. The little gentleman had been waiting for a man with a moustache and had snubbed Canolles, since Canolles himself might only have realized the unknown traveller’s sex through the chance discovery of the little glove.
No matter! Canolles had to be thwarted in his affair. So, summoning up all her energy, she turned back to the duke, who had just sent Biscarros off loaded with compliments and instructions.
‘How dreadful it is,’ she said, ‘that that silly boy Canolles should be so foolhardy, thus depriving himself of an honour such as the one you were going to be
stow on him! Had he been here, his future would have been assured; as it is, he may lose it all by his absence.’
‘But suppose we find him…’
‘Oh, there’s no danger of that,’ said Nanon. ‘If a woman is involved, he won’t have returned.’
‘What can I do, then, my dearest?’ the duke replied. ‘Youth is the age of pleasure. He is young, so he’s having fun.’
‘But I am more sensible than he is,’ said Nanon, ‘and I really think we should do something to interrupt his ill-timed merriment.’
‘Ha! The scolding sister!’
‘He may resent it now,’ Nanon went on, ‘but he will certainly thank me later.’
‘Well, do you have some plan? I ask nothing better than to carry it out, if you do have one.’
‘I do, indeed.’
‘Tell me.’
‘You want him to take an important piece of news to the queen, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but since he has not returned…’
‘Send someone after him, and as he is on the road to Paris, he can simply carry on in that direction.’
‘Goodness! You’re right!’
‘Let me look after it, and Canolles will receive the order this evening or tomorrow at the latest, I promise you.’
‘But whom will you send?’
‘Do you need Courtauvaux?’
‘Personally, not at all.’
‘Then let me have him, and I’ll send him with my instructions.’
‘What an excellent diplomat! You’ll go far, Nanon.’
‘Just let me always continue to be taught by such a good master,’ said Nanon, ‘that’s all I wish for.’ And she put her arm round the shoulders of the old duke, who shuddered with pleasure. ‘What a fine trick to play on our Céladon!’43 she added.
‘It will be delightful in the telling, my dear.’
‘In fact, I should love to chase after him myself to see his face when he sees the messenger.’
‘Unfortunately – or rather, fortunately – that is not possible, and you will have to stay with me.’