THE MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN (Complete Edition: Volumes 1-5). Alexandre Dumas
Taverney of Redcastle?" queried this fop, as he preened his fine honiton lace ruffles with aristocratic impertinence.
"Am I to answer a gentleman or a nobleman?" returned the baron with equal sauciness.
"Prince will do," said the other, "or eminence."
"Well, yes, your eminence, I am a real Taverney," replied the poor nobleman, without dropping the insolent tone he usually kept.
The prince had the tact of great lords, for he readily perceived that he was not dealing with a rustic hobbledehoy.
"I suppose this is your summer residence?" he continued.
"My residence in all seasons," replied the baron, desiring to finish with this examination, but accompanying his answers with deep bows.
Philip kept turning round to his father with uneasiness; the house seemed towering up to exhibit more and more of their penury. The baron was just holding his hand toward the sill, deserted by visitors, when the dauphiness turned to him, saying:
"Excuse me not going indoors, but these shady spots are so pleasant that I could pass my life beneath them. I am rather weary of interiors. For a fortnight I have been received under roofs—and I like open air, flowers and the shade of foliage. Might I not have a drink of milk in this bower?"
"What a mean refreshment, your highness!" faltered the baron.
"I prefer it, with new-laid eggs, my lord. Such formed my feasts at Schoenbrunn."
All of a sudden, Labrie, puffed up with pride in a showy livery, and holding a damask napkin, appeared in the jessamine hung arbor which the archduchess was eyeing covetously.
"The refreshment is ready for your royal highness," he said with a neat mingling of respect and serenity.
"Am I housed by an enchanter?" exclaimed the princess, darting into the bower.
The perturbed baron forgot etiquette to leave the gentleman in black and run after his guest.
Philip and Andrea looked at each other with even more anxiety than astonishment.
Under the twining clematis, jessamine and honeysuckle an oval table was set, dazzling from the whiteness of the damask cloth and the carved bullion plate upon it. Ten sets of silver awaited as many guests. A choice but strange collation attracted the visitor's gaze. Foreign fruit preserved in sugar; cake and crackers from Aleppo and Madeira, oranges and melons of uncommon size, set in large vases. The richest and noblest wines glittered in all hues of ruby and topaz in four cut-glass Persian decanters. The milk asked for filled a crystal cup.
"But you must have expected me, since in no ten minutes which I have been here could this sumptuous spread be placed." And the princess glanced at Labrie as much as to say: "With only one servant, too?"
"I did expect your royal highness," faltered the baron; "of your coming being apprised."
"If your son did not inform you by letter, then it must have been some fairy—I suppose, the godmother of your daughter."
"It was not so much a fairy, as a magician," said Taverney, offering a seat to the princess. "I do not know anything about how he has done this, as I do not dabble in magic, but I owe it to him that I am fitly entertaining your highness."
"Then I will have none of it. It is contrary to the faith—but his eminence is going to sin, with that liver-pie!"
"We are rather too worldly, we princes of the Church," replied the gentleman in black, "to believe the celestial wrath poisons victuals, and we are too human to visit ill on magicians who provide such good things."
"But I assure your eminence that this is a real sorcerer who conjured up this board ready spread, and who may have produced the gold of this service in the same manner."
"Does he know of the stone which changes all into gold?" questioned the churchman, with his eyes kindling with covetousness.
"This pleases the cardinal, who has passed his life seeking the philosopher's stone," said the princess.
"I own that I find nothing more interesting than supernatural things," returned the prince; "nothing more curious than what's impossible."
"So I have hit the vital spot, have I?" said the archduchess. "Every great man has a mystery, particularly when he is a diplomatist. Let me warn your eminence that I also am a witch, and that I can see into matters—if not curious and impossible—incredible."
This was an incomprehensible enigma to all but the cardinal, for he was plainly embarrassed. The gentle eye of the Austrian had flared with one of those fires denoting a storm gathering. But there was no thunderous outbreak, for she went on, restraining herself:
"Come my lord of Taverney, make the feast complete by producing your magician. Where is he? In what box have you put Old Hocus Pocus?"
"Labrie, notify Baron Joseph Balsamo that her Royal Highness the Dauphiness desires to see him."
"Balsamo?" repeated the high lady, as the valet started off. "What an odd name!"
"I fancy I have heard it before," murmured the cardinal.
Five minutes passed with none thinking of breaking the stillness, when Andrea shuddered, for she heard before any other the step beneath the foliage. The branches were parted and right in front of Marie Antoinette, Joseph Balsamo appeared.
Chapter XI.
A Marvel Of Magic.
Humble was Balsamo's bow; but immediately raising his intelligent and expressive brow, he fixed his clear eye, though with respect, on the chief guest, silently waiting for her to question him.
"If you are the person Baron Taverney has mentioned, pray draw nigh that we may see what a magician is like."
Balsamo came a step nearer and bowed to Marie Antoinette.
"So you make a business of foretelling?" said the latter, sipping the milk while regarding the new comer with more curiosity than she liked to betray.
"I make no business of it, but I do foretell, please your royal highness?" was the answer.
"Educated in an enlightened faith, we place faith solely in the mysteries of our religion."
"Undoubtedly they are worthy of veneration," responded the other dialoguist with a profound congé. "But the Cardinal de Rohan here, though Prince of the Church, will tell you that they are not the only ones worthy of respect."
The cardinal started, for his title had not been announced.
Not appearing to notice this revelation, Marie Antoinette pursued:
"But you must allow that they alone cannot be controverted."
"There can be fact as well as faith," replied Balsamo, with the same respect but with the same firmness.
"You speak a trifle darkly, my lord Baron of Magic. I am at heart a good Frenchwoman, but not in mind, and do not yet understand all the fineness of the language. They say I shall soon pick it up, even to the puns. Meanwhile, I must urge you to speak more plainly if you want my comprehension."
"I ask your highness to let me dwell obscure," said the baron, with a melancholy smile. "I should feel too much regret to reveal to so great a princess a future not equal to her hopes."
"Dear me, this is becoming serious," said Marie Antoinette, "and Abracadabra whets my curiosity in order to make me beg my fortune to be told."
"Heaven forbid my being forced into it," observed Balsamo coldly.
"Of course, for you would be put to much pains for little result," laughed the princess.
But her merriment died away without a courtier's echoing it; all suffered the influence of the mystic man who claimed the whole attention.