Minuet (20 page)

“We ought to go to the market and hear if anyone has fresher news from Paris,” Mérigot suggested.

“We’ll buy bread and cheese too and have our lunch en route to save time stopping,” Sally added.

“A good idea. Degan, you look after Minou while I circulate and see what I can learn.”

Degan was happy to have a useful function, happier still to have some portion of Sally’s attention, as he had been largely neglected by the two during the morning’s walk. He was coming to see that a very close relationship existed between them. She turned automatically to Mérigot for help, and the help he offered was of a respectful kind that indicated a real concern and love. He had once thought Mérigot wished to marry her for her money; he still believed he wished to marry her, but money, or the money alone, was no longer held to be the only consideration. He had a genuine love for the girl. It was not the courtly love of a new suitor, but might very well be the familiar love of a man who had known for some years he meant to marry this girl and no other. All this sat heavily on Degan’s heart, because he knew by this time he wished to marry her himself. Still, when they two were alone
,
her behavior did not make him feel he was definitely out of the running for her affections. Almost she was more flirtatious with him than with Henry. Was it the French blood in her that caused this incomprehensible way of carrying on?

“We require new roles for the next half hour,” she told him, taking his arm and smiling impishly. “Agnès will cover her scandalous blouse and become a decorous housewife. Of course, being French, she will also turn into a haggler, and you are my skinflint husband. I think the role will suit you well, Degan. Remember to frown and say everything is too dear.
‘Trop
cher
—that is your line—all you have to say. Let me hear your accent, more man.”

“
Trop
cher,”
he said, copying her trilling r’s, or trying to.

“Every Englishman has a frozen tongue. Of that I am convinced,” she told him, shaking her bead and making him repeat it.

They went to a stand that sold fresh bread, where Sally needed no help in deciding it was
trop cher.
The woman offered her yesterday’s bread at half the price.

“This husband of mine, he is very fussy about his bread,” she complained. “It doubles in price, like everything, but he has put the maximum on my household money.”

“Why don’t you bake your own?” the saleswoman asked.

“Bah!” Up went the hands and she regarded her supposed husband with a fiercely conjugal disdain. “You think he’ll fix my oven? Three weeks it sits with a broken top, and this
vaurien
is always going to fix it tomorrow.” She handed Degan the bread, then scolded like a besom that he was holding it too tightly, crushing it.

“I’m glad I’m
not
your husband, shrew,” he said, with a smile that told her how untrue the words were.

“So am I glad,” she replied with an insouciant air. “A bruiser who wore a black eye twice a month would not do at all for me.”

“Think how well I could protect you from all the men.”

“That too! I would not want to be quite so well protected,
citoyen mari.
Now, what will you want for lunch with your bread, my dear?”

“Meat.”

“I suppose I am expected to cook it in my poor old broken oven, while we joggle along in our carriage with a broken wheel. You will have cheese, and like it.”

“Is that any way to feed a bruiser?”

“Never mind, I shall pour a great deal of wine into you, and if there is any French blood at all in you, you will be happy. There—there are no flies on that wheel of cheese. We’ll have a piece of it.”

More haggling, while Degan and his wife agreed it was
trop cher,
and the maker insisted he wasn’t making a sou on it. Fruit and wine were purchased, with similar melodramas at each stop, till at last they had their provisions and returned to the inn, after a thoroughly enjoyable outing. Henri had not yet returned, and they went into the common room to await him, ordering coffee to pass the time. Sally, usually the first to instigate the familiarity their role demanded, sat across from him.

“Wrong chair, Agnès,” he pointed out.

She remained where she was, and he was required to move to the seat beside her. “Is my traveling companion unhappy with me? Have I offended you, that you aren’t lounging on me today?” he inquired, placing an arm around the back of her chair, just touching her shoulders.

“There is no one here to worry about. Only a few out-of-work souls. You may have your shoulder all to yourself this morning.”

“I would rather have you resting on it,” he said, taking a curl of her hair through his fingers and playing with it while he smiled at her.

“I am not tired. I had a good sleep.”

“I seem to recall you did
not
have a good sleep. Do you have these nightmares often?”

“No, not often,” she said, tossing her head so that the curl was pulled from his fingers.

“Take care or I’ll find myself a more tractable flirt,” he said, surprised at her lack of playing up to him this morning.

“A pity you let Madeline slip through your fingers. She would have suited you very well, I think.”

“Not so well as you would suit me, Minou,” he replied, with a caressing tone not audible beyond the table, nor were the two men on the far side of the room paying the least heed to their talk or performance.

“You don’t have to act at this moment, Degan,” she said impatiently.

“I am not acting. I find it difficult to play my role with Henry glaring at me if I touch you, and you doing the same if I don’t. I am not acting now, however. What exactly is the situation between Henry and yourself?”

“You know we are very close: Cousins, and good friends.”

“More than friends? Is he your lover?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” she said, with a warning look toward the door, where Henri was just entering, glancing angrily to see Degan’s arm around her shoulders.

“I think you are taking advantage of this situation, Degan,” he said in a cold tone when he had joined them. “There is no audience for you to play to now. You can remove your arm from Minou’s chair.”

“We have a small but select audience, Henri,” Sally answered, indicating the two men in the corner. She rushed on to ask, “Did you hear anything in the village? Any fresh word from Paris?” She noticed that Degan did not remove the offending arm, but left it there, looking pointedly at Henri the whole time. There was going to be some trouble between them; she knew it.

“No, apparently no one has had time to get here yet today. There is one newcomer to town whose arrival will be of interest to us all, however. The Butcher of Lozère is in town. Close to seven feet tall, with a face like a baboon, and a body like an elephant. We want to shake the dust of this place from our heels before he finds out we’re here and forces a match on us.”

“Come, we must go at once,” Sally said.

“Go how?” Henri asked her. “The carriage won’t be ready for an hour. You have lost track of time, you two lovebirds. It is only eleven o’clock.”

“We’ll wait in our rooms,” she insisted.

“I want to talk to you, Minou,” Henri said in a commanding voice.

She felt Degan’s fingers tighten on her shoulder, feared he was going to object, to start some foolish row with Henri. “Would you mind waiting for us upstairs?” she asked Degan in a polite voice that he could not refuse. He arose with a hard stare at Mérigot.

“I am happy to oblige you, my dear,” he answered and left. That “my dear” was said to provoke Henri.

“This won’t do,” Henri said. “I don’t want that fellow taking advantage of you every time my back is turned. Was he trying to make love to you?”

“Don’t be absurd,” she answered, but with a certain unaccustomed shyness and flush that made him suspicious.

“I won’t have it, Minou.
You
keep him in line, or I shall be obliged to do it myself. You understand?”

“I understand you take a great deal on yourself,” she answered pertly. “I managed without you the last seven years and cannot feel I need your interference at this time.”

“You shall have it,
quand même.
If he touches you again— unnecessarily, I mean—I shall call him out. This was a wretched idea, dressing you up and pretending you are his mistress. It puts ideas in his head.”

“Henry, this is no time to be—”

“Bear it in mind, my dear. And I would prefer that you call me
Henri,
as you were accustomed to do before meeting Degan.”

“Is that the end of your lecture, sir? If so, I would like to leave, before the baboon butcher arrives.”

“A word to the wise is sufficient. I trust this will be the end of your carrying on,” he answered, and, arising, he punctiliously drew her chair, took her arm, and went upstairs to their room, where she was careful to keep her distance from Degan, and bestow not a smile on him that could goad Mérigot into fulfilling his promise, as she knew too well he would happily do. Her prim demeanor put Degan into an uncertain mood, but she felt him to have the more controllable temper of the two.

When Henri went to check on the carriage forty-five minutes later, he said, “You will come with me, Minou. And I suggest, Degan, that you stay in the room if you wish to avoid Le Boucher.”

“I am rather curious to get a look at him,” Degan answered unconcernedly. “I haven’t met the man I can’t lick.” He directed a level and meaningful stare on Mérigot as he spoke. He didn’t know what the fellow had said to Sally, but he knew it had had the effect of quelling her spirits. There was a contest between the two men, and with so many avenues of proving his superiority closed due to their situation, Degan was being driven to the primitive extreme of actual physical combat.

“You will be sure to meet him if you go on the streets,” Mérigot warned him. “But of course if you wish to risk having your features rearranged, you must not let me prevent you.” There was a taunting smile on Mérigot’s handsome face, and a sardonic gleam in his dark eyes. “Better lock yourself in the room, where you’ll be safe.” Mérigot laughed.

“I find the air a little close in this room. I’ll await you belowstairs,” Degan replied.

“Degan, I wish...” Sally began to caution him.

“Come along,
ma mie,”
Henri ordered, and taking her by the arm, walked her to the door, with a challenging eye to Degan, who followed them out and down the stairs, but went into the common room when they went on out to the street.

It would be foolish to go looking for trouble with the Butcher, of course, especially at such a crucial time, when getting to Paris was of the utmost urgency. But really he was ready to indulge in violence with someone. This truckling to Mérigot was damaging to his self-esteem. It flew in the face of animal instinct to be forever deferring to one’s sexual rival. He ordered a glass of wine and considered this point, with more passion than reason. He was still considering it when the floor began to shake under his chair, and glancing up, way up, he saw the face of a baboon floating past.

The Butcher was a veritable giant of a man, hardly human at all. He looked a foot taller than himself. From a pair of massive, bull-like shoulders two arms as big as legs hung loosely, terminating in twin hams of hands. The man had a stupid-looking face, reddish-blond hair, all disheveled, and a broken nose. He knocked over two chairs before he reached his chosen table, in the very center of the room. Whether this was done through sheer clumsiness or arrogance was not clear, for while the face was decidedly stupid, it had as well an expression of pride.

The man smote the table and hollered for wine. The waiter ran like lightning, which did not save him from a shaking when he placed the bottle before the bruiser, within thirty seconds. The Butcher held the bottle up to his lips and filled his mouth, then spat it in the waiter’s face contemptuously. Degan’s fingers curled into fists with the desire to strike him, but he held his seat. This was no time to let personalities erupt. Any minute Henri would be back, and they must leave at once.

But Henri didn’t come back. The Butcher spoke in a loud, bragging voice of his prowess—how many bones he had broken, four noses and three jaws. He had killed a man as well in Lyons, and sounded proud of it. Degan was on the edge of his chair, wanting to challenge him. For ten minutes he sat looking and listening, while the man became quarrelsome. Had the Butcher cast a single aspersion on himself, he was ready to stand up and fight, but the boxer was more interested in impressing the simple local folk. He was not one of those boxers with any pretension to fashion or show, like Malraux. He wore an old fustian shirt and rough breeches. He ignored Degan completely.

Glancing out the window, Degan saw Henri and Sally approaching, and arose to go out in the hall and meet them. This called the Butcher’s attention to him. “Who is this fellow?” he asked, looking Degan up and down with a sneer on his baboon’s face. The waiter told him.

“This is the coward who fights midgets?” the Butcher demanded. “This is the jack dandy who beats up my friend,
petit
Malraux? Is that right,
citoyen?”

“That’s right,
citoyen,”
Degan replied, feeling his blood pounding. He didn’t know whether he was more frightened or angry, but he had a pretty good premonition he wasn’t going to get out of the room without a fight. The Butcher spat on the floor, missing his boot by an inch.

Degan looked at it, then raised his eyes to see the creature laughing. “I do not limit myself to midgets, however,” he added.

The Butcher’s eyes narrowed at the accent he heard. “He speaks like a lord, this one. Where do you learn such fancy French,
citoyen?”

“Not in the gutter, where you learned yours,” Degan answered, resuming his leavetaking. He was more alarmed at the question than the man’s size.

“You accuse the Butcher of Lozère of being underbred?” he asked arising to his startling height, and raising his voice. Degan stopped and turned back.

“No,
citoyen.
I think you are a very highly bred baboon,” he replied.