Rafael Sabatini - The Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

The implicit obedience this autocrat commanded set them in a whirl. Baskets and boxes were dragged forth to receive the platters and remains of their meagre feast. In an instant the ground was cleared, and the three ladies had taken their departure to the chaise, which was set apart for their use. The men were already climbing into the house on wheels, when Binet turned to Andre–Louis.

“We part here, sir,” said he, dramatically, “the richer by your acquaintance; your debtors and your friends.” He put forth his podgy hand.

Slowly Andre–Louis took it in his own. He had been thinking swiftly in the last few moments. And remembering the safety he had found from his pursuers in the bosom of this company, it occurred to him that nowhere could he be better hidden for the present, until the quest for him should have died down.

“Sir,” he said, “the indebtedness is on my side. It is not every day one has the felicity to sit down with so illustrious and engaging a company.”

Binet’s little eyes peered suspiciously at the young man, in quest of irony. He found nothing but candour and simple good faith.

“I part from you reluctantly,” Andre–Louis continued. “The more reluctantly since I do not perceive the absolute necessity for parting.”

“How?” quoth Binet, frowning, and slowly withdrawing the hand which the other had already retained rather longer than was necessary.

“Thus,” Andre–Louis explained himself. “You may set me down as a sort of knight of rueful countenance in quest of adventure, with no fixed purpose in life at present. You will not marvel that what I have seen of yourself and your distinguished troupe should inspire me to desire your better acquaintance. On your side you tell me that you are in need of some one to replace your Figaro — your Felicien, I think you called him. Whilst it may be presumptuous of me to hope that I could discharge an office so varied and so onerous . . . ”

“You are indulging that acrid humour of yours again, my friend,” Binet interrupted him. “Excepting for that,” he added, slowly, meditatively, his little eyes screwed up, “we might discuss this proposal that you seem to be making.”

“Alas! we can except nothing. If you take me, you take me as I am. What else is possible? As for this humour — such as it is — which you decry, you might turn it to profitable account.”

“How so?”

“In several ways. I might, for instance, teach Leandre to make love.”

Pantaloon burst into laughter. “You do not lack confidence in your powers. Modesty does not afflict you.”

“Therefore I evince the first quality necessary in an actor.”

“Can you act?”

“Upon occasion, I think,” said Andre–Louis, his thoughts upon his performance at Rennes and Nantes, and wondering when in all his histrionic career Pantaloon’s improvisations had so rent the heart of mobs.

M. Binet was musing. “Do you know much of the theatre?” quoth he.

“Everything,” said Andre–Louis.

“I said that modesty will prove no obstacle in your career.”

“But consider. I know the work of Beaumarchais, Eglantine, Mercier, Chenier, and many others of our contemporaries. Then I have read, of course, Moliere, Racine, Corneille, besides many other lesser French writers. Of foreign authors, I am intimate with the works of Gozzi, Goldoni, Guarini, Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Secchi, Tasso, Ariosto, and Fedini. Whilst of those of antiquity I know most of the work of Euripides, Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus . . . ”

“Enough!” roared Pantaloon.

“I am not nearly through with my list,” said Andre–Louis.

“You may keep the rest for another day. In Heaven’s name, what can have induced you to read so many dramatic authors?”

“In my humble way I am a student of man, and some years ago I made the discovery that he is most intimately to be studied in the reflections of him provided for the theatre.”

“That is a very original and profound discovery,” said Pantaloon, quite seriously. “It had never occurred to me. Yet is it true. Sir, it is a truth that dignifies our art. You are a man of parts, that is clear to me. It has been clear since first I met you. I can read a man. I knew you from the moment that you said ‘good-morning.’ Tell me, now: Do you think you could assist me upon occasion in the preparation of a scenario? My mind, fully engaged as it is with a thousand details of organization, is not always as clear as I would have it for such work. Could you assist me there, do you think?”

“I am quite sure I could.”

“Hum, yes. I was sure you would be. The other duties that were Felicien’s you would soon learn. Well, well, if you are willing, you may come along with us. You’d want some salary, I suppose?”

“If it is usual,” said Andre–Louis.

“What should you say to ten livres a month?”

“I should say that it isn’t exactly the riches of Peru.”

“I might go as far as fifteen,” said Binet, reluctantly. “But times are bad.”

“I’ll make them better for you.”

“I’ve no doubt you believe it. Then we understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” said Andre–Louis, dryly, and was thus committed to the service of Thespis.

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The company’s entrance into the township of Guichen, if not exactly triumphal, as Binet had expressed the desire that it should be, was at least sufficiently startling and cacophonous to set the rustics gaping. To them these fantastic creatures appeared — as indeed they were — beings from another world.

First went the great travelling chaise, creaking and groaning on its way, drawn by two of the Flemish horses. It was Pantaloon who drove it, an obese and massive Pantaloon in a tight-fitting suit of scarlet under a long brown bed-gown, his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboard nose. Beside him on the box sat Pierrot in a white smock, with sleeves that completely covered his hands, loose white trousers, and a black skull-cap. He had whitened his face with flour, and he made hideous noises with a trumpet.

On the roof of the coach were assembled Polichinelle, Scaramouche, Harlequin, and Pasquariel. Polichinelle in black and white, his doublet cut in the fashion of a century ago, with humps before and behind, a white frill round his neck and a black mask upon the upper half of his face, stood in the middle, his feet planted wide to steady him, solemnly and viciously banging a big drum. The other three were seated each at one of the corners of the roof, their legs dangling over. Scaramouche, all in black in the Spanish fashion of the seventeenth century, his face adorned with a pair of mostachios, jangled a guitar discordantly. Harlequin, ragged and patched in every colour of the rainbow, with his leather girdle and sword of lath, the upper half of his face smeared in soot, clashed a pair of cymbals intermittently. Pasquariel, as an apothecary in skull-cap and white apron, excited the hilarity of the onlookers by his enormous tin clyster, which emitted when pumped a dolorous squeak.

Within the chaise itself, but showing themselves freely at the windows, and exchanging quips with the townsfolk, sat the three ladies of the company. Climene, the amoureuse, beautifully gowned in flowered satin, her own clustering ringlets concealed under a pumpkin-shaped wig, looked so much the lady of fashion that you might have wondered what she was doing in that fantastic rabble. Madame, as the mother, was also dressed with splendour, but exaggerated to achieve the ridiculous. Her headdress was a monstrous structure adorned with flowers, and superimposed by little ostrich plumes. Columbine sat facing them, her back to the horses, falsely demure, in milkmaid bonnet of white muslin, and a striped gown of green and blue.