One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre

by G. P. R. James

Thither, then, the chair, or litiere encaissee, as it was called, of Beatrice of Ferrara, was borne at an hour when the greater part of the gay Parisians were busy with that employment which few people love better, namely, that of eating the good things which their own gastronomic art produces. The bearers halted not at the steps which led into the shop, but proceeded till the chair was brought parallel to a door in the partition, between the outer and the inner chamber, so that she could pass at once from the one into the other. Her countenance, however, bore but little the expression of one going to buy trinkets, or to amuse oneself by turning over the light frivolities of such a place as that in which she stood. The usual fire of her eye was somewhat quelled, and a degree of melancholy, perhaps of anxiety, unusual with her at any time, had, since her meeting with the Count d'Aubin, pervaded her whole countenance. The doors of the partition and that of the chair had been both thrown open as soon as the gilded lions' feet of the latter touched the floor, and there stood the Signor Armandi, dressed in silks and velvets of rose colour and sky blue, with his mustachio turning up almost to his eyes, and a small jewelled dagger occupying the place of the sword, which his calling did not permit him to wear in Paris. His face was dressed in sweet complacent smiles; and, as he bowed three times to the very ground before his lovely visiter, his head was certainly "dropping odours;" for no one held his own perfumes in higher veneration than he did himself.

"Enchanted and honoured are my eyes to see you once again, lady most fair and chaste!" said he, in high-flown Italian. "I heard that you had been upon that sad couch, where the head is propped by the thorns of sickness, rather than by the roses of love."

"Hush, hush, Armandi!" cried Beatrice, with an impatient wave of the hand; "you should know me better than to speak such trash to me. I neither use your cosmetics, nor will hear your nonsense. I have come upon more weighty matters."

"For whatever you have come, most beautiful of the beautiful," replied the other, affecting to subdue his exalted tone; "you have come to command, and I am here to obey. Speak! your words are law to Armandi."

"When followed by the necessary seal of gold, I know they are," answered Beatrice, gravely. "Now hear me, then. I wish--I wish--" she paused and hesitated, and the perfumer, accustomed to receive communications of too delicate a nature to bear the coarse vehicle of language, hastened to aid her.

"You wish, perhaps," he said, in a soft voice, "to see some friend, and require the magical influence of Armandi to bring him to your presence----"

"Out, villain!" cried Beatrice, her eyes flashing fire. "For whom do you take me, pitiful slave? Do you fancy yourself speaking to Clara de Villefranche, or Marguerite de Tours en Brie, or, higher still in rank and infamy, Marguerite de Valois? Out, I say! Talk not to me of such things;--I wish--I wish--"

"Perhaps you wish to see some friend no more," said the soft voice of the perfumer, apparently not in the least offended by the hard terms she had given him, and equally disposed to do her good and uncompromising service of any kind. "Perhaps you wish the magical influence of Armandi to remove from your sight some one who has been in it too long, and troubles you?"

A bitter and painful smile played round the beautiful lips of Beatrice of Ferrara, while, bowing her head slowly, she replied, after a moment's thought, "Perhaps I do."

"Then I am right at last," said Armandi, softly, rubbing his hands together. "I am right at last; and you have nothing to do, fair lady, but to name the person, and the time, and the manner, and it shall be done to your full satisfaction; though I must hint that all the preparations for rendering disagreeable people invisible are somewhat expensive; and the amount depends greatly upon the mode. Would you have it slow and quietly, that he or she should disappear? That is the best and easiest plan, and also the least expensive--for there is the less risk."