The Best of Jules de Grandin

by Seabury Quinn

  Following de Grandin’s example, I shaved myself with the aid of my glasses-mirror, and one after the other we laved ourselves in the tubs of luke-warm water the ancient servitor dragged in from the hall.

  “If y’all is ready, suhs,” the Negro announced as we completed our toilets, “Ah’ll ’scort yuh to de dinin’-room. Marse Jawge is waitin’ yo’ pleasure below.”

  “Ah, good morning, gentlemen,” Ducharme greeted as we joined him in the main hall. I trust you enjoyed a good night’s rest?”

  The Frenchman eyed him critically. “I have had worse,” he replied. “However, the sense of security obtained by well-bolted doors is not greatly heightened by knowledge that the locks operate from the further side, Monsieur.

  A faint flush mounted our host’s thin cheeks at de Grandin’s thrust, but he chose to ignore it. “Minerva!” he cried sharply, turning toward the kitchen. “The gentlemen are down; bring in some breakfast.”

  The old, blind Negress emerged from her quarters with the promptness of a cuckoo coming from its cell as the clock strikes the hour, and placed great bowls of steaming cornmeal mush before us. Idly, I noticed that the pitcher for the milk accompanying the mush was of unglazed pottery and the pot in which the steaming coffee was served was of tarnished, dull-finished silver.

  With a rather impatient gesture, Ducharme motioned us to eat and excused himself from joining us by saying he had breakfasted an hour or so before.

  De Grandin’s little eyes scarcely left our host’s face as he ate ravenously, but though he seemed on the point of putting some question point-blank more than once, he evidently thought better of it, and held his peace.

  “It’s impossible for me to get a guide for you this morning, gentlemen,” Ducharme apologized as we finished breakfast, “and it’s hardly practicable for me to accompany you myself. However, if you’ll be good enough to remain another day, I think—perhaps—I may be able to find someone to take you back to Gregory’s. Provided, of course, you really wish to go there.” Something like a sneer crossed his lips as he concluded, and de Grandin was on his feet instantly, his small face livid with rage.

  “Monsieur,” he protested, his little eyes snapping ominously, “on more than one occasion you have been good enough to intimate we are impostors. I have heard much of your vaunted Southern hospitality in the past, but the sample you display leaves much to be desired. If you will be so good as to stand aside we shall give ourselves the pleasure of shaking your dust from our feet forthwith. Meantime, since you have small liking for the post of social host, permit that we compensate you for our entertainment.” His face still white with fury, he thrust his hand into his pocket, withdrew a roll of bills and tossed several on the table. “I trust that is sufficient,” he added cuttingly. “Count it; if you desire more, more shall be forthcoming.”

  Ducharme had risen with de Grandin. As the Frenchman finished his tirade, he stepped quickly to the corner and snatched up his rifle. “If either of you attempts to leave this house before I give permission,” he announced in a low, menacing voice, “so help me God, I’ll blow his head off!” With a quick backward step he reached the door, slipped through it and banged it shut behind him.

  “Are you going to stand this?” I demanded angrily, turning to de Grandin. “The man’s mad—mad as a hatter. We’ll be murdered before sunset if we don’t get away!”

  “I think not so,” he returned, resuming his seat and lighting a cigarette. “As for killing us, he will need more speed than he showed just now. I had him covered from my pocket before he took up his gun, and could have stopped his words with a bullet any time I was so minded, but—I did not care to. There are things which interest me about this place, Friend Trowbridge, and I desire to remain until my curiosity is satisfied.”

  “But his insinuations—his insulting doubt—” I began.

  “Tiens, it was well done was it not?” he interrupted with a self-satisfied smile. “Barbe d’un chameau, I play-acted so well I did almost deceive myself!”

  “Then you weren’t really angry—”

  “Jules de Grandin is quick to anger, my friend, if the provocation be sufficient, but never has he bitten off his nose through desire to revenge himself upon his face. No. Another time I might have resented his boorishness. This morning I desire to remain more greatly than I wish to leave; but should I disclose my real desires he would undoubtlessly insist upon our going. Alors, I make the monkey business. To make our welcome doubly sure I deceive Monsieur Ducharme to think that leaving is our primary desire. C’est très simple, n’est-ce-pas?”

  “I suppose so,” I admitted, “but what earthly reason have you for wanting to stay in this confounded place?”

  “One wonders,” he returned enigmatically, blowing a twin cloud of smoke from his nostrils.

  “One certainly does,” I agreed angrily. “I, for one—”

  He tossed his cigarette into his porringer and rose abruptly. “Is it of significance to you, my friend, that this sacré house contains not only not a single mirror, but not so much as one polished surface in which one may by any chance behold himself with the exception of the spectacles which adorn your kindly nose this minute? Or that the servants here are blind?” he added as I shook my head doubtfully. “Or that Monsieur Ducharme has deliberately attempted to mislead us into thinking that he, we and the two blind ones are the only tenants of the place?”

  “It is mystifying,” I agreed, “but I can’t seem to fit the facts into any kind of pattern. Probably they’re just coincidences, and—”

  “Coincidence is the name we give to that we can not otherwise explain,” he interrupted. “Me, I have arrived already at a theory, though much still remains obscure. At dinner tonight I shall let fly a random shot; who knows what it may bring down?”

  DUCHARME KEPT OUT OF sight the remainder of the day, and it was not till well after dark we saw him again. We were just concluding our evening meal when he let himself in, a more amiable expression on his sour face than I had seen before.

  “Dr. de Grandin, Dr. Trowbridge,” he greeted as he placed his rifle in an angle of the wall and drew a chair up to the table, “I have to tender you my humblest apologies. My life has been a bitter one, gentlemen; and I live in daily dread of something I can not explain. However, if I tell you it is sufficient to make me suspicious of every stranger who comes near the house, you may understand something of the lack of courtesy I have shown you. I did doubt your word, sirs, and I renew my apologies for doing so. This morning, after warning you to stay indoors, I went to Gregory’s—it’s less than a three hours’ trip, if you know the way—and made certain of your identity. Tomorrow, if you wish, I shall be happy to guide you to your friends.”

  The Frenchman bent along, speculative stare upon our host. At length: “You are satisfied from Monsieur Gregory’s report that we are indeed physicians?” he asked.

  “Of course—”

  “Suppose I add further information. Would it interest you to know that I hold degrees from Vienna and the Sorbonne, that I have done much surgical work for the University of Paris, and that in the days after the Armistice I was among those who helped restore to pre-war appearance the faces of those noble heroes whose features had been burned away by Hunnish flammenwerfer?” He pronounced the last words with slow, impressive deliberation, his level, unwinking gaze fixed firmly on the dark, sullen eyes of our host.

  Quick, incredulous fury flamed in the other’s face. “You spying scoundrel—you damned sneak!” he cried, leaping from his chair and making for his rifle.

  “Slowly!” De Grandin, too, was on his feet, his small, round eyes blazing with implacable purpose, his little, deadly pistol aimed unwaveringly at Ducharme’s breast. “Greatly as I should regret it,” he warned, “I shall kill you if you make one further move, Monsieur.”

  The other wavered, for there was no doubting de Grandin’s sincerity.

  “Ah, that is better,” he remarked as Ducharme halted, then returned slowly to his sea
t. “Now we shall talk sense.

  “A moment since, Monsieur,” he continued as Ducharme dropped heavily into his chair and sank his face in his hands, “I did avail myself of what the Americans call the bluff. Consider, I am clever; the wool can not successfully be drawn across my eyes, and so I suspected what I now know for the truth. Yesterday an arrow saved my life; anon we found small footprints in the mud; last night when we arrived here we met with scant welcome from you, and inside the house we found you waited on by blinded servants. This morning, when I ask for a mirror that I may shave myself, your servant tells there is not one in all the house, and on sober thought I recall that I have seen no single polished surface wherein a man may behold his own image. Why is it? If strangers are unwelcome, if there be no mirrors here, if the servants be blind—is there not something hideous within these walls, something of which you know, but which you desire to be kept most secret? Again, you are not beautiful, but you would not necessarily be averse to regarding your reflection in a mirror. What then? Is it not, perhaps, I think, that you greatly desire that the ugly one—whoever it be—not only not be seen, but shall not see itself? It are highly probable.

  “This morning I have seen a so lovely young girl attired for le footing, who sings divinely in the early sunlight. But I have not seen her face. No. However, she wears upon her back a bow and quiverful of arrows—and an arrow such as those saved me from the serpent yesterday, one little moment before we beheld the face of awful ugliness.

  “Two and two invariably make four, Monsieur. You have said there is no other person but yourself and your servants in the house; but even as you doubted me, so I have doubted you. Indeed, from what I have seen, I know you have been untruthful; but I think you are so because of some great reason. And so I tell you of my work in restoring the wrecked faces of the soldiers of France.

  “But I am no idle boaster. No. What I say is true. Call in the unfortunate young lady; I shall examine her minutely, and if it are humanly possible I shall remold her features to comeliness. If you do not consent you are a heartless, inhuman monster. Besides,” he added matter-of-factly, “if you refuse I shall kill you and perform the operation anyway.”

  Ducharme gazed unbelievingly at him. “You really think you can do it?” he demanded.

  “Have I not said it?”

  “But, if you fail—”

  “Jules de Grandin does not fail, Monsieur.”

  “Minerva!” Ducharme called. “Ask Miss Clarimonde to come here at once, please.”

  The old blind woman’s slipshod footsteps sounded along the tiled floor of a back passage for a moment, then faded away as she slowly climbed a hidden flight of stairs.

  FOR SOMETHING LIKE FIVE minutes we sat silently. Once or twice Ducharme swallowed nervously, de Grandin’s slim, white fingers drummed a noiseless, devil’s tattoo on the table, I fidgeted nervously in my chair, removed my glasses and polished them, returned them to my nose, then snatched them off and fell to wiping them again. At length the light tap-tap of slippered feet sounded on the stairs and we rose together as a tall, graceful figure emerged from the stairway shadow into the aura of light thrown out by the candles.

  “My daughter, gentlemen—Clarimonde, Dr. de Grandin; Dr. Trowbridge,” Mr. Ducharme introduced in a voice gone thin and treble with nervousness. From the corner of my eye I could see him watching us in a sort of agony, awaiting the horror we were bound to show as the girl’s face became visible.

  I saw de Grandin’s narrow, pointed chin jut forward as he set his jaw against the shock of the hideous countenance, then watched the indomitable will within him force his face into the semblance of an urbane smile as he stepped forward gallantly and raised the girl’s slim, white hand to his lips.

  The figure which stepped slowly, reluctantly, into the dull luminance of the candles was the oddest patch-work of grotesquerie I had ever seen. From feet to throat she was perfectly made as a sculptured Hebe, slim, straight, supple with the pliancy of youth and abundant health. Shoes of white satin and stockings of sheerest white silk complemented a straight, plain frock of oyster-white which assuredly had come from nowhere but Vienna or the Rue de la Paix; a Manila shawl, yellowed with years and heavily fringed, lay scarfwise over her ivory shoulders and arms; about her throat was clasped a single tight-fitting strand of large, lustrous pearls.

  The sea-gems were the line of demarcation. It was as if by some sorcery of obscene surgery the lovely girl’s head had been sheared off by a guillotine three inches above the clavicle and replaced by the foulest specimen from the stored-up monstrosities of a medical museum. The skin about the throat was craped and wrinkled like a toad’s, and of the color of a tan boot on which black dressing has inadvertently been rubbed, then ineffectually removed. Above, the chin was firm and pointed, tapering downward from the ears in good lines, but the mouth extended a full five inches across the face, sweeping in a curving diagonal from left to right like a musical turn mark, one corner lifted in a perpetual travesty of a grin, the other sagging in a constant snarl. Between the spaces where the brows should have been the glabella was so enlarged that a protuberance almost like a horn stood out from the forehead, while the eyes, fine hazel, flecked with brown, were horrifically cocked at divergent angles so that it was impossible for her to gaze at an object directly before her without turning her head slightly to the side. The nose was long and curved, exaggeratedly high-bridged and slit down the outer side of each flaring nostril as the mouth of a hairlipped person is cleft. Like the throat, the entire face was integumented in coarse, loosely wrinkled skin of soiled brown, and, to make the contrast more shockingly incongruous, a mass of gleaming auburn hair, fine and scintillant as spun rose-gold, lay loosely coiled in a Grecian coronal above the repulsive countenance.

  Had the loathsomeness been unrelieved by contrasting comeliness, the effect would have been less shocking; as it was, the hideous face inlaid between the perfect body and glowing, ruddy-diadem of hair was like the sacrilegious mutilation of a sacred picture—as though the oval of the Sistine Virgin’s face were cut from the canvas and the sardonic, grinning features of a Punchinello thrust through the aperture.

  To his everlasting credit, de Grandin did not flinch. Debonair as though at any social gathering, he bowed the monstrous creature to a chair and launched a continuous flow of conversation. All the while I could see his eyes returning again and again to the hideous countenance across the table, his keen surgeon’s mind surveying the grotesque features and weighing his chances of success against the almost foregone certainty of failure.

  THE ORDEAL LASTED SOMETHING like half an hour, and my nerves had stretched to the snapping point when sudden diversion came.

  With a wild, frantic movement the girl leaped up, oversetting her chair, and faced us, her misdirected eyes rolling with a horrible ludicrousness in their sockets, tears of shame and self-pity welling from them and coursing down the sides of her grotesque face. Her wide, cavernous mouth opened obliquely and she gave scream after scream of shrill, tortured anguish. “I know; I know!” she cried frenziedly. “Don’t think you’ve fooled me by taking all the mirrors from the house, Father! Remember, I go about the woods at will, and there are pools of quiet water in the woods! I know I’m hideous; I know I’m so repulsive that even the servants who wait on us must be blind! I’ve seen my face reflected in the moat and the swamp; I saw the horror in your eyes when you first looked at me, Dr. de Grandin; I noticed how Dr. Trowbridge couldn’t bear even to glance at me just now without a shudder! Oh, God of mercy, why haven’t I had courage to kill myself before?—Why did I live till I met strangers and saw them turn from me with loathing? Why—”

  “Mademoiselle, be still!” de Grandin’s sharp, incisive command cut through her hysterical words and stung her to silence. “You lament unnecessarily,” he continued as she turned her goggling toad-eyes toward him. “Monsieur, your father, bids you come to us for a specific purpose; namely, that I inspect your countenance and give him my opinion as a surgeo
n concerning the possibility of cure. Attend me: I tell you I can so reshape your features that you shall be completely beautiful; you shall grace the salons of Washington, of New York, of Paris, and you shall have young men to do you honor and lay their kisses thick upon your hands and lips, and breathe their tales of love into your ears; you—”

  A shriek of wild, incredulous laughter silenced him. “I? I have admirers—lovers? Dear God—the bitterness of the mockery! I am doomed to spend my life among the snakes and toads, the bats and salamanders of the swamps, a thing as hideous as the ugliest of them, cut off from all my kind, and—”

  “Your fate may be a worse one, unless I can prevent it,” Ducharme broke in with an odd, dry croaking voice.

  We turned on him by common consent as he rasped his direful prophecy. His long, goat-like face was working spasmodically; I could see the tendons of his thin neck contracting as he swallowed nervously, and the sad, bitter lips beneath the drooping gray mustache twisted into a smile that was more than half a snarl as he gazed at de Grandin and his daughter in turn.

  “You wondered why I greeted you with suspicion when you came asking food and shelter last night, gentlemen?” he asserted rather than asked, looking from the Frenchman to me. “This is why:

  “As I told you last night, the Ducharmes have lived here since long before the first English colony was planted in Virginia. Although our plantation has been all but eaten up by the swamps, the family wealth holds out, and I am what is counted a rich man, even in these days of swollen fortunes. It was the custom of our family for generations to send their women to a convent at Rheims for education; the young men were sent to Oxford or Cambridge, Paris or Vienna, occasionally to Louvain or Heidelberg, and their training was completed by the grand tour.