holding on meanwhile with one hand to Eugène de Contiac, “I am so
glad to see you. Now, Eugène, sit down. Monsieur de Latour will fetch
himself a chair”--which he promptly did--“and try to learn something
from the conversation of two such men as General Granier and Monsieur
de Latour, who, I dare say, only wants a chance to kick up his heels
with the rest of us at Dinard. You see,” cried this terrible old lady,
whisking herself into an attitude by which she thoroughly displayed
her small and pretty feet in a pair of silk stockings more daring than
those she had worn in the morning, and flouncing out her skirts so
as to show a wonderful lace and chiffon petticoat, “you see, Eugène
still has pious inclinations. I can’t get that out of him, but if he
ever becomes permanently pious and correct he sha’n’t have a franc of
my money, and he knows it. I like a man with life in him, like you,
General Granier, and you, my rural friend.” And at this she actually
pinched Monsieur de Latour on the arm in full sight of a thousand
persons.
But to be pinched publicly by a comtesse of one of the greatest
families in France was an honour that flooded Monsieur de Latour’s
soul with joy. He wished to say something impudent in reply, but could
think of nothing more original than to ask after Madame de Beauregard’s
health.
“It is perfect, thank you,” replied the old lady. “My back is not a day
over twenty-five, my head is about fifteen, and as for my le-- What
are you winking and blinking at me for, Eugène?” she snapped, turning
around on that unfortunate young man.
Monsieur de Latour, apprehending what Madame de Beauregard meant to
say, hastened to interrupt.
“And Mademoiselle de Brésac, whom I reckon it a privilege to call my
ward?”
“Oh, she’s in the country!” Madame de Beauregard answered, again
falling foul of the luckless Eugène. “This fellow has been doing
rather better in the last few months. He has been tipsy three or
four times, has been going to some of the gayest theatres in Paris,
and has given up reading Bossuet’s sermons. I thought I should never
cure him of that abominable practice of sermon-reading, but the last
time I caught him at it I cut down his allowance five hundred francs
the month, and it acted like a charm. Money is a great persuader. I
brought him down here for the benefit of General Granier’s society, who
has promised to teach him a few things; and, as neither one of them
returned to the hotel until two o’clock this morning, I am in hopes
that Eugène is reforming.”
Eugène, with a hangdog countenance, listened to all of this,
apprehending that every word would be repeated to Mélanie.
“But I had a very difficult time of it,” put in General Granier. “I
took him to the theatre, and I almost had to drag him behind the
scenes, and when one of the young ladies of the ballet made at him, out
he ran for his life, and much too fast for a man with an artificial
leg, like myself, to catch him.”
Madame de Beauregard whirled around on Eugène.
“And is that the way you see life?” she cried indignantly. “Well, I
always said I was the only man in the family. All of my brothers and
nephews are like boarding-school misses. My husband, poor man, was
entirely too good for this world.”
“Not a gay dog in the lot except yourself,” impudently remarked General
Granier, and was rewarded by a kiss airily blown at him from Madame de
Beauregard’s little withered hand.
Monsieur de Latour, although somewhat frightened, enjoyed this
extremely. It was a great deal more lively than drinking tea in the
garden with Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie.
“I don’t see,” he said, “why our young friend objects to dancing the
quadrille of life to a lively air. Perhaps I can assist you, madame, in
educating him.”
Poor Eugène shuddered.
“I shall be a million times obliged to you, my dear man,” promptly
replied Madame de Beauregard, pulling up her skirt higher and
showing so much of her chiffon petticoat that Monsieur de Latour was
seriously alarmed. “But I know what ails Eugène. He is in love with
your niece--charming girl, and I should not have the least objection to
her if she would only be as gay as I am. But she won’t, and won’t let
Eugène be. So I have told him frankly--for I am a very frank person, as
you know--that he may have Mélanie and be pious and not get a single
sou from me, or he can be a man, as I reckon men to be, and I will
leave him five hundred thousand francs. No proposition could be fairer.”
“I wish I could get five hundred thousand francs on the same terms,”
remarked the old general, with a couple of winks.
“Oh, I should not have the slightest trouble with you!” replied Madame
de Beauregard gaily.
“Really, it seems to me,” said Monsieur de Latour, jealous of the
attentions which the general was receiving, “it would be easy enough
for anybody. I always liked a gay life myself, and I could tell
you some of my experiences, madame”--here old De Latour assumed a
mysterious air--“which I am afraid would frighten you very much.”
“Then pray go on,” cried this terrible old lady, “and tell us the
worst.”
But Monsieur de Latour, whose experiences were really exceedingly mild,
felt ashamed to speak of them before two such accomplished sinners as
Madame de Beauregard and General Granier. They were, however, a pair
of merry old grigs, but Monsieur de Latour felt, as well as saw, that
Madame de Beauregard, for all her kittenishness, was really a very
great lady and not without kindness of heart.
Poor Eugène sat, the image of woe, his countenance lighted up by an
occasional sickly grin at the daring sallies of Madame de Beauregard,
to which General Granier promptly responded in kind, and which Monsieur
de Latour vainly endeavoured to surpass. He hit upon a lucky subject,
however. Madame de Beauregard speaking of her possible intention to buy
a villa at Dinard, Monsieur de Latour, mentioned, with a magniloquent
air, his recently acquired relationship to Louis Victor de Latour, of
the Chateau of Montplaisir.
“I think I know that young man,” cried Madame de Beauregard. “A
delightful young scamp, as impudent as they make them. He came near
kissing me at Algiers, a couple of years ago. Now, Monsieur de Latour,
I think it would be a good idea for you to repair and refurnish the
Chateau of Montplaisir. Oh, what a name! What pleasure we could have
there!”
This plan, recommended by a woman of Madame de Beauregard’s rank and
consequence, immediately appeared highly desirable to Monsieur de
Latour.
“It would be quite possible,” he said, meditating, “to patch up the
roof of the best wing, put in windows, and get some furniture into the
place in a week or two. Money can annihilate time and distance.”
“Then do it!” cried Madame de Beauregard, pinching his ear, to the
delight of the passers-by, who reckoned Madame de Beauregard as among
the peep-shows of Dinard.
“And if I can make the place habitable, you will probably do me and
my kinsman the honour of becoming our guest?” Monsieur de Latour said
grandly. “And may I also count upon the presence of Mademoiselle de
Brésac? By the way, is she in the neighbourhood of Dinard?”
“Oh, yes!” answered Madame de Beauregard, suddenly becoming interested
in poor Eugène de Contiac’s hair. “She is staying at a convent at
Saint Malo. Eugène, why do you wear your hair plastered down in that
sanctimonious manner?”
“But I thought you said Mademoiselle de Brésac was in the country?”
inquired Monsieur de Latour, anxious to establish his association with
such great people as the De Brésacs and De Beauregards.
“So she is! so she is! The next thing, Eugène, you will be taken for a
clergyman, and I shall be forever disgraced. I have had a great many
milksops in my family, but so far I have been spared a clergyman.”
The party remained together a half-hour longer, and consumed several
ices and some very expensive wine before they rose from the table, and
Madame de Beauregard made a triumphal circuit of the grand promenade,
with Monsieur de Latour on one side of her and General Granier on the
other, while the unfortunate Eugène, with a carriage-load of wraps,
parasol, fan, books, and other impedimenta, brought up the rear. For
a man with an artificial leg, General Granier walked remarkably well,
and Monsieur de Latour was electrified by Madame de Beauregard making
minute inquiries as to how the chassepot rifle in the general’s leg
worked.
“Beautifully!” cried the old gentleman with enthusiasm. “I keep a
record of my target practice and can hit the bull’s-eye five times out
of seven at forty paces.”
Then, seeing Monsieur de Latour was completely mystified, General
Granier continued, lifting up his right leg, which, apparently, was
a perfectly normal right leg with correctly fitting trousers and a
well-made shoe.
“Do you see that leg?” he asked critically. “The real one is buried
on the field of Gravelotte, but this one is twice as good. I had it
fitted with a rifle-barrel and trigger here in my pocket.”
The general slapped his pocket, and Monsieur de Latour then noticed,
as General Granier lifted up the heel of the boot, a small round hole
which was evidently the end of the rifle-barrel.
“Well, every man must have his hobby, and mine is to shoot as well with
my right leg as most men can do with their right hands. Come to see me
some morning, monsieur, and I will give an exhibition that will make
your hair stand on end.”
Monsieur de Latour’s hair already stood on end at this.
“Now,” cried Madame de Beauregard triumphantly, “are you surprised that
I adore General Granier? Think of a man having the pluck and ingenuity
to make a gun out of his leg!”
General Granier showed his appreciation of this compliment by
pirouetting on his left leg, without any regard to the crowd of
laughing sightseers, for he, like Madame de Beauregard, had been one
of the monuments at Dinard for years.
“You see how delightfully gay we are,” cried Madame de Beauregard to
Monsieur de Latour, when they resumed their walk. “Now, do have that
old rookery of Montplaisir done up, and then we will all come and pay
you a visit.”
“I shall endeavour to do so,” replied Monsieur de Latour gallantly.
The party escorted Madame de Beauregard to her hotel. Once or twice
more Monsieur de Latour tried to find out something about Julie de
Brésac, but as every mention of her name brought down maledictions upon
the unlucky Eugène, Monsieur de Latour abandoned the subject after
Madame de Beauregard had informed him that Julie had all the life,
spirit, and gaiety which her cousin, Eugène de Contiac, ought to have
had but hadn’t.
Monsieur de Latour took his way home meditating deeply. These two
persons, Madame de Beauregard and General Granier, were of his period,
though actually older than he, and yet life was full of gaiety and
sparkling pleasures for them. He began to think that in the higher
classes youth lasted longer than in the middle classes. He had been
reckoned an old fogy even at Brionville, and Mademoiselle Cheri had a
way of assuming that he was an antiquated person who had no longer any
right to the fantasies or the follies of youth, and this was extremely
distasteful to Monsieur de Latour, who had a taste for both fantasies
and follies. He almost decided to marry Madame de Beauregard, provided,
of course, that she would take him; but what man lives who does not in
his secret heart believe that he can get any woman he wants, for the
asking?
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IV
THE PLOT THICKENS
The next morning, bright and early, Monsieur de Latour presented
himself at the Chateau of Montplaisir. He proposed to Louis that a
large force of workmen should be put in immediately to make one wing of
the old place habitable.
“For, to tell you the truth, my dear nephew,” he said confidentially,
“it would add immensely to my consequence to be able to date my letters
from the Chateau of Montplaisir, and I don’t mind spending twenty or
thirty thousand francs for that purpose.”
“My precious uncle!” was Louis’s only reply, endeavouring to clasp in
his arms Monsieur de Latour.
But his first embrace had been fraught with so much danger to Monsieur
de Latour’s ribs that the old gentleman fought him off, and Louis was
reduced, as usual, to embracing the hat and umbrella.
“I could very easily telegraph to Paris for workmen,” continued
Monsieur de Latour. “I could have fifty in here within twenty-four
hours, and the materials could be had at Dinard. Fifty workmen ought to
be able to make one wing habitable certainly within a fortnight.”
“My beloved uncle,” answered Louis, “you may have the whole chateau
repaired at your expense if you desire. No one shall call me mean in
that particular.”
“And as for furniture and tapestries, if an order were placed in Paris
to-day it could be filled within forty-eight hours.”
“You are at perfect liberty to order furniture amounting to a million
francs, if you like, also at your own expense, and Gobelins tapestries
in any quantities you may wish. You will find me the most accommodating
person in the world in these matters as long as you foot the bill.”
“And pictures--we must have some pictures to hide those discoloured
walls.”
“Pray decorate them with old masters at five hundred thousand francs
each, or if you prefer the moderns, buy a few Munkácsys, Corots,
Détailles, or anything you like, provided they are good and very
expensive. I place no limit upon you in that respect.”
“Really,” sarcastically answered Monsieur de Latour, “you are too good.
I don’t contemplate spending my whole fortune in fitting up one wing of
this establishment.”
“I shall put no obstacles in your way, if you do,” said Louis with the
utmost amiability.
“I am afraid, young man, you don’t know very much about business.”
“Of course not. I am a De Latour, and if you wish to be taken for a
scion of this noble house you must forget all about business--that is,
as soon as you have conveyed to me the three hundred thousand francs
which you have promised.”
Monsieur de Latour looked solemnly at Louis and then winked his left
eye.
“I am a De Latour,” he said, “but I sha’n’t forget all about business.
Don’t think that I am dipping into my principal or even hampering
myself seriously in spending thirty or forty thousand francs of my
income on this chateau. It is difficult to spend much in a small
provincial place like Brionville. My income has been steadily
accumulating for the past twenty years, and this is my first fling.”
Monsieur de Latour, however, being practical even in his follies, then
proceeded to unfold his projects to Louis as they sat together at
the rickety table in what Louis with much solemnity called the grand
saloon. Plans were discussed, estimates were made, which provided
for the expenditure of a considerable sum of money, but by no means
foolishly or recklessly. Monsieur de Latour accompanied Louis through
each room of the wing to be repaired. He selected his own apartments, a
bedroom and a study.
“Not that I am what is called a reading man,” he explained, “but it
sounds well to have a study. I have had an office all my life until now
at Brionville. I can bring my servants on from home and get others
here.”
All the time Louis had been asking subtle questions meant to discover
how much Monsieur de Latour knew or would tell about Julie de Brésac,
but without success, until Monsieur de Latour, returning to the grand
saloon, squared himself off and said in a grandiose manner:
“My object in hurrying things up is that I may entertain as my guests
the Comtesse de Beauregard and her niece, Mademoiselle de Brésac, of
whom I spoke yesterday, and General Granier. You see, my young friend,
I am not without grand acquaintances.”
“Of course not,” replied Louis. “You have known me since yesterday.”
“I mean other than yourself.”
“And what did you say was the name of Madame de Beauregard’s
niece--Mademoiselle de Marsac?” asked Louis artlessly, meaning to throw
Monsieur de Latour off the scent.
“De Brésac. She is in the country, or in a convent, or at St. Malo, or
in Paris, or in half a dozen other places. I don’t know which. I could
not get any satisfactory information concerning her out of Madame de
Beauregard, and it seemed to exasperate her every time I asked about
Julie.”
Louis walked to the window.
“But she is coming to the chateau, is she not?” he asked, turning
around.
“Oh, yes! She is young and pretty, I understand, and I like youth
and beauty. The fact is, I have not yet made up my mind whether I
shall marry youth and beauty, age and rank, or”--remembering Séline
Cheri--“middle age and merit.”
“I know which I shall marry,” answered Louis stoutly. “Youth and
beauty, love and rapture, smiles and kisses.”
Monsieur de Latour then rose to go.
“I hope, my dear nephew-to-be,” he said, smiling, “that you will call
upon my niece, Mademoiselle Mélanie Dupont, who is shortly to become
your cousin. But although she has youth and beauty already, and kisses
and smiles in store, they are not for you, but for that very piously
inclined nephew of Madame de Beauregard, of whom I spoke--Eugène de
Contiac. I am afraid you would be too gay for my niece. She is, as
I mentioned, staying under the charge of Mademoiselle Cheri, my old
friend, at the Villa Rose. But don’t go to kissing and embracing them
as you do me.”
“Neither of them contemplates giving me three hundred thousand francs,”
interrupted Louis. “I insist that it shall be made a part of our
agreement that I shall be permitted to embrace you at least three times
a day. You can get your life insured, you know. I shall do myself the
honour and pleasure of calling this very afternoon upon Mademoiselle
Cheri and my cousin, Mademoiselle Mélanie, whom I shall be proud to
acknowledge as a relative.”
The arrangements took up all of the forenoon and much of the afternoon,
and instead of turning up at the Villa Rose punctually at five o’clock
for tea, as was his habit, Monsieur de Latour was, at that time, in the
telegraph office sending and receiving despatches concerning work on
the Chateau of Montplaisir.
But meanwhile Louis de Latour appeared at the villa to pay his respects
to the ladies, quite unconscious of a strange and fortuitous meeting
which was ahead of him.
A little before five o’clock Louis rang the bell of the villa, and
was ushered through a gateway into a beautiful garden at the back,
where, at their tea-table in a little grassy place almost surrounded by
ancient rose-trees in the last blooming of summer, Mademoiselle Cheri
and Mélanie received their guests in the afternoons. The air was soft
and fragrant with the late blown roses, and the sunlight in unclouded
splendour lay over land and sea. As Louis walked along the shady garden
path to where the tea-table stood, the graceful figure of a girl,
dressed modestly in black, was preceding him through the mazes of the
shrubbery. One look sufficed. It was Julie de Brésac. Louis felt a
shock of delight, rushed after her, and they met, unseen by other eyes,
in a sweet and odorous solitude formed by a circle of rose-trees. Louis
seized Julie’s hand, and she turned on him two sweet, dark eyes and a
charming face all dimpling with smiles. There was pure delight in her
glance.
“I did not expect to meet you here,” she said with pretty gravity,
seating herself on a garden-chair and arranging her black draperies
gracefully around her.
“And I did not expect to meet you here, mademoiselle,” answered
Louis in rapture. “I suppose you have come, as I have, to call upon
Mademoiselle Cheri and Mademoiselle Dupont, the niece of my benefactor,
Monsieur de Latour. O mademoiselle, what a budget I have to unpack for
you!”
“That will keep,” replied Julie hurriedly, raising her hand in a
warning gesture. “But you are not to know that I am here nor to
recognise me in the least, until we are introduced.”
What madcap prank had Julie now in her pretty head? thought Louis; for
Julie was a madcap and given to pranks, and those which did not come
of themselves into her head Madame de Beauregard was tolerably certain
to put there, and this Louis expressed in guarded language. Suddenly
it flashed upon him, the escapade which Julie proposed entering upon
with Monsieur de Latour, and Julie herself confirmed this by whispering
to him, as she opened her dainty black parasol so as to conceal her
laughing face:
“You know, I have never seen Monsieur de Latour, who is the trustee
of my property, but I happen to know that he has arrived at Dinard
with his niece, Mélanie, and my cousin Eugène adores that girl. I also
found out that Monsieur de Latour was advertising for a companion for
Mélanie; so it came into my head and that of my aunt that I would take
a look at my trustee without telling him who I am. So I have replied
to the advertisement, and I am here to-day to be inspected for the
position of companion.”
Julie said this with a dangerous demureness. Louis had discovered, in
those radiant days at Algiers, that Julie was never perfectly serious
unless she was bent on mischief.
“But, mademoiselle,” he said, “although Monsieur de Latour may not have
mentioned it in his advertisement, he wishes a serious and settled
person as companion, or rather chaperon, for Mademoiselle Mélanie.
That much I know, although I met Monsieur de Latour only yesterday
morning.”
“Am I not a serious and settled person?” asked Julie, tapping her
little shoe with the end of her parasol. “At least am I not as serious
and settled as you are?”
“Perhaps so, mademoiselle,” answered Louis, smiling. “I am afraid that
both of us are a little intoxicated with the new wine of life which we
are drinking.”
“At least,” promptly replied Julie, “I am twice as serious and settled
as my aunt.” And at this they both laughed.
“All I ask of you,” added Julie, with a sidelong glance which enforced
her request, “is that you will let me play my little part undiscovered.
It is no harm--how can it be? I simply want to amuse myself a little.
By the way, this is my first opportunity of congratulating you upon
coming into your inheritance.”
“I wish it were a better inheritance,” replied Louis, fixing his eyes,
bright with meaning, on Julie.
These two young souls, gay, affectionate, and exuberant by nature,
had from the beginning, established a perfect communication by glances
and unspoken words. Julie knew Louis to be her lover, and Louis felt
that the thought was far from unpleasing to Julie, and she understood
perfectly why he uttered this wish. He desired that his inheritance
should be more worthy of her.
“But,” he said, “I have had a great, a marvellous piece of good
fortune. Monsieur de Latour, you know, belongs, or thinks he belongs,
to my family. Very well--I am only too happy to have an honest,
hard-working soap-boiler among my relations. So Monsieur de Latour has
arranged to make me a gift of three hundred thousand francs and to
adopt me legally as his nephew. The papers will be prepared and will be
signed as soon as ready. And then there is another glorious possibility
in store for me. My Heaven-sent uncle tells me that you and Madame de
Beauregard may be induced to visit us at the chateau as soon as part of
it can be made habitable.”
“Then,” responded Julie softly, giving him another one of those lovely
sidelong glances into which she threw both archness and sentiment,
“even if I don’t succeed in playing this delightful trick on Monsieur
de Latour, I shall at least have--the pleasure----”
Here Julie stopped, smiling and blushing, and Louis, taking up the
thread, said delightedly:
“I shall have the joy of being under the same roof with you, at all
events, for a little time.”