"To-morrow."
"And Raoul?"
"Oh, Raoul must stay behind. It would displease my mother very much if
we took him. As it is--" He broke off and looked at her, and they both
laughed. "We will make some excuse. You need not tell her that you
know anything about that letter."
The excuse he made was that his wife had a great desire to go to Paris.
"And," he said, privately to his mother, "I may as well take the
opportunity of settling with this Lemaire. The fellow thinks he can
bully me."
"You could do it better alone, in my opinion," replied Mme. de
Beaudrillart, determinedly. "Nathalie ought to be very well content to
stay here. At any rate, take my advice, and keep the matter to
yourself. Your wife cannot be expected to look at the matter as we do;
she would naturally think that money might set matters right--perhaps
would want you to appeal to that terrible father. Imagine Monsieur
Bourget as your adviser!"
Leon cleared his throat. "She need know nothing," he said.
Mme. de Beaudrillart was more uneasy than she allowed. Faith in her son
could not obliterate the remembrance of past folly. She feared that
something, some handle, existed to account for this vile accusation, and
she dared not examine too closely into the when and where, lest fear
should be confirmed. She came down the next morning with dark rings
round heavy eyes to find Leon his old self--gay, careless. No letter
had come, and he was able to think with exhilaration of Paris, its
stifled charm reasserting itself, and old pleasures beckoning. The
picture shone with a brilliancy which swept away clouds, and his wife's
delight at having gained her rightful position helped his cheerfulness.
Claire looked at her with indignation, believing the happiness in her
eyes to belong only to joy at getting what apparently had been her
secret longing, a visit to Paris, and letting sharp words fly to show
that she understood this depravity.
"And we are to be trusted with Raoul!" she said.
Nathalie's face changed a little.
"If you will be so good," she said. "I hope he will not be naughty."
"I don't see why he should be more so than usual; but of course since
you persuaded Leon to overlook Jean Charpentier's untrustworthiness,
there is no knowing what he may not do."
"Raoul has promised that he will not go to the river by himself."
"Promised! That baby!"
"He will not break his word," said Nathalie, quietly, and for once Mme.
de Beaudrillart nodded approval.
"No. He is a true Beaudrillart," she said, and Claire stopped sparring,
content with this thrust.
When the two had gone, she reflected for some time as to what mystery
had carried them off. Her life was emptier than that of Felicie--who,
indeed, had a conviction that she was a most busy person--for Claire
hated fancy-work, and despised the small fripperies which more than
satisfied her sister. She had the appetite of intellect, with nothing
to feed it on, and a love of power in a very contracted realm. Her
single life left her harder than her mother, and she was more irritable,
though this was perhaps owing to a penetrating knowledge of herself. A
Frenchwoman in the provinces, with her tastes, and no means of
satisfying them, may have a very dull time of it indeed. She meets with
little sympathy from her friends, and it is still a reproach to speak of
a woman as taking an independent line of her own, though that line may
really be absolutely harmless. If Claire could have brought herself to
make a companion of her sister-in-law, to borrow her books, or to
discuss them with her, life would have had real interests for her; as it
was, pride checked her, and she grew more rigid from bringing her will
to bear upon petty and indifferent objects--such, for instance, as the
thwarting of Nathalie. She detested M. Bourget, in whom she read
possibilities of insolent opposition. She could not bring herself to
drive in Nathalie's pony-carriage, although she would have gladly hailed
the variety of an hour or two in Tours, and for this reason Felicie went
there alone, Mme. de Beaudrillart refusing to allow Raoul to accompany
her.
She came back in high spirits, with rolls of pink paper for the roses,
and several small pieces of news which she was an adept in picking up,
and which were very welcome at the chateau.
"Monsieur Darville is to be the new magistrate, and he is already
engaged to Mademoiselle Silvestre. Imagine, that little creature! And
who do you think I saw at the door of Lafon's shop? Monsieur Georges.
He came up to me, and inquired for Leon and for all."
"He might have contented himself with a bow, I think," said her mother,
displeased.
"Oh, I assure you, mamma, he was quite respectful in his manner. I
think he would very much like to see Poissy again."
"Not improbably. He would find matters in a different train than when
he left it."
Claire put in, "But, after all, Leon has only done what Monsieur
George's always wished him to do. Leon is so changed!"
"And what has changed him! Realising what Monsieur Georges never had
the energy to impress upon him. No. He is an incapable, as I have said
from the first."
"And did you see Monsieur Bourget!"
Felicie pursed her lips.
"Yes, there he was, the dreadful man, planted on the pavement and
staring! I suppose he was surprised not to see Nathalie, for his eyes
opened like round saucers. I told Francis to drive very quickly."
It was true, as she divined, that M. Bourget was astonished to see the
carriage without his daughter. But as the day for her weekly visit had
not come round, he was not uneasy until this arrived and passed without
tidings of her. Then, indeed, there was a wrangling match between
indignation and anxiety. He vowed that she was neglecting him, as a
means of keeping off the fretting fear that something had happened to
Raoul. The photograph of Poissy, interrogated, looked gloomily
suggestive; for the first time in his life he turned away from it
angrily. At the cafe he browbeat the waiters, and sat so silent and
sullen that his acquaintances did not venture to approach him, chafing
him the more by holding aloof.
The slight cause he had for anxiety made him ashamed to admit it.
At last, one morning a letter from Nathalie gave an added fright, until
he caught sight of the postmark Paris, and stared at it in grumbling
bewilderment. What on earth had carried them there all of a sudden, and
if the boy was gone, how came it that he had not been told? But opening
the letter, its first sentences caught his breath away, and left him
staring, a pallid image of himself. A rush of blood to the head
followed. "What is the girl dreaming about?" Finally a laugh broke
out, a hoarse foolish laugh, the sound of which amazed him. Was he mad?
It was a more likely explanation than that the letter spoke truth.
But if he were mad, he was sane enough to perceive that he must come
back to his senses, and that quickly. He took the letter and read it
through, frowning. The same words stared at him. They were not the
delusion of madness.
He stood up, uttering a sound like a choked roar. The passion which had
rushed uppermost was rage. That such an accusation should be possible,
that a man should dare to utter such--such blasphemy against the honour
of the De Beaudrillarts was monstrous, a disgrace to the civilised
world! It was the insult which inflamed him. M. de Beaudrillart could
of course clear himself and punish the slanderer. But what could wipe
out insult?
His first impulse was to fling himself into the train and go to Paris,
with some unformed notion of shaking the truth out of the infamous
accuser. Then he felt as if it were to Poissy that he must hasten.
Vague thoughts, vague fears, floated in his brain, kept down by his
resolve not to allow them to take shape. His breath came quickly, his
chest heaved, he looked vainly round for something or some one on whom
he could vent the storm which oppressed him; if Leroux had presented
himself, he might have half-killed him, by way of relief. No one was in
the house with him except old Fanchon, who was deaf, and occupied in
preparing an omelette for his breakfast. Deaf as she was, she heard the
door bang, for it shook the house, and running to look out, saw M.
Bourget descending the street like a whirlwind.
On another occasion, if anything had taken him to Poissy, his legs would
have carried him; but impatience drove him so fiercely that he hailed
the first carriage he saw, to the amazement of the driven, who knew M.
Bourget well enough to comprehend that such an event was unprecedented.
"To Poissy, monsieur!" he repeated, open-eyed.
"To Poissy, imbecile!" thundered his fare. "Have you, by chance, ever
heard of Poissy? Does it perhaps not exist in the neighbourhood, or
have I fallen upon a horse with three legs that cannot go beyond the
street?"
"The horse can go well enough," muttered the man, climbing up on his
seat. "But heard ever any one of the miserly old bourgeois taking a
carriage for his pleasure!"
If he hoped that the rarity of the proceeding would induce M. Bourget
to take his drive leisurely he was mistaken. He was stormed at, urged
on, and arrived at Poissy almost as hot as his horse, not daring to
grumble at the smallness of the pourboire, lest this terrible M.
Bourget should have his licence revoked.
The ex-builder flung himself from the carriage, and pushed by Rose-Marie
into the hall. Raoul, at work there, rushed at his grandfather with a
welcoming shout. For the first time that day M. Bourget spoke gently.
"There, there, my boy, by-and-by, by-and-by. Now I am going to speak to
madame your grandmother."
Already he breathed more freely. The sight of Poissy, standing as
solidly and as fair as ever, reassured him. The hideous thing of which
he had heard was whipped by scorn into the regions of the impossible.
Raoul, fresh, mischievous, enchanting, Raoul alone, flung denial after
it. Everything stood as he had seen it last. He went up the staircase
half ashamed of the impulse which had brought him. But when Rose-Marie
had opened the door, and he saw Mme. de Beaudrillart standing in the
centre of the room, upright, rigid, a figure stiffened into stone, the
panic seized him again. The door closed behind him, the two stood
facing each other. It was she who spoke first.
"From your presence here, monsieur, I gather that you have heard from
Madame Leon of the--the extraordinary attack which has been made upon my
son."
Even at this moment M. Bourget was impressed by the haughty coolness of
her bearing. Not a movement, not a look, showed fear. He said,
briefly:
"She wrote to me this morning."
"Ah, so I imagined. It was natural, though I could have wished the
affair had not been mentioned out of our own family."
M. Bourget's square figure seemed to gain unusual dignity. He said,
respectfully:
"Pardon, madame. You forget that although I have no desire to force the
fact upon you, we both belong to the same family. What concerns the
husband of my daughter, concerns me. But it appears to me there are
more important matters to discuss. I am not sure that I know all the
facts. Would it displease you if I repeated what seems clear!"
She motioned him to a seat, and sat down herself abruptly.
"What I make out, then," said M. Bourget, leaning forward, and fixing
his eyes on his own broad hands, "is that some Monsieur Lemaire, of whom
I know nothing--" he paused, questioningly, but as she remained silent,
went on--"the principal inheritor of the wealth of the defunct count,
Monsieur de Cadanet, brings an accusation against Baron Leon of having
opened a letter intended for him, Lemaire, by Monsieur de Cadanet, and
of having extracted the sum of two hundred thousand francs. That is all
I know, madame, and, on the face of it, it appears a most egregious
accusation."