DOMESTIC COOKERY.
That Clovis should have thought proper to leave Lorge without notice,
or any hint of his intentions, was not a subject for vexation now to
Gabrielle. She saw the carriage disappear round the corner with a
valet and a valise in the rumble, and the eyes of the occupant fixed
steadily upon the postilion. No smile, or nod, or wave of a hand for
her to whom he owed so much. She could contemplate him now without a
wince or heartache, as calmly as we examine uncanny specimens of
beetledom in a glass case. She prayed Heaven that her son, the dear
Victor, should not grow up too like his father. One good point about
the marquis's going was that he was separated from that woman. Then
she began to wonder a little that he should have prematurely torn
himself away before the moment of her flitting. That was good. Perhaps
he had acted thus on purpose to keep up the show of appearances which
all agreed was to be maintained. Be that as it might, it was not
probable that the woman would linger on in a false position--_pour les
beaux yeux de l'abbe_--and so the chatelaine, sitting with the dear
ones in the moat garden, was prepared at any moment to witness the
departure of another carriage. And after that? Would Clovis return
when the coast was clear, or remain at a distance in dudgeon, leaving
her to the tender mercies of his brothers? What then? She had given
way, or seemed to do so, for peace' sake. They could require no more
of her, and would doubtless respect her seclusion. It was curious to
think though of the whimsicality of the situation. She, Gabrielle de
Gange, erstwhile the reigning belle, with all at her feet that the
world had to give, was living now with unruffled equanimity under the
same roof as sheltered the man whom she had learned to look on as a
devil.
It was October, and the leaves were circling over the grass in
whispering eddies. The mournful days of late autumn have a charm of
their own, as nature still peeps forth half-chilled from under the
closing slab of the tomb. The monotony of mundane existence is in tune
with the scene, and as all that is pleasant of the year slowly
vanishes, we dream and moralize in a regretful way, which is not
discontent.
Nature is dying, but will live again anon. Ah! what of us who gaze
ahead striving to peer into the unknown? Have we not learned to know
too well that the Future is the grave in which all our poor puny
ambitions are to lie, never to arise any more, and yet we would fain
examine the resting-place where Hope is to play chief mourner! Most of
us who have reached middle age have had ambition crushed out of us
long since, and we can smile with quiet amusement at the vaulting
aspirations of our youth.
Gabrielle, while tranquilly embroidering, was not averse to recalling
the past, summoning on the disc of memory the pageants of Versailles,
the innocent bucolics of Trianon, the magnificent fetes at the
Tuileries. Where were all the gaily gilded puppets now? The Tuileries
was a Golgotha, Trianon a nest for owls. The lovely Lamballe had been
hacked to pieces by demons; their majesties were doing gruesome
penance for the sins of others; even the saintly and immaculate
Elizabeth, one of the purest and noblest women who ever trod the
earth, was also enduring long-drawn and excruciating pangs of
martyrdom.
Laying down her embroidery as she reviewed these things, Gabrielle
would clasp her hands behind her head, and marvel, as others in
similarly incongruous situations have done, whether Providence is not
a myth. Every fibre of the human soul revolts against the monstrous
doctrine that the innocent shall suffer for the guilty, and yet every
day we see that it obtains, and always has obtained from the time of
Adam downwards. Such gloomy reflections should not perplex young and
pretty heads, and yet the marquise was unable to conquer melancholy.
Perhaps it was induced by the season, perhaps by the germs of illness.
She must have dreamed too long in the moat garden without being
provided with sufficient wraps. Certainly she had caught a chill, for
when Toinon brought her as usual her morning chocolate, a few days
after the marquis's departure, she found her shivering and feverish,
with chattering teeth and laboured breath. Drawing aside the heavy
curtains of the ancestral bed, Toinon gazed long and anxiously at her
mistress, who said, turning impatiently, "You stare as if I were a
ghost!"
"Madame thinks she has caught cold?" Toinon agreed quietly. "Madame
was always too fond of sitting in the open air."
"I knew I was going to be unwell," her mistress observed drowsily,
"for last night I could scarce touch my supper. When the palate is
affected, things taste quite differently. The good Bertrand sent up
some of my favourite cakes, as light as if made by fairies, and
somehow they seemed quite coppery. Do something, Toinon; give them to
your dog, for the dish is scarcely touched, and I would not have
Bertrand think I am ungrateful."
"And you were always so partial to those cakes!" drily remarked
Toinon, with a peculiar smile. "Yes, I will give them to the dog."
"First make me some tisane," entreated Gabrielle. "I am languid and
feverish, and my throat is parched and burning."
Toinon slowly shook her head and went straight into the adjoining
boudoir, where the light refection described as supper was always laid
out on a low table. Her movement was so abrupt that had she not been
much preoccupied, she could not have failed to perceive the whisk of a
black coat-tail, as it disappeared into the long saloon. Had she
opened the door four minutes earlier, she would have seen a dapper
figure clad in black leaning over the plate that held the
confectionery, and have heard a soft voice mutter, "Only half a cake.
It must have had a peculiar taste."
As it was, Toinon saw nothing of this, but finding the room empty,
moved swiftly to the tray, took up a cake and smelt it. A thin, pale
face was watching her through a door-chink with gleaming eyes.
She again shook her head, and murmuring, "Can they be so wicked?"
carried the plate away.
Along the corridor she sped, and down the stairs, unconscious of a
dark shadow moving noiselessly, till she reached her own apartment. At
sound of the well-known footstep, an animal within, hitherto
quiescent, began to whine and yelp, and beat itself against the door.
"Patience, patience--poor hound," Toinon said aloud. "Is it wise to be
in so great a hurry? Even now, I cannot believe it!"
She turned the handle and the boisterous dog dashed the plate from her
hand with its great paws. She picked up two of the cakes which had
remained whole, and with the same peculiar smile of meaning she had
worn above, watched the hound as he ravenously devoured the fragments.
There was still a piece left--a large one--and she pushed it towards
him with her foot.
"Poor dog! Forgive me, Jean," she said, "if what I think is true."
The shadow without gazed in on the scene with craning neck. "She
suspects," the abbe muttered. "What will she do with the others?"
As though in direct answer to the question, Toinon turned rapidly from
the animal which she had been eyeing with a suspicious frown, and
carefully taking up the remaining pieces of confectionery wrapped them
in paper. Then she stood stroking her chin irresolute. The dog
approached and wagged his tail, rubbing his muzzle in her hand, as his
way was when he wanted something. "What is it, poor fellow?" she
enquired, stroking his head. "Water! I thought as much!" Filling a
basin, she placed it on the floor, and the dog drank eagerly till the
last drop was drained, then curled himself up to sleep.
Starting, the abigail took up the parcel, went to a cupboard, selected
a bottle from a row and mixed some of its contents with water.
"Mustard," murmured the abbe, slinking into the shade. "That stupid
woman said there was no especial taste. See what it is to have to deal
with bunglers."
Wearing his most unpleasant scowl, and grinding his sharp teeth, he
stole along the corridor, and moving up a step or two turned and came
down again humming a blythesome stave, just as Toinon appeared at the
bottom, holding the parcel and a glass.
"Our pretty Toinon is vastly occupied," he laughed, merrily. "But for
fear of the stalwart arm of burly Jean, I would steal a kiss from
those sweet lips."
"Maybe you will feel that arm sooner than you expect," she said,
scarce able to steady her voice; "make way, and if you dare to touch
me, I will spit in your villain's face."
This was clearly not the moment for persiflage, so with a careless
shrug of indulgence for the coarse manners of the lower classes, the
abbe stood aside. "What a dear darling little vixen," he shouted up
the stairs. "I pity poor Jean Boulot, despite his thews and sinews."
The first attempt was a failure, an egregiously contemptible and
inartistic failure, and all due to that inveterate bungler. Had not
mademoiselle's coadjutor suggested that liquid is preferable to solid,
for the purpose they both had at heart, since you only munch a
biscuit, whereas you take a preliminary sip at a liquid and then, your
mouth feeling a trifle dry, take a longer gulp before remarking that
the taste is peculiar? And the execrable Algae had insisted on the
cakes, declaring that if you are fond of a particular cake, you will
indulge in several before any little peculiarity can manifest itself.
And the fool--the hopelessly obstinate and self-sufficient idiot--had
perpetrated another bungle, a worse one than before, since Gabrielle
had only bitten into one of her favourites, while the others had been
gobbled by the dog. The dog would die; no doubt of it, and Toinon's
suspicions would be justified. What would she do with that tell-tale
parcel? An extremely awkward mistake of mademoiselle's. There was one
way out of the dilemma. The abbe must be taken ill as well as the lady
of the house; complain of a taste of copper, make an outcry in the
kitchen, and discover that the careless cook had spread his materials
upon a copper-plate that had not been cleared of verdigris.
Toinon was busy all day with her mistress, whom she found in a half
lethargy, with burning palms and widely distended pupils. She had some
ado to force the mustard down her throat; but, this done, she soon had
the pleasure of seeing the patient revive. By evening, Gabrielle was
calm, but exhausted, and when Toinon descended to the kitchen to fetch
some bouillon (which Bertrand would have first to taste) she was
astonished to hear that the abbe was screaming with agony, kicking in
frightful convulsions.
Toinon smiled her peculiar smile again, and uttered a few common-place
words of sympathy.
"Badly played," she said to herself, "he might as well have bethought
him that the symptoms should be lethargy and coma."
M. Bertrand, the cook, was in high dudgeon. How dared anybody hint
that he had poisoned madame's biscuits? It was all owing to that oaf
of a scullion, who had laid the large square copper-plate on the
confectionery table, without remembering that it had been unused for a
week. Was he, a _cordon bleu_, a chef _de premier caliber_, to be
blamed for the stupidity of a scullion? He would be expected to clean
his own saucepans next. When the marquis returned--who always
appreciated efforts to please--he would give warning and leave this
_sale maison_, which was only fit for cockroaches and rats.
"Go back to Paris!" gibed Toinon. "Safer where you are, believe me. A
chef with so splendid a reputation for pampering the palates of the
gangrened aristocracy, would surely be strung up to a lantern! This
bouillon looks excellent," she added saucily; "but M. Bertrand will be
good enough to sip two spoonfuls, lest the scullion should have dipped
his fingers in it."
Next day, thanks to Toinon's vigilant solicitude, the marquise was
sufficiently recovered to sit at her embroidery as usual. Holding out
a hand to the abigail while tears rose to the eyes of both, "My
sister," she said, "it is worth while to be a little ill just to learn
how much we are beloved."
Alas! beloved! Poor lady. Hated by four persons without consciences,
who were panting and thirsting for her death! A target for poisoned
arrows!
After sagely considering the matter, Toinon made up her mind that if
she did not interfere, she might become in some sort an accessary to a
tragedy. In whom was faith to be placed? Honest Jean? What could he
do, if he were to come, in the face of such diabolical ingenuity? He
would learn that his favourite dog--companion of many trudgings
through the woods at all times and seasons--had died of poisoned
cakes. But then was it not admitted in the household, that the abbe as
well as the marquise had accidentally partaken, and that the abbe of
the two had been the most sick? Had not varlets and kitchen wenches
cowered and clung together at sound of his piercing screams? He was
well again, for he had had the presence of mind to swallow mustard.
The marquise had recovered, thanks to a like precaution. Toinon had
been cunning enough to keep two cakes which, when the time came should
be examined, and if the abbe were foolish enough to declare that he
had been poisoned by similar articles, it would be easy to prove that
his agonies were sham, as they were not the natural results of such a
poison as had been administered to Gabrielle.
Meanwhile, something must be done, and the question that troubled
Toinon was what that something was to be. At last she made up her mind
and broke the ice.
"Will madame pardon me for what may appear an act of presumption," she
inquired, gently rearranging the wraps about the invalid. "I have
taken something on myself which may anger madame, who will, I know,
believe that if I was guilty of an error it was made through excess of
zeal."
There was a pause, unbroken by Gabrielle, who glanced at her
foster-sister with a wan and wearied look that was full of pathos.
Presently she raised the fingers of the waiting maid to her face, and
stroked her cheek with them.
"What is this grand effort of the intellect?" she asked, cheerily. "I
know it is something well intentioned."
"I have written a letter in madame's name and sent it off by special
courier."
"Not to the marquis?" cried Gabrielle, the colour flushing over her
face and neck.
Poor soul! The marquis! Much good would it be to write to him, unless
to request him to order a coffin.
"No," Toinon said, quietly. "It cuts me to the heart to see madame so
solitary, and during a convalescence too, a time when we always brood
and consider the least pleasant subjects. I have written to the
Marechale de Breze, stating that you have been ill, but are out of
danger, and would be glad of a visit from your mother."
Gabrielle remained thoughtful, still stroking Toinon's fingers. Why
not? The marechale owed a visit, and the absence of her husband on
business would account for the seclusion of his wife. Moreover, it
would be a splendid thing to lure the old dame from dangerous Paris,
where Mother Guillotine was commencing to display a Catholic taste in
the way of food. Yes; from all points of view it was an admirable idea
to induce Madame de Breze to visit Lorge. Why! it was a thousand years
at least since she had set eyes upon the darlings! Her own and only
grandchildren! How shockingly reprehensible. How she would joy in
marking each trait of genius, and how proud their mother would be to
show how cultured were their minds! The marechale's mind was
considerably less stored than her daughter's, but she would appreciate
with greater awe the progress of their climb up Parnassus. Did they
not write each other poems and moral essays, after the manner of the
Scuderi, and of the encyclopaedist ladies!--such prodigiously clever
verses, and such heavenly prose sermons! The more she considered it
the more enchanted was she that Toinon should have taken this move
upon herself. Had it been left to her, she would have doubted, have
written a dozen letters only to tear them up, weighing in that tender
and over-scrupulous conscience of hers whether it was right or wrong
to drag an old lady to the wilds of Touraine at such a troublous
moment. She would have considered whether it was not her duty to have
unselfishly exhorted the ancient dame never to stir out of her modest
abode; never even to open her window, lest by the act she should be
drawn into the maw of Mother Guillotine.
The more she thought over it the more delighted was she with the idea,
and, opening her arms, clasped Toinon to her breast.
"My dear, my dear," she murmured, fondly, "what should I do without
you? Let the dear mother come. Together we will make her welcome."