THE WIDOW OF A MINISTER OF FINANCE.
"You are just in time, Arbuthnot, to do me a service," said Dalrymple,
looking up from his desk as I went in, and reaching out his hand to me
over a barricade of books and papers.
"Then I am very glad I have come," I replied. "But what confusion is
this? Are you going anywhere?"
"Yes--to perdition. There, kick that rubbish out of your way and sit
down."
Never very orderly, Dalrymple's rooms were this time in as terrible a
litter as can well be conceived. The table was piled high with bills,
old letters, books, cigars, gloves, card-cases, and pamphlets. The
carpet was strewn with portmanteaus, hat-cases, travelling-straps, old
luggage labels, railway wrappers, and the like. The chairs and sofas
were laden with wearing apparel. As for Dalrymple himself, he looked
haggard and weary, as though the last four weeks had laid four years
upon his shoulders.
"You look ill," I said clearing a corner of the sofa for my own
accommodation; "or _ennuyé_, which is much the same thing. What is the
matter? And what can I do for you?"
"The matter is that I am going abroad," said he, with his chin resting
moodily in his two palms and his elbows on the table.
"Going abroad! Where?"
"I don't know--
'Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world.'
It's of very little consequence whether I betake myself to the East or
to the West; eat rice in the tropics, or drink train-oil at the Pole."
"But have you no settled projects?"
"None whatever."
"And don't care what becomes of you?"
"Not in the least."
"Then, in Heaven's name, what has happened?"
"The very thing that, three weeks ago, would have made me the happiest
fellow in Christendom. What are you going to do to-morrow?"
"Nothing, beyond my ordinary routine of medical study."
"Humph! Could you get a whole holiday, for once?"
I remembered how many I had taken of late, and felt ashamed of the
readiness with which I replied:--
"Oh yes! easily."
"Well, then, I want you to spend the day with me. It will be, perhaps,
my last in Paris for many a month, or even many a year. I ... Pshaw! I
may as well say it, and have done with it. I am going to be married."
"Married!" I exclaimed, in blank amazement; for it was the last thing I
should have guessed.
Dalrymple tugged away at his moustache with both hands, as was his habit
when perplexed or troubled, and nodded gloomily. "To whom?"
"To Madame de Courcelles."
"And are you not very happy?"
"Happy! I am the most miserable dog unhanged?"
I was more at fault now than ever.
"I ... judging from trifles which some would perhaps scarcely have
observed," I said, hesitatingly, "I--I thought you were interested in
Madame de Courcelles?"
"Interested!" cried he, pushing back his chair and springing to his
feet, as if the word had stung him. "By heaven! I love that woman as I
never loved in my life."
"Then why ..."
"I'll tell you why--or, at least, I will tell you as much as I may--as I
can; for the affair is hers, and not mine. She has a cousin--curse
him!--to whom she was betrothed from childhood. His estates adjoined
hers; family interests were concerned in their union; and the parents on
both sides arranged matters. When, however, Monsieur de Courcelles fell
in love with her--a man much older than herself, but possessed of great
wealth and immense political influence--her father did not hesitate to
send the cousin to the deuce and marry his daughter to the Minister of
Finance. The cousin, it seems, was then a wild young fellow; not
particularly in love with her himself; and not at all inconsolable for
her loss. When, however, Monsieur de Courcelles was good enough to die
(which he had the bad taste to do very hastily, and without making, by
any means, the splendid provision for his widow which he had promised),
our friend, the cousin, comes forward again. By this time he is enough
man of the world to appreciate the value of land--more especially as he
has sold, mortgaged, played the mischief with nearly every acre of his
own. He pleads the old engagement, and, as he is pleased to call it, the
old love. Madame de Courcelles is a young widow, very solitary, with no
one to love, no object to live for, and no experience of the world. Her
pity is easily awaked; and the result is that she not only accepts the
cousin, but lends him large sums of money; suffers the title-deeds of
her estates to go into the hands of his lawyer; and is formally
betrothed to him before the eyes of all Paris!"
"Who is this man? Where is he?" I asked, eagerly.
"He is an officer of Chasseurs, now serving with his regiment in
Algiers--a daring, dashing, reckless fellow; heartless and dissipated
enough; but a splendid soldier. However, having committed her property
to his hands, and suffered her name to be associated publicly with his,
Madame de Courcelles, during his absence in Algiers, has done me the
honor to prefer me. I have the first real love of her life, and the
short and long of it is, that we are to be privately married to-morrow."
"And why privately?"
"Ah, there's the pity of it! There's the disappointment and the
bitterness!"
"Can't Madame de Courcelles write and tell this man that she loves
somebody else better?"
"Confound it! no. The fellow has her too much in his power, and, if he
chose to be dishonest, could half ruin her. At all events she is afraid
of him; and I ... I am as helpless as a child in the matter. If I were a
rich man, I would snap my fingers at him; but how can I, with a paltry
eight hundred a year, provide for that woman? Pshaw! If I could but
settle it with a pair of hair-triggers and twenty paces of turf, I'd
leave little work for the lawyers!"
"Well, then, what is to be done?"
"Only this," replied he, striding impatiently to and fro, like a caged
lion; "I must just bear with my helplessness, and leave the remedy to
those who can oppose skill to skill, and lawyer to lawyer."
"At all events, you marry the lady."
"Ay--I marry the lady; but I start to-morrow night for Berlin, _en
route_ for anywhere that chance may lead me."
"Without her?"
"Without her. Do you suppose that I would stay in Paris--her
husband--and live apart from her? Meet her, like an ordinary
acquaintance? See others admiring her? Be content to lounge in and out
of her _soirées_, or ride beside her carriage now and then, as you or
fifty others might do? Perhaps, have even to endure the presence of De
Caylus himself? _Merci_! Any number of miles, whether of land or sea,
were better than a martyrdom like that!"
"De Caylus!" I repeated. "Where have I heard that name?"
"You may have heard of it in a hundred places," replied my friend. "As I
said before, the man is a gallant soldier, and does gallant things. But
to return to the present question--may I depend on you to-morrow? For we
must have a witness, and our witness must be both discreet and silent."
"On my silence and discretion you may rely absolutely."
"And you can be here by nine?"
"By daybreak, if you please."
"I won't tax you to that extent. Nine will do quite well."
"Adieu, then, till nine."
"Adieu, and thank you."
With this I left him, somewhat relieved to find that I had escaped all
cross-examination on the score of Madame Marignan.
"De Caylus!" I again repeated to myself, as I took my rapid way to the
Hotel Dieu. "De Caylus! why, surely, it must have been that evening at
Madame de Courcelles'...."
And then I recollected that De Caylus was the name of that officer who
was said to have ridden by night, and single-handed, through the heart
of the enemy's camp, somewhere in Algiers.