asked us what we liked they could not have suited us better!"
"There's just a crumb of dust on the furniture," said the gardener, "but
you understand--when a house ain't occupied, the dust collects in a
jiffy! I come here every day myself to feed the hens and rabbits, but
you can understand that I don't have time to clean the rooms."
"What! are there hens and rabbits here, too?"
"To be sure! Monsieur Courtivaux was very fond of rabbits; he used to
have one killed every week to eat."
"That's a curious way of loving animals!" said Madame Dalmont; "for my
part, I could never make up my mind to kill a poor creature that I had
fondled."
"Oh! nor I to eat one!" said Agathe.
"And then I am not wild for rabbit as food; and so, Monsieur Ledrux, if
I buy the house, I will begin by making you a present of all there are
here."
The peasant seemed greatly pleased by that promise; he put his hand to a
little round hat which had lost both its color and its brim, and which
did duty as a cap, and murmured:
"Madame is very good; I won't refuse 'em. Bless me! there's two females
that breed; but still, if you don't like rabbit, I can understand your
getting rid of 'em. They smell bad in the first place, and they ruin
everything if you're unlucky enough to let 'em get into the garden. My
word! what a wreck!--And what about the hens? if madame don't like them
any better, I could take care of them too; they ain't very clean, the
little devils; they go pecking round everywhere."
"Oh! hens are very different," said Honorine; "they give one fresh eggs,
which are always very pleasant."
"Besides, it must be such fun to hunt for the eggs--to see if there are
many of them. I'll take care of the hens, my dear friend. And then, they
don't kill those poor creatures."
"Oh! yes they do; there's folks who fix 'em up with rice or little
onions; and they're good too. And then you sometimes have some that
won't lay or that fight with the others; them you don't keep--you eat
'em!"
"Ah! Monsieur Ledrux, you are very pitiless to everything that can be
eaten! However, we will see, and when one of our hens maltreats her
companions, why, you shall carry her off, that's all; but I don't
propose to have any inhabitant of my poultry yard killed on my
premises."
"All right; if that's your idea, never fear, I'll carry off the poor
layers; madame can do as she pleases. Well, well! here I am saying
'madame' and 'mademoiselle'; but it seems to me that you can't be mother
and daughter; one of you's too young, and the other too old."
"That's so, it would be hard; but Agathe is only my friend. I am a
widow; I have no--I have no child of my own; we two are all alone."
"Do you think of living here all the year round if you should buy the
house?"
"Yes, to be sure, all the year; we shall settle down here."
"Well, I tell you, that'll suit me. Two nice little women in the
place--they brighten things up, and they're pleasant to look at."
"Let us finish inspecting the house."
On the ground floor there were, besides the salon, a beautiful
dining-room, pantry, bath-room and kitchen.
On the first floor there were four pleasant bedrooms and two
dressing-rooms; above that, two servants'-rooms and a loft.
The whole house was furnished very comfortably.
Agathe jumped for joy as they entered each room.
"Look," she cried, "this will be your room, Honorine; see how
comfortable you will be here. There's a nice little dressing-room
connected with it, and such a view! Oh! do come and look out of the
window, my dear friend; it's magnificent! What a glorious panorama! how
far you can see! and when everything is green, when these fields are
studded with flowers, oh! how lovely it must be! Below us, on this side,
there's a little yard, and beyond is the garden, isn't it, monsieur?"
"Yes, mamzelle, that's the garden, and a well-kept garden too, I flatter
myself; and there'll be plenty of fruit this year! if we don't have a
miserable frost during the April moon."
"Well, let us go to see the garden," said Honorine, "so far, I like the
house very much."
They left the house at the rear by a door opening into a small yard.
There were the outhouses, the hencoop and the rabbit-hutches. A lattice
separated the yard from the garden, which was about a third of an acre
in extent and prettily laid out.
Agathe's joyous exclamations redoubled at each arbor, each clump of
shrubbery, but her enthusiasm reached its height when, at the end of a
path, she spied a mound on which was a pretty little summer-house,
standing at a corner of the garden wall. The slope leading to the
summer-house was bordered by eglantine and honeysuckle. The building had
three windows from which there was an extensive view of the surrounding
country; for, as we have said, Chelles stood on a hill and overlooked
its whole neighborhood.
"Oh! we'll come here very often!" cried Agathe; "we'll sit at the window
and work, won't we, Honorine?"
"Yes, I like this place extremely, I confess. What perfect tranquillity
one must enjoy here!"
"And in addition it's sure to be very cool in summer, because of these
tall lindens all about. It's a lovely place to come to indulge in a chat
and to drink a glass with a friend."
Honorine smiled as she replied:
"We shall hardly come here to drink a glass perhaps; but we may
breakfast here sometimes and bring our work here very often. Yes, in two
months I should think that this view would be very lovely."
"Oh! in another month the lilacs and syringas will begin to put out
leaves," said Ledrux. "And then by that time you'll be having lilies of
the valley and violets and tulips and narcissus and hyacinths; there's
plenty of them in the garden. You can smell 'em when you walk here.--On
the whole, the house pleases you, don't it?"
"Yes, very much; and you too, eh, Agathe?"
"Oh! my dear friend, I am enchanted with it; I would like to stay here
now, and not go back to Paris at all! This place seems like a little
paradise."
"I suppose they've told you the price Monsieur Courtivaux asks--twenty
thousand francs?--But, bless me! very likely he'll take off a little
something."
"Yes, we saw his agent. We shall see him again to-morrow to close the
bargain."
"Oh! yes, my dear; we mustn't wait till the house is sold to someone
else."
"Look you," said the gardener; "as long as this place suits you and
you're going to give me the rabbits, if anybody else should come to look
at the house these next few days, I'll just tell 'em right out that it's
sold; then they won't try to buy it. Ha! ha! Bless my soul! we must be a
little sly and help each other a bit."
"Thanks, Père Ledrux, and when we are living here, you must come now and
then to look after our garden, trim our trees, and----"
"Pardi! just as often as you say; I shall be at your service, if you pay
me! that's my business! Oh! we can settle about that. I ain't stiff
myself; when people treat me well, I do the same by them!"
Honorine, who had been looking out over the country, turned to her young
friend and said:
"Yes, this house pleases me as much as it does you, Agathe; there is
only one reason that might prevent our taking it."
"What is that, my dear?"
"That it is rather isolated, rather far away from other houses; and we
are two lone women--Suppose we should be attacked here, who would there
be to defend us?"
"Oh! upon my word! Are you so timid as that, Honorine?"
"Without being very timid, I am not very brave."
"Somebody attack you--here at Chelles!" cried Père Ledrux with a laugh.
"Well, that is a good one, on my word! As if there was any brigands in
this region! In the first place, they won't steal your rabbits, for you
give 'em to me. That's the only thing that does get stolen now and then;
oh! yes, there's the hens. But you mustn't let 'em go out. It's a
nuisance. But when you come to everything else, there ain't the least
danger. This house is on the edge of the open country, to be sure, but
there's some very nice places out in the country itself. Look; do you
see over here to your right, beyond the mill; it's quite a longish way,
on the other side of the Marne; but when the sun's shining on it, you
can see it quite plain. First, there's the little village of Gournay,
where you go to get _matelotes_. The fish is fresh, they catch it before
your eyes. Then, farther on, where the land rises, is Noisy-le-Grand. Do
you see, over in that direction, a big square house, with terraced
grounds? there's a little tower that stands by itself in one corner,
with a lightning rod. You can't see the lightning rod from here, but if
you've got good eyes, you ought to see the tower."
"Yes, I can see it," said Agathe; "the house is like a little château.
To whom does it belong?"
"Who does it belong to? Well, we know and we don't know. That is to say,
no one knows much about who the man is that owns it; to tell the truth,
there's two masters to that place--a man and a dog!"
"What do you say? a dog owns that great house? Why, then it must be a
dog after the pattern of Puss in Boots."
"Puss in Boots? I say, who's he? I never saw him."
"Come, Monsieur Ledrux, tell us what you mean. Who lives in that house
with a tower?"
"A very strange kind of man, and his dog. And the master's so fond of
his dog, and the beast is so fond of his master, that they're just like
two friends, who both do exactly what the other wants him to. When the
dog happens to want to go in one direction, why then the master goes in
that direction; he lets the animal lead him. And it seems that it's a
good thing for him that he does, because the beast is so uncommon
intelligent that no one ever saw his like; so that--But who's that going
along the road yonder? I believe it's Doctor Antoine Beaubichon.--I beg
pardon, excuse me, mesdames, but someone gave me a message for him, and
I must find out if he's got it. I'll go out by the little gate yonder,
that opens into the road, and I'll come right back. But I must find out
whether the doctor's been told to go to Gournay to see the wine-dealer's
sick child."
As he spoke, the peasant left the window of the summer-house, from which
he had seen someone on the road, and, opening a small gate at the end of
the garden, he was soon in the fields.
XIV
PAUL AND HIS DOG
Père Ledrux was no sooner out of the garden than he began to shout at
the top of his lungs:
"Holà! Monsieur Antoine! Monsieur le Docteur Antoine!"
A short, stout individual, wrapped in a brown overcoat as long as a
surplice, and with a low-crowned, very broad-brimmed hat on his head,
which made him appear still shorter, halted in the middle of a
cross-road and looked up in the air, saying:
"Who's calling me?" as if he thought that the voice he had heard came
from a balloon.
"Pardi! it's me calling you; it ain't a bird, it's me, Ledrux--this
way."
"Ah! it's you, is it, Père Ledrux? What are you doing here?"
"As you see, I'm calling you and waiting to ask you if your servant
Claudine gave you my message. You wasn't at home this morning when I
went to your house to tell you to go to Gournay to see the wine-dealer's
child; she's got the scarlet fever, they say."
"Scarlatina--yes, yes. Claudine told me and I am coming from Gournay, as
you see."
"Good! then you've cured the child?"
"Not yet; but it isn't anything serious."
"Have you been to Gournay on foot?"
"Yes, the weather was fine, and it does one good to walk; I'm getting
too fat."
"But your nag'll get too fat too, if you don't use him! Ha! ha! You'd
better lend him to me, I'll give him plenty of work!"
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm showing Monsieur Courtivaux's house to some ladies from Paris;
they're very nice, and they act as if they meant to buy it. Look, there
they are, both of 'em, at the window in the little summer-house. That's
where I saw you from."
Honorine and Agathe were, in fact, still standing at the window. They
were looking across the fields, but their eyes turned most frequently
toward the house with the turret. The few words that the gardener had
said concerning its proprietors had aroused their curiosity to the
highest pitch; indeed, as they proposed to take up their abode at
Chelles, in the somewhat isolated house in which they then were, it was
quite natural that they should desire to know their neighbors.
Doctor Antoine raised his head to look at the ladies; he removed his
broad-brimmed hat, disclosing his almost bald head and his cheerful,
ruddy face, and made them a low bow, which they instantly acknowledged.
"Look you," said the doctor to the gardener, "as the garden gate is
open, I can shorten my walk home materially by going through the
garden."
"I should say so; it will shorten it by half."
"That being so, I will go that way; and suppose I should pay my respects
to these ladies at the same time? What do you say, Ledrux?"
"It seems to me that it can't do 'em any harm, even if it don't do 'em
any good!"
"That's so; and then--we shall know each other; and when they come here
to live, if they happen to be sick, why, they'll send for me."
"Sure enough! especially as you're the only doctor in the neighborhood."
"Yes; but you see that they sent for me from Gournay; that proves that
everybody doesn't take the one who is nearest."
"Ah! you're a shrewd one, you are! you always have an eye to the main
chance!"
"There's no law against looking after one's business."
"_Nenni!_ all the more as it ain't safe to depend on other folks for
that. Ha! ha! ha! tutu--turlututu."
During their conversation the two men had entered the garden. Père
Ledrux closed the little gate, and the two friends, who had left the
summer-house, soon found themselves face to face with Doctor Antoine,
who bowed again, saying:
"Mesdames, as an inhabitant--and physician--of this district, I shall
consider myself very happy if we are to have the good fortune to claim
you as neighbors, as Ledrux has led me to hope; for he tells me that you
propose to buy this estate."
"Yes, monsieur, we both like the house very much. It is well arranged
and pleasantly located; the garden is large enough for us. But just as
the gardener caught sight of you, I was talking with him of the
isolation of this house. We have no man in our family. I expect to
employ a servant, but it will be some young peasant girl! So you will
understand, monsieur, that we must not incur any risks."
"I have lived at Chelles many years, mesdames, and I feel justified in
assuring you that it is not a region of thieves."
"I believe it, monsieur, but is the neighborhood as safe as the place
itself? Naturally, when one lives in the country, one goes out to
walk----"
"And very wisely; it is good for the health."
"But it would be very unpleasant if one had to dread disagreeable
accidents on such walks."
"The whole neighborhood is quite thickly settled; and on my word,
except----"
"Except? go on, monsieur."
"Still, I can't say anything definite. When one doesn't really know--But
one thing is certain,--that the fellow is neither good-humored nor
sociable. So far as that goes, he's a wretched neighbor. I say
'neighbor,' but he's quite a distance from here. Besides, he won't annoy
you; you'll very seldom meet him, for as soon as he sees anybody coming
he goes another way; he's a wolf, a bear, a veritable bear-cub, and an
ill-licked one!"
While the doctor was speaking, the gardener pulled him gently by the
coat-tail, whispering:
"What in the devil's the need of saying all that? you'll scare the
ladies, and take away their desire to live in this house! What you're
doing ain't very clever for a doctor!"
"Well, monsieur, where does this wolf, this bear live? you must tell us
so that we may at least avoid walking in the direction of his den."
"The person to whom I refer by that designation, mesdames, lives on the
estate yonder at the right, toward Noisy-le-Grand; quite a handsome
house, with a tower."
"Then it's the man with the dog," said Agathe.
"Exactly, mademoiselle, it's the man with the dog. Do you know him
already?"
"The gardener was just telling us about him when he left us to call you,
monsieur, and the little that he had told us had aroused our curiosity
keenly. It would be very kind of you, therefore, monsieur le docteur, to
tell us everything that is known about this man; for, frankly, if he is
really an ogre, we shall not be at all pleased to have him for a
neighbor."
"Oho! an ogre!" cried Père Ledrux with a laugh; "that's a good one, and
no mistake. An ogre! they eat children, ogres do! I never heard tell
that Monsieur Paul or his dog had eaten a child, no matter how small."
"I never intended to imply that he was an ogre," rejoined the doctor.
"God forbid that I should attribute such depraved tastes to the man! I
simply form conjectures based on what I have heard. And what I have seen
is not calculated to give me a very pleasant opinion of him."
Talking thus, the party had returned to the house.
"I'll just take a look at the rabbits," said the gardener, "if you'll
rest a bit in the salon."
"Very gladly," said Honorine; "and if monsieur le docteur has the time,
perhaps he will tell us what he knows about the proprietor of the house
with the turret, whom you call Paul, I believe?"
"Yes, mesdames, Paul; no one knows him by any other name; and as he is
always accompanied by his dog, a Newfoundland almost as big as a donkey,
they are commonly referred to in the neighborhood as 'Paul and his
dog.'"
The two young women entered the blue salon, accompanied by Doctor
Antoine Beaubichon, who seated himself respectfully at some little
distance from them, and began his story:
"Almost nine years ago the estate called the Tower was offered for sale;
but no purchaser appeared. Why was it that no purchaser appeared? People
attributed it to a certain circumstance, and that circumstance,
mesdames, is too interesting to be passed over in silence. It was like
this. Not far from the small park of the Tower, at the beginning of a
ravine close to the road leading to Noisy-le-Grand, in a very lonely
spot, a cross has been erected in memory of a person who, not very long
ago--I forget just when it was, but no matter--in memory of a person who
was assassinated at that spot. Indeed, it is said that the victim is
buried at the foot of the cross; and as country folk are always
superstitious and love to frighten one another, the people of
Noisy-le-Grand, Gournay, and even those of Chelles to some extent,
declare that it isn't safe to pass the cross in the ravine at night,
because strange noises, groans, are heard there, and you are likely to
meet the ghost of the person who was killed there after the Tower was
offered for sale."
"Oh! mon Dieu! why, this is horrible, monsieur le docteur," said
Honorine; "it's a regular ghost story."
"Pray go on, monsieur," said Agathe; "it interests me deeply; but you
haven't told us who it was that was murdered. Was it a man or a woman?"
"It was a man, mademoiselle, a young man, who was found dead in that
ravine. How it happened has never been known, nor were the assassins
ever discovered."
"Was it somebody who lived hereabout?"
"No, for no one recognized him; and the strangest thing was that he had
not been robbed; they found a gold watch on him and a large amount of
money."
"But perhaps the miscreants who committed the crime heard someone
coming, and, being afraid of being captured, ran away before they had
had time to rob their victim."
"The result is that they have set up a cross on that spot, and that the
villagers make a long détour rather than go through the ravine at night,
for they are sure that they would meet the ghost."
"Bah! turlututu! that's a pretty story!" said Père Ledrux, showing his
face at the door of the salon. "What's this, doctor! are you telling
these ladies all these old stories so that they'll be afraid to come
here to live? Why, it's all fiddle-faddle. I've been through the ravine
lots of times at night, right by the cross, and I never met anybody, not
the first hobgoblin! The old women say to each other over the fire:
'What can we think up to give us a good fright?' And they invent those
old nurse's tales!"
"I am simply telling what everyone says, Ledrux; I am informing these
ladies concerning the _chronique_ of the place, nothing more."
"The colic of the place don't know what it's saying; anybody can walk
anywhere in our neighborhood at all hours; there ain't any danger.--I'll
go and take a look at the hens; I think there's one of 'em bothering the
others."
"Mesdames," continued the doctor when the peasant had gone, "I hope that
you do not think me capable of trying to frighten you; for I should be
delighted to have you come here to live."
"We think it so little, monsieur, that we beg you to continue your
story; it gives us the greatest pleasure to listen to you."
The doctor rose to bow again to the ladies; then resumed his seat, blew
his nose and continued:
"You see, while I don't pretend to be very strong-minded, I don't
believe in ghosts, for the reason that I never saw one; if I had seen
one, I should believe in them; and in that regard my opinion coincides
with that of my brother Désiré Beaubichon, professor of bookkeeping in
Paris,--a very learned man, of whom you ladies may have heard?"
"No, monsieur, never."
"Nature swarms with curious facts, which the most learned are not always
able to explain; and from Apollonius of Tyana, the greatest magician of
ancient times, down to Cagliostro, who also was able to evoke the devil,
many people, who were not fools by any means, have believed in ghosts.
For my part, I declare that I should much rather believe everything than
nothing!--I return to the Tower.
"The property is quite extensive, in addition to the buildings, wherein
a large number of people can be accommodated, for it is like a small
château--there are more than twelve sleeping-rooms. Then there are the
garden and a small park--about twelve acres in all. I believe that the
price asked was fifty thousand francs, but as I have had the honor to
tell you, they could find no purchaser; the nearness of the cross in the
ravine, and all the stories that were in circulation frightened the
ladies who came to see the property. So that there was great surprise
throughout the region when the notary at Noisy-le-Grand said to his
neighbors one morning: 'the Tower is sold!'
"The news flew from mouth to mouth: 'the Tower is sold!'
"'Bah! it isn't possible!'
"'Yes, it's a fact; monsieur le notaire himself told it.'
"'Well, to whom is it sold?'
"'To Monsieur Paul.'
"'Paul who? Paul what?'
"To all such questions the notary, upon whom secrecy had been enjoined,
answered:
"'To Monsieur Paul; the purchaser has given no other name, but he pays
cash for the property, and is at liberty to take possession whenever he
chooses.'
"'Paul is it!' said the country folk; 'after all, a man may have no
other name than Paul and be a perfectly honorable man; we have had
merchants and manufacturers who were called simply Jean or Pierre. If
this Paul is an agreeable man, a jovial companion, he'll be a welcome
addition to the neighborhood. And then, it's probable that he has a wife
and children; as he has bought that big house, he must have people to
put in it. Perhaps he will give a party, a ball to his new neighbors, to
become acquainted with them; then we shall find out what sort of man he
is.'
"That, madame, was what the people said here in Chelles and in the
neighborhood. But time passed and no one arrived; the estate of the
Tower showed no sign of life, assumed no festal air.
"'For heaven's sake, isn't the new owner going to occupy his house?'
people began to say. 'In that case, why did he buy it?'
"But one morning Jeannette the poulterer informed her neighbors:
"'Well, the gentleman who's bought the Tower has arrived; he's been in
the house a fortnight. What do you suppose his household consists of?--a
dog! nothing but a great dog that's always at his master's heels. But I
suppose he found out that his dog couldn't get his dinner and do his
housework, so he's hired old Mère Lucas, from the village of Couberon,
who's almost blind and a little deaf, and she takes care of his house.'
"You can understand, mesdames, that everybody was amazed to learn that
the only occupants of that enormous house were a man, a dog and a
half-blind and deaf old woman.