CHAPTER III.
This very day was the anniversary of the baron's death.
The baroness kept her room all the morning, and took no nourishment butone cup of spurious coffee Rose brought her. Towards evening she camedown-stairs. In the hall she found two chaplets of flowers; they werealways placed there for her on this sad day. She took them in her hand,and went into the little oratory that was in the park; there she foundtwo wax candles burning, and two fresh chaplets hung up. Her daughtershad been there before her.
She knelt and prayed many hours for her husband's soul; then she roseand hung up one chaplet and came slowly away with the other in her hand.At the gate of the park, Josephine met her with tender anxiety in hersapphire eyes, and wreathed her arms round her, and whispered, "But youhave your children still."
The baroness kissed her and they came towards the house together, thebaroness leaning gently on her daughter's elbow.
Between the park and the angle of the chateau was a small plot of turfcalled at Beaurepaire the Pleasance, a name that had descendedalong with other traditions; and in the centre of this Pleasance,or Pleasaunce, stood a wonderful oak-tree. Its circumference wasthirty-four feet. The baroness came to this ancient tree, and hung herchaplet on a mutilated limb called the "knights' bough."
The sun was setting tranquil and red; a broad ruby streak lingered onthe deep green leaves of the prodigious oak. The baroness looked at itawhile in silence.
Then she spoke slowly to it and said, "You were here before us: you willbe here when we are gone."
A spasm crossed Josephine's face, but she said nothing at the time. Andso they went in together.
Now as this tree was a feat of nature, and, above all, played a curiouspart in our story, I will ask you to stay a few minutes and look at it,while I say what was known about it; not the thousandth part of what itcould have told, if trees could speak as well as breathe.
The baroness did not exaggerate; the tree was far older than even thisancient family. They possessed among other archives a manuscript writtenby a monk, a son of the house, about four hundred years before ourstory, and containing many of the oral traditions about this tree thathad come down to him from remote antiquity. According to this authority,the first Baron of Beaurepaire had pitched his tent under a fairoak-tree that stood prope rivum, near a brook. His grandson built asquare tower hard by, and dug a moat that enclosed both tree and tower,and received the waters of the brook aforesaid.
At this time the tree seems only to have been remarked for its height.But, a century and a half before the monk wrote, it had become famous inall the district for its girth, and in the monk's own day had ceasedto grow; but not begun to decay. The mutilated arm I have mentionedwas once a long sturdy bough, worn smooth as velvet in one part froma curious cause: it ran about as high above the ground as a full-sizedhorse, and the knights and squires used to be forever vaulting uponit, the former in armor; the monk, when a boy, had seen them do it athousand times. This bough broke in two, A.D. 1617: but the mutilatedlimb was still called the knights' bough, nobody knew why. So do namessurvive their ideas.
What had not this tree seen since first it came green and tender asa cabbage above the soil, and stood at the mercy of the first hare orrabbit that should choose to cut short its frail existence!
Since then eagles had perched on its crown, and wild boars fed withoutfear of man upon its acorns. Troubadours had sung beneath it to lordsand ladies seated round, or walking on the grass and commenting theminstrel's tales of love by exchange of amorous glances. Mediaevalsculptors had taken its leaves, and wisely trusting to nature, hadadorned churches with those leaves cut in stone.
It had seen a Norman duke conquer England, and English kings invadeFrance and be crowned at Paris. It had seen a girl put knights to therout, and seen the warrior virgin burned by envious priests with commonconsent both of the curs she had defended and the curs she had defeated.
Why, in its old age it had seen the rise of printing, and the first dawnof national civilization in Europe. It flourished and decayed in France;but it sprung in Gaul. And more remarkable still, though by all accountsit may see the world to an end, it was a tree in ancient history: itsold age awaits the millennium; its first youth belonged to that greattract of time which includes the birth of Christ, the building of Rome,and the siege of Troy.
The tree had, ere this, mingled in the fortunes of the family. It hadsaved their lives and taken their lives. One lord of Beaurepaire, hotlypursued by his feudal enemies, made for the tree, and hid himself partlyby a great bough, partly by the thick screen of leaves. The foe dartedin, made sure he had taken to the house, ransacked it, and got into thecellar, where by good-luck was a store of Malvoisie: and so the oak andthe vine saved the quaking baron. Another lord of Beaurepaire, besiegedin his castle, was shot dead on the ramparts by a cross-bowman who hadsecreted himself unobserved in this tree a little before the dawn.
A young heir of Beaurepaire, climbing for a raven's nest to the topof this tree, lost his footing and fell, and died at its foot: and hismother in her anguish bade them cut down the tree that had killed herboy. But the baron her husband refused, and spake in this wise: "ytte yseneugh that I lose mine sonne, I will nat alsoe lose mine Tre." Inthe male you see the sober sentiment of the proprietor outweighed thetemporary irritation of the parent. Then the mother bought fifteen ellsof black velvet, and stretched a pall from the knights' bough across thewest side to another branch, and cursed the hand that should remove it,and she herself "wolde never passe the Tre neither going nor coming, butwent still about." And when she died and should have been carried pastthe tree to the park, her dochter did cry from a window to the bearers,"Goe about! goe about!" and they went about, and all the company. And intime the velvet pall rotted, and was torn and driven away by the winds:and when the hand of Nature, and no human hand, had thus flouted anddispersed the trappings of the mother's grief, two pieces were picked upand preserved among the family relics: but the black velvet had turned arusty red.
So the baroness did nothing new in this family when she hung her chapleton the knights' bough; and, in fact, on the west side, abouteighteen feet from the ground, there still mouldered one corner ofan Atchievement an heir of Beaurepaire had nailed there two centuriesbefore, when his predecessor died: "For," said he, "the chateau is ofyesterday, but the tree has seen us all come and go." The inside of theoak was hollow as a drum; and on its east side yawned a fissure ashigh as a man and as broad as a street-door. Dard used to wheel hiswheelbarrow into the tree at a trot, and there leave it.
Yet in spite of excavation and mutilation not life only but vigordwelt in this wooden shell. The extreme ends of the longer boughs werefirewood, touchwood, and the crown was gone this many a year: but narrowthe circle a very little to where the indomitable trunk could stillshoot sap from its cruse deep in earth, and there on every side burstthe green foliage in its season countless as the sand. The leaves carvedcenturies ago from these very models, though cut in stone, were most ofthem mouldered, blunted, notched, deformed: but the delicate types cameback with every summer, perfect and lovely as when the tree was buttheir elder brother: and greener than ever: for, from what cause natureonly knows, the leaves were many shades richer than any other tree couldshow for a hundred miles round; a deep green, fiery, yet soft; and thentheir multitude--the staircases of foliage as you looked up the tree,and could scarce catch a glimpse of the sky. An inverted abyss of color,a mound, a dome, of flake emeralds that quivered in the golden air.
And now the sun sets; the green leaves are black; the moon rises: hercold light shoots across one half that giant stem.
How solemn and calm stands the great round tower of living wood, halfebony, half silver, with its mighty cloud above of flake jet leavestipped with frosty fire!
Now is the still hour to repeat in a whisper the words of the dame ofBeaurepaire, "You were here before us: you will be here when we aregone."
We leave the hoary king of trees standing in the moonlight, c
almlydefying time, and follow the creatures of a day; for, what they were, weare.
A spacious saloon panelled; dead but showy white picked out sparinglywith gold. Festoons of fruits and flowers finely carved in wood on someof the panels. These also not smothered in gilding, but as it were goldspeckled here and there, like tongues of flame winding among insolublesnow. Ranged against the walls were sofas and chairs covered with richstuffs well worn. And in one little distant corner of the long rooma gray-haired gentleman and two young ladies sat round a small plaintable, on which burned a solitary candle; and a little way apart inthis candle's twilight an old lady sat in an easy-chair, thinking ofthe past, scarce daring to inquire the future. Josephine and Rose wereworking: not fancy-work but needle-work; Dr. Aubertin writing. Everynow and then he put the one candle nearer the girls. They raised noobjection: only a few minutes after a white hand would glide from oneor other of them like a serpent, and smoothly convey the light nearer tothe doctor's manuscript.
"Is it not supper-time?" he inquired. "I have an inward monitor; and Ithink our dinner was more ethereal than usual."
"Hush!" said Josephine, and looked uneasily towards her mother. "Wax isso dear."
"Wax?--ah!--pardon me:" and the doctor returned hastily to his work.But Rose looked up and said, "I wonder Jacintha does not come; it iscertainly past the hour;" and she pried into the room as if sheexpected to see Jacintha on the road. But she saw in fact very little ofanything, for the spacious room was impenetrable to her eye; midway fromthe candle to the distant door its twilight deepened, and all becameshapeless and sombre. The prospect ended sharp and black, as in thoseout-o'-door closets imagined and painted by a certain great painter,whose Nature comes to a full stop as soon as he has no furthercommercial need of her, instead of melting by fine expanse and exquisitegradation into genuine distance, as nature does in Claude and in nature.To reverse the picture, if you stood at the door you looked across fortyfeet of black, and the little corner seemed on fire, and the fair headsabout the candle shone like the St. Cecilias and Madonnas in an antiquestained-glass window.
At last the door opened, and another candle fired Jacintha's comelypeasant face in the doorway. She put down her candle outside the door,and started as crow flies for the other light. After glowing a moment inthe doorway she dived into the shadow and emerged into light againclose to the table with napkins on her arm. She removed the work-boxreverentially, the doctor's manuscript unceremoniously, and proceeded tolay a cloth: in which operation she looked at Rose a point-blank glanceof admiration: then she placed the napkins; and in this process sheagain cast a strange look of interest upon Rose. The young lady noticedit this time, and looked inquiringly at her in return, half expectingsome communication; but Jacintha lowered her eyes and bustled about thetable. Then Rose spoke to her with a sort of instinct of curiosity, onthe chance of drawing her out.
"Supper is late to-night, is it not, Jacintha?"
"Yes, mademoiselle; I have had more cooking than usual," and with thisshe delivered another point-blank look as before, and dived into thepalpable obscure, and came to light in the doorway.
Her return was anxiously expected; for, if the truth must be told,they were very hungry. So rigorous was the economy in this decayed buthonorable house that the wax candles burned to-day in the oratory hadscrimped their dinner, unsubstantial as it was wont to be. Think ofthat, you in fustian jackets who grumble after meat. The door opened,Jacintha reappeared in the light of her candle a moment with a trayin both hands, and, approaching, was lost to view; but a strange andfragrant smell heralded her. All their eyes turned with curiositytowards the unwonted odor, and Jacintha dawned with three roastpartridges on a dish.
They were wonder-struck, and looked from the birds to her in mutesurprise, that was not diminished by a certain cynical indifferenceshe put on. She avoided their eyes, and forcibly excluded from her faceeverything that could imply she did not serve up partridges to thisfamily every night of her life.
"The supper is served, madame," said she, with a respectful courtesyand a mechanical tone, and, plunging into the night, swam out at her owncandle, shut the door, and, unlocking her face that moment, burst outradiant, and so to the kitchen, and, with a tear in her eye, set-to andpolished all the copper stewpans with a vigor and expedition unknown tothe new-fangled domestic.
"Partridges, mamma! What next?"
"Pheasants, I hope," cried the doctor, gayly. "And after them hares; toconclude with royal venison. Permit me, ladies." And he set himself tocarve with zeal.
Now nature is nature, and two pair of violet eyes brightened and dwelton the fragrant and delicate food with demure desire; for all that,when Aubertin offered Josephine a wing, she declined it. "No partridge?"cried the savant, in utter amazement.
"Not to-day, dear friend; it is not a feast day to-day."
"Ah! no; what was I thinking of?"
"But you are not to be deprived," put in Josephine, anxiously. "We willnot deny ourselves the pleasure of seeing you eat some."
"What!" remonstrated Aubertin, "am I not one of you?"
The baroness had attended to every word of this. She rose from herchair, and said quietly, "Both you and he and Rose will be so good as tolet me see you eat."
"But, mamma," remonstrated Josephine and Rose in one breath.
"Je le veux," was the cold reply.
These were words the baroness uttered so seldom that they were littlelikely to be disputed.
The doctor carved and helped the young ladies and himself.
When they had all eaten a little, a discussion was observed to be goingon between Rose and her sister. At last Aubertin caught these words, "Itwill be in vain; even you have not influence enough for that, Rose."
"We shall see," was the reply, and Rose put the wing of a partridge on aplate and rose calmly from her chair. She took the plate and put it ona little work-table by her mother's side. The others pretended to be allmouths, but they were all ears. The baroness looked in Rose's facewith an air of wonder that was not very encouraging. Then, as Rose saidnothing, she raised her aristocratic hand with a courteous but decidedgesture of refusal.
Undaunted Rose laid her palm softly on the baroness's shoulder, and saidto her as firmly as the baroness herself had just spoken,--
"Il le veut."
The baroness was staggered. Then she looked with moist eyes at the fairyoung face, then she reflected. At last she said, with an exquisitemixture of politeness and affection, "It is his daughter who has told me'Il le veut.' I obey."
Rose returning like a victorious knight from the lists, saucilyexultant, and with only one wet eyelash, was solemnly kissed and pettedby Josephine and the doctor.
Thus they loved one another in this great, old, falling house. Theirfamiliarity had no coarse side; a form, not of custom but affection, itwent hand-in-hand with courtesy by day and night.
The love of the daughters for their mother had all the tenderness,subtlety, and unselfishness of womanly natures, together with a certaincharacteristic of the female character. And whither that one defectled them, and by what gradations, it may be worth the reader's while toobserve.
The baroness retired to rest early; and she was no sooner gone thanJosephine leaned over to Rose, and told her what their mother hadsaid to the oak-tree. Rose heard this with anxiety; hitherto they hadcarefully concealed from their mother that the government claimed theright of selling the chateau to pay the creditors, etc.; and now bothsisters feared the old lady had discovered it somehow, or why thatstrange thing she had said to the oak-tree? But Dr. Aubertin caughttheir remarks, and laid down his immortal MS. on French insects, toexpress his hope that they were putting a forced interpretation on thebaroness's words.
"I think," said he, "she merely meant how short-lived are we allcompared with this ancient oak. I should be very sorry to adopt theother interpretation; for if she knows she can at any moment be expelledfrom Beaurepaire, it will be almost as bad for her as the calamityitself; THAT, I think, would kill her."
"Why so?" said Rose, eagerly. "What is this house or that? Mamma willstill have her daughters' love, go where she will."
Aubertin replied, "It is idle to deceive ourselves; at her age men andwomen hang to life by their habits; take her away from her chateau, fromthe little oratory where she prays every day for the departed, from herplace in the sun on the south terrace, and from all the memories thatsurround her here; she would soon pine, and die."
Here the savant seeing a hobby-horse near, caught him and jumped on. Helaunched into a treatise upon the vitality of human beings, and provedthat it is the mind which keeps the body of a man alive for so great alength of time as fourscore years; for that he had in the earlier partof his studies carefully dissected a multitude of animals,--frogs,rabbits, dogs, men, horses, sheep, squirrels, foxes, cats, etc.,--anddiscovered no peculiarity in man's organs to account for his singularlongevity, except in the brain or organ of mind. Thence he went tothe longevity of men with contented minds, and the rapid decay of thecareworn. Finally he succeeded in convincing them the baroness was soconstituted, physically and mentally, that she would never move fromBeaurepaire except into her grave. However, having thus terrified them,he proceeded to console them. "You have a friend," said he, "a powerfulfriend; and here in my pocket--somewhere--is a letter that proves it."
The letter was from Mr. Perrin the notary. It appeared by it that Dr.Aubertin had reminded the said Perrin of his obligations to the latebaron, and entreated him to use all his influence to keep the estate inthis ancient family.
Perrin had replied at first in a few civil lines; but his present letterwas a long and friendly one. It made both the daughters of Beaurepaireshudder at the peril they had so narrowly escaped. For by it they nowlearned for the first time that one Jaques Bonard, a small farmer,to whom they owed but five thousand francs, had gone to the mayor andinsisted, as he had a perfect right, on the estate being put up topublic auction. This had come to Perrin's ears just in time, and he hadinstantly bought Bonard's debt, and stopped the auction; not, however,before the very bills were printed; for which he, Perrin, had paid, andnow forwarded the receipt. He concluded by saying that the governmentagent was personally inert, and would never move a step in the matterunless driven by a creditor.
"But we have so many," said Rose in dismay. "We are not safe a day."
Aubertin assured her the danger was only in appearance. "Your largecreditors are men of property, and such men let their funds lie unlesscompelled to move them. The small mortgagee, the petty miser, who has,perhaps, no investment to watch but one small loan, about which he isas anxious and as noisy as a hen with one chicken, he is the clamorouscreditor, the harsh little egoist, who for fear of risking a crown piecewould bring the Garden of Eden to the hammer. Now we are rid ofthat little wretch, Bonard, and have Perrin on our side; so there isliterally nothing to fear."
The sisters thanked him warmly, and Rose shared his hopes; and said so;but Josephine was silent and thoughtful. Nothing more worth recordingpassed that night. But the next day was the first of May, Josephine'sbirthday.
Now they always celebrated this day as well as they could; and used toplant a tree, for one thing. Dard, well spurred by Jacintha, had gota little acacia; and they were all out in the Pleasaunce to plant it.Unhappily, they were a preposterous time making up their feminine mindswhere to have it set; so Dard turned rusty and said the park was thebest place for it. There it could do no harm, stick it where you would.
"And who told you to put in your word?" inquired Jacintha. "You're hereto dig the hole where mademoiselle chooses; not to argufy."
Josephine whispered Rose, "I admire the energy of her character. Couldshe be induced to order once for all where the poor thing is to beplanted?"
"Then where WILL you have it, mademoiselle?" asked Dard, sulkily.
"Here, I think, Dard," said Josephine sweetly.
Dard grinned malignantly, and drove in his spade. "It will never be muchbigger than a stinging nettle," thought he, "for the roots of the oakhave sucked every atom of heart out of this." His black soul exultedsecretly.
Jacintha stood by Dard, inspecting his work; the sisters intertwined,a few feet from him. The baroness turned aside, and went to look for amoment at the chaplet she had placed yesterday on the oak-tree bough.Presently she uttered a slight ejaculation; and her daughters looked updirectly.
"Come here, children," said she. They glided to her in a moment; andfound her eyes fixed upon an object that lay on the knights' bough.
It was a sparkling purse.
I dare say you have noticed that the bark on the boughs of these veryancient trees is as deeply furrowed as the very stem of an oak tree thatboasts but a few centuries; and in one of these deep furrows lay a greensilk purse with gold coins glittering through the glossy meshes.
Josephine and Rose eyed it a moment like startled deer; then Rosepounced on it. "Oh, how heavy!" she cried. This brought up Dard andJacintha, in time to see Rose pour ten shining gold pieces out of thepurse into her pink-white palm, while her face flushed and her eyesglittered with excitement. Jacintha gave a scream of joy; "Our luck isturned," she cried, superstitiously. Meanwhile, Josephine had found aslip of paper close to the purse. She opened it with nimble fingers;it contained one line in a hand like that of a copying clerk: FROM AFRIEND: IN PART PAYMENT OF A GREAT DEBT.
Keen, piquant curiosity now took the place of surprise. Who could itbe? The baroness's suspicion fell at once on Dr. Aubertin. But Rosemaintained he had not ten gold pieces in the world. The baronessappealed to Josephine. She only blushed in an extraordinary way, andsaid nothing. They puzzled, and puzzled, and were as much in the dark asever, when lo! one of the suspected parties delivered himself intothe hands of justice with ludicrous simplicity. It happened to be Dr.Aubertin's hour of out-a-door study; and he came mooning along, buriedin a book, and walked slowly into the group--started, made a slightapology, and was mooning off, lost in his book again. Then thebaroness, who had eyed him with grim suspicion all the time, said withwell-affected nonchalance, "Doctor, you dropped your purse; we have justpicked it up." And she handed it to him. "Thank you, madame," said he,and took it quietly without looking at it, put it in his pocket,and retired, with his soul in his book. They stared comically at oneanother, and at this cool hand. "It's no more his than it's mine," saidJacintha, bluntly. Rose darted after the absorbed student, and tookhim captive. "Now, doctor," she cried, "be pleased to come out of theclouds." And with the word she whipped the purse out of his coat pocket,and holding it right up before his eye, insisted on his telling herwhether that was his purse or not, money and all. Thus adjured, hedisowned the property mighty coolly, for a retired physician, who hadjust pocketed it.
"No, my dear," said he; "and, now I think of it, I have not carried apurse this twenty years."
The baroness, as a last resource, appealed to his honor whether he hadnot left a purse and paper on the knights' bough. The question had to beexplained by Josephine, and then the doctor surprised them all by beingrather affronted--for once in his life.
"Baroness," said he, "I have been your friend and pensioner nearlytwenty years; if by some strange chance money were to come into myhands, I should not play you a childish trick like this. What! have Inot the right to come to you, and say, 'My old friend, here I bring youback a very small part of all I owe you?'"
"What geese we are," remarked Rose. "Dear doctor, YOU tell us who itis."
Dr. Aubertin reflected a single moment; then said he could make a shrewdguess.
"Who? who? who?" cried the whole party.
"Perrin the notary."
It was the baroness's turn to be surprised; for there was nothingromantic about Perrin the notary. Aubertin, however, let her know thathe was in private communication with the said Perrin, and this was notthe first friendly act the good notary had done her in secret.
While he was converting the baroness to his view, Josephine and Roseexchanged a signal, and slipped away round an angle of the chateau.
"It is some one who has a delicate mind."
"Clearly, and therefore not a notary."
"Rose, dear, might it not be some person who has done us some wrong, andis perhaps penitent?"
"Certainly; one of our tenants, or creditors, you mean; but then, thepaper says 'a friend.' Stay, it says a debtor. Why a debtor? Down withenigmas!"
"Rose, love," said Josephine, coaxingly, "think of some one thatmight--since it is not the doctor, nor Monsieur Perrin, might it notbe--for after all, he would naturally be ashamed to appear before me."
"Before you? Who do you mean?" asked Rose nervously, catching a glimpsenow.
"He who once pretended to love me."
"Josephine, you love that man still."
"No, no. Spare me!"
"You love him just the same as ever. Oh, it is wonderful; it isterrible; the power he has over you; over your judgment as well as yourheart."
"No! for I believe he has forgotten my very name; don't you think so?"
"Dear Josephine, can you doubt it? Come, you do doubt it."
"Sometimes."
"But why? for what reason?"
"Because of what he said to me as we parted at that gate; the words andthe voice seem still to ring like truth across the weary years. He said,'I am to join the army of the Pyrenees, so fatal to our troops; but sayto me what you never yet have said, Camille, I love you: and I swearI will come back alive.' So then I said to him, 'I love you,'--and henever came back."
"How could he come here? a deserter, a traitor!"
"It is not true; it is not in his nature; inconstancy may be. Tell methat he never really loved me, and I will believe you; but not that heis a traitor. Let me weep over my past love, not blush for it."
"Past? You love him to-day as you did three years ago."
"No," said Josephine, "no; I love no one. I never shall love any oneagain."
"But him. It is that love which turns your heart against others.Oh, yes, you love him, dearest, or why should you fancy our secretbenefactor COULD be that Camille?"
"Why? Because I was mad: because it is impossible; but I see my folly. Iam going in."
"What! don't you care to know who I think it was, perhaps?"
"No," said Josephine sadly and doggedly; she added with coldnonchalance, "I dare say time will show." And she went slowly in, herhand to her head.
"Her birthday!" sighed Rose.
The donor, whoever he was, little knew the pain he was inflicting onthis distressed but proud family, or the hard battle that ensuedbetween their necessities and their delicacy. The ten gold pieces werea perpetual temptation: a daily conflict. The words that accompanied thedonation offered a bait. Their pride and dignity declined it; but thesebright bits of gold cost them many a sharp pang. You must know thatJosephine and Rose had worn out their mourning by this time; and wereobliged to have recourse to gayer materials that lay in their greatwardrobes, and were older, but less worn. A few of these gold pieceswould have enabled the poor girls to be neat, and yet to mourn theirfather openly. And it went through and through those tender, simplehearts, to think that they must be disunited, even in so small a thingas dress; that while their mother remained in her weeds, they must seemno longer to share her woe.
The baroness knew their feeling, and felt its piety, and yet could notbow her dignity to say, "Take five of these bits of gold, and let usall look what we are--one." Yet in this, as in everything else, theysupported each other. They resisted, they struggled, and with a wrenchthey conquered day by day. At last, by general consent, Josephine lockedup the tempter, and they looked at it no more. But the little bit ofpaper met a kinder fate. Rose made a little frame for it, and it waskept in a drawer, in the salon: and often looked at and blessed. Justwhen they despaired of human friendship, this paper with the sacredword "friend" written on it, had fallen all in a moment on their achinghearts.
They could not tell whence it came, this blessed word.
But men dispute whence comes the dew?
Then let us go with the poets, who say it comes from heaven.
And even so that sweet word, friend, dropped like the dew from heaven onthese afflicted ones.
So they locked the potent gold away from themselves, and took the kindslip of paper to their hearts.
The others left off guessing: Aubertin had it all his own way: he upheldPerrin as their silent benefactor, and bade them all observe that theworthy notary had never visited the chateau openly since the day thepurse was left there. "Guilty conscience," said Aubertin dryly.
One day in his walks he met a gaunt figure ambling on a fat pony: hestopped him, and, holding up his finger, said abruptly, "We have foundyou out, Maitre Perrin."
The notary changed color.
"Oh, never be ashamed," said Aubertin; "a good action done slyly is nonethe less a good action."
The notary wore a puzzled air.
Aubertin admired his histrionic powers in calling up this look.
"Come, come, don't overdo it," said he. "Well, well; they cannot profitby your liberality; but you will be rewarded in a better world, take myword for that."
The notary muttered indistinctly. He was a man of moderate desires;would have been quite content if there had been no other world inperspective. He had studied this one, and made it pay: did not desire abetter; sometimes feared a worse.
"Ah!" said Aubertin, "I see how it is; we do not like to hear ourselvespraised, do we? When shall we see you at the chateau?"
"I propose to call on the baroness the moment I have good news tobring," replied Perrin; and to avoid any more compliments spurred thedun pony suddenly; and he waddled away.
Now this Perrin was at that moment on the way to dine with a characterwho plays a considerable part in the tale--Commandant Raynal. Perrin hadmade himself useful to the commandant, and had become his legal adviser.And, this very day after dinner, the commandant having done a good day'swork permitted himself a little sentiment over the bottle, and to a manhe thought his friend. He let out that he had a heap of money he did notknow what to do with, and almost hated it now his mother was gone andcould not share it.
The man of law consoled him with oleaginous phrases: told him he verymuch underrated the power of money. His hoard, directed by a judiciousadviser, would make him a landed proprietor, and the husband of someyoung lady, all beauty, virtue, and accomplishment, whose soothinginfluence would soon heal the sorrow caused by an excess of filialsentiment.
"Halt!" shouted Raynal: "say that again in half the words."
Perrin was nettled, for he prided himself on his colloquial style.
"You can buy a fine estate and a chaste wife with the money," snappedthis smooth personage, substituting curt brutality for honeyedprolixity.
The soldier was struck by the propositions the moment they flew at himsmall and solid, like bullets.
"I've no time," said he, "to be running after women. But the estate I'llcertainly have, because you can get that for me without my troubling myhead."
"Is it a commission, then?" asked the other sharply.
"Of course. Do you think I speak for the sake of talking?"
And so Perrin received formal instructions to look out for a landedestate; and he was to receive a handsome commission as agent.
Now to settle this affair, and pocket a handsome percentage for himself,he had only to say "Beaurepaire."
Well, he didn't. Never mentioned the place; nor the fact that it was forsale.
Such are all our agents, when rival speculators. Mind that. Still itis a terrible thing to be so completely in the power of any man of theworld, as from this hour Beaurepaire was in the power of Perrin thenotary.
White Lies Page 3
