Part 1

_The_ CHATEAU _of_ MONTPLAISIR

[Illustration: “She turned on him two sweet, dark eyes.”]

_The_ CHATEAU _of_ MONTPLAISIR

BY MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL

_Author of_ “The Sprightly Romance of Marsac,” “Papa Bouchard”

[Illustration]

NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1906

COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

_Published April, 1906_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I.--UNCLE AND NEPHEW 1

II.--AUNT AND NIECE 29

III.--GAY DINARD 39

IV.--THE PLOT THICKENS 63

V.--A DUKE, A COMTESSE, A SOAP-BOILER, AND AN AUTO-CAR 102

VI.--JULIE’S LITTLE MISTAKE 139

VII.--A MERRY WEEK IN PARIS 178

VIII.--MARS AND CUPID 207

IX.--THE ROGUISH LITTLE BLIND BOY LAUGHS LAST 229

[Illustration]

I

UNCLE AND NEPHEW

Louis Victor de Latour, recently become lord of the Chateau of Montplaisir, sat, the picture of misery, at a window of the grand saloon of the chateau looking out upon the gray sea. To the right of him, and visible through the misty veil of falling rain, lay the usually merry watering place of Dinard, now--like everything else in sight--dripping wet and forlorn. The sky was gloomier than the sea, and the chateau the gloomiest of all. It was an immense pile, with a great court-yard in the middle, where the flagstones, like everything else about the place, were cracked and broken. Half the windows were out and the other half boarded up. There were a few wrecks and remnants of furniture in the saloon where the new owner sat, but these wrecks and remnants were huddled in one corner, the only spot secure from the rain, which dripped ceaselessly from the glass dome in the centre.

As for Louis de Latour, he had been counted the merriest and lightest-hearted fellow alive as long as he had scarcely a franc in his pocket; but now that he had come into his inheritance he appeared to be as melancholy as an owl. He was good-looking and well made and had been reckoned to be of dauntless courage; however, it must be admitted that the Chateau of Montplaisir was enough to take the courage out of a Julius Cæsar.

Louis sat at a rickety little table, taking what he called by courtesy his mid-day breakfast, which consisted of weak coffee, stale bread, and something which old Suzette, who in herself constituted the whole domestic staff of the Chateau of Montplaisir, represented as a salad. But Louis, after tasting it, had determined that it was a collection of weeds grown between the broken flagstones of the court-yard.

“Yes,” he said sadly, holding up a piece of the green stuff on his fork and looking out into the dreary court-yard, “it is the same. Suzette thinks to impose upon my innocence, but I do know chicory from milkweed. However, she is quite justified. Any man who would accept this old rattletrap as a gift could be imposed upon by anybody in anything. And how delighted I was to get it, and how I used to mention casually, in the days when I was an engineer looking for work, that the seat of my family was the Chateau of Montplaisir, near Dinard! If anybody would ask me now about the seat of my family, I should deny that I ever saw or heard of such a place as Montplaisir. I am convinced that my cousin who left it to me had a secret grudge against me. That man was my enemy during life, and determined to punish me at his death. I can neither sell the place, nor lease it, nor live in it, nor give it away. But one thing remains----”

Here Louis paused, and, getting up from his chair, walked about the room, surveyed it critically, and then leaned out of a window opening upon the court-yard.

“Ah, well,” he said to himself, coming back to the table, “I now know what to do with this old rookery! It is perfectly practicable. I can burn it up, if only I had the money to buy the combustibles. But at least I can try. No harm can come of it, because the wretched old barn is not insured--no company would insure the place for five hundred francs. I shall at least have the biggest bonfire of the year. Sympathy will be excited for me by my having lost my ancestral chateau. I shall represent it to have been filled with priceless treasures of art. This room I shall say was equipped with real Louis Quatorze furniture and pictures by Greuze and Horace Vernet. The dining-saloon, which is the barest hole I ever saw in my life and must always have been, I shall say was hung with tapestries of the same period as that of Bayeux. There is a mouldy old picture in there which answers exactly the description of a Salvator Rosa. It is very black, very dirty, and looks as if it were done with ink instead of paint. I shall, of course, represent that as one of Salvator Rosa’s masterpieces--after it is burned up. Then I shall also decorate that room with Paul Veroneses and Titians, and perhaps I shall throw in a Raphael or two--I can afford to lose them in the fire because I never had them. I shall spend the rest of to-day making out a list of the valuables which I intend to lose. It will get in the newspapers, and then it may reach the eyes of Julie de Brésac.”

As the thought of this charming girl occurred to him, Louis threw himself back in his chair with an increase of his despair. He had met her in Algiers, that place of sunshine and merriment, and Julie herself was a creature of sunshine and merriment. She was young, lovely, and heiress to a great fortune. Louis was young, handsome, clever, and at that time heir to nothing at all. But he and Julie were of the same class and caste, the best in France.

And Julie had an old aunt, the Comtesse de Beauregard, who, for pure gaiety of heart, prankishness, and an ineradicable passion for sowing wild oats, was quite incomparable. She was a very gay old person, indeed, and Louis would have preferred that Julie should have had some other guardian than this scapegrace old lady. But at least, as Madame de Beauregard was the most unconventional person who ever lived, she allowed Julie a degree of liberty quite unknown to any other young lady of Louis de Latour’s acquaintance. This he had utilised in the most artful manner in Algiers, and had contrived to see Julie often enough and intimately enough to reveal the secret of his heart to her and to draw from her a sweet, unspoken acknowledgment. For Julie was very sweet, with all her wildness, one-half of which she was incited to by the irrepressible Madame de Beauregard. Louis’s first thought, on hearing of his inheritance, had been that he could make Julie the mistress of the Chateau of Montplaisir, but the notion of it now staggered him.

“She would be eaten up by the rats,” he groaned aloud. “The idea of showing Julie this place, of letting her know that I was so cruelly imposed upon, is harrowing to my feelings. O Julie, Julie!”

Then old Suzette poked her nose in at the door. She had a face as brown and hard as a hickory nut, but there was a twinkle in her eyes which sometimes reminded Louis of the wicked gleam in the merry old eyes of Madame de Beauregard. These two were, in truth, sisters under their skins. Just as she entered a raindrop splashed upon Louis’s nose. There was an umbrella standing in the corner, and Louis seized it and was about to open it over his head when Suzette, rushing forward, wrenched it out of his hand.

“O monsieur!” she cried, “don’t you know it is bad luck to put up an umbrella in the house?”

“Do you call this a house?” replied Louis. “I don’t. And which is the worse luck--to put up an umbrella or to die of pneumonia? Last night I slept under that umbrella--I fastened it to the head of my bed.”

“O Heavens!” cried Suzette in a frantic voice, “how could you so tempt ill fortune?”

“I tempted ill fortune enough when I accepted this old barrack, but my excuse is that I didn’t know how to get out of it.”

“It would be a fine place, monsieur,” said Suzette, clearing off the table, “if you had a million of francs to put it in order.”

“And five million more to live upon. Do you know anywhere that I could pick up six million francs? At present I have exactly six francs, fifty centimes in my pocket.”

“At least,” continued old Suzette, clattering the dishes, “it is a good place from which to date your letters. It will look well on your writing paper.”

“Oh, yes,” replied Louis sarcastically, “and I might give an account of my domestic staff as follows: Housekeeper, Madame Suzette Didier; cook, Suzette Didier; butler, Didier; valet de chambre, Suzette. Some day I shall get lost in this infernal place, and you will find me eaten up by the rats, as I am afraid my sweet Julie would be.”

“And who is Mademoiselle Julie, monsieur?”

“An angel, a ray of sunshine, a star, an exquisite flower, a gem of dazzling beauty.”

“Oh, the young lady you are in love with! That’s the way my Pierre used to talk about me fifty years ago. Lovers are all alike, monsieur, in every rank of life.”

“But when she sees that I consented to accept this dismal old rookery I shall earn her everlasting contempt,” groaned Louis.

“Come, now, monsieur,” said Suzette, “don’t be so downhearted. You are not at all bad looking.”

“Thank you a thousand times.”

“And I have seen stupider men.”

“Oh, no, never! The possession of this chateau has forever ruined the reputation for any good sense I ever had.”

“Now, don’t say that. When things are at their worst they always begin to mend.”

“Do they? Then just look around and see if there is a fire smouldering anywhere, and don’t put it out. But it would be just my luck, as soon as the fire was started, to have a pouring rain come down exactly like this. However, that hope of a fire remains. Go, and if you smell smoke come and tell me; and remember, whatever you do, don’t try to put the fire out.”

As Suzette opened the door to go out she almost walked over an elderly gentleman just entering. He was one of those persons who bear the stamp of prosperity writ large all over them. His clothes were of the handsomest make, his umbrella, his watch chain, everything about him betokened the man who goes into a great shop and asks for the best. He was clean-shaven and had a very intelligent nose, pompous ears, and a smiling and liberal mouth. But his ruddy countenance was more marked than is usually found among the merely rich, and he had a pair of gray-blue eyes which indicated a strange mixture of artlessness and shrewdness. Suzette took his dripping umbrella, and then, advancing, he made a very polite bow to Louis, who rose courteously. The newcomer said, handing a card:

“May I introduce myself? I am Monsieur Victor Louis de Latour, and I hope it is not presumptuous in me to claim descent from the great family of De Latour, of which this chateau has been the seat for two centuries.”

“As a descendant of the great house of De Latour, may I ask you to take the best of the only two chairs in the chateau which my ancestors have imposed upon me?” replied Louis gravely, offering the only other chair in the room besides the one on which he himself had sat.

Monsieur de Latour seated himself and smiled benignly.

“I am exceedingly grateful,” he said, “that you should receive me as a relative and as a humble member of a distinguished family.”

“My dear sir,” answered Louis, “I am glad you take it as a compliment. For my part, I hate every ancestor I ever had. They appear to have had no sort of consideration for me whatever. They left me this old ruin, which I don’t believe has had ten francs’ worth of repairs on it in the last hundred years. But they took pretty good care to build substantial monuments to themselves in the church yonder”--pointing from the window--“comfortable tombs without a crack in them and not a leak in a single place. That is the way of the world--every man for himself.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” asked Monsieur de Latour, glancing around him, “that you have no means to repair this chateau?”

“I have at present six francs, fifty centimes,” replied Louis. “That is hardly worth applying to such a purpose.”

Monsieur de Latour looked about him as if he doubted whether his host were a lunatic or not, but Louis’s calm and graceful manner and smiling eyes were reassuring.

“Oh, I see!” cried Monsieur de Latour, “you inherited the chateau and nothing with it.”

“Oh, yes, I inherited an army of rats and the most beautiful views in France from every window in the chateau; but, unluckily, I am afraid of the rats, who are much more comfortable here than I am, and I can neither eat the view nor sell it, nor raise money on it--so it is practically of no use to me at all.”

“Then what do you propose to do with the property?”

“I have considered the matter seriously, and I propose to burn it up.”

“Oh, come, now!” said Monsieur de Latour encouragingly, and drawing his chair closer to that of Louis, “don’t be so desperate as all that. Since you have been so confidential with me, and as we are members of the same family, I will be equally confidential with you. Although I have always yearned to be recognised as a member of the distinguished family of De Latour, I admit that I have no proof, and my calling might be considered against me. I am a soap-boiler.”

“I assure you,” said Louis, “I have no prejudice whatever against soap.”

“That’s because you don’t know what goes into it,” returned Monsieur de Latour. “For my part, I have not used a piece of soap for twenty years. I use this instead.”

He took out of his pocket a little box of fine white sand, showed it to Louis and then put it back.

“But I have always had a soul above soap-boiling. I began at it when I was a mere lad in the soap-boiling factory of Cheri, and a better man than old Cheri never lived. Twenty years ago I started in business on my own account, and to-day I can retire at any moment that I like with a fortune twice as large as I have hoped to accumulate. Now, as you see, I am not an old man, and I have determined to stop work and enjoy my fortune while I can. Two things are necessary to my enjoyment of it--the first that I shall be recognised as a member of the distinguished family of De Latour, and the second is that I shall marry.”

“Pray proceed,” said Louis; “I am most interested in all you tell me. So far as I am concerned, I can only say that I should, at present, gladly recognise a ragpicker who had a fortune as a member of my family.”

Old De Latour laughed at this.

“At least, I am not as bad as that. All I want is a good batch of ancestors.”

“And all I want,” groaned Louis, “is to get rid of my ancestors, for they have brought nothing but misfortune upon me.”

“Very well, why couldn’t we come to an agreement? Money for ancestors, eh?”

“I should be perfectly delighted. I will take one hundred francs for the whole lot.”

“Oh, you are trifling! What I mean is this--that you should recognise me as a relative. This would enable me to use the De Latour crest, and it would make those idiots in my native town of Brionville, who have laughed at my pretensions, laugh on the other side of their faces. Couldn’t you perch me somewhere on the family tree?”

“On the very highest branch, if you like.”

“Young man,” said Monsieur de Latour, drawing still closer to Louis until their noses almost touched, and tapping him on the shoulder, “you don’t take this business seriously enough. You see, to recognise me as a member of a noble family would very much assist me in that other plan of marriage. How would it suit you if I were to adopt you legally as my nephew, according to the custom so common in our country, and settle upon you, say, three hundred thousand francs?”

Scarcely were the words out of Monsieur de Latour’s mouth than Louis rushed upon him, squeezed him so hard that his ribs seemed likely to break, and covered the top of his bald head with kisses.

“Come, come,” cried Monsieur de Latour, struggling breathlessly against this overwhelming demonstration, “this is too much! You will strangle me!”

Louis, at this, released his hold, and seizing the old gentleman’s umbrella and hat, covered them with kisses, murmuring:

“Three hundred thousand francs--dear, dear uncle!”

Then, suddenly dropping them, he said:

“No, it cannot be true. My dear sir, you must be either drunk or crazy.”

“No, I am not,” answered Monsieur de Latour, laughing. “It is worth three hundred thousand francs to me to have the notice put in the Brionville newspaper that I am visiting my relative at the Chateau of Montplaisir, and to put the De Latour crest on my carriage without being arrested for it.”

“You may have it tattooed on your body if you like,” replied Louis joyfully. “Three hundred thousand francs! If I did not think it a base return for your splendid offer, I should insist that you take possession of this old rat-trap of a chateau.”

“Well,” said Monsieur de Latour, “I am a man of business as well as a descendant of a great feudal family, so I will wish to settle this matter of adoption upon a proper basis. You know, of course, that under our laws it is a very serious thing. It implies a degree of legal responsibility which, I am afraid, my young friend, you scarcely appreciate. You see, I have had to do with large affairs, and I know what the legal obligation means. If I adopt you as my nephew I should acquire over you all the authority of a parent. You could not marry without first asking my consent, for example.”

“Yes, I know, I know. Three hundred thousand francs! Dear, dear uncle!”--and Louis again made demonstrations toward embracing Monsieur de Latour, which the old gentleman cleverly warded off with his umbrella.

“So now you understand fully the legal obligations of adoption under the French law?”

“Oh, yes, I believe you own me, body and soul! I shall not only have to ask your consent before I can get married, but before I get shaved, or even sneeze. But I am willing to risk it for three hundred thousand francs.”

“Don’t be afraid. I sha’n’t attempt to coerce you in any way whatever. By the way, what is your full name?”

“Louis Victor de Latour.”

“And mine,” said Monsieur de Latour delightedly, “is Victor Louis de Latour.”

“Why, I believe you are my uncle, after all!”

“Isn’t it a lucky coincidence? Now, I will tell you what my ideas are with regard to marriage. I have a good many ideas on the subject.”

“And I have only one, and that is to marry the girl I love, and through you, dear uncle----”

Here Louis made another dive at Monsieur de Latour, hugged him violently in spite of his struggles, and again covered the umbrella and hat with kisses, whispering to himself:

“Dear, dear Julie!”

Monsieur de Latour, like most persons, when talking of himself was eloquent and expansive. He squared himself off, putting his thumbs in his armholes, and said solemnly:

“The catastrophe will begin.”

But the rickety chair, giving way under his weight, suddenly collapsed, and in another second he was sprawling upon the floor. Louis helped him up, dusted his coat, and giving him the only remaining chair, himself took a seat upon the table.

“Rather awkward, that,” said Monsieur de Latour, rubbing his shins. “You must get some better chairs out of your three hundred thousand francs. Well, when I was in the house of Cheri I fell very much in love with Mademoiselle Séline Cheri, but she was then far above me, and remained so for twenty years. She is still unmarried, and a pretty woman yet, although no longer young, and a good one, too, and until I got this noble family bee in my bonnet I strongly desired to marry Mademoiselle Séline. But it seems to me now that we have had quite enough of soap-boiling in the De Latour family, and I might look higher. There is a Comtesse de Beauregard, for example.”

At that Louis’s heart jumped into his throat and remained there, thumping, while Monsieur de Latour continued:

“You may be surprised that a man of my position should have any connection with a lady of Madame de Beauregard’s rank, but it happened in this way. Her brother, the Vicomte de Brésac, honoured me with his friendship, and when he died he left me as guardian of the property of his only child Julie.”

Then the room began to whirl around before Louis’s misty eyes, and he heard, as in a dream, old De Latour’s voice continuing:

“Madame de Beauregard has charge of the young lady herself, and, in fact, I have never seen my ward, but I have seen the old aunt. Great Heavens, what a creature! She is a woman of sixty who thinks she is twenty, and acts accordingly. When that old lady is awake the devil sleeps because he knows that all of his business is being well attended to. I don’t know what sort of pranks she may lead my ward into, but I am not responsible for anything except for Julie’s money, which is considerable. Madame de Beauregard has one of those chateaux which carry a title with it, and if I marry her I should become a comte. That’s a great temptation, you know; that is, if I could murder the old lady immediately after the ceremony. But, seriously, it would be an immense triumph at Brionville if I should marry the sister of the Vicomte de Brésac, and it would serve Séline Cheri right for not having married me in all these years. Still, I am not yet determined. Sometimes I think I should like to marry a pretty young girl, but then people would call me an old fool. The subject of marriage is always full of doubts.”

“Quite so,” answered Louis mechanically.

His mind had wandered to Julie and those sunny days in Algiers when, with his heart full of love and his pockets quite empty of money, he adored her and received those secret sweet assurances which a woman can always give the man she loves.