Part 11
Louis assumed a reflective air.
“I think,” he said, “I could break her of that unfortunate habit, as you call it, which she has,” and at the same moment he took a dainty note out of his pocket.
It was in Julie’s expansive handwriting, but there was not a single word left out, and it was expressed with the utmost clearness and precision.
“I shall venture to read it to you,” said Louis. “I don’t think that Mademoiselle de Brésac will be offended with me.” And he read:
“I have just had your note. Nothing would induce me to marry any one except you. If my aunt and Monsieur de Latour will not give their consent, then we can wait; but I am always, until I die, your own
“JULIE DE C. DE BRÉSAC.”
Monsieur de Latour listened attentively.
“Now, if she had been as clear and businesslike as that in what she wrote for me, I would have been perfectly satisfied.”
“Possibly she did not understand so well what you wished her to say.”
“She seems to understand well enough what she wishes to say herself in this case. Well, now, I shall tell you my plan. I shall marry Mademoiselle Cheri.”
“Provided she will have you.”
“Oh, I think she will!”
“And also provided that I consent. Remember, my dear fellow, that I am your uncle.”
“The devil you are!”
“Recollect, if you please, the legal rights of adoption.”
Monsieur de Latour jumped up, and taking an angry turn or two about the room, sat down again.
“Very well,” he said, “if you refuse your consent to my marrying Mademoiselle Cheri, I can very easily refuse my consent to your marrying Julie.”
“Monsieur Bertoux tells me that it is a complicated question,” responded Louis, “but nevertheless our marriage could scarcely be prevented. However I, as your uncle, could very easily prevent your marrying Mademoiselle Cheri.”
This infuriated Monsieur de Latour, who, shaking his fist in Louis’s face, bawled:
“I’d like to see you try, and I have a great mind to elope to America with Mademoiselle Cheri this very day!”
Louis whistled softly, by way of showing his contempt for this proposition. Then Monsieur de Latour, relapsing into a gloomy silence, sat huddled up in his chair for some minutes. Presently he growled:
“If I give my consent to your marriage with Julie, I presume you would consent, confound you! to my marriage with Mademoiselle Cheri?”
“Certainly I would,” cried Louis, “but I should still exercise a fatherly care over you, and see that two giddy young things like you and Mademoiselle Cheri did not commit any indiscretions--like your duel of this morning, for example.”
“Into which you dragged me against my will,” replied Monsieur de Latour. “I outwitted all of you. It cost me eighty francs, but it was the best investment I ever made. It saved my life from that bloodthirsty old general.”
“I shall, of course,” continued Louis loftily, “keep an eye upon you, regulate your expenditures, and require you to report to me at least once a week till I see how you are behaving yourself. This will be my duty as your uncle.”
Monsieur de Latour ground his teeth with rage. Then, after another pause, he said:
“I believe that whole scheme was arranged between you and Julie.”
A smile flickered in Louis’s eyes, but he made no reply to this. At last Monsieur de Latour cried:
“Confound both of you! But I will give you the three hundred thousand francs to let me off from that agreement.”
“No, my dear Victor,” answered Louis, shaking his head, “agreeable as it would be to me to have that three hundred thousand francs, I can’t make a relationship so delicate and tender as ours a matter of barter and sale.”
“You mean the power of thwarting and opposing me?” cried Monsieur de Latour very excitedly. “Well, I will give you four hundred thousand francs to let me off.”
“No, I cannot, after having just acquired you as a nephew, part with you so easily.”
“So cheaply, you mean. I will give you five hundred thousand francs.”
“You affront me.”
“Five hundred and fifty thousand.”
“You insult me.”
“Six hundred thousand.”
“Be silent. I can stand no more.”
“You mean you won’t let me off at any price?”
“I must consult Julie first.”
“This is enough to put a man in a madhouse--that I am to be discussed by two such flibbertigibbets. Of course it’s nothing but a scheme to get money out of me, but six hundred thousand francs is all I mean to pay for my liberty.”
Just then the door burst open, and in pranced Madame de Beauregard. It was still very early in the morning, and Madame de Beauregard had not made her mid-day toilet. She wore a peignoir, and the deficiencies of her hair-dressing were concealed by a shawl wrapped around her head. She had slippers on her little feet, but Monsieur de Latour suspected that she had omitted to put on her stockings.
Monsieur de Latour, not feeling equal to encountering Madame de Beauregard just at that moment, retired hastily into his bedroom adjoining. But Madame de Beauregard, who was no respecter of persons, followed him in and almost collared him as he retreated toward the fireplace.
“So,” she cried, “you call yourself a man of spirit, and you are put into a wheeled chair to be carried to the field of honour, and then you pay a policeman eighty francs to trundle you away. And I believe you actually got it into your ridiculous old head that I would marry you. Not for worlds!”
Here Louis, seeing a chance to put in a word for General Granier, said:
“But, madame, General Granier was present and acted with the utmost gallantry. I have never seen such a fire-eater. He not only frightened my nephew, but he frightened me.”
“Did he really?” asked Madame de Beauregard, whirling around.
“And his leg was as steady as a rock, though he had been up three nights running, playing cards and drinking champagne until breakfast-time.”
“Was he really? Well, I declare, if he were fifty years younger I’d marry him.”
“He’s coming to dinner to-night,” put in Louis insinuatingly. “My own belief, madame, is that you would have difficulty in finding any man fifty years younger than General Granier with the life and spirit that he has in him.”
“At all events,” said Madame de Beauregard, addressing Monsieur de Latour, who, chased almost into the fireplace, was about taking refuge in a wardrobe, “I shouldn’t think of marrying an old sheep like you, my dear man. You had much better marry the soap-boiler’s daughter, Mademoiselle Cheri, and the couple of you will be about as tame as a pair of barnyard fowls.”
Monsieur de Latour, stung by the contempt expressed in Madame de Beauregard’s tone, plucked up his courage.
“It is my wish to marry Mademoiselle Cheri, if she will have me, madame,” he said, “and as for leading the life of barnyard fowls--well, it agrees with my constitution better than the life that you, madame, will probably lead with General Granier. And now, madame, if you will kindly leave me, I wish to arrange my toilet.”
“Don’t mind me,” said the old lady nonchalantly, seating herself on the bed.
Monsieur de Latour, meaning to frighten her, peeled off his coat. Madame de Beauregard, without flinching, spread her petticoats around her, and began to sing a song which ended in a refrain of “Tra la la something or other.” Monsieur de Latour then removed his waistcoat, but Madame de Beauregard stood, or rather sat, her ground undauntedly.
“Will you force me, madame, to appear _sans culottes_?” asked Monsieur de Latour in desperation.
“Just as you please, my dear man. I don’t mind a little thing like that.”
Monsieur de Latour, finding himself defeated, resumed his waistcoat and coat, and offering his arm to Madame de Beauregard, the old lady skipped off with him. Monsieur de Latour escorted her out to the terrace. There sat Mademoiselle Cheri, Mélanie and Eugène de Contiac. Madame de Beauregard’s sketchy toilet gave a slight shock to all of them, but the old lady herself remarked casually:
“I know I haven’t got half enough clothes on, but you needn’t look at me, and you can’t see without looking, that much is certain.”
Eugène de Contiac had in his hands a book of sermons. He made not the least attempt to conceal this when Madame de Beauregard appeared, but kept it openly and shamelessly in view.
“So you are at it again!” shrieked Madame de Beauregard. “That’s the way it has been ever since that idiotic Bertoux paid the two hundred and fifty thousand francs to your credit in bank. He says I told him to do it, and perhaps I did, as I really thought you had mended your ways by that trip to Paris.”
“My dear aunt,” quietly replied Eugène, “Mélanie has forgiven me that trip to Paris, and I have promised her never to go upon a like expedition. I was perfectly safe in doing this, as another such week would be my death. And as you have kindly made me independent, Mélanie has agreed to marry me, provided Monsieur de Latour gives his consent.”
Monsieur de Latour assumed a very stern and forbidding air, and then said:
“I must consider it.”
Then Mademoiselle Cheri, rising and going to him with the familiarity of an old friend, said:
“Come now, Victor, you don’t mean that you will really interfere with the happiness of these two young people?”
Monsieur de Latour, seeing his chance, remarked significantly:
“Shall we discuss it a little, then?” And the two walked off toward the orangery.
Once under its green shade, Monsieur de Latour, with the air and manner of a man of twenty-five making love to a girl of eighteen, said sentimentally:
[Illustration: “‘I will give my consent upon one condition.’”]
“I will give my consent upon one condition, and it is that you, Séline, forgive all my follies and faithlessness, and marry me. I am done with great people. I have nearly been killed by two of them--that dreadful old lady over yonder and General Granier. I am a changed man. Instead of being the head of the house of De Latour, I should like to return to Brionville and boil soap the rest of my life. And if you, Séline, will go with me, I will promise you to lead a quiet, respectable and, I hope, respected life the rest of my days.”
Mademoiselle Séline looked at him and her kind eyes grew kinder.
“If that be true, Victor,” she answered sweetly after a moment, “then we may indeed spend the rest of our lives together. As long as you aspired to rank and fashion, and courted the society of people above you, who simply amused themselves at your expense, I could not think of marrying you. But now that you have become the Victor de Latour of twenty years ago, well then----”
Mademoiselle Cheri, with a smile, gave her hand, still plump and pretty, to Monsieur de Latour, who raised it to his lips.
“And now,” she continued, “you will not stand between Mélanie and her happiness, for I know that those two are sincerely attached to each other.”
To this Monsieur de Latour, like a true lover, replied: “Your will, Séline, shall be my law.”
Monsieur de Latour and Mademoiselle Cheri, their countenances beaming, returned to the group, which had been increased by the appearance of Louis and Julie, who had come from Heaven knows where. As soon as the group caught sight of Monsieur de Latour and Mademoiselle Cheri all knew that something had happened--that something which makes or mars a lifetime. In this case it was evident that Monsieur de Latour’s happiness was made forever. His countenance shone like the harvest moon, he stepped high, as one in whose veins joy is pulsating, and he radiated satisfaction. Mademoiselle Cheri was smiling and composed, and her gentle face expressed a tranquil happiness.
“My friends,” said Monsieur de Latour, still holding Mademoiselle Cheri’s plump hand as they drew near, “felicitate me, I beg of you. Mademoiselle Cheri has promised to forgive me and to marry me.”
At this Mélanie kissed them both joyfully, and Louis, with a paternal air, said:
“My dear nephew, I assure you there is no one I would more gladly welcome as my niece than Mademoiselle Cheri, and I may say that Mademoiselle de Brésac, who will certainly be your future aunt, feels as I do.”
“Indeed I do!” cried Julie, laying her hand upon Monsieur de Latour’s arm. “And I rejoice in the thought of becoming aunt to you and dear Mademoiselle Cheri----”
“What did you say?” asked Monsieur de Latour incredulously.
“As your prospective aunt, dear Victor,” Julie reiterated, with the calmest air in the world. “Of course, if I marry Louis, I shall be your aunt.”
“Come,” said Monsieur de Latour, a little upset by the turn of the conversation, “let us stop all this nonsense. I haven’t the slightest objection to your marrying Louis. I like the scamp, in spite of the annoyance that he has caused me, and I believe him to be an excellent fellow, but I can’t be made further ridiculous by this uncle and nephew business. There has been quite enough of it, and I desire you to stop it. So I propose that to-day we shall straighten out the relationship and correct the mistake that you made, and I will hand over the three hundred thousand francs with which I agreed to endow Louis. It is worth that much to get rid of his patronising airs and infernal meddling.”
At this Monsieur de Latour found himself struggling in Louis’s embrace and almost felt his ribs cracking, while Julie nearly strangled him with kisses. Madame de Beauregard’s clear old voice cut the morning air as she proclaimed:
“Good Heavens! all the world seems to be getting married. I shall ring up General Granier over the telephone and tell him that I mean to marry him just as soon as I have time to attend to anything. Let me see--automobiling this morning, casino in the afternoon, dinner in the evening; automobiling to-morrow morning, casino in the afternoon, ball in the evening--well, I shall arrange to get married as soon as possible; but one leads such a gay life in Dinard that it’s very hard to find time to do anything, even to get married.”
To judge, however, from the radiance of happiness which played upon every face assembled upon the terrace of the Chateau of Montplaisir that sunny August morning, it was plain that each of them, except Madame de Beauregard, would easily and quickly find time for the perfect union of hearts and souls and minds which awaited in marriage each pair of lovers.
[Illustration]
WHERE LOVE CONQUERS.
The Reckoning.
By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
The author’s intention is to treat, in a series of four or five romances, that part of the war for independence which particularly affected the great landed families of northern New York, the Johnsons, represented by Sir William, Sir John, Guy Johnson, and Colonel Claus; the notorious Butlers, father and son, the Schuylers, Van Rensselaers, and others.
The first romance of the series, Cardigan, was followed by the second, The Maid-at-Arms. The third, in order, is not completed. The fourth is the present volume.
As Cardigan pretended to portray life on the baronial estate of Sir William Johnson, the first uneasiness concerning the coming trouble, the first discordant note struck in the harmonious councils of the Long House, so, in The Maid-at-Arms, which followed in order, the author attempted to paint a patroon family disturbed by the approaching rumble of battle. That romance dealt with the first serious split in the Iroquois Confederacy; it showed the Long House shattered though not fallen; the demoralization and final flight of the great landed families who remained loyal to the British Crown; and it struck the key-note to the future attitude of the Iroquois toward the patriots of the frontier--revenge for their losses at the battle of Oriskany--and ended with the march of the militia and continental troops on Saratoga.
The third romance, as yet incomplete and unpublished, deals with the war-path and those who followed it led by the landed gentry of Tryon County; and ends with the first solid blow delivered at the Long House, and the terrible punishment of the Great Confederacy.
The present romance, the fourth in chronological order, picks up the thread at that point.
The author is not conscious of having taken any liberties with history in preparing a framework of facts for a mantle of romance.
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
NEW YORK, _May 26, 1904_.
WORKS OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
IOLE
Colored inlay on the cover, decorative borders, headpieces, thumb-nail sketches, and tail-pieces. Frontispiece and three full-page illustrations. 12mo. Ornamental Cloth, $1.25.
Does anybody remember the opera of The Inca, and that heart-breaking episode where the Court Undertaker, in a morbid desire to increase his professional skill, deliberately accomplishes the destruction of his middle-aged relatives in order to inter them for the sake of practice?
If I recollect, his dismal confession runs something like this:
“It was in bleak November When I slew them, I remember, As I caught them unawares Drinking tea in rocking-chairs.”
And so he talked them to death, the subject being “What Really Is Art?” Afterward he was sorry--
“The squeak of a door, The creak of a floor, My horrors and fears enhance; And I wake with a scream As I hear in my dream The shrieks of my maiden aunts!”
Now it is a very dreadful thing to suggest that those highly respectable pseudo-spinsters, the Sister Arts, supposedly cozily immune in their polygamous chastity (for every suitor for favor is popularly expected to be wedded to his particular art)--I repeat, it is very dreadful to suggest that these impeccable old ladies are in danger of being talked to death.
But the talkers are talking and Art Nouveau rockers are rocking, and the trousers of the prophet are patched with stained glass, and it is a day of dinkiness and of thumbs.
Let us find comfort in the ancient proverb: “Art talked to death shall rise again.” Let us also recollect that “Dinky is as dinky does;” that “All is not Shaw that Bernards;” that “Better Yeates than Clever;” that words are so inexpensive that there is no moral crime in robbing Henry to pay James.
Firmly believing all this, abjuring all atom-pickers, slab furniture, and woodchuck literature--save only the immortal verse:
“And there the wooden-chuck doth tread; While from the oak trees’ tops The red, red squirrel on the head The frequent acorn drops.”
Abjuring, as I say, dinkiness in all its forms, we may still hope that those cleanly and respectable spinsters, the Sister Arts, will continue throughout the ages, rocking and drinking tea unterrified by the million-tongued clamor in the back yard and below stairs, where thumb and forefinger continue the question demanded by intellectual exhaustion:
“L’arr! Kesker say l’arr?”
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.