Part 8
“Well, I have just seen Madame de Beauregard, and she is having another will made as fast as Monsieur Bertoux can write it, and so you have lost between you by your folly five hundred thousand francs which you could have easily retained.” And then addressing Eugène: “What do a few escapades and a little dissipation matter with half a million francs to be gained by it? But no, you want to thank God that you are better than other men, and you have been rightly served by Madame de Beauregard. All I have to say is that you are to give up immediately any idea you may have of marrying my niece. Half an hour ago you were a very desirable match--now you are not a match in a marriageable sense at all. Mélanie, let go of his hand!”
For as even a dove strives to defend her nest, Mélanie only held on the more to Eugène’s hand.
“Would you have me give him up because he strives to be good and pleases me thereby?” she asked, trembling.
“I certainly should!” roared Monsieur de Latour.
Eugène, not to be less courageous than Mélanie, replied firmly:
“Mademoiselle, although I cannot ask you now to share my poverty, rest assured that I am yours forever.”
“Ah, Eugène,” said Mélanie timidly, “perhaps by waiting-- My uncle cannot really mean to separate us, knowing how much we love each other.”
“But I _shall_ separate you!” shouted Monsieur de Latour, “and you will see, young man, whether I do or not.”
At this Louis’s voice was heard over Monsieur de Latour’s shoulder.
“My dear nephew,” he said, “what kind of language is this that you are using? I am simply shocked at you. Would you part two young hearts that beat only for each other?”
“Certainly I would,” angrily responded Monsieur de Latour, wheeling around on Louis.
“Luckily,” remarked Louis coolly, “it is not in your power. Under the articles of my adoption of you as a nephew you cannot do anything of this character without my consent, and I don’t intend to allow you to separate Mademoiselle Mélanie and Monsieur de Contiac.” And then he briefly explained that he had adopted Monsieur de Latour instead of Monsieur de Latour adopting him. Turning to Monsieur de Latour, Louis continued: “The fact is, Victor, you have no experience with the master passion. The love of two young hearts cannot be treated like the boiling soap in a couple of vats. You are dealing with an unknown quantity when you try to control the emotions of the soul. It is fortunate that you are enough under my authority to prevent you from interfering either with Mademoiselle Mélanie’s love-affair or with the tender attachment which I feel for Mademoiselle Julie and which she does me the honour to accept.”
“Do you mean to say, you upstart--?” thundered Monsieur de Latour.
“Come, come, Victor, that kind of language is totally unsuited to our relationship. Remember, you are my nephew.”
“The devil I am! It’s the most arrant nonsense I ever heard in my life.”
“Will you go and ask Monsieur Bertoux what he thinks of it?”
“Oh, I know it’s all legal, but it’s simply maddening! However”--addressing Mélanie and Eugène in a menacing manner--“don’t you two young hypocrites take this gentleman too seriously about this adoption business. First let us see how it will work.”
“I,” said Louis, with much dignity, “advise you, mademoiselle, and you, Monsieur de Contiac, to take it with the utmost seriousness, as I mean to enforce all the rights of my position. And among other things, I apologise for the behaviour of my nephew. You are our joint guests, and I beg you will forget everything that has been said. My nephew has not yet learned the lesson of self-control, but I hope to teach it to him. We shall all have until five o’clock to compose ourselves, and by that time I hope my nephew will have arrived at a better frame of mind. Come, Victor,” and with that he seized Monsieur de Latour by the arm and dragged him off, spluttering:
“It’s maddening, simply maddening!”
Monsieur de Latour, shaking himself free, retired to his own room to ponder over the topsy-turvy condition of affairs. The more he pondered the more puzzling the situation seemed to him. Julie, he realised, was out of his reach, and the vision of a young and pretty girl as his partner for the rest of his life seemed less attractive when he reflected upon the complications that Julie’s youth and inexperience had brought upon him. His association with Madame de Beauregard, and with the persons of high-sounding names to whom she had introduced him, including even the semi-royal duke during that alarming experience in the auto-car, had fostered extremely his natural taste for aristocratic society, and it really seemed to him as if he were throwing himself away if he should marry Mademoiselle Cheri.
Just at that moment he glanced out of his window and saw a superb carriage with a ducal crest upon it turning into the court-yard, and from it descended the semi-royal duke. Madame de Beauregard appeared in person on the terrace to greet her visitor. He was a portly, red-faced old gentleman, apparently of the same vintage as Madame de Beauregard herself.
Monsieur de Latour, watching the scene from his window, felt his chest swell at the thought of entertaining such distinguished guests. It is true that the duke had been upon the auto-car expedition, but Monsieur de Latour had been so frightened on that occasion as they whizzed and banged along that he really remembered very little about the duke.
The conversation of Madame de Beauregard and the duke floated up to Monsieur de Latour’s window, and he could not forbear listening to the clear, gay voices on the terrace.
Madame de Beauregard, who treated dukes and costermongers alike, received this particular duke with great familiarity, and began to pour out to him the story of her grievances against Eugène de Contiac and modern men in general, at which the duke chuckled in a semi-royal way.
“Here,” cried Madame de Beauregard, snapping her bright old eyes, “I am the guest of Monsieur de Latour, a soap-boiling man, but I like him. There is not half as much difference as the world thinks between you people, with sixteen quarterings, and a soap-boiler after he is washed and combed and well dressed. And this old soap-boiler has some spirit in him--I suppose he might be considered quite a desperate character in these milk-and-water days. But he isn’t a patch on you, my dear duke, for example, nor on General Granier, and when you are dead there will be no more men left alive.”
The semi-royal duke grinned, and remarked that he had no intention of dying yet awhile.
“Nor have I!” cried Madame de Beauregard. “I expect to spend the season of 1940 at Dinard. Do you remember, my dear duke, the season of 1860 at Deauville? Oh, they were days then when one lived! We had no rheumatism, we had all our own teeth, and we could go the pace by night as well as by day.”
“My dear madame,” replied the duke, who really had quite a gentlemanly air when he chose, “you are to-day as young in feelings, in energy and in looks as you were in 1860.”
“Oh, you old rogue!” cried Madame de Beauregard, playfully prodding the duke with her fan, “how can you tell such taradiddles? Well, I can’t say that you are as young as you were in 1860, but I will say that you have more life in you than ten young men of to-day.”
Monsieur de Latour, watching and listening from his bedroom window, turned pale. The idea of such language and such prodding applied to any man with a ducal title was bad enough, but to a duke who figured in the Almanach de Gotha!
“There is something in blood, after all,” thought Monsieur de Latour, watching Madame de Beauregard’s ease and sprightliness; “but I believe that woman would chuck an archbishop under the chin, and tweak a cardinal’s ear, if she wanted to.”
The duke, however, who had known Madame de Beauregard for fifty years, settled himself quite comfortably to hear the present generation abused and his own lauded.
“The fact is, madame,” he said, “the young people of the present day are too correct by half.”
“Quite right you are,” replied Madame de Beauregard with emphasis. “Now, there is my nephew, Eugène de Contiac. You know my troubles with that young man. Well, now he is behaving worse than ever. He is in love with the soap-boiler’s niece, who is a shade more pious than Eugène. The minx actually tells him that she will marry him without a franc if he continues pious, and won’t look at him if he doesn’t, even if I give him half a million francs. However, my mind is made up that no godly young man shall get any of my money. In 1860 there weren’t any pious young men, were there, duke?”
Madame de Beauregard rattled on in her shrill, high-pitched voice for the benefit of everybody within half a mile, and Monsieur de Latour, who could not help hearing, listened to the names of princes, kings, and even emperors handled in the most familiar manner, and getting the general impression that in 1860 Madame de Beauregard and the semi-royal duke were engaged in one long, loud, and uproarious romp with half the royal personages in Europe. This was not without its effect on the retired soap-boiler, and his mind returned to the half-formed scheme of marrying the old lady herself. The duke paid a long visit, and by the time he went away the purple dusk was falling.
In spite of the exciting occurrences of the day the whole party met at dinner with outward composure and even gaiety. Monsieur de Latour, however, was considerably annoyed by the tone of paternal authority which Louis adopted toward him, and by the gibes of Madame de Beauregard at the situation which had been reversed.
“So it was that little baggage Julie who did it all?” the old lady chuckled, indicating Julie, who sat at the table and looked as innocent as the cat that had eaten the canary. “To tell you the truth, Monsieur de Latour, I don’t believe she made the mistake in the name through inadvertence. I think that she meant to put you in Monsieur Louis de Latour’s power.”
“But it is preposterous!” burst out Monsieur de Latour.
“If you think so,” replied Louis coolly, “try to break the arrangement and see where you are.”
And then everybody at the table laughed, and Monsieur de Latour, boiling and spluttering with rage, yet had to control himself and smile a ghastly smile.
And so the old lady had countenanced the trick his ward had played upon him! But he still held on to the three hundred thousand francs, and there would be no question of Julie and Louis marrying without it. It seemed to Monsieur de Latour that he had Louis in quite as much of a hole as Louis had him.
The visit of the semi-royal duke made a great impression upon Monsieur de Latour, and he began to consider seriously how he might contrive to marry Madame de Beauregard. He concluded that the best and only way was to enter upon a series of larks of the wildest description, and began to turn over in his mind plans to that effect.
As a preliminary Monsieur de Latour invited the whole party, including Monsieur Bertoux, to remain for the rest of the month at the chateau, and in this Louis cordially concurred, and they all accepted. Madame de Beauregard knew everybody worth knowing at Dinard, and the old lady, in spite of her peculiarities, was much sought after as a person of great consequence. The terrace of the chateau was gay with guests every afternoon at tea time. Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie were very well pleased at the opportunity of seeing a phase of society hitherto unknown in their secluded and provincial lives, but Mademoiselle Cheri, unlike Monsieur de Latour, was not in the least overawed by it.
Duchesses, princesses, and countesses, with the gentlemen in their train, came every afternoon, on Madame de Beauregard’s invitation, to the terrace, for the old lady’s idea of life was one long, unintermittent frolic. But Monsieur de Latour was so dazzled by the names of the people, to say nothing of their equipages and servants, that his head was completely turned. To be the head of the house of De Latour had seemed to him, the month before, the acme of distinction, but now he longed to be the Comte de Beauregard, a title which he would acquire if he succeeded in marrying Madame de Beauregard.
The only serious rival he had was General Granier, with his extremely interesting leg and his repertoire of escapades, and his large assortment of delightfully scandalous stories. Monsieur de Latour could in no way pretend to rival him in these particulars. How tame and correct seemed his life at Brionville! He grew positively ashamed of its tameness and correctness, and longed to prove that he had in him the making of a dreadfully dissipated character.
Moreover, he was checked at every turn by Louis, who, with the coolest assumption and most ineffable impudence, undertook to treat him like a schoolboy. It was in vain that he threatened Louis with the loss of the prospective three hundred thousand francs and the promise of withholding consent from Louis’s marriage to Julie. Louis snapped his fingers at the three hundred thousand francs, which he declared to be a mere trifle compared with Julie’s love. And as for the question of Monsieur de Latour’s consent--ah, there was a complication indeed! Louis had studied carefully the legal aspects of his adoption of Monsieur de Latour instead of Monsieur de Latour’s adoption of him, and the threat of attempting to enforce them and compelling Monsieur de Latour to appear in court as his adopted nephew made the old gentleman extremely uncomfortable. Louis absolutely undertook to cut down Monsieur de Latour’s allowance of champagne at dinner and cigars afterward, tried to force him to go to bed at ten o’clock, and urged him to lead as correct a life as that of Eugène de Contiac.
Monsieur de Latour, turning these things over in his mind, determined to make a break for liberty, not only for his own satisfaction but as a means of recommending himself to Madame de Beauregard, and he thought:
“If I can get that milksop of a nephew of hers to come with me and make a man of him, the Comtesse de Beauregard will be sure to look upon me with an eye of favour, and perhaps, as he and Mélanie are determined to be married some time or other, I can secure for him the half-million francs which Madame de Beauregard promises to give him, provided he turns from good to gay. And after all, what Eugène said in that unlucky letter about being as pious as he pleased after Madame de Beauregard is dead and gone is perfectly true, and Mélanie can have that happiness to which every woman aspires--that of reforming a man.”
Filled with these notions Monsieur de Latour, one morning about a fortnight after the arrival of his guests at the chateau, carried off to his bedroom Eugène de Contiac, and, after double-locking the door, seated himself for a confidential interview. Eugène himself had drooped somewhat in spirits, as a man will who has just lost half a million francs. He had begun to consider if there were not some means by which he could get his legacy, have his allowance restored, and still keep on terms with Mélanie, having a fixed determination to become pious again as soon as he dared to be. Monsieur de Latour, surmising what was passing in Eugène’s mind, unfolded a plan to him.
“My dear fellow,” said he, confidentially, “I think you made a mistake in throwing away that half-million francs. It doesn’t seem impossible that you should have your legacy and your allowance restored and marry my niece, for she certainly fancies you--God knows why! Now, Madame de Beauregard can’t live forever.”
“Oh, yes, she will!” groaned Eugène. “She is good for forty years yet. She will live to bury all of us and be skipping around here until she meets the fate of the old lady who died at the age of one hundred and ten of a fall from a cherry-tree.”
“Well,” said Monsieur de Latour, going closer and dropping his voice to a mysterious whisper, “perhaps--ahem!--there are certain secrets of the heart--it’s rather embarrassing to speak of these things--but--it is possible that I may become a candidate for Madame de Beauregard’s hand.”
“Marry her, do you mean?” cried Eugène, falling back in his chair. “Good Heavens! If I were in your place I would rather marry a whole circus than my aunt. Yet she is not a bad woman; but for pure friskiness there never was anything like her.”
“I agree with you perfectly, but I am a little frisky myself. Now, I have a proposition to make to you. Suppose you and I go to Paris for a week with the express purpose of having a little lark of the sort Madame de Beauregard would like. I believe it would certainly end in her restoring your legacy and allowance, and might--ahem!--incline her favourably to listen to the proposition which I am contemplating making her. If only General Granier, with that infernal leg of his, were out of the way! But she seems never tired of listening to stories of what he can do with that leg--shoot rabbits, play cards, and actually play the piano with it. And he eighty years of age if he is a day! That man and Madame de Beauregard have found the fountain of eternal youth and friskiness.”
“But Mélanie?” asked Eugène anxiously. “She is devoted to me now; but if I should spend such a week in Paris as you desire I am sure she would never speak to me.”
“Oh, yes, she would! She would have the pleasure of reforming you again, and that is a joy which a woman cannot repeat too often. No, my dear fellow, don’t think that for a moment. Go down on your knees to Mélanie, tell her you are sorry for what you have done, then--get up and do it again. That’s what women all like.”
There was something enticing to Eugène in all this, and after an hour’s urgent representation he finally consented to make the visit to Paris with Monsieur de Latour. That night at dinner Monsieur de Latour announced their intended excursion.
“And I promise you,” he said significantly to Madame de Beauregard, who sat at his right, “that when we come back we shall have some tales to tell!”
“I do hope so,” piously ejaculated Madame de Beauregard.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VII
A MERRY WEEK IN PARIS
One week from the day that Monsieur de Latour and Eugène left for Paris they were sitting in Monsieur de Latour’s study in the Chateau of Montplaisir, absolute wrecks of their former selves. Monsieur de Latour was the colour of a mustard plaster, his eyes were bloodshot, his hand trembled, and as he lay back in an arm-chair he seemed scarcely able to raise his head. Eugène, sitting at the other end of the room, leaned forward, supporting his aching head upon his shaking hands. At intervals a long, shuddering sigh burst from him, which was answered by a loud groan from Monsieur de Latour. Presently Eugène spoke in a scarcely audible voice:
“I wouldn’t spend such another week as the last for half a million francs.”
“And I,” groaned Monsieur de Latour from the other end of the room, “would give half a million francs for another head and a new stomach.”
There was a silence after this, broken by Eugène saying in a sepulchral voice, “Oh, my head!”
To which Monsieur de Latour responded in tones of agony, “Oh, my head!”
Then there was a longer silence still.
“Do you know how much it cost?” asked Eugène.
“No,” replied Monsieur de Latour. “All I know is I used up all the cheques in my cheque-book, and when I got to the station here I didn’t have enough money to pay the cabman to bring us to the chateau.” And he groaned dismally.
While they sat in gloom and miserable silence the door suddenly flew open and in bounced Madame de Beauregard, carrying a newspaper in her hand.
“Oh, you two darlings!” she cried, blowing a kiss to Monsieur de Latour and throwing her arm around Eugène’s aching head, “how delightfully you have been behaving! It has been in the newspapers for three days past. I was so pleased that I made Monsieur Bertoux not only make me a new will, but directed him to pay to my nephew’s credit in bank one-half of his legacy, that is, two hundred and fifty thousand francs, in cash.”
Eugène felt feebly in his pocket.
“Yes, I believe I did get a letter or something from Monsieur Bertoux, but I was not in a state to understand it exactly. Here it is.”
He took the letter out and read it--a brief communication saying that Monsieur Bertoux had, by the direction of Madame de Beauregard, placed two hundred and fifty thousand francs to Eugène’s credit at his Paris banker’s.
“And now,” cried Madame de Beauregard, shaking him, “aren’t you perfectly delighted?”
Eugène shook his head dolefully.
“If you had my head!” he replied.
Madame de Beauregard shrieked with laughter at this.
“And how about your head, monsieur?” she asked of Monsieur de Latour.
“It feels about the size of the Eiffel Tower,” gasped Monsieur de Latour.
This delighted the old lady still more.
“Now,” she cried, “I will tell you what the newspapers say. It is all about your visit to the races. They say that the two of you went out, escorting nineteen ballet-girls, and before you left you had paid for one hundred and twenty-seven bottles of champagne, and that two of the young ladies--he! he!--gave you, monsieur, a footbath in champagne--ha! ha!”
“They took off my shoes and stockings, and before they got through I was wet to my shirt with champagne.”
“Why, that almost makes me fall in love with you! And then the police came along----”
“I wish they had come before,” murmured Eugène sadly.
“--and tried to arrest you, and the ballet-girls smuggled you and Eugène out of the way, and you jumped into a twenty-thousand-franc racing machine----”
“It cost me thirty thousand francs before I got through with it,” interjected Monsieur de Latour.
“--and ran it into a ditch, and smashed the machine all to bits, and you fought the police----”
“Look at the back of my neck!” said Monsieur de Latour, displaying a number of bumps and bruises.
“--and got yourselves arrested, and by some sort of hocus-pocus----”
“It was ten thousand francs’ worth of hocus-pocus,” said Eugène in a tired voice.
“--managed to go free. And you sat up all the next night playing cards and losing money----”
“We did that for six nights,” replied Monsieur de Latour, “and we weren’t playing cards all the time. I lost twelve thousand francs on a bet that more flies would alight on my lump of sugar than on another man’s. But we played cards, too.”
“In short,” cackled the old lady, “you must have had a most delightful week.”
This remark was received in melancholy silence. After a pause Monsieur de Latour said wearily:
“It seems to me about ten weeks since we left this place for Paris.”