by Eugène Sue
“Gentlemen, will you be so kind as to tell me if this garden belongs to No. 7?”
“Yes,” replied the commander.
“And to the apartment on the ground floor of that house?”
“Yes.”
“I rang that bell three times, but no one answered it.”
“I occupy that apartment,” said the commander, greatly surprised. “What do you want?”
“Here is a very important letter for a Madame Barbançon, who, I am told, lives here.”
“Yes, she does live here,” replied the veteran, more and more surprised.
Then, seeing the housekeeper at the other end of the garden, he called out to her:
“Mother Barbançon, the door-bell has rung three times, unanswered, while you’ve been trespassing upon my preserves. Come quick! Here is a letter for you.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE DUCHESS.
MADAME BARBANÇON PROMPTLY responded to this peremptory summons, and, after a hasty apology to her employer, said to the waiting servant:
“You have a letter for me? From whom?”
“From the Comtesse de Beaumesnil, madame,” replied the man, handing Madame Barbançon the letter through the lattice.
“Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil?” exclaimed the astonished housekeeper; “I do not know her. I not only don’t know her, but I haven’t the slightest idea who she is — not the slightest,” the worthy woman repeated, as she opened the letter.
“The Comtesse de Beaumesnil?” inquired Gerald, evidently much interested.
“Do you know her?” asked Olivier.
“I met her two or three years ago,” replied Gerald. “She was wonderfully beautiful, then, but the poor woman has not left her bed for a year. I understand that hers is a hopeless case. Worse still, M. de Beaumesnil, who had gone to Italy with their only child, a daughter, who was ordered south by the physicians, — M. de Beaumesnil died quite recently in Naples, in consequence of having been thrown from his horse, so if Madame de Beaumesnil dies, as they apprehend, her daughter will be left an orphan at the age of fifteen or sixteen years.”
“Poor child! This is really very sad,” said the commander, sympathisingly.
“Nevertheless, Mlle. de Beaumesnil has a brilliant future before her,” continued Gerald, “for she will be the richest heiress in France. The Beaumesnil property yields an income of over three million francs!”
“Three million francs!” exclaimed Olivier, laughing. “Can it be that there are people who really have an income of three million francs? Do such people come and go, and move about and talk, just like other people? I should certainly like to be brought face to face with one of these wonderful creatures, Gerald.”
“I’ll do my best to gratify you, but I warn you that as a general thing they are not pleasant to contemplate. I am not referring to Mlle. de Beaumesnil, however; she may be as beautiful as her mother.”
“I should like very much to know how one can spend such an income as that,” said the commander, in all sincerity, emptying the ashes from his pipe.
“Great Heavens! is it possible?” exclaimed Madame Barbançon, who, in the meantime, had read the letter handed to her. “I am to go in a carriage — in a carriage like that?”
“What is the matter, Mother Barbançon?” inquired the veteran.
“I must ask you to let me go away for a little while.”
“Certainly, but where are you going, may I ask?”
“To the house of Madame de Beaumesnil,” replied the good woman, in a very important tone. “She desires some information which I alone can give, it seems. May I turn Bonapartist if I know what to make of all this!”
But the next instant the former midwife uttered an exclamation, as if a new and startling idea had just occurred to her, and, turning to her employer, she said:
“Monsieur, will you step out into the garden a moment with me? I want to say a word to you in private.”
“Oh,” replied the veteran, following the lady out of the arbour, “it is an important matter, it seems. Go on; I am listening, Madame Barbançon.”
The housekeeper, having led her employer a short distance from the arbour, turned to him and said, with a mysterious air:
“Monsieur, do you know Madame Herbaut, who lives on the second floor and has two daughters? The lady to whom I introduced M. Olivier about a fortnight ago, you recollect.”
“I don’t know her, but you have often spoken to me about her. Well, what of it?”
“I recollect now that one of her particular friends, Madame Laîné, is now in Italy, acting as governess to the daughter of a countess whose name sounds something like Beaumesnil. In fact, it may be this very same countess.”
“It may be, I admit, Mother Barbançon. Well, go on.”
“And she may have heard about me through Madame Laîné, whom I have met at Madame Herbaut’s.”
“That, too, is very possible, Madame Barbançon. You will soon know for a certainty, however, as you are going to Madame Beaumesnil’s.”
“Mon Dieu! monsieur, another idea has just occurred to me.”
“Let us hear it,” said the veteran, with infinite patience.
“I have told you about that masked lady who—”
“You’re not going to tell that story again, surely!” cried the commander, with the evident intention of beating a retreat.
“No, monsieur, but what if all this should have some connection with that young lady?”
“The quickest way to ascertain, Mother Barbançon, is to get off as soon as possible. We shall both be the gainers by it.”
“You are right, monsieur. I will go at once.”
And following her employer, who had returned to his guests in the arbour, the housekeeper said to the footman, who was still standing a few feet from the gate:
“Young man, as soon as I can get my bonnet and shawl on I shall be at your service.”
And a few minutes afterwards Madame Barbançon, triumphantly passing the gate in her carriage, felt that the deference due her employer made it incumbent upon her to rise to her feet in the vehicle, and bow low to the commander and his guests.
Just then the clock in a neighbouring church struck seven.
“Seven o’clock!” exclaimed Olivier, evidently much annoyed. “I am very sorry, my dear Gerald, but I shall have to leave you.”
“Already! And why?”
“I promised a worthy mason in the neighbourhood that I would go over his accounts with him this evening, and you have no idea what a task it is to straighten out books like his!”
“True, you did warn me that you would only be at liberty until seven o’clock,” replied Gerald. “I had forgotten the fact, I was enjoying my visit so much.”
“Olivier,” remarked the veteran, whose spirits seemed to have undergone a sudden decline since his nephew’s allusion to the work to which he intended to devote his evening, “Olivier, as Madame Barbançon is absent, will you do me the favour to bring from the cellar the last bottle of that Cyprian wine I brought from the Levant? M. Gerald must take a glass of it with us before we separate. The mason’s accounts won’t suffer if they do have to wait half an hour.”
“An excellent idea, uncle, for I do not have to be as punctual now as if it were the week before pay-day. I’ll get the wine at once. Gerald shall taste your nectar, uncle.”
And Olivier hastened away.
“M. Gerald,” began the commander, with no little embarrassment, “it was not merely to give you a taste of my Cyprian wine that I sent Olivier away. It was in order that I might be able to speak to you, his best friend, very plainly in regard to him, and to tell you how kind and thoughtful and generous he is.”
“I know all that, commander. I know it well, but I like to hear it from your lips, — the lips of one who knows and loves Olivier.”
“No, M. Gerald, no, you do not know all. You have no idea of the arduous, distasteful labour the poor boy imposes upon himself, not only that he may be no expense to
me during his furlough, but that he may be able to make me little presents now and then, which I dare not refuse for fear of paining him. This handsome pipe, it was he who gave it to me. I am very fond of roses. He has just presented me with two superb new varieties. I had long wanted a big easy chair, for when my wounds reopen, which happens only too often, I am sometimes obliged to sit up several nights in succession. But a large armchair cost too much. Still, about a week ago, what should I see some men bringing in but that much desired article of furniture! I might have known it, for Olivier had spent I don’t know how many nights in copying documents. Excuse these confidential disclosures on the part of poor but honest people, M. Gerald,” said the old sailor, in a voice that trembled with emotion, while a tear stole down his cheek, “but my heart is full. I must open it to some one, and it is a twofold pleasure to be able to tell all this to you.”
Gerald seemed about to speak, but the commander interrupted him.
“Pardon me, M. Gerald, you will think me too garrulous, I fear, but Olivier will be here in a minute, and I have a favour to ask of you. By reason of your exalted position, you must have many grand acquaintances, M. Gerald. My poor Olivier has no influence, and yet his services, his education, and his conduct alike entitle him to promotion. But he has never been willing, or he has never dared to approach any of his superiors on this subject. I can understand it, for if I had been a ‘hustler’ — as you call it — I should hold a much higher rank to-day. It seems to be a family failing. Olivier is like me. We both do our best, but when it is a question of asking favours our tongues cleave to the roof of our mouths, and we’re ashamed to look anybody in the face. But take care! Here comes Olivier,” hastily exclaimed the old sailor, picking up his pipe and beginning to puff at it with all his might; “try to look unconcerned, M. Gerald, for heaven’s sake try to look unconcerned, or Olivier will suspect something.”
“Olivier must be a lieutenant before his leave expires, commander, and I believe he will be,” said Gerald, deeply touched by these revelations on the part of the veteran. “I have very little influence myself, but I will speak to the Marquis de Maillefort. His word carries great weight everywhere, and strongly urged by him, Olivier’s promotion — which is only just and right — is assured. I will attend to the matter. You need give yourself no further anxiety on the subject.”
“Ah, M. Gerald, I was not mistaken in you, I see,” said the commander, hurriedly. “You are kind as a brother to my poor boy — but here he is — don’t let him suspect anything.”
And the good man began to smoke his pipe with the most unconcerned air imaginable, though he was obliged furtively to dash a tear from out the corner of his eye, while Gerald to divert his former comrade’s suspicions still more effectually, cried:
“So you’ve got here at last, slow-coach! I’m strongly inclined to think you must have fallen in with some pretty barmaid like that handsome Jewess at Oran. Do you remember her, you gay Lothario?”
“She was a beauty, that’s a fact,” replied the young soldier, smiling at the recollection thus evoked, “but she couldn’t hold a candle to the young girl I just met in the courtyard,” replied Olivier, setting the dusty bottle of Cyprian wine carefully on the table.
“Ah, your prolonged stay is easily explained now!” retorted Gerald.
“Just hear the coxcomb,” chimed in the veteran. “And who is this beauty?”
“Yes, yes, do give us the particulars of your conquest.”
“She would suit you wonderfully well, M. le duc,” laughed Olivier, “wonderfully well, for she is a duchess.”
“A duchess?” queried Gerald.
“A duchess here!” exclaimed the commander. “The locality is indeed honoured, to-day. This is something new.”
“I was only trying to gratify your vanity a little, — the vanity of a Batignollais, you know. My conquest, as that harebrained Gerald is pleased to call it, is no conquest at all; besides, the lady in question is not really a duchess, though people call her so.”
“And why, pray?” inquired Gerald.
“Because they say she is as proud and beautiful as any duchess.”
“But who is she? In my character of duke, my curiosity on this point should be gratified,” insisted Gerald.
“She is a music teacher,” replied Olivier. “She is degrading herself terribly, you see.”
“Say rather the piano is becoming ennobled by the touch of her taper fingers, — for she must have the hands of a duchess, of course. Come now, tell us all about it. If you’re in love, whom should you take into your confidence if not your uncle and your former comrade?”
“I sincerely wish I had the right to take you into my confidence,” said Olivier, laughing; “but to tell the truth, this is the first time I ever saw the young girl.”
“But tell us all you know about her.”
“There is a Madame Herbaut who has rooms on the second floor of the house,” replied Olivier, “and every Sunday this excellent woman invites a number of young girls, friends of her daughters, to spend the evening with her. Some are bookkeepers or shop girls, others are drawing teachers, or music teachers, like the duchess. There are several very charming girls among them, I assure you, though they work hard all day to earn an honest living. And how intensely they enjoy their Sunday with kind Madame Herbaut! They play games, and dance to the music of the piano. It is very amusing to watch them, and twice when Madame Barbançon took me up to Madame Herbaut’s rooms—”
“I demand an introduction to Madame Herbaut, — an immediate introduction, do you hear?” cried the young duke.
“You demand — you demand. So you think you have only to ask, I suppose,” retorted Olivier, gaily. “Understand, once for all, that the Batignolles are quite as exclusive as the Faubourg St. Germain.”
“Ah, you are jealous! You make a great mistake, though, for real or supposed duchesses have very little charm for me. One doesn’t come to the Batignolles to fall in love with a duchess, so you need have no fears on that score; besides, if you refuse my request, I’m on the best possible terms with Mother Barbançon, and I’ll ask her to introduce me to Madame Herbaut.”
“Try it, and see if you succeed in securing admittance,” responded Olivier, with a laughable air of importance. “But to return to the subject of the duchess,” he continued, “Madame Herbaut, who is evidently devoted to her, remarked to me the other day, when I was going into ecstasies over this company of charming young girls: ‘Ah, what would you say if you could see the duchess? Unfortunately, she has failed us these last two Sundays, and we miss her terribly, for all the other girls simply worship her; but some time ago she was summoned to the bedside of a very wealthy lady who is extremely ill, and whose sufferings are so intense, as well as so peculiar in character, that her physician, at his wit’s end, conceived the idea that soft and gentle music might assuage her agony at least to some extent.’”
“How singular!” exclaimed Gerald. “This invalid, whose sufferings they are endeavouring to mitigate in every conceivable way, and to whom your duchess must have been summoned, is Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil.”
“The same lady who just sent for Madame Barbançon?” inquired the veteran.
“Yes, monsieur, for I had heard before of this musical remedy resorted to in the hope of assuaging that lady’s terrible sufferings.”
“A strange idea,” said Olivier, “but one that has not proved entirely futile, I should judge, as the duchess, who is a fine musician, goes to the house of Madame de Beaumesnil every evening. That is the reason I did not see her at either of Madame Herbaut’s soirées. She had just been calling on that lady, probably, when I met her just now. Struck by her regal bearing and her extraordinary beauty, I asked the porter if he knew who she was. ‘It was the duchess I’m sure, M. Olivier,’ he answered.”
“This is all very interesting and charming, but it is rather too melancholy to suit my taste,” said Gerald. “I prefer those pretty and lively girls who grace Madame Herbaut�
�s entertainments. If you don’t take me to one, you’re an ingrate. Remember that pretty shop-girl in Algiers, who had an equally pretty sister!”
“What!” exclaimed the veteran, “I thought you were talking a moment ago of a pretty Jewess at Oran!”
“But, uncle, when one is at Oran one’s sweetheart is at Oran. When one is at Algiers, one’s sweetheart is there.”
“So you’re trying to outdo Don Juan, you naughty boy!” cried the veteran, evidently much flattered by his nephew’s popularity with the fair sex.
“But what else could you expect, commander?” asked Gerald. “It is not a matter of inconstancy, you see, but simply of following one’s regiment, that is all. That is the reason Olivier and I were obliged to desert the beauties of Oran for the pretty shop-girls of Algiers.”
“Just as a change of station compelled us to desert the bronze-cheeked maidens of Martinique for the fisher maids of St. Pierre Miquelon,” remarked the old sailor, who was becoming rather lively under the influence of the Cyprian wine which had been circulating freely during the conversation.
“A very sudden change of zone, commander,” remarked Gerald, nudging the veteran with his elbow. “It must have been leaving fire for ice.”
“No, no, you’re very much mistaken there,” protested the veteran, vehemently. “I don’t know what to make of it, but those fisher maidens, fair as albinos, had the very deuce in them. There was one little roly-poly with white lashes, particularly, whom they called the Whaler—”
“About the temperature of Senegambia, eh, uncle?”
“I should say so,” ejaculated the veteran. And as he replaced his glass upon the table, he made a clucking sound with his tongue, but it was hard to say whether this significant sound had reference to his recollection of the fair Whaler or to the pleasant flavour of the Cyprian wine. Then suddenly recollecting himself, the worthy man exclaimed:
“Well, well, what am I thinking of? It ill becomes an old fellow like me to be talking on such subjects to youths like you! Go on, talk of your Jewesses and your duchesses as much as you please, boys. It suits your years.”