Gerfaut Part 13

"Your husband is really a very brave man," said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, addressing Clemence.

"Brave as an old warrior. This time he pushed his courage to the verge of imprudence; I do not know what the result might have been if the crowd had not been dispersed a second time by the approach of the lancers, who were returning through the boulevard. I led Bergenheim into a cafe; fortunately, his arm was only sprained." Just at this moment Marillac's story was interrupted by a sound of voices and hurried steps.

The door opened suddenly, and Aline burst into the room with her usual impetuosity.

"What has happened to you, Aline?" exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim, hurrying to her sister's side. The young girl's riding-habit and hat were covered with splashes of mud.

"Oh, nothing," replied the young girl, in a broken voice; "it was only t.i.tania, who wanted to throw me into the river. Do you know where Rousselet is? They say it is necessary to bleed him; and he is the only one who knows how to do it."

"Whom do you mean, child? Is my husband wounded?" asked Clemence, turning pale.

"No, not Christian; it is a gentleman I do not know; only for him I should have been drowned. Mon Dieu! can not Rousselet be found?"

Aline left the room in great agitation. They all went over to the windows that opened out into the court, whence the sound of voices seemed to arise, and where they could hear the master's voice thundering out his commands. Several servants had gone to his a.s.sistance: one of them held t.i.tania by the bridle; she was covered with foam and mud, and was trembling, with distended nostrils, like a beast that knows it has just committed a wicked action. A young man was seated upon a stone bench, wiping away blood which streamed from his forehead. It was Monsieur de Gerfaut.

At this sight Clemence supported herself against the framework of the window, and Marillac hurriedly left the room.

Pere Rousselet, who had at last been found in the kitchen, advanced majestically, eating an enormous slice of bread and b.u.t.ter.

"Good heavens! have you arrived at last?" exclaimed Bergenheim. "Here is a gentleman this crazy mare has thrown against a tree, and who has received a violent blow on the head. Do you not think it would be the proper thing to bleed him?"

"A slight phlebotomy might be very advantageous in stopping the extravasation of blood in the frontal region," replied the peasant, calling to his aid all the technical terms he had learned when he was a hospital nurse.

"Are you sure you can do this bleeding well?"

"I'll take the liberty of saying to Monsieur le Baron that I phlebotomized Perdreau last week and Mascareau only a month ago, without any complaint from them."

"Indeed! I believe you," sneered the groom, "both are on their last legs."

"I am neither Perdreau nor Mascareau," observed the wounded man with a smile.

Rousselet drew himself up at full height, with the dignity of a man of talent who scorns to reply to either criticism or mistrust.

"Monsieur," said Gerfaut, turning to the Baron, "I am really causing you too much trouble. This trifle does not merit the attention you give it.

I do not suffer in the least. Some water and a napkin are all that I need. I fancy that I resemble an Iroquois Indian who has just been scalped; my pride is really what is most hurt," he added, with a smile, "when I think of the grotesque sight I must present to the ladies whom I notice at the window."

"Why, it is Monsieur de Gerfaut!" exclaimed Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, toward whom he raised his eyes.

Octave bowed to her with a gracious air. His glance wandered from the old lady to Clemence, who did not seem to have the strength to leave the window. M. de Bergenheim, after hurriedly greeting Marillac, finally yielded to the a.s.surance that a surgeon was unnecessary, and conducted the two friends to his own room, where the wounded man could find everything that he needed.

"What the devil was the use in sending me as amba.s.sador, since you were to make such a fine entrance upon the stage?" murmured Marillac in his friend's ear.

"Silence!" replied the latter as he pressed his hand; "I am only behind the scenes as yet."

During this time Clemence and her aunt had led Aline to her room.

"Now, tell us what all this means?" said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, while the young girl was changing her dress.

"It was Christian's fault," replied Aline. "We were galloping along beside the river when t.i.tania became frightened by the branch of a tree. 'Do not be afraid!' exclaimed my brother. I was not in the least frightened; but when he saw that my horse was about to run away, he urged his on in order to join me. When t.i.tania heard the galloping behind her she did run away in earnest; she left the road and started straight for the river. Then I began to be a little frightened. Just fancy, Clemence, I bounded in the saddle at each leap, sometimes upon the mare's neck, sometimes upon the crupper; it was terrible! I tried to withdraw my foot from the stirrup as Christian had told me to do; but just then t.i.tania ran against the trunk of a tree, and I rolled over with her. A gentleman, whom I had not seen before, and who, I believe, actually jumped out of the ground, raised me from the saddle, where I was held by something, I do not know what; then that naughty t.i.tania threw him against the tree as he was helping me to my feet, and when I was able to look at him his face was covered with blood. Christian rushed on the scene, and, when he saw that I was not badly hurt, he ran after t.i.tania and beat her! Oh! how he beat her! Mon Dieu! how cruel men are! It was in vain for me to cry for mercy; he would not listen to me.

Then we came home, and, since this gentleman is not badly wounded, it seems that my poor dress has fared worst of all."

The young girl took her riding-habit from the chair as she said these words, and could not restrain a cry of horror when she saw an enormous rent in it.

"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, as she showed it to her sister-in-law. It was all that she had strength to articulate.

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil took the skirt in her turn, and looked at it with the practised eye of a person who had made a special study of little disasters of the toilet and the ways of remedying them.

"It is in the fullness," said she, "and by putting in a new breadth it will never be seen."

Aline, once convinced that the evil could be repaired, soon recovered her serenity.

When the three ladies entered the drawing-room they found the Baron and his two guests chatting amicably. Gerfaut had his forehead tied up with a black silk band which gave him a slight resemblance to Cupid with his bandage just off his eyes. His sparkling glance showed that blindness was not what there was in common between him and the charming little G.o.d. After the first greetings, Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who was always strict as to etiquette, and who thought that t.i.tania had been a rather unceremonious master of ceremonies between her nephew and M. de Gerfaut, advanced toward the latter in order to introduce them formally to each other.

"I do not think," said she, "that Monsieur de Bergenheim has had the honor of meeting you before today; allow me then to present you to him.

Baron, this is Monsieur le Vicomte de Gerfaut, one of my relatives."

When Mademoiselle de Corandeuil was in good humor, she treated Gerfaut as a relative on account of their family alliance of 1569. At this moment the poet felt profoundly grateful for this kindness.

"Monsieur has presented himself so well," said Christian frankly, "that your recommendation, my dear aunt, in spite of the respect I have for it, will not add to my grat.i.tude. Only for Monsieur de Gerfaut, here is a madcap little girl whom we should be obliged to look for now at the bottom of the river."

As he said these words, he pa.s.sed his arm about his sister's waist and kissed her tenderly, while Aline was obliged to stand upon the tips of her toes to reach her brother's lips.

"These gentlemen," he continued, "have agreed to sacrifice for us the pleasure of the Femme-sans-Tete, as well as Mademoiselle Gobillot's civilities, and establish their headquarters in my house. They can pursue their picturesque and romantic studies from here just as well; I suppose, Marillac, that you are still a determined dauber of canvas?"

"To tell the truth," replied the poet, "art absorbs me a great deal."

"As to myself, I never succeeded in drawing a nose that did not resemble an ear and vice versa. But for that worthy Baringnier, who was kind enough to look over my plans, I ran a great risk of leaving Saint Cyr without a graduating diploma. But seriously, gentlemen, when you are tired of sketching trees and tumbledown houses, I can give you some good boar hunting. Are you a hunter, Monsieur de Gerfaut?"

"I like hunting very much," replied the lover, with rare effrontery.

The conversation continued thus upon the topics that occupy people who meet for the first time. When the Baron spoke of the two friends installing themselves at the chateau, Octave darted a glance at Madame de Bergenheim, as if soliciting a tacit approbation of his conduct; but met with no response. Clemence, with a gloomy, sombre air fulfilled the duties that politeness imposed upon her as mistress of the house. Her conduct did not change during the rest of the evening, and Gerfaut no longer tried by a single glance to soften the severity she seemed determined to adopt toward him. All his attentions were reserved for Mademoiselle de Corandeuil and Aline, who listened with unconcealed pleasure to the man whom she regarded as her saviour; for the young girl's remembrance of the danger which she had run excited her more and more.

After supper Mademoiselle de Corandeuil proposed a game of whist to M.

de Gerfaut, whose talent for the game had made a lasting impression upon her. The poet accepted this diversion with an enthusiasm equal to that he had shown for hunting, and quite as sincere too. Christian and his sister--a little gamester in embryo, like all of her family--completed the party, while Clemence took up her work and listened with an absentminded air to Marillac's conversation. It was in vain for the latter to call art and the Middle Ages to his aid, using the very quintessence of his brightest speeches--success did not attend his effort. After the end of an hour, he had a firm conviction that Madame de Bergenheim was, everything considered, only a woman of ordinary intelligence and entirely unworthy of the pa.s.sion she had inspired in his friend.

"Upon my soul," he thought, "I would a hundred times rather have Reine Gobillot for a sweetheart. I must take a trip in that direction tomorrow."

When they separated for the night, Gerfaut, bored by his evening and wounded by his reception from Clemence, which, he thought, surpa.s.sed anything he could have expected of her capricious disposition, addressed to the young woman a profound bow and a look which said:

"I am here in spite of you; I shall stay here in spite of you; you shall love me in spite of yourself."

Madame de Bergenheim replied by a glance none the less expressive, in which a lover the most p.r.o.ne to conceit could read:

"Do as you like; I have as much indifference for your love as disdain for your presumption."

This was the last shot in this preliminary skirmish.