Mated from the Morgue Part 7

Ah! my dear sir, she was a woman. The s.e.x, the s.e.x! we, soldiers and men of feeling, ought to have no commerce with it, but be let walk our ways straightly.'

O'Hara was fiddling with a certain parcel which he had stolen from his bosom.

'She married a rich politician, one of the d.a.m.n---- pardon me, my dear sir, one of the bourgeoisie cla.s.s, and as Louis Philippe was king, the bourgeoisie was everything, and Caroline's husband was a favourite and a great man. I think she married him out of duty to her mother, to save her declining days from poverty. When Louis Philippe was sent to the right-about, the mean bourgeois politician went to the right-about too, and his fortune with him. Poor Caroline had died in giving birth to daughters, twins. Luckily, their nurse, one of the people, had a heart; she kept a wine-shop at Choisy-le-Roi, and she took care of the two poor orphans: yes, they were orphans, for that shabby Orleans rascal, who skirted, was never a real living man, nor his master either. d.a.m.n---- pardon me, sir, but Louis Philippe was no king--he was a grocer, sir, a grocer.'

'At best he was a usurper, but a singularly mild one,' remarked O'Hara.

'We shall not talk of him, sir,' said the captain; 'but now let me complete an old man's confidences. I adopted one of those twins, she was so like her mother in manner; she is my housekeeper. If Berthe is my Song-bird, it is Caroline who keeps the nest tidy.'

'That superb brunette!'

'Ah! you think her superb,' cried the aged officer, pleased.

'Superb--that's right; she is the born image of her mother.'

'And the other,' pursued O'Hara eagerly, a dark suspicion taking hold of his imagination.

A shade pa.s.sed over the old man's face. 'Ah! I know nothing of her. She was her father's daughter, not her mother's. She preferred the noisy wine-shop to my quiet home, and three years ago she disappeared from our sight altogether. But the night waxes late. I must be going. So you haven't seen your friend since?'

'No, and I have anxiously desired to see him, to clear off some obligations I am under to him.'

'Well, again good-night. I pray you don't be such a stranger as he; but sometimes call up to Victor Chauvin's humble quarters. It gladdens his spirit to converse with youth.'

O'Hara gave a.s.surance that he would esteem it a happiness and an honour to visit one with whom he had so many kindred sympathies.

'It grows late' said the officer, 'and my pair of pretty birds will be anxiously looking out for me if I delay. Good-night, my child, good-night.'

And as O'Hara escorted Captain Chauvin to the door, Pat accompanied them, but only with a valedictory bark. The truth is he was too well fed, and he was not used to it. With dogs, as with men, high feeding begets indolence, and the indolent are not over-polite.

CHAPTER VII.

FRIEZECOAT AT HOME.

The morning after Captain Chauvin had admitted the young Irishman into his confidences was wet and gloomy. At half-past ten a.m. O'Hara was seated in front of his dressing-table engaged in an unpleasant operation entailed by the usages of modern society, that of shaving himself. He wore moustaches and mouche, but fashion in the French capital necessitated the removal of the whiskers, and, razor in hand, skimming over a surface of lathered skin, he peered into the toilet-gla.s.s, when a loud tap resounded on the panel of the door. Before he had time to make answer the lock was turned, the door thrown open, and the applicant for admittance had entered with heavy step. O'Hara turned round and stared at him.

It was the very man whom he had been wishing to see, the stranger, whose name was not Beelzebub, clad in the same long frieze coat, the skirts of which were met by spatterdashes, which totally shut out his trousers from view. His boots were covered with mud, his face perspiring from exercise; he took off his hat and sat down abruptly by the table, on which a pile of loose journals, letters, and other literary matter was strewn.

'Welcome,' said the interrupted shaver with cheerfulness (although he had gashed his jaw), advancing towards his visitor.

'Stay where you are, Mr. Ma.n.u.s O'Hara, and finish your shaving. Pa.s.sing by this way--thought I'd call in to see you.'

O'Hara regarded him with a broad stare of wonderment. How had this stranger found out his name and lodging? His looks must have conveyed the questions.

'How do I know your name and where to find you? you would ask,' said the stranger. 'Spiritual clairvoyance. Shave yourself.'

O'Hara smiled, said nothing, but determined to deal with the humorist in his own coin, and resumed his position before the gla.s.s.

Friezecoat commenced fumbling amid the letters and papers on the table.

O'Hara saw the movement reflected in the mirror, turned round, and said calmly:

'There are private doc.u.ments there.'

'You have no right to leave them exposed,' retorted the stranger imperturbably.

'Most of my visitors are gentlemen; at least, in their habits,' said O'Hara with quiet irony.

'Not all,' said the stranger as quietly.

'So I see.'

'For instance, I'm not a gentleman--don't want to be one,' said the stranger. 'I'm content to be a man. Finish your shaving.'

O'Hara looked at him, undecided whether to lose temper or laugh; finally, again turned to the gla.s.s and resumed the operation on his beard with a studious show of deliberateness. He could see, however, with pleasure, in the reflection of the table, that the stranger had not chosen to meddle a second time with the loose ma.n.u.scripts before him.

After removing the last wanton hair, disburdening his jaws of the acc.u.mulated lather, wiping his cheek with the towel, softly dusting the irritated flesh with powder, carefully drying the razor and returning it to its case, he turned round in his seat, faced his whimsical visitor, and said deliberately:

'I have finished.'

'Come away,' said the stranger, and he descended the stairs. 'You must accompany me to the wild beast's den. I have something to say to you.'

O'Hara followed him; they entered a _voiture_, and the stranger gave the word, to the Rue des Fosses St. Victor. The street which was called Loustarol in the revolutionary times corresponds with the Rue des Fosses St. Victor of to-day. It lies in the thick network of schools behind the church of St. Etienne du Mont, between the thoroughfares named in honour of the great French mathematician, Descartes, and the great Swedish naturalist, Linnaeus. Its site was formerly occupied by the cloisters of Philippe Auguste, and here stood the convent of _Les Dames Anglaises_ and the Scotch College. Even still there is a scholarly sedateness in the neighbourhood. The house to which they were driven was entered by a long-walled avenue with prison-like wickets at intervals, ending in an open iron gate, which permitted a view of a blooming flower-garden. To the left, just before reaching this gate, was a door painted _Pension Bourgeoise_, the sort of establishment in Paris which corresponds with our boarding-house. Friezecoat raised the latch and led in his companion.

A narrow courtyard, weakly vines trained along the wall on one side and a range of rooms destined for lodgers on the other, conducted to the Pension, which was a tall, narrow house, surmounted by a belvedere. A few noisy fowls in a preternatural state of activity promenaded the yard; a lazy dog, preternaturally lazy, too lazy even to bark, lay curled in a corner. But the grand feature of the pension was a one-storied wooden house, such as are frequently to be met with in Switzerland, containing two bedrooms underneath and two in the upper floor, which was approached by a staircase from the outside, prolonged into a balcony, which ran in front of the structure under the shelter of the over-hanging eaves. Friezecoat lived in this chalet. As they drew near, the c.o.c.k, at the van of his plumed seraglio, crowed like a proud French c.o.c.k; the dog moved his head and gave an indolent growl.

'Let us go aloft,' said Friezecoat, stepping on the staircase.

'I pay for these two rooms on the top, I tenant but one,' continued he; 'I have the staircase to myself, so that I can be isolated when I like.'

'You are comfortably situated,' said O'Hara, glancing round the room into which they had entered, which was a square cleanly-papered bed-chamber plainly furnished. A timepiece ticked on the mantel-shelf under a neat mirror, a secretaire stood between it and the window, which was furnished with _persiennes_, adding to the general appearance of rusticity. A book-case, over which was disposed a trophy of pistols, foils, and boxing-gloves, and having on either side prints of Protais'

celebrated sketches of the Cha.s.seurs de Vincennes at work, _Avant l'Attaque_ and _Apres le Combat_, was fixed against the wall directly opposite the door. A fauteuil, four rush-bottomed chairs, and a commode completed the inventory of the furniture. A screened alcove concealed the bed, and a nook in the same side of the room was cut off by a part.i.tion and apportioned to the services of ablution.

'The view is not splendid,' said the stranger, seating himself in the fauteuil and motioning O'Hara to a rush-bottomed chair: 'that wall with the high trellis confines it; outside is the playground of some sort of an inst.i.tution. I like to hear the buzz of the boys amusing themselves; it brings back my youth; then the green trees, as I see them waving through the lattice, call up the country. Altogether,' with a tone of enthusiasm in his voice, 'I like the shanty; it's a bit of Switzerland in this Paris.'

'You go in for muscularity,' hinted O'Hara, glancing at the trophy of arms.

'I have found it necessary in my career,' replied the stranger quietly.

'Smoke?'

'Yes.'

The stranger brought out a superbly-mounted Turkish pipe from a drawer, and handed it to his visitor. 'Will you try hasheesh?'

O'Hara declined.

'I like it now and again. It lifts me into an ideal world--makes me forget the real. Drink?'

O'Hara accepted.