Mysteries of Paris Volume II Part 22

"And to Countess M'Gregor?"

"Likewise; here is the answer."

"And to Countess d'Orbigny?"

"She is much obliged; she arrived yesterday from Normandy, she did not expect an answer so soon; here is her letter. I have also been to the Marquis d'Harville's steward, as he required, for the charges of the contract I signed the other day at the hotel."

"You told him that it was not pressing?"

"Yes, but he would pay it. There is the money. Ah! I forgot that this card was here, below, at the porter's; the words in pencil written underneath by the porter; this gentleman asked for M. Ferrand; he left this."

"'WALTER MURPHY,'" read the chief clerk; and then in pencil, "'_Will return at three o'clock on important business_.' I do not know this name."

"Oh! I forgot," continued Chalomel; "M. Badinot said it was all right, that M. Ferrand should do as he pleased; that would be always right."

"He did not give a written answer?"

"No, sir, he said he hadn't time."

"Very well."

"M. Charles Robert will also come in the course of the day to speak to the governor; it appears he fought a duel yesterday with the Duke of Lucenay."

"Is he wounded?"

"I believe not, or they would have told me of it at his house."

"Look! here is a carriage stopping."

"Oh! the fine horses, are they not mettlesome."

"And the fat English coachman, with his white wig and brown livery, with silver lace and epaulets like a colonel!"

"An emba.s.sador, surely."

"And the cha.s.seur, has not he enough silver lace?"

"And grand mustachios."

"Hold!" said Chalomel, "it is the carriage of the Viscount de Saint Remy."

"Ain't it stylish? Whew!"

Soon afterward Saint Remy entered the office. We have described the charming face, the exquisite elegance, the ravishing bearing of Saint Remy, arrived the previous evening from Arnouville Farm, belonging to the d.u.c.h.ess Lucenay, where he had found a refuge from the bailiffs.

Saint Remy entered the office hastily, his hat on, his manner haughty and proud, his eyes half closed, asking, in a very impertinent way, without looking at any one, "The notary? where is he?"

"M. Ferrand is busy in his private office," answered the head clerk; "if you will wait a moment, sir, he will receive you."

"I wait?"

"But, sir----"

"There are no 'but, sirs'; go and tell him that M. de Saint Remy is here. I find it very singular that this notary makes me wait in his antechamber; it smells of the stove."

"Please to pa.s.s into the next room, sir," said the clerk; "I will go at once and inform M. Ferrand."

Saint Remy shrugged his shoulders, and followed the head clerk. At the end of a quarter of an hour, which seemed to him very long, and changed his contempt into rage, Saint Remy was introduced into the cabinet of the notary. Nothing could be more curious than the contrast of these two men, both profound physiognomists, and generally accustomed to judge at a first glance with whom they had to deal.

Saint Remy saw Jacques Ferrand for the first time. He was struck with the characteristics of this wan, rigid, impa.s.sible face; the expression concealed by the large green spectacles, the head half-hidden in an old black silk cap.

The notary was seated before his desk in a leathern arm-chair, beside a broken-down fireplace, filled with ashes, in which were smoking two black stumps. Curtains of green muslin, almost in tatters, suspended from iron rods, concealed the lower part of the windows, and cast into this cabinet, already dark enough, a dull and disagreeable light.

Shelves of black wood, filled with labeled boxes; some chairs of cherry wood, covered with yellow Utrecht velvet; a mahogany clock; a yellow, moist, and slippery floor; a ceiling filled with cracks, and, ornamented with garlands of spider-webs; such was the sanctum sanctorum of Jacques Ferrand.

The viscount had not advanced two steps, had not said a single word, before the notary who knew him by reputation, hated him already. In the first place, he saw in him, so to speak, a rival in knavery; and, although Ferrand was of a mean and ign.o.ble appearance himself, he did not the less detest in others elegance, grace, and youth; above all when an air deeply insolent accompanied these advantages.

The notary ordinarily affected a sort of rudeness, almost gross, toward his clients, who only felt more esteem for him for these boorish manners. He promised himself to redouble this brutality toward the viscount.

He, knowing M. Ferrand only by reputation, expected to find in him a kind of scrivener, good-natured or ridiculous, the viscount figuring to himself always that men of proverbial probity must be simpletons.

Far from this, the other's looks imposed on the viscount an undefinable feeling, half fear, half hatred, although he had no serious reason to fear or hate him. Thus, in consequence of his resolute character, Saint Remy increased his insolence and habitual foppery of manner. The notary kept his cap upon his head; the viscount retained his hat, and cried from the door in a loud, sharp voice:

"It is, by Jove! very strange, that you give me the trouble to come here, instead of sending to me for the money for the bills I have indorsed for this Badinot, for which the fellow has sued me. You should not expose me to wait a quarter of an hour in your antechamber; that is not so polite as it might be."

Ferrand, without paying the least attention, finished a calculation he was making, wiped his pen methodically on the sponge which lay near his ink-stand, and raised toward the viscount his cold, unearthly, flattened face, enc.u.mbered with the green spectacles.

It looked like a death's head, whose eyes had been replaced by great, fixed, gla.s.sy sockets. After having looked at him for a moment in silence, he said to the viscount, in a rough, short tone, "Where is the money?"

Such coolness exasperated Saint Remy.

He-he! the idol of the women, the envy of men, the paragon of the best company in Paris, the renowned duelist, not to produce more effect on a miserable notary! It was odious; although he was _tete-a-tete_ with Jacques Ferrand, his self-pride revolted.

"Where are the bills?"

With the ends of his fingers, hard as iron, and covered with red hair, the notary, without answering, struck on a large portfolio of leather placed near him.

Decided to be equally laconic, although bursting with rage, the viscount took from the pocket of his coat a small book of Russian leather, clasped with golden hasps, drew out forty-one thousand franc notes and showed them to the notary.

"How much?" asked he.

"Forty thousand francs."

"Give them to me."

"Here, and let us finish quickly, sir; do your business, pay yourself, hand me back the papers," said the viscount, throwing the packet impatiently on the table.

The notary took them, arose and examined them near the window, turning them over one by one with an attention so scrupulous and so insulting to Saint Remy, that he grew pale with rage.

The notary, as if he had suspected the thoughts which agitated the viscount, shook his head, half turned toward him, and said, in an undefinable tone, "There are such things as--"