White Lies Part 11

said he with cool candor, "a sad pity the estate should pa.s.s from a family that has held it since the days of Charlemagne."

"Now G.o.d forbid!" cried the baroness, lifting her eyes and her quivering hands to heaven.

The notary held the republican creed in all its branches. "Providence, madame, does not interfere--in matters of business," said he. "Nothing but money can save the estate. Let us then be practical. Has any means occurred to you of raising money to pay off these inc.u.mbrances?"

"No. What means can there be? The estate is mortgaged to its full value: so they say, at least."

"And they say true," put in the notary quickly. "But do not distress yourself, madame: confide in me."

"Ah, my good friend, may Heaven reward you."

"Madame, up to the present time I have no complaint to make of Heaven.

I am on the rise: here, mademoiselle, is a gimcrack they have given me;"

and he unb.u.t.toned his overcoat, and showed them a piece of tricolored ribbon and a clasp. "As for me, I look to 'the solid;' I care little for these things," said he, swelling visibly, "but the world is dazzled by them. However, I can show you something better." He took out a letter.

"This is from the Minister of the Interior to a client of mine: a promise I shall be the next prefect; and the present prefect--I am happy to say--is on his death-bed. Thus, madame, your humble servant in a few short months will be notary no longer, but prefect; I shall then sell my office of notary: and I flatter myself when I am a prefect you will not blush to own me."

"Then, as now, monsieur," said the baroness politely, "we shall recognize your merit. But"--

"I understand, madame: like me you look to 'the solid.' Thus then it is; I have money."

"Ah! all the better for you."

"I have a good deal of money. But it is dispersed in a great many small but profitable investments: to call it in suddenly would entail some loss. Nevertheless, if you and my young lady there have ever so little of that friendly feeling towards me of which I have so much towards you, all my investments shall be called in, and two-thirds of your creditors shall be paid off at once. A single client of mine, no less a man than the Commandant Raynal, will, I am sure, advance me the remaining third at an hour's notice; and so Beaurepaire chateau, park, estate, and grounds, down to the old oak-tree, shall be saved; and no power shall alienate them from you, mademoiselle, and from the heirs of your body."

The baroness clasped her hands in ecstasy.

"But what are we to do for this?" inquired Josephine calmly, "for it seems to me that it can only be effected by a sacrifice on your part."

"I thank you, mademoiselle, for your penetration in seeing that I must make sacrifices. I would never have told you, but you have seen it; and I do not regret that you have seen it. Madame--mademoiselle--those sacrifices appear little to me; will seem nothing; will never be mentioned, or even alluded to after this day, if you, on your part, will lay me under a far heavier obligation, if in short"--here the contemner of things unsubstantial reopened his coat, and brought his ribbon to light again--"if you, madame, will accept me for your son-in-law--if you, mademoiselle, will take me for your husband."

The baroness and her daughter looked at one another in silence.

"Is it a jest?" inquired the former of the latter.

"Can you think so? Answer Monsieur Perrin. He has just done us a kind office, mother."

"I shall remember it. Monsieur, permit me to regret that having lately won our grat.i.tude and esteem, you have taken this way of modifying those feelings. But after all," she added with gentle courtesy, "we may well put your good deeds against this--this error in judgment. The balance is in your favor still, provided you never return to this topic. Come, is it agreed?" The baroness's manner was full of tact, and the latter sentences were said with an open kindliness of manner. There was nothing to prevent Perrin from dropping the subject, and remaining good friends.

A gentleman or a lover would have so done. Monsieur Perrin was neither.

He said bitterly, "You refuse me, then."

The tone and the words were each singly too much for the baroness's pride. She answered coldly but civilly,--

"I do not refuse you. I do not take an affront into consideration."

"Be calm, mamma; no affront whatever was intended."

"Ah! here is one that is more reasonable," cried Perrin.

"There are men," continued Josephine without noticing him, "who look to but one thing--interest. It was an offer made politely in the way of business: decline it in the same spirit; that is what you have to do."

"Monsieur, you hear what mademoiselle says? She carries politeness a long way. After all it is a good fault. Well, monsieur, I need not answer you, since Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire has answered you; but I detain you no longer."

Strictly a weasel has no business with the temper of a tiger, but this one had, and the long vindictiveness of a Corsican. "Ah! my little lady, you turn me out of the house, do you?" cried he, grinding his teeth.

"Turn him out of the house? what a phrase! where has this man lived?"

"A man!" snarled Perrin, "whom none ever yet insulted without repenting it, and repenting in vain. You are under obligations to me, and you think to turn me out! You are at my mercy, and you think I will let you turn me to your door! In less than a mouth I will stand here, and say to you, Beaurepaire is mine. Begone from it!"

When he uttered these terrible words, each of which was like a sword-stroke to the baroness, the old lady, whose courage was not equal to her strength, shrank over the side of her arm-chair, and cried piteously--"He threatens me! he threatens me! I am frightened;" and put up her trembling hands, for the notary's eloquence, being accompanied with abundance of gesture, bordered upon physical violence. His brutality received an unexpected check. Imagine that a sparrow-hawk had seized a trembling pigeon, and that a royal falcon swooped, and with one lightning-like stroke of body and wing, buffeted him away, and sent him gaping and glaring and grasping at pigeonless air with his claws. So swift and majestic, Josephine de Beaurepaire came from her chair with one gesture of her body between her mother and the notary, who was advancing with arms folded in a brutal, menacing way--not the Josephine we have seen her, the calm languid beauty, but the demoiselle de Beaurepaire--her great heart on fire--her blood up--not her own only, but all the blood of all the De Beaurepaires--pale as ashes with great wrath, her purple eyes on fire, and her whole panther-like body full of spring. "Wretch! you dare to insult her, and before me! Arriere miserable! or I soil my hand with your face." And her hand was up with the word, up, up, higher it seemed than ever a hand was raised before.

And if he had hesitated one moment, I really believe it would have come down; not heavily, perhaps--the lightning is not heavy. But there was no need. The towering threat and the flaming eye and the swift rush buffeted the caitiff away: he recoiled. She followed him as he went, strong, FOR A MOMENT OR TWO, as Hercules, beautiful and terrible as Michael driving Satan. He dared not, or could not stand before her: he writhed and cowered and recoiled all down the room, while she marched upon him. But the driven serpent hissed horribly as it wriggled away.

"You shall both be turned out of Beaurepaire by me, and forever; I swear it, parole de Perrin."

He had not been gone a minute when Josephine's courage oozed away, and she ran, or rather tottered, into the Pleasaunce, and clung like a drowning thing to Rose, and, when Edouard took her hand, she clung to him. They had to gather what had happened how they could: the account was constantly interrupted with her sobs and self-reproaches. She said she had ruined all she loved: ruined her sister, ruined her mother, ruined the house of Beaurepaire. Why was she ever born? Why had she not died three years ago? (Query, what was the date at which Camille's letters suddenly stopped?) "That coward," said she, "has the heart of a fiend. He told us he never forgave an affront; and he holds our fate in his hands. He will drive our mother from her home, and she will die: murdered by her own daughter. After all, why did I refuse him? What should I have sacrificed by marrying him? Rose, write to him, and say--say--I was taken by surprise, I--I"--a violent flood of tears interrupted the sentence.

Rose flung her arms round her neck. "My beautiful Josephine marry that creature? Let house and lands go a thousand times sooner. I love my sister a thousand times better than the walls of this or any other house."

"Come, come," cried Edouard, "you are forgetting ME all this time. Do you really think I am the sort of man to stand by with my hands in my pockets, and let her marry that cur, or you be driven out of Beaurepaire? Neither, while I live."

"Alas! dear boy," sighed Josephine, "what can you do?"

"I'll soon show you. From this hour forth it is a duel between that Perrin and me. Now, Josephine--Rose--don't you cry and fret like that: but just look quietly on, and enjoy the fight, both of you."

Josephine shook her head with a sad smile: but Rose delivered herself thus, after a sob, "La, yes; I forgot: we have got a gentleman now; that's one comfort."

Edouard rose to the situation: he saw that Perrin would lose no time; and that every day, or even hour, might be precious. He told them that the first thing he must do for them was to leave the company he loved best on earth, and run down to the town to consult Picard the rival notary: he would be back by supper-time, when he hoped they would do him the honor, in a matter of such importance, to admit him to a family council.

Josephine a.s.sented with perfect simplicity; Rose with a deep blush, for she was too quick not to see all the consequences of admitting so brisk a wooer into a family council.

It was a wet evening, and a sad and silent party sat round a wood fire in the great dining-hall. The baroness was almost prostrated by the scene with Perrin; and a sombre melancholy and foreboding weighed on all their spirits, when presently Edouard Riviere entered briskly, and saluted them all profoundly, and opened the proceedings with a little favorite pomposity. "Madame the baroness, and you Monsieur Aubertin, who honor me with your esteem, and you Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire, whom I adore, and you Mademoiselle Rose, whom I hoped to be permitted--you have this day done me the honor to admit me as your adviser. I am here to lay my plans before you. I believe, madame, I have already convinced you that your farms are under-let, and your property lowered in value by general mismanagement; this was doubtless known to Perrin, and set him scheming. Well, I rely on the same circ.u.mstance to defeat him. I have consulted Picard and shown him the rent-roll and balance-sheet I had already shown you. He has confessed that the estate is worth more than its debts, so capitalists can safely advance the money. To-morrow morning, then, I ride to Commandant Raynal for a week's leave of absence; then, armed with Picard's certificate, shall proceed to my uncle and ask him to lend the money. His estate is very small compared with Beaurepaire, but he has always farmed it himself. 'I'll have no go-between,' says he, 'to impoverish both self and soil.' He is also a bit of a misanthrope, and has made me one. I have a very poor opinion of my fellow-creatures, very."

"Well, but," said Rose, "if he is all that, he will not sympathize with us, who have so mismanaged Beaurepaire. Will he not despise us?"

Edouard was a little staggered, but Aubertin came to his aid.

"Permit me, Josephine," said he. "Natural history steps in here, and teaches by me, its mouth-piece. A misanthrope hates all mankind, but is kind to every individual, generally too kind. A philanthrope loves the whole human race, but dislikes his wife, his mother, his brother, and his friends and acquaintances. Misanthrope is the potato: rough and repulsive outside, but good to the core. Philanthrope is a peach: his manner all velvet and bloom, his words sweet juice, his heart of hearts a stone. Let me read Philanthrope's book, and fall into the hands of Misanthrope."

Edouard admitted the shrewdness of this remark.

"And so," said he, "my misanthrope will say plenty of biting words,--which, by-the-by, will not hurt you, who will not hear them, only me,--and then he'll lend us the money, and Beaurepaire will be free, and I shall have had a hand in it. Hurrah!"

Then came a delicious hour to Edouard Riviere. Young and old poured out their glowing thanks and praises upon him till his checks burned like fire.

The baroness was especially grateful, and expressed a gentle regret that she could see no way of showing her grat.i.tude except in words. "What can we do for this little angel?" said she, turning to Josephine.

"Leave that to me, mamma," replied Josephine, turning her lovely eyes full on Edouard, with a look the baroness misunderstood directly.

She sat and watched Josephine and Edouard with comical severity all the rest of the time she was there; and, when she retired, she kissed Rose affectionately, but whispered her eldest daughter, "I hope you are not serious. A mere boy compared with you."