"I have already heard of Denise"s good fortune; and from whom do you think?" she wrote. "From my dear good cousin, Lory de Va.s.selot, who is, if you will believe it, a Corsican neighbour--the Va.s.selot and Perucca estates actually adjoin. Both, I need hardly tell you, bristle with bandits, and are quite impossible. But I have quite decided that Lory shall marry Denise. Come, therefore, without fail. I need not tell you to see that Denise looks pretty. The good G.o.d has seen to that for you. And as for Lory, he is an angel. I cannot think why I did not marry him myself--except that he did not ask me. And then there is my stupid, whom n.o.body else would have, and who now sends his dear love to his oldest friend.--Your devoted JANE."
The Baroness de Melide was called Jeanne, but she had enthusiastically changed that name for its English version at the period when England was, as it were, first discovered by social France.
When Mademoiselle Brun and Denise arrived, they found the baroness beautifully dressed as usual, and very French, for the empress was at this time the leader of the world"s women, as the emperor--that clever _parvenu_--was undoubtedly the first monarch in Europe. It behoves not a masculine pen to attempt a description of Madame de Melide"s costume, which, moreover, was of a bygone mode, and nothing is so unsightly in death as a deceased fashion.
"How good of you to come!" she cried, embracing both ladies in turn, with a fervour which certainly seemed to imply that she had no other friends on earth.
In truth, she had, for the moment, none so dear; for there are certain warm hearts that are happy in always loving, not the highest, but the nearest.
"Let me see, now," she added, vigorously dragging forward chairs. "I asked some one to meet you--some one I particularly wanted you to become acquainted with, but I cannot remember who it is." As she spoke she consulted a little red morocco betting-book.
"Lory!" she cried, after a short search. "Yes, of course it was Lory de Va.s.selot--my cousin. And--will you believe it?--he saved my life the other day, all in a moment! Yes! I saw death, quite close, before my eyes. Ugh! And I, who am so wicked! You do not know what it is to be wicked and to know it, Denise--you who are so young. But that dear Mademoiselle Brun, she knows."
"Thank you," said mademoiselle.
"And Lory saved me, ah! so cleverly. There is no better horseman in the army, they say. Yes; he will certainly come this afternoon, unless there is a race at Longchamps. Now, is there a race, I wonder?"
"For the moment," said Mademoiselle Brun, very gravely, "I cannot tell you."
"She is laughing at me," cried the baroness, shaking a vivacious forefinger at Mademoiselle Brun. "But I do not mind; we cannot all be wise--eh?"
"And what a dull world for the rest of us if you were," said Mademoiselle Brun; and Lory de Va.s.selot, coming into the room at this moment, was met by her sour smile.
"Ah!" cried the baroness, "here he is. I present you, my dear Lory, to Mademoiselle Brun, a terrible friend of mine, and to Mademoiselle Lange, who, as you know, has just inherited the other half of Corsica."
"My congratulations," answered Lory, shaking hands with Denise in the English fashion. "An inheritance is so nice when it is quite new."
"And figure to yourself that this dear child has no notion how it has all come about! She only knows the bare fact that some one is dead, and she has gained--well, a white elephant, one may suppose."
De Va.s.selot"s quick face suddenly turned grave.
"Ah," he said, "then I can tell you how it has all come about. Though I confess at once that I have never been to Corsica, and have never found myself a halfpenny the richer for owning land there."
He paused for a moment, and glanced at Mademoiselle Brun.
"Unless," he interpolated, "such personal matters will bore mademoiselle."
"But mademoiselle is the good angel of Mademoiselle Lange, my dear, dull Lory," explained the baroness; and the object of the elucidation looked at him more keenly than so trifling an incident would seem to warrant.
"You will not be betraying secrets to the first-comer," she said.
Still de Va.s.selot seemed to hesitate, as if choosing his words.
"And," he said at length, "they shot your cousin"s agent in the back, almost in the streets of Olmeta, and Mattei Perucca himself died suddenly, presumably from apoplexy, brought on by a great anger at receiving a letter threatening his life--that is how it has come about, mademoiselle."
He broke off short, with a quick gesture and a flash of his eyes, usually so pleasant and smiling.
"I have that from a reliable source," he went on, after a pause, during which Mademoiselle Brun looked steadily at Denise and said nothing.
"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed the baroness, in a whisper; and for once was silenced.
"A faithful correspondent on the island," explained de Va.s.selot. "Though why he is faithful I cannot tell you. Some family legend, perhaps--I cannot tell. It is the Abbe Susini of Olmeta who has told me this. He it was who told me of your--well, I can only call it your misfortune, mademoiselle. For there is a.s.suredly a curse upon Corsica as there is upon Ireland. It cannot govern itself, and no other can govern it. The Napoleons have been the only men to make anything of the island, but a man who is driving a pair of horses down the Champs Elysees cannot give much thought to his little dog that runs behind. And it is in the Bonaparte blood to drive, not only a pair, but a four-in-hand in the thickest traffic of the world. The Abbe Susini tells me that when the emperor"s hand was firm, Corsica was almost orderly, justice was almost administered, banditism was for the moment made to feel the hand of the law, and the authorities could count the number of outlaws evading their grip in the mountains. But since the emperor"s illness has taken a dangerous turn things have gone back again. Corsica is, it seems, a weather-gla.s.s by which one may tell the state of the political weather in France; and now it is disturbed, mademoiselle."
He had become graver as he spoke, and now found himself addressing Denise almost as if she were a man. There is as much difference in listeners as there is in talkers. And Lory de Va.s.selot, who belonged to the new school of Frenchmen--the open-air, the vigorous, the sportsmanlike--found his interlocutor listening with clear eyes fixed frankly on his face.
Intelligence betrays itself in listening more than in talking, and de Va.s.selot, with characteristic and an eminently national intuition, perceived that this girl from a covent school in the Rue du Cherche-Midi was not a person to whom to address drawing-room generalities, and those insults to the feminine comprehension which a bygone generation called compliments.
"But a woman need surely have nothing to fear," said Denise, who had the habit of carrying her head rather high, and now spoke as if this implied more than a mere trick of deportment.
"A woman! You are not going to Corsica, mademoiselle?"
"But I am," she answered.
De Va.s.selot turned thoughtfully, and brought forward a chair. He sat down and gravely contemplated Mademoiselle Brun, whose att.i.tude--upright in a low chair, with crossed hands and a compressed mouth--betrayed nothing. A Frenchman is not nearly so artificial as the shallow British observer has been pleased to conclude. He is, in fact, much more a child of nature than either an Englishman or a German. Lory de Va.s.selot"s expression said as plainly as words to Mademoiselle Brun--
"And what have _you_ been about?"
It was so obvious that Mademoiselle Brun, almost imperceptibly, shrugged one shoulder. She was powerless, it appeared.
"But, if you will permit me to say so," said Lory, sitting down and drawing near to Denise in his earnestness, "that is impossible. I will not trouble you with details, but it is an impossibility. I understand that Mattei Perucca and his agent were the two strongest men in the northern district, and they only attempted to hold their own, nothing more. With the result that you know."
"But there are many ways of attempting to hold one"s own," persisted Denise; and she shook her head with a wisdom which only belongs to youth.
De Va.s.selot spread out his hands in utter despair. The end of the world, it seemed, was at hand. And Denise only laughed.
"And when I have regulated my own affairs, I will undertake the management of your estate at a high salary," she said.
"There is only one thing to do," said Lory, gravely, "and I have done it myself. I have abandoned the idea of ever receiving a halfpenny of rent.
I have allowed the land to go out of cultivation. The vine-terraces are falling, the olive trees are dying for want of cultivation. A few peasants graze their cattle in my garden, I understand. The house itself is only saved from falling down by the fact that it is strongly built of stone. I would sell for a mere song, if I could find a serious offer of that trifle; but n.o.body buys land in Corsica--for the peasants recognize no t.i.tle deeds and respect no rights of ownership. I had indeed an offer the other day, but it was undoubtedly a joke, and I treated it as such."
"Denise also has had an offer to buy the Perucca property," said Mademoiselle Brun.
"Yes," said Denise, seeing his surprise. "And you would advise me to accept it?"
"If it is a serious one, most decidedly."
"It is serious enough," answered Denise. "It is from a Colonel Gilbert, an officer stationed at Bastia."
"Ah!" he exclaimed; and at that moment another caller entered the room, and he rose with eager politeness.
So it happened that Mademoiselle Brun could not see his face, and was left wondering what the exclamation meant.
Several other callers now appeared--persons of the Baroness de Melide"s own world, who had a hundred society tricks, and bowed or shook hands according to the latest mode. This was not Mademoiselle Brun"s world, and she was not interested to hear the latest gossip from that hotbed of scandal, the Tuileries, nor did the ever-changing face of the political world command her attention. She therefore rose, and stiffly took her leave. De Va.s.selot accompanied them to the hall.
Denise paused in the entrance, and turned to him.
"Seriously," she said, "do you advise me to accept this offer to sell Perucca?"
"I scarcely feel authorized to give you any advice upon the subject,"