"Falsification, sir!" retorted Isidore indignantly. "You are the only man living whom I would permit to use that word with impunity."
"I repeat the word," replied the marquis, sternly. "I cannot doubt, even if any other part of my letter could have been misunderstood, that I must have mentioned your cousin Clotilde"s name in connection with this affair. To pretend the contrary is as impudent as it is absurd."
"It is a fortunate thing that I can at least prove to you that your letter not only did not mention my cousin"s name, but that it left ample room for misconception," answered Isidore, feeling in his pocket for the all-important missive; "though I may add that to you alone, sir, would I condescend to attempt to clear myself of such an imputation."
The marquis started slightly, and regarded him with a look in which expectation seemed mingled with distrust. In vain, however, did Isidore search one pocket after another; the letter was not there.
"This is most annoying," said he at last; "I must have left it at Valricour."
"Of course," rejoined the marquis, sarcastically, "very unfortunate, indeed! Perhaps I can a.s.sist you in your search for the missing doc.u.ment, or at least as much of it as you incautiously and unwittingly left undestroyed." So saying he drew forth from a drawer in his writing-table and held out towards his son a small piece of paper. It was all burnt at the edges, and from the signature still just legible upon it, Isidore at once recognised it as a fragment of his father"s letter to him. He might well be amazed and dumbfounded. A minute ago he had supposed the letter safe in his pocket, and relied on it for his justification; now a shred of it, charred and defaced, was produced against him, in mute but irrefragable proof that he had himself destroyed it to cover his own falsehood and deceit.
"I suppose, sir," said the marquis, "as you pretend to be so much astonished, that I must tell you that this little piece of paper was found in your chamber at the Chateau de Valricour. No, sir," he continued, more vehemently as Isidore attempted to speak, "I will not hear another word from lips already so basely, so vilely forsworn. Go!
From this moment I disown you as my son. For the sake of others I will spare you any public degradation, and any punishment beyond the necessity of seeking your fortune henceforward as you best may, with no sympathy or aid from me beyond a small allowance which I shall cause to be remitted to you from time to time. For the rest, I have done with you."
The last words were scarcely uttered when Isidore found himself alone with his own reflections.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Tailpiece to Chapter IV]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Headpiece to Chapter V]
CHAPTER V.
For several days after the eventful scene at the Chateau de Beaujardin nothing particularly worth mentioning occurred either there or at Valricour; outwardly at least, matters seemed to have relapsed into their ordinary routine, just as some usually placid stream, after being swollen and agitated for a while by a sudden storm of wind and rain, subsides once more into its customary channel. The marquis, indeed, might seem somewhat more sedate and more taciturn than was his wont, and the marchioness possibly suffered herself to be looked upon by her female friends as very much to be pitied for some mysterious cause of anxiety she could not divulge for all the world. Madame de Valricour, however, betrayed not the slightest indication that anything was going or had gone wrong; on the contrary, she appeared more lively and amiable than usual, and treated Marguerite with peculiar affability and sweetness. But Clotilde, at all events, was not slow to perceive that both Marguerite and herself were watched much more closely than they had ever been before by Madame de Bleury, a decayed gentlewoman and distant relative of Madame de Valricour, who had for some years past lived at the chateau, and discharged the multifarious duties of housekeeper, chaperone, duenna, and private secretary to the baroness as occasion required. More than once during those few days Madame de Valricour went over to Beaujardin, but did not take either of the young ladies with her, a circ.u.mstance at which Clotilde chafed not a little, declaring that she was quite sure that it was neither the weather nor the distance that stood in the way, as her mother alleged, but in order that she might not come across Monsieur de Crillon, who was just then on a visit at Beaujardin.
"What should I care about him?" she would say to Marguerite. "He has become much too grand a personage at court to care about such insignificant creatures as you or I. Why, I am told he is quite the right-hand man of the king"s minister, and that he is likely enough some day to rise to be one of the first officers of state; but then he has no money, and as I have not a farthing, perhaps it is no wonder that mamma is in such terrible fear of our meeting, even for one evening, at Beaujardin."
And where was Isidore all this week? If any one asked, the reply was that it was believed he had gone to Paris to pay his respects to the king, though there were some amongst the domestics at Beaujardin who smiled when they heard that, for Monsieur Jasmin was still at the chateau; it was even whispered that Isidore had once or twice been seen at Valricour whilst the baroness was away. If that lady, however, did know anything of these rumours, she took no notice of them, and bided her time.
There had been a large party at Beaujardin, at which the marquis and marchioness, whatever may have been their disquietude at heart, had treated their guests with all their wonted courtesy and attention.
Nevertheless it is likely enough that long after the numerous and distinguished visitors had retired to rest, the n.o.ble host and hostess, as well as the Baroness de Valricour, who had been present, spent more than one wakeful hour. Besides them, however, there were three other persons in the chateau who sat up till a late period of the night. In a handsomely furnished and well lighted apartment at the rear of the mansion Monsieur Boulederouloue, the steward or _maitre d"hotel_, with his special guests, Monsieur Achille Perigord, the _chef de cuisine_, and Monsieur Jasmin, the young marquis" valet, yet lingered over a flask of Chateau d"Yquem, such as all the regiments of royal butlers at Versailles could not have set before his most Christian Majesty Louis Quinze himself.
The three men were in every particular about as unlike to each other as any three men could be. The valet, who possessed an unusually good face and figure, whose costume was unexceptionable, and who had acquired to perfection the ultra-courteous manners of the time, might have pa.s.sed for a n.o.bleman anywhere except alongside of a real one.
One might really have been excused for fancying him of a different race of beings from Monsieur Boulederouloue, the shapelessness of whose huge unwieldy frame was happily rendered undistinguishable by an extravagantly full suit of the Louis Quatorze fashion. An enormous full-bottomed wig of the same period surmounted and flanked his full moon face of pasty whiteness, most like the battered and colourless visage of an old wax doll, in which a transverse slit does duty for a mouth, and whose deficiency in the article of nose is counterbalanced by great gla.s.sy eyes guiltless of a single atom of expression.
Marvellous indeed was Monsieur Boulederouloue"s stolidity in all things, and not less notable his stupidity in all but one; that one thing, however, was his business as _maitre d"hotel_, in which he was unsurpa.s.sed, unrivalled. If you told him that there had been no kings of France before Louis the Fourteenth, and that his native country was an island in the Pacific, that gra.s.s grew on trees in India, and that the stars were old moons chopped up into bits, he would have stared at you and believed it all. What did he know of such things? His father and grandfather had been stewards in the Beaujardin family before he was born; from his infancy he had seen, noted, watched, talked of, cared for only what pertained to the proper regulation of the household that const.i.tuted his little world. So he grew up, and on the day on which his father, old Mathieu Boulederouloue, departed this life, young Mathieu put on the Louis Quatorze suit and wig, and not one of the guests at the chateau could have imagined that the one functionary in the place most important to him had bequeathed to new and untried hands the post that he had filled for forty years. What of it? From that day it was with young Mathieu as it had been with old Mathieu. One glance into the brilliant saloon told him how many covers were required for supper, what wines, what viands, suited the occasion. One stately walk round the furnished table was enough for him to detect the minutest error or omission of his myrmidons. Not one of the hundreds of guests that visited the chateau crossed the great hall to whom the _maitre d"hotel_ was unable to a.s.sign on the spot the chamber he was to occupy, his place at table, and the degree of precedence to which he was ent.i.tled. Yes, M. Boulederouloue was a.s.suredly a perfect master of his business; and what is more, the scores of servants under him were all masters of theirs, for he had a most simple and summary mode of dealing with any one that was not perfectly in order. The offending party was at once summoned to the presence of Monsieur Boulederouloue, who presented him with an order on the intendant for the wages due to him, and without a word waved his hand towards the door. Remonstrance and entreaty, or the a.s.surance that it was a first fault, were alike in vain; a stare, a shrug, and just possibly the pithy injunction, "Go!"
was the utmost they ever elicited from the _maitre d"hotel_; and as their wages were high and always paid to the day, a practice by no means common in great households in those times, the cases of delinquency were few, and M. Boulederouloue"s staff, like himself, did their duty to perfection.
And Monsieur Perigord, the _chef_? Well, if Monsieur Boulederouloue weighed twice as much as M. Jasmin, the latter certainly weighed twice as much as Monsieur Perigord. Diminutive and meagre to a degree, the master of the kitchen possessed a mighty soul, and was endowed with an energy of purpose that must have made him first and foremost in any sphere of life; but fate had ordained that he should only be the first and foremost cook in all the world, though as Beaujardin, and not Versailles, was the scene of his operations, it is only in these humble pages that his name will go down to posterity. Such was his restless vivacity, that in his ever ready denunciations of anything poor and mean, or cowardly, his shrivelled frame would quiver like a marionette on wires; he would rend in shreds his laced frill and ruffles, scattering thorn like snowflakes on the floor, and end by flinging after them his small pig-tailed queue, leaving all bare and bald a head that for colour and size might have been mistaken for an ostrich egg, but for the hawk-like beak and small fiery black eyes, that would have been ridiculous in any face but that of Monsieur Perigord.
That Monsieur Jasmin should look down with sovereign contempt on two such men--on the _maitre d"hotel_ for his entire absence of all sensitiveness, and on the _chef de cuisine_ for his unpolished excess of it was only natural. Yet it must not be supposed that with either of them he indulged that air of supercilious patronage with which he was accustomed to treat all not absolutely above him in the social scale; it would have been simply thrown away upon the one, the other would have kicked him for it, even if he had to get upon a chair to do so. Still Monsieur Jasmin managed to maintain some kind of mysterious superiority over both, and, on the present occasion, he took care to let them know that he was the depository of a most important family secret--in fact the counsellor and confidential agent in an affair of the most vital consequence to the powers above. At first he had only dropped vague hints, but what with M. Boulederouloue"s dullness in comprehending them, and Monsieur Perigord"s sudden and searching comments on them, he gradually began to let out more and more. Perhaps the Chateau d"Yquem loosened M. Jasmin"s tongue, for he had latterly been staying much at Valricour, and as the wine allowed that household was of a quality and quant.i.ty that gave an additional relish to unstinted measure and a vintage of the choicest cla.s.s, he became more and more communicative.
"To be sure--to be sure! It is but natural that Monsieur Isidore should marry Mademoiselle Clotilde," exclaimed the voluble little man, as Jasmin with a mysterious smile left some allusion to the subject half unsaid. "It is only what was to be expected--it could hardly be otherwise--any one could guess that. What! Have I not danced them both on my knees when they were babies, and seen them grow up together as it were hand in hand, as if they were destined from their cradles to be husband and wife? He is n.o.ble, generous, and handsome; she is witty, virtuous, and beautiful. What do you tell us of a rival--of complications--of difficulties--of a _mesalliance_?"
Again M. Jasmin smiled mysteriously; M. Boulederouloue, collecting all his energies for the purpose, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Impossible!"
"Our good friend is right; it is impossible," continued Perigord vivaciously. "Who could come between them? Who else could aspire to the hand of monsieur our young marquis? Ah! my good friend, you have been dreaming of something till you have imagined it to be a reality."
Monsieur Jasmin was nettled, but he only smiled again more contemptuously, saying, "Of course, it was doubtless only a dream of mine that there is such a young lady as Mademoiselle Lacroix."
"What! Mademoiselle Marguerite, she is a reality indeed--sensible, handsome, courageous, charitable, an angel for one in her station; but then," here M. Perigord shrugged his shoulders, "she knows well that the rank of monsieur our young marquis forbids the thought of her aspiring to his hand. Ah, no! you deceive yourself, my friend, but you cannot deceive me in such a matter."
"Indeed," replied the other, sarcastically; "and what should you say if I tell you that she has won monsieur"s heart already, and that he has offered her his hand? Yes," he added, observing the effect which his words produced even on the stolid countenance of the major-domo. "Yes, and what would you say if I told you that madame the baroness, who had set her heart on the union of the cousins, has discovered all this and has appealed to monsieur the marquis himself about it?"
Monsieur Perigord could only stare at the speaker in amazement, while, strange to say, M. Boulederouloue, with whom astonishment was an habitual and chronic state, was able to exclaim, "The world is coming to an end!"
"Absurd, ridiculous, preposterous, impossible!" cried Perigord at last, with a vehement sweep of his hand which sent a decanter and a couple of wine gla.s.ses flying off the table. "Monsieur Jasmin, your powers of invention are wonderful indeed, but I am not such a fool as to believe all this. How could you know it even if it were all true? Answer me that, my friend--answer me that!"
"But I am fool enough to believe what I know to be true," retorted the valet, forgetting his habitual caution in his irritation at M.
Perigord"s incredulity. "And if you wish to know how I learnt all this, permit me to inform you that madame the baroness herself was so obliging as to make me acquainted with it at interviews with which she favoured me. I can tell you more," he added, provoked by the scornful smile with which M. Perigord received these last words, and thereupon he gave forth, with a volubility that would have done no discredit to old Perigord himself, a tolerably full account of all he knew or had gathered from others respecting the affair, concluding with a supercilious intimation that he had now at madame"s request taken the matter in hand, and would soon set all to rights.
"Ah, no doubt--no doubt! Madame could not have chosen a more able person for the business," cried M. Perigord, suppressing the indignation that boiled within him by an effort which could scarcely have deceived the wily valet had he been sober. "I was a fool indeed to suppose that my good friend could be mistaken in his surmises; but then I could not know that he was honoured with the confidence of madame the baroness. And yet it is a weighty matter--a maze of difficulties, a labyrinth of conflicting circ.u.mstances. If Mademoiselle Clotilde does not care for Monsieur Isidore after all, and he loves Mademoiselle Marguerite, and has actually plighted his word to her, what master-stroke of policy can even the genius of M. Jasmin devise to overcome such obstacles?"
The valet"s wits were too blunted to detect the irony, but he drank in the flattery as he sipped his wine. "Bah!" replied he, "our young master can have his choice between a union with Mademoiselle Clotilde or a _lettre de cachet_; and as for pretty Mademoiselle Lacroix, as she has no particular home of her own, she ought to be grateful if we find her one in some convent where the lady superior is not too fond of letting her _protegees_ gad abroad--you understand?"
"Yes; but what if she should appeal to the baron, who, as we know, pledged himself to protect the poor orphan, and should refuse to permit her to go just wherever she is bid?" As he spoke these words M.
Perigord clutched the chair in which he sat as if to keep himself steady, whilst a nervous twitching seemed to convulse his lilliputian frame.
"Oh, leave that to me," rejoined the valet; "I warrant you I"ll find a way when the time comes, and that will very likely be no further off than to-morrow, to tempt the silly little bird into the snare of the fowler." Saying this, the valet rose as if to depart, but at the same moment the fiery little king of the kitchen bounded from his chair, sprang at him, and seized him by the throat, exclaiming--
"Traitor! miscreant! Is this your duty, faith, and loyalty to your young master? If all men had their due your false and cowardly heart should be torn out of your bosom for daring thus to plot against a n.o.ble and beautiful young lady, whom one would think even the meanest would feel bound to help and protect."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "The fiery little king of the kitchen bounded from his chair, sprang at him, and seized him by the throat."]
M. Boulederouloue rose from his chair and stood aghast, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. solemnly, "It is terrible!"
"And to think that such a scoundrel should be trusted by madame the baroness! Shame upon her! It is abominable!" Saying which M.
Perigord, who had by this time let go the valet"s throat, s.n.a.t.c.hed off his own wig and dashed it pa.s.sionately on the floor. "Begone, despicable scoundrel that you are," he added, as the valet, with a malignant scowl, but without venturing to utter a word, made his way to the door. "Begone! go to madame if you like, and tell her that if old Achille Perigord can do anything to save our young master and this poor young lady from your horrible schemes he will not leave it undone, I promise you."
Having hurled this speech after his retreating foe, M. Perigord also retired, after a parting salutation to the _maitre d"hotel_, who could only answer by holding up his hands and exclaiming, "Alas! the world is coming to an end!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: Tailpiece to Chapter V]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Headpiece to Chapter VI]
CHAPTER VI.