LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

gate, which afforded the occupants a view of the street beyond. A handsome carriage, drawn by two superb horses stopped exactly in front of this gate.

      This carriage was empty.

      The footman on the box beside the driver, and, like him, dressed in rich livery, descended from his seat, and drawing from his pocket a letter that evidently bore an address, looked from side to side as if in search of a number, then disappeared, after motioning the coachman to follow him.

      "This is the first vehicle of that kind I've seen in the Batignolles in ten years," remarked the old sailor. "It is very flattering to the neighbourhood."

      "I never saw finer horses," said Olivier, with the air of a connoisseur. "Do they belong to you, Gerald?"

      "Do you take me for a millionaire?" responded the young duke, gaily. "I keep a saddle-horse, and I put one of my mother's horses in my cabriolet, when she is not using them. That is my stable. This does not prevent me from loving horses, or from being something of a sporting man. But, speaking of horses, do you remember that dunce, Mornand, another of our college mates?"

      "And still another of our mutual antipathies—of course I do. What has become of him?"

      "He is quite a distinguished personage now."

      "He! Nonsense!"

      "But I tell you he is. He is a member of the Chamber of Peers. He discourses at length, there. People even listen to him. In short, he is a minister in embryo."

      "De Mornand?"

      "Yes, my worthy friend. He is as dull as ever, and twice as arrogant and self-complacent. He doubts everything except his own merit. He possesses an insatiable ambition, and he belongs to a coterie of jealous and spiteful individuals—spiteful because they are mediocre, or, rather, mediocre because they are spiteful. Such men rise in the world with, marvellous rapidity, though Mornand has a broad back and supple loins—he will succeed, one aiding the other."

      Just then the footman who had disappeared with the carriage returned, and, seeing through the latticed gate the little party in the arbour, approached, and, raising his hand to his hat, said:

      "Gentlemen, will you be so kind as to tell me if this garden belongs to No. 7?"

      "Yes," replied the commander.

      "And to the apartment on the ground floor of that house?"

      "Yes."

      "I rang that bell three times, but no one answered it."

      "I occupy that apartment," said the commander, greatly surprised. "What do you want?"

      "Here is a very important letter for a Madame Barbançon, who, I am told, lives here."

      "Yes, she does live here," replied the veteran, more and more surprised.

      Then, seeing the housekeeper at the other end of the garden, he called out to her:

      "Mother Barbançon, the door-bell has rung three times, unanswered, while you've been trespassing upon my preserves. Come quick! Here is a letter for you."

CHAPTER IV.

       THE DUCHESS.

       Table of Contents

      Madame Barbançon promptly responded to this peremptory summons, and, after a hasty apology to her employer, said to the waiting servant:

      "You have a letter for me? From whom?"

      "From the Comtesse de Beaumesnil, madame," replied the man, handing Madame Barbançon the letter through the lattice.

      "Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil?" exclaimed the astonished housekeeper; "I do not know her. I not only don't know her, but I haven't the slightest idea who she is—not the slightest," the worthy woman repeated, as she opened the letter.

      "The Comtesse de Beaumesnil?" inquired Gerald, evidently much interested.

      "Do you know her?" asked Olivier.

      "I met her two or three years ago," replied Gerald. "She was wonderfully beautiful, then, but the poor woman has not left her bed for a year. I understand that hers is a hopeless case. Worse still, M. de Beaumesnil, who had gone to Italy with their only child, a daughter, who was ordered south by the physicians—M. de Beaumesnil died quite recently in Naples, in consequence of having been thrown from his horse, so if Madame de Beaumesnil dies, as they apprehend, her daughter will be left an orphan at the age of fifteen or sixteen years."

      "Poor child! This is really very sad," said the commander, sympathisingly.

      "Nevertheless, Mlle. de Beaumesnil has a brilliant future before her," continued Gerald, "for she will be the richest heiress in France. The Beaumesnil property yields an income of over three million francs!"

      "Three million francs!" exclaimed Olivier, laughing. "Can it be that there are people who really have an income of three million francs? Do such people come and go, and move about and talk, just like other people? I should certainly like to be brought face to face with one of these wonderful creatures, Gerald."

      "I'll do my best to gratify you, but I warn you that as a general thing they are not pleasant to contemplate. I am not referring to Mlle. de Beaumesnil, however; she may be as beautiful as her mother."

      "I should like very much to know how one can spend such an income as that," said the commander, in all sincerity, emptying the ashes from his pipe.

      "Great Heavens! is it possible?" exclaimed Madame Barbançon, who, in the meantime, had read the letter handed to her. "I am to go in a carriage—in a carriage like that?"

      "What is the matter, Mother Barbançon?" inquired the veteran.

      "I must ask you to let me go away for a little while."

      "Certainly, but where are you going, may I ask?"

      "To the house of Madame de Beaumesnil," replied the good woman, in a very important tone. "She desires some information which I alone can give, it seems. May I turn Bonapartist if I know what to make of all this!"

      But the next instant the former midwife uttered an exclamation, as if a new and startling idea had just occurred to her, and, turning to her employer, she said:

      "Monsieur, will you step out into the garden a moment with me? I want to say a word to you in private."

      "Oh," replied the veteran, following the lady out of the arbour, "it is an important matter, it seems. Go on; I am listening, Madame Barbançon."

      The housekeeper, having led her employer a short distance from the arbour, turned to him and said, with a mysterious air:

      "Monsieur, do you know Madame Herbaut, who lives on the second floor and has two daughters? The lady to whom I introduced M. Olivier about a fortnight ago, you recollect."

      "I don't know her, but you have often spoken to me about her. Well, what of it?"

      "I recollect now that one of her particular friends, Madame Laîné, is now in Italy, acting as governess to the daughter of a countess whose name sounds something like Beaumesnil. In fact, it may be this very same countess."

      "It may be, I admit, Mother Barbançon. Well, go on."

      "And she may have heard about me through Madame Laîné, whom I have met at Madame Herbaut's."

      "That, too, is very possible, Madame Barbançon. You will soon know for a certainty, however, as you are going to Madame Beaumesnil's."

      "Mon Dieu! monsieur, another idea has just occurred to me."

      "Let us hear it," said the veteran, with infinite patience.

      "I have told you about that masked lady who—"

      "You're not going to tell that story again,

Скачать книгу