A Start in Life

“After all,” thought Georges, “though I did blague him, I didn’t say anything insulting.”

“Why have you come here?” asked the steward.

“I have brought the deed of sale for the farm at Moulineaux, all ready for signature.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the steward, “I don’t understand one word of all this!”

Moreau felt his heart beat painfully when, after giving two raps on his master’s door, he heard the words: —

“Is that you, Monsieur Moreau?”

“Yes, monseigneur.”

“Come in.”

The count was now wearing a pair of white trousers and thin boots, a white waistcoat and a black coat on which shone the grand cross of the Legion upon the right breast, and fastened to a buttonhole on the left was the order of the Golden Fleece hanging by a short gold chain. He had arranged his hair himself, and had, no doubt, put himself in full dress to do the honors of Presles to Monsieur Margueron; and, possibly, to impress the good man’s mind with a prestige of grandeur.

“Well, monsieur,” said the count, who remained seated, leaving Moreau to stand before him. “We have not concluded that purchase from Margueron.”

“He asks too much for the farm at the present moment.”

“But why is he not coming to dinner as I requested?”

“Monseigneur, he is ill.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have just come from there.”

“Monsieur,” said the count, with a stern air which was really terrible, “what would you do with a man whom you trusted, if, after seeing you dress wounds which you desired to keep secret from all the world, he should reveal your misfortunes and laugh at your malady with a strumpet?”

“I would thrash him for it.”

“And if you discovered that he was also betraying your confidence and robbing you?”

“I should endeavor to detect him, and send him to the galleys.”

“Monsieur Moreau, listen to me. You have undoubtedly spoken of my infirmities to Madame Clapart; you have laughed at her house, and with her, over my attachment to the Comtesse de Serizy; for her son, little Husson, told a number of circumstances relating to my medical treatment, to travellers by a public conveyance in my presence, and Heaven knows in what language! He dared to calumniate my wife. Besides this, I learned from the lips of Pere Leger himself, who was in the coach, of the plan laid by the notary at Beaumont and by you and by himself in relation to Les Moulineaux. If you have been, as you say, to Monsieur Margueron, it was to tell him to feign illness. He is so little ill that he is coming here to dinner this evening. Now, monsieur, I could pardon you having made two hundred and fifty thousand francs out of your situation in seventeen years, – I can understand that. You might each time have asked me for what you took, and I would have given it to you; but let that pass. You have been, notwithstanding this disloyalty, better than others, as I believe. But that you, who knew my toil for our country, for France, you have seen me giving night after night to the Emperor’s service, and working eighteen hours of each twenty-four for months together, you who knew my love for Madame de Serizy, – that you should have gossiped about me before a boy! holding up my secrets and my affections to the ridicule of a Madame Husson! – ”

“Monseigneur!”

“It is unpardonable. To injure a man’s interest, why, that is nothing; but to stab his heart! – Oh! you do not know what you have done!”

The count put his head in his hands and was silent for some moments.

“I leave you what you have gained,” he said after a time, “and I shall forget you. For my sake, for my dignity, and for your honor, we will part decently; for I cannot but remember even now what your father did for mine. You will explain the duties of the stewardship in a proper manner to Monsieur de Reybert, who succeeds you. Be calm, as I am. Give no opportunity for fools to talk. Above all, let there be no recrimination or petty meanness. Though you no longer possess my confidence, endeavor to behave with the decorum of well-bred persons. As for that miserable boy who has wounded me to death, I will not have him sleep at Presles; send him to the inn; I will not answer for my own temper if I see him.”

“I do not deserve such gentleness, monseigneur,” said Moreau, with tears in his eyes. “Yes, you are right; if I had been utterly dishonest I should now be worth five hundred thousand francs instead of half that sum. I offer to give you an account of my fortune, with all its details. But let me tell you, monseigneur, that in talking of you with Madame Clapart, it was never in derision; but, on the contrary, to deplore your state, and to ask her for certain remedies, not used by physicians, but known to the common people. I spoke of your feelings before the boy, who was in his bed and, as I supposed, asleep (it seems he must have been awake and listening to us), with the utmost affection and respect. Alas! fate wills that indiscretions be punished like crimes. But while accepting the results of your just anger, I wish you to know what actually took place. It was, indeed, from heart to heart that I spoke of you to Madame Clapart. As for my wife, I have never said one word of these things – ”

“Enough,” said the count, whose conviction was now complete; “we are not children. All is now irrevocable. Put your affairs and mine in order. You can stay in the pavilion until October. Monsieur and Madame de Reybert will lodge for the present in the chateau; endeavor to keep on terms with them, like well-bred persons who hate each other, but still keep up appearances.”

The count and Moreau went downstairs; Moreau white as the count’s hair, the count himself calm and dignified.

During the time this interview lasted the Beaumont coach, which left Paris at one o’clock, had stopped before the gates of the chateau, and deposited Maitre Crottat, the notary, who was shown, according to the count’s orders, into the salon, where he found his clerk, extremely subdued in manner, and the two painters, all three of them painfully self-conscious and embarrassed. Monsieur de Reybert, a man of fifty, with a crabbed expression of face, was also there, accompanied by old Margueron and the notary of Beaumont, who held in his hand a bundle of deeds and other papers.

When these various personages saw the count in evening dress, and wearing his orders, Georges Marest had a slight sensation of colic, Joseph Bridau quivered, but Mistigris, who was conscious of being in his Sunday clothes, and had, moreover, nothing on his conscience, remarked, in a sufficiently loud tone: —

“Well, he looks a great deal better like that.”

“Little scamp,” said the count, catching him by the ear, “we are both in the decoration business. I hope you recognize your own work, my dear Schinner,” he added, pointing to the ceiling of the salon.

“Monseigneur,” replied the artist, “I did wrong to take such a celebrated name out of mere bravado; but this day will oblige me to do fine things for you, and so bring credit on my own name of Joseph Bridau.”

“You took up my defence,” said the count, hastily; “and I hope you will give me the pleasure of dining with me, as well as my lively friend Mistigris.”

“Your Excellency doesn’t know to what you expose yourself,” said the saucy rapin; “‘facilis descensus victuali,’ as we say at the Black Hen.”

“Bridau!” exclaimed the minister, struck by a sudden thought. “Are you any relation to one of the most devoted toilers under the Empire, the head of a bureau, who fell a victim to his zeal?”

“His son, monseigneur,” replied Joseph, bowing.

“Then you are most welcome here,” said the count, taking Bridau’s hand in both of his. “I knew your father, and you can count on me as on – on an uncle in America,” added the count, laughing. “But you are too young to have pupils of your own; to whom does Mistigris really belong?”

“To my friend Schinner, who lent him to me,” said Joseph. “Mistigris’ name is Leon de Lora. Monseigneur, if you knew my father, will you deign to think of his other son, who is now accused of plotting against the State, and is soon to be tried before the Court of Peers?”

“Ah! that’s true,” said the count. “Yes, I will think about it, be sure of that. As for Colonel Czerni-Georges, the friend of Ali Pacha, and Mina’s aide-de-camp – ” he continued, walking up to Georges.

“He! why that’s my second clerk!” cried Crottat.

“You are quite mistaken, Maitre Crottat,” said the count, assuming a stern air. “A clerk who intends to be a notary does not leave important deeds in a diligence at the mercy of other travellers; neither does he spend twenty francs between Paris and Moisselles; or expose himself to be arrested as a deserter – ”

“Monseigneur,” said Georges Marest, “I may have amused myself with the bourgeois in the diligence, but – ”

“Let his Excellency finish what he was saying,” said the notary, digging his elbow into his clerk’s ribs.

“A notary,” continued the count, “ought to practise discretion, shrewdness, caution from the start; he should be incapable of such a blunder as taking a peer of France for a tallow-chandler – ”

“I am willing to be blamed for my faults,” said Georges; “but I never left my deeds at the mercy of – ”

“Now you are committing the fault of contradicting the word of a minister of State, a gentleman, an old man, and a client,” said the count. “Give me that deed of sale.”

Georges turned over and over the papers in his portfolio.

“That will do; don’t disarrange those papers,” said the count, taking the deed from his pocket. “Here is what you are looking for.”

Crottat turned the paper back and forth, so astonished was he at receiving it from the hands of his client.

“What does this mean, monsieur?” he said, finally, to Georges.