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The Conspirators, a novel by Alexandre Dumas |
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Chapter 12. The Denis Family |
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_ CHAPTER XII. THE DENIS FAMILY Madame Denis did not think it proper that two young persons as innocent as her daughters should breakfast with a young man who, although he had been only three days in Paris, already came in at eleven o'clock at night, and played on the harpsichord till two in the morning. In vain the Abbe Brigaud affirmed that this double infraction of the rules of her house should in no degree lower her opinion of his pupil, for whom he could answer as for himself. All he could obtain was that the young ladies should appear at the dessert; but the chevalier soon perceived that if their mother had ordered them not to be seen, she had not forbidden them to be heard, for scarcely were they at table, round a veritable devotee's breakfast, composed of a multitude of little dishes, tempting to the eye and delicious to the palate, when the sounds of a spinet were heard, accompanying a voice which was not wanting in compass, but whose frequent errors of intonation showed lamentable inexperience. At the first notes Madame Denis placed her hand on the abbe's arm, then, after an instant's silence, during which she listened with a pleased smile to that music which made the chevalier's flesh creep, "Do you hear?" she said. "It is our Athenais who is playing, and it is Emilie who sings." The Abbe Brigaud, making signs that he heard perfectly, trod on D'Harmental's foot under the table, to hint that this was an opportunity for paying a compliment. "Madame," said the chevalier, who understood this appeal to his politeness perfectly, "we are doubly indebted to you; for you offer us not only an excellent breakfast, but a delightful concert." "Yes," replied Madame Denis, negligently, "it is those children: they do not know you are here, and they are practicing; but I will go and tell them to stop." Madame Denis was going to rise. "What, madame!" said D'Harmental, "because I come from Ravenne do you believe me unworthy to make acquaintance with the talents of the capital?" "Heaven preserve me, monsieur, from having such an opinion of you," said Madame Denis, maliciously, "for I know you are a musician; the lodger on the third story told me so." "In that case, madame, perhaps he did not give you a very high idea of my merit," replied the chevalier, laughing, "for he did not appear to appreciate the little I may possess." "He only said that it appeared to him a strange time for music. But listen, Monsieur Raoul," added Madame Denis, "the parts are changed now, my dear abbe, it is our Athenais who sings, and it is Emilie who accompanies her on the guitar." It appeared that Madame Denis had a weakness for Athenais, for instead of talking as she did when Emilie was singing, she listened from one end to the other to the romance of her favorite, her eyes tenderly fixed on the Abbe Brigaud, who, still eating and drinking, contented himself with nodding his head in sign of approbation. Athenais sang a little more correctly than her sister, but for this she made up by a defect at least equivalent in the eyes of the chevalier. Her voice was equally vulgar. As to Madame Denis, she beat wrong time with her head, with an air of beatitude which did infinitely more honor to her maternal affection than to her musical intelligence. A duet succeeded to the solos. The young ladies appeared determined to give their whole repertoire. D'Harmental, in his turn, sought under the table for the abbe's feet, to crush at least one, but he only found those of Madame Denis, who, taking this for a personal attention, turned graciously toward him. "Then, Monsieur Raoul," she said, "you come, young and inexperienced, to brave all the dangers of the capital?" "Yes," said the Abbe Brigaud, taking upon himself to answer, for fear that D'Harmental might not be able to resist answering by some joke. "You see in this young man, Madame Denis, the son of a friend who was very dear to me" (the abbe put his table-napkin up to his eyes), "and whom, I hope, will do credit to the care I have bestowed on his education." "And monsieur is right," replied Madame Denis; "for, with his talents and appearance, there is no saying to what he may attain." "Ah! but, Madame Denis," said the Abbe Brigaud, "if you spoil him thus I shall not bring him to you again. My dear Raoul," continued the abbe, addressing him in a paternal manner, "I hope you will not believe a word of all this." Then, whispering to Madame Denis, "Such as you see him, he might have remained at Sauvigny, and taken the first place after the squire. He has three thousand livres a year in the funds." "That is exactly what I intend giving to each of my daughters," replied Madame Denis, raising her voice, so as to be heard by the chevalier, and giving a side-glance to discover what effect the announcement of such magnificence would have upon him. Unfortunately for the future establishment of the Demoiselles Denis, the chevalier was not thinking of uniting the three thousand livres which this generous mother gave to her daughters to the thousand crowns a year which the Abbe Brigaud had bestowed on him. The shrill treble of Mademoiselle Emilie, the contralto of Mademoiselle Athenais, the accompaniment of both, had recalled to his recollection the pure and flexible voice and the distinguished execution of his neighbor. Thanks to that singular power which a great preoccupation gives us over exterior objects, the chevalier had escaped from the charivari which was executed in the adjoining room, and was following a sweet melody which floated in his mind, and which protected him, like an enchanted armor, from the sharp sounds which were flying around him. "How he listens!" said Madame Denis to Brigaud. "'Tis worth while taking trouble for a young man like that. I shall have a bone to pick with Monsieur Fremond." "Who is Monsieur Fremond?" said the abbe, pouring himself out something to drink. "It is the lodger on the third floor. A contemptible little fellow, with twelve hundred francs a year, and whose temper has caused me to have quarrels with every one in the house; and who came to complain that Monsieur Raoul prevented him and his dog from sleeping." "My dear Madame Denis," replied the abbe, "you must not quarrel with Monsieur Fremond for that. Two o'clock in the morning is an unreasonable time; and if my pupil must sit up till then, he must play in the daytime and draw in the evening." "What! Monsieur Raoul draws also!" cried Madame Denis, quite astonished at so much talent. "Draws like Mignard." "Oh! my dear abbe," said Madame Denis, "if you could but obtain one thing." "What?" asked the abbe. "That he would take the portrait of our Athenais." The chevalier awoke from his reverie, as a traveler, asleep on the grass, feels a serpent glide up to him, and instinctively understands that a great danger threatens him. "Abbe!" cried he, in a bewildered manner, "no folly!" "Oh! what is the matter with your pupil?" asked Madame Denis, quite frightened. Happily, at the moment when the abbe was seeking a subterfuge, the door opened, and the two young ladies entered blushing, and, stepping from right to left, each made a low courtesy. "Well!" said Madame Denis, affecting an air of severity, "what is this? Who gave you permission to leave your room?" "Mamma," replied a voice which the chevalier recognized, by its shrill tones, for that of Mademoiselle Emilie, "we beg pardon if we have done wrong, and are willing to return." "But, mamma," said another voice, which the chevalier concluded must belong to Mademoiselle Athenais, "we thought that it was agreed that we were to come in at dessert." "Well, come in, since you are here; it would be ridiculous now to go back. Besides," added Madame Denis, seating Athenais between herself and Brigaud, and Emilie between herself and the chevalier, "young persons are always best--are they not, abbe?--under their mother's wing." And Madame Denis presented to her daughters a plate of bon-bons, from which they helped themselves with a modest air which did honor to their education. The chevalier, during the discourse and action of Madame Denis, had time to examine her daughters. Mademoiselle Emilie was a tall and stiff personage, from twenty-two to twenty-three, who was said to be very much like her late father; an advantage which did not, however, suffice to gain for her in the maternal heart an affection equal to what Madame Denis entertained for her other two children. Thus poor Emilie, always afraid of being scolded, retained a natural awkwardness, which the repeated lessons of her dancing-master had not been able to conquer. Mademoiselle Athenais, on the contrary, was little, plump, and rosy; and, thanks to her sixteen or seventeen years, had what is vulgarly called the devil's beauty. She did not resemble either Monsieur or Madame Denis, a singularity which had often exercised the tongues of the Rue St. Martin before she went to inhabit the house which her husband had bought in the Rue du Temps Perdu. In spite of this absence of all likeness to her parents, Mademoiselle Athenais was the declared favorite of her mother, which gave her the assurance that poor Emilie wanted. Athenais, however, it must be said, always profited by this favor to excuse the pretended faults of her sister. Although it was scarcely eleven o'clock in the morning, the two sisters were dressed as if for a ball, and carried all the trinkets they possessed on their necks, arms, and ears. This apparition, so conformable to the idea which D'Harmental had formed beforehand of the daughters of his landlady, gave him a new subject for reflection. Since the Demoiselles Denis were so exactly what they ought to be, that is to say, in such perfect harmony with their position and education, why was Bathilde, who seemed their equal in rank, as visibly distinguished as they were vulgar? Whence came this immense difference between girls of the same class and age? There must be some secret, which the chevalier would no doubt know some day or other. A second pressure of the Abbe Brigaud's foot against his made him understand that, however true his reflections were, he had chosen a bad moment for abandoning himself to them. Indeed, Madame Denis took so sovereign an air of dignity, that D'Harmental saw that he had not an instant to lose if he wished to efface from her mind the bad impression which his distraction had caused. "Madame," said he directly, with the most gracious air he could assume, "that which I already see of your family fills me with the most lively desire to know the rest. Is not your son at home, and shall not I have the pleasure of seeing him?" "Monsieur," answered Madame Denis, to whom so amiable an address had restored all her good humor, "my son is with M. Joulu, his master; and, unless his business brings him this way, it is improbable that he will make your acquaintance." "Parbleu! my dear pupil," said the Abbe Brigaud, extending his hand toward the door; "you are like Aladdin. It is enough for you to express a wish, and it is fulfilled." Indeed, at this moment they heard on the staircase the song about Marlborough, which at this time had all the charm of novelty; the door was thrown open, and gave entrance to a boy with a laughing face, who much resembled Mademoiselle Athenais. "Good, good, good," said the newcomer, crossing his arms, and remarking the ordinary number of his family increased by the abbe and the chevalier. "Not bad, Madame Denis; she sends Boniface to his office with a bit of bread and cheese, saying, 'Beware of indigestion,' and, in his absence, she gives feasts and suppers. Luckily, poor Boniface has a good nose. He comes through the Rue Montmartre; he snuffs the wind, and says, 'What is going on there at No. 5, Rue du Temps Perdu?' So he came, and here he is. Make a place for one." And, joining the action to the word, Boniface drew a chair to the table, and sat down between the abbe and the chevalier. "Monsieur Boniface," said Madame Denis, trying to assume a severe air, "do you not see that there are strangers here?" "Strangers!" said Boniface, taking a dish from the table, and setting it before himself; "and who are the strangers? Are you one, Papa Brigaud? Are you one, Monsieur Raoul? You are not a stranger, you are a lodger." And, taking a knife and fork, he set to work in a manner to make up for lost time. "Pardieu! madame," said the chevalier, "I see with pleasure that I am further advanced than I thought I was. I did not know that I had the honor of being known to Monsieur Boniface." "It would be odd if I did not know you," said the lawyer's clerk, with his mouth full; "you have got my bedroom." "How, Madame Denis!" said D'Harmental, "and you left me in ignorance that I had the honor to succeed in my room to the heir apparent of your family? I am no longer astonished to find my room so gayly fitted up; I recognize the cares of a mother." "Yes, much good may it do you; but I have one bit of advice to give you. Don't look out of window too much." "Why?" asked D'Harmental. "Why? because you have a certain neighbor opposite you." "Mademoiselle Bathilde," said the chevalier, carried away by his first impulse. "Ah! you know that already?" answered Boniface; "good, good, good; that will do."----"Will you be quiet, monsieur!" cried Madame Denis. "Listen!" answered Boniface; "one must inform one's lodgers when one has prohibited things about one's house. You are not in a lawyer's office; you do not know that." "The child is full of wit," said the Abbe Brigaud in that bantering tone, thanks to which it was impossible to know whether he was serious or not. "But," answered Madame Denis, "what would you have in common between Monsieur Raoul and Bathilde?" "What in common? Why, in a week, he will be madly in love with her, and it is not worth loving a coquette." "A coquette?" said D'Harmental. "Yes, a coquette, a coquette," said Boniface; "I have said it, and I do not draw back. A coquette, who flirts with the young men and lives with an old one, without counting that little brute of a Mirza, who eats up all my bon-bons, and now bites me every time she meets me." "Leave the room, mesdemoiselles," cried Madame Denis, rising and making her daughters rise also. "Leave the room. Ears so pure as yours ought not to hear such things." And she pushed Mademoiselle Athenais and Mademoiselle Emilie toward the door of their room, where she entered with them. As to D'Harmental, he felt a violent desire to break Boniface's head with a wine-bottle. Nevertheless, seeing the absurdity of the situation, he made an effort and restrained himself. "But," said he, "I thought that the bourgeois whom I saw on the terrace--for no doubt it is of him that you speak, Monsieur Boniface--" "Of himself, the old rascal; what did you think of him?" "That he was her father." "Her father! not quite. Mademoiselle Bathilde has no father." "Then, at least, her uncle?" "Her uncle after the Bretagne fashion, but in no other manner." "Monsieur," said Madame Denis, majestically coming out of the room, to the most distant part of which she had doubtless consigned her daughters, "I have asked you, once for all, not to talk improprieties before your sisters." "Ah, yes," said Boniface, "my sisters; do you believe that, at their age, they cannot understand what I said, particularly Emilie, who is three-and-twenty years old?" "Emilie is as innocent as a new-born child," said Madame Denis, seating herself between Brigaud and D'Harmental. "I should advise you not to reckon on that. I found a pretty romance for Lent in our innocent's room. I will show it to you, Pere Brigaud; you are her confessor, and we shall see if you gave her permission to read her prayers from it." "Hold your tongue, mischief-maker," said the abbe, "do you not see how you are grieving your mother?" Indeed Madame Denis, ashamed of this scene passing before a young man on whom, with a mother's foresight, she had already begun to cast an eye, was nearly fainting. There is nothing in which men believe less than in women's faintings, and nothing to which they give way more easily. Whether he believed in it or not, D'Harmental was too polite not to show his hostess some attention in such circumstances. He advanced toward her with his arms extended. Madame Denis no sooner saw this support offered to her than she let herself fall, and, throwing her head back, fainted in the chevalier's arms. "Abbe," said D'Harmental, while Boniface profited by the circumstance to fill his pockets with all the bon-bons left on the table, "bring a chair." The abbe pushed forward a chair with the nonchalance of a man familiar with such accidents, and who is beforehand quite secure as to the result. They seated Madame Denis, and D'Harmental gave her some salts, while the Abbe Brigaud tapped her softly in the hollow of the hand; but, in spite of these cares, Madame Denis did not appear disposed to return to herself; when all at once, when they least expected it, she started to her feet as if by a spring, and gave a loud cry. D'Harmental thought that a fit of hysterics was following the fainting. He was truly frightened, there was such an accent of reality in the scream that the poor woman gave. "It is nothing," said Boniface, "I have only just emptied the water-bottle down her back. That is what brought her to; you saw that she did not know how to manage it. Well, what?" continued the pitiless fellow, seeing Madame Denis look angrily at him; "it is I; do you not recognize me, Mother Denis? It is your little Boniface, who loves you so." "Madame," said D'Harmental, much embarrassed at the situation, "I am truly distressed at what has passed." "Oh! monsieur," cried Madame Denis in tears, "I am indeed unfortunate." "Come, come; do not cry, Mother Denis, you are already wet enough," said Boniface; "you had better go and change your linen; there is nothing so unhealthy as wet clothes." "The child is full of sense," said Brigaud, "and I think you had better follow his advice." "If I might join my prayers to those of the abbe," said D'Harmental, "I should beg you, madame, not to inconvenience yourself for us. Besides, we were just going to take leave of you." "And you, also, abbe?" said Madame Denis, with a distressed look at Brigaud. "As for me," said Brigaud, who did not seem to fancy the part of comforter, "I am expected at the Hotel Colbert, and I must leave you." "Adieu, then," said Madame Denis, making a curtsey, but the water trickling down her clothes took away a great part of its dignity. "Adieu, mother," said Boniface, throwing his arms round her neck with the assurance of a spoiled child. "Have you nothing to say to Maitre Joulu?" "Adieu, mauvais sujet," replied the poor woman, embracing her son, and yielding to that attraction which a mother cannot resist; "adieu, and be steady." "As an image, mother, on condition that you will give us a nice little dish of sweets for dinner." He joined the Abbe Brigaud and D'Harmental, who were already on the landing. "Well, well," said the abbe, lifting his hand quickly to his waistcoat pocket, "what are you doing there?" "Oh, I was only looking if there was not a crown in your pocket for your friend Boniface." "Here." said the abbe, "here is one, and now leave us alone." "Papa Brigaud," said Boniface, in the effusion of his gratitude, "you have the heart of a cardinal, and if the king only makes you an archbishop, on my honor you will be robbed of half. Adieu, Monsieur Raoul," continued he, addressing the chevalier as familiarly as if he had known him for years. "I repeat, take care of Mademoiselle Bathilde if you wish to keep your heart, and give some sweetmeats to Mirza if you care for your legs;" and holding by the banister, he cleared the first flight of twelve steps at one bound, and reached the street door without having touched a stair. Brigaud descended more quietly behind him, after having given the chevalier a rendezvous for eight o'clock in the evening. As to D'Harmental, he went back thoughtfully to his attic. _ |
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