“chaque homme a trois caractères: celui qu'il a, celui qu'il
montre, et celui qu'il croit avoir.”
by one of the strokes of good fortune which come but once to the most ardent student of fashion, the baroness de mélide had taken up horsiness at the very beginning of that estimable craze. it was, therefore, in mere sequence to this pursuit that she fixed her abode on the south side of the champs elysées, and within a stone's throw of the avenue du bois de boulogne, before the world found out that it was quite impossible to live elsewhere. it is so difficult, in truth, to foretell the course of fashion, that one cannot help wondering why the modern soothsayers, who eke out what appears to be a miserable existence in the smaller streets of the faubourg st. honoré and in the neighbourhood of bond street, do not turn their second-sight to the contemplation of the future of streets and districts, instead of telling the curious a number of vague facts respecting their past and vaguer prophecies as to the future.
if, for instance, cagliostro had foretold that to-day the chausée d'antin would be deserted; that the faubourg would have completely ousted the rue st. honoré; that the avenue de la grande armée should be, fashionably speaking, dead after a short and brilliant life; and that the little streets of the faubourg st. germain should be all that is most chic—what fortunes might have been made! indeed, no one in a trance or in his right mind can tell to-day why it is right to walk on the right-hand side of the boulevard des italiens and the boulevard des capucines, and heinously wrong to walk on the left; while, on the contrary, no self-respecting parisian would allow himself to be seen on the right-hand pavement of the boulevard de la madeleine. indeed, these things are a mystery, and the wise seek only to obey, and not to ask the reason why.
it would be difficult to lay before the english reader the precise social position of the baroness de mélide. for there are wheels within wheels, or, more properly perhaps, shades within shades, in the social world of paris, which are quite unsuspected on this side of the channel. indeed, our ignorance of social france is only surpassed by the french ignorance of social england. the baroness de mélide was rich, however, and the rich, as we all know, have nothing to fear in this world. as a matter of fact, monsieur de mélide dated his nobility from napoleon's creation, and madame's grandfather was of the emigration. by conviction, they belonged to the anglophile school, and theirs was one of the prettiest little houses between the avenue victor hugo and the avenue du bois de boulogne, which is more important than ancestors.
it was to this miniature palace that mademoiselle brun and denise were bidden, to the new function of afternoon tea, the day after the receipt of the lawyer's letter. madame de mélide would take no denial.
“i have already heard of denise's good fortune; and from whom do you think?” she wrote. “from my dear good cousin, lory de vasselot, who is, if you will believe it, a corsican neighbour—the vasselot 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 god 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 nobody else would have, and who now sends his dear love to his oldest friend.—your devoted jane.”
the baroness de mélide 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 mélide'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 vasselot—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 vasselot, 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 vasselot'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 vasselot 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 vasselot. “though why he is faithful i cannot tell you. some family legend, perhaps—i cannot tell. it is the abbé 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 assuredly 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 elysées 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 abbé 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-glass 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 vasselot, 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 vasselot, 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 vasselot turned thoughtfully, and brought forward a chair. he sat down and gravely contemplated mademoiselle brun, whose attitude—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 vasselot'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 vasselot 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 nobody buys land in corsica—for the peasants recognize no title 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 mélide'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 vasselot 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,” answered lory, reluctantly. “though, after all, we are neighbours.”
“then—”
“then, i should say not, mademoiselle. at all events, do nothing in haste. and, if i may ask it, will you communicate with me before you finally decide?”
they had come in an open cab, which was waiting on the shady side of the street.
“a young man who changes his mind very quickly,” commented mademoiselle brun, as they drove away.
