Beatrix Part 38

Madame Schontz had invited Claude Vignon, who, on several occasions, had expressed a wish to know Maxime de Trailles personally. She also invited Couture, Fabien, Bixiou, Leon de Lora, La Palferine, and Nathan.

The latter was asked by Rochefide on account of Maxime. Aurelie thus expected nine guests, all men of the first ability, with the exception of du Ronceret; but the Norman vanity and the brutal ambition of the Heir were fully on a par with Claude Vignon's literary power, Nathan's poetic gift, La Palferine's _finesse_, Couture's financial eye, Bixiou's wit, Finot's shrewdness, Maxime's profound diplomacy, and Leon de Lora's genius.

Madame Schontz, anxious to appear both young and beautiful, armed herself with a toilet which that sort of woman has the art of making.

She wore a guipure pelerine of spidery texture, a gown of blue velvet, the graceful corsage of which was b.u.t.toned with opals, and her hair in bands as smooth and s.h.i.+ning as ebony. Madame Schontz owed her celebrity as a pretty woman to the brilliancy and freshness of a complexion as white and warm as that of Creoles, to a face full of spirited details, the features of which were clearly and firmly drawn,--a type long presented in perennial youth by the Comtesse Merlin, and which is perhaps peculiar to Southern races. Unhappily, little Madame Schontz had tended towards ebonpoint ever since her life had become so happy and calm. Her neck, of exquisite roundness, was beginning to take on flesh about the shoulders; but in France the heads of women are princ.i.p.ally treasured; so that fine heads will often keep an ill-formed body un.o.bserved.

"My dear child," said Maxime, coming in and kissing Madame Schontz on the forehead, "Rochefide wanted me to see your establishment; why, it is almost in keeping with his four hundred thousand francs a year. Well, well, he would never have had them if he hadn't known you. In less than five years you have made him save what others--Antonia, Malaga, Cadine, or Florentine--would have made him lose."

"I am not a lorette, I am an artist," said Madame Schontz, with a sort of dignity, "I hope to end, as they say on the stage, as the progenitrix of honest men."

"It is dreadful, but we are all marrying," returned Maxime, throwing himself into an arm-chair beside the fire. "Here am I, on the point of making a Comtesse Maxime."

"Oh, how I should like to see her!" exclaimed Madame Schontz. "But permit me to present to you Monsieur Claude Vignon--Monsieur Claude Vignon, Monsieur de Trailles."

"Ah, so you are the man who allowed Camille Maupin, the innkeeper of literature, to go into a convent?" cried Maxime. "After you, G.o.d. I never received such an honor. Mademoiselle des Touches treated you, monsieur, as though you were Louis XIV."

"That is how history is written!" replied Claude Vignon. "Don't you know that her fortune was used to free the Baron du Guenic's estates? Ah! if she only knew that Calyste now belongs to her ex-friend," (Maxime pushed the critic's foot, motioning to Rochefide), "she would issue from her convent, I do believe, to tear him from her."

"Upon my word, Rochefide, if I were you," said Maxime, finding that his warning did not stop Vignon, "I should give back my wife's fortune, so that the world couldn't say she attached herself to Calyste from necessity."

"Maxime is right," remarked Madame Schontz, looking at Arthur, who colored high. "If I have helped you to gain several thousand francs a year, you couldn't better employ them. I shall have made the happiness of husband _and_ wife; what a feather in my cap!"

"I never thought of it," replied the marquis; "but a man should be a gentleman before he's a husband."

"Let me tell you when is the time to be generous," said Maxime.

"Arthur," said Aurelie, "Maxime is right. Don't you see, old fellow, that generous actions are like Couture's investments?--you should make them in the nick of time."

At that moment Couture, followed by Finot, came in; and, soon after, all the guests were a.s.sembled in the beautiful blue and gold salon of the hotel Schontz, a t.i.tle which the various artists had given to their inn after Rochefide purchased it for his Ninon II. When Maxime saw La Palferine, the last to arrive, enter, he walked up to his lieutenant, and taking him aside into the recess of a window, gave him notes for twenty thousand francs.

"Remember, my boy, you needn't economize them," he said, with the particular grace of a true scamp.

"There's none but you who can double the value of what you seem to give," replied La Palferine.

"Have you decided?"

"Surely, inasmuch as I take the money," said the count, with a mixture of haughtiness and jest.

"Well, then, Nathan, who is here to-night, will present you two days hence at the house of Madame la Marquise de Rochefide."

La Palferine started when he heard the name.

"You are to be madly in love with her, and, not to rouse suspicion, drink heavily, wines, liqueurs! I'll tell Aurelie to place you beside Nathan at dinner. One thing more, my boy: you and I must meet every night, on the boulevard de la Madeleine at one in the morning,--you to give me an account of progress, I to give you instructions."

"I shall be there, my master," said the young count, bowing.

"Why do you make us dine with that queer fellow dressed like the head-waiter of a restaurant?" whispered Maxime to Madame Schontz, with a sign toward Fabien du Ronceret.

"Have you never met the Heir? Du Ronceret of Alencon."

"Monsieur," said Maxime to Fabien, "I think you must know my friend d'Esgrignon?"

"Victurnien has ceased to know me for some time," replied Fabien, "but we used to be very intimate in our youth."

The dinner was one of those which are given nowhere but in Paris by these great female spendthrifts, for the choiceness of their preparations often surprise the most fastidious of guests. It was at just such a supper, at the house of a courtesan as handsome and rich as Madame Schontz, that Paganini declared he had never eaten such fare at the table of any sovereign, nor drunk such wines with any prince, nor heard such witty conversation, nor seen the glitter of such coquettish luxury.

Maxime and Madame Schontz were the first to re-enter the salon, about ten o'clock, leaving the other guests, who had ceased to tell anecdotes and were now boasting of their various good qualities, with their viscous lips glued to the gla.s.ses which they could not drain.

"Well, my dear," said Maxime, "you are not mistaken; yes, I have come for your _beaux yeux_ and for help in a great affair. You must leave Arthur; but I pledge myself to make him give you two hundred thousand francs."

"Why should I leave the poor fellow?"

"To marry that idiot, who seems to have been sent from Alencon expressly for the purpose. He has been a judge, and I'll have him made chief-justice in place of Emile Blondet's father, who is getting to be eighty years old. Now, if you know how to sail your boat, your husband can be elected deputy. You will both be personages, and you can then look down on Madame la Comtesse du Bruel."

"Never!" said Madame Schontz; "she's a countess."

"Hasn't he condition enough to be made a count?"

"By the bye, he bears arms," cried Aurelie, hunting for a letter in an elegant bag hanging at the corner of the fireplace, and giving it to Maxime. "What do they mean? Here are combs."

"He bears: per fesse argent and azure; on the first, three combs gules, two and one, crossed by three bunches grapes purpure, leaved vert, one and two; on the second, four feathers or, placed fretwise, with _Servir_ for motto, and a squire's helmet. It is not much; it seems they were enn.o.bled under Louis XIV.; some mercer was doubtless their grandfather, and the maternal line must have made its money in wines; the du Ronceret whom the king enn.o.bled was probably an usher. But if you get rid of Arthur and marry du Ronceret, I promise you he shall be a baron at the very least. But you see, my dear, you'll have to soak yourself for five or six years in the provinces if you want to bury La Schontz in a baroness. That queer creature has been casting looks at you, the meaning of which is perfectly clear. You've got him."

"No," replied Aurelie, "when my hand was offered to him he remained, like the brandies I read of to-day in the market reports, _dull_."

"I will undertake to decide him--if he is drunk. Go and see where they all are."

"It is not worth while to go; I hear no one but Bixiou, who is making jokes to which n.o.body listens. But I know my Arthur; he feels bound to be polite, and he is probably looking at Bixiou with his eyes shut."

"Let us go back, then."

"_Ah ca!_" said Madame Schontz, suddenly stopping short, "in whose interest shall I be working?"

"In that of Madame de Rochefide," replied Maxime, promptly. "It is impossible to reconcile her with Rochefide as long as you hold him.

Her object is to recover her place as head of his household and the enjoyment of four hundred thousand francs a year."

"And she offers me only two hundred thousand! I want three hundred thousand, since the affair concerns her. What! haven't I taken care of her brat and her husband? I have filled her place in every way--and does she think to bargain with me? With that, my dear Maxime, I shall have a million; and if you'll promise me the chief-justices.h.i.+p at Alencon, I can hold my own as Madame du Ronceret."

"That's settled," said Maxime.

"Oh! won't it be dull to live in that little town!" cried Aurelie, philosophically. "I have heard so much of that province from d'Esgrignon and the Val-n.o.ble that I seem to have lived there already."

"Suppose I promise you the support of the n.o.bility?"

"Ah! Maxime, you don't mean that?--but the pigeon won't fly."

"And he is very ugly with his purple skin and bristles for whiskers; he looks like a wild boar with the eyes of a bird of prey. But he'll make the finest chief-justice of a provincial court. Now don't be uneasy! in ten minutes he shall be singing to you Isabelle's air in the fourth act of Robert le Diable: 'At thy feet I kneel'--you promise, don't you? to send Arthur back to Beatrix?"

"It will be difficult; but perseverance wins."

About half-past ten o'clock the guests returned to the salon for coffee. Under the circ.u.mstances in which Madame Schontz, Couture, and du Ronceret were placed, it is easy to imagine the effect produced upon the Heir by the following conversation which Maxime held with Couture in a corner and in a low voice, but so placed that Fabien could listen to them.