The Chateau of Montplaisir

ABOUT a half-hour later a cab and a wheeled chair both appeared before the entrance of the Chateau of Montplaisir. Louis de Latour jumped out of the cab while Monsieur de Latour scrambled out of the wheeled chair. The four gold pieces slipped into the policeman’s hand increased still further his colossal grin, but it was nothing to the air of pleasure and relief which Monsieur de Latour wore. He took Louis by the arm, and the two marched into the room known as Monsieur de Latour’s study.

“I have thought it all over,” said Monsieur de Latour, sitting down in a chair and putting his hands on his knees, “and I know what to do.”

“What do you mean?” asked Louis.

“Why, the whole business, marrying and the rest of it. I am not going to marry Madame de Beauregard. That woman is too much for me.”

“So everybody knows,” remarked Louis.

“In fact, I would rather stand up and be shot at by General Granier’s leg than marry Madame de Beauregard, with the life she would lead me. And as for a pretty young girl like Julie, that unfortunate peculiarity she has of always leaving out one word in everything she writes and getting one word twisted in everything she tells is very annoying. So I have abandoned all idea of marrying her. Perhaps she might take you.”

Louis assumed a reflective air.

“I think,” he said, “I could break her of that unfortunate habit, as you call it, which she has,” and at the same moment he took a dainty note out of his pocket.

It was in Julie’s expansive handwriting, but there was not a single word left out, and it was expressed with the utmost clearness and precision.

“I shall venture to read it to you,” said Louis. “I don’t think that Mademoiselle de Brésac will be offended with me.” And he read:

Monsieur de Latour listened attentively.

“Now, if she had been as clear and businesslike as that in what she wrote for me, I would have been perfectly satisfied.”

“Possibly she did not understand so well what you wished her to say.”

“She seems to understand well enough what she wishes to say herself in this case. Well, now, I shall tell you my plan. I shall marry Mademoiselle Cheri.”

“Provided she will have you.”

“Oh, I think she will!”

“And also provided that I consent. Remember, my dear fellow, that I am your uncle.”

“The devil you are!”

“Recollect, if you please, the legal rights of adoption.”

Monsieur de Latour jumped up, and taking an angry turn or two about the room, sat down again.

“Very well,” he said, “if you refuse your consent to my marrying Mademoiselle Cheri, I can very easily refuse my consent to your marrying Julie.”

“Monsieur Bertoux tells me that it is a complicated question,” responded Louis, “but nevertheless our marriage could scarcely be prevented. However I, as your uncle, could very easily prevent your marrying Mademoiselle Cheri.”

This infuriated Monsieur de Latour, who, shaking his fist in Louis’s face, bawled:

“I’d like to see you try, and I have a great mind to elope to America with Mademoiselle Cheri this very day!”

Louis whistled softly, by way of showing his contempt for this proposition. Then Monsieur de Latour, relapsing into a gloomy silence, sat huddled up in his chair for some minutes. Presently he growled:

“If I give my consent to your marriage with Julie, I presume you would consent, confound you! to my marriage with Mademoiselle Cheri?”

“Certainly I would,” cried Louis, “but I should still exercise a fatherly care over you, and see that two giddy young things like you and Mademoiselle Cheri did not commit any indiscretions—like your duel of this morning, for example.”

“Into which you dragged me against my will,” replied Monsieur de Latour. “I outwitted all of you. It cost me eighty francs, but it was the best investment I ever made. It saved my life from that bloodthirsty old general.”

“I shall, of course,” continued Louis loftily, “keep an eye upon you, regulate your expenditures, and require you to report to me at least once a week till I see how you are behaving yourself. This will be my duty as your uncle.”

Monsieur de Latour ground his teeth with rage. Then, after another pause, he said:

“I believe that whole scheme was arranged between you and Julie.”

A smile flickered in Louis’s eyes, but he made no reply to this. At last Monsieur de Latour cried:

“Confound both of you! But I will give you the three hundred thousand francs to let me off from that agreement.”

“No, my dear Victor,” answered Louis, shaking his head, “agreeable as it would be to me to have that three hundred thousand francs, I can’t make a relationship so delicate and tender as ours a matter of barter and sale.”

“You mean the power of thwarting and opposing me?” cried Monsieur de Latour very excitedly. “Well, I will give you four hundred thousand francs to let me off.”

“No, I cannot, after having just acquired you as a nephew, part with you so easily.”

“So cheaply, you mean. I will give you five hundred thousand francs.”

“You affront me.”

“Five hundred and fifty thousand.”

“You insult me.”

“Six hundred thousand.”

“Be silent. I can stand no more.”

“You mean you won’t let me off at any price?”

“I must consult Julie first.”

“This is enough to put a man in a madhouse—that I am to be discussed by two such flibbertigibbets. Of course it’s nothing but a scheme to get money out of me, but six hundred thousand francs is all I mean to pay for my liberty.”

Just then the door burst open, and in pranced Madame de Beauregard. It was still very early in the morning, and Madame de Beauregard had not made her mid-day toilet. She wore a peignoir, and the deficiencies of her hair-dressing were concealed by a shawl wrapped around her head. She had slippers on her little feet, but Monsieur de Latour suspected that she had omitted to put on her stockings.

Monsieur de Latour, not feeling equal to encountering Madame de Beauregard just at that moment, retired hastily into his bedroom adjoining. But Madame de Beauregard, who was no respecter of persons, followed him in and almost collared him as he retreated toward the fireplace.

“So,” she cried, “you call yourself a man of spirit, and you are put into a wheeled chair to be carried to the field of honour, and then you pay a policeman eighty francs to trundle you away. And I believe you actually got it into your ridiculous old head that I would marry you. Not for worlds!”

Here Louis, seeing a chance to put in a word for General Granier, said:

“But, madame, General Granier was present and acted with the utmost gallantry. I have never seen such a fire-eater. He not only frightened my nephew, but he frightened me.”

“Did he really?” asked Madame de Beauregard, whirling around.

“And his leg was as steady as a rock, though he had been up three nights running, playing cards and drinking champagne until breakfast-time.”

“Was he really? Well, I declare, if he were fifty years younger I’d marry him.”

“He’s coming to dinner to-night,” put in Louis insinuatingly. “My own belief, madame, is that you would have difficulty in finding any man fifty years younger than General Granier with the life and spirit that he has in him.”

“At all events,” said Madame de Beauregard, addressing Monsieur de Latour, who, chased almost into the fireplace, was about taking refuge in a wardrobe, “I shouldn’t think of marrying an old sheep like you, my dear man. You had much better marry the soap-boiler’s daughter, Mademoiselle Cheri, and the couple of you will be about as tame as a pair of barnyard fowls.”

Monsieur de Latour, stung by the contempt expressed in Madame de Beauregard’s tone, plucked up his courage.

“It is my wish to marry Mademoiselle Cheri, if she will have me, madame,” he said, “and as for leading the life of barnyard fowls—well, it agrees with my constitution better than the life that you, madame, will probably lead with General Granier. And now, madame, if you will kindly leave me, I wish to arrange my toilet.”

“Don’t mind me,” said the old lady nonchalantly, seating herself on the bed.

Monsieur de Latour, meaning to frighten her, peeled off his coat. Madame de Beauregard, without flinching, spread her petticoats around her, and began to sing a song which ended in a refrain of “Tra la la something or other.” Monsieur de Latour then removed his waistcoat, but Madame de Beauregard stood, or rather sat, her ground undauntedly.

“Will you force me, madame, to appear sans culottes?” asked Monsieur de Latour in desperation.

“Just as you please, my dear man. I don’t mind a little thing like that.”

Monsieur de Latour, finding himself defeated, resumed his waistcoat and coat, and offering his arm to Madame de Beauregard, the old lady skipped off with him. Monsieur de Latour escorted her out to the terrace. There sat Mademoiselle Cheri, Mélanie and Eugène de Contiac. Madame de Beauregard’s sketchy toilet gave a slight shock to all of them, but the old lady herself remarked casually:

“I know I haven’t got half enough clothes on, but you needn’t look at me, and you can’t see without looking, that much is certain.”

Eugène de Contiac had in his hands a book of sermons. He made not the least attempt to conceal this when Madame de Beauregard appeared, but kept it openly and shamelessly in view.

“So you are at it again!” shrieked Madame de Beauregard. “That’s the way it has been ever since that idiotic Bertoux paid the two hundred and fifty thousand francs to your credit in bank. He says I told him to do it, and perhaps I did, as I really thought you had mended your ways by that trip to Paris.”

“My dear aunt,” quietly replied Eugène, “Mélanie has forgiven me that trip to Paris, and I have promised her never to go upon a like expedition. I was perfectly safe in doing this, as another such week would be my death. And as you have kindly made me independent, Mélanie has agreed to marry me, provided Monsieur de Latour gives his consent.”

Monsieur de Latour assumed a very stern and forbidding air, and then said:

“I must consider it.”

Then Mademoiselle Cheri, rising and going to him with the familiarity of an old friend, said:

“Come now, Victor, you don’t mean that you will really interfere with the happiness of these two young people?”

Monsieur de Latour, seeing his chance, remarked significantly:

“Shall we discuss it a little, then?” And the two walked off toward the orangery.

Once under its green shade, Monsieur de Latour, with the air and manner of a man of twenty-five making love to a girl of eighteen, said sentimentally:

“I will give my consent upon one condition, and it is that you, Séline, forgive all my follies and faithlessness, and marry me. I am done with great people. I have nearly been killed by two of them—that dreadful old lady over yonder and General Granier. I am a changed man. Instead of being the head of the house of De Latour, I should like to return to Brionville and boil soap the rest of my life. And if you, Séline, will go with me, I will promise you to lead a quiet, respectable and, I hope, respected life the rest of my days.”

Mademoiselle Séline looked at him and her kind eyes grew kinder.

“If that be true, Victor,” she answered sweetly after a moment, “then we may indeed spend the rest of our lives together. As long as you aspired to rank and fashion, and courted the society of people above you, who simply amused themselves at your expense, I could not think of marrying you. But now that you have become the Victor de Latour of twenty years ago, well then——”

Mademoiselle Cheri, with a smile, gave her hand, still plump and pretty, to Monsieur de Latour, who raised it to his lips.

“And now,” she continued, “you will not stand between Mélanie and her happiness, for I know that those two are sincerely attached to each other.”

To this Monsieur de Latour, like a true lover, replied: “Your will, Séline, shall be my law.”

Monsieur de Latour and Mademoiselle Cheri, their countenances beaming, returned to the group, which had been increased by the appearance of Louis and Julie, who had come from Heaven knows where. As soon as the group caught sight of Monsieur de Latour and Mademoiselle Cheri all knew that something had happened—that something which makes or mars a lifetime. In this case it was evident that Monsieur de Latour’s happiness was made forever. His countenance shone like the harvest moon, he stepped high, as one in whose veins joy is pulsating, and he radiated satisfaction. Mademoiselle Cheri was smiling and composed, and her gentle face expressed a tranquil happiness.

“My friends,” said Monsieur de Latour, still holding Mademoiselle Cheri’s plump hand as they drew near, “felicitate me, I beg of you. Mademoiselle Cheri has promised to forgive me and to marry me.”

At this Mélanie kissed them both joyfully, and Louis, with a paternal air, said:

“My dear nephew, I assure you there is no one I would more gladly welcome as my niece than Mademoiselle Cheri, and I may say that Mademoiselle de Brésac, who will certainly be your future aunt, feels as I do.”

“Indeed I do!” cried Julie, laying her hand upon Monsieur de Latour’s arm. “And I rejoice in the thought of becoming aunt to you and dear Mademoiselle Cheri——”

“What did you say?” asked Monsieur de Latour incredulously.

“As your prospective aunt, dear Victor,” Julie reiterated, with the calmest air in the world. “Of course, if I marry Louis, I shall be your aunt.”

“Come,” said Monsieur de Latour, a little upset by the turn of the conversation, “let us stop all this nonsense. I haven’t the slightest objection to your marrying Louis. I like the scamp, in spite of the annoyance that he has caused me, and I believe him to be an excellent fellow, but I can’t be made further ridiculous by this uncle and nephew business. There has been quite enough of it, and I desire you to stop it. So I propose that to-day we shall straighten out the relationship and correct the mistake that you made, and I will hand over the three hundred thousand francs with which I agreed to endow Louis. It is worth that much to get rid of his patronising airs and infernal meddling.”

At this Monsieur de Latour found himself struggling in Louis’s embrace and almost felt his ribs cracking, while Julie nearly strangled him with kisses. Madame de Beauregard’s clear old voice cut the morning air as she proclaimed:

“Good Heavens! all the world seems to be getting married. I shall ring up General Granier over the telephone and tell him that I mean to marry him just as soon as I have time to attend to anything. Let me see—automobiling this morning, casino in the afternoon, dinner in the evening; automobiling to-morrow morning, casino in the afternoon, ball in the evening—well, I shall arrange to get married as soon as possible; but one leads such a gay life in Dinard that it’s very hard to find time to do anything, even to get married.”

To judge, however, from the radiance of happiness which played upon every face assembled upon the terrace of the Chateau of Montplaisir that sunny August morning, it was plain that each of them, except Madame de Beauregard, would easily and quickly find time for the perfect union of hearts and souls and minds which awaited in marriage each pair of lovers.