shall take leave to relate in my own words what had just occurred to agitate her so. When she entered her mother’s room, she found the baroness and Perrin the notary seated watching for her. She sat down after the usual civilities, and Perrin entered upon the subject that had brought him.
He began by confessing to them that he had not overcome the refractory creditor without much trouble; and that he had since learned there was another, a larger creditor, likely to press for payment or for sale of the estate. The baroness was greatly troubled by this communication: the notary remained cool as a cucumber, and keenly observant. After a pause he went on to say all this had caused him grave reflections. “It seems,” said he with cool candor, “a sad pity the estate should pass from a family that has held it since the days of Charlemagne.”
“Now God forbid!” cried the baroness, lifting her eyes and her quivering hands to heaven.
The notary held the republican creed in all its branches. “Providence, madame, does not interfere—in matters of business,” said he. “Nothing but money can save the estate. Let us then be practical. Has any means occurred to you of raising money to pay off these incumbrances?”
“No. What means can there be? The estate is mortgaged to its full value: so they say, at least.”
“And they say true,” put in the notary quickly. “But do not distress yourself, madame: confide in me.”
“Ah, my good friend, may Heaven reward you.”
“Madame, up to the present time I have no complaint to make of Heaven. I am on the rise: here, mademoiselle, is a gimcrack they have given me;” and he unbuttoned his overcoat, and showed them a piece of tricolored ribbon and a clasp. “As for me, I look to ‘the solid;’ I care little for these things,” said he, swelling visibly, “but the world is dazzled by them. However, I can show you something better.” He took out a letter. “This is from the Minister of the Interior to a client of mine: a promise I shall be the next prefect; and the present prefect—I am happy to say—is on his death-bed. Thus, madame, your humble servant in a few short months will be notary no longer, but prefect; I shall then sell my office of notary: and I flatter myself when I am a prefect you will not blush to own me.”
“Then, as now, monsieur,” said the baroness politely, “we shall recognize your merit. But”—
“I understand, madame: like me you look to ‘the solid.’ Thus then it is; I have money.”
“Ah! all the better for you.”
“I have a good deal of money. But it is dispersed in a great many small but profitable investments: to call it in suddenly would entail some loss. Nevertheless, if you and my young lady there have ever so little of that friendly feeling towards me of which I have so much towards you, all my investments shall be called in, and two-thirds of your creditors shall be paid off at once. A single client of mine, no less a man than the Commandant Raynal, will, I am sure, advance me the remaining third at an hour’s notice; and so Beaurepaire chateau, park, estate, and grounds, down to the old oak-tree, shall be saved; and no power shall alienate them from you, mademoiselle, and from the heirs of your body.”
The baroness clasped her hands in ecstasy.
“But what are we to do for this?” inquired Josephine calmly, “for it seems to me that it can only be effected by a sacrifice on your part.”
“I thank you, mademoiselle, for your penetration in seeing that I must make sacrifices. I would never have told you, but you have seen it; and I do not regret that you have seen it. Madame—mademoiselle—those sacrifices appear little to me; will seem nothing; will never be mentioned, or even alluded to after this day, if you, on your part, will lay me under a far heavier obligation, if in short”—here the contemner of things unsubstantial reopened his coat, and brought his ribbon to light again—“if you, madame, will accept me for your son-in-law—if you, mademoiselle, will take me for your husband.”
The baroness and her daughter looked at one another in silence.
“Is it a jest?” inquired the former of the latter.
“Can you think so? Answer Monsieur Perrin. He has just done us a kind office, mother.”
“I shall remember it. Monsieur, permit me to regret that having lately won our gratitude and esteem, you have taken this way of modifying those feelings. But after all,” she added with gentle courtesy, “we may well put your good deeds against this—this error in judgment. The balance is in your favor still, provided you never return to this topic. Come, is it agreed?” The baroness’s manner was full of tact, and the latter sentences were said with an open kindliness of manner. There was nothing to prevent Perrin from dropping the subject, and remaining good friends. A gentleman or a lover would have so done. Monsieur Perrin was neither. He said bitterly, “You refuse me, then.”
The tone and the words were each singly too much for the baroness’s pride. She answered coldly but civilly—
“I do not refuse you. I do not take an affront into consideration.”
“Be calm, mamma; no affront whatever was intended.”
“Ah! here is one that is more reasonable,” cried Perrin.
“There are men,” continued Josephine without noticing him, “who look to but one thing—interest. It was an offer made politely in the way of business: decline it in the same spirit; that is what you have to do.”
“Monsieur, you hear what mademoiselle says? She carries politeness a long way. After all it is a good fault. Well, monsieur, I need not answer you, since Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire has answered you; but I detain you no longer.”
Strictly a weasel has no business with the temper of a tiger, but this one had, and the long vindictiveness of a Corsican. “Ah! my little lady, you turn me out of the house, do you?” cried he, grinding his teeth.
“Turn him out of the house? what a phrase! where has this man lived?”
“A man!” snarled Perrin, “whom none ever yet insulted without repenting it, and repenting in vain. You are under obligations to me, and you think to turn me out! You are at my mercy, and you think I will let you turn me to your door! In less than a mouth I will stand here, and say to you, Beaurepaire is mine. Begone from it!”
When he uttered these terrible words, each of which was like a sword-stroke to the baroness, the old lady, whose courage was not equal to her strength, shrank over the side of her arm-chair, and cried piteously—“He threatens me! he threatens me! I am frightened;” and put up her trembling hands, for the notary’s eloquence, being accompanied with abundance of gesture, bordered upon physical violence. His brutality received an unexpected check. Imagine that a sparrow-hawk had seized a trembling pigeon, and that a royal falcon swooped, and with one lightning-like stroke of body and wing, buffeted him away, and sent him gaping and glaring and grasping at pigeonless air with his claws. So swift and majestic, Josephine de Beaurepaire came from her chair with one gesture of her body between her mother and the notary, who was advancing with arms folded in a brutal, menacing way—not the Josephine we have seen her, the calm languid beauty, but the demoiselle de Beaurepaire—her great heart on fire—her blood up—not her own only, but all the blood of all the De Beaurepaires—pale as ashes with great wrath, her purple eyes on fire, and her whole panther-like body full of spring. “Wretch! you dare to insult her, and before me! Arriere miserable! or I soil my hand with your face.” And her hand was up with
