“This noble gentleman, Lord Titus here,
Is in opinion, and in honor, wronged;
That in the rescue of Lavinia,
With his own hand did slay his youngest son”
Titus Andronicus.
The elder Montigny, wrathful and irresolute, and like a beast in the toils, had yesterday again visited the advocate on the same errand as before, and with a like unsatisfactory result. But instead of returning to Mainville he had proceeded to the Duchatel Manor House; partly for counsel, but chiefly to ascertain whether its owner—who, he deemed, had an equal interest with himself in the removal of Amanda—would join with him in furnishing the demanded dower. The subject was broached privately to the shrewd and worldly André, who on hearing it propounded swore indignantly at the advocate's audacity, and roundly refused to accede to any such appropriation of his substance: so after fierce denunciations of the insolence of upstart English adventurers, and censure of the infatuation of young fellows in affairs of the heart, the theme was dropped for the present, and the remainder of the day spent in looking over the estate, and in those attentions that are usually bestowed on a visitor, be he ever so familiar a one, much more when he is both distinguished and in prospective relationship. The next day the topic was resumed, but this time in the presence of Samson Duchatel, as he sat yawning between asleep and awake, but who, on hearing the conversation, aroused himself, and bade Montigny be easy, and not dream of endowing the foreigner, since he, Samson, had already secured the troublesome fair one. Montigny took little notice of this, thinking it to be but the jest or boast, or, at furthest, merely the loose announcement of the intention of the unscrupulous giant; who soon afterwards invited him to walk abroad. The company of Samson was not coveted by the more refined and anxious Seigneur, but the former pressed him, and he thought that locomotion might divert his mind from the contemplation of the coming degradation and folly of his son. He consented, and issuing from the ancient and flower-festooned porch of the Manor House, they walked along in mid-morning of late September, the drowsy charms of the summer's faded foliage just awakening to a resurrection in the glorified beauty of Autumn; and, almost in silence, they proceeded along the road or lane, till they came to the dubious dwelling where, some hours before, Amanda was left a prisoner. The sullen and sloven-looking female who had received her was now dressed in gaudy attire, and saluted them as they entered, at the same time casting a look of enquiry and surprise into the face of Samson, and of suspicion on the Seigneur.
“Bring up the body of your prisoner;” growled the former, loudly, as he threw his huge frame into an arm-chair. “Come, habeas corpus, habeas corpus. Now, if we had Alphonse here,” he continued, “he could repeat the whole writ in Latin. Habeas corpus, habeas corpus,” muttered the puzzled savage, fumbling in his brains for the context, “habeas corpus, habeas corpus;—” then, relinquishing the vain search, and addressing himself to the woman, at the same time elevating his voice, he vociferated: “Hillo, come, lady sheriff, bring up the body of your prisoner, I say;” when, as if in obedience to the call of a magician, a door opened, and from an inner room, with face flushed, brow dark and fretted with indignation, lips pouting, breast heaving, and her eyes overflowing with tears, in bounded his sister, Seraphine Duchatel, exclaiming: “And is this the creature that has stood between me and Claude? and brought here, too, to flout me to my face! I'll not endure it;” and she burst into a fresh torrent of tears.
“Who has stood between you, girl?” enquired the brother, half teasingly, half tenderly: “if there be a stump between here and Mainville that hinders you from driving your carriage thither, tell me, and we'll pull it up as quickly as Doctor Lanctot would pull you a tooth out.”
“You have done well, indeed,” continued the angry girl, weeping, and not minding his clumsy badinage, “you have done well indeed, to bring her here to answer me, to scorn me, to defy me, to parade herself before me, to stand in my presence as proud as any peacock,—only not half so beautiful.”
“Fine feathers make fine birds, Phin,” drily retorted her brother.