De L'Orme. / The Works of G. P. R. James, Esq., Vol. XVI.

by G. P. R. James

This latter part of the worthy old trumpeter's narration astonished and embarrassed me a good deal; and after turning it in every way that my imagination could suggest, without being able to discover any solution of the mystery, I was obliged to conclude that, in what the narrator declared he had overheard, fancy had full as great a share as matter of fact. Arnault might dislike me--indeed, I was very sure that he did so--but how my life might thwart his views, or my death might profit him, I was at a loss to discover.

One thing, however, I remarked--Arnault, after my recovery, came more than once to see his daughter, which he had not done more than twice before, since she had been at the château. Her brother, also, was more frequently with her; and on these occasions, the father, if he met any member of my family, was humble and fawning, the son awkward and sheepish; and it struck me that the behaviour of the latter was very much changed towards myself, as if he were playing a part learned by rote, which neither assimilated with his character nor suited his inclination.

I also perceived a change take place in Helen--she grew silent, pale, thoughtful. When she looked at me, it seemed as if her eyes would overflow with tears, were it not for the restraint imposed upon her by the presence of others. Her gaiety was gone; and even the servants, amongst whom she was almost adored, began to remark the sadness of Mademoiselle Helene, and comment on its cause. All this was to me a mystery; and doubt of any kind, even concerning a trifle, has ever been to me a thousand times more painful than evident danger or real misfortune. Doubt is to my mind what the darkness of night is to a ghost-frightened school-boy--I go on gazing anxiously about me on every side, conjuring up a thousand ideal spectres, and distorting every dim object that I see into the likeness of some fearful phantom of the imagination. Nor can all the reasoning in my power divest my mind of the credulity with which I listen either to hope or to apprehension: though I well know that apprehension is to sorrow what hope is to joy--a sort of avant courier, who greatly magnifies the importance of the personage whom he precedes.

In the present instance, I determined to change my doubts to certainties, if human ingenuity might do so. Probably I should have accomplished it, but passion--which generally interferes with the best laid schemes of human wisdom, suggesting that the gratification which the heart seeks may easily be blended with the designs which the brain has formed--was ingenious enough to persuade me that the very best thing I could do for the accomplishment of my object was suddenly to explain myself with Helen. She avoided giving me any opportunity of doing so. I persisted with all the ardour of my nature, watching with unwearied assiduity even to gain a quarter of an hour; but I watched in vain.

Thus lapsed first a week, and then another, at the end of which the Marquis de St. Brie arrived at the château, full ten days before he had been expected. He came, however, with no train which could incommode his host and hostess. Two servants were all that accompanied him; and the seeming frankness of this conduct even won much upon my opinion. I found him a different person from what I had conceived. He was proud, perhaps, in manner, but not haughty; he was witty--he was well informed--he was pleasing. In short, he was the opposite to that Marquis de St. Brie whom I had more than once regretted not having sent to his long account at the time it was in my power to do so.

Was he changed--or was I? Perhaps both; and I am afraid that a degree of pique towards the Chevalier did certainly make me easily receive every favourable impression that the manners and appearance of my former adversary were calculated to produce. In latter years I have tried to judge my own motives in the various events of life--I have judged them strictly--as strictly as it is possible for a man to do; but not too much so, for it is impossible that any one can be too severe upon himself. The result of my self-investigation on this point has been, that had my friendship for the Chevalier been as lively as ever, I should have found less charms in the society of the Marquis de St. Brie.

CHAPTER XIII.

By a long system of exact economy, my mother had, by this time, repaired, in some degree, the ravages which many generations of extravagance had committed on our family estates; and though the pimple-nosed maître d'hôtel and old Houssaye, with two other septuagenarian lackeys, who might be considered as heirlooms in the family, still maintained their faces in the hall, yet four other more youthful attendants had been added to the number; and on the first day of the Marquis de St. Brie's arrival, all eight figured in new bright liveries of green and gold, with well-starched ruffs, and white sword scabbards. This was an expansion of liberality on the part of my mother which I had not expected; not that for a moment I mean to insinuate that the spirit of frugality was in her the effect of a sordid heart--far, far from it; it was an effort of her mind, and had ever been a painful one. She had herself experienced all the uncomforts of that miserable combination, a great name and an inferior fortune; and she was resolved, if possible, to save her son from the same distresses.

In the present instance, she was actuated by a feeling of that refined delicacy towards her husband, which ever taught her not only to respect him herself, but to throw a veil even round his foibles, for the purpose of hiding them from the eyes of the others. She had heard my father calmly talk to the Marquis de St. Brie, on the former visit, of his retinue and his vassals; and a slight smile had played about the guest's lip, which my father never saw, but which wounded my mother for him. She instantly determined to sacrifice some part of her system of economy, without attempting any vain display, or going beyond what she could reasonably afford; and the present effect was that which I have described.

We dined in general a little after noon; but on the day of the Marquis's arrival, which was looked upon by the servants as one of those occasions of ceremony, when their rights and privileges were to be as strictly enforced as the official tenures at a royal coronation, the announcement of dinner was somewhat delayed by a contest between Houssaye and the maître d'hôtel, in regard to which should sound the trumpet. Houssaye grounded his claim upon patent of office, as the trumpeter-general to the Counts of Bigorre; and the maître d'hôtel, contended for the honour as a right prescriptive, which he had exercised for thirty years. The maître d'hôtel would certainly have carried the day, being in possession of the brazen tube in dispute; but Houssaye, like a true old soldier, hung upon his flanks, embarrassed his manœuvres, and at length defeated him by a coup de main. The maître d'hôtel having possession, as I have said, resolved to exercise his right; and, at the hour appointed, raised the trumpet to his lips, and prepared an energetic breath. His red cheeks swelled till they looked like a ripe pomegranate; his eyes stared as if they would start from their sockets; his long, pimpled nose was nearly eclipsed by its rubicund neighbours, the cheeks, and would hardly have been seen but for a vibratory sort of movement about the end, produced, probably, by the compression of his breath. All announced a most terrible explosion, when suddenly the undaunted Houssaye stepped up, and applying his thumb to the cheek of this unhappy aspirant to tubicinal honours, expelled the breath before the lips were prepared. The cheeks sunk, the eyes relapsed, the nose protruded, and a hollow murmur died along the resonant cavities of the brass--a sort of dirge to the pseudo-trumpeter's defeat.