‘Is there nobody in attendance upon M. le Marquis?’ he asked.
‘I am trying to be an explorer like my grandpapa; that is why I have run away at once. I am obliged to you, Monsieur, but it is not necessary that you should give yourself the trouble to come further with me. I shall be able to find the way back to the Place de la Trinité.’
The colonel was dubious as to his right to accept dismissal. The sky looked threatening, and he hardly believed that he could in honour forsake the child. But, sapristi! there were the unread papers down from Paris waiting for him at his favourite haunt, the Café du Grand Turc, to be discussed between generous draughts of cider. He tugged his grey moustache in divided feelings, and at last came to a decision with the aid of his terrible boom. He would deliver the little marquis into the hands of the concierge of the tower, and after a look in upon his cronies at the Grand Turc and a glass of cider, hasten to Saint-Laurent in search of proper authority.
Hervé was a decorous sightseer, who left others much in the dark as to his private impressions of what he saw. The tower, he admitted, was very big and cold. He did not think it would give him much satisfaction to have been born in the chill cavernous chamber wherein William had first seen the light, while the bombastic lines upon the conquest of the Saxons, read to him in a strong Norman accent, gave him the reverse of a desire to explore that benighted land. With his hands in his pockets, he stood and peeped through the slit in the stone wall, nearly as high as the clouds, whence Robert is supposed to have detected the charming visage of Arletta, washing linen below, with a keenness of sight nothing less diabolical than his sobriquet, le diable.
‘I couldn’t see anybody down so far, could you?’ he asked; and then his attention was caught by the big rain-drops that were beginning to fall in black circles upon the unroofed stone stairs. The concierge watched the sky a moment, then lifted Hervé into his arms, and hurried down the innumerable steps to the shelter of his own cosy parlour. Excitement and fatigue were telling upon the child, who looked nervous and scared. The rain-drops had gathered the force and noise of several waterfalls, pouring from the heavens with diluvian promise. Already the landscape was drenched and blotted out of view. An affrighted peasant, in sabots large enough to shelter the woman and her family of nursery rhyme, darted down the road, holding a coloured umbrella as big as a tent. The roar of thunder came from afar, and a flash of lightning broke through the vapoury veil, making Hervé blink like a distracted owl caught by the dawn. Oh, if he were only back safely at Saint-Laurent, or could hold the hand of his dear countess! No, he would not explore any more until he was a grown-up man. A howl of thunder and a child’s feeble cry——
Meanwhile confusion reigned in the castle. Men and women flew hither and thither, screaming blame upon each other. In an agony of apprehension, the butler ordered the family coach, and was driven into town, wondering how M. le Vervainville would take the news if anything were to happen to remove the source of his wealth and local importance. Parbleu! he would not be the man to tell him. Crossing the Place de la Trinité, he caught sight of Mère Lescaut gazing out upon the deluged square. In a happy inspiration, he determined to consult her, and while he was endeavouring to make his knock heard above the tempest and to shield his eyes from the glare of the lightning flashes, Mère Lescaut thrust her white cap out through the upper half of the shop door, and screamed, ‘You are looking for M. le Marquis de Saint-Laurent, and I saw him cross the square with Colonel Larousse this afternoon.’
‘Diable! Diable!’ roared the distracted butler. ‘I passed the colonel on the road an hour ago.’
The endless moments lost in adjuring the gods, in voluble faith in calamity, in imprecations at the storm, and shivering assertions of discomfort which never mend matters, and at last the dripping colonel and swearing butler meet. M. le Marquis de Saint-Laurent and Baron de Vervainville was found asleep amid the historic memories of Robert and Arletta.
This escapade brought M. de Vervainville down from Paris, with a new tutor. The tutor was very young, very modern, and very cynical. He was not in the least interested in Hervé, though rather amused when, on the second day of their acquaintance, the boy asked—‘Monsieur, are you engaged to be married?’ The tutor was happy to say that he had not that misfortune.
‘Is it then a misfortune? I am very glad that I am engaged, though I have heard my nurse say that married people are not often happy.’