The Victorian Villains Megapack (66 page)

“No, sir,” said the boy.

“I will make my meaning clear to you,” replied the Doctor. “Look there at the sky—behind the belfry first, where it is so light, and then u
p and up, turning your chin back, right to the top of the dome, where it is already as blue as at noon. Is not that a beautiful colour? Does it not please the heart? We have seen it all our lives, until it has grown in with our familiar thoughts. Now,” changing his tone, “suppose that sky to become suddenly of a live and fiery amber, like the colour of clear coals, and growing scarlet towards the top—I do not say it would be any the less beautiful; but would you like it as well?”

“I suppose not,” answered Jean-Marie.

“Neither do I like you,” returned the Doctor roughly. “I hate all odd people, and you are the most curious little boy in all the world.”

Jean-Marie seemed to ponder for a while, and then he raised his head again and looked over at the Doctor with an air of candid inquiry. “But are not you a very curious gentleman?” he asked.

The Doctor threw away his stick, bounded on the boy, clasped him to his bosom, and kissed him on both cheeks. “Admirable, admirable imp!” he cried. “What a morning, what an hour for a theorist of forty-two! No,” he continued, apostrophising heaven, “I did not know such boys existed; I was ignorant they made them so; I had doubted of my race; and now! It is like,” he added, picking up his stick, “like a lovers’ meeting. I have bruised my favourite staff in that moment of enthusiasm. The injury, however, is not grave.” He caught the boy looking at him in obvious wonder, embarrassment, and alarm. “Hullo!” said he, “why do you look at me like that? Egad, I believe the boy despises me. Do you despise me, boy?”

“Oh, no,” replied Jean-Marie seriously; “only I do not understand.”

“You must excuse me, sir,” returned the Doctor, with gravity; “I am still so young. Oh, hang him!” he added to himself. And he took his seat again and observed the boy sardonically. “He has spoiled the quiet of my morning,” thought he. “I shall be nervous all day, and have a febricule when I digest. Let me compose myself.” And so he dismissed
his preoccupations by an effort of the will which he had long practised, and let his soul roam abroad in the contemplation of the morning. He inhaled the air, tasting it critically as a connoisseur tastes a vintage, and prolonging the expiration with hygienic gusto. He counted the little flecks of cloud along the sky. He followed the movements of the birds round the church tower—making long sweeps, hanging poised, or turning airy somersaults in fancy, and beating the wind with imaginary pinions. And in this way he regained peace of mind and animal composure, conscious of his limbs, conscious of the sight of his eyes, conscious that the air had a cool taste, like a fruit, at the top of his throat; and at last, in complete abstraction, he began to sing. The Doctor had but one air—“Malbrouck s’en va-t-en guerre”; even with that he was on terms of mere politeness; and his musical exploits were always reserved for moments when he was alone and entirely happy.

He was recalled to earth rudely by a pained expression on the boy’s face. “What do you think of my singing?” he inquired, stopping in the middle of a note; and then, after he had waited some little while and received no answer, “What do you think of my singing?” he repeated imperiously.

“I do not like it,” faltered Jean-Marie.

“Oh, come!” cried the Doctor. “Possibly you are a performer yourself?”

“I sing better than that,” replied the boy.

The Doctor eyed him for some seconds in stupefaction. He was aware that he was angry, and blushed for himself in consequence, which made him angrier. “If this is how you address your master!” he said at last, with a shrug and a flourish of his arms.

“I do not speak to him at all,” returned the boy. “I do not like him.”

“Then you like me?” snapped Doctor Desprez, with unusual eagerness.

“I do not know,” answered Jean-Marie.

The Doctor rose. “I shall wish you a good-morning,” he said. “You are too much for me. Perhaps you
have blood in your veins, perhaps celestial ichor, or perhaps you circulate nothing more gross than respirable air; but of one thing I am inexpugnably assured:—that you are no human being. No, boy”—shaking his stick at him—“you are not a human being. Write, write it in your memory—‘I am not a human being—I have no pretension to be a human being—I am a dive, a dream, an angel, an acrostic, an illusion—what you please, but not a human being.’ And so accept my humble salutations and farewell!”

And with that the Doctor made off along the street in some emotion, and the boy stood, mentally gaping, where he left him.

CHAPTER III

THE ADOPTION

Madame Desprez, who answered to the Christian name of Anastasie, presented an agreeable type of her sex; exceedingly wholesome to look upon, a stout
brune
, with cool smooth cheeks, steady, dark eyes
, and hands that neither art nor nature could improve. She was the sort of person over whom adversity passes like a summer cloud; she might, in the worst of conjunctions, knit her brows into one vertical furrow for a moment, but the next it would be gone. She had much of the placidity of a contented nun; with little of her piety, however; for Anastasie was of a very mundane nature, fond of oysters and old wine, and somewhat bold pleasantries, and devoted to her husband for her own sake rather than for his. She was imperturbably good-natured, but had no idea of self-sacrifice. To live in that pleasant old house, with a green garden behind and bright flowers about the window, to eat and drink of the best, to gossip with a neighbour for a quarter of an hour, never to wear stays or a dress except when she went to Fontainebleau shopping, to be kept in a continual supply of racy novels, and to be married to Dr. Desprez and have no ground of jealousy, filled the cup of her nature to the brim. Those who had known the Doctor in bachelor days, when he had aired quite as many theories, but of a different order, attributed his present philosophy to the study of Anastasie. It was her brute enjoyment that he rationalised and perhaps vainly imitated.

Madame Desprez was an artist in the kitchen, and made coffee to a nicety. She had a knack of tidiness, with which she had infected the Doctor; everything was in its place; everything capable of polish shone gloriously; and dust was a thing banished from her empire. Aline, their single servant, had no other business in the world b
ut to scour and burnish. So Doctor Desprez lived in his house like a fatted calf, warmed and cosseted to his heart’s content.

The midday meal was excellent. There was a ripe melon, a fish from the river in a memorable Béarnaise sauce, a fat fowl in a fricassee, and a dish of asparagus, followed by some fruit. The Doctor drank half a bottle
plus
one glass, the wife half a bottle
minus
the same quantity, which was a marital privilege, of an excellent Côte-Rôtie, seven years old. Then the coffee was brought, and a flask of Chartreuse for madame, for the Doctor despised and distrusted such decoctions; and then Aline left the wedded pair to the pleasures of memory and digestion.

“It is a very fortunate circumstance, my cherished one,” observed the Doctor—“this coffee is adorable—a very fortunate circumstance upon the whole—Anastasie, I beseech you, go without that poison for today; only one day, and you will feel the benefit, I pledge my reputation.”

“What is this fortunate circumstance, my friend?” inquired Anastasie, not heeding his protest, which was of daily recurrence.

“That we have no children, my beautiful,” replied the Doctor. “I think of it more and more as the years go on, and with more and more gratitude towards the power that dispenses such afflictions. Your health, my darling, my studious quiet, our little kitchen delicacies, how they would all have suffered, how they would all have been sacrificed! And for what? Children are the last word of human imperfection. Health flees before their face. They cry, my dear; they put vexatious questions; they demand to be fed, to be washed, to be educated, to have their noses blown; and then, when the time comes, they break our hearts, as I break this piece of sugar. A pair of professed egoists, like you and me, should avoid offspring, like an infidelity.”

“Indeed!” said she; and she laughed. “Now, that is like you—to take credit for the thing you could not help.”

“My dear,” returned the Doctor solemnly, “we might have adopted.”

“Never!” cried madame. “Never, Doctor, with my consent. If the c
hild were my own flesh and blood, I would not say no. But to take another person’s indiscretion on my shoulders, my dear friend, I have too much sense.”

“Precisely,” replied the Doctor. “We both had. And I am all the better pleased with our wisdom, because—because—” He looked at her sharply.

“Because what?” she asked, with a faint premonition of danger.

“Because I have found the right person,” said the Doctor firmly, “and shall adopt him this afternoon.”

Anastasie looked at him out of a mist. “You have lost your reason,” she said; and there was a clang in her voice that seemed to threaten trouble.

“Not so, my dear,” he replied; “I retain its complete exercise. To the proof: instead of attempting to cloak my inconsistency, I have, by way of preparing you, thrown it into strong relief. You will there, I think, recognise the philosopher who has the ecstasy to call you wife. The fact is, I have been reckoning all this while without an accident. I never thought to find a son of my own. Now, last night, I found one. Do not unnecessarily alarm yourself, my dear; he is not a drop of blood to me that I know. It is his mind, darling, his mind that calls me father.”

“His mind!” she repeated, with a titter between scorn and hysterics. “His mind, indeed! Henri, is this an idiotic pleasantry, or are you mad? His mind! And what of my mind?”

“Truly,” replied the Doctor, with a shrug, “you have your finger on the hitch. He will be strikingly antipathetic to my ever beautiful Anastasie. She will never understand him; he will never understand her. You married the animal side of my nature, dear; and it is on the spiritual side that I find my affinity for Jean-Marie. So much so, that, to be perfectly frank, I stand in some awe of him myself. You will easily perceive that I am announcing a calamity for you. Do not,” he broke out in tones of real solicitude—“do not give way to tears after a meal, Ana
stasie. You will certainly give yourself a false digestion.”

Anastasie controlled herself. “You know how willing I am to humour you,” she said, “in all reasonable matters. But on this point—”

“My dear love,” interrupted the Doctor, eager to prevent a refusal, “who wished to leave Paris? Who made me give up cards, and the opera, and the boulevard, and my social relations, and all that was my life before I knew you? Have I been faithful? Have I been obedient? Have I not borne my doom with cheerfulness? In all honesty, Anastasie, have I not a right to a stipulation on my side? I have, and you know it. I stipulate my son.”

Anastasie was aware of defeat; she struck her colours instantly. “You will break my heart,” she sighed.

“Not in the least,” said he. “You will feel a trifling inconvenience for a month, just as I did when I was first brought to this vile hamlet; then your admirable sense and temper will prevail, and I see you already as content as ever, and making your husband the happiest of men.”

“You know I can refuse you nothing,” she said, with a last flicker of resistance; “nothing that will make you truly happier. But will this? Are you sure, my husband? Last night, you say, you found him! He may be the worst of humbugs.”

“I think not,” replied the Doctor. “But do not suppose me so unwary as to adopt him out of hand. I am, I flatter myself, a finished man of the world; I have had all possibilities in view; my plan is contrived to meet them all. I take the lad as stable-boy. If he pilfer, if he grumble, if he desire to change, I shall see I was mistaken; I shall recognise him for no son of mine, and send him tramping.”

“You will never do so when the time comes,” said his wife; “I know your good heart.”

She reached out her hand to him, with a sigh; the Doctor smiled as he took it and carried it to his lips; he had gained his point with greater ease than he had dared to hope; for perhaps the twentieth time he had proved the
efficacy of his trusty argument, his Excalibur, the hint of a return to Paris. Six months in the capital, for a man of the Doctor’s antecedents and relations, implied no less a calamity than total ruin. Anastasie had saved the remainder of his fortune by keeping him strictly in the country. The very name of Paris put her in a blue fear; and she would have allowed her husband to keep a menagerie in the back-garden, let alone adopting a stable-boy, rather than permit the question of return to be discussed.

About four of the afternoon, the mountebank rendered up his ghost; he had never been conscious since his seizure. Doctor Desprez was present at his last passage, and declared the farce over. Then he took Jean-Marie by the shoulder and led him out into the inn garden, where there was a convenient bench beside the river. Here he sat him down and made the boy place himself on his left.

“Jean-Marie,” he said very gravely, “this world is exceedingly vast; and even France, which is only a small corner of it, is a great place for a little lad like you. Unfortunately it is full of eager, shouldering people moving on; and there are very few bakers’ shops for so many eaters. Your master is dead; you are not fit to gain a living by yourself; you do not wish to steal? No. Your situation then is undesirable; it is, for the moment, critical. On the other hand, you behold in me a man not old, though elderly, still enjoying the youth of the heart and the intelligence; a man of instruction; easily situated in this world’s affairs; keeping a good table:—a man, neither as friend nor host, to be despised. I offer you your food and clothes, and to teach you lessons in the evening, which will be infinitely more to the purpose for a lad of your stamp than those of all the priests in Europe. I propose no wages, but if ever you take a thought to leave me, the door shall be open, and I will give you a hundred francs to start the world upon. In return, I have an old horse and chaise, which you would very speedily learn to clean and keep in order. Do not hurry yourself to a
nswer, and take it or leave it as you judge aright. Only remember this, that I am no sentimentalist or charitable person, but a man who lives rigorously to himself; and that if I make the proposal, it is for my own ends—it is because I perceive clearly an advantage to myself. And now, reflect.”