“Well, my boy, so here you are? And how is the dear mother?” said he, shaking hands with Oscar. “Good morning, gentlemen; you, no doubt, are the painters promised us by Monsieur Grindot the architect?” said he to the artists.
He whistled twice, using the end of his riding-whip, and the lodge-keeper came forward.
“Take these gentlemen to their rooms—Nos. 14 and 15; Madame Moreau will give you the keys. Light fires this evening if necessary, and carry up their things.—I am instructed by Monsieur le Comte to ask you to dine with me,” he added, addressing the artists. “At five, as in Paris. If you are sportsmen, you can be well amused. I have permission to shoot and fish, and we have twelve thousand acres of shooting outside our own grounds.”
Oscar, the painter, and Mistigris, one as much disconcerted as the other, exchanged glances. Still, Mistigris, faithful to his instincts, exclaimed:
“Pooh, never throw the candle after the shade! On we go!”
Little Husson followed the steward, who led the way, walking quickly across the park.
“Jacques,” said he to one of his sons, “go and tell your mother that young Husson has arrived, and say that I am obliged to go over to les Moulineaux for a few minutes.”
Moreau, now about fifty years of age, a dark man of medium height, had a stern expression. His bilious complexion, highly colored nevertheless by a country life, suggested, at first sight, a character very unlike what his really was. Everything contributed to the illusion. His hair was turning gray, his blue eyes and a large aquiline nose gave him a sinister expression, all the more so because his eyes were too close together; still, his full lips, the shape of his face, and the good-humor of his address, would, to a keen observer, have been indication of kindliness. His very decided manner and abrupt way of speech impressed Oscar immensely with a sense of his penetration, arising from his real affection for the boy. Brought up by his mother to look up to the steward as a great man, Oscar always felt small in Moreau’s presence; and now, finding himself at Presles, he felt an oppressive uneasiness, as if he had some ill to fear from this fatherly friend, who was his only protector.
“Why, my dear Oscar, you do not look glad to be here,” said the steward. “But you will have plenty to amuse you; you can learn to ride, to shoot, and hunt.”
“I know nothing of such things,” said Oscar dully.
“But I have asked you here on purpose to teach you.”
“Mamma told me not to stay more than a fortnight, because Madame Moreau—”
“Oh, well, we shall see,” replied Moreau, almost offended by Oscar’s doubts of his conjugal influence.
Moreau’s youngest son, a lad of fifteen, active and brisk, now came running up.
“Here,” said his father, “take your new companion to your mother.”
And the steward himself went off by the shortest path to a keeper’s hut between the park and the wood.
The handsome lodge, given by the Count as his land-steward’s residence, had been built some years before the Revolution by the owner of the famous estate of Cassan or Bergeret, a farmer-general of enormous wealth, who made himself as notorious for extravagance as Bodard, Pâris, and Bouret, laying out gardens, diverting rivers, building hermitages, Chinese temples, and other costly magnificence.
This house, in the middle of a large garden, of which one wall divided it from the outbuildings of Presles, had formerly had its entrance on the village High Street. Monsieur de Sérizy’s father, when he purchased the property, had only to pull down the dividing wall and build up the front gate to make this plot and house part of the outbuildings. Then, by pulling down another wall, he added to his park all the garden land that the former owner had purchased to complete his ring fence.
The lodge, built of freestone, was in the Louis XV style, with linen-pattern panels under the windows, like those on the colonnades of the Place Louis XV, in stiff, angular folds; it consisted, on the ground floor, of a fine drawing-room opening into a bedroom, and of a dining-room, with a billiard-room adjoining. These two suites, parallel to each other, were divided by a sort of anteroom or hall, and the stairs. The hall was decorated by the doors of the drawing-room and dining-room, both handsomely ornamental. The kitchen was under the dining-room, for there was a flight of ten outside steps.
Madame Moreau had taken the first floor for her own, and had transformed what had been the best bedroom into a boudoir; this boudoir, and the drawing-room below, handsomely fitted up with the best pickings of the old furniture from the château, would certainly have done no discredit to the mansion of a lady of fashion. The drawing room, hung with blue-and-white damask, the spoils of a state bed, and with old gilt-wood furniture upholstered with the same silk, displayed ample curtains to the doors and windows. Some pictures that had formerly been panels, with flower-stands, a few modern tables, and handsome lamps, besides an antique hanging chandelier of cut glass, gave the room a very dignified effect. The carpet was old Persian.
The boudoir was altogether modern and fitted to Madame Moreau’s taste, in imitation of a tent, with blue silk ropes on a light gray ground. There was the usual divan with pillows and cushions for the feet, and the flower-stands, carefully cherished by the head-gardener, were a joy to the eye with their pyramids of flowers.
The dining-room and billiard-room were fitted with mahogany. All round the house the steward’s lady had planned a flower-garden, beautifully kept, and beyond it lay the park. Clumps of foreign shrubs shut out the stables, and to give admission from the road to her visitors she had opened a gate where the old entrance had been built up.
Thus, the dependent position filled by the Moreaus was
