The Moreaus, who were very good friends with Grindot the architect, had been told by him of the arrival ere long of a painter commissioned to finish the decorative panels at the château, Schinner having executed the more important pieces. This great painter recommended the artist we have seen traveling with Mistigris, to paint the borders, arabesques, and other accessory decorations. Hence, for two days past, Madame Moreau had been preparing her war-paint and sitting expectant. An artist who was to board with her for some weeks was worthy of some outlay. Schinner and his wife had been quartered in the château, where, by the Count’s orders, they had been entertained like my lord himself. Grindot, who boarded with the Moreaus, had treated the great artist with so much respect, that neither the steward nor his wife had ventured on any familiarity. And, indeed, the richest and most noble landowners in the district had vied with each other in entertaining Schinner and his wife. So now Madame Moreau, much pleased at the prospect of turning the tables, promised herself that she would sound the trumpet before the artist who was to be her guest, and make him out a match in talent for Schinner.
Although on the two previous days she had achieved very coquettish toilets, the steward’s pretty wife had husbanded her resources too well not to have reserved the most bewitching till the Saturday, never doubting that on that day at any rate the artist would arrive to dinner. She had shod herself in bronze kid with fine thread stockings. A dress of finely striped pink-and-white muslin, a pink belt with a chased gold buckle, a cross and heart round her neck, and wristlets of black velvet on her bare arms—Madame de Sérizy had fine arms, and was fond of displaying them—gave Madame Moreau the style of a fashionable Parisian. She put on a very handsome Leghorn hat, graced with a bunch of moss roses made by Nattier, and under its broad shade her fair hair flowed in glossy curls.
Having ordered a first-rate dinner and carefully inspected the rooms, she went out at an hour which brought her to the large flowerbed in the court of the château, like the lady of the house, just when the coach would pass. Over her head she held an elegant pink silk parasol lined with white and trimmed with fringe. On seeing Pierrotin hand over to the lodge-keeper the artist’s extraordinary-looking luggage, and perceiving no owner, Estelle had returned home lamenting the waste of another carefully arranged dress. And, like most people who have dressed for an occasion, she felt quite incapable of any occupation but that of doing nothing in her drawing-room while waiting for the passing of the Beaumont coach which should come through an hour after Pierrotin’s, though it did not start from Paris till one o’clock; thus she was waiting at home while the two young artists were dressing for dinner. In fact, the young painter and Mistigris were so overcome by the description of lovely Madame Moreau given them by the gardener whom they had questioned, that it was obvious to them both that they must get themselves into their best “toggery.” So they donned their very best before presenting themselves at the steward’s house, whither they were conducted by Jacques Moreau, the eldest of the children, a stalwart youth, dressed in the English fashion, in a round jacket with a turned-down collar, and as happy during the holidays as a fish in water, here on the estate where his mother reigned supreme.
“Mamma,” said he, “here are the two artists come from Monsieur Schinner.”
Madame Moreau, very agreeably surprised, rose, bid her son set chairs, and displayed all her graces.
“Mamma, little Husson is with father; I am to go to fetch him,” whispered the boy in her ear.
“There is no hurry, you can stop and amuse him,” said the mother.
The mere words “there is no hurry” showed the two artists how entirely unimportant was their traveling companion, but the tone also betrayed the indifference of a stepmother for her stepchild. In fact, Madame Moreau, who, for seventeen years of married life, could not fail to be aware of her husband’s attachment to Madame Clapart and young Husson, hated the mother and son in so overt a manner that it is easy to understand why Moreau had never till now ventured to invite Oscar to Presles.
“We are enjoined, my husband and I,” said she to the two artists, “to do the honors of the château. We are fond of art, and more especially of artists,” said she, with a simper, “and I beg you to consider yourselves quite at home there. In the country, you see, there is no ceremony; liberty is indispensable, otherwise life is too insipid. We have had Monsieur Schinner here already—”
Mistigris gave his companion a mischievous wink.
“You know him, of course,” said Estelle, after a pause.
“Who does not know him, madame?” replied the painter.
“He is as well known as the parish birch,” added Mistigris.
“Monsieur Grindot mentioned your name,” said Madame Moreau, “but really I—”
“Joseph Bridau, madame,” replied the artist, extremely puzzled as to what this woman could be.
Mistigris was beginning to fume inwardly at this fair lady’s patronizing tone; still, he waited, as Bridau did too, for some movement, some chance word to enlighten them, one of those expressions of assumed fine-ladyism, which painters, those born and cruel observers of folly—the perennial food of their pencil—seize on in an instant. In the first place, Estelle’s large hands and feet, those of a peasant from the district of Saint-Lô, struck them at once; and before long one or two lady’s-maid’s phrases, modes of speech that gave the lie to the elegance of her dress, betrayed their prey into the hands of the artist and his apprentice. They exchanged a look which pledged them both to take Estelle quite seriously as a pastime during their stay.
“You are so fond
