The master had in fact dropped on the household like a shell from a mortar. From above la Cave the Count had made his way by a path familiar to him to the gamekeeper’s hut, and reached it before Moreau. The gamekeeper was amazed to see his real master.
“Is Moreau here, I see his horse waiting?” asked Monsieur de Sérizy.
“No, monseigneur; but as he is going over to les Moulineaux before dinner, he left his horse here while he ran across to give some orders at the house.”
The gamekeeper had no idea of the effect of this reply, which, under existing circumstances, was, in the eyes of a clear-sighted man, tantamount to assurance.
“If you value your place,” said the Count to the keeper, “ride as fast as you can pelt to Beaumont on this horse, and deliver to Monsieur Margueron a note I will give you.”
The Count went into the man’s lodge, wrote a line, folded it in such a manner that it could not be opened without detection, and gave it to the man as soon as he was in the saddle.
“Not a word to any living soul,” said he. “And you, madame,” he added to the keeper’s wife, “if Moreau is surprised at not finding his horse, tell him that I took it.”
And the Count went off across the park, through the gate which was opened for him at his nod.
Inured though a man may be to the turmoil of political life, with its excitement and vicissitudes, the soul of a man who, at the Count’s age, is still firm enough to love, is also young enough to feel a betrayal. It was so hard to believe that Moreau was deceiving him, that at Saint-Brice Monsieur de Sérizy had supposed him to be not so much in league with Léger and the notary as, in fact, led away by them. And so, standing in the inn gateway, as he heard Père Léger talking to the innkeeper, he intended to forgive his land-steward after a severe reproof.
And then, strange to say, the dishonesty of his trusted agent had seemed no more than an episode when Oscar had blurted out the noble infirmities of the intrepid traveler, the Minister of Napoleon. Secrets so strictly kept could only have been revealed by Moreau, who had no doubt spoken contemptuously of his benefactor to Madame de Sérizy’s maid, or to the erewhile Aspasia of the Directoire.
As he made his way down the crossroad to the château, the peer of France, the great minister, had shed bitter tears, weeping as a boy weeps. They were his last tears that he shed! Every human feeling at once was so cruelly, so mercilessly attacked, that this self-controlled man rushed on across his park like a hunted animal.
When Moreau asked for his horse, and the keeper’s wife replied:
“Monsieur le Comte has just taken it.”
“Who—Monsieur le Comte?” cried he.
“Monsieur le Comte de Sérizy, the master,” said she. “Perhaps he is at the château,” added she, to get rid of the steward, who, quite bewildered by this occurrence, went off towards the house.
But he presently returned to question the keeper’s wife, for it had struck him that there was some serious motive for his master’s secret arrival and unwonted conduct. The woman, terrified at finding herself in a vise, as it were, between the Count and the steward, had shut herself into her lodge, quite determined only to open the door to her husband. Moreau, more and more uneasy, hurried across to the gatekeeper’s lodge, where he was told that the Count was dressing. Rosalie, whom he met, announced: “Seven people to dine at the Count’s table.”
Moreau next went home, where he found the poultry-girl in hot discussion with an odd-looking young man.
“Monsieur le Comte told us, ‘Mina’s aide-de-camp and a colonel,’ ” the girl insisted.
“I am not a colonel,” replied Georges.
“Well, but is your name Georges?”
“What is the matter?” asked the steward, intervening.
“Monsieur, my name is Georges Marest; I am the son of a rich hardware dealer, wholesale, in the Rue Saint-Martin, and I have come on business to Monsieur le Comte de Sérizy from Maître Crottat, his notary—I am his second clerk.”
“And I can only repeat, sir, what monsieur said to me—‘A gentleman will come,’ says he, ‘a Colonel Czerni-Georges, aide-de-camp to Mina, who traveled down in Pierrotin’s chaise. If he asks for me, show him into the drawing-room.’ ”
“There is no joking with his Excellency,” said the steward. “You had better go in, monsieur.—But how is it that his Excellency came down without announcing his purpose? And how does he know that you traveled by Pierrotin’s chaise?”
“It is perfectly clear,” said the clerk, “that the Count is the gentleman who, but for the civility of a young man, would have had to ride on the front seat of Pierrotin’s coucou.”
“On the front seat of Pierrotin’s coucou?” cried the steward and the farm-girl.
“I am quite sure of it from what this girl tells me,” said Georges Marest.
“But how?” the steward began.
“Ah, there you are!” cried Georges. “To humbug the other travelers, I told them a heap of cock-and-bull stories about Egypt, Greece, and Spain. I had spurs on, and I gave myself out as a colonel in the cavalry—a mere joke.”
“And what was the gentleman like, whom you believe to be the Count?” asked Moreau.
“Why, he has a face the color of brick,” said Georges, “with perfectly white hair and black eyebrows.”
“That is the man!”
“I am done for!” said Georges Marest.
“Why?”
“I made fun of his Orders.”
“Pooh, he is a thorough good fellow; you will have amused him. Come to the château forthwith,” said Moreau. “I am going up to the Count.—Where did he leave you?”
“At the top of the hill.”
“I can make neither head nor tail of it!” cried Moreau.
“After all, I poked fun at him, but I did not insult him,” said the clerk to himself.
“And what are you here for?” asked the steward.
“I
