Part 32

“Is there any lady who’s likely to send such flowers as these to YOU?” was the response.

Chupin was about to retire with a bow, when the concierge stopped him. “You accomplish your errands so well that perhaps you’d be willing to take these flower-pots up to the second floor, if we gave you a glass of wine!”

No proposal could have suited Chupin better. Although he was prone to exaggerate his own powers and the fecundity of his resources, he had not flattered himself with the hope that he should succeed in crossing the threshold of M. de Coralth’s rooms. For, without any great mental effort, he had realized that the servant arrayed in the red waistcoat was in the viscount’s employ, and these flowers were to be carried to his apartments. However any signs of satisfaction would have seemed singular under the circumstances, and so he sulkily replied: “A glass of wine! you had better say two.”

“Well, I’ll say a whole bottleful, my boy, if that suits you any better,” replied the servant, with the charming good-nature so often displayed by people who are giving other folk’s property away.

“Then I’m at your service!” exclaimed Chupin. And, loading himself with a host of flower-pots as skilfully as if he had been accustomed to handling them all his life, he added: “Now, lead the way.”

The valet and the concierge preceded him with empty hands, of course; and, on reaching the second floor, they opened a door, and said: “This is the place. Come in.”

Chupin had expected to find that M. de Coralth’s apartments were handsomer than his own in the Faubourg Saint Denis; but he had scarcely imagined such luxury as pervaded this establishment. The chandeliers seemed marvels in his eyes; and the sumptuous chairs and couches eclipsed M. Fortunat’s wonderful sofa completely. “So he no longer amuses himself with petty rascalities,” thought Chupin, as he surveyed the rooms. “Monsieur’s working on a grand scale now. Decidedly this mustn’t be allowed to continue.”

Thereupon he busied himself placing the flowers in the numerous jardinieres scattered about the rooms, as well as in a tiny conservatory, cleverly contrived on the balcony, and adjoining a little apartment with silk hangings, that was used as a smoking-room. Under the surveillance of the concierge and the valet he was allowed to visit the whole apartments. He admired the drawing-room, filled to overflowing with costly trifles; the dining-room, furnished in old oak; the luxurious bed-room with its bed mounted upon a platform, as if it were a throne, and the library filled with richly bound volumes. Everything was beautiful, sumptuous and magnificent, and Chupin admired, though he did not envy, this luxury. He said to himself that, if ever he became rich, his establishment should be quite different. He would have preferred rather more simplicity, a trifle less satin, velvet, hangings, mirrors and gilding. Still this did not prevent him from going into ecstasies over each room he entered; and he expressed his admiration so artlessly that the valet, feeling as much flattered as if he were the owner of the place, took a sort of pride in exhibiting everything.

He showed Chupin the target which the viscount practised at with pistols for an hour every morning; for Monsieur le Vicomte was a capital marksman, and could lodge eight balls out of ten in the neck of a bottle at a distance of twenty paces. He also displayed his master’s swords; for Monsieur le Vicomte handled side arms as adroitly as pistols. He took a lesson every day from one of the best fencing-masters in Paris; and his duels had always terminated fortunately. He also showed the viscount’s blue velvet dressing-gown, his fur-trimmed slippers, and even his elaborately embroidered night-shirts. But it was the dressing-room that most astonished and stupefied Chupin. He stood gazing in open-mouthed wonder at the immense white marble table, with its water spigots and its basins, its sponges and boxes, its pots and vials and cups; and he counted the brushes by the dozen--brushes hard and soft, brushes for the hair, for the beard, for the hands, and the application of cosmetic to the mustaches and eyebrows. Never had he seen in one collection such a variety of steel and silver instruments, knives, pincers, scissors, and files. “One might think oneself in a chiropodist’s, or a dentist’s establishment,” remarked Chupin to the servant. “Does your master use all these every day?”

“Certainly, or rather twice a day--morning and evening--at his toilette.”

Chupin expressed his feelings with a grimace and an exclamation of mocking wonder. “Ah, well! he must have a clean skin,” he said.

His listeners laughed heartily; and the concierge, after exchanging a significant glance with the valet, said sotto voce, “Zounds! it’s his business to be a handsome fellow!” The mystery was solved.

While Chupin changed the contents of the jardinieres, and remained upstairs in the intervals between the nine or ten journeys he made to the porte-cochere for more flowers, he listened attentively to the conversation between the concierge and the valet, and heard snatches of sentences that enlightened him wonderfully. Moreover, whenever a question arose as to placing a plant in one place rather than another, the valet stated as a conclusive argument that the baroness liked it in such or such a place, or that she would be better pleased with this or that arrangement, or that he must comply with the instructions she had given him. Chupin was therefore obliged to conclude that the flowers had been sent here by a baroness who possessed certain rights in the establishment. But who was she?

He was manoeuvering cleverly in the hope of ascertaining this point, when a carriage was heard driving into the courtyard below. “Monsieur must have returned!” exclaimed the valet, darting to the window.

Chupin also ran to look out, and saw a very elegant blue-lined brougham, drawn by a superb horse, but he did not perceive the viscount. In point of fact, M. de Coralth was already climbing the stairs, four at a time, and, a moment later, he entered the room, angrily exclaiming, “Florent, what does this mean? Why have you left all the doors open?”

Florent was the servant in the red waistcoat. He slightly shrugged his shoulders like a servant who knows too many of his master’s secrets to have anything to fear, and in the calmest possible tone replied, “If the doors are open, it is only because the baroness has just sent some flowers. On Sunday, too, what a funny idea! And I have been treating Father Moulinet and this worthy fellow” (pointing to Chupin) “to a glass of wine, to acknowledge their kindness in assisting me.”

Fearing recognition, Chupin hid his face as much as possible; but M. de Coralth did not pay the slightest attention to him. There was a dark frown on his handsome, usually smiling countenance, and his hair was in great disorder. Evidently enough, something had greatly annoyed him. “I am going out again,” he remarked to his valet, “but first of all I must write two letters which you must deliver immediately.”

He passed into the drawing-room as he spoke, and Florent scarcely waited till the door was closed before uttering an oath. “May the devil take him!” he exclaimed. “Here he sets me on the go again. It is five o’clock, too, and I have an appointment in half an hour.”

A sudden hope quickened the throbbings of Chupin’s heart. He touched the valet’s arm, and in his most persuasive tone remarked: “I’ve nothing to do, and as your wine was so good, I’ll do your errands for you, if you’ll pay me for the wear and tear of shoe-leather.”

Chupin’s appearance must have inspired confidence, for the servant replied:--“Well--I don’t refuse--but we’ll see.”

The viscount did not spend much time in writing; he speedily reappeared holding two letters which he flung upon the table, saying: “One of these is for the baroness. You must deliver it into HER hands or into the hands of her maid--there will be no answer. You will afterward take the other to the person it is addressed to, and you must wait for an answer which you will place on my writing-table--and make haste.” So saying, the viscount went off as he had entered--on the run--and a moment later, his brougham was heard rolling out of the courtyard.

Florent was crimson with rage. “There,” said he, addressing Chupin rather than the concierge, “what did I tell you? A letter to be placed in madame’s own hands or in the hands of her maid, and to be concealed from the baron, who is on the watch, of course. Naturally no one can execute that commission but myself.”

“That’s true!” replied Chupin; “but how about the other?”

The valet had not yet examined the second letter. He now took it from the table, and glanced at the address. “Ah,” said he, “I can confide this one to you, my good fellow, and it’s very fortunate, for it is to be taken to a place on the other side of the river. Upon my word! masters are strange creatures! You manage your work so as to have a little leisure, and the moment you think yourself free, pouf!--they send you anywhere in creation without even asking if it suits your convenience. If it hadn’t been for you, I should have missed a dinner with some very charming ladies. But, above all, don’t loiter on the way. I don’t mind paying your omnibus fare if you like. And you heard him say there would be an answer. You can give it to Moulinet, and in exchange, he’ll give you fifteen sous for your trouble, and six sous for your omnibus fare. Besides, if you can extract anything from the party the letter’s intended for, you are quite welcome to it.”

“Agreed, sir! Grant me time enough to give an answer to the lady who is waiting at the Madeleine, and I’m on my way. Give me the letter.”

“Here it is,” said the valet, handing it to Chupin. But as the latter glanced at the address he turned deadly pale, and his eyes almost started from their sockets. For this is what he read: “Madame Paul. Dealer in Tobacco. Quai de la Seine.” Great as was his self-control, his emotion was too evident to escape notice. “What’s the matter with you?” asked the concierge and the valet in the same breath. “What has happened to you?”

A powerful effort of will restored this young fellow’s coolness, and ready in an instant with an excuse for his blunder, he replied, “I have changed my mind. What! you’d only give me fifteen sous to measure such a distance as that! Why, it isn’t a walk--it’s a journey!”

His explanation was accepted without demur. His listeners thought he was only taking advantage of the need they had of his services--as was perfectly natural under the circumstances. “What! So you are dissatisfied!” cried the valet. “Very well! you shall have thirty sous--but be off!”