In the Days of My Youth Part 24

"You are just in time, Arbuthnot, to do me a service," said Dalrymple, looking up from his desk as I went in, and reaching out his hand to me over a barricade of books and papers.

"Then I am very glad I have come," I replied. "But what confusion is this? Are you going anywhere?"

"Yes--to perdition. There, kick that rubbish out of your way and sit down."

Never very orderly, Dalrymple's rooms were this time in as terrible a litter as can well be conceived. The table was piled high with bills, old letters, books, cigars, gloves, card-cases, and pamphlets. The carpet was strewn with portmanteaus, hat-cases, travelling-straps, old luggage labels, railway wrappers, and the like. The chairs and sofas were laden with wearing apparel. As for Dalrymple himself, he looked haggard and weary, as though the last four weeks had laid four years upon his shoulders.

"You look ill," I said clearing a corner of the sofa for my own accommodation; "or _ennuye_, which is much the same thing. What is the matter? And what can I do for you?"

"The matter is that I am going abroad," said he, with his chin resting moodily in his two palms and his elbows on the table.

"Going abroad! Where?"

"I don't know--

'Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world.'

It's of very little consequence whether I betake myself to the East or to the West; eat rice in the tropics, or drink train-oil at the Pole."

"But have you no settled projects?"

"None whatever."

"And don't care what becomes of you?"

"Not in the least."

"Then, in Heaven's name, what has happened?"

"The very thing that, three weeks ago, would have made me the happiest fellow in Christendom. What are you going to do to-morrow?"

"Nothing, beyond my ordinary routine of medical study."

"Humph! Could you get a whole holiday, for once?"

I remembered how many I had taken of late, and felt ashamed of the readiness with which I replied:--

"Oh yes! easily."

"Well, then, I want you to spend the day with me. It will be, perhaps, my last in Paris for many a month, or even many a year. I ... Pshaw! I may as well say it, and have done with it. I am going to be married."

"Married!" I exclaimed, in blank amazement; for it was the last thing I should have guessed.

Dalrymple tugged away at his moustache with both hands, as was his habit when perplexed or troubled, and nodded gloomily. "To whom?"

"To Madame de Courcelles."

"And are you not very happy?"

"Happy! I am the most miserable dog unhanged?"

I was more at fault now than ever.

"I ... judging from trifles which some would perhaps scarcely have observed," I said, hesitatingly, "I--I thought you were interested in Madame de Courcelles?"

"Interested!" cried he, pus.h.i.+ng back his chair and springing to his feet, as if the word had stung him. "By heaven! I love that woman as I never loved in my life."

"Then why ..."

"I'll tell you why--or, at least, I will tell you as much as I may--as I can; for the affair is hers, and not mine. She has a cousin--curse him!--to whom she was betrothed from childhood. His estates adjoined hers; family interests were concerned in their union; and the parents on both sides arranged matters. When, however, Monsieur de Courcelles fell in love with her--a man much older than herself, but possessed of great wealth and immense political influence--her father did not hesitate to send the cousin to the deuce and marry his daughter to the Minister of Finance. The cousin, it seems, was then a wild young fellow; not particularly in love with her himself; and not at all inconsolable for her loss. When, however, Monsieur de Courcelles was good enough to die (which he had the bad taste to do very hastily, and without making, by any means, the splendid provision for his widow which he had promised), our friend, the cousin, comes forward again. By this time he is enough man of the world to appreciate the value of land--more especially as he has sold, mortgaged, played the mischief with nearly every acre of his own. He pleads the old engagement, and, as he is pleased to call it, the old love. Madame de Courcelles is a young widow, very solitary, with no one to love, no object to live for, and no experience of the world. Her pity is easily awaked; and the result is that she not only accepts the cousin, but lends him large sums of money; suffers the t.i.tle-deeds of her estates to go into the hands of his lawyer; and is formally betrothed to him before the eyes of all Paris!"

"Who is this man? Where is he?" I asked, eagerly.

"He is an officer of Cha.s.seurs, now serving with his regiment in Algiers--a daring, das.h.i.+ng, reckless fellow; heartless and dissipated enough; but a splendid soldier. However, having committed her property to his hands, and suffered her name to be a.s.sociated publicly with his, Madame de Courcelles, during his absence in Algiers, has done me the honor to prefer me. I have the first real love of her life, and the short and long of it is, that we are to be privately married to-morrow."

"And why privately?"

"Ah, there's the pity of it! There's the disappointment and the bitterness!"

"Can't Madame de Courcelles write and tell this man that she loves somebody else better?"

"Confound it! no. The fellow has her too much in his power, and, if he chose to be dishonest, could half ruin her. At all events she is afraid of him; and I ... I am as helpless as a child in the matter. If I were a rich man, I would snap my fingers at him; but how can I, with a paltry eight hundred a year, provide for that woman? Pshaw! If I could but settle it with a pair of hair-triggers and twenty paces of turf, I'd leave little work for the lawyers!"

"Well, then, what is to be done?"

"Only this," replied he, striding impatiently to and fro, like a caged lion; "I must just bear with my helplessness, and leave the remedy to those who can oppose skill to skill, and lawyer to lawyer."

"At all events, you marry the lady."

"Ay--I marry the lady; but I start to-morrow night for Berlin, _en route_ for anywhere that chance may lead me."

"Without her?"

"Without her. Do you suppose that I would stay in Paris--her husband--and live apart from her? Meet her, like an ordinary acquaintance? See others admiring her? Be content to lounge in and out of her _soirees_, or ride beside her carriage now and then, as you or fifty others might do? Perhaps, have even to endure the presence of De Caylus himself? _Merci_! Any number of miles, whether of land or sea, were better than a martyrdom like that!"

"De Caylus!" I repeated. "Where have I heard that name?"

"You may have heard of it in a hundred places," replied my friend. "As I said before, the man is a gallant soldier, and does gallant things. But to return to the present question--may I depend on you to-morrow? For we must have a witness, and our witness must be both discreet and silent."

"On my silence and discretion you may rely absolutely."

"And you can be here by nine?"

"By daybreak, if you please."

"I won't tax you to that extent. Nine will do quite well."

"Adieu, then, till nine."