With a good horse it is not a long drive. Cherubin arrived at Villemonble in a short time. His heart beat fast as he drove through the village, for he recognized the country where his childhood had been pa.s.sed, and a large part of his adolescence. His heart was very full when he spied the first houses of Gagny; he felt such a thrill of pleasure, of happiness, as he had not known since he went to Paris, and he was amazed that he could have allowed so long a time to elapse without returning to the village.

He recognized the square, the guard house, and the steep street leading to his nurse's house; he urged his horse and drew rein at last in front of Nicole's door. It was only three years since he had left it, but it seemed to him a century, and he scrutinized everything about him to see if anything had changed.

He alighted from his carriage, crossed the yard where he had played so often, and hastily entered the room on the ground floor, where the family usually sat. Nicole was there, working, and Jacquinot asleep in a chair; nothing was changed; one person only was missing.

Nicole raised her eyes, then gave a shout. She gazed earnestly at the fashionably dressed young man who had entered the room; she was afraid that she was mistaken, she dared not believe that it was Cherubin. But he did not leave her long in uncertainty; he flew into her arms, crying:

"My nurse! my dear Nicole! Ah! how glad I am to see you again!"

"It's him! it's really him!" cried the peasant woman, who could hardly speak, she was so overcome by joy. "He has come to see us, so he still loves me, the dear boy! Forgive me for calling you that, monsieur le marquis, but habit is stronger than I am."

"Call me what you used to call me, dear Nicole. Do you suppose that that offends me? On the contrary, I insist upon it, I demand it."

"Oh! what joy!--Wake up, Jacquinot, my man, here's our _fieu_ Cherubin come back, and in our house again."

Jacquinot rubbed his eyes and recognized the young marquis, but dared not offer him his hand. But Cherubin warmly grasped the peasant's rough and calloused hand. He, in his delight, ran off, as his custom was, to bring wine and gla.s.ses.

Cherubin seated himself beside Nicole; he kissed her again and again, then glanced about the room and said:

"What a pity that someone is missing! If Louise were here, my happiness would be complete. Is she still in Bretagne--a long way off? Doesn't she mean to return?"

"Oh, yes, my boy," murmured the peasant woman with evident embarra.s.sment. "But you do still care for us a little bit, my dear child, although you have got used to finer folks than we are?"

"Do I care for you! Indeed I do! I understand why you ask me that, dear Nicole; I have been an ungrateful wretch, I have acted very badly. To think of not coming once to embrace you in three years! Oh! that was very wicked of me. I planned to do it very often, but one has so many things to do in Paris! Society, and all the amus.e.m.e.nts that were so new to me--it all bewildered me. You must try to forgive me."

"Forgive him! How handsome he is! how handsome he is!"

"And then, it seems to me that if you had wanted to see me, there was nothing to prevent your coming to Paris, to my house.--You know well enough where it is."

"Why, we did go there, my dear child, we went there twice, Louise and I.

We asked to see you, and the first time they told us that you were travelling; the second, that you were at some chateau and would be away a long while."

"That is very strange! In the first place, it isn't true; I have not left Paris since I first went there, I have not travelled at all; and then, I was never told that you came."

"The idea! I told the concierge to tell you."

"Ah! I will look into this, and I will find out why they presumed to conceal your visits from me."

"Bless me! that made Louise and me feel very bad, and we said: 'As long as he knows we've been to see him but couldn't find him, and he don't come to see us, why, we mustn't go again, because perhaps he don't like to have us come to his house in Paris.'"

"Not like it, my dear Nicole! The idea of thinking that of me! And poor Louise too! But why did you send her to Bretagne, instead of keeping her with you?"

"Louise in Bretagne!" exclaimed Jacquinot, who returned to the room just then with a jug of wine and gla.s.ses. "What's the sense of making up stories like that to deceive my friend monsieur le marquis?"

"What! Louise is not in Bretagne!" cried Cherubin. "Why, Monsieur Gerondif has been telling me that for two years. What is the meaning of that lie?"

"Oh! dear me, my boy!" said Nicole, "I'll tell you the whole story, for I don't like to lie! And then, the more I look at you, you look so good and gentle, I can't believe that you've got to be a rake, a seducer, as Monsieur Gerondif told us!"

"I, a rake, a seducer! Why, that is not true, nurse, it is horribly false! On the contrary, people laugh at me in Paris because they say I am too bashful with the ladies. And to say that I am a rake! That is abominable! And my tutor dared to say such things?"

"My dear child, I am going to tell you the whole truth. Monsieur Gerondif, who came to see us often and seemed to admire Louise's beauty, came one day about nine or ten months ago, and offered the child a fine place in Paris, which he said that you wanted her to take."

"Ah! the liar!"

"Louise liked the idea of going to Paris, because she said that that would bring her nearer to you, and she hoped to see you once in a while."

"Dear Louise!"

"So she accepted; but while she was packing her clothes, monsieur le professeur whispered to me: 'I am taking Louise away to remove her from the designs of my pupil, who means to make her his mistress.'"

"What an outrage!"

"'And if he comes here, make him believe that she's been with a relation of yours in Bretagne a long time.'"

Cherubin rose and paced the floor; he was so suffocated by wrath that he could hardly speak.

"What a shameful thing! to say that of me! to invent such lies! But what could his object have been? Do you know where he took Louise?"

"Oh! to some very fine folks, so he told us."

"But who are they?"

"Bless me! I didn't ask that, my dear child, because I had so much confidence in the schoolmaster."

"So you don't know where Louise is? Oh! I will find out! I will make him tell me!--I am dying with impatience; I wish I were in Paris now.--Adieu! my dear Nicole! adieu, Jacquinot!"

"What, going already, my _fieu_? You have hardly got here!"

"And he hasn't drunk a single gla.s.s!"

"I will come again, my friends, I will come again--but with Louise, whom I am wild to find!--Ah! Monsieur Gerondif! you say that I am a rake! We will see! They have all looked upon me as a child hitherto, but I'll show them that I am their master!"

Cherubin embraced Nicole, shook hands with Jacquinot, and, turning a deaf ear to all that those good people said to pacify him, he returned to his cabriolet, lashed his horse and drove rapidly back to Paris.

On reaching home, he at once summoned Monsieur Gerondif, Jasmin and the concierge. From the tone in which he issued the order, and from the expression of his face, the servants did not recognize their master, ordinarily so mild and gentle. The groom went to call the tutor, who had just finished dressing, although it was midday. He went down to his pupil, thinking:

"Monsieur le marquis undoubtedly wishes me to teach him something.

Perhaps he wants to learn to write poetry. Mademoiselle Turlurette tells everybody in the house that my verses are so fine! I will have him begin with free verses; they are certainly easier to write, most a.s.suredly."

But on entering the apartment of the young marquis, whom he found pacing the floor with an impatient and angry expression, the tutor became anxious, and began to think that he had not been summoned to give lessons in poetry. Jasmin, who did not know where he was, his master was scowling so at him, stood motionless in a corner, whence he dared not stir, and the concierge, who was fully as terrified as the others, remained in the doorway, afraid to go in.

Cherubin addressed the latter first; he bade him come nearer, and said to him:

"A short time after I first came to this house, a worthy countrywoman, my nurse, came to see me, with a young girl. They came twice; they were most anxious to see me; and you told them, the first time, that I was travelling, and the second time, that I was at the chateau of one of my friends. Why did you tell that falsehood? Who gave you leave to turn away people who are dear to me and whom I should have been glad to see?

Answer me."

The concierge hung his head and answered:

"Faith, monsieur, all I did was to follow the instructions Monsieur Jasmin gave me; and I thought he was only carrying out monsieur's orders."