SOME PETTICOAT.
We have alluded to a lancer: he was a great-grand-nephew of M. Gillenormand's, on the father's side, who led a garrison life, far away from the domestic hearth. Lieutenant Théodule Gillenormand fulfilled all the conditions required for a man to be a pretty officer: he had a young lady's waist, a victorious way of clanking his sabre, and turned-up moustaches. He came very rarely to Paris, so rarely that Marius had never seen him, and the two cousins only knew each other by name. Théodule was, we think we said, the favorite of Aunt Gillenormand, who preferred him because she never saw him; for not seeing people allows of every possible perfection being attributed to them.
One morning Mlle. Gillenormand the elder returned to her apartments, as much affected as her general placidity would allow. Marius had again asked his grandfather's permission to make a short trip, adding that he wished to start that same evening. "Go," the grandfather answered; and he added to himself, as he pursed up his eye, "Another relapse of sleeping from home." Mile. Gillenormand went up to her room greatly puzzled, and cast to the stair-case case this exclamation, "It's too much!" and this question, "But where is it that he goes?" She caught a glimpse of some more or less illicit love adventure, of a woman in the shadow, a meeting, a mystery, and would not have felt vexed to have a closer peep at it through her spectacles. Scenting a mystery is like the first bite at a piece of scandal, and holy souls do not detest it. In the secret compartments of bigotry there is some curiosity for scandal.
She was, therefore, suffering from a vague appetite to learn a story. In order to distract this curiosity, which agitated her a little beyond her wont, she took refuge in her talents, and began festooning with cotton upon cotton one of those embroideries of the Empire and the Restoration, in which there are a great many cabriolet wheels. It was a clumsy job, and the workwoman was awkward. She had been sitting over it for some hours when the door opened. Mlle. Gillenormand raised her nose, and saw Lieutenant Théodule before her, making his regulation salute. She uttered a cry of delight; for a woman may be old, a prude, devout, and an aunt, but she is always glad to see a lancer enter her room.
"You here, Théodule!" she exclaimed.
"In passing, my dear aunt."
"Well, kiss me."
"There," said Théodule, as he kissed her. Aunt Gillenormand walked to her secretaire and opened it.
"You will stop the week out?"
"My dear aunt, I am off again to-night."
"Impossible!"
"Mathematically."
"Stay, my little Théodule, I beg of you."
"The heart says Yes, but duty says No. The story is very simple; we are changing garrison; we were at Melun, and are sent to Gaillon. In order to go to the new garrison we were obliged to pass through Paris, and I said to myself, 'I will go and see my aunt.'"
"And here's for your trouble."
And she slipped ten louis into his hand.
"You mean to say for my pleasure, dear aunt."
Théodule kissed her a second time, and she had the pleasure of having her neck slightly grazed by his gold-laced collar.
"Are you travelling on horseback, with your regiment?"
"No, my aunt: I have come to see you by special permission. My servant is leading my horse, and I shall travel by the diligence. By the way, there is one thing I want to ask you."
"What is it?"
"It appears that my cousin Marius Pontmercy is going on a journey too?"
"How do you know that?" the aunt said, her curiosity being greatly tickled.
"On reaching Paris I went to the coach-office to take my place in the coupé."
"Well?"
"A traveller had already taken a seat in the Impériale, and I saw his name in the way-bill: it was Marius Pontmercy."
"Oh, the scamp!" the aunt exclaimed. "Ah! your cousin is not a steady lad like you. To think that he is going to pass the night in a diligence!"
"Like myself."
"You do it through duty, but he does it through disorder."
"The deuce!" said Théodule.
Here an event occurred to Mlle. Gillenormand the elder: she had an idea. If she had been a man she would have struck her forehead. She addressed Théodule.
"You are aware that your cousin does not know you?"
"I have seen him, but he never deigned to notice me."
"Where is the diligence going to?"
"To Andelys."
"Is Marius going there?"
"Unless he stops on the road, like myself. I get out at Vernon, to take the Gaillon coach. I know nothing about Marius's route."
"Marius! what an odious name! What an idea it was to call him that! Well, your name, at least, is Théodule."
"I would rather it was Alfred," the officer said.
"Listen, Théodule; Marius absents himself from the house."
"Eh, eh!"
"He goes about the country."
"Ah, ah!"
"He sleeps out."
"Oh, oh!"
"We should like to know the meaning of all this."
Théodule replied, with the calmness of a bronze man, "Some petticoat!"
And with that inward chuckle which evidences a certainty, he added, "a girl!"
"That is evident!" the aunt exclaimed, who believed that she heard M. Gillenormand speaking, and who felt his conviction issue irresistibly from that word "girl," accentuated almost in the same way by grand-uncle and grand-nephew. She continued,—
"Do us a pleasure by following Marius a little. As he does not know you, that will be an easy matter. Since there is a girl in the case, try to get a look at her, and write and tell us all about it, for it will amuse grandfather."
Théodule had no excessive inclination for this sort of watching, but he was greatly affected by the ten louis, and he believed he could see a possible continuation of such gifts. He accepted the commission, and said, "As you please, aunt," and added in an aside, "I am a Duenna now!"
Mlle. Gillenormand kissed him.
"You would not play such tricks as that, Théodule, for you obey discipline, are the slave of duty, and a scrupulous man, and would never leave your family to go and see one of those creatures."
The lancer made the satisfied grimace of Cartouche when praised for his probity.
Marius, on the evening that followed this dialogue, got into the diligence, not suspecting that he was watched. As for the watcher, the first thing he did was to fall asleep, and his sleep was complete and conscientious. Argus snored the whole night. At daybreak the guard shouted, "Vernon; passengers for Vernon, get out here!" and Lieutenant Théodule got out.
"All right," he growled, still half asleep, "I get out here."
Then his memory growing gradually clearer, he thought of his aunt, the ten louis, and the account he had promised to render of Marius's sayings and doings. This made him laugh.
"He is probably no longer in the coach," he thought, while buttoning up his jacket. "He may have stopped at Poissy, he may have stopped at Triel; if he did not get out at Meulan, he may have done so at Mantes, unless he stopped at Rolleboise, or only went as far as Passy, with the choice of turning on his left to Évreux, or on his right to Laroche Guyon. Run after him, my aunt. What the deuce shall I write to the old lady?"
At this moment the leg of a black trouser appeared against the window-pane of the coupé.
"Can it be Marius?" the Lieutenant said.
It was Marius. A little peasant girl was offering flowers to the passengers, and crying, "Bouquets for your ladies." Marius went up to her, and bought the finest flowers in her basket.
"By Jove!" said Théodule, as he leaped out of the coupé, "the affair is growing piquant. Who the deuce is he going to carry those flowers to? She must be a deucedly pretty woman to deserve so handsome a bouquet. I must have a look at her."
And then he began following Marius, no longer by order, but through personal curiosity, like those dogs which hunt on their own account. Marius paid no attention to Théodule. Some elegant women were getting out of the diligence, but he did not look at them; he seemed to see nothing around him.
"He must be preciously in love," Théodule thought. Marius proceeded towards the church.
"That's glorious!" Théodule said to himself; "the church, that's the thing. Rendezvous spiced with a small amount of Mass are the best. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle exchanged in the presence of the Virgin."
On reaching the church, Marius did not go in, but disappeared behind one of the buttresses of the apse.
"The meeting outside," Théodule said; "now for a look at the girl."
And he walked on tiptoe up to the corner which Marius had gone round, and on reaching it stopped in stupefaction. Marius, with his forehead in both his hands, was kneeling in the grass upon a tomb, and had spread his flowers out over it. At the head of the grave was a cross of black wood, with this name in white letters,—"COLONEL BARON PONTMERCY." Marius could be heard sobbing.
The girl was a tomb.