The establishment of the influential friend of Daddy Tantaine was situated in the Rue Montorgeuil, not far from the Passage de la Reine Hortense. M. B. Mascarin has a registry office for the engagement of both male and female servants. Two boards fastened upon each side of the door announce the hours of opening and closing, and give a list of those whose names are on the books; they further inform the public that the establishment was founded in 1844, and is still in the same hands. It was the long existence of M. Mascarin in a business which is usually very short-lived that had obtained for him a great amount of confidence, not only in the quarter in which he resided, but throughout the whole of Paris. Employers say that he sends them the best of servants, and the domestics in their turn assert that he only despatches them to good places. But M. Mascarin has still further claims on the public esteem; for it was he who, in 1845, founded and carried out a project which had for its aim and end the securing of a shelter for servants out of place. The better to carry out this, Mascarin took a partner, and gave him the charge of a furnished house close to the office. Worthy as these projects were, Mascarin contrived to draw considerable profit from them, and was the owner of the house before which, in the noon of the day following the events we have described, Paul Violaine might have been seen standing. The five hundred francs of old Tantaine, or at any rate a portion of them, had been well spent, and his clothes did credit to his own taste and the skill of his tailor. Indeed, in his fine feathers he looked so handsome, that many women turned to gaze after him. He however took but little notice of this, for he was too full of anxiety, having grave doubts as to the power of the man whom Tantaine had asserted could, if he liked, make his fortune. “A registry office!” muttered he scornfully. “Is he going to propose a berth of a hundred francs a month to me?” He was much agitated at the thoughts of the impending interview, and, before entering the house, gazed upon its exterior with great interest. The house much resembled its neighbors. The entrances to the Registry Office and the Servants’ Home were in the courtyard, at the arched entrance to which stood a vendor of roast chestnuts.
“There is no use in remaining here,” said Paul. Summoning, therefore, all his resolution, he crossed the courtyard, and, ascending a flight of stairs, paused before a door upon which “OFFICE” was written. “Come in!” responded at once to his knock. He pushed open the door, and entered a room, which closely resembled all other similar offices. There were seats all round the room, polished by frequent use. At the end was a sort of compartment shut in by a green baize curtain, jestingly termed “the Confessional” by the frequenters of the office. Between the windows was a tin plate, with the words, “All fees to be paid in advance,” in large letters upon it. In one corner a gentleman was seated at a writing table, who, as he made entries in a ledger, was talking to a woman who stood beside him.
“M. Mascarin?” asked Paul hesitatingly.
“What do you want with him?” asked the man, without looking up from his work. “Do you wish to enter your name? We have now vacancies for three bookkeepers, a cashier, a confidential clerk--six other good situations. Can you give good references?”
These words seemed to be uttered by rote.
“I beg your pardon,” returned Paul; “but I should like to see M. Mascarin. One of his friends sent me here.”
This statement evidently impressed the official, and he replied almost politely, “M. Mascarin is much occupied at present, sir; but he will soon be disengaged. Pray be seated.”
Paul sat down on a bench, and examined the man who had just spoken with some curiosity. M. Mascarin’s partner was a tall and athletic man, evidently enjoying the best of health, and wearing a large moustache elaborately waxed and pointed. His whole appearance betokened the old soldier. He had, so he asserted, served in the cavalry, and it was there that he had acquired the soubriquet by which he was known--Beaumarchef, his original name being David. He was about forty-five, but was still considered a very good-looking fellow. The entries that he was making in the ledger did not prevent him from keeping up a conversation with the woman standing by him. The woman, who seemed to be a cross between a cook and a market-woman, might be described as a thoroughly jovial soul. She seasoned her conversation with pinches of snuff, and spoke with a strong Alsatian brogue.
“Now, look here,” said Beaumarchef; “do you really mean to say that you want a place?”
“I do that.”
“You said that six months ago. We got you a splendid one, and three days afterward you chucked up the whole concern.”
“And why shouldn’t I? There was no need to work then; but now it is another pair of shoes, for I have spent nearly all I had saved.”
Beaumarchef laid down his pen, and eyed her curiously for a second or two; then he said,--
“You’ve been making a fool of yourself somehow, I expect.”
She half turned away her head, and began to complain of the hardness of the terms and of the meanness of the mistresses, who, instead of allowing their cooks to do the marketing, did it themselves, and so cheated their servants out of their commissions.
Beaumarchef nodded, just as he had done half an hour before to a lady who had complained bitterly of the misconduct of her servants. He was compelled by his position to sympathize with both sides.
The woman had now finished her tirade, and drawing the amount of the fee from a well-filled purse, placed it on the table, saying,--
“Please, M. Beaumarchef, register my name as Caroline Scheumal, and get me a real good place. It must be a cook, you understand, and I want to do the marketing without the missus dodging around.”
“Well, I’ll do my best.”
“Try and find me a wealthy widower, or a young woman married to a very old fellow. Now, do look round; I’ll drop in again to-morrow;” and with a farewell pinch of snuff, she left the office.
Paul listened to this conversation with feelings of anger and humiliation, and in his heart cursed old Tantaine for having introduced him into such company. He was seeking for some plausible excuse for withdrawal, when the door at the end of the room was thrown open, and two men came in, talking as they did so. The one was young and well dressed, with an easy, swaggering manner, which ignorant people mistake for good breeding. He had a many-colored rosette at his buttonhole, showing that he was the knight of more than one foreign order. The other was an elderly man, with an unmistakable legal air about him. He was dressed in a quilted dressing-gown, fur-lined shoes, and had on his head an embroidered cap, most likely the work of the hands of some one dear to him. He wore a white cravat, and his sight compelled him to use colored glasses.
“Then, my dear sir,” said the younger man, “I may venture to entertain hopes?”
“Remember, Marquis,” returned the other, “that if I were acting alone, what you require would be at once at your disposal. Unfortunately, I have others to consult.”
“I place myself entirely in your hands,” replied the Marquis.
The appearance of the fashionably dressed young man reconciled Paul to the place in which he was.
“A Marquis!” he murmured; “and the other swell-looking fellow must be M. Mascarin.”
Paul was about to step forward, when Beaumarchef respectfully accosted the last comer,--
“Who do you think, sir,” said he, “I have just seen?”
“Tell me quickly,” was the impatient reply.
“Caroline Schimmel; you know who I mean.”
“What! the woman who was in the service of the Duchess of Champdoce?”
“Exactly so.”
M. Mascarin uttered an exclamation of delight.
“Where is she living now?”
Beaumarchef was utterly overwhelmed by this simple question. For the first time in his life he had omitted to take a client’s address. This omission made Mascarin so angry that he forgot all his good manners, and broke out with an oath that would have shamed a London cabman,--
“How could you be such an infernal fool? We have been hunting for this woman for five months. You knew this as well as I did, and yet, when chance brings her to you, you let her slip through your fingers and vanish again.”
“She’ll be back again, sir; never fear. She won’t fling away the money that she had paid for fees.”
“And what do you think that she cares for ten sous or ten francs? She’ll be back when she thinks she will; but a woman who drinks and is off her head nearly all the year round----”
Inspired by a sudden thought, Beaumarchef made a clutch at his hat.
“She has only just gone,” said he; “I can easily overtake her.”
But Mascarin arrested his progress.
“You are not a good bloodhound. Take Toto Chupin with you; he is outside with his chestnuts, and is as fly as they make them. If you catch her up, don’t say a word, but follow her up, and see where she goes. I want to know her whole daily life. Remember that no item, however unimportant it may seem, is not of consequence.”
Beaumarchef disappeared in an instant, and Mascarin continued to grumble.
“What a fool!” he murmured. “If I could only do everything myself. I worried my life out for months, trying to find the clue to the mystery which this woman holds, and now she has again escaped me.”
Paul, who saw that his presence was not remarked, coughed to draw attention to it. In an instant Mascarin turned quickly round.
“Excuse me,” said Paul; but the set smile had already resumed its place upon Mascarin’s countenance.
“You are,” remarked he, civilly, “Paul Violaine, are you not?”
The young man bowed in assent.
“Forgive my absence for an instant. I will be back directly,” said Mascarin.
He passed through the door, and in another instant Paul heard his name called.
Compared to the outer chamber, Mascarin’s office was quite a luxurious apartment, for the windows were bright, the paper on the walls fresh, and the floor carpeted. But few of the visitors to the office could boast of having been admitted into this sanctum; for generally business was conducted at Beaumarchef’s table in the outer room. Paul, however, who was unacquainted with the prevailing rule, was not aware of the distinction with which he had been received. Mascarin, on his visitor’s entrance, was comfortably seated in an armchair before the fire, with his elbow on his desk--and what a spectacle did that desk present! It was a perfect world in itself, and indicated that its proprietor was a man of many trades. It was piled with books and documents, while a great deal of the space was occupied by square pieces of cardboard, upon each of which was a name in large letters, while underneath was writing in very minute characters.
With a benevolent gesture, Mascarin pointed to an armchair, and in encouraging tones said, “And now let us talk.”
It was plain to Paul that Mascarin was not acting, but that the kind and patriarchal expression upon his face was natural to it, and the young man felt that he could safely intrust his whole future to him.
“I have heard,” commenced Mascarin, “that your means of livelihood are very precarious, or rather that you have none, and are ready to take the first one that offers you a means of subsistence. That, at least, is what I hear from my poor friend Tantaine.”
“He has explained my case exactly.”
“Good; only before proceeding to the future, let us speak of the past.”
Paul gave a start, which Mascarin noticed, for he added,--
“You will excuse the freedom I am taking; but it is absolutely necessary that I should know to what I am binding myself. Tantaine tells me that you are a charming young man, strictly honest, and well educated; and now that I have had the pleasure of meeting you, I am sure that he is right; but I can only deal with proofs, and must be quite certain before I act on your behalf with third parties.”
“I have nothing to conceal, sir, and am ready to answer any questions,” responded Paul.
A slight smile, which Paul did not detect, played round the corners of Mascarin’s mouth, and, with a gesture, with which all who knew him were familiar, he pushed back his glasses on his nose.
“I thank you,” answered he; “it is not so easy as you may suppose to hide anything from me.” He took one of the packets of pasteboard slips form his desk, and shuffling them like a pack of cards, continued, “Your name is Marie Paul Violaine. You were born at Poitiers, in the Rue des Vignes, on the 5th of January, 1843, and are therefore in your twenty-fourth year.”
“That is quite correct, sir.”
“You are an illegitimate child?”
The first question had surprised Paul; the second absolutely astounded him.
“Quite true, sir,” replied he, not attempting to hide his surprise; “but I had no idea that M. Tantaine was so well informed; the partition which divided our rooms must have been thinner than I thought.”
Mascarin took no notice of this remark, but continued to shuffle and examine his pieces of cardboard. Had Paul caught a clear glimpse of these, he would have seen his initials in the corner of each.
“Your mother,” went on Mascarin, “kept, for the last fifteen years of her life, a little haberdasher’s shop.”
“Just so.”
“But a business of that description in a town like Poitiers, does not bring in very remunerative results, and luckily she received for your support and education a sum of one thousand francs per year.”
This time Paul started from his seat, for he was sure that Tantaine could not have learned this secret at the Hotel de Perou.
“Merciful powers, sir!” cried he; “who could have told you a thing that has never passed my lips since my arrival in Paris, and of which even Rose is entirely ignorant?”
Mascarin raised his shoulders.
“You can easily comprehend,” remarked he, “that a man in my line of business has to learn many things. If I did not take the greatest precautions, I should be deceived daily, and so lead others into error.”
Paul had not been more than an hour in the office, but the directions given to Beaumarchef had already taught him how many of these events were arranged.
“Though I may be curious,” went on Mascarin, “I am the symbol of discretion; so answer me frankly: How did your mother receive this annuity?”
“Through a Parisian solicitor.”
“Do you know him?”
“Not at all,” answered Paul, who had begun to grow uneasy under this questioning, for a kind of vague apprehension was aroused in his mind, and he could not see the utility of any of these interrogations. There was, however, nothing in Mascarin’s manner to justify the misgivings of the young man, for he appeared to ask all these questions in quite a matter-of-course way, as if they were purely affairs of business.
After a protracted silence, Mascarin resumed,--
“I am half inclined to believe that the solicitor sent the money on his own account.”
“No, sir,” answered Paul. “I am sure you are mistaken.”
“Why are you so certain?”
“Because my mother, who was the incarnation of truth, often assured me that my father died before my birth. Poor mother! I loved and respected her too much to question her on these matters. One day, however, impelled by an unworthy feeling of curiosity, I dared to ask her the name of our protector. She burst into tears, and then I felt how mean and cruel I had been. I never learned his name but I know that he was not my father.”
Mascarin affected not to notice the emotion of his young client.
“Did the allowance cease at your mother’s death?” continued he.
“No; it was stopped when I came of age. My mother told me that this would be the case; but it seems only yesterday that she spoke to me of it. It was on my birthday, and she had prepared a little treat for my supper; for in spite of the affliction my birth had caused her, she loved me fondly. Poor mother! ‘Paul,’ said she, ‘at your birth a genuine friend promised to help me to bring up and educate you, and he kept his word. But you are now twenty-one, and must expect nothing more from him. My son, you are a man now, and I have only you to look to. Work and earn an honest livelihood----’”
Paul could proceed no farther, for his emotions choked him.
“My mother died suddenly some ten months after this conversation--without time to communicate anything to me, and I was left perfectly alone in the world; and were I to die to-morrow, there would not be a soul to follow me to my grave.”
Mascarin put on a sympathetic look.
“Not quite so bad as that, my young friend; I trust that you have one now.”
Mascarin rose from his seat, and for a few minutes paced up and down the room, and then halted, with his arms folded, before the young man.
“You have heard me,” said he, “and I will not put any further questions which it will but pain you to reply to, for I only wished to take your measure, and to judge of your truth from your replies. You will ask why? Ah, that is a question I cannot answer to-day, but you shall know later on. Be assured, however, that I know everything about you, but I cannot tell you by what means. Say it has all happened by chance. Chance has broad shoulders, and can bear a great deal.”
This ambiguous speech caused a thrill of terror to pass through Paul, which was plainly visible on his expressive features.
“Are you alarmed?” asked Mascarin, readjusting his spectacles.
“I am much surprised, sir,” stammered Paul.
“Come, come! what can a man in your circumstances have to fear? There is no use racking your brain; you will find out all you want quickly enough, and had best make up your mind to place yourself in my hands without reserve, for my sole desire is to be of service to you.”
These words were uttered in the most benevolent manner; and as he resumed his seat, he added,--
“Now let us talk of myself. Your mother, whom you justly say was a thoroughly good woman, pinched herself in order to keep you at college at Poitiers. You entered a solicitor’s office at eighteen, I think?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But your mother’s desire was to see you established at Loudon or Cevray. Perhaps she hoped that her wealthy friend would aid you still further. Unluckily, however, you had no inclination for the law.”
Paul smiled, but Mascarin went on with some little severity.
“I repeat, unfortunately; and I think that by this time you have gone through enough to be of my opinion. What did you do instead of studying law? You did--what? You wasted your time over music, and composed songs, and, I know, an opera, and thought yourself a perfect genius.”
Paul had listened up to this time with patience, but at this sarcasm he endeavored to protest; but it was in vain, for Mascarin went on pitilessly,--
“One day you abandoned the study of the law, and told your mother that until you had made your name as a musical composer you would give lessons on the piano; but you could obtain no pupils, and--well, just look in the glass yourself, and say if you think that your age and appearance would justify parents in intrusting their daughters to your tuition?”
Mascarin stopped for a moment and consulted his notes afresh.
“Your departure from Poitiers,” he went on, “was your last act of folly. The very day after your poor mother’s death you collected together all her scanty savings, and took the train to Paris.”
“Then, sir, I had hoped----”
“What, to arrive at fortune by the road of talent? Foolish boy! Every year a thousand poor wretches have been thus intoxicated by their provincial celebrity, and have started for Paris, buoyed up by similar hopes. Do you know the end of them? At the end of ten years--I give them no longer--nine out of ten die of starvation and disappointment, and the other joins the criminal army.”
Paul had often repeated this to himself, and could, therefore, make no reply.
“But,” went on Mascarin, “you did not leave Poitiers alone; you carried off with you a young girl named Rose Pigoreau.”
“Pray, let me explain.”
“It would be useless. The fact speaks for itself. In six months your little store had disappeared; then came poverty and starvation, and at last, in the Hotel de Perou, your thoughts turned to suicide, and you were only saved by my old friend Tantaine.”
Paul felt his temper rising, for these plain truths were hard to bear; but fear lest he should lose his protector kept him silent.
“I admit everything, sir,” said he calmly. “I was a fool, and almost mad, but experience has taught me a bitter lesson. I am here to-day, and this fact should tell you that I have given up all my vain hallucinations.”
“Will you give up Rose Pigoreau?”
As this abrupt question was put to him, Paul turned pale with anger.
“I love Rose,” answered he coldly; “she believes in me, and has shared my troubles with courage, and one day she shall be my wife.”
Raising his velvet cap from his head, Mascarin bowed with an ironical air, saying, “Is that so? Then I beg a thousand pardons. It is urgent that you should have immediate employment. Pray, what can you do? Not much of anything, I fancy;--like most college bred boys, you can do a little of everything, and nothing well. Had I a son, and an enormous income, I would have him taught a trade.”
Paul bit his lip; but he knew the portrait was a true one.
“And now,” continued Mascarin, “I have come to your aid, and what do you say to a situation with a salary of twelve thousand francs?”
This sum was so much greater than Paul had dared to hope, that he believed Mascarin was amusing himself at his expense.
“It is not kind of you to laugh at me, under the present circumstances,” remarked he.
Mascarin was not laughing at him; but it was fully half an hour before he could prove this to Paul.
“You would like more proof of what I say,” said he, after a long conversation. “Very well, then; shall I advance your first month’s salary?” And as he spoke, he took a thousand-franc note from his desk, and offered it to Paul. The young man rejected the note; but the force of the argument struck him; and he asked if he was capable of carrying out the duties which such a salary doubtless demanded.
“Were I not certain of your abilities, I should not offer it to you,” replied Mascarin. “I am in a hurry now, or I would explain the whole affair; but I must defer doing so until to-morrow, when please come at the same hour as you did to-day.”
Even in his state of surprise and stupefaction, Paul felt that this was a signal for him to depart.
“A moment more,” said Mascarin. “You understand that you can no longer remain at the Hotel de Perou? Try and find a room in this neighborhood; and when you have done so, leave the address at the office. Good-bye, my young friend, until to-morrow, and learn to bear good fortune.”
For a few minutes Mascarin stood at the door of the office watching Paul, who departed almost staggering beneath the burden of so many conflicting emotions; and when he saw him disappear round the corner, he ran to a glazed door which led to his bed chamber, and in a loud whisper called, “Come in, Hortebise. He has gone.”
A man obeyed the summons at once, and hurriedly drew up a chair to the fire. “My feet are almost frozen,” exclaimed he; “I should not know it if any one was to chop them off. Your room, my dear Baptiste, is a perfect refrigerator. Another time, please, have a fire lighted in it.”
This speech, however, did not disturb Mascarin’s line of thought. “Did you hear all?” asked he.
“I saw and heard all that you did.”
“And what do you think of the lad?”
“I think that Daddy Tantaine is a man of observation and powerful will, and that he will mould this child between his fingers like wax.”
