Pelham — Complete

CHAPTER XVII.

I was in this terrible situation when the basket stopt.—Oriental Tales—History of the Basket.

We took our way to the street in which Madame Laurent resided. Meanwhile suffer me to get rid of myself, and to introduce you, dear Reader, to my friend, Monsieur Margot, the whole of whose adventures were subsequently detailed to me by the garrulous Mrs. Green.

At the hour appointed he knocked at the door of my fair countrywoman, and was carefully admitted. He was attired in a dressing-gown of sea-green silk, in which his long, lean, hungry body, looked more like a river pike than any thing human.

“Madame,” said he, with a solemn air, “I return you my best thanks for the honour you have done me—behold me at your feet!” and so saying the lean lover gravely knelt down on one knee.

“Rise, Sir,” said Mrs. Green, “I confess that you have won my heart; but that is not all—you have yet to show that you are worthy of the opinion I have formed of you. It is not, Monsieur Margot, your person that has won me—no! it is your chivalrous and noble sentiments—prove that these are genuine, and you may command all from my admiration.”

“In what manner shall I prove it, Madame,” said Monsieur Margot, rising, and gracefully drawing his sea-green gown more closely round him.

“By your courage, your devotion, and your gallantry! I ask but one proof—you can give it me on the spot. You remember, Monsieur, that in the days of romance, a lady threw her glove upon the stage on which a lion was exhibited, and told her lover to pick it up. Monsieur Margot, the trial to which I shall put you is less severe. Look, (and Mrs. Green threw open the window)—look, I throw my glove out into the street—descend for it.”

“Your commands are my law,” said the romantic Margot. “I will go forthwith,” and so saying, he went to the door.

“Hold, Sir!” said the lady, “it is not by that simple manner that you are to descend—you must go the same way as my glove, out of the window.”

“Out of the window, Madame!” said Monsieur Margot, with astonished solemnity; “that is impossible, because this apartment is three stories high, and consequently I shall be dashed to pieces.”

“By no means,” answered the dame; “in that corner of the room there is a basket, to which (already foreseeing your determination) I have affixed a rope; by that basket you shall descend. See, Monsieur, what expedients a provident love can suggest.”

“H—e—m!” said, very slowly, Monsieur Margot, by no means liking the airy voyage imposed upon him; “but the rope may break, or your hand may suffer it to slip.”

“Feel the rope,” cried the lady, “to satisfy you as to your first doubt; and, as to the second, can you—can you imagine that my affections would not make me twice as careful of your person as of my own. Fie! ungrateful Monsieur Margot! fie!”

The melancholy chevalier cast a rueful look at the basket. “Madame,” said he, “I own that I am very averse to the plan you propose: suffer me to go down stairs in the ordinary way; your glove can be as easily picked up whether your adorer goes out of the door or the window. It is only, Madame, when ordinary means fail that we should have recourse to the extraordinary.”

“Begone, Sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Green; “begone! I now perceive that your chivalry was only a pretence. Fool that I was to love you as I have done—fool that I was to imagine a hero where I now find a—”

“Pause, Madame, I will obey you—my heart is firm—see that the rope is—”

“Gallant Monsieur Margot!” cried the lady: and going to her dressing-room, she called her woman to her assistance. The rope was of the most unquestionable thickness, the basket of the most capacious dimensions. The former was fastened to a strong hook—and the latter lowered.

“I go, Madame,” said Monsieur Margot, feeling the rope; “but it really is a most dangerous exploit.”

“Go, Monsieur! and the God of St. Louis befriend you!”

“Stop!” said Monsieur Margot, “let me fetch my coat: the night is cold, and my dressing-gown thin.”

“Nay, nay, my Chevalier,” returned the dame, “I love you in that gown: it gives you an air of grace and dignity, quite enchanting.”

“It will give me my death of cold, Madame,” said Monsieur Margot, earnestly.

“Bah!” said the Englishwoman: “what knight ever feared cold? Besides, you mistake; the night is warm, and you look so handsome in your gown.”

“Do I!” said the vain Monsieur Margot, with an iron expression of satisfaction; “if that is the case, I will mind it less; but may I return by the door?”

“Yes,” replied the lady; “you see that I do not require too much from your devotion—enter.”

“Behold me!” said the French master, inserting his body into the basket, which immediately began to descend.

The hour and the police of course made the street empty; the lady’s handkerchief waved in token of encouragement and triumph. When the basket was within five yards of the ground, Mrs. Green cried to her lover, who had hitherto been elevating his serious countenance towards her, in sober, yet gallant sadness—“Look, look, Monsieur—straight before you.”

The lover turned round, as rapidly as his habits would allow him, and at that instant the window was shut, the light extinguished, and the basket arrested. There stood Monsieur Margot, upright in the basket, and there stopped the basket, motionless in the air.

What were the exact reflections of Monsieur Margot, in that position, I cannot pretend to determine, because he never favoured me with them; but about an hour afterwards, Vincent and I (who had been delayed on the road), strolling up the street, according to our appointment, perceived, by the dim lamps, some opaque body leaning against the wall of Madame Laurent’s house, at about the distance of fifteen feet from the ground.

We hastened our steps towards it; a measured and serious voice, which I well knew, accosted us—“For God’s sake, gentlemen, procure me assistance; I am the victim of a perfidious woman, and expect every moment to be precipitated to the earth.”

“Good Heavens!” said I, “surely it is Monsieur Margot, whom I hear. What are you doing there?”

“Shivering with cold,” answered Monsieur Margot, in a tone tremulously slow.

“But what are you in? for I can see nothing but a dark substance.”

“I am in a basket,” replied Monsieur Margot, “and I should be very much obliged to you to let me out of it.”

“Well—indeed,” said Vincent, (for I was too much engaged in laughing to give a ready reply,) “your Chateau-Margot has but a cool cellar. But there are some things in the world easier said than done. How are we to remove you to a more desirable place?”

“Ah,” returned Monsieur Margot, “how indeed! There is to be sure a ladder in the porter’s lodge long enough to deliver me; but then, think of the gibes and jeers of the porter—it will get wind—I shall be ridiculed, gentlemen—I shall be ridiculed—and what is worse, I shall lose my pupils.”

“My good friend,” said I, “you had better lose your pupils than your life; and the day-light will soon come, and then, instead of being ridiculed by the porter, you will be ridiculed by the whole street!”

Monsieur Margot groaned. “Go, then, my friend,” said he, “procure the ladder! Oh, those she devils!—what could make me such a fool!”

Whilst Monsieur Margot was venting his spleen in a scarcely articulate mutter, we repaired to the lodge, knocked up the porter, communicated the accident, and procured the ladder. However, an observant eye had been kept upon our proceedings, and the window above was re-opened, though so silently that I only perceived the action. The porter, a jolly, bluff, hearty-looking fellow, stood grinning below with a lantern, while we set the ladder (which only just reached the basket) against the wall.

The chevalier looked wistfully forth, and then, by the light of the lantern, we had a fair view of his ridiculous figure—his teeth chattered woefully, and the united cold without and anxiety within, threw a double sadness and solemnity upon his withered countenance; the night was very windy, and every instant a rapid current seized the unhappy sea-green vesture, whirled it in the air, and threw it, as if in scorn, over the very face of the miserable professor. The constant recurrence of this sportive irreverence of the gales—the high sides of the basket, and the trembling agitation of the inmate, never too agile, rendered it a work of some time for Monsieur Margot to transfer himself from the basket to the ladder; at length, he had fairly got out one thin, shivering leg.

“Thank God!” said the pious professor—when at that instant the thanksgiving was checked, and, to Monsieur Margot’s inexpressible astonishment and dismay, the basket rose five feet from the ladder, leaving its tenant with one leg dangling out, like a flag from a balloon.

The ascent was too rapid to allow Monsieur Margot even time for an exclamation, and it was not till he had had sufficient leisure in his present elevation to perceive all its consequences, that he found words to say, with the most earnest tone of thoughtful lamentation, “One could not have foreseen this!—it is really extremely distressing—would to God that I could get my leg in, or my body out!”

While we were yet too convulsed with laughter to make any comment upon the unlooked-for ascent of the luminous Monsieur Margot, the basket descended with such force as to dash the lantern out of the hand of the porter, and to bring the professor so precipitously to the ground, that all the bones in his skin rattled audibly!

“My God!” said he, “I am done for!—be witness how inhumanly I have been murdered.”

We pulled him out of the basket, and carried him between us into the porter’s lodge; but the woes of Monsieur Margot were not yet at their termination. The room was crowded. There was Madame Laurent,—there was the German count, whom the professor was teaching French;—there was the French viscount, whom he was teaching German;—there were all his fellow-lodgers—the ladies whom he had boasted of—the men he had boasted to—Don Juan, in the infernal regions, could not have met with a more unwelcome set of old acquaintance than Monsieur Margot had the happiness of opening his bewildered eyes upon in the porter’s lodge.

“What!” cried they all, “Monsieur Margot, is that you who have been frightening us so? We thought the house was attacked; the Russian general is at this very moment loading his pistols; lucky for you that you did not choose to stay longer in that situation. Pray, Monsieur, what could induce you to exhibit yourself so, in your dressing-gown too, and the night so cold? Ar’n’t you ashamed of yourself?”

All this, and infinitely more, was levelled against the miserable professor, who stood shivering with cold and fright; and turning his eyes first upon one, and then on another, as the exclamations circulated round the room,

“I do assure you,” at length he began.

“No, no,” cried one, “it is of no use explaining now!”

“Mais, Messieurs,” querulously recommenced the unhappy Margot.

“Hold your tongue,” exclaimed Madame Laurent, “you have been disgracing my house.”

“Mais, Madame, ecoutez-moi—”

“No, no,” cried the German, “we saw you—we saw you.”

“Mais, Monsieur Le Comte—” “Fie, fie!” cried the Frenchman.

“Mais, Monsisur Le Vicomte—” At this every mouth was opened, and the patience of Monsieur Margot being by this time exhausted, he flew into a violent rage; his tormentors pretended an equal indignation, and at length he fought his way out of the room, as fast as his shattered bones would allow him, followed by the whole body, screaming, and shouting, and scolding, and laughing after him.

The next morning passed without my usual lesson from Monsieur Margot; that was natural enough: but when the next day, and the next, rolled on, and brought neither Monsieur Margot nor his excuse, I began to be uneasy for the poor man. Accordingly I sent to Madame Laurent’s to inquire after him: judge of my surprise at hearing that he had, early the day after his adventure, left his lodgings with his small possession of books and clothes, leaving only a note to Madame Laurent, enclosing the amount of his debt to her, and that none had since seen or heard of him.

From that day to this I have never once beheld him. The poor professor lost even the little money due to him for his lessons—so true is it, that in a man of Monsieur Margot’s temper, even interest is a subordinate passion to vanity.