Jack (32 page)

Fortunately, lovers, when speaking of their passion, listen to the echoes of their words in their own hearts, and Jack, thus absorbed, heard none of the commonplace comments of his mother.

Jack had been living a week in this way when, one evening, Bιlisaire came to meet him with a radiant face. “We are to be married at once! Madame Weber has found a ‘comrade.’”

Jack, who had been the unintentional cause of his friend’s disappointment, was equally well pleased. This pleasure, however, did not last; for, on seeing “the comrade,” he received a most unpleasant impression. The man was tall and powerfully built, but the expression of his face was far from agreeable.

The great day arrived at last. Among the middle classes, a day is generally given to the civil marriage, another to the wedding at the church; but the people to whom time is money cannot afford this. So they generally take Saturday for the two ceremonies.

Bιlisaire’s wedding, therefore, occurred on that day, and was really one of the most imposing of the many processions they met on their way to the municipality. Although the white dress of the bride was missing, Madame Weber, in her quality of widow, wore a dress of brilliant blue of that bright indigo shade so dear to persons who like solid colors; a many-hued shawl was carefully folded on her arm, and a superb cap, ornamented with ribbons and flowers, displayed her beaming peasant face. She walked by the side of Bιlisaire’s father, a little dried-up old man, with a hooked nose and abrupt movements, and a perpetual cough that his new daughter-in-law endeavored to soothe by rubbing his back with considerable violence. These repeated frictions somewhat disturbed the dignity of the wedding procession.

Bιlisaire came next, giving his arm to his sister, whose nose was as hooked as her father’s. Bιlisaire himself looked almost handsome; he led by one hand Madame Weber’s little child. Then came a crowd of relatives and friends, and finally Jack, Madame de Barancy being unwilling to do more than honor the wedding-dinner with her presence. This repast was to take place at Vincennes.

When the train that brought the party reached the restaurant, the room engaged by Bιlisaire was still occupied. This gave them time to look at the lake and to amuse themselves with examining the crowd of merrymakers. They were dancing and singing, playing blind-man’s-buff and innumerable other games; under the trees a girl was mending the flounces of a bride’s dress. O, those white dresses! With what joy those girls let them drag over the lawn, imagining themselves for that one occasion women of fashion. It is precisely this illusion that the people seek in their hours of amusement: a pretence of riches, a momentary semblance of the envied and happy of this earth.

Bιlisaire’s party were too hungry to be gay, and they hailed with joy the announcement that dinner was ready at last. The table was laid in one of those large rooms whose walls were frescoed in faded colors, and whose size was apparently increased by innumerable mirrors. At each end of the table was a huge bouquet of artificial orange blossoms, a centrepiece of pink and white sugar, and ornaments of the same, which had officiated at many a wedding-dinner in the previous six months. They took their seats in solemn silence, though Madame do Barancy had not yet arrived.

The guests were somewhat intimidated by the black-coated waiters, who disdainfully looked at these poor people who were dining at a dollar per head, a sum which each one of the guests thought of with respect, and envied Belisaire who could afford such an extravagant entertainment. The waiters were, however, filled with profound contempt, which they expressed by winks at each other, invisible however to the guests.

Belisaire had just at his side one of these gentlemen, who filled him with holy horror; another, opposite behind his wife’s chair, watched him so disagreeably that the good man scarcely dared lift his eyes from the carte,—on which, among familiar words like ducks, chickens, and beans, appeared the well-known names of generals, towns, and battles—Marengo, Richelieu, and so on. Bιlisaire, like the others, was stupefied, the more so when two plates of soup were presented with the question, “Bisque, or Purιe de Crιcy?” Or two bottles: “Xeres, or Pacaset, sir?”

They answered at hazard as one does in some of those society games where you are requested to select one of two flowers. In fact, the answer was of little consequence since both plates contained the same tasteless mixture. There was so much ceremony that the dinner threatened to be very dull, and interminable as well, from the indecision of the guests as to the dishes they should accept. It was Madame Weber’s clear head and decided hand that cut this Gordian knot. She turned to her child. “Eat everything,” she said, “it costs us enough.”

These words of wisdom had their effect on the whole assembly, and after a little the table was gay enough. Suddenly the door was thrown open, and Ida de Barancy entered, smiling and charming.

“A thousand pardons, my friends, but I had a carriage that crept.”

She wore her most beautiful dress, for she rarely had an opportunity nowadays of making a toilette, and produced a most extraordinary effect. The way in which she took her seat by Belisaire, and put her gloves in a wineglass, the manner in which she signed to one of the waiters to bring her the carte, overwhelmed the assembly with admiration. It was delightful to see her order about those imposing waiters. One of them she had recognized, the one who terrified Bιlisaire so much. “You are here then, now!” she said carelessly; and shook her bracelets, and kissed her hand to her son, asked for a footstool, some ice, and eau-de-Seltz, and soon knew the resources of the establishment.

“But, good heavens, you are not very gay here!” she cried suddenly. She rose, took her plate in one hand, her glass in the other. “I ask permission to change places with Madame Bιlisaire; I am quite sure that her husband will not complain.”

This was done with much grace and consideration. The little Weber uttered a shout of indignation on seeing his mother rise from her chair, and all this noise and confusion soon changed the previous stiffness and restraint into laughs and gayety. The waiters went round and round the table executing marvellous feats, serving twenty persons from one duck so adroitly carved and served that each one had as much as he wanted. And the peas fell like hail on the plates; and the beans—prepared at one end of the table with salt, pepper, and butter; and such butter!—were mixed by a waiter who smiled maliciously as he stirred the fell combination.

At last the champagne came. With the exception of Ida, not one person there knew anything more of this wine than the name; and champagne signified to them riches, gay dinners, and gorgeous festivals. They talked about it in a low voice, waited and watched for it. Finally, at dessert, a waiter appeared with a silver-capped bottle that he proceeded to open. Ida, who never lost an opportunity of making a sensation and assuming an attitude, put her pretty hands over her ears, but the cork came out like any other cork; the waiter, holding the bottle high, went around the table very quickly. The bottle was inexhaustible; each person had some froth and a few drops at the bottom of the glass, which he drank with respect, and even believed that there was still more in the bottle. It did not matter: the magic of the word champagne had produced its effect, and there is so much French gayety in the least particle of its froth that an astonishing animation at once pervaded the assembly. A dance was proposed; but music costs so much!

“Ah! if we only had a piano,” said Ida de Barancy, with a sigh, at the same time moving her fingers on the table as if she knew how to play. Bιlisaire disappeared for a few moments, but soon returned with a village musician, who was ready to play until morning. Jack and his mother at first felt out of their element in the noisy romp that ensued, but Ida finally organized a cotillon, and the rustling of her silk skirts and the jangling of her bracelets filled the souls of the younger women with admiration and jealousy. Meanwhile the night wore on, the little Weber was asleep wrapped in a shawl on a sofa in the corner. Jack had made many signs to Ida, who pretended not to understand, carried away as she was by the pleasure and happiness about her. Jack was like an old father who is anxious to take his daughter home from a ball.

“It is late,” he said.

“Wait, dear,” was her answer. At length, however, he seized her cloak, and wrapping it around her, drew her away. There was no train at that hour, and indeed no omnibus; fortunately a fiacre was passing, which they hailed. But the newly married pair decided to return on foot through the Bois de Vincennes. The fresh morning air was delicious after the heat of the restaurant; the child slept sweetly on Bιlisaire’s shoulder, and did not even awake when he was placed in his bed. Madame Bιlisaire threw aside her wedding-dress, assumed a plainer one, and at once entered on the duties of the day.

CHAPTER XXI.~~EFFECTS OF POETRY.

The first visit of Madame de Barancy at Etoilles gave Jack great pleasure and also great anxiety. He was proud of his mother, but he knew her, nevertheless, to be weak and rash. He feared Cιcile’s calm judgment and intuitive perceptions, keen and quick as they sometimes are in the young. The first few moments tranquillized him a little. The emphatic tone in which Ida addressed Cιcile as “my daughter” was all well enough, but when under the influence of a good breakfast Madame de Barancy dropped her serious air and began some of her extravagant stories, Jack felt all his apprehensions revive. She kept her auditors on the qui vive. Some one spoke of relatives that M. Rivals had in the Pyrenees.

“Ah, yes, the Pyrenees!” she sighed. “Gavarni, the Mer de Glace, and all that. I made that journey fifteen years ago with a friend of my family, the Duc de Casares, a Spaniard. I made his acquaintance at Biarritz in a most amusing way!”

Cιcile having said how fond she was of the sea, Ida again began,—

“Ah, my love, had you seen it as I have seen it in a tempest off Palma! I was in the saloon with the captain, a coarse sort of man, who insisted on my drinking punch. I refused. Then the wretch got very angry, and opened the window, took me just at the waist, and held me above the water in the lightning and rain.”

Jack tried to cut in two these dangerous recitals, but they came to life again, like those reptiles which, however mutilated, still retain life and animation.

The climax of his uneasiness was reached, however, when, just as his lessons were to begin, he heard his mother propose to Cιcile to go down into the garden. What would she say when he was not there? He watched them from the window; Cιcile’s slender figure and quiet movements were those of a well-born, well-bred woman, while Ida, still handsome, but loud in her style and costume, affected the manners of a young girl. For the first time Jack felt his lessons to be very long, and only breathed freely again when they were all together walking in the woods. But on this day his mother’s presence disturbed the harmony. She had no comprehension of love, and saw it only as something utterly ridiculous. But the worst of all was the sudden respect she entertained for les convenances. She recalled the young people, bade them “not to wander away so far, but to keep in sight,” and then she looked at the doctor in a significant way. Jack saw more than once that his mother grated on the old doctor’s nerves; but the forest was so lovely, Cιcile so affectionate, and the few words they ex-changed were so mingled with the sweet clatter of birds and the humming of bees, that by degrees the poor boy forgot his terrible companion. But Ida wished to make a sensation, so they stopped at the forester’s. Mθre ΐrchambauld was delighted to see her old mistress, paid her many compliments, but asked not a question in regard to D’Argenton, her keen personal sense telling her that she had best not. But the sight of this good creature, for a long time so intimately connected with their life at Aulnettes, was too much for Ida. Without waiting for the lunch so carefully prepared by Mother Archambauld, she rose suddenly from her chair, as suddenly as if in answer to a summons unheard by the others, and went swiftly through the forest paths to her old home at Aulnettes.

The tower was more enshrouded than ever in its green foliage, and the blinds were closely drawn. Ida stood in lonely silence, listening to the tale told with silent eloquence by these gray stones. Then she broke a branch from the clematis that threw its sprays over the wall, and inhaled the breath of its starry white blossoms.

“What is it, dear mother?” said Jack, who had hastened to follow her.

“Ah!” she said, with rapidly falling tears, “you know I have so much buried here!”

Indeed the house, in its melancholy silence and with the Latin inscription over the door, resembled a tomb. She dried her eyes, but for that evening her gayety was gone. In vain did Cιcile, who had been told that Madame D’Argenton was separated from her husband, try with minor cares to efface the painful impression of the day; in vain did Jack seek to interest her in all his projects for the future.

“You see, my child,” she said, on her way home, “that it is not best for me to come here with you. I have suffered too much, and the wound is too recent.”

Her voice trembled, and it was easy to see that, after all the humiliations to which she had been subjected by this man, she yet loved him.

For many Sundays after, Jack came alone to Etiolles, and relinquished what to him was the greatest happiness of the day, the twilight walk, and the quiet talk with Cιcile, that he might return to Paris in time to dine with his mother. He took the afternoon train, and passed from the tranquillity of the country to the animation of a Sunday in the Faubourg. The sidewalks were covered by little tables, where families sat drinking their coffee, and crowds were standing, with their noses in the air, watching an enormous yellow balloon that had just been released from its moorings.

In remoter streets, people sat on the steps of the doors, and in the courtyard of the large, silent house the concierge was chatting with his neighbors, who had taken chairs out to breathe air a little fresher than they could obtain in their confined quarters within.