The Reverberator (10 page)

“Oh, you were not nothing for her!” Gaston declared; and when his sister rejoined that he was too amiable he brought out his revelation. He had seen the young lady more often than he had told her; he had particularly wished that
she
should see her. Now he wanted his father and Jane and Margaret to do the same, and above all he wanted them to like her, even as she, Susan, liked her. He was delighted that she had been captivated—he had been captivated himself. Mme. de Brécourt protested that she had reserved her independence of judgment, and he answered that if she had thought Miss Dosson repulsive she might have expressed it in another way. When she inquired what he was talking about and what he wanted them all to do with her, he said: “I want you to treat her
kindly, tenderly, for such as you see her I am thinking of making her my wife.”

“Mercy on us—you haven’t asked her?” cried Mme. de Brécourt.

“No, but I have asked her sister what she would say, and she tells me there would be no difficulty.”

“Her sister?—the little woman with the big head?”

“Her head is rather out of drawing, but it isn’t a part of the affair. She is very inoffensive and she would be devoted to me.”

“For heaven’s sake then keep quiet. She is as common as a dressmaker’s bill.”

“Not when you know her. Besides, that has nothing to do with Francie. You couldn’t find words enough a moment ago to say that Francie is exquisite, and now you will be so good as to stick to that. Come, be intelligent!”

“Do you call her by her little name, like that?” Mme. de Brécourt asked, giving him another cup of tea.

“Only to you. She is perfectly simple. It is impossible to imagine anything better. And think of the delight of having that charming object before one’s eyes—always, always! It makes a different thing of the future.”

“My poor child,” said Mme. de Brécourt, “you can’t pick up a wife like that—the first little American that comes along. You know I hoped you wouldn’t marry at all—what a pity I think it—for a man. At any rate, if you expect us to like Miss—what’s her name?—Miss Fancy, all I can say is we won’t. We can’t!”

“I shall marry her then without your approbation.”

“Very good. But if she deprives you of that (you have always had it, you are used to it, it’s a part of your life), you will hate her at the end of a month.”

“I don’t care. I shall have had my month.”

“And she—poor thing?”

“Poor thing, exactly! You will begin to pity her, and that will make you cultivate her, and that will make you find how adorable she is. Then you’ll like her, then you’ll love her, then you’ll see how discriminating I have been, and we shall all be happy together again.”

“But how can you possibly know, with such people, what you have got hold of?”

“By having the sense of delicate things. You pretend to have it, and yet in such a case as this you try to be stupid. Give that up; you might as well first as last, for the girl’s an irresistible fact and it will be better to accept her than to let her accept you.”

Gaston’s sister asked him if Miss Dosson had a fortune, and he said he knew nothing about that. Her father apparently was rich, but he didn’t mean to ask for a penny with her. American fortunes moreover were the last things to count upon; they had seen too many examples of that. “Papa will never listen to that,” Mme. de Brécourt replied.

“Listen to what?”

“To your not finding out—to your not asking for settlements—
comme cela se fait
.”

“Excuse me, papa will find out for himself; and he will know perfectly whether to ask or whether to leave it alone. That’s the sort of thing he does know. And he also knows perfectly that I am very difficult to place.”

“To place?”

“To find a wife for. I’m neither fish nor flesh. I have no country, no career, no future; I offer nothing; I bring nothing. What position under the sun do I confer? There’s a fatuity in our talking as if we could make grand terms.
You and the others are well enough:
qui prend mari prend pays
, and you have names which (at least so your husbands say) are tremendously illustrious. But papa and I—I ask you!”

“As a family
nous sommes très-bien,”
said Mme. de Brécourt. “You know what we are—it doesn’t need any explanation. We are as good as anything there is and have always been thought so. You might do anything you like.”

“Well, I shall never take to marry a Frenchwoman.”

“Thank you, my dear!” Mme. de Brécourt exclaimed.

“No sister of mine is really French,” returned the young man.

“No brother of mine is really mad. Marry whomever you like,” Susan went on; “only let her be the best of her kind. Let her be a lady. Trust me, I’ve studied life. That’s the only thing that’s safe.”

“Francie is the equal of the first lady in the land.”

“With that sister—with that hat? Never—never!”

“What’s the matter with her hat?”

“The sister’s told a story. It was a document—it described them, it classed them. And such a dialect as they speak!”

“My dear, her English is quite as good as yours. You don’t even know how bad yours is,” said Gaston Probert.

“Well, I don’t say ‘Parus’ and I never asked an Englishman to marry me. You know what our feelings are,” his companion pursued; “our convictions, our susceptibilities. We may be wrong—we may be hollow—we may be pretentious; we may not be able to say on what it all rests; but there we are, and the fact is insurmountable. It is simply impossible for us to live with vulgar people. It’s a defect, no doubt; it’s an immense inconvenience, and
in the days we live in it’s sadly against one’s interest. But we are made like that and we must understand ourselves. It’s of the very essence of our nature, and of yours exactly as much as of mine or of that of the others. Don’t make a mistake about it—you’ll prepare for yourself a bitter future. I know what becomes of us. We suffer, we go through tortures, we die!”

The accent of passionate prophecy was in Mme. de Brécourt’s voice, but her brother made her no immediate answer, only indulging restlessly in several turns about the room. At last he observed, taking up his hat: “I shall come to an understanding with her to-morrow, and the next day, about this hour, I shall bring her to see you. Meanwhile please say nothing to any one.”

Mme. de Brécourt looked at him a moment; he had his hand on the knob of the door. “What do you mean by her father’s appearing rich? That’s such a vague term. What do you suppose his means to be?”

“Ah, that’s a question
she
would never ask!” cried the young man, passing out.

THE NEXT MORNING HE FOUND HIMSELF SITTING on one of the red satin sofas beside Mr. Dosson, in this gentleman’s private room at the Hôtel de l’Univers et de Cheltenham. Delia and Francie had established their father in the old quarters; they expected to spend the winter in Paris but they had not taken independent apartments, for they had an idea that when you lived that way it was grand but lonely—you didn’t meet people on the staircase. The temperature was now such as to deprive the good gentleman of his usual resource of sitting in the court, and he had not yet discovered an effective substitute for this recreation. Without Mr. Flack, at the cafés, he felt too much like a non-consumer. But he was patient and ruminant; Gaston Probert grew to like him and tried to invent amusements for him; took him to see the great markets, the sewers and the Bank of France, and put him in the way of acquiring a beautiful pair of horses (it is perhaps not superfluous to say that this was a perfectly straight proceeding on the young man’s part), which Mr. Dosson, little as he resembled a sporting character, found it a welcome pastime on fine afternoons to drive, with a highly scientific hand, from a smart Américaine, in the Bois de Boulogne. There was a reading-room at the
banker’s, where he spent hours engaged in a manner best known to himself, and he shared the great interest, the constant topic of his daughters—the portrait that was going forward in the Avenue de Villiers. This was the subject round which the thoughts of these young ladies clustered and their activity revolved; it gave a large scope to their faculty for endless repetition, for monotonous insistence, for vague and aimless discussion. On leaving Mme. de Brécourt Francie’s lover had written to Delia that he desired half an hour’s private conversation with her father on the morrow at half-past eleven; his impatience forbade him to wait for a more canonical hour. He asked her to be so good as to arrange that Mr. Dosson should be there to receive him and to keep Francie out of the way. Delia acquitted herself to the letter.

“Well, sir, what have you got to show?” asked Francie’s father, leaning far back on the sofa and moving nothing but his head, and that very little, toward his interlocutor. Probert was placed sidewise, a hand on each knee, almost facing him, on the edge of the seat.

“To show, sir—what do you mean?”

“What do you do for a living? How do you subsist?”

“Oh, comfortably enough. Of course it would be criminal in you not to satisfy yourself on that point. My income is derived from three sources. First, some property left me by my dear mother. Second, a legacy from my poor brother, who had inherited a small fortune from an old relation of ours who took a great fancy to him (he went to America to see her), and which he divided among the four of us in the will he made at the time of the war.”

“The war—what war?” asked Mr. Dosson.

“Why the Franco-German—”

“Oh,
that
old war!” And Mr. Dosson almost laughed. “Well?” he softly continued.

“Then my father is so good as to make me a little allowance; and some day I shall have more—from him.”

Mr. Dosson was silent a moment; then he observed, “Why, you seem to have fixed it so you live mostly on other folks.”

“I shall never attempt to live on you, sir!” This was spoken with some vivacity by our young man; he felt the next moment that he had said something that might provoke a retort. But his companion only rejoined, mildly, impersonally:

“Well, I guess there won’t be any trouble about that. And what does my daughter say?”

“I haven’t spoken to her yet.”

“Haven’t spoken to her?”

“I thought it more orthodox to break ground with you first.”

“Well, when I was after Mrs. Dosson I guess I spoke to her quick enough,” Francie’s father said, humorously. There was an element of reproach in this and Gaston Probert was mystified, for the inquiry about his means a moment before had been in the nature of a challenge. “How will you feel if she won’t have you, after you have exposed yourself this way to me?” the old gentleman went on.

“Well, I have a sort of confidence. It may be vain, but God grant not! I think she likes me personally, but what I am afraid of is that she may consider that she knows too little about me. She has never seen my people—she doesn’t know what may be before her.”

“Do you mean your family—the folks at home?” said
Mr. Dosson. “Don’t you believe that. Delia has moused around—
she
has found out. Delia’s thorough!”

“Well, we are very simple, kindly, respectable people, as you will see in a day or two for yourself. My father and sisters will do themselves the honour to wait upon you,” the young man declared, with a temerity the sense of which made his voice tremble.

“We shall be very happy to see them, sir,” Mr. Dosson returned, cheerfully. “Well now, let’s see,” he added, musing sociably. “Don’t you expect to embrace any regular occupation?”

Probert looked at him, smiling. “Have
you
anything of that sort, sir?”

“Well, you have me there!” Mr. Dosson admitted, with a comprehensive sigh. “It doesn’t seem as if I required anything, I’m looked after so well. The fact is the girls support me.”

“I shall not expect Miss Francie to support me,” said Gaston Probert.

“You’re prepared to enable her to live in the style to which she’s accustomed?” And Mr. Dosson turned a speculative eye upon him.

“Well, I don’t think she will miss anything, That is, if she does she will find other things instead.”

“I presume she’ll miss Delia, and even me, a little.”

“Oh, it’s easy to prevent that,” said Gaston Probert.

“Well, of course we shall be on hand. Continue to reside in Paris?” Mr. Dosson went on.

“I will live anywhere in the world she likes. Of course my people are here—that’s a great tie. I am not without hope that it may—with time—become a reason for your daughter.”

“Oh, any reason’ll do where Paris is concerned. Take some lunch?” Mr. Dosson added, looking at his watch.

They rose to their feet, but before they had gone many steps (the meals of this amiable family were now served in an adjoining room), the young man stopped his companion. “I can’t tell you how kind I think it—the way you treat me, and how I am touched by your confidence. You take me just as I am, with no recommendation beyond my own word.”

“Well, Mr. Probert, if we didn’t like you we wouldn’t smile on you. Recommendations in that case wouldn’t be any good. And since we do like you there ain’t any call for them either. I trust my daughters; if I didn’t I’d have stayed at home. And if I trust them, and they trust you, it’s the same as if
I
trusted you, ain’t it?”

“I guess it is!” said Gaston, smiling.

His companion laid his hand on the door but he paused a moment. “Now are you very sure?”

“I thought I was, but you make me nervous.”

“Because there was a gentleman here last year—I’d have put my money on
him
.”

“A gentleman—last year?”

“Mr. Flack. You met him surely. A very fine man. I thought she favoured him.”

“
Seigneur Dieu
!” Gaston Probert murmured, under his breath.

Mr. Dosson had opened the door, he made his companion pass into the little dining-room, where the table was spread for the noon-day breakfast. “Where are the chickens?” he inquired, disappointedly. Gaston thought at first that he missed a dish from the board, but he recognised the next moment the old man’s usual designation
of his daughters. These young ladies presently came in, but Francie looked away from Mr. Probert. The suggestion just dropped by her father had given him a shock (the idea of the girl’s “favouring” the newspaper-man was inconceivable), but the charming way she avoided his eye convinced him that he had nothing to fear from Mr. Flack.