Jack

"You know," he said, "that if marketing is disagreeable to you, good Madame Weber will attend to the dinners."

"Not at all; Belisaire will simply tell me where to go. I intend to do everything for you; you will see the nice little dinner I shall have ready for you when you come back to-night."

She had laid aside her shawl, rolled up her sleeves, and was all ready to begin her work. Jack, delighted to see her so energetic, embraced her with his whole heart, and left his room in a very joyous frame of mind.

With what courage he toiled all day! The present unfortunate career and hopeless future of his mother had troubled him for some time, and marred his joys and his hopes. To what depth of degradation would D"Argenton compel her to sink! To what end was she destined! Now all was changed.

Ida, tenderly protected by his filial love, would become worthy of her whom she would some day call "my daughter."

It seemed to Jack, moreover, that this event in some way diminished the distance between Cecile and himself, and he smiled to himself as he thought of it. But after his work, as he drew near his home, he was seized by a panic. Should he find his mother there? He knew with what prompt.i.tude Ida gave wings to her fancies and caprices, and he feared lest she had felt the temptation to re-tie the knot so hastily broken.

But on the staircase this dread vanished. Above all the noises of the house he heard a fresh, clear voice singing like a lark. Jack stood on the threshold in mute amazement. Thoroughly freshened and cleaned, with Belisaire"s goods gone, and with the addition of a pretty bed and dainty dressing-bureau, the room looked like a different place. There were flowers on the chimney, and the table was spread with a white cloth, on which stood a tempting-looking pie and a bottle of wine. Ida, in an embroidered skirt and loose sack, a little cap mounted on the top of her puffs, hardly looked like herself.

"Well!" she said, running to meet him; "and what do you think of it!"

"It is altogether charming. And how quick you have been!"

"Yes; Belisaire helped me, and his nice widow also. I have invited them to dine with us."

"But what will you do for dishes?"

"You will see. I have bought a few, and our neighbors on the other side have lent me some. They are very obliging also."

Jack, who had never thought these people particularly complaisant, opened his eyes wide.

"But this is not all. I went to buy this pie at a place where they sell them fifteen cents less than anywhere else. It was so far, however, that I had to take a carriage to return."

This was thoroughly characteristic. A carriage at two francs to save fifteen cents! She evidently knew where the best things were to be found.

The bread came from the Vienna bakery, and the coffee and dessert from the _Palais Royale_. Jack listened with a sinking heart. She saw that something was wrong.

"Have I spent too much?" she asked.

"No, I think not,--for one occasion," he answered, with same hesitation.

"But I have not been extravagant. Look here," she said, and she showed him a long green book; "in this I mean to keep my accounts. I will show my entries to you after dinner."

Belisaire and Madame Weber with her child now entered the room. It was truly delicious to see the airs of condescension with which Ida received them; but her manner was withal so kind that they were soon entirely at their ease.

Belisaire was somewhat out of spirits, for he saw that his marriage must be indefinitely postponed, as he had lost his "comrade." Ah, one may well compare the events of this world to the see-saws arranged by children, which lifts one of the players, while the other at the same time feels all the hardness of the earth below. Jack mounted toward the light, while his companion descended toward the implacable reality. To begin with, the person called Belisaire--who should in reality have been named Resignation, Devotion, or Patience--was now obliged to relinquish his pleasant room and sleep in a closet, the only place on that floor; not for worlds would he have gone farther from Madame Weber.

Their guests gone, and Jack and his mother alone, she was astonished to see him bring out a pile of books.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I am going to study." And he then told her of the double life he led; of his hopes, and the reward that was held out to him at the end. Until then he had never confided them to her, fearing that she would inform D"Argenton, whom he utterly distrusted, and he feared that in some way his happiness would be compromised. But now that his mother belonged to him alone, he could speak to her of Cecile and of his supreme joy. Jack talked with enthusiasm of his love, but soon saw that his mother did not understand him. She had a certain amount of sentiment, but love had not the same signification for her that it had for him. She listened to him with the same interest that she would have felt in the third act at the _Gymnase_, when the _Ingenue_ in a white dress, with rose-colored ribbons, listened to the declaration of a lover with frizzed hair. She was pleased with the spectacle as presented by her son, and said two or three times, "How nice! how very nice! It makes me think of Paul and Virginia!"

Fortunately, lovers, when speaking of their pa.s.sion, 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, Belisaire 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 cla.s.ses, 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 Sat.u.r.day for the two ceremonies.

Belisaire"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 munic.i.p.ality. 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 Belisaire"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.

Belisaire came next, giving his arm to his sister, whose nose was as hooked as her father"s. Belisaire 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 Belisaire 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 amus.e.m.e.nt: a pretence of riches, a momentary semblance of the envied and happy of this earth.

Belisaire"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. Belisaire, like the others, was stupefied, the more so when two plates of soup were presented with the question, "Bisque, or Puree de Crecy?" 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 a.s.sembly, 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 winegla.s.s, the manner in which she signed to one of the waiters to bring her the carte, overwhelmed the a.s.sembly with admiration. It was delightful to see her order about those imposing waiters. One of them she had recognized, the one who terrified Belisaire 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 gla.s.s in the other. "I ask permission to change places with Madame Belisaire; 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 b.u.t.ter; and such b.u.t.ter!--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 a.s.suming an att.i.tude, 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 gla.s.s, 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 a.s.sembly. 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.

Belisaire 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 pa.s.sing, 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 Belisaire"s shoulder, and did not even awake when he was placed in his bed. Madame Belisaire threw aside her wedding-dress, a.s.sumed 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 Cecile"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 Cecile 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.