Dead! Prepared, disposed to be tucked in en perpétuité—not a bit of it.
Miss Betsy Pengelly, or as her French servants and neighbours persisted in calling her, Mdlle. Pain-au-lait, had been very unwell with a bad influenza attack which lowered her physically and in spirits so greatly that she thought she was going to die. Then she wrote to her niece Louisa Fairbrother, née Pengelly, that she desired to see her before she died. The letter took three days going to its destination, then Mrs Fairbrother had to wait two days for the steamer, and so did not reach Champclair till nine days after Miss Peirgelly had written, and in those nine days the wind had gone out of the east, the fountains of Aunt Betsy’s cold had dried up, and her recuperative powers were so great that she was about the house and came to the door when the carriage drove up with her niece, great-niece, and the two gentlemen.
Dead! ready to be tucked in en perpétuité with her moustache-cup dangling about her remains!—not a bit of it. Having shaken off her influenza Miss Pengelly had taken a new spell of life. She was delighted to see her niece Louisa, and her goddaughter Jacquetta, and much puzzled with the gentlemen, who were also somewhat perplexed what to do, when they found they were not required to organise an interment, and prove a will. The baron had the greatest difficulty to extricate himself, but he did it with perfect good taste, and Miss Pengelly was delighted to be able to meet on terms of civility one of a family she believed was implacably set against her. Ashetoii airily explained that he had come to escort the ladies as they were strangers. Miss Pengelly knew him by name, and had seen his fair whiskers and rings in the English chapel. She entreated the gentlemen to come in, and take some refreshment, but they declined. They must return to their homes, now that they had seen Madame and Mademoiselle in safety, but they asked and obtained permission to call in a day or two to inquire how the ladies were after the fatigues of their journey.
Mr Asheton did not wait for two days, he called on the morrow, and the day after that. The baron was less hasty, but he did appear at Champclair. He did not seem in spirits. In fact, he had told his mother nothing of his meeting with the Fairbrothers, and she had no idea whatever of his having been fascinated by a young English girl. The baron sneaked—literally sneaked to Champclair, and felt all the time he was there like a man who had committed a crime. The duty to father and mother is the paramount duty in a Frenchman’s mind, that is the only commandment about the infringement of which he is super-sensitive. He would ten thousand times rather elope with his neighbour’s wife, than disobey his mother about a trifle. Consequently the baron was not happy when he called, he knew he was doing wrong. His mother would have disapproved, had she been told whither he was going.
He did not venture to call again for a week, and then his uneasiness was not lightened when he found Asheton at the house, on familiar terms with all three ladies, as though quite an established friend.
‘My dear Mrs Fairbrother,’ said Asheton one day to the old mother when they were alone, ‘I hope you will excuse my audacity if I venture on giving you a piece of advice. I believe my mother and the chaplain’s wife are about to call on you—would you mind not saying anything about the—the—shop? It is not necessary to say that Mr Fairbrother is a grocer. If you would allow that he is a merchant, it will do.’
‘But—he is a grocer, on a very large scale.’
‘The scale makes all the difference, madam,’ said Asheton. ‘On a small scale he would be a shopkeeper, on a large scale—a merchant. Excuse my mentioning it. I would not do so, but that I was afraid it might stand in the way of your receiving social hospitalities whilst at Champclair. Miss Pengelly is not received, but you and Miss Fairbrother may be.’
‘I won’t hide the truth—Fairbrother is a grocer.’
‘There is going to be a series of picnics and out-of-door dances, and other entertainments, and I think Miss Jacquetta would like to be present. The consul gives a party next week at Les Hirondelles, and I am sure Miss Jacquetta would immensely enjoy herself. But, my dear madam, if you let out with your refreshing frankness about the—the—the shop, she will not be invited. No one will call on you—you will be as much tabooed as if you had the smallpox. Of course these social distinctions and all that sort of thing are rank folly and detestable and wicked—but my dear Mrs Fairbrother, we must take the world as it is. We did not make it; the earth’s crust is stratified. However much displaced, contorted, broken by faults, the stratification remains as an integral element of its structure. It is the same with the superincumbent social organisation, however disturbed by revolutions, the social beds remain.’
‘Lawk!’ exclaimed Mrs Fairbrother, ‘I’ve heard of social gatherings and social teas, but I thought the great bed of Ware that accommodated twelve was the only social bed in the world. The idea is not inviting. I’ll never get into a social bed myself, not I.’
Mr Asheton carried his point; for her daughter’s sake the good lady refrained from allusions to the shop, but it went against the grain with her, her nature was so genuine, so candid.
James Asheton profited by his advantage over the baron, he was at Champclair nearly every day. He took the ladies up the river; he made his mother and sister call on them, and through Mrs Asheton, the chaplain and his wife were got to call. The chaplain had previously visited Miss Pengelly as one of his flock, but Mrs Chaplain had declined to do so—it was well known that she had been in a menial position; she was a fossil in a different social bed from that which contained Mrs Chaplain. Asheton had plenty to say for himself; he had no occupation, his time was at his own disposal, and as he knew that his father though well off, was not likely to leave him much more than a flourishing business, he thought that twenty-five thousand pounds and a pretty girl would not come amiss. At the same time he had the awkward and difficult game to play of getting off with the old love before plunging in with the new. He had flirted a good deal with Miss Graham, the consul’s blonde daughter, and it might lead to unpleasantness if he broke off his attentions to her too abruptly and transferred them too suddenly to the grocer’s daughter. Accordingly he was careful not to be overpressing in his attentions to Miss Fairbrother, and at the same time he paid several visits to the consul’s house, and was polite, cordially polite to the blonde. As he said to himself, he would let her drop lightly.
It was hard for him with his contemptuous, sarcastic spirit, to restrain himself from taking up Mrs Fairbrother when she made mistakes, but he did control himself because he saw that if he did this he would offend the daughter. He said nothing to his mother about his intentions, he merely observed to Mrs Asheton that the young lady was an heiress worth in all fifty thousand pounds. That was sufficient, his mother understood as fully what that meant, as if he had gone on his knee to her and asked her blessing on his projected union. Among savages it is ‘bad form’ to call things by their proper names, it is much the same among the cultured. Mrs Asheton went out of her way to be civil to the Fairbrothers, she had never fancied Miss Graham, not because Miss Graham was other than an excellent and accomplished girl, but because Miss Graham was one of sixteen children, and the consul had only three hundred a year on which to live, and could lay by nothing; also because she saw that James had no aptitude for business, and that if he were taken into the merchant’s office, he would let the business slip away. James preferred amusement to work, and idleness to application. Consequently poor James must not be allowed to throw himself away on impecunious blondes.
Mrs Asheton gave a little party, to which the Fairbrothers were invited; at this she introduced them to other Nantes residents, among others to the consul and his lady, and Mrs Graham, without a suspicion, invited both to her al fresco entertainment at Les Hirondelles.
Mrs Fairbrother would have liked to return to ‘her old man,’ but she saw that her stay gave pleasure to Aunt Betsy, and that it was good for her daughter, who was seeing a fresh bit of the world, improving her French, and had made one or two captures. She talked the matter over with Aunt Betsy, who said that her leaving was not to be thought of; the baron belonged to one of the best families of the Loire; though the family was poor, it was thought highly of. The late baron had been esteemed as a man of unblemished honour and respectability, and Madame la Baronne, though she was unkind and spoke harshly of her—Aunt Betsy—yet belonged to one of the first aristocratic circles of Brittany, the De Pleurans. As for Mr James Asheton, he was the son of a good substantial merchant, a decent young man, but thought to be a bit of a flirt. It must be left to Jacquetta to choose between the young men. Certainly, in her native town, she would stand no chance of marrying any one so much above her in station as either the baron or Mr Asheton. Certainly Louisa must not be obstinate and go back to England, and spoil her daughter’s chances.
The two old women talked over these chances together a good deal, but the person most interested, Jacquetta, gave them little thought. She was very happy at Champolair, intensely interested in all she saw; the novelty was not worn off, and when her mother spoke of returning home, she begged so earnestly and prettily that the holiday might be prolonged, that Mrs Fairbrother yielded at once, and wrote to Fairbrother not to expect either of them back for months. Did she like either of the young men? Certainly she did—she did more—she liked both, and liked Asheton best. The French manner, the high-flown compliments, of the baron oppressed her, and made her fancy he was unreal. But Asheton she thought was straightforward, perhaps a little too sharp in snapping up her mother; he was an Englishman, and so went out of his way to be uncomplimentary. She knew the worst of him, he wore that on his outside.
Les Hirondelles was a pretty little place about five miles from Nantes; it was a chateau with charming woods, walks, terraces and gardens, that was not inhabited by the owner, and was not let. The owner lived in Paris, and visited Les Hirondelles occasionally. With that queer, keen way which Frenchmen have of making money when and how they can, and without an idea of thereby compromising their dignity, the count who owned Les Hirondelles kept up the woods and gardens as a sort of show-place for the Nantois, who were charged fees for admission, and who might hire the place for the day, for giving entertainments at it. They might take the gardens for an afternoon for fifteen francs; if the weather were wet, and the company wanted the use of a room or two in the chateau, that was charged heavier, twenty francs. The charges were not high, but there were a good many extras, and it was thought in Nantes that the count made a good thing out of Les Hirondelles.
‘Are you going to Consul Graham’s affair, Alphonse?’ asked Asheton.
‘But yes.’
‘No use, Baron. You are only gathering heartache. I don’t think you will succeed.’
‘Jacques! You certainly will not be so heartless as to use the soirée given by Madame Graham as an opportunity for throwing over her daughter for Mdlle. Fairbrother?’
‘You are too precipitate, Alphonse. I have said nothing.’
‘But I see you are digging your approaches very diligently. You have not the difficulties to contend against which crush my spirit, and make me almost despair. You cannot conceive how I admire her. I am as one distracted.’
‘You have no chance,’ said Asheton decisively.
The party at Les Hirondelles was fortunate in weather. The evening was lovely. The Fairbrothers drove thither in a hired carriage, and when they arrived the baron and Asheton were in waiting to help them to dismount. Jacquetta had to select to which she would give her hand in descending; she gave it to Asheton, who cast a glance of triumph at the baron. But the girl did it, not as a token of preference, but out of respect for her mother. M. de Montcontour was the superior in rank, and therefore ought to assist her mother.
The pretty gardens were full of flowers, not rare flowers, but those that are showy. The roses were beautiful; and the Hibiscus bushes which in England produce a blossom here and there, were covered with bloom. Our dull skies do not favour the flowering of plants, but the development of leaf. The beech and lime trees were young. One does not see abroad the old and splendid park trees that adorn the English landscape. These were plaited, and formed bowery walks and mazes, in which the young people wandered, and lost themselves, and seemed like moving flowers in their bright summer dresses. There was music, a piano was being played in the salle, and the windows were open. Dancing was to go on either on the terrace under the windows of the salle, or in the great room itself. Every one knew that the use of the salon had cost the consul twenty francs, and the use of the piano ten francs.
The notes of the piano sounded feebly on the terrace, and the dancers there must trust to imagination for the tune, but they could hear enough to give them the time. The gravel moreover was not good to dance on, whereas the floor of the salle was waxed and polished. Nevertheless, a good many couples preferred to dance out of doors.
Jacquetta was within; she had been waltzing with the baron. When she withdrew her hand from his arm, she went to one of the windows and leaned out. She saw her mother at the further side of the terrace talking to Mrs Asheton. Under the window stood James Asheton with the blonde Miss Graham. They had been dancing on the terrace; a flight of five steps below the great hall. As Jacquetta leaned on the windowsill she was above their shoulders, and could hear all they said.
‘Who is that lady with your mother?’ asked Miss Graham.
‘That—oh!’ answered James Asheton. ‘That butter-tub is a Mrs Fairbrother.’
‘You came from Saint Malo with her and her daughter,’ said Miss Graham, in a tone that displayed some jealousy.
‘Oh, yes. Never amused myself better. The old thing is a fool. I must tell you some of her blunders—she is as ignorant as a horse—the social bed, that is her last.’
Then Jacquetta coughed, and Asheton turned round, caught her eye, saw her colour, and was confounded. He could not apologise, for in a moment she was gone. She had run down the steps from the salle on to the terrace, and had crossed to her mother, and seized her hand.
‘My dear Jacket, what is it? you are squeezing my hand, what is the meaning of this sudden gush of affection?’ She looked at her daughter, whose temples were spotted with red, and tears were in her eyes. Jacquetta could not speak, her lips trembled. Had she spoken, her eyes would have over-flowed.
‘Is there anything the matter?’ asked Mrs Fairbrother.
‘Oh, no,’ answered Jacquetta with an effort. ‘Let me take your hand, mamma, and walk with you the rest of the evening, dear, darling mamma. Oh, how I love you.’
‘But what is it?’ asked Mrs Fairbrother.
That she never learned. Her daughter never told her.
Jacquetta did not know what the mistake was about the social bed, and her cough stopped the narrative on the lips of James Asheton, and prevented its becoming public property that evening.
Presently the baron met Asheton, and the latter with a rueful countenance said, ‘I’ve made a ghastly blunder. I have done for myself, Mademoiselle Jacquetta will never speak to me again.’
‘What have you done?’
‘Done!—I’ve made fun of her mother in her hearing.’
‘Mon Dieu, Jacques! That is fatal.’
‘Now, old friend, the coast is clear for you. I have lost my chance for ever. Go in and conquer.’
‘Oh, Jacques, I wish the difficulties were surmountable, but you know as well as I do that there are les couches sociales’
‘For heaven’s sake not a word about social beds, I have heard too much about them. It is they that have been the unmaking of me.’