Two days after the party at Los Hirondelles the Baron de Montcontour appeared at Champclair in a new glossy cloth coat, evidently assumed for the first time. There was not a speck of dust, not a hair on it, no rain-drop had taken off its first gloss. His hat also was distinctly worn for the first time. When he removed it the creamy kid lining was as clean as a lady’s ball-glove. His waistcoat was white, starched, and the creases in it just as it had come home folded from the wash. His trousers were lavender, his gloves ditto. From immediately below his waistcoat to immediately above the top of the bootleather on both legs descended a perfectly irreproachable crease in the trousers, the result of mingled tenderness in folding, and firmness of pressure when folded.
When the baron removed his hat an odour of otto of rose was diffused through the room from his neatly trimmed and curled hair, which had been recently treated by a coiffeur.
That this elaborate get-up meant something, and that something serious, could not be doubted; Miss Pengelly saw it at once, Mrs Fairbrother sniffed it, and first the unmarried lady had to leave the drawing-room to order the cook-housemaid to get refreshments, then Mrs Fairbrother remembered she had a letter to write, and she apologised to M. de Montcontour for withdrawing. The baron was left in the sitting-room with Jacquetta, who became alarmed, and gave an appealing look to her mother to stay—and with Ponce, Aunt Betsy’s fat black pug, which, with its eyes nearly starting out of its head, sat like a heraldic monster on a gate-post, upon a stool in the middle of the room, looking knowingly, interestedly, first at the baron, then at Jacquetta
When Mrs Fairbrother entered the little back room to write her letter, she found Aunt Betsy there; she had given her orders to Jacqueline her factotum, and had not returned to the drawing-room.
‘Well, my dear,’ said Miss Pengelly, ‘he’s come at last to do it.’
‘I think so, auntie.’
‘I’m positive. I know the ways of the country. He has never worn that hat, those gloves, that coat, and perhaps the other things, before. Did you see also that his shirt front bulged out?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘It has been double starched; mark my words he means to do it. Do you think Jacket will accept him?’
‘I don’t know,’ answered Mrs Fairbrother. ‘I thought she liked young Asheton best; but they had a tiff about something at the Rundles t’other day, and she has not told me what it was about, nor has he called since.’
‘I hope she will,’ said Miss Pengelly, ‘it would be a great comfort to me. I don’t like the Montcontours to feel hurt about my getting Champclair, and this might make all right again, as I shall bequeath it to Jacket. Where is Ponce?’
‘I left him sitting on the stool.’
‘Did you call him?’
‘Yes, but he would not come; he just stood up and sat down on his tail again. The young people will not mind his presence. He is only a dog.’
‘Only a dog, yes—but such a dog. I won’t have Ponce disparaged. Take care that I don’t leave Champclair to him.’ Miss Pengelly laughed. Then she added, ‘Well, if Ponce wants to leave the room the windows are open.’
‘Do you think that Jacket would be happy with Lord Monkeytower? She would have to live out of England and it would be a great privation to us not to have Jacket near us, and it would also be a sore trial to her, she is such an affectionate girl, so fond of me and her father. Dear child, I don’t like to think even of parting with her.’ The old lady’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Nonsense, Louisa,’ said Miss Pengelly, ‘I have lived a great part of my life in France, and like it well. I dare say I would find it dull in England if I were to return to it. One can live anywhere and be happy if one does one’s duty and has a clear conscience, and the digestion be all right. You will have to get Fairbrother to retire from business and come and live near Nantes. There we shall form quite a colony and dictate to the consul and the chaplain.’
‘I don’t understand Frenchmen,’ said Mrs Fairbrother, sadly shaking her head. ‘It is like poultry. I got some Aylesbury ducks once and thought they wanted water, most ducks do; but though these were ducks they didn’t care for water, and Brahman fowls I overfed with heating diet, they wanted different treatment from Hamboroughs and Dorkings. It is so with human beings—there are different breeds and they have different ways, and ought to be understood. They lay differently, and some are good sitters, and some ain’t. I mean fowls, not human beings. I know nothing of Frenchmen; never saw one out of a menagerie before I came abroad.’
‘The baron is a worthy young man, I have not heard a word against him, and he belongs to a family which has never produced a black sheep.’ Suddenly in at the window bounded Ponce, and danced, snapping, barking, wagging his stump of a tail, round his mistress. His goggle eyes twinkled with excitement, his fat glossy sides quivered.
‘My dear!’ exclaimed Aunt Betsy. ‘Oh, Louisa! She has accepted him.’ Then the two old women flung themselves into each other’s arms and burst into hysterical weeping.
The door opened, and Jacquetta appeared in it, also with tears in her eyes. But Ponce danced and barked, and snapped at his tail, full of delight, and his protruding eyes sparkled with intelligence and expressed his grasp of the situation.
Ponce was premature, so was Aunt Betsy. Jacquetta had not exactly accepted the baron, but she had not refused him. She had referred him to her mother for a final answer. Now she came to beg Aunt Betsy to go to M. de Montcontour and to let her consult her mother about the offer.
Miss Pengelly rushed into the drawing-room with both her hands extended, Ponce running after her. She seized the baron’s hands and shook them, and shook at the same time the tears from her eyes.
‘I am so glad, dear baron! All comes right in the end in the best of worlds. I do assure you I was most surprised when I learned that Madame de Hoelgoet had left me Champclair, I never, never urged her to do anything for me. I did my duty to her, and received my wage. If I thought about receiving anything more, I expected only maybe a couple of hundred francs as a little remembrance—never, never that I should have Champclair. Do me justice. It has hurt my feelings inexpressibly that Madame la Baronne, your mother, should have supposed otherwise. I am incapable of acting unjustly to and taking an unfair advantage of a fly. And now all will come right; for I shall leave Champclair to Jacquetta, and so it will return to the family. Madame la Baronne will no longer feel hostile towards me. Your mother consents to the union?’
M. de Montcontour’s beaming face became grave. ‘Alas! Mademoiselle, that is my difficulty. I have not asked my excellent mother’s consent. She does not even know of the existence of Mdlle. Jacquetta. I will break the news to her softly, she will bow to my wishes. She will see that her refusal will drive me frantic. She will learn that the happiness of my life depends on this union; when she sees Mdlle. Jacquetta every prejudice will vanish.’
‘Tell Madame your mother,’ said Miss Pengelly eagerly, ‘that our dear Jacquetta is called after the late Madame de Hoelgoet. I was her godmother, and when she was baptised I insisted that the child should receive the name of my dear mistress, not mine; I am, and always was, a nobody. Tell Madame la Baronne also that Madame de Hoelgoet took a great interest in our dear Jacquetta and used to ask after her, and sent her once a silver egg-cup, because she said she felt, in giving her name to an infant, as if she, and not I, had the best claim to be considered her marraine.’
‘I will say everything I can to break down her objections. I think I will go away to Saumur, and write thence to my mother. I could tell her all so much better in a letter. I am nervous in her presence.’
‘Mon Dieu! you must do nothing of the sort. It is not right. Go home at once, as you are. When Madame sees you thus dressed in new clothes, a white waistcoat and a stiffened shirt front, and smells your hair, and all the rest, a cold feeling will creep down her spinal-marrow, and she will know an event of the utmost importance has happened. She will ask you what has taken place. Then, like a man, speak out.’
‘Mademoiselle!’ exclaimed the young baron, ‘you are right. The ancient Germans sought counsel at the mouths of priestesses, and when they said the word they rushed headlong to battle. You inspire me. I will go before my mother and aunt at once. I will tell them all, whatever be the consequences to myself.’
Next day the baron returned, looking much depressed; his very clothes hung limply about his form, he was like a peacock that had been exposed to rain. With great difficulty and much hesitation he had told his mother everything in the presence of her sister, his aunt, Mdlle. de Pleurans. Madame de Hoelgoet had been a de Pleurans before her marriage, and Champclair had been her own property—Pleurans property.
‘Well my dear baron?’ asked Miss Pengelly.
‘I am in despair,’ he replied. ‘What is to be done? I cannot live without Mdlle. Jacquetta, and my mother absolutely refuses her consent. She even threatens me with her curse. I dare not repeat her words. She is a strong-minded woman. When she learned the whole truth, she looked perfectly calm. I, on the other hand, was profusely agitated; and she said I might stretch her on the rack, I might tear her flesh off with red-hot pincers, but never would she consent to my taking to wife the—the daughter of—excuse me, I cannot repeat all her words. They went through me like knives. I went further than I ought, I even alluded to Mademoiselle’s fortune of over six hundred thousand francs, I said that in the end it would be over a million. I told her that through this union Champclair would revert to the family, but everything was in vain.
‘Did you mention the egg-cup?’
‘I did mention the egg-cup,’ said the baron, with a quivering voice. He had hard work to do to restrain his tears. ‘Even that did not move her. She is an obdurate woman—but heroic, truly heroic! She would rather we sank lower in poverty than we are, she said, than have her son recover the family splendour through a mésalliance.’
‘My great-niece will never consent to take you without your mother’s consent.’
‘I know that,’ said the dispirited young man; he sat with his new hat in his hands, between his knees, and he looked down into it, much as King Richard II looked into his crown before resigning it, ‘like a deep well’ in which his sorrows sink, ‘full of tears am I, drinking my griefs.’
The pale primrose of the lining-band was already discoloured. His head must have perspired a good deal, and the day was not warm. There must have been much agony of mind to have so discoloured the lining. And now a sparkling tear fell from his eye into the depths of the crown upon the name and address of the maker. Miss Pengelly was moved. She went up to him, and took his head between her hands and kissed his brow.
Ponce also came to him, and stood up, and put his forepaws on his knee, and whined, and looked up with intelligent eyes into his face, and then licked his own muzzle.
‘Go down, Ponce. Do not interfere,’ said Miss Pengelly; then to the baron, ‘Monsieur, would you desire to see Jacquetta to-day?’
He shook his head. ‘The desire, my dear Mademoiselle, is ever here,’ he touched his heart, ‘but to-day I must not. I could hardly endure it in my present condition of mind. I feel desperate. To live without my angel would be purgatorial torture. I cannot face such an eventuality. I must and will have her, or perish. I will make one more appeal to my mother—one final and terrible. If she still refuses me—then nothing will remain but——’
‘But what, M. de Montcontour?’
‘Do no not ask further, Mademoiselle. Enough when I say that I cannot live without Her.’
‘Oh, baron!’ exclaimed Miss Pengelly, starting to her feet and turning pale, ‘do nothing desperate; be governed by reason, be prudent.’
‘Reason, Mademoiselle, is overwhelmed by passion. Prudence is beyond by attainment. I feel as if I were caught in an eddy, embraced by a whirlwind, and swept along in a vortex, whither I know not, but I see that destruction lies in my track.’
‘M. de Montcontour!’ Aunt Betsy held his hand, Ponce laid hold with his teeth of the back of his trouser leg at the heel, and stiffened his spine and four little legs, so that as the baron left the room he dragged the dog along the polished floor after him. Ponce would not let go till he had reached the door.
‘Oh, M. de Montcontour!’ cried Miss Pengelly.
The baron walked away without turning his head. He was deadly pale.