Cousin Pons Part 9

Brunner looked significantly at Pons, and Pons rubbed his hands as if to say, "Our friends, you see! _My_ friends!"

Mme. de Marville, as a clever tactician, had something very particular to say to her cousin, that Cecile and her Werther might be left together for a moment. Cecile chattered away volubly, and contrived that Frederic should catch sight of a German dictionary, a German grammar, and a volume of Goethe hidden away in a place where he was likely to find them.

"Ah! are you learning German?" asked Brunner, flus.h.i.+ng red.

(For laying traps of this kind the Frenchwoman has not her match!)

"Oh! how naughty you are!" she cried; "it is too bad of you, monsieur, to explore my hiding-places like this. I want to read Goethe in the original," she added; "I have been learning German for two years."

"Then the grammar must be very difficult to learn, for scarcely ten pages have been cut--" Brunner remarked with much candor.

Cecile, abashed, turned away to hide her blushes. A German cannot resist a display of this kind; Brunner caught Cecile's hand, made her turn, and watched her confusion under his gaze, after the manner of the heroes of the novels of Auguste Lafontaine of chaste memory.

"You are adorable," said he.

Cecile's petulant gesture replied, "So are you--who could help liking you?"

"It is all right, mamma," she whispered to her parent, who came up at that moment with Pons.

The sight of a family party on these occasions is not to be described.

Everybody was well satisfied to see a mother put her hand on an eligible son-in-law. Compliments, double-barreled and double-charged, were paid to Brunner (who pretended to understand nothing); to Cecile, on whom nothing was lost; and to the Presidente, who fished for them. Pons heard the blood singing in his ears, the light of all the blazing gas-jets of the theatre footlights seemed to be dazzling his eyes, when Cecile, in a low voice and with the most ingenious circ.u.mspection, spoke of her father's plan of the annuity of twelve hundred francs. The old artist positively declined the offer, bringing forward the value of his fortune in furniture, only now made known to him by Brunner.

The Home Secretary, the First President, the attorney for the crown, the Popinots, and those who had other engagements, all went; and before long no one was left except M. Camusot senior, and Cardot the old notary, and his a.s.sistant and son-in-law Berthier. Pons, worthy soul, looking round and seeing no one but the family, blundered out a speech of thanks to the President and his wife for the proposal which Cecile had just made to him. So it is with those who are guided by their feelings; they act upon impulse. Brunner, hearing of an annuity offered in this way, thought that it had very much the look of a commission paid to Pons; he made an Israelite's return upon himself, his att.i.tude told of more than cool calculation.

Meanwhile Pons was saying to his astonished relations, "My collection or its value will, in any case, go to your family, whether I come to terms with our friend Brunner or keep it." The Camusots were amazed to hear that Pons was so rich.

Brunner, watching, saw how all these ignorant people looked favorably upon a man once believed to be poor so soon as they knew that he had great possessions. He had seen, too, already that Cecile was spoiled by her father and mother; he amused himself, therefore, by astonis.h.i.+ng the good bourgeois.

"I was telling mademoiselle," said he, "that M. Pons' pictures were worth that sum to _me_; but the prices of works of art have risen so much of late, that no one can tell how much the collection might sell for at public auction. The sixty pictures might fetch a million francs; several that I saw the other day were worth fifty thousand apiece."

"It is a fine thing to be your heir!" remarked old Cardot, looking at Pons.

"My heir is my Cousin Cecile here," answered Pons, insisting on the relations.h.i.+p. There was a flutter of admiration at this.

"She will be a very rich heiress," laughed old Cardot, as he took his departure.

Camusot senior, the President and his wife, Cecile, Brunner, Berthier, and Pons were now left together; for it was a.s.sumed that the formal demand for Cecile's hand was about to be made. No sooner was Cardot gone, indeed, than Brunner began with an inquiry which augured well.

"I think I understood," he said, turning to Mme. de Marville, "that mademoiselle is your only daughter."

"Certainly," the lady said proudly.

"n.o.body will make any difficulties," Pons, good soul, put in by way of encouraging Brunner to bring out his proposal.

But Brunner grew thoughtful, and an ominous silence brought on a coolness of the strangest kind. The Presidente might have admitted that her "little girl" was subject to epileptic fits. The President, thinking that Cecile ought not to be present, signed to her to go. She went.

Still Brunner said nothing. They all began to look at one another. The situation was growing awkward.

Camusot senior, a man of experience, took the German to Mme. de Marville's room, ostensibly to show him Pons' fan. He saw that some difficulty had arisen, and signed to the rest to leave him alone with Cecile's suitor-designate.

"Here is the masterpiece," said Camusot, opening out the fan.

Brunner took it in his hand and looked at it. "It is worth five thousand francs," he said after a moment.

"Did you not come here, sir, to ask for my granddaughter?" inquired the future peer of France.

"Yes, sir," said Brunner; "and I beg you to believe that no possible marriage could be more flattering to my vanity. I shall never find any one more charming nor more amiable, nor a young lady who answers to my ideas like Mlle. Cecile; but--"

"Oh, no _buts_!" old Camusot broke in; "or let us have the translation of your 'buts' at once, my dear sir."

"I am very glad, sir, that the matter has gone no further on either side," Brunner answered gravely. "I had no idea that Mlle. Cecile was an only daughter. Anybody else would consider this an advantage; but to me, believe me, it is an insurmountable obstacle to--"

"What, sir!" cried Camusot, amazed beyond measure. "Do you find a positive drawback in an immense advantage? Your conduct is really extraordinary; I should very much like to hear the explanation of it."

"I came here this evening, sir," returned the German phlegmatically, "intending to ask M. le President for his daughter's hand. It was my desire to give Mlle. Cecile a brilliant future by offering her so much of my fortune as she would consent to accept. But an only daughter is a child whose will is law to indulgent parents, who has never been contradicted. I have had the opportunity of observing this in many families, where parents wors.h.i.+p divinities of this kind. And your granddaughter is not only the idol of the house, but Mme. la Presidente... you know what I mean. I have seen my father's house turned into a h.e.l.l, sir, from this very cause. My stepmother, the source of all my misfortunes, an only daughter, idolized by her parents, the most charming betrothed imaginable, after marriage became a fiend incarnate.

I do not doubt that Mlle. Cecile is an exception to the rule; but I am not a young man, I am forty years old, and the difference between our ages entails difficulties which would put it out of my power to make the young lady happy, when Mme. la Presidente always carried out her daughter's every wish and listened to her as if Mademoiselle was an oracle. What right have I to expect Mlle. Cecile to change her habits and ideas? Instead of a father and mother who indulge her every whim, she would find an egotistic man of forty; if she should resist, the man of forty would have the worst of it. So, as an honest man--I withdraw.

If there should be any need to explain my visit here, I desire to be entirely sacrificed--"

"If these are your motives, sir," said the future peer of France, "however singular they may be, they are plausible--"

"Do not call my sincerity in question, sir," Brunner interrupted quickly. "If you know of a penniless girl, one of a large family, well brought up but without fortune, as happens very often in France; and if her character offers me security, I will marry her."

A pause followed; Frederic Brunner left Cecile's grandfather and politely took leave of his host and hostess. When he was gone, Cecile appeared, a living commentary upon her Werther's leave-taking; she was ghastly pale. She had hidden in her mother's wardrobe and overheard the whole conversation.

"Refused!..." she said in a low voice for her mother's ear.

"And why?" asked the Presidente, fixing her eyes upon her embarra.s.sed father-in-law.

"Upon the fine pretext that an only daughter is a spoilt child," replied that gentleman. "And he is not altogether wrong there," he added, seizing an opportunity of putting the blame on the daughter-in-law, who had worried him not a little for twenty years.

"It will kill my child!" cried the Presidente, "and it is your doing!"

she exclaimed, addressing Pons, as she supported her fainting daughter, for Cecile thought well to make good her mother's words by sinking into her arms. The President and his wife carried Cecile to an easy-chair, where she swooned outright. The grandfather rang for the servants.

"It is a plot of his weaving; I see it all now," said the infuriated mother.

Pons sprang up as if the trump of doom were sounding in his ears.

"Yes!" said the lady, her eyes like two springs of green bile, "this gentleman wished to repay a harmless joke by an insult. Who will believe that that German was right in his mind? He is either an accomplice in a wicked scheme of revenge, or he is crazy. I hope, M. Pons, that in future you will spare us the annoyance of seeing you in the house where you have tried to bring shame and dishonor."

Pons stood like a statue, with his eyes fixed on the pattern of the carpet.

"Well! Are you still here, monster of ingrat.i.tude?" cried she, turning round on Pons, who was twirling his thumbs.--"Your master and I are never at home, remember, if this gentleman calls," she continued, turning to the servants.--"Jean, go for the doctor; and bring hartshorn, Madeleine."

In the Presidente's eyes, the reason given by Brunner was simply an excuse, there was something else behind; but, at the same time, the fact that the marriage was broken off was only the more certain. A woman's mind works swiftly in great crises, and Mme. de Marville had hit at once upon the one method of repairing the check. She chose to look upon it as a scheme of revenge. This notion of ascribing a fiendish scheme to Pons satisfied family honor. Faithful to her dislike of the cousin, she treated a feminine suspicion as a fact. Women, generally speaking, hold a creed peculiar to themselves, a code of their own; to them anything which serves their interests or their pa.s.sions is true. The Presidente went a good deal further. In the course of the evening she talked the President into her belief, and next morning found the magistrate convinced of his cousin's culpability.

Every one, no doubt, will condemn the lady's horrible conduct; but what mother in Mme. Camusot's position will not do the same? Put the choice between her own daughter and an alien, she will prefer to sacrifice the honor of the latter. There are many ways of doing this, but the end in view is the same.

The old musician fled down the staircase in haste; but he went slowly along the boulevards to his theatre, he turned in mechanically at the door, and mechanically he took his place and conducted the orchestra. In the interval he gave such random answers to Schmucke's questions, that his old friend dissembled his fear that Pons' mind had given way. To so childlike a nature, the recent scene took the proportions of a catastrophe. He had meant to make every one happy, and he had aroused a terrible slumbering feeling of hate; everything had been turned topsy-turvy. He had at last seen mortal hate in the Presidente's eyes, tones, and gesture.