Books: The Ink Stain, v3
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Rene Bazin >> The Ink Stain, v3
I had not been three minutes at the garden door, a key to which had been
given me by Madeleine, when M. Charnot appeared with Jeanne on his arm.
"To think that I've forgotten my overshoes, which I never fail to take
with me to the country!"
"The country, father?" said Jeanne, "why, Bourges is a city!--"
"To be sure--to be sure," answered M. Charnot, who feared he had hurt my
feelings.
He put on his spectacles and began to study the old houses around him.
"Yes, a city; really quite a city."
I do not remember what commonplace I stammered.
Little did I care for M. Charnot's overshoes or the honor of Bourges at
that moment! On the other side of the wall, a few feet off, I felt the
presence of M. Mouillard. I reflected that I should have to open the
door and launch the Academician, without preface, into the presence of
the lawyer, stake my life's happiness, perhaps, on my uncle's first
impressions, play at any rate the decisive move in the game which had
been so disastrously opened.
Jeanne, though she did her best to hide it, was extremely nervous. I
felt her hand tremble in mine as I took it.
"Trust in God!" she whispered, and aloud: "Open the door."
I turned the key in the lock. I had arranged that Madeleine should go at
once to M. Mouillard and tell him that there were some strangers waiting
in the garden. But either she was not on the lookout, or she did not at
once perceive us, and we had to wait a few minutes at the bottom of the
lawn before any one came.
I hid myself behind the trees whose leafage concealed the wall.
M. Charnot was evidently pleased with the view before him, and turned
from side to side, gently smacking his lips like an epicure. And, in
truth, my uncle's garden was perfection; the leaves, washed by the rain,
were glistening in the fulness of their verdure, great drops were falling
from the trees with a silvery tinkle, the petunias in the beds were
opening all their petals and wrapping us in their scent; the birds, who
had been mute while the shower lasted, were now fluttering, twittering,
and singing beneath the branches. I was like one bewitched, and thought
these very birds were discussing us. The greenfinch said:
"Old Mouillard, look! Here's Princess Goldenlocks at your garden gate."
The tomtit said:
"Look out, old man, or she'll outwit you."
The blackbird said:
"I have heard of her from my grandfather, who lived in the Champs
Elysees. She was much admired there."
The swallow said:
"Jeanne will have your heart in the time it takes me to fly round the
lawn."
The rook, who was a bit of a lawyer, came swooping down from the
cathedral tower, crying:
"Caw, caw, caw! Let her show cause--cause!"
And all took up the chorus:
"If you had our eyes, Monsieur Mouillard, you would see her looking at
your study; if you had our ears, you would hear her sigh; if you had our
wings, you would fly to Jeanne."
No doubt it was this unwonted concert which attracted Madeleine's
attention. We saw her making her way, stiffly and slowly, toward the
study, which stood in the corner of the garden.
M. Mouillard's tall figure appeared on the threshold, filling up the
entire doorway.
"In the garden, did you say? Whatever is your idea in showing clients
into the garden? Why did you let them in?"
"I didn't let them in; they came in of themselves."
"Then the door can't have been shut. Nothing is shut here. I'll have
them coming in next by the drawing-room chimney. What sort of people are
they?"
"There's a gentleman and a young lady whom I don't know."
"A young lady whom you don't know--a judicial separation, I'll warrant--
it's indecent, upon my word it is. To think that there are people who
come to me about judicial separations and bring their young ladies with
them!"
As Madeleine fled before the storm and found shelter in her kitchen, my
uncle smoothed back his white hair with both his hands--a surviving touch
of personal vanity--and started down the walk around the grass-plot.
I effaced myself behind the trees. M. Charnot, thinking I was just
behind him, stepped forward with airy freedom.
My uncle came down the path with a distracted air, like a man overwhelmed
with business, only too pleased to snatch a moment's leisure between the
parting and the coming client. He always loved to pass for being
overwhelmed with work.
On his way he flipped a rosebud covered with blight, kicked off a snail
which was crawling on the path; then, halfway down the path, he suddenly
raised his head and gave a look at his disturber.
His bent brows grew smooth, his eyes round with the stress of surprise.
"Is it possible? Monsieur Charnot of the Institute!"
"The same, Monsieur Mouillard."
"And this is Mademoiselle Jeanne?"
"Just so; she has come with me to repay your kind visit."
"Really, that's too good of you, much too good, to come such a way to see
me!"
"On the contrary, the most natural thing in the world, considering what
the young people are about."
"Oh! is your daughter about to be married?"
"Certainly, that's the idea," said M. Charnot, with a laugh.
"I congratulate you, Mademoiselle!"
"I have brought her here to introduce her to you, Monsieur Mouillard, as
is only right."
"Right! Excuse me, no."
"Indeed it is."
"Excuse me, sir. Politeness is all very well in its way, but frankness
is better. I went to Paris chiefly to get certain information which you
were good enough to give me. But, really, it was not worth your while to
come from Paris to Bourges to thank me, and to bring your daughter too."
"Excuse me in my turn! There are limits to modesty, Monsieur Mouillard,
and as my daughter is to marry your nephew, and as my daughter was in
Bourges, it was only natural that I should introduce her to you."
"Monsieur, I have no longer a nephew."
"He is here."
"And I never asked for your daughter."
"No, but you have received your nephew beneath your roof, and
consequently--"
"Never!"
"Monsieur Fabien has been in your house since yesterday; he told you we
were coming."
"No, I have not seen him; I never should have received him! I tell you I
no longer have a nephew! I am a broken man, a--a--a "
His speech failed him, his face became purple, he staggered and fell
heavily, first in a sitting posture, then on his back, and lay motionless
on the sanded path.
I rushed to the rescue.
When I got up to him Jeanne had already returned from the little fountain
with her handkerchief dripping, and was bathing his temples with fresh
water. She was the only one who kept her wits about her. Madeleine had
raised her master's head and was wailing aloud.
"Alas!" she said, "it's that dreadful colic he had ten years ago which
has got him again. Dear heart! how ill he was! I remember how it came
on, just like this, in the garden."
I interrupted her lamentations by saying:
"Monsieur Charnot, I think we had better take Monsieur Mouillard up to
bed."
"Then why don't you do it?" shouted the numismatist, who had completely
lost his temper. "I didn't come here to act at an ambulance; but, since
I must, do you take his head."
I took his head, Madeleine walked in front, Jeanne behind. My uncle's
vast proportions swayed between M. Charnot and myself. M. Charnot, who
had skilfully gathered up the legs, looked like a hired pallbearer.
As we met with some difficulty in getting upstairs, M. Charnot said, with
clenched teeth:
"You've managed this trip nicely, Monsieur Fabien; I congratulate you
sincerely!"
I saw that he intended to treat me to several variations on this theme.
But there was no time for talk. A moment later my uncle was laid, still
unconscious, upon his bed, and Jeanne and Madeleine were preparing a
mustard-plaster together, in perfect harmony. M. Charnot and I waited
in silence for the doctor whom we had sent the office-boy to fetch.
M. Charnot studied alternately my deceased aunt's wreath of orange-
blossoms, preserved under a glass in the centre of the chimney-piece,
and a painting of fruit and flowers for which it would have been hard
to find a buyer at an auction. Our wait for the doctor lasted ten long
minutes. We were very anxious, for M. Mouillard showed no sign of
returning consciousness. Gradually, however, the remedies began to act
upon him. The eyelids fluttered feebly; and just as the doctor opened
the door, my uncle opened his eyes.
We rushed to his bedside.
"My old friend," said the doctor, "you have had plenty of people to look
after you. Let me feel your pulse--rather weak; your tongue? Say a word
or two."
"A shock--rather sudden--" said my uncle.
The doctor, following the direction of the invalid's eyes, which were
fixed on Jeanne, upright at the foot of the bed, bowed to the young girl,
whom he had not at first noticed; turned to me, who blushed like an
idiot; then looked again at my uncle, only to see two big tears running
down his cheeks.
"Yes, I understand; a pretty stiff shock, eh? At our age we should only
be stirred by our recollections, emotions of bygone days, something we're
used to; but our children take care to provide us with fresh ones, eh?"
M. Mouillard's breast heaved.
"Come, my dear fellow," proceeded the doctor; "I give you leave to give
your future niece one kiss, and that in my presence, that I may be quite
sure you don't abuse the license. After that you must be left quite
alone; no more excitement, perfect rest."
Jeanne came forward and raised the invalid's head.
"Will you give me a kiss, uncle?"
She offered him her rosy cheek.
"With all my heart," said my uncle as he kissed her; "good girl--dear
girl."
Then he melted into tears, and hid his face in his pillow.
"And now we must be left alone," said the doctor.
He came down himself in a moment, and gave us an encouraging account of
the patient.
Hardly had the street door closed behind him when we heard the lawyer's
powerful voice thundering down the stairs.
"Charnot!"
The old numismatist flew up the flight of stairs.
"Did you call me, Monsieur?"
"Yes, to invite you to dinner. I couldn't say the words just now, but it
was in my mind."
"It is very kind of you, but we leave at nine o'clock."
"I dine at seven; that's plenty of time."
"It will tire you too much."
"Tire me? Why, don't you think I dine everyday?"
"I promise to come and inquire after you before leaving."
"I can tell you at once that I am all right again. No, no, it shall
never be said that you came all the way from Paris to Bourges only to
see me faint. I count upon you and Mademoiselle Jeanne."
"On all three of us?"
"That makes three, with me; yes, sir."
"Excuse me, four."
"I hope the fourth will have the sense to go and dine elsewhere."
"Come, come, Monsieur Mouillard; your nephew, your ward--"
"I ceased to be his guardian four years ago, and his uncle three weeks
ago."
"He longs to put an end to this ill feeling--"
"Allow me to rest a little," said M. Mouillard, "in order that I may be
in a better condition to receive my guests."
He lay down again, and showed clearly his intention of saying not another
word on the subject.
During the conversation between M. Charnot and my uncle, to which we had
listened from the foot of the staircase, Jeanne, who had a moment before
been rejoicing over the completeness of the victory which she thought she
had achieved, grew quite downhearted.
"I thought he had forgiven you when he kissed me," she said. "What can
we do now? Can't you help us, Madeleine?"
Madeleine, whose heart was beginning to warm to Jeanne, sought vainly for
an expedient, and shook her head.
"Ought he to go and see his uncle?" asked Jeanne.
"No," said Madeleine.
"Well, suppose you write to him, Fabien?"
Madeleine nodded approval, and drew from the depths of her cupboard a
little glass inkstand, a rusty penholder, and a sheet of paper, at the
top of which was a dove with a twig in its beak.
"My cousin at Romorantin died just before last New Year's Day," she
explained; "so I had one sheet more than I needed."
I sat down at the kitchen table with Jeanne leaning over me, reading
as I wrote. Madeleine stood upright and attentive beside the clock,
forgetting all about her kitchen fire as she watched us with her black
eyes.
This is what I wrote beneath the dove:
"MY DEAR UNCLE:
"I left Paris with the intention of putting an end to the
misunderstanding between us, which has lasted only too long, and
which has given me more pain than you can guess. I had no possible
opportunity of speaking to you between five o'clock yesterday
afternoon, when I arrived here, and ten o'clock this morning. If I
had been able to speak with you, you would not have refused to
restore me to your affection, which, I confess, I ought to have
respected more than I have. You would have given your consent to
my, union, on which depends your own happiness, my dear uncle, and
that of your nephew,
"FABIEN."
"Rather too formal," said Jeanne. "Now, let me try."
And the enchantress added, with ready pen:
"It is I, Monsieur Mouillard, who am chiefly in need of forgiveness.
Mine is the greater fault by far. You forbade Monsieur Fabien to love
me, and I took no steps to prevent his doing so. Even yesterday, when he
came to your house, it was my doing. I had assured him that your kind
heart would not be proof against his loving confession.
"Was I really wrong in that?
"The words that you spoke just now have led me to hope that I was not.
"But if I was wrong, visit your anger on me alone. Forgive your nephew,
invite him to dinner instead of us, and let me depart, regretting only
that I was not judged worthy of calling you uncle, which would have been
so pleasant and easy a name to speak.
"JEANNE."
I read the two letters over aloud. Madeleine broke into sobs as she
listened.
A smile flickered about the corners of Jeanne's mouth.
We left the house, committing to Madeleine the task of choosing a
favorable moment to hand M. Mouillard our joint entreaty.
And here I may as well confess that from the instant we got out of the
house, all through breakfast at the hotel, and for a quarter of an hour
after it, M. Charnot treated me, in his best style, to the very hottest
"talking-to" that I had experienced since my earliest youth. He ended
with these words: "If you have not made your peace with your uncle by
nine o'clock this evening, Monsieur, I withdraw my consent, and we shall
return to Paris."
I strove in vain to shake his decision. Jeanne made a little face at me,
which warned me I was on the wrong track.
"Very well," I said to her, "I leave the matter in your hands."
"And I leave it in the hands of God," she answered. "Be a man. If
trouble awaits us, hope will at any rate steal us a happy hour or two."
We were just then in front of the gardens of the Archbishop's palace, so
M. Charnot walked in. The current of his reflections was soon changed by
the freshness of the air, the groups of children playing around their
mothers--whom he studied ethnologically and with reference to the racial
divisions of ancient Gaul--by the beauty of the landscape--its foreground
of flowers, the Place St. Michel beyond, and further yet, above the
barrack-roofs, the line of poplars lining the Auron. He ceased to be a
father-in-law, and became a tourist again.
Jeanne stepped with airy grace among the groups of strollers, and the
murmurs which followed her path, though often envious, sounded none the
less sweetly in my ears for that. I hoped to meet Mademoiselle Lorinet.
After we had seen the gardens, we had to visit the Place Seraucourt, the
Cours Chanzy, the cathedral, Saint-Pierrele-Guillard, and the house of
Jacques-Coeur. It was six o'clock by the time we got back to the Hotel
de France.
A letter was waiting for us in the small and badly furnished entrance--
hall. It was addressed to Mademoiselle Jeanne Charnot.
I recognized at once the ornate hand of M. Mouillard, and grew as white
as the envelope.
M. Charnot cried, excitedly:
"Read it, Jeanne. Read it, can't you!"
Jeanne alone of us three kept a brave face.
She read:
"MY DEAR CHILD:
"I treated you perhaps with undue familiarity this morning, at a
moment when I was not quite myself. Nevertheless, now that I have
regained my senses, I do not withdraw the expressions of which I
made use--I love you with all my heart; you are a dear girl.
"You will not get an old stager like me to give up his prejudices
against the capital. Let it suffice that I have surrendered to a
Parisienne. My niece, I forgive him for your sake.
"Come this evening, all three of you.
"I have several things to tell you, and several questions to ask
you. My news is not all good. But I trust that all regrets will be
overwhelmed in the gladness you will bring to my old heart.
"BRUTUS MOUILLARD."
When we rang at M. Mouillard's door, it was opened to us by Baptiste, the
office-boy, who waits at table on grand occasions.
My uncle received us in the large drawing-room, in full dress, with his
whitest cravat and his most camphorous frock-coat: "not a moth in ten
years," is Madeleine's boast concerning this garment.
He saluted us all solemnly, without his usual effusiveness; bearing
himself with simple and touching dignity. Strong emotion, which excites
most natures, only served to restrain his. He said not a word of the
past, nor of our marriage. This, the decisive engagement, opened with
polite formalities.
I have often noticed this phenomenon; people meeting to "have it out"
usually begin by saying nothing at all.
M. Mouillard offered his arm to Jeanne, to escort her to the dining-room.
Jeanne was in high spirits. She asked him question after question about
Bourges, its dances, fashions, manufactures, even about the procedure of
its courts.
"I am sure you know that well, uncle," she said.
"Uncle" smiled at each question, his face illumined with a glow like that
upon a chimney-piece when someone is blowing the fire. He answered her
questions, but presently fell into a state of dejection, which even his
desire to do honor to his guests could not entirely conceal. His
thoughts betrayed themselves in the looks he kept casting upon me, no
longer of anger, but of suffering, almost pleading, affection.
M. Charnot, who was rather tired, and also absorbed in Madeleine's feats
of cookery, cast disjointed remarks and ejaculations into the gaps in the
conversation.
I knew my uncle well enough to feel sure that the end of the dinner would
be quite unlike the beginning.
I was right. During dessert, just as the Academician was singing the
praises of a native delicacy, 'la forestine', my uncle, who had been
revolving a few drops of some notable growth of Medoc in his glass for
the last minute or two, stopped suddenly, and put down his glass on the
table.
"My dear Monsieur Charnot," said he, "I have a painful confession to make
to you."
"Eh? What? My dear friend, if it's painful to you, don't make it."
"Fabien," my uncle went on, "has behaved badly to me on certain
occasions. But I say no more of it. His faults are forgotten. But I
have not behaved to him altogether as I should."
"You, uncle?"
"Alas! It is so, my dear child. My practice, the family practice, which
I faithfully promised your father to keep for you--"
"You have sold it?"
My uncle buried his face in his hands.
"Last night, my poor child, only last night!"
"I thought so."
"I was weak I listened to the prompting of anger; I have compromised your
future. Fabien, forgive me in your turn."
He rose from the table, and came and put a trembling hand on my shoulder.
"No, uncle, you've not compromised anything, and I've nothing to forgive
you."
"You wouldn't take the practice if I could still offer it to you?"
"No, uncle."
"Upon your word?"
"Upon my word!"
M. Mouillard drew himself up, beaming:
"Ah! Thank you for that speech, Fabien; you have relieved me of a great
weight."
With one corner of his napkin he wiped away two tears, which, having
arisen in time of war, continued to flow in time of peace.
"If Mademoiselle Jeanne, in addition to all her other perfections, brings
you fortune, Fabien, if your future is assured--"
"My dear Monsieur Mouillard," broke in the Academician with ill-concealed
satisfaction. "My colleagues call me rich. They slander me. Works on
numismatics do not make a man rich. Monsieur Fabien, who made some
investigations into the subject, can prove it to you. No; I possess no
more than an honorable competence, which does not give me everything, but
lets me lack nothing."
"Aurea mediocritas," exclaimed my uncle, delighted with his quotation.
"Oh, that Horace! What a fellow he was!"
"He was indeed. Well, as I was saying, our daily bread is assured; but
that's no reason why my son-in-law should vegetate in idleness which I do
not consider my due, even at my age."
"Quite right."
"So he must work."
"But what is he to work at?"
"There are other professions besides the law, Monsieur Mouillard. I have
studied Fabien. His temperament is somewhat wayward. With special
training he might have become an artist. Lacking that early moulding
into shape, he never will be anything more than a dreamer."
"I should not have expressed it so well, but I have often thought the
same."
"With a temperament like your nephew's," continued M. Charnot, "the best
he can do is to enter upon a career in which the ideal has some part; not
a predominant, but a sufficient part, something between prose and
poetry."
"Let him be a notary, then."
"No, that's wholly prose; he shall be a librarian."
"A librarian?"
"Yes, Monsieur Mouillard; there are a few little libraries in Paris,
which are as quiet as groves, and in which places are to be got that are
as snug as nests. I have some influence in official circles, and that
can do no harm, you know."
"Quite so."
"We will put our Fabien into one of those nests, where he will be
protected against idleness by the little he will do, and against
revolutions by the little he will be. It's a charming profession;
the very smell of books is improving; merely by breathing it you live
an intellectual life."
"An intellectual life!" exclaimed my uncle with enthusiasm. "Yes, an
intellectual life!"
"And cataloguing books, Monsieur Mouillard, looking through them,
preserving them as far as possible from worms and readers. Don't you
think that's an enviable lot?"
"Yes, more so than mine has been, or my successor's will be."
"By the way, uncle, you haven't told us who your successor is to be."
"Haven't I, really? Why, you know him; it's your friend Larive."
"Oh! That explains a great deal."
"He is a young man who takes life seriously."
"Very seriously, uncle. Isn't he about to be married?"
"Why, yes; to a rich wife."
"To whom?"
"My dear boy, he is picking up all your leavings; he is going to marry
Mademoiselle Lorinet."
"He was always enterprising! But, uncle, it wasn't with him you were
engaged yesterday evening?"
"Why not, pray?"
"You told Madeleine to admit a gentleman with a decoration."
"He has one."
"Good heavens! What is it?"
"The Nicham Iftikar, if it please you."
[A Tunisian order, which can be obtained for a very moderate sum.]
"It doesn't displease me, uncle, and surprises me still less. Larive
will die with his breast more thickly plastered with decorations than an
Odd Fellow's; he will be a member of all the learned societies in the
department, respected and respectable, the more thoroughly provincial for
having been outrageously Parisian. Mothers will confide their anxieties
to him, and fathers their interests; but when his old acquaintances pass
this way they will take the liberty of smiling in his face."
"What, jealous? Are you jealous of his bit of ribbon?"
"No, uncle, I regret nothing; not even Larive's good fortune."
M. Mouillard fixed his eyes on the cloth, and began again, after a
moment's silence:
"I, Fabien, do regret some things. It will be mournful at times, growing
old alone here. Yet, after all, it will be some consolation to me to
think that you others are satisfied with life, to welcome you here for
your holidays."
"You can do better than that," said M. Charnot. "Come and grow old among
us. Your years will be the lighter to bear, Monsieur Mouillard.
Doubtless we must always bear them, and they weigh upon us and bend our
backs. But youth, which carries its own burden so lightly, can always
give us a little help in bearing ours."
I looked to hear my uncle break out with loud objections.
"It is a fine night," he said, simply; "let us go into the garden, and do
you decide whether I can leave roses like mine."
M. Mouillard took us into the garden, pleased with himself, with me, with
Jeanne, with everybody, and with the weather.