Bijou

M. Spiegel looked displeased; he knitted his brows, and his placid-looking face suddenly took a hard expression.

"She has told you so?"

Bijou answered with the eagerness and embarrassment of anyone feeling compelled to tell an untruth.

"Oh, no—no, I have just imagined it myself; you know I am so fond of Jeanne! I know all that passes in her mind, and I should be so wretched if I caused her any unhappiness—or even the slightest anxiety; do you understand what I mean?"

"I understand that you are just an angel of goodness, mademoiselle, and that it is no wonder they are all so fond of you!"

Bijou was looking down on the floor, her breath coming and going quickly, a faint flush had come into her cheeks, and her nostrils were quivering, as she listened silently to the young professor's words.

He put his arm round her waist, took her little hand in his, as she offered no resistance, and whirled her off into the midst of the dance. M. Spiegel waltzed divinely, and Bijou was passionately fond of the waltz à trois temps. With a flush on her cheeks, her eyes half-closed, and her lips parted, showing her dazzling white teeth, she went on whirling round as long as the orchestra played. Several times she passed quite close to Jeanne, without even seeing her poor friend, who was being jerked about by Pierrot. The youth kept treading on his partner's toes, or knocking her against the furniture; and when, now and again, Jeanne would stop to get breath, Pierrot would chatter away most eloquently about all kinds of sports, of which she was absolutely ignorant.

"You know," he said, putting out his enormous foot and his formidable knee, "I am a very second-rate dancer, but I'm very good at football. Our team is going to play a match this winter against the Pont-sur-Loire team; you ought to see it; it will be first-class! I keep goal; you should just see what jolly kicks—"

He broke off as Jeanne did not speak. She was looking uneasily at her fiancé as he passed and re-passed, apparently happy in guiding Bijou along through the rapid whirl of the dance.

"I am boring you," said Pierrot; "shall we go on now?"

"No," she replied, in a changed voice; "I do not feel quite myself, and it is so warm! Will you take me across to papa—he is playing cards over there. I should like to go home!"

Whilst they were on their way to M. Dubuisson, Bijou stopped M. Spiegel just near the orchestra; and said, in a laughing voice:

"Why, you are indefatigable—one must get one's breath, though; besides, the waltz is just finishing now!"

She glanced at the four wretched musicians, who were in a deplorable state, with their shiny-looking coats, their limp shirt-fronts, and their faces bathed in perspiration.

"Why, Monsieur Sylvestre!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Good evening, Monsieur Sylvestre! Well, I never! I didn't expect to see you!"

The poor fellow looked up eagerly, and, gazing at Bijou, with his soft, blue eyes full of deep distress, he stammered out:

"I did not expect to be seen either, mademoiselle!"

XVI.

"Well, and what is the result of all this thinking and of this interview?" asked the marchioness, rather anxiously.

"The result is that I have changed my mind."

"What do you say?"

"I say that, with your permission, I will marry M. de Clagny."

"Nonsense! you won't do anything of the kind."

"Why not?"

"Because it would be madness."

"Why, no, grandmamma, it would be very wise, on the contrary; if I did not marry him, I should never again all my life long have a minute's peace."

"Because?—"

"Because I have seen that he is dreadfully and horribly unhappy."

"No doubt; but that will all be forgotten in time."

"Oh, no, it won't be forgotten! And I told you I like M. de Clagny more than I have ever liked anyone—except you; and so the idea that he is wretched on my account—and, perhaps, a little through my fault—would seem odious to me, and would make me unhappy—much more unhappy even than he is."

"But you would be still more so if you married him. Listen, Bijou, dear, you know nothing about life, nor about marriage. I have, perhaps, been wrong in bringing you up so strictly, not letting you read or hear enough about things; there are certain duties and obligations which marriage imposes upon us, and about which you know nothing, and these duties—well, you ought to know something about them, before rushing headlong into such a terrible venture as this."

"No!" said Bijou, with a gesture to prevent Madame de Bracieux continuing, "don't tell me anything, grandmamma. I know what responsibilities I should have to accept, and what my duty would be, and I have decided—decided irrevocably—to become the wife of M. de Clagny, whom I love dearly." And then, as the marchioness made a movement as though to protest, she repeated: "Yes, I love him dearly; and the proof is that the idea of marrying him does not terrify me, whilst the thought of marrying the others made me feel a sort of repulsion."

She knelt down in front of the marchioness, and began again in a coaxing voice:

"Say that you will consent, grandmamma; say so—do, please."

"You are nearly twenty-two. I cannot overrule you as though you were a little child, therefore I consent, but without any enthusiasm, I can assure you, and I implore you to reconsider the matter, Bijou, my dear. I am afraid that you are following the impulse of your kind heart and of your extremely sensitive nature and making a mistake that will be irreparable."

"I do not need to consider the matter any more; I have done nothing else ever since yesterday; and I know that this is my only chance of happiness, or of what at any rate seems to be the most like happiness. Don't say anything to anyone about it, will you, grandmamma?"

"Oh, dear no! you can be easy on that score; you don't imagine that I am in a hurry to announce such an engagement, and to contemplate the horrified, astonished looks they will all put on. Oh, no; if you think I am in a hurry, you are mistaken, my darling."

"And above all, don't say anything to M. de Clagny; I am enjoying the thought of telling him this evening."

"But he told me that he should not come—"

"Ah! but he promised me that he would come." And then, holding up her merry face to be kissed, she added: "And now I must go and attend to our scenery, and to the footlights, which won't light, and to my costume, which is not finished."

The marchioness took Bijou's head in her beautiful hands, which were still so white and smooth, and kissing her, murmured:

"Go, then; and may Heaven grant that we shall have no cause to regret—your good-heartedness—and—my weakness."

The Dubuissons and M. Spiegel had promised to come at four o'clock. One of the scenes which did not go very well had to be rehearsed. Bijou, who was busy gathering flowers, went towards the cab when they arrived, and was surprised to see only Jeanne and her father.

"What have you done with M. Spiegel?" she asked.

It was M. Dubuisson who answered, in a confused sort of way:

"He is coming—with your cousin M. de Rueille, who was at Pont-sur-Loire and who offered to bring him."

"Don't disturb your grandmamma," said Jeanne, taking Bijou's arm. "Papa won't come in yet, he has his lecture to prepare, and he will go and do it, walking about in the park." And then, as soon as M. Dubuisson had moved off, she began again: "If M. Spiegel and I had not had parts in the play, and so had not been afraid of spoiling it for you by not appearing, we should not have come."

"You would not have come?" exclaimed Bijou, in astonishment; "and why not, pray?"

"Because we are now in the most false and ridiculous position."

"You?"

"Yes, we are—our engagement is broken off."

"Broken off!" repeated Bijou, in consternation; "broken off! but what for?"

"Because I was quite certain that he cared for me very little or not at all," answered Jeanne, speaking very calmly, but not looking at Bijou, "and so I told him this morning that I did not feel equal to accepting the life of misery which I foresaw, and that I gave him back his liberty."

"Good heavens, is it possible—and you do not regret anything?"

"Nothing! I am very wretched, but my mind is more easy."

Bijou looked straight into her eyes as she asked:

"And it is—it is because of me, isn't it? it is because of M. Spiegel's manner towards me that you broke it all off?" Jeanne nodded, and Bijou went on: "And so you really thought that your fiancé was making love to me?"

"Oh, as to making love to you, no, perhaps not—but he certainly cares for you."

"And what then?"

"What do you mean by what then?"

"Well, what would be the end of that for him?"

"Well, it would cause him to suffer; and who knows, he might have hoped—?"

"Hoped what? to marry me?"

"No—yes! I don't know; he might have hoped in a vague sort of way—I don't know what."

"And do you think that I can endure the idea of causing your unhappiness, no matter how involuntarily on my part?"

"It is not in your power to alter what exists."

Bijou appeared to be turning something over in her mind.

"Supposing I were to marry," she said at last abruptly. And then hiding her face in her hands she said in a broken voice: "M. de Clagny wants to marry me."

"M. de Clagny!" exclaimed Jeanne, stupefied, "why, he's sixty!"

"I said no; I will say yes, though."

"You are mad!"

"Not the least bit in the world! I am practical. The remedy is perhaps a trifle hard, but what is to be done? I love you so, Jeanne, that the idea of seeing you unhappy makes me wretched!"

"I assure you, though, that even if you marry M. de Clagny, I should not marry M. Spiegel. He said things to me just now which were very painful, and no matter how much I tried, I could not forget them."

"Painful things, about what?"

"About my jealousy—he said that it was ridiculous—and yet I had not complained about anything. I kept it from him as much as possible, my jealousy; but at the ball, I did not feel well, and I asked papa to take me home, and he was displeased about that, he thought I was sulking."

"Oh, all that will soon be forgotten!"

"No! and so you see, Bijou, it would be for nothing at all that you would commit the very worst of all follies—marrying an old man."

"An old man! it's queer, he does not seem to me at all like an old man—M. de Clagny! I should certainly prefer marrying a younger man and one whom I should like in every respect, but now—"

Jeanne put her arm round Bijou and, resting her hand on her friend's shoulder, kissed her as she said:

"You must just wait for him in peace, the one 'whom you would like in every respect!' You have plenty of time!"

"No, I have quite decided! Whatever you do now will be useless, for, in spite of what you say, when once the cause of your little misunderstanding has vanished, the misunderstanding will vanish in the same way. There now, kiss me again, and tell me that you love me."

"Well!" said Jean de Blaye, who now appeared with M. Spiegel, "is everyone ready; are we going to rehearse?"

For the last few days he had been in a nervous, excitable state, feeling the need of anything that would take him out of himself, and doing his utmost all the time to keep himself from thinking. "Yes," answered Denyse very calmly, wiping her eyes quickly, "we are ready; we were only waiting for you." And then, in a very gracious, natural way, she held out her hand to M. Spiegel, who took it, saying at the same time:

"You are not too tired, mademoiselle, after such a late night?" And then, glancing involuntarily at Mademoiselle Dubuisson's rather sallow-looking face, he added: "Why, you are looking fresher even than yesterday."

Jeanne came nearer to Bijou, and, as they moved away together, she said, pointing to the professor, and with a look of intense grief in her gentle eyes:

"You see your remedy would not do; he is incurable."

The little play was performed before a large audience of guests, who were highly amused. Bijou was so pretty in her costume as Hebe, she looked so pure and maidenly and so sweet, that, when the piece was finished, and she wanted to go and put on her ball-dress, everyone begged her to remain just as she was. As she was going away into a side-room to escape the compliments of the various guests, M. de Rueille stopped her, and said, in a sarcastic tone:

"And so that is the costume that was to be quite the thing, and which, in order to please me, you were going to get Jean to alter?"

Jean came up just at this moment, with Henry de Bracieux and Pierrot.

"Accept my compliments," said M. de Rueille drily, turning towards him; "you certainly know how to design costumes for pretty girls; but, if I were you, I would have been rather more careful."

"Why, what's up with you?" asked Jean, without even looking at Bijou; "the costume's right enough!"

"Besides," remarked Bijou tranquilly, "there are only three persons who have any right to trouble themselves about my costumes—grandmamma, I myself, or my husband."

"Yes, if you had one!"

"Certainly; well, I shall be having one!"

Jean de Blaye shrugged his shoulders incredulously, and Bijou continued:

"I assure you it is quite true! I am going to be married."

"To whom?" asked M. de Rueille uneasily.

"Oh, yes, what a good joke!" remarked Pierrot.

"Whom are you going to marry?" asked Henry de Bracieux. "Tell us!"

M. de Clagny had just entered the room, and putting her arm through his, she said, in a mischievous way, to the others:

"I am going to tell M. de Clagny." And then, turning to him, she added: "Let us go out-doors, though; it is stifling in here!"

"Isn't she æsthetic this evening?" murmured Pierrot, gazing at Bijou's long Grecian cloak of pale pink. "I should think M. Giraud would think her perfect to-night; he's always saying she isn't made for modern costumes."

"Ah, by the bye, where is he—Giraud?" asked Jean de Blaye; "he disappeared after dinner, and we have not seen him again!"

Pierrot explained that he must have gone off for a stroll along the river, as he did nearly every evening. He was getting more and more odd, and had fits of gaiety and melancholy, turn by turn. That very morning he had left the schoolroom in order to go to Madame de Bracieux, who had sent to ask him to translate an English letter for her; and then he had come back some time after, saying that he had not ventured to knock, because he could hear that the marchioness was talking to Mademoiselle Denyse, and ever since then he had not uttered another word.

"Where the devil's he gone?" asked Jean; and Pierrot, speaking through his nose, began to imitate the street vendors on the boulevards.

"Where is Bulgaria? Find Bulgaria!"

When she was alone with M. de Clagny under the big trees, Bijou said, in the sweetest way:

"I came back home this morning, quite wretched at having caused you any sorrow. It seemed to me that I must have been too affectionate in my manner towards you—too free—and that I had made you think something quite different. Is that so?"

"Yes, that is just it—and so you have no affection at all for me?"

"You know very well that I have!"

"I mean that you like me just as though I were some old relative or another."

"More than that!"

"Well, but you do not love me enough to—to—love me as a husband?"

"I do not know at all. I cannot understand myself just what I feel for you. In the first place, I think you are very nice-looking, and very charming, too; and then, when you are here, I feel as though I am surrounded with care and affection. It seems to me that I breathe more freely, that I am gayer and happier, and I have never, never felt like that before—"

Very much touched by what she was saying, and very anxious, too, about what she was going to say, the count pressed Bijou's arm against his without answering.

"Well, then," she continued, "I thought that, as I liked you better than I have ever yet liked anyone, and that, on the other hand, I should never be able to console myself for having caused you so much sorrow, the best thing would be to marry you."

M. de Clagny stopped short, and asked, in a choked voice:

"Then you consent?"

"Yes."

"My darling!" he stammered out, "my darling!"

"I told grandmamma this morning," continued Bijou, "and I must confess that she was not delighted. She did all she could to make me change my mind."

"I can quite understand that."

"She thinks that it is mad, for you as well as for me, to marry when there is such disproportion of age; and then, she did not say so, but I could see that there was something troubling her, which troubles me too, though to a much less degree."

"And it is?"

"The disproportion in money matters. Yes—it appears that you are horribly rich. Grandmamma said so yesterday, when she told me that you had asked for my hand."

"What can it matter, Bijou, dear, whether I am a little more or less rich?"

"It matters a great deal, with grandmamma's ideas about things especially. Oh, it is not that she thinks it humiliating for me to be married without anything, for I have nothing, you know, in comparison with what you have! No, she looks upon marriage as a partnership, or exchange of what one has. 'Give me what you've got, and I'll give you what I've got,' as the country people here say. Well, you have your name, which is a good one, and your money, which makes you a very rich man; on my side, I have my name, which is rather a good one, too, and my youth, which certainly counts for something."

"Very well, then, and how can the disproportion of what we have make your grandmamma uneasy?"

"Well, it's like this, you know—grandmamma is very fond of me, and she thinks that, as I am thirty-eight years younger than you, you might die before me, and that, after living for years in very great luxury, after letting myself get accustomed to every comfort, which, up to the present, I have not had, I might suddenly find myself very poor and very wretched at an age when it would be too late to begin life over again, and so I should suffer very much on account of the bad habits I had contracted, and which I should not be able to drop—"

"You know very well, my adored Bijou, that everything I possess is and will be yours. My will is already made, in which I leave everything to you, even if you do not become my wife."

"Yes, but she always says a will could be torn up."

"If your grandmamma would prefer it, I could make it over to you in a marriage settlement."

Bijou laughed.

"Ah! she would imagine, then, that we might be divorced, and a divorce does away with all things—"

"But, supposing I make out in the marriage contract that the half of what I possess now is really yours, and supposing I made over the rest to you, only reserving to myself the interest?"

Bijou shook her head, and then, with a pretty movement of playful affection, she threw her soft arms round M. de Clagny's neck, and said:

"I don't want you to give me anything but happiness, and I am sure you will give me plenty of that. I hope you will live a very, very long time, and it would not matter to me, when I am old, if I were to find myself poor again, comparatively speaking."

"And I," he said, covering Denyse's face and hair with kisses, "I could not go on living with the thought that I might be taken away without your future being provided for in the way in which I should wish it to be."

"Don't talk about all those things," she murmured. "I want to think that I shall never be separated from you—never, never!"

Trying, in spite of the darkness, to look into Bijou's eyes, he asked anxiously:

"Will you be able to love me a little, as I love you?"

Without answering, she held her pretty lips up to him, but just at that moment the sound of voices made them move away from each other abruptly.

Only a few yards away from them they could hear several persons talking in low voices, and also the sound of heavy footsteps walking with measured tread. It seemed as though just there, quite near to them, a heavy burden were being carried along, whilst, in the midst of the darkness, lights kept passing by.

"It's very odd," said M. de Clagny; "one would think something had happened."

Bijou, however, who had stopped short, her heart beating fast with anxiety, struck with the strangeness of the little procession, put her hand on the count's arm, and said, quite tranquilly:

"Oh, no! it must be the men going back to the farm. Just now they are at work up at the house through the day, and then, when they have had something to eat, they go back home."

"It seemed to me, though, that the lanterns were on the way towards the house."

She was walking along with her hand on his arm, and a thrill of joy ran through him as he drew this beautiful girl, who had just promised herself to him, closer still, in a passionate embrace.

They returned slowly to the house along the avenues, meeting several carriages, which were bearing away the departing guests.

"How's that?" exclaimed Bijou, in surprise. "They are going away already—but what about the cotillion? Is it very late?"

On arriving at the hall-door steps, they met the La Balues coming towards their carriage.

"How's this?" asked Bijou. "You are going? But why?"

M. de la Balue mumbled out some unintelligible words, whilst his son and daughter, looking very sad, shook hands with Bijou.

"Well, what long faces they are making," remarked M. de Clagny, beginning to get anxious in his turn. "Ah! what's that? Whatever's the matter?"

In the hall there was a long pool of water. The servants were going backwards and forwards quickly, looking awestruck, and then Pierrot came in sight, his eyes swollen with crying, and his hands full of flowers. Madame de Rueille was following him, carrying flowers, too.

Bijou stopped short, thunderstruck; but M. de Clagny hurried up to Madame de Rueille.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"M. Giraud has drowned himself," answered Bertrade. "They have just brought him back here. It was the miller who found him near the dam—"

And then, seeing that Pierrot was gazing at her in consternation, shaking his flowers about at the end of his long arms in sheer desperation, she added, in a hard voice:

"Yes, I know very well that grandmamma has forbidden anyone to speak of it before Bijou, but, for my part, I want her to know about it."

XVII.

Pierrot had got one of the tails of his coat, which was too short for him, caught in the carriage-door, and, with his big, white-gloved hands, he was awkwardly endeavouring to get free, but unsuccessfully.

M. Sylvestre, with an enormous roll of music under his arm, looking very nervous, and in a great hurry, was rushing towards the staircase which led to the gallery, without daring to lift his eyes from the ground; whilst Abbé Courteil, accompanied by his two pupils, passed by, looking very business-like—he, too, not venturing to glance in the direction of Bijou.

Jeanne Dubuisson, who had got rather thinner, was waiting with her father until the crowd made way for her to pass.

Among the Bracieux villagers, and just behind all the fine ladies and gentlemen, who had come from Pont-sur-Loire and the country-houses in the neighbourhood, Charlemagne Lavenue was pressing forward with long strides. He was dressed in his best clothes, and his square shoulders and ruddy complexion seemed to stand out against the background of blue sky.

As she stood there, with her eyes lowered, looking as though she had seen nothing, with the sun, which had brightened up the whole country round for her marriage, shining full on her, Bijou was enjoying to the full the bliss of living, of knowing herself beautiful, and of being beloved by everyone.

The sound of her Uncle Alexis' voice as he offered her his arm, and said: "Are you ready?" woke her up out of her ecstasy.

Very graceful and beautiful she looked, as she moved along to the music of the organ, which was pealing forth.

A cabman, who had gone inside the church to see "the wedding," exclaimed, as Bijou passed up the aisle:

"Bless my soul! but ain't she a pretty one—-the bride?"

Whereupon one of Farmer Lavenue's day-labourers replied:

"I believe you. And I can tell you what—she's as good as she is pretty—she is! And even better nor that!"

THE END.

Printed by Cowan & Co., Limited, Perth.

Transcriber's Notes:

Table of Contents added to HTML; not present in original.

Missing or incorrect punctuation fixed.

Hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of same words retained when occurring equally.

Unusual spellings retained, but obvious misspellings corrected.

P.6 and 65: "anyrate"(2) changed to more frequent "any rate"(11).

P.292: "got o st" changed to "got lost".