Mademoiselle Blanche

IX

After confessing his love, Jules experienced, mingled with his exultation, a feeling of bewildered amazement at his own boldness. This was followed by a poignant regret that he hadn't spoken before. Now, however, that his weeks of doubt and of intermittent misery were over, he gave himself up to his happiness, which manifested itself in a wild exuberance of spirits.

In a short time he was speaking humorously of those weeks, ridiculing himself as if he had already become different, almost another person from what he had been then. He told Blanche about his tortures, and even succeeded in extorting a confession from her that she had been in love with him since the first Sunday when he had called at the apartment and acknowledged Durand's duplicity; she, too, had had her doubts and her fears. Then they became very confidential, and by the time the morning was over, and they found themselves in the restaurant, they felt as if they had known each other intimately for years.

In spite of Blanche's protests, Jules ordered a bottle of champagne and an elaborate luncheon.

"I suppose I ought to have asked Madeleine to come," he said, "but I wanted to be alone with you. Some day before your mother returns, we'll have another fête, and take Madeleine with us."

In the morning, when he spoke about a definite engagement, and she protested that her mother must be consulted, he had told her of his talk with Madame Perrault at the railway station. Now he went on to make plans for their marriage. There was no reason, he argued, why they should wait a long time; her mother had been engaged to Monsieur Berthier for three years, but she would not marry till Blanche had a protector. Jules liked to talk of himself in this character; it gave him a feeling of importance. So, altogether, he went on, the sooner the marriage took place the better. He would give up his place in the wool-house, and devote himself to his wife's career; for, of course, they couldn't be separated. They would be very happy travelling about, from one end of the world to the other.

It never occurred to either of them that Blanche might retire from the ring after marriage. She herself seemed to regard the circus as part of her life; she had been born in it, and she belonged to it as long as she was able to perform. As for Jules, he could not have dissociated her from the thought of the circus. Even now he felt as if he had himself become wedded to it, that he had acquired a kind of proprietary interest in it. He discussed Blanche's professional engagements as if they were his own. Why, he asked, couldn't the marriage take place during the weeks that intervened between her engagement at the Cirque Parisien and her appearance in Vienna? Jeanne and Louise could come up to Paris for Christmas and the New Year, and be present at the ceremony. By that time he would have his affairs arranged so that he could go with her to Vienna.

Of course, they must dismiss Pelletier after their marriage. Jules would take charge of his wife's affairs; his capacity for business would enable him to make good terms for her. He would plan wonderful tours; he would write to America, perhaps, and secure engagements for her there; artists were wonderfully well paid in America, better than in any other country, and they would enjoy seeing the new world together.

Blanche listened to his talk with a touching confidence; she seemed to think it natural that he should speak as if he had authority over her. She made no protest against any of his suggestions, though she repeated that nothing could be decided till her mother returned to Paris.

"But we'll write to your mother," said Jules. "We'll write to her this very day – this afternoon when we go back."

For a moment her face clouded.

"What's the matter? Don't you want me to write to your mother?"

She did not reply at once. When she did speak, she kept her eyes fixed on her plate.

"It will be so hard to be separated from her."

Jules laughed, and bent toward her.

"But you can't stay with her always," he said tenderly. "Then we'll take Madeleine with us. That will be a capital plan. She's strong and healthy, though she's over sixty, and she won't mind the travelling. Besides, we shall be in Vienna three months, and we'll rent a little apartment. It will be like being at home."

He spoke as if their future were settled, and his tone of confidence seemed to reassure her.

"I should like to have Madeleine," she said simply. "She is so good."

On their return to the apartment, they devoted themselves to writing long letters to Madame Perrault. Jules' letter was full of rhapsodies, of promises to be kind to the girl who had consented to be his wife, and of his plans for the future. They read their letters to each other, or rather Jules read all of his, and Blanche read part of hers, firmly refusing to allow him to hear the rest. They spent a very happy afternoon together, and in the evening Madeleine had a sumptuous dinner for them, with an enormous bunch of fresh roses on the table. In the evening they went to the Comédie Française, to finish what Jules declared to be the happiest day of his life.

Jules counted that day as the beginning of his real career. He looked back on himself during the years he had lived before it almost with pity. Since leaving the lycée, he had been merely a drudge, a piece of mechanism in the odious machinery of business. He had been content enough, but with the contentment of ignorance. How lonely and sordid his existence out of the office had been! He thought of his solitary dinners in cafés, surrounded by wretched beings like himself deprived of the happiness that comes from home and from an honest love. To the twins and his other comrades at the office he said nothing of the change that had taken place in his life; he was afraid they would chaff him; of course, when they heard he was going to marry an acrobat, they would make foolish jokes and treat him with a familiar levity. He determined not to tell them of his marriage until the eve of his departure from business; he would have to give the firm at least a fortnight's notice; but he would merely explain to Monsieur Mercier that he intended to devote a few months to travel, and thought of going to America.

Madame Perrault replied at once to Jules' letter. She made no pretence of being surprised by the news it contained; and she expressed her pleasure at the engagement, and gave her consent. But they must not make any definite plans until her return to Paris. That would be in about two weeks, for Aunt Sophie was very much better now and rapidly gaining strength, though she had as yet been unable to leave her bed. As soon as Sophie could go out, she was to be carried to the house of her cousin, Angélique Magnard, who would give her the best of care. Then Madame Perrault would be able to take Jeanne and Louise to Paris for the holidays; the girls were wild to see their dear Blanche again and to meet Jules. Monsieur Berthier talked of coming with them; he, too, was eager to make the acquaintance of Blanche's future husband.

After these preliminaries, Madame Perrault devoted herself to practical matters. She felt it her duty to inform Monsieur Jules that Blanche had no dot; she had earned a great deal of money, but most of it had been spent in maintaining the family; since the death of her father she had been their sole support. Of course, after marriage, her daughter's earnings would belong to Jules; but he must distinctly understand that he was taking a penniless bride. After her own marriage, Madame Perrault would have no fear for the future; Monsieur Berthier had promised of his own accord to provide for the girls; indeed, it was chiefly for their sake that, at the age of fifty-three, she was willing to marry again. So Blanche would no longer have her family dependent on her.

Jules replied with an impassioned letter. He didn't care whether Blanche had a dot or not. He wanted to marry her because he loved her, because without her his life would be unendurable: he would marry her if she were the poorest girl in France. It took him several pages to say this, and he read the letter with satisfaction, and then aloud to Blanche, who laughed over it, and gave him a timid little kiss in acknowledgment of his devotion. He thought he had done a commendable act, and he felt convinced that every word he had written was true.

At the office Jules grew reserved, and he resented haughtily the familiarities of the twins. Indeed, to all of his companions in the wool-house he could not help displaying the superiority he felt. He would be there only a few weeks longer, and he acted as if he were conferring a favor on his employer by staying. The twins spent many hours in discussing the change in him; but they could not discover the cause.

"You ought to have heard him talk to old Mercier the other day," said Leroux. "You'd think he was the President receiving a deputation."

Early in November, Blanche received a letter from her mother, saying Aunt Sophie was so much better that they had decided to move her the next day, and two days later she would herself leave Boulogne with the girls and Monsieur Berthier. Jules was both glad and sorry to hear the news, – sorry because his long tête-à-têtes with Blanche would end for a time, and glad because he would be able to arrange definitely with her mother for the marriage. Madeleine grieved at parting with the girl, but was consoled when Jules explained that she would probably be needed every night at the circus after Madame Perrault's return, for, of course, Monsieur Berthier would want to take his fiancée to the theatres. In speaking of Monsieur Berthier, Jules had adopted a facetious tone, which half-amused and half-pained Blanche.

"How droll it will be," he said one day, "to have two pairs of lovers billing and cooing together."

"Mamma doesn't bill and coo," the girl replied, with just a suggestion of resentment in her tone. "She's too sensible." Then Jules patted her affectionately on the cheek, and told her she mustn't take what he said so seriously.

"Monsieur Berthier must be a very good man, or he wouldn't get such a good wife," he said lightly. Then, with a comic look in his eyes, he added as an afterthought: "What a very good person I must be!"

The next night, when Jules appeared in the rue St. Honoré for dinner, he found the little apartment crowded. Madame Perrault embraced him, and by addressing him as "my son," seemed to receive him formally into the family. Then she introduced the two girls, who were much larger than he had imagined them to be. Jeanne, rosy-cheeked and black-eyed, approached him fearlessly, and offered her hand with a smile; Louise, fair and slight, with her light brown hair braided down her back, looked frightened, and blushed furiously when she received her salutation. The little fat man standing in front of the mantel, Jules recognized at once from his pointed white beard and laughing eyes.

"I should have known you in a crowd on the Boulevard," Jules said, as he extended his hand. "You're exactly like your photograph."

"And you are even better-looking than Mathilde said you were," Monsieur Berthier replied. "Ah, little one," he went on, turning to Blanche, and giving her a pinch on the arm, "you're getting a fine, handsome husband."

Jules tried to make friends with the girls. With Jeanne he had no difficulty; she was quite ready to banter with him, and he found her pert and quick-witted. Louise, however, was so shy that he could extract only monosyllables from her. She seemed to him very like Blanche, only less pretty. Jeanne had Blanche's beauty, more highly-colored and exuberant; her snapping black eyes showed, too, that she had a will and a temper of her own. Jules began to chaff her, to make her show her spirit, but she parried his jests good-humoredly, and she retaliated very smartly.

"I don't see how you ever dared to fall in love with Blanche," she said. "Aren't you afraid of her?"

"Afraid of her?" Jules laughed. "Why should I be afraid of her?"

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose because she's so good. I'm afraid of her sometimes. And I'm afraid of Louise when she gets her pious look on. How did you happen to fall in love with her? Do tell me. I'll never tell in the world."

"I just saw her, that's all," Jules explained with mock gravity. "Isn't that enough?"

"In the circus?"

Jules nodded.

"Then you fell in love with her because she does such wonderful things, and looks so beautiful in the ring. Now, you wouldn't have fallen in love if you'd just met her like any one else."

"But it was because she wasn't like anyone else that I did fall in love with her," Jules insisted, with the air of carrying on the joke.

"But if she'd never been in the circus – if you'd just met her here, or anywhere else except in the circus – do you think you would have fallen in love with her then?"

"Of course I should," Jules replied unhesitatingly, though he knew he was lying.

Jeanne shrugged her shoulders and looked skeptical.

"I wish I could be in the circus," she said, "and get flowers, and be admired, and earn a lot of money like Blanche. And isn't it the funniest thing," she went on, growing more confidential, "Blanche doesn't care about it at all."

"About the flowers, and being admired, and all that?"

"Yes. And she says the circus isn't a good place for a young girl. But I say if it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me. Anyway, if mamma doesn't let me do what Blanche does, I'm going on the stage when I grow up."

Jules was amused by her talk, and drew her out by deft questions. While she was animatedly describing her life in the convent of Boulogne, where the nuns were always holding up Louise as a model of good behavior to her, dinner was announced, and they all went out into the dining-room, where Jules and Blanche had passed so many hours together. This time Jules' place was between Jeanne and Louise. Jeanne went on with her chatter, and Louise scarcely spoke, save to Blanche, with whom she kept exchanging affectionate smiles.

"The girls are vexed with me," said Madame Perrault, "because I won't let them go to the Circus to-night."

The pale face of Louise brightened with eagerness and Jeanne turned to her mother and cried pleadingly:

"Oh, I think it's a shame. The first time we've been in Paris, too, and we want to see Blanche perform again so much! Why can't we go, mamma? Please, please let us go."

"Oh, let the children go," said Monsieur Berthier good-naturedly. "It would be cruel to send them to bed early their first night in Paris."

Then Jules added his voice in the girls' behalf, but Madame Perrault shook her head decidedly.

"I can't have them up so late. Besides, they need to rest after their journey. If you are good, Jeanne, and don't tease me to go to-night, I'll take you and Louise to the matinée on Saturday."

"Oh, the matinée!" Jeanne pouted, turning for sympathy to Jules. "Who cares for the matinée! Isn't it too bad?" she went on in a low voice, so that her mother shouldn't hear her. "When I grow up, Monsieur Jules, I shall go to the theatre every night – yes, every night of my life. I don't care what happens."

Jeanne was sullen and Louise looked sad when they were left alone with Charlotte, the little maid.

"I won't go to bed till twelve o'clock," Jeanne cried, as her mother, with parting injunctions, went out, followed by the others. "I shall sit up and cry all the evening."

"Nine o'clock, my dear," said Madame Perrault serenely. "You know what I said about Saturday."

The door was slammed behind them and, as they filed downstairs, they heard Jeanne go stamping back into the salon.

"Don't you think you're severe with the child, Mathilde?" said Berthier.

"No, Félix, not too severe, if you mean that. It's the only way to keep her in check. She has too much spirit. I'm afraid of it sometimes."