A FEW evenings afterwards Bigourdin gave a dinner of ceremony to the
Viriots—and a dinner of ceremony in provincial France is a very
ceremonious and elaborate affair. All day long there had been anxious
preparations. Félise abandoning the _fabrique_, toiled assiduously with
Euphémie, while Bigourdin, expert chef like all good hotel-keepers,
controlled everything with his master touch. The crazily ceremonious
hour of seven-thirty was fixed upon; not only on account of its
ceremoniousness, but because by that time the commercial travellers
would have finished their meal and melted away. The long middle table
was replaced by a round table prodigally adorned with flowers and four
broad tricolour ribbons, each like the sash of Monsieur le Maire,
radiating from under a central silver épergne laden with fruit of which
a pineapple was the crown. A bewildering number of glasses of different
shapes stood at each place, to be filled each kind in its separate order
with the wine ordained for each separate course. Martin rehearsed the
wine service over and over again with a solemn Bigourdin. As a
lieutenant he had the _plongeur_ (or washer-up of glass and crockery)
from the Café de l’Univers, an earnest neophyte tense with the
excitement of practising a higher branch of his profession.
Hosts and guests were ceremoniously attired; Bigourdin and the elder
Viriot suffocated in tightly buttoned frock-coats of venerable and
painful fit; Lucien, more dashing, wore a morning coat (last cry of Bond
Street) acquired recently from the “High Life” emporium in Paris; all
three men retained yellow dogskin gloves until they sat down to table.
Madame Viriot, stout and placid, appeared in her black silk dress and an
old lace collar and her very best hat with her very best black ostrich
feather secured by the old rose-diamond buckle, famous throughout the
valley of the Dordogne, which had belonged to her
great-great-grandmother; and, lastly, Félise wore a high-necked simple
frock of dazzling whiteness which might have shewn up her delicate dark
colouring had not her cheeks been inordinately pale.
Bigourdin had Madame Viriot on his right, Monsieur Viriot on his left,
and Félise sat between Monsieur Viriot and Lucien. Every one was most
ceremoniously polite. It was “_mon cher_ Viriot,” and “_mon cher_
Bigourdin,” and the formal “_vous_” instead of the “_mon vieux_” and the
“_tu_” of the café and of ordinary life; also, “_chère madame_,” and
“Monsieur Lucien” and “_ma nièce_.” And although from childhood Félise
and Lucien had called each other by their Christian names, it was now
“monsieur” and “mademoiselle” between them. You see, marriage is in
France a deuce of a ceremony which begins months before anybody dreams
of setting the wedding bells a-ringing. This dinner of ceremony was the
first scene of the first act of the elaborate drama which would end on
the curtain being run down to the aforesaid wedding-bells. Really, when
one goes into the question, and considers all the barbed wire
entanglements that French law and custom interpose between two young
people who desire to become man and wife, one not only wonders how any
human pair can go through the ordeal and ever marry at all, but is
profoundly convinced that France is the most moral country on the face
of the globe. As a matter of fact, it is.
It was a long meal of many courses. Martin, aided by the _plongeur_,
acquitted himself heroically. Manners professional and individual, and
also the strain of service prevented him from attending to the
conversation. But what he could not avoid overhearing did not impress
him with its brilliance. It was a self-conscious little company. It
threw about statistics as to the state of the truffle crop; it listened
to Lucien’s modest anecdotes of his military career; it decided that
Parisians were greatly to be pitied in that fate compelled them to live
in Paris instead of Brantôme. Even the flush of good cheer failed to
inspire it with heartiness. For this perhaps the scared unresponsiveness
of one of the chief personages was responsible.
“Are you fond of dogs, mademoiselle?” asked Lucien, valiant in small
talk.
“_Oui, monsieur_,” replied Félise.
“Have you any now, mademoiselle?”
“_Non, monsieur_,” replied Félise.
“The beautiful poodle that was so clever is dead, I believe,” remarked
Madame Viriot in support of her son.
“_Oui, madame_,” replied Félise.
However alluring to the young Frenchman about to marry may be timid
innocence with downcast eyes, yet, when it is to such a degree
monosyllabic, conversation does not sparkle. Martin, accustomed to her
tongue wagging charmingly, wondered at her silence. What more attractive
companion could she desire than the _beau sabreur_ by her side? And she
ate next to nothing. When she was about to decline a _bécasse au fumet_,
as to the success of which Euphémie’s heart was beating like a
sledge-hammer, he whispered in her ear,
“Just a little bit. Do.”
And as she helped herself, he saw the colour mount to her neck. He felt
quite pleased at having prevailed on her to take nourishment.
What happened after the meal in the private salon, where Félise,
according to sacred rite, served coffee and liqueurs, Martin did not
know. He was too busy with Euphémie and the chambermaid and Baptiste and
the _plongeur_ in cleaning up after the banquet. Besides, as the waiter
of the establishment, what should he have been doing in that ceremonious
gathering?
When the work was finished and a concluding orgy on broken meats and
half emptied bottles had been temperately concluded, and Euphémie for
the hundredth time had been informed of the exact appreciation which
each particular dish had received from Monsieur and Madame
Viriot—“young people, you see,” she explained, “have their own affairs
and they see everything rose-coloured, and you could give them boiled
horse-liver and they wouldn’t know the difference between that and
_ris-de-veau à l’Impériale_; it doesn’t matter what you put into the
stomachs of children; but with old, serious folks, it is very important.
I made the stomach of Monsieur Viriot the central idea of my dinner—I
have known the stomach of Monsieur Viriot for twenty years—also that of
Madame, for old ladies, _voyez-vous_, know more than you think”—and
when the weary and zealous servants had gone their separate ways, Martin
locked up, and, escaping from the generous atmosphere of the kitchen,
entered the dimly lit vestibule with the idea of smoking a quiet
cigarette before going to bed. There he found Bigourdin, sprawling his
great bulk over the cane-seated couch.
“Did things go all right?” he asked.
“Wonderfully. Everybody dined well. They can go to the _ban_ and
_arrière-ban_ of their friends and relations and say that there is not
such a _cuisine_ in Périgord as at the Hôtel des Grottes. And the
service was excellent. Not the smallest hitch. I congratulate you and
thank you, _mon ami_. But _ouf_!”—he took a great breath of relief—“I
am glad it is over. I was not built for the formalities of society. _Ça
vous fatigue!_”
“It’s also fatiguing from the waiter’s point of view,” laughed Martin.
“But it is all necessary when one has a young girl to marry. The father
and mother of the young man expect it. It is very complicated. Soon
there will be the formal demand in marriage. They will wear
gloves—_c’est idiot_—but what would you have? It is the custom. And
then there will be a dinner of ceremony at the Viriots’. He has some
Chambertin in his cellar, my old friend Viriot—ah, _mon petit_
Martin!”—he blew a kiss to the purple goddess beloved of Bacchus and by
him melted into each cobwebbed bottle—“It is the only thing that
reconciles me to it. Truth to say, one dines abominably at the Viriots.
If he does not produce some of that Chambertin, I withdraw the dowry of
Félise.”
“It’s all arranged then?” Martin asked.
“All what?”
“The marriage.”
“Without doubt.”
“Then Monsieur Lucien has been accepted by Mademoiselle Félise? I mean,
he has proposed to her, as we English say?”
“_Mais non!_” cried Bigourdin, with a shocked air. “Lucien is a
correctly brought up young man and would not offend the proprieties in
that matter. It is not the affair of Lucien and Félise, it is the affair
of the two families, the parents; and for Félise I am _in loco
parentis_. Propose to Félise! What are you talking about?”
“It all interests me so much,” replied Martin. “In England we manage
differently. When a man wants to marry a girl, he asks her, and when
they have fixed up everything between themselves, they go and announce
the fact to their families.”
To which Bigourdin made the amazing answer:
“_C’est le phlègme britannique!_”
British phlegm! When a man takes his own unphlegmatic way with a maid!
Martin could find no adequate retort. He was knocked into a cocked hat.
He threw away his cigarette and, being very tired, half stifled a yawn.
Bigourdin responded mightily and rose to his feet.
“_Allons dodo_,” said he. “All this has been terribly fatiguing.”
* * * * *
So fatiguing had it all been that Félise, for the first time since the
chicken-pox and measles of childhood, remained in her bed the next day.
Euphémie, her personal attendant, found her in the morning a wan ghost
with a splitting headache, and forbade her to rise. She filled her up
with _tilleul_, the decoction of lime-leaves which in French households
is the panacea for all ills, and, good and comfortable gossip, extolled,
in Gallic hyperbole, the dazzling qualities of Monsieur Lucien. At last,
fever-eyed and desperate, Félise sat up in bed and pointed to the door.
“_Ma bonne Euphémie, laisse-moi tranquille! Va-t’en! Fich’-moi la
paix!_”
Euphémie gaped in bewilderment. It was as though a dove had screamed:
“Leave me alone! Go away! Go to Blazes!”
“_Ah, la! la! ma pauvre petite!_” Euphémie knew not what she was saying,
but she went. She went to Bigourdin and told him that mademoiselle was
in delirium, she had brain-fever, and if he wanted to save her reason,
he must send at once for the doctor. The doctor came, diagnosed a chill
on the vaguest of symptoms, and ordered _soupe à l’huile_. This invalid
fare is a thin vegetable soup with a layer of salad oil floating on the
top with the object of making the liquid slip gratefully down the
gullet: the French gullet, be it understood. Félise, in spite of her
lifelong French training, had so much of England lingering in her
œsophagus, that it abhorred _soupe à l’huile_. The good doctor’s advice
failed. She fasted in bed all day, declaring that, headache apart, she
was perfectly well, and the following morning, a wraith of herself,
arose and went about her ordinary avocations.
“But what is the matter with her?” asked Bigourdin of Martin. “Nothing
could have disagreed with her at that abominable dinner, because she
didn’t eat anything.”
As Martin could throw no light on the sudden malady of Félise, Bigourdin
lit a cigarette and inhaled a huge puff.
“It needs a woman, _voyez-vous_, to look after a young girl. Men are no
good. There are a heap of secrets——” With his arms he indicated Mount
Blanc piled on Mount Everest. “I shall be glad when she is well and duly
married. Perhaps the approaching betrothal affects her. Women have
nerves like that. She is anxious to know the result of the negotiations.
At the present moment the Viriots are free to make or make not their
demand. It would be good to reassure her a little. What do you think?”
Martin gave utterance to the profound apophthegm: “There is nothing so
upsetting as uncertainty.”
“That is my idea!” cried Bigourdin. “Pardon me for consulting you on
these details so intimate and a little sacred. But you have a clear
intelligence and a loyal heart.”
So it came to pass that, after _déjeuner_, Bigourdin took Félise into
their own primly and plushily furnished salon, and, like an amiable bull
in a boudoir, proceeded to smash up the whole of her universe.
“There is no doubt,” he proclaimed, “Monsieur and Madame Viriot have
dreamed of it for ten years. I give you a dowry—there is no merit in
it, because I love you like my own daughter—but I give you a dowry such
as there are not many in Périgord. Lucien loves you. He is _bon garçon_.
It has never entered his head to think of another woman for his wife. It
is all arranged. In two or three days—you must allow for the
_convenances_—Monsieur Viriot and Lucien will call on me. So, my dear
little angel, do not be afraid.”
Félise had listened to this, white-faced and hollow-eyed. “But I don’t
want to marry Lucien, _mon oncle_!”
“_Comment?_ You don’t want to marry Lucien?”
“No, _mon oncle_.”
“But——” He swept the air with a protesting gesture.
“I have already told you so,” said Félise.
“But, _ma chère petite_, that wasn’t serious. It was because you had
some stupid and beautiful idea of not deserting me. That is all
imbecile. Young people must marry, _sacrebleu_! so that the race is
perpetuated, and fathers and mothers and uncles don’t count.”
“But what has that to do with it, _mon oncle_?” protested Félise. “I
find Lucien very charming; but I don’t love him. If I loved him, I would
marry him. But as I don’t love him, I can’t marry him.”
“But marry him and you will love him,” cried Bigourdin, as millions of
French fathers and uncles have cried for the last three or four hundred
years. “It is very simple. What more do you want than a gallant fellow
like Lucien?”
Then, of course, she broke down, and began to cry. Bigourdin, unused to
feminine tears, tried to clutch his hair. If it had been longer than
half an inch of upstanding bristle, he would have torn it.
“You don’t understand, _mon oncle_,” she sobbed, with bowed head. “It is
only my mother who can advise me. I must see my mother.”
Bigourdin put his arm round the girl’s slender shoulders. “Your mother,
my poor Félise, sees nobody.”
She raised her head and flashed out: “She sees my father. She lives with
him in the same house. Why shouldn’t she see me?”
“_Tiens, tiens_, my little Félise,” said Bigourdin soothingly. “There is
no need for you to consult your mother. Both your father and your mother
have a long while ago decided that you should marry Lucien. Do you think
I would take a step of which they did not approve?”
“A long while ago is not to-day,” sobbed Félise. “I want to talk to my
mother.”
Bigourdin walked across the salon, with his back to her, and snapped his
fingers in peculiar agitation, and muttered below his breath: “_Nom de
Dieu, de nom de Dieu, de nom de Dieu!_” Kindest-hearted of mortals
though he was, he resented the bottom being knocked out of his scheme of
social existence. For years he had looked forward to this alliance with
the Viriots. Personally he had nothing to gain: on the contrary, he
stood to lose the services of Félise and a hundred thousand francs. But
he had set his heart on it, and so had the Viriots. To go to them and
say, “My niece refuses to marry your son,” would be a slash of the whip
across their faces. His failure to bring up a young girl in the proper
sentiments would be a disgrace to him in the eyes of the community. He
felt hurt, too, because he no longer sufficed her; she wanted her
mother; and it was out of the question that she should go to her mother.
No wonder he swore to himself softly.
“But, _mon Dieu_,” said he, turning round. “What have you against
Lucien?”
Whereupon they went over all the argument again. She did not love
Lucien. She didn’t want to marry Lucien. She would not marry a man she
did not love.
“Then you will die an old maid,” said Bigourdin. “An old maid,
_figure-toi_! It would be terrible!”
Félise sniffed at such terrors. Bigourdin, in desperation, asked what he
was to tell the Viriots. “The truth,” said Félise. But what was the
truth?
“Tell me, my little Félise,” said he, gently, “there is, by chance, no
one else?”
Then Félise waxed indignant and routed the unhappy man. She gave him to
understand that she was a _jeune fille bien élevée_ and was not in the
habit of behaving like a kitchenmaid. It was cruel and insulting to
accuse her of clandestine love-affairs. And Bigourdin, bound by his
honourable conventions, knew that she was justified in her resentment.
Again he plucked at his bristles, scared by the spectacle of outraged
maidenhood. The tender-eyed dove had become a flashing little eagle. A
wilier man than he might have suspected the over-protesting damsel.
Woman-like, she pressed her advantage.
“_Mon oncle_, I love you with all my heart, but you are a man and you
don’t understand.”
“That is absolutely true,” said he.
“So you see there is only one person I can explain it to, and that is my
mother.”
Thus she completed the vicious little circle. And again the helpless
Bigourdin walked across the salon and turned his back on her and
muttered the incantation which brings relief to distracted man. But this
time she went up to him and put an arm round his great body and laid her
face against his sleeve.
“_Tu sais, je suis bien malheureuse._”
It was a knife stuck in the honest fellow’s heart. He caught her to him
and in his turn protested vehemently. He would not allow her to be
unhappy. He would cut off his head rather than allow her to be unhappy.
He would do anything—his French caution forbade an offer to send the
Viriots packing—anything in reason to bring the colour back to her
white cheeks.
Suddenly he had an inspiration which glowed all over his broad face and
caused him to hold her out at arms’ length and laugh joyously.
“You can’t see your mother—but there is your good Aunt Clothilde. She
will be a second mother to you. A woman so pious and so sympathetic. You
will be able to tell her all your troubles. She has married a regiment
of daughters. What she doesn’t know of young girls isn’t worth knowing.
You are tired, you are ill. You need a change, a little holiday. Go and
spend a month with her, and when you come back we’ll see what can be
done with regard to Lucien. I’ll write to her now.”
And without waiting to hear her demure “_Bien, mon oncle_,” he escaped
to the _bureau_ where he should find the writing materials which did not
profane the sacred primness of the salon, and plunged into
correspondence. Félise, left alone, pondered for a moment or two, with
faint wrinkling of her smooth forehead, and then, sketching a gesture of
fatalistic resignation, went off to the kitchen, where a great special
boiling of goose livers was in progress. On the way she met Martin
carrying a load of porcelain pots. But she passed him by coldly; and for
the rest of the day she scarcely threw at him a couple of words.
Meanwhile Bigourdin beamed over the letter to his elder sister
Clothilde, a comfortable and almost opulent widow who lived at Chartres.
They had not met for a dozen years, it is true, and she had only once
seen Félise; but the sense of the family is very strong in France,
especially where marriage alliances are concerned, and he had no doubt
that she would telegraph, as requested, and authorise him to entrust
Félise to her keeping. Verily it had been an inspiration. It was a
solution of difficulties. The Viriots had given signs of an almost
indecent hurry, which naturally had scared Félise. A month was a long
time. Clothilde was a woman of experience, tact and good sense. She
would know how to bring Félise to a reasonable state of mind. If she did
not succeed—well—he was not the man to force his little Félise into a
distasteful marriage. In any case he had a month’s respite.
Having stated his case at length, he went out into the town to post such
an important letter at the central _Postes et Télégraphes_, and on the
way back, looked in at the shop of the very respectable Madame Chauvet,
who, with her two elderly daughters, sold crucifixes and rosaries and
books of devotion and candles and all that would supply the devout needs
of the religious population. And after a prolonged and courtly
conversation, he induced Madame Chauvet, in consideration of their old
friendship, her expenses and an honorarium of twenty francs, to
undertake the safe convoy of Félise from Brantôme to the house of Madame
Robineau, her Aunt Clothilde, at Chartres.