POPPING THE QUESTION.
On the following day, true to his word, the O'Hoolohan Roe might be seen
pulling the bell at the door of No. 39, in the Rue de la Vieille
Estrapade. He was elaborately got up in a suit of brand-new garments of
blue cloth, which did not fit his short, stout form too nicely. He had
bought them at a cheap slop warehouse, and doubtless paid more than he
would have been asked at one of the modest, humdrum establishments where
clothes are made to wear as well as sell. His hat was new and glistened
in the sunshine, for the day was one of those pet days which surprise us
in early spring; in his gloved hands (yes, absolutely gloved) he
flourished a silver-headed Malacca cane; on his broad breast were ranged
in rainbow row, under a nosegay, perhaps a little too large, the
vari-coloured ribbons of innumerable decorations. He marched up the
staircase with a firm, a pretentiously firm step, until he reached the
corridor, off which lay the apartment of Captain Chauvin; and then he
stopped and listened. The tinkle-tinkle of a piano, lightly touched on
the treble, reached his ears through the keyhole. He halted and
blushed--searched in the back-pockets of his new coat for his
handkerchief--drew it out and vehemently rubbed his face. His face
looked hot; the application of the handkerchief seemed to make it
hotter. When he put back his handkerchief, a waft of perfume rested on
the air. Scarcely had he restored it to his pocket, when his hand sought
the pocket again. What! can he be going to display it anew? How fidgety
the man looks! No; that is not the loud-patterned square of cambric,
three horses' heads printed on its corner, which he brings forth this
time, but--it can hardly be believed--an oval pocket-mirror. He inspects
his hot, red face in its disk, goes through the motion of raising his
shirt-collar, brushes back his hair, replaces his hat on his head, and
the mirror in his pocket, and coughs.
'Amour, amour, quand tu nous tiens.'
What it is to be in love!
Hist!--he speaks. Is he formulating the compliments he is about to make?
No; he soliloquizes, and in what a curt, unnatural voice--a shamefaced
voice! Listen:
'I'm a fool. Rather lead a forlorn hope!'
And then he raps at the door with a desperate audacity, with the air of
a man who had nerved himself to something heroic.
The door swung back on its hinges, and the tall brunette, with the proud
melancholy face, she who was like to the dead Marguerite, stood before
him. She did not know him at first, so completely had love and the new
suit of clothes transformed him.
'Good-morning, ma'amselle; how is grandfather?'
Old Chauvin, who was seated in his armchair beside Berthe at the piano,
rose at the sound of the voice, and, advancing to the door, grasped him
by both hands and drew him into the middle of the room.
'Welcome, welcome, my Irish friend; I was afraid you had forgotten us. I
was with Monsieur O'Hara, and he did not know your address, or I would
have called on you in person to render you my thanks for your present to
my little Song-bird. See, she was practising one of your plaintive airs
as you entered. What a world of sadness is in your Irish music! It is
like the sighing of the wind through a lonely forest in the night-time.'
The O'Hoolohan Roe approached the piano. A richly-bound volume of Gaelic
music, a harp rising in golden relief from its ground of green on the
cover, lay before Berthe. The page at which it was open was headed, in
illuminated letters, _Eiblin-a-ruin_. The white neck of the maiden
suffused with a delicate pink, such a pink as we see sometimes colouring
the sea-shell, at the undisguised glance of admiration of the Irishman.
She tossed up her pretty head, looking so classic under its canopy of
chestnut hair, and regarded him with frank eyes as he began to speak. It
was too much for the O'Hoolohan Roe; he was not proof against woman's
gaze; he got embarrassed, stuttered in the middle of some phrase of
congratulation about the correctness of her taste, and finally fell back
_hors de combat_. To add to his confusion, there was a traitorous crash
as he flopped down in a chair--the hand-mirror in his back-pocket was
broken! She followed him with an arch, wicked smile; her brown eyes
wilfully sparkled, and a line of ivory showed itself between the cherry
bordering of her lips.
It was a critical moment. But the _esprit Français_ is not wanting in
ingenuity. It is equal to every occasion.
'Shall I play this beautiful air for our kind friend, grandfather? It is
a poor way to show my gratitude, but it is the best and only way I
have.'
The O'Hoolohan Roe opened a sentence which, we dare say, might have been
very eloquent had it been completed, but unluckily a severe fit of
coughing arrested him mid-way, and necessitated the production of the
perfumed handkerchief.
'Do, dear,' said Captain Chauvin.
'I am in love with it; I think I could almost play it in the dark.'
The O'Hoolohan Roe seemed as if he would have no particular objection to
a nether darkness--a darkness that would shut out his presence even from
himself--falling on the scene.
Berthe commenced playing. The spirit of music lives and moves and has
its being in the Gaelic air, and she played as one who felt, admired,
and held communion with that spirit--not with her fingers merely, but
with her soul, a beautiful, sensitive, emotional soul. The chords
thrilled like sentient creatures, and voiced their melodious plaints,
now one by one, now in murmuring volume, until the very atmosphere was
languid with the melting sweetness, and the pathetic notes stole out by
the flowers and the enraptured throstle in the window to soar upwards to
the clouds.
The O'Hoolohan Roe listened entranced. As the last note died away he
grew more fidgety than ever, and moved about uneasily in his chair. The
perfumed handkerchief was scarcely ever out of his hand. Evidently, he
was endeavouring to screw his courage to the sticking-place.
The brunette, ostensibly busy over an embroidery-frame, watched him with
an amused look. Berthe toyed with the keys of the piano.
'Captain Chauvin,' he began at last, 'I have something important to say
to you--something private.'
The brunette rose and left for the inner room. Berthe was preparing to
follow her, but the Irishman, whose courage fortunately appeared to
re-assert itself as the emergency neared, interposed.
'Stay, ma'amselle,' he said; ''tis of you I would talk; perhaps I may
want your assistance.'
She sank back in her seat with a puzzled look, regarded him a moment,
and reddened with the characters of virgin modesty. Why? The quick
instinct of woman had divined the meaning of his visit in his
countenance. She was not displeased; who could be displeased at
discovering that they are loved? As Berthe turned her eyes from this
robust, square-built man, in the palmy vigour of his manhood, and felt
that he, so strangely weak and confused at sight of her, did indeed
truly, passionately love her with the force of his sanguine temperament,
there was a pit-a-pat under her bosom which made it visibly undulate;
the blood rose to tropic heat in her veins and poured its tell-tale tide
in rosy current over her neck and arms. She was loved--ineffable
happiness for woman! Could she help loving in return? There is a
yearning in every female breast for sympathy, a sense of void to be
filled. Her naïve purity could not refuse the gift she had long desired,
long dreamed of; she filled with a gladness which she averted her face
to conceal.
'Captain Chauvin,' resumed the Irishman, 'you have been a soldier.'
The old Frenchman bowed acquiescence.
'So have I. You have fought under many generals?'
'I fought under the greatest master of war France ever produced, or the
world ever crowned with glory!' and the aged voice swelled and the aged
eye brightened.
'Did you ever remark that, while some would be cautiously laying their
parallels and making all the preparations of military science to take a
fortified town, others would trust to luck, rush to the attack at once,
and seize the citadel by storm? The gods often favour audacity.'
'The audacity of genius--such audacity as Napoleon possessed. Oh! I
admire the brave man who rushes forward boldly to his aim.'
The O'Hoolohan Roe was getting more at ease; a smile might even be
detected lurking at the corners of his mouth.
'The soldier's life is not always happy, captain; the camp and the
barrack have their excitement, but there is a--a--a sort of an
emptiness.'
'Alas! yes,' and the old man sighed and carried his hand to his face.
'Alas! yes'--he brushed away something from the neighbourhood of his
eye; 'these pestering flies, how early in the season they come this
year! Here is one has got under my lashes and brings the water down my
cheeks. We were speaking about the soldier's life. Have you ever read
Michelet's treatise on Love?'
The voice was broken.
'Never.'
The O'Hoolohan was beginning to be curiously fidgety again.
'I have been reading it these latter days. A wise, affectionate book
written by a wise, affectionate man. It was in it I found an Indian
maxim referred to which says _la femme c'est la maison_: "the wife is
the home." There, sir, you have the whole philosophy of the soldier's
unsatisfying life. He has no home; he wants the wife to make it.'
The old man buried his face in his hands.
There was a long pause, during which Berthe, agitated at the turn the
conversation had taken, could count the throbbing of her pulse. Her
grandfather, no longer able to dissemble his anguish, silently nursed
his grief in the cradle of memory. The suitor, who had been craftily
leading up the dialogue to the avowal he wished, yet feared to make, if
his face were index, was a prey to a violent mental struggle. At length,
with an effort, which made itself physically perceptible in a jump on
his chair, he broke the silence:
'Captain Chauvin, you're listening. About this private business I would
speak with you.'
The old man raised his head.
'You have a grand-daughter.'
Berthe tried to rise from her seat, but found herself unable. Poor,
pretty creature, she had miscalculated her strength. She had yet to
learn that there are other feelings that can rob the limbs of their
functions than terror or ecstasy of joy.
The Irishman resumed:
'I want a wife. _Voilà toute l'affaire!_'
Sure never was a maiden wooed in such a fashion; sure never was a hand
so demanded. 'Faint heart never won fair lady,' saith the proverb, and
there is truth in it. The old man looked from his visitor to Berthe, and
from Berthe to his visitor.
'You have an open face,' he said at length; 'you have been a soldier,
and I trust a soldier's honour not to betray the confidence of a
comrade. I feel that I am getting old, and my Song-bird will want a
protector. You would guard her----'
'As the apple of my eye.'
'You can guard her?'
'I would not lead those I love on the path of misery.'
'Seek your answer from the child herself; I can read it already.'
Gently the strong man approached the girl, reverently almost, as one
would approach a sanctuary. He laid his hand on the soft wavy surface of
her chestnut hair, and in a voice whose soldierly firmness was modulated
to gentlest coaxing persuasion he whispered:
'Darling, I wait on thee. Wilt thou accept the hand of an honest man?
'Tis rough, but there is no stain of dishonour upon it.'
'_J'accepte!_' murmured the girl in reply, and raised her face aglow
with passionate trustfulness to his, and as he imprinted the kiss of
betrothal on those candid lips, innocent of contact with man's lips
before, the door of the inner room opened, and the brunette, who had
been reared with Berthe, worn out probably with waiting for her little
friend, stood transfixed, a picture of amazement, on its threshold.