A MOST IMPRUDENT THING
Madame Bourcet sat in the snuff-colored drawing-room, nursing her
rheumatism, when in walked Fifi as demure as the cat after it has eaten
the canary. She mentioned casually that she had bought a few things
for her trousseau, and Madame Bourcet presumed that the sum total of
expenditure was something like a hundred francs. Still, with visions of
the pink spangled gown which Fifi wished to buy for her presentation to
the Holy Father, Madame Bourcet thought it well to say, warningly:
“I hope your purchases were of a sober and substantial character,
warranted to wear well, and in quiet colors.”
“Wait, Madame, until you see them,” was Fifi’s diplomatic answer.
As soon as she could, she escaped to her own room, and, locking the
door, she opened her precious trunk with the relics of her theatrical
life in it, and began to handle them tenderly.
“Oh, you dear old wig, how happy I was when I wore you!” she said to
herself, clapping the white wig over her own rich brown hair. “When I
put you on I became a marquise at the court of Louis le Grand, and how
fine it seemed! Never mind, I shall be a marquise again, and get forty
francs the week at least! And how nice it will be to be quarreling with
Julie Campionet again, the wretch! And Duvernet--I shall not forget to
remind him of how I gave him my best white cotton petticoat for his
toga--and sewed it with my own fingers, too! And I shall say to him,
‘Recollect, Monsieur, I am no longer Fifi, but Mademoiselle Josephine
Chiaramonti, granddaughter of the cousin of a reigning sovereign, and
I am the young lady who won the grand prize in the lottery, and spent
it all; you never had a leading lady before who knew how to spend a
hundred thousand francs.’ I think I can see Duvernet now--and as I say
it I shall toy with my paste brooch. I can’t buy any jewels, for that
wouldn’t help me to get rid of Louis Bourcet, or to get Cartouche; so
I shall tell Duvernet that nothing in the way of diamonds seemed worth
while after those I had already.”
Fifi fondled her paste brooch, which was kept in the same shrine as
the white wig, and then she clasped to her breast Cartouche’s javelin,
made from a broomstick, and it seemed to her almost as if she were
clasping Cartouche. It put the notion into her head to write him a
letter, so she hastily closed her trunk, and sat down to write.
“Cartouche, I went out this morning, and spent ten thousand francs of
that odious money I won through that abominable lottery ticket you
gave me. I should think you would never cease reproaching yourself
if you knew how miserable that lottery ticket has made me. I bought
some of the most terrible gowns you ever saw, and a bed that cost five
thousand francs, and which the Empress couldn’t buy. I shall tell poor
Louis and Madame Bourcet that these gowns are for my trousseau--but,
of course, I have not the slightest idea of marrying Louis. I made up
my mind not to last night, the very moment I promised--and so I wrote
to you before I slept. It is not at all difficult to spend money; it
is as easy to spend five thousand francs for a bed as five, if you
have the money. And I had the money in my reticule. I shan’t tell you
now how I got it, but I did, just the same, Cartouche. I long to see
you. I did something for you to-day that I would not do for any one
else in the world. You know how afraid I am of monkeys? Well, I can
not explain in a letter, but you will be pleased when I tell you all.
Fifi.”
It was not Louis Bourcet’s habit to appear in his aunt’s apartment
until eight o’clock, but at six o’clock, seeing a great van drawn up
before the door, from which was disgorged innumerable large parcels
addressed to his fiancée, Louis, like other good men, was vanquished by
his curiosity. He mounted the stairs, on which he was jostled at every
step by men carrying huge pasteboard boxes of every size and shape, all
addressed to Mademoiselle Chiaramonti.
Fifi stood, with a brightly smiling face, at the head of the stairs,
directing the parcels to be carried into her own room. Louis, after
speaking to her, ventured to say:
“The cost of your purchases must be very great.”
“Yes,” answered Fifi, merrily, “but when one is about to make a grand
marriage, such as I am, one should have good clothes.”
Louis Bourcet, thus openly tickled under the fifth rib, smiled rather
anxiously, and replied:
“But one should be prudent, Mademoiselle. An extravagant wife would
give me a great deal of pain.”
“Ah, a woman happy enough to be married to you could not give you a
moment’s pain,” cried Fifi tenderly.
Louis started and blushed deeply,--this open lovemaking was a new
thing, and very embarrassing,--but it is difficult to tell the lady in
the case that she is too demonstrative.
Fifi, with a truly impish intelligence, saw at a glance the misery
she could inflict upon poor Louis by her demonstrations of affection,
and the discovery filled her with unholy joy, particularly as Madame
Bourcet, sitting in the snuff-colored drawing-room, was within hearing
through the open door.
“Only wait,” cried Fifi, as she skipped into her own room; “only wait
until you see me in these things I bought to-day, and you will be as
much in love with me as I am with you!”
Louis, blushing redder than any beet that ever grew, entered the
snuff-colored drawing-room and closed the door after him. Madame
Bourcet’s countenance showed that she had heard every word.
“In my day,” said she, in a severe tone, “young ladies did not fall in
love with their fiancés, much less proclaim the fact.”
Louis shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“We must make allowances, Aunt, for Mademoiselle Chiaramonti’s early
training--and we must not forget that her grandfather was cousin to His
Holiness, and Mademoiselle has a hundred thousand francs of her own.”
Louis mentally added, “and a hundred thousand francs is not picked up
with every girl.”
“She will not have a hundred thousand francs if she goes shopping like
this very often,” stiffly replied Madame Bourcet. “I should not be
surprised if she had squandered all of a thousand francs in one day.”
Just then the door opened, and a tremendous hat, with eleven large
feathers on it, and much else besides, appeared. Fifi’s delicate
bright face, now as solemn as a judge’s, was seen under this huge
creation. The red and green striped satin cloak, with the large lace
and fur-trimmed sleeves, concealed some of the yellow brocade with the
big purple flowers, but some yards of it were visible, trailing on
the floor. The bird of paradise fan and a muff the size of a barrel
completed Fifi’s costume.
Madame Bourcet gave a faint scream and Louis almost jumped out of his
chair at the show. Fifi, parading solemnly up and down, surveying
herself complacently, remarked:
“This is the costume I shall wear when we pay our visit of ceremony to
the Holy Father, upon my marriage.”
A dead pause followed. Both Madame Bourcet and Louis were too stunned
to speak. Fifi, seeing to what a state they were reduced, returned to
her room, and being an expert in quick changes of costume, reappeared
in a few minutes wearing one of the violently sensational negligées, in
which she looked like a living rainbow.
Neither Madame Bourcet nor Louis knew what to say at this catastrophe,
and therefore said nothing. But Fifi was voluble enough for both.
She harangued on the beauty of the costumes, and their extraordinary
cheapness, without mentioning the price, and claimed to have a gem of a
gown to exhibit, which would eclipse anything she had yet shown.
When she went to put this marvelous creation on, Madame Bourcet
recovered speech enough to say:
“A thousand francs, I said a few minutes ago--two thousand I say now.
Only ninety-eight thousand francs of her fortune is left--of that I am
sure.”
“I am not sure there is so much left,” responded Louis gloomily.
The door opened and a vision appeared. It was Fifi in the spangled
white ball gown _à la grecque_. The narrow, scanty skirt did not reach
to her ankles. The waist, according to the fashion of the time, was
under her arms, and the bodice was about four inches long. There were
no sleeves, only tiny straps across Fifi’s white arms; and her whole
outfit could have been put in Louis Bourcet’s waistcoat pocket.
Madame Bourcet fell back in her chair, with a groan. Louis rose, red
and furious, and said in portentous tones:
“You will excuse me, Mademoiselle, if I retire behind the screen while
you remain with that costume on in my presence.”
“Do you want me to take it off then?” asked Fifi airily; but Louis was
already behind the screen.
“Aunt,” he called out sternly, “kindly let me know when Mademoiselle
Chiaramonti has retired.”
“I can not,” responded Madame Bourcet, briefly, “for I shall myself
retire.” And Madame Bourcet marched away to her own room.
“Louis,” said a timid, tender little voice, “don’t you think this gown
more suitable to wear than the yellow brocade when we go to pay our
visit of ceremony to the Holy Father?”
Louis Bourcet was near choking with wrath at this. What right had she
to call him Louis? He had never asked her to do so--their engagement
was not even formally announced; he had never spoken to her or of her
except as Mademoiselle Chiaramonti. And that gown to go visiting the
Holy Father!
“Mademoiselle,” replied Louis in a voice of thunder, still from behind
the screen, “I consider that gown wholly improper for you to appear
before any one in, myself included.”
“Just come and take a look at it,” pleaded Fifi.
[Illustration--Fifi and Bourcet]
“I will not, Mademoiselle; and I give you warning I am now about to
leave this room.”
“I thought you would contrive to get a look at me, and not stick behind
that screen,” remarked Fifi, with a sudden explosion of laughter, as
Louis stalked from behind the screen. But the injustice and impropriety
of her remark was emphasized by his indignantly turning his head away
from her as he made for the door.
“Oh,” cried Fifi, impishly, “you can see me perfectly well in the
mirror, with your head turned that way!”
An angry bang of the door after him was Louis Bourcet’s only answer to
this.
Fifi surveyed herself in the mirror which she had accused the innocent
Louis of studying.
“This gown is perfectly outrageous, and it would be as much as my life
is worth to let Cartouche see it,” she thought. “But if only it can
frighten off that odious, ridiculous thing, how happy I shall be!”
Fifi retired to her room. Eight o’clock was the hour when tea was
served in the drawing-room, and both Madame Bourcet and Louis appeared
on the scene inwardly uncomfortable as to the meeting with Fifi.
There sat Fifi, but without the least appearance of discomfort; on the
contrary, more smiling and more at ease than they had ever seen her.
The door to her bedroom was open, and as soon as Madame Bourcet and
Louis entered they were saluted by an overwhelming odor of burning.
Madame Bourcet, who was a fire-fiend, shrieked at once:
“Something is on fire! Go, go, inform the police; fetch some water, and
let me faint!”
“There isn’t the least danger,” cried Fifi; “it is only my improper
ball gown which is burning in my grate.” And they saw, through the
open door, the ball gown stuffed in the grate, in which a fire was
smoldering. Some pieces of coal were piled upon it, to keep it from
blazing up, and it was being slowly consumed, with perfect safety to
the surroundings and an odor as if a warehouse were afire.
Madame Bourcet concluded not to faint, and she and Louis stood staring
at each other. But they were not the only ones to be startled. The
other tenants in the house had taken the alarm, and the bell in Madame
Bourcet’s lobby was being frantically pulled. Fifi ran and opened
the door. There stood Doctor Mailly, the eminent surgeon, who had the
apartment above the Bourcet’s; Colonel and Madame Bruart, who lived
in the apartment below, and about half a dozen others of the highly
respectable persons who inhabited this highly respectable house.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Fifi, in the tone of easy confidence which
the stage had bred in her, “there is nothing whatever to be alarmed
about. I am simply burning up a gown which Monsieur Louis Bourcet, my
fiancé, objected to--and as--as--I am madly in love with him, I destroy
the gown in order to win his approval. Can any of you--at least those
who know what it is to love and be beloved--think me wrong?”
There was a dead silence. Louis Bourcet, his face crimson, advanced and
said sternly to Fifi:
“Mademoiselle, I desire to say that I consider your conduct in regard
to the gown most uncalled for, most sensational and wholly opposed to
my wishes.”
“So you wanted to see me wear it again, did you?” cried Fifi,
roguishly; and then, relapsing into a sentimental attitude, she said:
“But you don’t know how much pleasure it gives me to sacrifice that
gown for you, dear Louis.”
At this, Louis Bourcet, with a flaming face, replied:
“I beg of you, Mademoiselle, not to call me Louis; and your expressions
of endearment are as unpleasant to me as they are improper.”
The lookers-on began to laugh, and turned away, except Colonel Bruart,
a fat old retired cavalry colonel, on whom a pretty face never failed
of its effect.
“Mademoiselle,” he cried gallantly, “if I were as young as your fiancé,
you might call me all the endearing names in the dictionary and I
wouldn’t complain. Is this young gentleman a Frenchman?”
“Yes, Monsieur,” replied Fifi, sweetly.
“Then,” replied Colonel Bruart, turning his broad back on the scene, “I
am glad there are not many like him. Adieu, Mademoiselle.”
Fifi, Madame Bourcet and Louis returned to the drawing-room. The
Bourcets were stupefied. Fifi was evidently a dangerous person to adopt
into a family, but a hundred thousand francs is a great deal of money.
Fifi, by way of administering a final shock, said:
“Anyway, the gown only cost five hundred francs, and that seemed to me
little enough to pay for pleasing you, Louis. And yet, you do not seem
pleased.”
“I am not,” responded Louis, who found Fifi’s singular endearments as
trying as her clothes.
The evening passed with the utmost constraint on every one except Fifi,
who was entirely at her ease and in great spirits.
Madame Bourcet and Louis each spent a sleepless night, and next morning
held a council of war in Madame Bourcet’s bedroom. Another startling
thought had occurred to them: where did Fifi get the money to pay for
the outlandish things? On each parcel Madame Bourcet had noted the
mark “Paid.” Fifi had not gone to the bank; and yet, she must have
had several thousand francs in hand. Possibly, she had more than a
hundred thousand francs. The Holy Father might have presented her with
a considerable sum of money the day he had the long interview with her.
There were many perplexing surmises; and, at last, wearied with their
anxieties, both Madame Bourcet and Louis resolved that Madame Bourcet,
after attending her brother’s lecture, should consult that eminent
man, as an expert in managing heiresses. It had become a very serious
question as to whether Fifi should be admitted into the Bourcet family
or not, but then, there was the money!
Madame Bourcet was not expected to return before half-past two, as her
conference with the professor was to take place after the lecture; but
at two o’clock, precisely, Louis Bourcet appeared. He had spent an
anxious morning. Whichever way the cat might jump would be disastrous
for him. If he went on with the marriage, he was likely to die of shock
at some of Fifi’s vagaries; and if the marriage were declared off,
there was a hundred thousand francs, and possibly more, gone, to say
nothing of the last chance of being allied to a reigning sovereign.
Poor Louis was beset with all the troubles of the over-righteous man.
As he entered the drawing-room, Fifi, dressed in the yellow brocade,
which looked more weird than ever by daylight, ran forward to meet him.
“How glad I am that you have come!” she cried. “I have something
beautiful to show you. Look!”
She threw wide her bedroom door, and there, filling up half the large
room, stood the gorgeous blue satin and gold bed.
Louis was stricken dumb. He had never seen such a machine before,
but being a practical person he saw at a glance its costliness. He
opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. However, Fifi remarked
rapturously:
“It was made for the Empress, but the Emperor, thinking the price too
much, refused to take it; and it was only five thousand francs, too!”
Then, running and exhibiting the lace, the gilt tassels and other
paraphernalia of the bed, Fifi concluded with saying:
“Of course, I shan’t sleep in it--it’s much too fine. I don’t think it
was ever meant to be slept in--but see--” Here Fifi raised the valance,
and showed her own mattress, which she had substantial reasons for
holding on to, “that’s what I shall sleep on! No one shall call _me_
extravagant!”
Louis retreated to the drawing-room. Fifi followed him, shutting the
door carefully after her.
Just then there was a commotion and a scuffle heard outside, in the
lobby, and Angéline’s shrill voice raised high.
“That must be the monkeys!” cried Fifi, running out.
Two Italians, each with a robust-looking monkey, were squabbling on
the stairs with Angéline. The Italians, each bent on getting in first,
had begun a scuffle which was growing perilously near a fight. Neither
paid the slightest attention to Angéline’s fierce demand that they and
their monkeys take themselves off. When Fifi appeared, both of the
monkey venders burst into voluble explanations and denunciations. Fifi,
however, had lost something of her cool courage. In her heart she was
afraid of monkeys, and had not meant to let them get so far as the
drawing-room door.
“Ah,” she cried to the Italians, thinking to pacify both of them, “here
is a franc apiece for your trouble, and take the monkeys away. I don’t
think either will suit.”
“No!” shrieked both of the Italians in chorus. “We have brought our
monkeys and Mademoiselle must at least examine them.”
This was anything but an agreeable proposition to Fifi; nor was she
reassured by each of the Italians declaring vehemently that his rival’s
monkey was as fierce as a lion and a disgrace to the simian tribe.
Fifi secretly thought that both of them were telling the truth in that
respect, and totally disbelieved them when each swore that his own
monkey was a companion fit for kings. All Fifi could do, therefore, was
to say, with an assumption of bravado:
“I will give you each two francs if you will go away and bring the
monkeys to-morrow.”
“Three francs!” shouted one of her compatriots, while the other bawled,
“Five francs!”
Fifi had as much as ten francs about her, so she gladly paid the ten
francs, and the Italians departed, each swearing he would come the next
day, and would, meanwhile, have the other’s blood.
Fifi returned to the drawing-room. On the hearth-rug stood Louis, pale
and determined.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “there must be an end of this.”
“Of what?” asked Fifi, innocently.
“Either of the performances of yesterday and to-day, or of our
arrangement to marry.”
“O-o-o-h!” wailed Fifi, “just as I had fallen so beautifully in love
with you!”
Louis’s face turned paler still.
“Mademoiselle, I do not know how to take such speeches.”
“I see you don’t,” replied Fifi.
“It is the first time I have ever been thrown with a young person of
your profession,” began Louis.
“Or with an heiress worth a hundred thousand francs, and the relative
of a reigning sovereign--” added Fifi, maliciously.
Louis hesitated, and changed from one foot to the other. It was hardly
likely that the Holy Father would let so desirable a match for his
young relative escape. Louis’s esteem for himself was as tall as the
Vendôme column, and he naturally thought everybody took him at his
own valuation. The Holy Father’s possible attitude in the matter was
alarming and disconcerting to poor Louis.
“And besides,” added Fifi, “your attentions have been compromising.
Do you recall, Monsieur--since you forbid me to call you Louis--that
you have played a game of cribbage with me every evening since I have
lived under your aunt’s charge? Is that nothing? Is my reputation to
be sacrificed to your love of cribbage? Do you suppose that I shall
let my relative, the Holy Father, remain in ignorance of those games
of cribbage? Beware, Monsieur Louis Bourcet, that you are not made to
repent of the heartless way in which you entrapped my affections at the
cribbage-board.”
And Fifi walked with great dignity into her bedroom and banged the door
after her. Once inside, she opened her arms wide and whispered softly:
“Cartouche! Cartouche! You will not be any such lover as this creature!”
Meanwhile, Madame Bourcet had returned from her conference with her
brother. Angéline had met her on the stairs with a gruesome tale of the
blue satin bed, and the two monkeys, who had been invited to call the
next day. It was too much for Madame Bourcet. She dropped on a chair as
soon as she reached the drawing-room. There Louis Bourcet burst forth
with his account, of the blue satin bed and the monkeys, adding many
harrowing details omitted by Angéline.
“And what does my uncle say?” he asked, gloomily.
“He says,” replied Madame Bourcet, more gloomily, “that Mademoiselle
Chiaramonti’s conduct is such as to drive any prudent man to
distraction; and that if you marry her with even more than a hundred
thousand francs’ fortune, you will be doing a most imprudent thing.”
Madame Bourcet paused for Louis to digest this. Then, she continued,
after an impressive pause:
“And my brother also says, and desired me particularly to impress
this upon you--that a _dot_ of a hundred thousand francs is something
enormous in our station of life; that he does not know of a single
acquaintance of his own who has been so fortunate as to marry so much;
and his own good fortune in marrying two hundred thousand francs is
absolutely unprecedented. Moreover, through Mademoiselle Chiaramonti’s
connection with the Holy Father, your prospects, no doubt, would be
splendidly advanced; and to throw away such a chance would be--a most
imprudent thing.”
So all the comfort poor Louis got was, that, whatever he did, he would
be doing a most imprudent thing. The knowledge of this made him a truly
miserable man.