Part 25

“Oh, as to that,” said Jenkins, jumping at this idea, and stretching out his arm as in the Oath of David, “I solemnly swear it.”

The matter was dropped at this point. At luncheon the Nabob was as gay as usual. This good humour was maintained all day, and de Gery, for whom the scene had been a revelation of the true Jenkins, the explanation of the ironies and the restrained wrath of Felicia Ruys whenever she spoke of the doctor, asked himself in vain how he could enlighten his dear patron about such hypocrisy. He should have been aware, however, that in southerners, with all their superficiality and effusion, there is no blindness, no enthusiasm, so complete as to remain insensible before the wisdom of reflection. In the evening the Nabob had opened a shabby little letter-case, worn at the corners, in which for ten years he had been accustomed to work out the calculations of his millions, writing down in hieroglyphics understood only by himself his receipts and expenditures. He buried himself in his accounts for a moment, then turning to de Gery:

“Do you know what I am doing, my dear Paul?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“I am just calculating”--and his mocking glance thoroughly characteristic of his race, rallied the good nature of his smile--“I am just calculating that I have spend four hundred and thirty thousand francs to get a decoration for Jenkins.”

Four hundred and thirty thousand francs! And that was not the end.

BONNE MAMAN

Paul de Gery went three times a week in the evening to take his lesson in bookkeeping in the Joyeuses’ dining-room, not far from that little parlour in which he had seen the family the first day, and while with his eyes fixed on his teacher he was being initiated into all the mysteries of “debtor and creditor,” he used to listen, in spite of himself, for the light sounds coming from the industrious group behind the door, with thoughts dwelling regretfully on the vision of all those pretty brows bent in the lamplight. M. Joyeuse never said a word of his daughters; jealous of their charms as a dragon watching over beautiful princesses in a tower, and excited by the fantastic imaginings of his excessive affection for them, he would answer with marked brevity the inquiries of his pupil regarding the health of “the young ladies,” so that at last the young man ceased to mention them.

He was surprised, however, at not once seeing that Bonne Maman whose name was constantly recurring in the conversation of M. Joyeuse, entering into the least details of his existence, hovering over the household like the emblem of its perfect ordering and of its peace.

So great a reserve on the part of a venerable lady who must assuredly have passed the age at which the interest of young men is to be feared, seemed to him exaggerated. The lessons, however, were good ones, given with great clearness, the teacher having an excellent system of demonstration, and only one fault, that of becoming absorbed in silences, broken by sudden starts and exclamations let off like rockets. Apart from this, he was the best of masters, intelligent, patient, and conscientious, and Paul learned to know his way through the complex labyrinth of commercial books and resigned himself to ask nothing beyond.

One evening, towards nine o’clock, as the young man had risen to go, M. Joyeuse asked him if he would do him the honour of taking a cup of tea with his family, a custom dating from the time when Mme. Joyeuse, nee de Saint-Amand, was alive, she having been used to receive her friends on Thursdays. Since her death and the change in the financial position, the friends had become dispersed; but his little weekly function had been kept up.

Paul having accepted, the good old fellow opened the door and called:

“Bonne Maman!”

An alert footstep in the passage, and immediately the face of a girl of twenty, in a halo of abundant brown hair, made its appearance.

De Gery, stupefied, looked at M. Joyeuse.

“Bonne Maman?”

“Yes, it is a name that we gave her when she was a little girl. With her frilled cap, her authority as the eldest child, she had a quaint little air. We thought her like her grandmother. The name has clung to her.”

From the honest fellow’s tone as he spoke thus, one felt that to him this grandparent’s title applied to such an embodiment of attractive youth seemed the most natural thing in the world. Every one else thought as he did on the point; both her sisters, who had hastened to their father’s side, grouping themselves round him somewhat as in the portrait exhibited in the window on the ground floor, and the old servant who placed on the table in the little drawing-room a magnificent tea-service, a relic of the former splendours of the household. Every one called the girl “Bonne Maman” without her ever once having grown tired of it, the influence of that sacred title touching the affection of each one with a deference which flattered her and gave to her ideal authority a singular gentleness of protection.

Whether or not it were by reason of this appellation of grandmother which as a child he had learned to reverence, de Gery felt an inexpressible attraction towards this young girl. It was not like the sudden shock which he had received from that other, that emotional agitation in which were mingled the desire to flee, to escape from a possession and the persistent melancholy of the morrow of a festivity, extinguished candles, the lost refrains of songs, perfumes vanished into the night. In the presence of this young girl as she stood superintending the family table, seeing if anything were wanting, enveloping her children, her grandchildren, with the active tenderness of her eyes, there came to him a longing to know her, to be counted among her old friends, to confide to her things which he confessed only to himself; and when she offered him his cup of tea without any of the mincings of society or drawing-room affectations, he would have liked to say with the rest a “Thank you, Bonne Maman,” in which he would have put all his heart.

Suddenly, a cheerful knock at the door made everybody start.

“Ah, here comes M. Andre. Elise, a cup quickly. Jaia, the little cakes.” At the same time, Mlle. Henriette, the third of M. Joyeuse’s daughters, who had inherited from her mother, nee de Saint-Amand, a certain instinct for society, observing the number of visitors who seemed likely to crowd their rooms that evening, rushed to light the two candles on the piano.

“My fifth act is finished,” cried the newcomer as he entered, then he stopped short. “Ah, pardon,” and his face assumed a rather discomfited expression in the presence of the stranger. M. Joyeuse introduced them to each other: “M. Paul de Gery--M. Andre Maranne,” not without a certain solemnity. He remembered the receptions held formerly by his wife, and the vases on the chimneypiece, the two large lamps, the what-not; the easy chairs grouped in a circle had an air of joining in this illusion, and seemed more brilliant by reason of this unaccustomed throng.

“So your play is finished?”

“Finished, M. Joyeuse, and I hope to read it to you one of these evenings.”

“Oh, yes, M. Andre. Oh, yes,” said all the girls in chorus.

Their neighbour was in the habit of writing for the stage, and no one here doubted of his success. Photography, in any case, promised fewer profits. Clients were very rare, passers-by little disposed to business. To keep his hand in and to save his new apparatus from rusting, M. Andre was accustomed to practise anew on the family of his friends on each succeeding Sunday. They lent themselves to his experiments with unequalled long-suffering; the prosperity of this suburban photographer’s business was for them all an affair of amour propre, and awakened, even in the girls, that touching confraternity of feeling which draws together the destinies of people as insignificant in importance as sparrows on a roof. Andre Maranne, with the inexhaustible resources of his great brow full of illusion, used to explain without bitterness the indifference of the public. Sometimes the season was unfavourable, or, again, people were complaining of the bad state of business generally, and he would always end with the same consoling reflection, “When Revolt is produced!” That was the title of his play.

“It is surprising all the same,” said the fourth of M. Joyeuse’s daughters, twelve years old, with her hair in a pigtail, “it is surprising that with such a good balcony so little business should result.”

“And, if he were established on the Boulevard des Italiens,” remarks M. Joyeuse thoughtfully, and he is launched forth!--riding his chimera till it is brought to the ground suddenly with a gesture and these words uttered sadly: “Closed on account of bankruptcy.” In the space of a moment the terrible visionary has just installed his friend in splendid quarters on the Boulevard, where he gains enormous sums of money, at the same time, however, increasing his expenditure to so disproportionate an extent that a fearful failure in a few months engulfs both photographer and his photography. They laugh heartily when he gives this explanation; but all agree that the Rue Saint-Ferdinand, although less brilliant, is much more to be depended upon than the Boulevard des Italiens. Besides, it happens to be quite near the Bois de Boulogne, and if once the fashionable world got into the way of passing through it--That exalted society which was so much sought by her mother, is Mlle. Henriette’s fixed idea, and she is astonished that the thought of receiving “le high-life” in his little apartment on the fifth floor makes their neighbour laugh. The other week, however, a carriage with livery had called on him. Only just now, too, he had a very “swell” visit.