Chapter 9

"That's true. I had some fine ideas in those days--too fine!" replied M. Bourjot, resting his left hand on his cue. "Ah, we were young--I should just think I do remember. It was at Lallemand's funeral.--By Jove! that was the best blow I ever gave in my life--a regular knock-you-down. I can see the nails in that police inspector's boots now, when I had landed him on the ground so that I could cross the boulevards. At the corner of the Rue Poissonnière I came upon a patrol--they set about me with a vengeance. I was with Caminade--you knew Caminade, didn't you? He was a lively one. He was the man who used to go and smoke his pipe at the mission service belonging to the Church of the Petits-Pères. He went with his meerschaum pipe that cost nearly sixty pounds, and he took a girl from the Palais-Royal. He was lucky, for he managed to escape, but they took me to the police station, belabouring me with the butt-end of their guns. Fortunately Dulaurens caught sight of me----"

"Ah--Dulaurens!" said M. Mauperin. "We were in the same Carbonari society. He had a shawl shop, it seems to me."

"Yes, and do you know what became of him?"

"No. I lost sight of him."

"Well, one fine day--it was after all this business--his partner went off to Belgium, taking with him eight thousand pounds. They put the police on his track, but they could hear nothing of him. Our friend Dulaurens goes into a church and makes a vow to get converted if he finds his money again. They find his money for him and now his piety is simply sickening. I never see him now; but in the old days he was a lively one, I can tell you. Well, when I saw him I gave him a look and he understood. You see, I had twenty-five guns in my house and five hundred cartridges. When the police went there to search he had cleared them away. All the same I was kept three months shut up in the new building, and two or three times was fetched up in the night to be cross-examined, and I always went with a vague idea in my mind that I was going to be shot. You've gone through it all, and you know what it is.--And all that was for the sake of Socialism! And yet I heard a few words that ought to have enlightened me. When I was free again one of my prison friends came to see me at Sedan. 'Why, what's this,' he said, 'that I am told at the hotel? It seems that your father has land and money, and yet you have joined us! Why, I thought you hadn't anything!' Just fancy now, M. Mauperin--and when I think that even that did not open my eyes! You see I was convinced in those days that all those with whom I was in league wanted simply what I wanted: laws for rich and poor alike, the abolition of privileges, the end of the Revolution of '89 against the nobility--I thought we should stop there--eleven? Did I mark your last? I don't think I did--let us say twelve. But, good heavens! when I saw my republic I was disgusted with it, when I heard two men, who had just come down from the barricades in February, say, 'We ought not to have left them until we had made sure of two hundred a year!' And then the system of taxes according to the income; it's an iniquity--the hypocrisy of communism. But with taxes regulated by the income," continued M. Bourjot, eloquently breaking off in the midst of his own phrase, "I challenge them to find any one who will care to take the trouble of making a large fortune--thirteen, fourteen, fifteen--very good! Oh, you are too strong a player. All that has made me turn round--you understand?"

"Perfectly," replied M. Mauperin.

"Where's my ball--there? Yes, it has made me turn completely round; it has positively made a Legitimist of me. There--a bad cue again! But----"

"But what?"

"Well, there is one thing--Oh, on that subject, now, I have the same opinions still. I don't mind telling you. Anything approaching a parson--eighteen?--Oh, come, I'm done for! We invite the one here in this place--he's a very decent fellow; but as to priests--when you've known one as I have, who broke his leg getting over the college wall at night--they are a pack of Jesuits, you know, M. Mauperin!

"'Hommes noirs, d'où sortez-vous? Nous sortons de dessous, terre.'"

"Ah, that's my man! The god of simple folks!

"'Mes amis, parlons plus bas: Je vois Judas, je vois Judas!'"

"Twenty-one! You've only three more. Now, at the place where my iron-works are, there's a bishop who is very easy-going. Well, all the bigots detest him. Now, if he pretended to be a bigot, if he were a hypocrite and spent all his time at church----"

* * * * *

"I never saw Mme. Bourjot so amiable," remarked Mme. Mauperin, when she and her family were all back in the carriage.

"An odd chap, that Bourjot," observed M. Mauperin. "It isn't much good having a billiard-table of his own either--I could have given him a start of twelve."

"I think Noémi is very strange," said Renée. "Did you see, Henri, how she wanted to get out of acting?"

Henri did not answer.

XIII

Noémi had just entered Mme. Mauperin's drawing-room followed by her governess. She looked uncomfortable and ill at ease, almost shy, in fact, but on glancing round she appeared to be somewhat reassured. She advanced to speak to Mme. Mauperin, who kissed her. Renée then embraced her, and, joking and laughing all the time, proceeded to take off her friend's cape and hat.

"Ah, I'm forgetting," she exclaimed, turning the dainty white hat trimmed with pink flowers round on her hand, "let me introduce M. Denoisel again. You have met him before in the old days--that sounds as though we were quite aged, doesn't it?--and he is our theatrical manager, our professor of elocution, our prompter--scene shifter--everything."

"I have not forgotten how kind M. Denoisel used to be to me when I was a little girl," and Noémi, flushing with emotion as her thoughts went back to her childhood, held out her hand somewhat awkwardly and with such timidity that her fingers all clung together.

"Oh, but what a pretty costume!" continued Renée, walking round her. "You look sweet," and then patting her own taffeta dress, which was rather the worse for wear, she held out her skirt and made a low reverence. "You'll make a rather pretty Mathilde--I shall be jealous, you know.--But look, mamma," she continued, drawing herself up to her full height. "I told you so--she makes me quite small.--Now, then--you see you are much taller than I am." As she spoke she placed herself side by side with Noémi and, putting her arm round her waist, led her to the glass and put her shoulder against her friend's. "There, now!" she exclaimed.

The governess was keeping in the background at the other end of the _salon_. She was looking at some pictures in a book that she had only dared to half open.

"Come, my dears, shall we begin to read the play?" said Mme. Mauperin. "It's no use waiting for Henri; he will only come to the last rehearsals when the actresses are well on."

"Oh, just now, mamma, let us talk first. Come and sit here, Noémi. There--we have a lot of little secrets, so many things that have happened since we last met to tell each other about--it is ages ago."

And Renée began prattling and chirping away with Noémi. Their conversation sounded like the fresh, clear, never-ending babbling of a brook, breaking off now and again in a peal of laughter and dying away in a whisper. Noémi, who was very guarded at first, soon gave herself up to the delight of confiding in her friend and of listening to this voice which brought back so many memories of the past. They asked each other, as one does after a long absence, about all that had happened and what they had each been doing. At the end of half an hour, to judge by their conversation, one would have said they were two young women who had suddenly become children again together.

"I go in for painting," said Renée, "what do you do? You used to have a beautiful voice."

"Oh, don't mention that," said Noémi. "They make me sing. Mamma insists on my singing at her big parties--and you've no idea how dreadful it is. When I see every one looking at me, a shiver runs through me. Oh, I'm so frightened--the first few times I burst out crying----"

"Well, we'll have a little refreshment now. I've saved a green apple for you that I was going to eat myself. I hope you still like green apples?"

"No, thanks, Renée dear, I'm not hungry, really."

"I say, Denoisel, what can you see that is so interesting--through that window?"

Denoisel was watching the Bourjot's footman in the garden. He had seen him dust the bench with a fine cambric handkerchief, spread the handkerchief over the green laths, sit down on it in a gingerly way in his red velvet breeches, cross his legs, take a cigar out of his pocket and light it. He was now looking at this man as he sat there smoking in an insolent, majestic way, glancing round at this small estate with the supercilious expression of a servant whose master lives in a mansion and owns a park.

"Why, nothing at all," said Denoisel, coming away from the window; "I was afraid of intruding."

"We have told each other all our secrets now; so you can come and talk to us."

"You know what time it is, Renée?" put in Mme. Mauperin. "If you want to begin the rehearsal to-day----"

"Oh, mamma, please--it's so warm to-day--and then, too, it's Friday."

"And the year began on a 13th," remarked Denoisel gravely.

"Ah!" said Noémi, looking at him with her trustful eyes.

"Don't listen to him--he's taking you in. He plays jokes of that kind on you all day long--Denoisel does. We'll rehearse next time you come, shall we?--there's plenty of time."

"As you like," answered Noémi.

"Very well, then; we'll take a holiday. Denoisel, be funny--at once. And if you are very funny--very, very funny--I'll give you a picture--one of my own----"

"Another?"

"Oh, well, you are polite--I work myself to death----"

"Mademoiselle," said Denoisel to Noémi, "you shall judge of the situation. I have now a picture of a mad-apple and a parsnip, and then to hang with that a slice of pumpkin and a piece of Brie cheese. There's a great deal of feeling, I know, of course, in such subjects; but all the same from the look of my room any one would take me for a private fruiterer."

"That's how men are, you see," said Renée gaily to Noémi. "They are all ungrateful, my dear--and to think that some day we shall have to marry. Do you know that we are quite old maids--what do you think of that? Twenty years old--oh, how quickly time goes, to be sure! We think we shall never be eighteen, and then, no sooner are we really eighteen than it's all over and we can't stay at that age. Well, it can't be helped. Oh, next time you come, bring some music with you and we'll play duets. I don't know whether I could now."

"And we shall rehearse--_quand_?" asked Denoisel.

"In Normandy!" answered Renée, indulging in that kind of joke which for the last few years has been in favour with society people, and which had its origin in the workshop and the theatre. Noémi looked perplexed, as though she had not caught the sense of the word she had just heard.

"Yes," said Renée, "Caen is in Normandy. Ah, you don't go in for word-endings? I used to have a mania for them some time ago. I was quite unbearable with it--wasn't I, Denoisel? And so you go out a great deal. Tell me about your balls."

Noémi did as she was requested, speaking freely and getting gradually more and more animated. She smiled as she spoke, and as her restraint wore off her movements and gestures were graceful. It seemed as if she had expanded under the influence of this air of liberty, here with Renée in this gay, cheerful drawing-room.

At four o'clock the governess rose as if moved by machinery.

"It is time we started, mademoiselle," she said. "There is a dinner-party, you know, at Sannois, and you will want time to dress."

XIV

"This time you must not expect to enjoy yourself; we are going to rehearse in good earnest," said Denoisel. "Mlle. Noémi, come and sit down there--that's it. We are ready now, are we not? One--two--three," he continued, clapping his hands, "begin."

"The fact is--the first scene," said Noémi, hesitatingly, "I am not quite sure of it--I know the other better."

"The second, then? We'll begin with the second--I'll take Henri's part: '_Good evening, my dear_---- '"

Denoisel was interrupted by a peal of laughter from Renée.

"Oh, dear!" she said to Noémi, "how funnily you are sitting! You look like a piece of sugar held in the sugar-tongs."

"Do I?" said Noémi, quite confused and trying to find a better pose.

"If only you would be kind enough not to interrupt the actors, Renée," said Denoisel. "'_Good evening, my dear_,'" he repeated, continuing his rôle, "'_do I disturb you_?'"

"Oh! and where are the purses?" exclaimed Renée.

"Why, I thought you were to see to them."

"I?--not at all. You were to see to them. You are a nice one to count on for the stage properties! I say, Noémi, if you were married, would it ever dawn upon you to give your husband a purse? It's rather shoppy, isn't it? Why not a smoking-cap, at once?"

"Are we going to rehearse?" asked Denoisel.

"Oh, Denoisel, you said that just like a man who really wants to go and have a smoke!"

"I always do want to smoke, Renée," answered Denoisel, "and especially when I ought not to."

"Why, it's quite a vice, then, with you."

"I should just think it is; and so I keep it."

"Well, but what pleasure can you find in smoking?"

"The pleasure of a bad habit--that is the explanation of many passions. '_Good evening, my dear_,'" he repeated, once more going back to M. de Chavigny's arrival on the scene, "'_do I disturb you_?'"

"_Disturb me, Henri--what a question!_" replied Noémi.

And the rehearsal continued.

XV

"Three o'clock," said Renée, looking up at the time-piece from the little woollen stocking she was knitting. "Really, I begin to think Noémi will not come to-day. She'll spoil the rehearsal. We shall have to fine her."

"Noémi?" put in Mme. Mauperin, as though she had just woke up. "Why, she isn't coming. Oh, I never told you! I don't know what's the matter with me--I forget everything lately. She told me last time that very probably she would not be able to come to-day. They are expecting some people--I fancy--I forget----"

"Well, that's pleasant! There is nothing more tiresome than that--to expect people who don't come after all. And this morning when I woke I said to myself, 'It's Noémi's day.' I was looking forward to having her. Oh, it's quite certain she won't come now. It's funny how I miss her now--Noémi, when she isn't here--ever since she began to take me on again. I miss her just as though she were one of the family. I don't think her amusing, she isn't lively, she isn't at all gay, and then as regards intelligence, why, she's rather feeble--you can take her in so easily. And yet--how is it now?--in spite of all that there is a fascination about her. There is something so sweet, so very sweet about her, and it seems to penetrate you. She calms your nerves, positively, and then the effect she has on you--why, she seems to warm your heart for you, and only by being there, near you. I've known lots of girls who had really more in them, but they haven't what she has. I've always felt as cold as steel with all of them."

"Oh, well, it's very simple," said Denoisel. "Mlle. Bourjot is of a very affectionate, loving disposition. There is a sort of current of affection between such natures and others."

"When she was quite little, I can remember, she was just the same--and so sensitive. How she used to cry, and how fond she was of kissing me; it was amazing--she did nothing else, in fact. And her face tells you just what she is, doesn't it? Her beauty seems to be made up of all the affection she feels, and of all that she has left of her childhood about her. And above all it is her expression. You often feel rather wicked and spiteful, but when she looks at you with that expression of hers it is as though everything of that kind disappears--as though something is melting away. Would you believe that I never ventured to play a single trick on her, and yet I was a terrible tease in the old days!"

"Nevertheless, it's very extraordinary to be as affectionate as all that," said Mme. Mauperin.

"Oh, no, it's quite natural," answered Denoisel. "Imagine a girl, who is born with the instinct of loving, just as we have the instinct of breathing. She is repelled by the coldness of a mother, who feels herself humiliated by her daughter, and who is ashamed of her; she is repelled also by the selfishness of a father, who has no other pride, no other love, and no other child but his wealth; well, a girl like this would be just like Mlle. Bourjot, and in return for any trifling interest you might take in her, she would repay you by the affection and the effusions of which you speak. Her heart would simply overflow with gratitude and love, and you would see in her eyes the expression Renée has noticed, an expression which seems to shine out through tears."

XVI

The rehearsals had been going on a fortnight, when one day Mme. Bourjot herself brought her daughter to the Mauperins. After the first greetings she expressed her surprise at not seeing the chief actor.

"Oh, Henri has such a wonderful memory," said Mme. Mauperin; "he will only need a couple of rehearsals."

"And how is it getting on?" asked Mme. Bourjot. "I must own that I tremble for my poor Noémi. Is it going fairly well? I came to-day, in the first place, to have the pleasure of seeing you, and then I thought I should like to judge for myself----"

"Oh, you can be quite at your ease," said Mme. Mauperin. "You will see how perfectly natural your daughter is. She is quite charming."

The actors went to their places and began the first scene of _The Caprice_.

"Oh, you flattered her," said Mme. Bourjot to Mme. Mauperin after the first two or three scenes. "My dear child," she continued, turning to her daughter, "you don't act as though you felt it; you are merely reciting."

"Oh, madame," exclaimed Renée, "you will frighten all the company. We need plenty of indulgence."

"You are not speaking for yourself," answered Mme. Bourjot. "If only my poor child acted as you do."

"Well, then," said Denoisel to Mme. Bourjot, "let us go on to the sixth scene, mademoiselle. We'll hear what they have to say about that, for I think you do it very well indeed; and as my vanity as professor is at stake, Mme. Bourjot will perhaps allow me----"

"Oh, monsieur," said Mme. Bourjot, "I do not think it has anything to do with the professor in this case; you are not responsible at all."

The scene was given and Mme. Bourjot continued, "Yes, oh yes, that wasn't bad; that might pass. It's a namby-pamby sort of scene, and that suits her. Then, too, she does her utmost; there's nothing to be said on that score."

"Oh, you are severe!" exclaimed Mme. Mauperin.

"You see, I'm her mother," murmured Mme. Bourjot, with a kind of sigh. "And then you'll have a crowd of people here----"

"Oh, you know one always gets more people than one wants on such occasions," said Mme. Mauperin. "There is always a certain amount of curiosity. I suppose there will be about a hundred and fifty people."

"Suppose I were to make the list, mamma?" suggested Renée, who was anxious to spare Noémi the rest of the rehearsal, as she saw how ill at ease her friend was. "It would be a good way of introducing our guests to Mme. Bourjot. You will make the acquaintance of our acquaintances, madame."

"I shall be very pleased," replied Mme. Bourjot.

"It will be rather a mixed dish, I warn you. It always seems to me that the people one visits are rather like folks one comes across in a stage-coach."

"Oh, that's a delightful idea--and so true too," said Mme. Bourjot.

Renée took her seat at the table and began to write down with a pencil the names of the people, talking herself all the time.

"First comes the family--we'll leave that. Now, then, who is there? Mme. and Mlle. Chanut, a girl with teeth like the pieces of broken glass people put on their walls--you know what I mean. M. and Mme. de Bélizard--people say that they feed their horses with visiting-cards."

"Renée, Renée, come, what will every one think of you?"

"Oh, my reputation's made. I needn't trouble any more about that. Then, too, if you imagine that people don't say quite as much about me as I say----"

"Oh, let her alone, please, let her alone," said Mme. Bourjot to Mme. Mauperin, and turning to Renée she asked with a smile, "And who comes next?"

"Mme. Jobleau. Ah, she's such a bore with her story about her introduction to Louis Philippe at the Tuileries. '_Yes, sire; yes, sire; yes, sire;_' that was all she found to say. M. Harambourg, who can't stand any dust--it makes him faint--every summer he leaves his man-servant in Paris to get the dust from between the cracks of the floors. Mlle. de la Boise, surnamed the Grammar Dragoon; she used to be a governess, and she will correct you during a conversation if you make a slip with the subjunctive mood. M. Loriot, President of the Society for the Destruction of Vipers. The Cloquemins, father, mother, and children, a family--well, like Pan's pipes. Ah! to be sure, the Vineux are in Paris; but it's no use inviting them; they only go to see people who live on the omnibus route. Why, I was forgetting the Méchin trio--three sisters--the Three Graces of Batignolles. One of them is an idiot, one----"

Renée stopped short as she saw Noémi's scared eyes and horrified expression. She looked like some poor, loving creature, who scarcely understood, but who had suddenly been troubled and stirred to the depth of her soul by all this backbiting. Getting up from her seat Renée ran across and kissed her. "Silly girl!" she said gently, "why, these people I am talking about are not people that I like."

XVII

Henri only came to the last rehearsals. He knew the play and was ready with his part in a week. _The Caprice_ was a very short piece for the _soirée_, and it was decided to finish up with something comic. Two or three short plays given at the Palais Royal were tried, but given up as there were not enough actors, and finally a very nonsensical thing was chosen that was just then having a great run in one of the smaller theatres, and which Henri had insisted on in spite of Mlle. Bourjot's apparently groundless objection to it. Considering her usual timidity, every one was surprised at her obstinacy on this point; but it seemed, since Henri had been there, as if she were not quite herself. Renée fancied at times that Noémi was not the same with her now, and that her friendship had cooled. She was surprised to see a spirit of contradiction in her which she had never known before, and she was quite hurt at Noémi's manner to her brother. She was very cool with him, and treated him with a shade of disdain which bordered on contempt. Henri was always polite, attentive, and ready to oblige, but nothing more. In all the scenes in which he and Noémi acted together he was so reserved, so correct, and indeed so circumspect, that Renée, who feared that the coldness of his acting would spoil the play, joked him about it.

"Pooh!" he answered, "I'm like the great actors. I'm keeping my effects for the first night."

XVIII

A small stage had been put up at the end of Mme. Mauperin's drawing-room, and a leafy screen, made of branches of pine and flowering shrubs, hid the footlights from view. Renée, with the help of her drawing-master, had painted the drop-scene, which looked something like the banks of the Seine. On each side of the stage was a hand-painted poster which read as follows:

BRICHE THEATRE

TO-DAY

THE CAPRICE

AND

PIERROT, BIGAMIST