A DEPUTY GOVERNOR’S WOOING
(French of Andre Theuriet: Isabel Smithson: For Short Stories.)
“Can you receive Madame Blouet, sir?” asked an attendant, as he opened the door of the deputy governor’s office.
It was a large, severe-looking apartment, with a very high ceiling, two windows draped with green damask curtains, walls and arm-chairs of the same color, and heavy bookcases of mahogany. The highly waxed floor reflected the cold symmetry of the official furniture, and the mirror over the mantel-piece reproduced with exactness a black marble clock, two bronze lamps and a pair of gilt candlesticks.
Hubert Boinville, the deputy governor, was seated, with his back to the fire-place, at a large mahogany desk which was littered over with deeds and various papers. He raised his grave, melancholy face which was framed in a brown beard, tinged with a few gray hairs, and his black eyes, with tired-looking lids, glanced at the card which the solemn usher handed to him.
On this card was written in a trembling hand, Veuve Blouet (widow Blouet), but the name conveyed no information to him and he put it down impatiently.
“It is an old lady, sir,” said the attendant, in explanation, “shall I send her away?”
“No, let her come in,” replied the deputy governor in a tone of resignation.
The usher straightened himself up in his uniform, bowed, and disappeared, returning the next minute to show in the visitor, who stopped on the threshold and dropped an old-fashioned courtesy.
Hubert Boinville half rose from his chair, and with cold politeness signed her to a seat, which she took, after making another courtesy.
She was a little old lady, dressed in shabby mourning. Her black merino gown had a greenish tinge, and was wrinkled and darned; a limp crape veil, which had evidently served through more than one period of mourning, hung down on each side from an old-fashioned bonnet, and beneath a front of false brown hair was a round, wrinkled face with bright little eyes, a small mouth, and no teeth.
“Sir,” she began, in a somewhat breathless voice, “I am the daughter, sister and widow, of men who served their country. I applied some time ago to the Department for help, and I have come to see whether there is any hope.”
The deputy governor listened without moving a muscle of his face. He had heard so many supplications of this kind!
“Have you ever received any assistance!” he asked, coldly. “No, sir,” she replied. “I have managed to get on until now without asking. I have a small pension.”
“Ah!” he interrupted in a dry tone, “in that case I am afraid we can do nothing for you. We have a great many applicants who have no pension to rely upon.”
“Ah, listen, sir!” she cried despairingly, “I have not explained everything. I had three sons and they are all dead. The last one taught mathematics, and one day during the winter, when he was going from the Pantheon to Chaptal College he caught a violent cold which settled on his lungs and carried him off in two weeks. He had supported me and his child by teaching; the expenses of his illness and death used up all our little savings, and I had to raise money on my pension. Now I am alone in the world with my grandchild, and we have nothing. I am eighty-two years old, sir.”
Tears had gathered under her wrinkled eyelids as she spoke, and the deputy governor was listening more attentively than he had done at first. A peculiar singing intonation of the speaker’s voice, and the sound of certain provincial expressions seemed to his ears like once familiar music; the old lady’s way of speaking had for him a flavor of home which produced a most singular sensation in his mind. He rang his bell and sent for Madame Blouet’s “papers,” and when the sedate usher had laid a thin package before him, he examined the yellow pages with evident interest.
“You are from Lorraine, I see, Madame,” he said at last, turning toward her a face less stern, and on which a faint smile was seen, “I suspected it from your accent.”
“Yes, Sir, I am from Argonne,” she answered, “and you recognized my accent! I thought I had long singe lost it—I have been knocking about France like a flying camp.”
The deputy governor looked with increasing compassion at this poor widow whom a harsh wind had torn from her native forest, and cast into Paris like a withered leaf. He felt his official heart growing softer, and smiling again, he said:
“I also am from Argonne. I lived near your village for a long time, at Clermont,” and then he added gaily, “keep up your courage, Madame Blouet, I hope we shall be able to help you. Will you give me your address?”
“Number 12, Rue de la Sante, near the Capuchin convent. Thank you, Sir, for your kindness. I am very glad to have found a fellow countryman,” and after repeated courtesies the widow took her departure.
As soon as she was gone M. Boinville rose, and going to the window stood looking down into the garden with his face against the glass. But he was not looking at the tops of the half leafless chestnut trees; his dreamy gaze wandered far off toward the East, beyond the plains and the chalky hills of Champagne, past a large forest, to a valley where a quiet river flowed between two rows of poplar trees, to a little old town with tile-roofed houses. There his early childhood had been passed, and later, his vacations. His father, who was registrar in the office of the Chief Justice, led a narrow, monotonous life, and he himself was early accustomed to hard work and strict discipline. He had left home when in his twenty-first year and had returned only to attend his father’s funeral. Possessing a superior intellect and an iron will, and being an indefatigable worker he had risen rapidly on the official ladder, and at thirty-eight years of age was made deputy governor. Austere, punctual, reserved, and coldly polite, he arrived at his office every morning at exactly ten o’clock and remained there until six, taking work with him when he went home. Although he was possessed of keen sensibilities, his bearing was so reserved and undemonstrative that he was thought cold and stern; he saw very little of society, his life being devoted to business, and he had never had enough leisure to think of marrying. His heart indeed, had once asserted itself, before he had left home, but as he then had neither position nor fortune, the girl he loved had refused him in order to marry a rich tradesman. This early disappointment had left in Hubert Boinville a feeling of bitterness which even the other successes of his life could not wholly efface, and there was still a tinge of melancholy in his being. The old lady’s voice and accent had recalled the thought of the past, and his quiet was overwhelmed by a flood of recollections. While he stood there motionless, with his forehead pressing against the window-pane, he was stirring, as one would a heap of dead leaves, the long slumbering memories of his youth, and like a sweet delicate perfume, rose the thoughts of by-gone scenes and days.
Suddenly he returned to his chair, drew Madame Blouet’s petition to him, and wrote upon it the words, very deserving case. Then he rang his bell, and sent the document to the clerk in charge of the relief fund.
On the day of the official assent to Madame Blouet’s petition, Mr. Boinville left his office earlier than usual, for the idea had occurred to him, to announce the good news himself to his aged countrywoman.
Three hundred francs. The sum was but a drop in the enormous reservoir of the ministerial fund, but to the poor widow it would be as a beneficent dew!
Although it was December, the weather was mild, so Hubert Boinville walked all the way to the Rue de la Sante, and by the time he reached his destination, that lonely neighborhood was wrapped in gloom. By the light of a gas lamp near the Capuchin convent, he saw “Number 12” over a half-open door in a rough stone wall, and on entering, found himself in a large market garden. He could just distinguish in the darkness, square plots of vegetables, some groups of rose bushes and here and there the silhouettes of fruit trees. At the other end of the garden, two or three dim lights showed the front of a plain, square building, and to this the deputy governor made his way and had the good luck to run against the gardener, who directed him to the widow Blouet’s lodgings upstairs. After twice stumbling on the muddy steps, M. Boinville knocked at a door under which a line of light was to be seen, and great was his surprise when, the door being opened, he saw before him a girl of about twenty years, holding up a lighted lamp and looking at him with astonished eyes. She was dressed in black, and had a fair, fresh face, and the lamp light was shining on her wavy chestnut hair, round dimpled cheeks, smiling mouth, and limpid blue eyes.
“Is this where Madame Blouet lives?” asked M. Boinville after a moment’s hesitation, and the girl replied, “Yes, sir. Be kind enough to walk in. Grandmother, here is a gentleman who wants to see you.”
“I am coming,” cried a thin, piping voice from the next room, and the next minute the old lady came trotting out, with her false front all awry under her black cap, and trying to untie the strings of a blue apron which she wore.
“Holy mother!” she cried in amazement on recognizing the deputy governor, “is it possible, sir? Excuse my appearance, I was not expecting the honor of a visit from you. Claudette, give M. Boinville a chair. This is my grandchild, sir. She is all I have in the world.”
The gentleman seated himself in an antique arm-chair covered with Utrecht velvet, and cast a rapid glance round the room, which evidently served as both parlor and dining-room. It contained very little furniture; a small stove of white delft-ware, next to which stood an old-fashioned oaken clothes-press; a round table covered with oil-cloth and some rush-bottom chairs, while on the wall hung two old colored lithographs. Everything was very neat, and the place had an old-time air of comfort and rusticity. M. Boinville explained the object of his visit in a few words, and the widow exclaimed:
“Oh, thank you, sir! How good you are. It is quite true that pleasant surprises never come singly; my grandchild has passed an examination in telegraphy, and while she is waiting for a position she is doing a little painting for one and another. Only to-day she has been paid for a large order, and so we made up our minds,” said the grandmother, “to celebrate the event by having only old home dishes for dinner. The gardener down stairs gave us a cabbage, some turnips and potatoes to make a potée; we bought a Lorraine sausage, and when you came in I had just made a tôt-fait.”
“Oh, a tôt-fait!” cried Boinville. “That is a sort of cake made of eggs, milk and farina; it is twenty years since I heard its name and more than that since I tasted it.”
His face became strangely animated, and the young girl, who was watching him curiously, saw a look of actual greediness in his brown eyes. While he was lost in a reverie of the tôt-fait, Claudette and her grandmother turned away and began discussing, and at last the girl whispered:
“I am afraid it would not do.”
“Why not?” returned the old lady, “I think it would please him.” And then, seeing that he was looking at them wonderingly, she went toward him, saying:
“M. Boinville, you have already been so kind to us that I am going to ask of you another favor. It is late, and you have a long way to go—we should be so glad if you would stay here and taste our tôt-fait—should we not, Claudette?”
“Certainly,” said the girl, “but M. Boinville will have a plain dinner, and besides, he is, no doubt, expected at home.”
“No one is waiting for me,” answered the gentleman, thinking of his usual dull, solitary meals in the restaurant. “I have no engagement, but—” he hesitated, looked at Claudette’s smiling eyes, and suddenly exclaimed:—
“I accept, with pleasure.”
“That is right!” said the old lady, briskly. “What did I tell you, Claudette? Quick, my pet, set the table and run for the wine, while I go back to my tôt-fait.”
The girl had already opened the press and taken out a striped table-cloth and three napkins, and in the twinkling of an eye the table was ready. Then she lighted a candle and went down stairs to fetch the wine, while the old dame sat down with her lap full of chestnuts, which she proceeded to crack and place upon the stove.
“Is not that a bright, lively girl?” she said, “she is my consolation; she cheers me like a linnet on an old roof.”
Here the speaker rattled the chestnuts on the stove, and then Claudette reappeared, a little flushed and out of breath, and the old woman went and brought in the potée and set it steaming and fragrant on the table.
Seated between the cheery octogenarian and the artless, smiling girl, and in the midst of half-rural surroundings which constantly recalled the memory of his youth, Hubert Boinville, the deputy governor, did honor to the potée. His grave, cold manner thawed out rapidly and he conversed familiarly with his new friends, returning the gay sallies of Claudette and shouting with merriment at the sound of the patois words and phrases which the old lady used.
From time to time the widow would rise and go to attend to her cookery, and at last she returned triumphant, bringing in an iron baking-dish in which rose the gently swelling golden-brown tôt-fait, smelling of orange-flower water.
Then came the roasted chestnuts in their brown, crisped shells, and the old lady brought from her press a bottle of fignolette, a liquor made of brandy and sweet wine.
When Claudette had cleared the table, the grandmother took up her knitting mechanically and sat near the stove, chatting gaily at first, but she now yielded to the combined effects of the warmth and the fignolette and fell asleep. Claudette put the lamp on the table, and she and the visitor were left to entertain each other. The girl, sprightly and light-hearted, did nearly all the talking. She had been brought up at Argonne, and described the neighborhood with such exactness that Boinville seemed to be carried back to his native place; as the room was warm Claudette had opened a window, and the fresh air came in laden with the odors of the market-garden, and the gurgling sound of a fountain, while farther off was heard the bell of the Capuchin convent.
Hubert Boinville had an hallucination, for which the fignolette, and the blue eyes of his young countrywoman were responsible. It seemed as if twenty years had rolled backward and that he was still in his native village. The wind in the fruit trees was the rustling of the Argonne forest, the soft murmur of running water was the caressing voice of the river Aire. His youth, which for twenty years had been buried under old papers and deeds was now revived, and before him were the blue laughing eyes of Claudette, looking at him so artlessly that his long torpid heart awoke suddenly and beat a delightful pit-a-pat against his breast.
Suddenly the old lady awoke with a start and stammered an apology. M. Boinville rose, for it was time to go, and after thanking the widow warmly for her hospitality and promising to come again, he extended his hand to Claudette. Their eyes met, and the deputy governor’s glance was so earnest that the young girl’s eyelids drooped suddenly. She accompanied him down stairs, and when they reached the house door he clasped her hand again, but without knowing what to say to her. And yet his heart was full.
* * * * *
Hubert Boinville continued to give, as is said in official language, “active and brilliant impulse to the Department.” The ministerial machine went on heaping up on his desk the daily grist of reports and papers, and the sittings of the Council, audiences, commissions and other official duties kept him so busy that he could not find a spare hour in which to go to the humble lodgings near the Capuchin convent. In the midst of his work, however, his thoughts often wandered back to the humble little dinner, and several times his attention was distracted from an official document by a vision of Claudette’s bright azure eyes, which seemed to flutter about on the paper like a pair of blue butterflies. When he returned to his gloomy bachelor apartment, those eyes went before him, and seemed to laugh merrily as he stirred his dull fire, and then he thought again of the dinner in the cheerful room, of the fire blazing up gaily in the delft stove, and of the young girl’s merry prattle, which had temporarily resuscitated the sensation of his twenty-first year. More than once he went to his mirror and looked gloomily at his gray-streaked beard, thought of his loveless youth, and of his increasing years, and said with La Fontaine:
“Have I passed the time for loving?”
Then he would be seized with a sort of tender homesickness which filled him with dismay, and made him regret that he had never married.
One cloudy afternoon toward the end of December, the solemn usher opened the door and announced:
“Madame Blouet, sir.”
Boinville rose eagerly to greet his visitor, and inquired, with a slight blush, for her granddaughter.
“She is very well, sir,” was the answer, “and your visit brought her luck; she received an appointment yesterday in a telegraph office. I could not think of leaving Paris without again thanking you, sir, for your kindness to us.”
Boinville’s heart sank.
“You are to leave Paris; is this position in the provinces?”
“Yes, in the Vosges. Of course I shall go with Claudette; I am eighty years old, and cannot have much longer to live; we shall never part, in this world.”
“Do you go soon?”
“In January. Good-bye, sir; you have been very kind to us, and Claudette begged me to thank you in her name.”
The deputy governor was thunderstruck, and answered only in monosyllables, and when the good woman had left him he sat motionless for a long time with his head in his hands.
That night he slept badly, and the next day was very taciturn with his employes.
Toward three o’clock he brushed his hat, left the office, and jumped into a cab that was passing, and half an hour later he hurried through the market garden of Number 12, Rue de la Santé, and knocked tremblingly at Madame Blouet’s door. Claudette answered the knock, and on seeing the deputy governor, she started and blushed.
“Grandmother is out,” she said, “but she will soon be home and will be so glad to see you.”
“I have come to see, not your grandmother, but yourself, Mademoiselle Claudette,” he returned.
“Me?” she exclaimed anxiously, and he repeated, “Yes, you,” in an abrupt tone, and then his throat seemed to close and he could hardly speak.
“You are going away next month?” he asked at last.
The girl nodded assent.
“Are you not sorry to leave Paris?”
“Yes indeed I am. It grieves me to think of it, but then, this position is a fortune to us, and grandmother will be able to live in peace for the rest of her days.”
“Suppose I should offer you the means of remaining in Paris, at the same time assuring comfort to Madame Blouet?”
“Oh, sir!” exclaimed the young girl, her face brightening.
“It is rather a violent remedy,” he said, hesitating again, “perhaps you would think it too great an effort.”
“Oh no, I am very resolute—only tell me what it is.”
He took a long breath, and then said quietly, almost harshly,
“Will you marry me?”
“Heaven!” she gasped, in a voice of deep emotion; but although her face expressed the deepest surprise, there was no sign of repugnance or alarm. Her bosom heaved, her lips parted, and her eyes became moist with tender brightness.
Boinville dared not look at her, lest he should read refusal in her face, but at last, alarmed by her long silence, he raised his head, saying, “You think me too old—you are frightened—”
“Not frightened,” she answered, simply, “but surprised, and—glad. It is too good. I can hardly believe it.”
“My darling!” he cried, taking both her hands “you must believe it. I am the one to be glad, for I love you.”
She was silent, but there was no mistaking the tenderness and gratitude that were shining in her eyes, and Hubert Boinville must have read them aright, for he drew her closely to him, and meeting with no resistance, raised her hands to his lips and kissed them with youthful fervor.
“Holy Mother!” cried the old lady, appearing on the scene at that instant, and the others turned round, he a little confused; the girl blushing, but radiant.
“Do not be shocked, Madame Blouet,” said the deputy governor. “The evening that I dined here I found a wife; the ceremony will take place next month—with your permission.”