CHAPTER XXIII
THE WEDDING BREAKFAST
As Ascott desired the wedding was carried out in the strictest privacy. The party reached the Mairie at an early hour. Ascott had for witnesses his man servant John, and a casual secretary from the Consulate, bound over to the closest secrecy. Moreover, the young man in question, a person of much discretion who saw how things were with half an eye, had vanished immediately after the ceremony, saying he did not care to attend the breakfast, understanding in fact that his absence would not be taken in ill part, but very much the reverse. Nini Guinon’s witnesses were her uncle, Père Moche, recruited again for the purpose, and the vagabond Bouzille, who had been fetched from a drinking shop at Ménilmontant, and dressed up for the occasion in a second-hand frock coat. The formalities at the Mairie were quickly completed, the party adjourned to hear a mass at the nearest church, and then set off for the Bois de Vincennes.
The last act of the grotesque adventure, the wedding breakfast, remained to be staged. Ascott, to Mme. Guinon’s bitter chagrin, had emphatically refused to make her acquaintance, thereby making the good woman desperately unhappy. Thus she had barely caught a glimpse of her son-in-law, when at the Mairie she authorized her daughter as a minor to pronounce a definitive and binding “Yes.” Ascott, in fact, had shown himself quite uncompromising all the morning. For this marriage, this hole and corner marriage, so to speak, in which he had systematically avoided all publicity, he had not chosen that his bride should wear the orthodox white gown sacred to such occasions. In a word, the ceremony was a gloomy, funereal function, depressing to the last degree.
It was abundantly clear the bridegroom was fulfilling a duty, carrying out an irksome obligation; indeed, the whole thing wore so lugubrious an aspect that Nini Guinon began to feel anxious, asking herself if really and truly she had acted wisely in following old Moche’s advice, for at the bottom of her heart she was far from convinced of the advantages to accrue for her from her union with the rich Englishman. On the drive to the restaurant, sitting silent in her corner of the carriage, Nini was thinking all the while:
“If I’m in for a bad time, if old Moche has got me in a hole, I’ll make him pay for it.”
However, Bouzille, who had kept quiet enough during the morning, began to liven up on arriving at The Orange Blossom. He smiled broadly at the regiment of bottles drawn up on a sideboard, and, like the good-natured ninny he was, having never an inkling of the preposterous situation of the bridal pair and those about them, he clapped his hands gaily, suggesting:
“Well, good folks, about time for a bit of a spree, eh? what if we cracked a bottle now before going any further?”
Ascott, for all his pre-occupation, could not help smiling; in fact, if there was any one person in the whole crew that revolted him less profoundly than the rest, it was certainly this merry-hearted tramp; the fellow was rough and brutal, but he seemed to be an honest man. On the contrary, Ascott felt greatly embarrassed at the idea of sitting down to table with his servant; in his own mind he decided there was only one thing to be done—to send the man about his business that very evening. Besides, The Orange Blossom itself was little to his taste. What a place! What a vulgar show!
Still, he must make the best of things, and taking Bouzille’s hint, Ascott called the waiter and demanded drinks. And it was no other than Fandor who stepped forward to take the rich Englishman’s order.
Without more ado, Ascott took his seat, putting Nini on his right and old Moche on his left; this done, he kept his eyes fixed on the table-cloth, not knowing in the least which way to look or what to do. Bouzille’s fine enthusiasm had suddenly quieted down, while the rest of the company were not “playing up” one bit: there they sat, each more stockish than the other. If anybody had come in hopes of diversion, he was finding himself singularly disappointed. John, sitting facing his master, dared not utter a word, Moche never opened his lips, Nini was cross and angry, Ascott pale and silent as the grave!