Cousin Pons Part 8

"There is a farm and pasture land worth twelve hundred thousand francs in the market at this moment," remarked the President.

"If we take up shares in the Bank of France to the amount of a million francs, that will be quite enough to guarantee our account," said Schwab. "Fritz does not want to invest more than two million francs in business; he will do as you wish, I am sure, M. le President."

The President's wife and daughter were almost wild with joy when he brought home this news. Never, surely, did so rich a capture swim so complacently into the nets of matrimony.

"You will be Mme. Brunner de Marville," said the parent, addressing his child; "I will obtain permission for your husband to add the name to his, and afterwards he can take out letters of naturalization. If I should be a peer of France some day, he will succeed me!"

The five days were spent by Mme. de Marville in preparations. On the great day she dressed Cecile herself, taking as much pains as the admiral of the British fleet takes over the dressing of the pleasure yacht for Her Majesty of England when she takes a trip to Germany.

Pons and Schmucke, on their side, cleaned, swept, and dusted Pons'

museum rooms and furniture with the agility of sailors cleaning down a man-of-war. There was not a speck of dust on the carved wood; not an inch of bra.s.s but it glistened. The gla.s.ses over the pastels obscured nothing of the work of Latour, Greuze, and Liotard (ill.u.s.trious painter of _The Chocolate Girl_), miracles of an art, alas! so fugitive. The inimitable l.u.s.tre of Florentine bronze took all the varying hues of the light; the painted gla.s.s glowed with color. Every line shone out brilliantly, every object threw in its phrase in a harmony of masterpieces arranged by two musicians--both of whom alike had attained to be poets.

With a tact which avoided the difficulties of a late appearance on the scene of action, the women were the first to arrive; they wished to be on their own ground. Pons introduced his friend Schmucke, who seemed to his fair visitors to be an idiot; their heads were so full of the eligible gentleman with the four millions of francs, that they paid but little attention to the worthy Pons' dissertations upon matters of which they were completely ignorant.

They looked with indifferent eyes at Pet.i.tot's enamels, s.p.a.ced over crimson velvet, set in three frames of marvelous workmans.h.i.+p. Flowers by Van Huysum, David, and Heim; b.u.t.terflies painted by Abraham Mignon; Van Eycks, undoubted Cranachs and Albrecht Durers; the Giorgione, the Sebastian del Piombo; Backhuijzen, Hobbema, Gericault, the rarities of painting--none of these things so much as aroused their curiosity; they were waiting for the sun to arise and s.h.i.+ne upon these treasures. Still, they were surprised by the beauty of some of the Etruscan trinkets and the solid value of the snuff-boxes, and out of politeness they went into ecstasies over some Florentine bronzes which they held in their hands when Mme. Cibot announced M. Brunner! They did not turn; they took advantage of a superb Venetian mirror framed in huge ma.s.ses of carved ebony to scan this phoenix of eligible young men.

Frederic, forewarned by Wilhelm, had made the most of the little hair that remained to him. He wore a neat pair of trousers, a soft shade of some dark color, a silk waistcoat of superlative elegance and the very newest cut, a s.h.i.+rt with open-work, its linen hand-woven by a Friesland woman, and a blue-and-white cravat. His watch chain, like the head of his cane, came from Messrs. Florent and Chanor; and the coat, cut by old Graff himself, was of the very finest cloth. The Suede gloves proclaimed the man who had run through his mother's fortune. You could have seen the banker's neat little brougham and pair of horses mirrored in the surface of his speckless varnished boots, even if two pairs of sharp ears had not already caught the sound of wheels outside in the Rue de Normandie.

When the prodigal of twenty years is a kind of chrysalis from which a banker emerges at the age of forty, the said banker is usually an observer of human nature; and so much the more shrewd if, as in Brunner's case, he understands how to turn his German simplicity to good account. He had a.s.sumed for the occasion the abstracted air of a man who is hesitating between family life and the dissipations of bachelorhood.

This expression in a Frenchified German seemed to Cecile to be in the highest degree romantic; the descendant of the Virlaz was a second Werther in her eyes--where is the girl who will not allow herself to weave a little novel about her marriage? Cecile thought herself the happiest of women when Brunner, looking round at the magnificent works of art so patiently collected during forty years, waxed enthusiastic, and Pons, to his no small satisfaction, found an appreciative admirer of his treasures for the first time in his life.

"He is poetical," the young lady said to herself; "he sees millions in the things. A poet is a man that cannot count and leaves his wife to look after his money--an easy man to manage and amuse with trifles."

Every pane in the two windows was a square of Swiss painted gla.s.s; the least of them was worth a thousand francs; and Pons possessed sixteen of these unrivaled works of art for which amateurs seek so eagerly nowadays. In 1815 the panes could be bought for six or ten francs apiece. The value of the glorious collection of pictures, flawless great works, authentic, untouched since they left the master's hands, could only be proved in the fiery furnace of a saleroom. Not a picture but was set in a costly frame; there were frames of every kind--Venetians, carved with heavy ornaments, like English plate of the present day; Romans, distinguishable among the others for a certain dash that artists call _flafla_; Spanish wreaths in bold relief; Flemings and Germans with quaint figures, tortoise-sh.e.l.l frames inlaid with copper and bra.s.s and mother-of-pearl and ivory; frames of ebony and boxwood in the styles of Louis Treize, Louis Quatorze, Louis Quinze, and Louis Seize--in short, it was a unique collection of the finest models. Pons, luckier than the art museums of Dresden and Vienna, possessed a frame by the famous Brustoloni--the Michael Angelo of wood-carvers.

Mlle. de Marville naturally asked for explanations of each new curiosity, and was initiated into the mysteries of art by Brunner. Her exclamations were so childish, she seemed so pleased to have the value and beauty of the paintings, carvings, or bronzes pointed out to her, that the German gradually thawed and looked quite young again, and both were led on further than they intended at this (purely accidental) first meeting.

The private view lasted for three hours. Brunner offered his arm when Cecile went downstairs. As they descended slowly and discreetly, Cecile, still talking fine art, wondered that M. Brunner should admire her cousin's gimcracks so much.

"Do you really think that these things that we have just seen are worth a great deal of money?"

"Mademoiselle, if your cousin would sell his collection, I would give eight hundred thousand francs for it this evening, and I should not make a bad bargain. The pictures alone would fetch more than that at a public sale."

"Since you say so, I believe it," returned she; "the things took up so much of your attention that it must be so."

"On! mademoiselle!" protested Brunner. "For all answer to your reproach, I will ask your mother's permission to call, so that I may have the pleasure of seeing you again."

"How clever she is, that 'little girl' of mine!" thought the Presidente, following closely upon her daughter's heels. Aloud she said, "With the greatest pleasure, monsieur. I hope that you will come at dinner-time with our Cousin Pons. The President will be delighted to make your acquaintance.--Thank you, cousin."

The lady squeezed Pons' arm with deep meaning; she could not have said more if she had used the consecrated formula, "Let us swear an eternal friends.h.i.+p." The glance which accompanied that "Thank you, cousin," was a caress.

When the young lady had been put into the carriage, and the jobbed brougham had disappeared down the Rue Charlot, Brunner talked bric-a-brac to Pons, and Pons talked marriage.

"Then you see no obstacle?" said Pons.

"Oh!" said Brunner, "she is an insignificant little thing, and the mother is a trifle prim.--We shall see."

"A handsome fortune one of these days.... More than a million--"

"Good-bye till Monday!" interrupted the millionaire. "If you should care to sell your collection of pictures, I would give you five or six hundred thousand francs--"

"Ah!" said Pons; he had no idea that he was so rich. "But they are my great pleasure in life, and I could not bring myself to part with them.

I could only sell my collection to be delivered after my death."

"Very well. We shall see."

"Here we have two affairs afoot!" said Pons; he was thinking only of the marriage.

Brunner shook hands and drove away in his splendid carriage. Pons watched it out of sight. He did not notice that Remonencq was smoking his pipe in the doorway.

That evening Mme. de Marville went to ask advice of her father-in-law, and found the whole Popinot family at the Camusots' house. It was only natural that a mother who had failed to capture an eldest son should be tempted to take her little revenge; so Mme. de Marville threw out hints of the splendid marriage that her Cecile was about to make.--"Whom can Cecile be going to marry?" was the question upon all lips. And Cecile's mother, without suspecting that she was betraying her secret, let fall words and whispered confidences, afterwards supplemented by Mme.

Berthier, till gossip circulating in the bourgeois empyrean where Pons accomplished his gastronomical evolutions took something like the following form:

"Cecile de Marville is engaged to be married to a young German, a banker from philanthropic motives, for he has four millions; he is like a hero in a novel, a perfect Werther, charming and kind-hearted. He has sown his wild oats, and he is distractedly in love with Cecile; it is a case of love at first sight; and so much the more certain, since Cecile had all Pons' paintings of Madonnas for rivals," and so forth and so forth.

Two or three of the set came to call on the Presidente, ostensibly to congratulate, but really to find out whether or not the marvelous tale were true. For their benefit Mme. de Marville executed the following admirable variations on the theme of son-in-law which mothers may consult, as people used to refer to the _Complete Letter Writer_.

"A marriage is not an accomplished fact," she told Mme. Chiffreville, "until you have been in the mayor's office and the church. We have only come as far as a personal interview; so I count upon your friends.h.i.+p to say nothing of our hopes."

"You are very fortunate, madame; marriages are so difficult to arrange in these days."

"What can one do? It was chance; but marriages are often made in that way."

"Ah! well. So you are going to marry Cecile?" said Mme. Cardot.

"Yes," said Cecile's mother, fully understanding the meaning of the "so." "We were very particular, or Cecile would have been established before this. But now we have found everything we wish: money, good temper, good character, and good looks; and my sweet little girl certainly deserves nothing less. M. Brunner is a charming young man, most distinguished; he is fond of luxury, he knows life; he is wild about Cecile, he loves her sincerely; and in spite of his three or four millions, Cecile is going to accept him.--We had not looked so high for her; still, store is no sore."

"It was not so much the fortune as the affection inspired by my daughter which decided us," the Presidente told Mme. Lebas. "M. Brunner is in such a hurry that he wants the marriage to take place with the least possible delay."

"Is he a foreigner?"

"Yes, madame; but I am very fortunate, I confess. No, I shall not have a son-in-law, but a son. M. Brunner's delicacy has quite won our hearts.

No one would imagine how anxious he was to marry under the dotal system.

It is a great security for families. He is going to invest twelve hundred thousand francs in grazing land, which will be added to Marville some day."

More variations followed on the morrow. For instance--M. Brunner was a great lord, doing everything in lordly fas.h.i.+on; he did not haggle. If M. de Marville could obtain letters of naturalization, qualifying M.

Brunner for an office under Government (and the Home Secretary surely could strain a point for M. de Marville), his son-in-law would be a peer of France. n.o.body knew how much money M. Brunner possessed; "he had the finest horses and the smartest carriages in Paris!" and so on and so on.

From the pleasure with which the Camusots published their hopes, it was pretty clear that this triumph was unexpected.

Immediately after the interview in Pons' museum, M. de Marville, at his wife's instance, begged the Home Secretary, his chief, and the attorney for the crown to dine with him on the occasion of the introduction of this phoenix of a son-in-law.

The three great personages accepted the invitation, albeit it was given on short notice; they all saw the part that they were to play in the family politics, and readily came to the father's support. In France we are usually pretty ready to a.s.sist the mother of marriageable daughters to hook an eligible son-in-law. The Count and Countess Popinot likewise lent their presence to complete the splendor of the occasion, although they thought the invitation in questionable taste.

There were eleven in all. Cecile's grandfather, old Camusot, came, of course, with his wife to a family reunion purposely arranged to elicit a proposal from M. Brunner.

The Camusot de Marvilles had given out that the guest of the evening was one of the richest capitalists in Germany, a man of taste (he was in love with "the little girl"), a future rival of the Nucingens, Kellers, du Tillets, and their like.

"It is our day," said the Presidente with elaborate simplicity, when she had named her guests one by one for the German whom she already regarded as her son-in-law. "We have only a few intimate friends--first, my husband's father, who, as you know, is sure to be raised to the peerage; M. le Comte and Mme. la Comtesse Popinot, whose son was not thought rich enough for Cecile; the Home Secretary; our First President; our attorney for the crown; our personal friends, in short.--We shall be obliged to dine rather late to-night, because the Chamber is sitting, and people cannot get away before six."