Jacquetta/Chapter II
Mrs Fairbrother was not an observant person; she did not suspect in the least the little play that was going on about her, whilst she talked. Both of the young men found Jacquetta more agreeable to converse with than the old lady, and each tried to involve his companion in conversation with the latter so as to retain the society of the young girl for himself. Asheton proved restive when the good woman linked herself on to him. Through the corner of his eye he could see the baron ingratiating himself with Jacquetta. Therefore he took pains to refer the mother to his friend for information on the necessary formalities attached to a death and burial and the proving of wills; and no sooner did he find the baron engaged in the explanation than he spread an umbrella to inclose himself with the girl from the other group, under the plea of cutting off from her the glare from the sun and water, but in reality to raise a stumbling-block in the way of his friend joining them. However, M. de Montcontour was quite sensible of his friend’s intentions, and he extricated himself abruptly from his discussion with Mrs Fairbrother by starting to his feet and calling on Mademoiselle to cross with him to the other side of the boat where porpoises were tumbling in the water.
Asheton at once insisted on bringing Mrs Fairbrother over to the same bulwarks, to look at the porpoises, and he sat himself on the other side of Jacquetta to that occupied by the baron. The move was not absolutely successful, as he had the old lady on his left, and was obliged to talk to and listen, or pretend to listen to her. But he waited his opportunity to shunt her on the baron.
‘Alphonse,’ said he, when he saw his friend talking in a low tone to the girl, about something that seemed to interest her, ‘Alphonse, Madame asks which hotel you recommend at Saint Malo.’
‘Oh,’ said the baron, completely concealing his disgust at the interruption, ‘of course l’Hotel de France—Chateaubriand’s native house. The hostess English, excellent wines, and a table d’ hote famous everywhere.’ Then to Miss Fairbrother, ‘As I was telling you, the Guernsey lilies are not natives of the island, they were bulbs of African plants washed up from a wreck.’
‘What about natives?’ asked Mrs Fairbrother.
‘The baron,’ explained Asheton sulkily, ‘was merely telling you that Chateaubriand was born in the house now a hotel. Chateaubriand, you know, who wrote Atala.’
‘I know the march out of it,’ said the old lady. ‘It goes something like this, Tum—tiddletee—tum—ti!’ and she hummed, and with her fingers drummed on the bulwarks. ‘Do you know Chanticleer? I am afraid the drainage is bad, and that is what has brought my Aunt Betsy to an early grave.’
‘Is she so very young?’
‘Oh, well about seventy. What sort of a place, now, is Chanticleer?’
‘My dear madam,’ said Asheton with eagerness, ‘the baron alone can tell you. I have never seen it. I do not know where it is. I have not the smallest idea as to how the drains are carried. He knows all about it, has the map of the place in his head.’
That answered. The old lady let go the bulwarks and went behind Asheton and Jacquetta, and ‘caught the bulwarks again beside Montcontour, on his right, and entangled him at once. Now was Asheton’s turn with the young lady and he availed himself of it; he could be very agreeable when he chose, and he made an effort now and succeeded. The baron writhed in the meshes of the mother’s talk, and it was some time before the chance presented itself to him of flinging her off on Asheton; but it came and he grasped it with eagerness.
‘Come here, Jacques,’ he called. ‘Madame is asking if there is an English church service at Nantes, and wants to know the views of the chaplain. I cannot help her.’
‘I am at Madame’s orders,’ said James Asheton stiffly, without showing annoyance, more than he could help.
‘Ah, mademoiselle,’ said the Baron, ‘I was telling you, or about to tell you, that whilst on the Loire you should try to make an excursion up the river to Angers and Saumur. At the latter place you will see human habitations scooped in the rock, and families living in subterrains—what is the word?—caverns. Then, at Fontevrault you will see the monuments of Richard Sans Peur, and his Queen Berengaria. Mademoiselle will be staying some months at Nantes?’
‘I do not know. Nothing is settled. We do not know whether my poor great-aunt is alive or dead.’
On arriving at St. Malo all four passengers agreed that the time had passed with marvellous rapidity since they had left Guernsey, and that the passage had been an agreeable one. There was but one drawback to it, thought each of the gentlemen, and that was that the other did not wholly engross the old lady, and leave to him an uninterrupted tête-á-tète with Jacquetta. Mrs Fairbrother liked both gentlemen, she hardly knew which she preferred. Miss Fairbrother did not say what she thought or felt, but she smiled and seemed happy, and not too depressed by the mourning for Aunt Betsy, whom, indeed, she hardly knew. The gentlemen passed the ladies’ goods through the douane, and escorted them to the hotel, and insisted on carrying their umbrellas, parasols, and bundles of wraps and novels. Then they requested permission to call later in the evening and take Madame and Mademoiselle out on the ramparts to see the tide, which rises to a phenomenal height at St. Malo. The permission was readily granted, and three-quarters of an hour before the tide would reach its height the gentlemen appeared in the courtyard of the hotel, for the ladies.
St. Malo is a quaint old town built on an island and inclosed within walls. The houses are very high, rising five or six stories, and the streets are so narrow as to deserve no better designation than lanes. Indeed the town looks as though the builders had striven for a wager to crowd upon one little rocky platform above the waves, the greatest possible number of houses it could be forced to sustain. When the tide ebbs, the harbour that separates it from St. Servan is dry, but when it is in, that harbour has in it four fathoms of water.
Seaward the view from the ramparts is varied by an archipelago of white rocks bristling out of the sea, the larger masses crowned with forts and batteries. The sun was setting in the north-west, and sent a blaze over the rolling ocean, that seemed about irresistibly to swallow up the little town huddled on the rock with its feet in the water. The wind had freshened as the day declined, and drove the waves against the rocks, and lashed them into eddies of spray and jets of foam.
‘The tide don’t come in quite so strong in England,’ said Mrs Fairbrother. ‘I suppose the walls are built so high to keep it out of the town.’
‘And as a defence against the English, madame,’ said the baron. ‘The town has twice been besieged by your gallant nation. To-day it surrenders at the feet of two fascinating invaders.’
‘Oh, get along,’ said Mrs Fairbrother, laughing. ‘That’s all blarney, my lord. But—by the way—was not this the town that Queen Mary said would be found written on her heart after death?’
‘No,’ said Asheton, with a twitch of the lips. ‘That was Calais, lost to the British crown in her reign.’
‘Ah! I hardly thought this could be it,’ said Mrs Fair-brother, ‘because the shops are so bad.’
Seeing that Asheton’s face bore a puzzled expression, she hastened to explain herself. ‘I mean that Queen Mary couldn’t care much for such a place, where there’s not a plate-glass front, nor a decent milliner’s in the whole town.’
‘Mademoiselle,’ said the Baron de Montcontour to Jacquetta, ‘the air is cool, allow me to fold this plaid about your shoulders.’
Whilst he was thus engaged, Mrs Fairbrother clutched the arm of Asheton, and said, in a low tone. Is it quite fair of me to avail myself of the help of your friend, lord Monkeytower, in seeing after my poor dear Aunt Betsy’s affairs? You heard what he said. The property once belonged to his mother’s family, and ought to have gone to Lady Monkeytower, instead of Betsy Pengelly. I daresay that her ladyship thinks Aunt Betsy unduly influenced her mistress—well, to make no bones over the matter—Madam Broadway—I can’t call her as she was called in French. I’ve always heard the French are profane, and I believe it with this evidence. As I was saying, I daresay the family think Aunt Betsy behaved dishonourably, and persuaded her mistress. Yes, that is what I was about to say—Betsy we say was a companion, but she was a sort of lady’s maid, only it sounds more respectable to say companion. Now I daresay the family think—’
‘Quite so, I understand,’ interrupted Asheton, who had not the patience to listen to the confused story. ‘What do you propose, madam? to come to something practical.’
‘Me! Oh I propose nothing; only feeling as they do, I don’t know whether I ought to accept Lord Monkeytower’s offer. It is very kind of him, but—I don’t believe that her own relations went to see the poor sick lady when she was ill, except just to leave a card with a P.P.C. or R.S.V.P., or whatever the letters are. I don’t know, I’ve never moved in society. Fairbrother is a grocer on a large scale. I don’t mean that he is personally on a large scale, but I mean the grocery is. The Chanticleer property is no particular odds to me or Jacket, if my aunt has left it us, and Betsy was Jacket’s godmamma. I may say to you that Fairbrother has done uncommon well in business, and laid by a lot of money, and might retire, if he were of a retiring disposition, which he ain’t. Jacket will have twenty-five thousand pounds when she marries, and when her father and I are dead and gone, as much more; so a little pinch of French dust and a shovel of French francs are no consideration to us, and we wouldn’t be thought unhandsome by nobody. Leastways I wouldn’t. I don’t think Jacket considers it much; if there was any sign that there’d been a bit of underhand dealing, not that I give Betsy the discredit of it—she was a right good Protestant up-and-down woman, and no quirks and crinkum-cranklums in her conscience. Lord! where was I got to? I’m in a regular tangle.’
‘You’ve got where you can’t see the sunset,’ said Asheton, sulkily; he was looking over his shoulder at the baron, who had edged away with Jacquetta to a considerable distance on the rampart, and was pointing out to her the isle and fortress of La Conchée, that was steeped in the orange glory of the declining sun.
‘I wouldn’t do an unhandsome thing for the world,’ continued the unwearied, unflagging Mrs Fairbrother. ‘I wouldn’t profit not a grain of mustard seed by any underhand and mean tricks, if Aunt Betsy were capable of ’em, which I don’t believe. Still, she lived a lot in France, and you can’t live among sinners and not consent to them, nor touch pitch and not be defiled. I’d rather give up our claim than have it thought by the Monkeytowers or any one else that we’d come into what we’d no good rights to. I daresay I don’t express myself very clearly, but you can understand me. I’m a square woman, and I want to be always square. You can understand that—square, all round.’
‘I understand,’ said Asheton, biting his lips. ‘Shall we push on further? The baron has gained a vantage point—for the view!’
‘Certainly—but you will advise me.’
‘O yes. You shall know my opinion when we get to Nantes.’
‘Lauk-a-dear!’ exclaimed Mrs Fairbrother, to her daughter. ‘What gibberish are you talking, Jacket?’
‘Oh, mamma, M. de Montcontour is so kind. He insists on my speaking French with him, so as to familiarise me with the language, and—he does not laugh at my mistakes.’
‘Mademoiselle is incapable of a mistake, she gives laws to everything—to our language,’ said the baron.
‘My word! that’s blarney again,’ exclaimed the down-right old lady.
‘I have been suggesting, madame,’ said the baron, ‘that as we are all going the same way, we should share a carriage and posthorses; the voiturier would conduct his own voiture. The diligence may be quicker, but it is less convenient.’
‘And I replied,’ answered Miss Fairbrother, ‘that as we are hastening to my poor great-aunt, and do not know whether she is alive, we must not consider our convenience, but press on as expeditiously as possible.’
‘If that concern we saw in the yard like a yellow wasp without a waist is what you call a diligence,’ said Mrs Fairbrother, ‘nothing on earth will induce me to travel in it. I never in all my life saw such a ramshackle conveyance. I wonder the Government are not ashamed to own it. Besides, it is dirty. I am convinced that the linings swarm with—well, fleas is too mild a term for the creatures. And as to its being more expeditious, I don’t believe it. I saw the post-horses bring it in. They ought to have been at the knacker’s years ago. My dear, I’m not going to be bitten and eaten for Aunt Betsy or anybody. I did not come to France to be cannibalised.’
Presently the sun disappeared and the air was chill. Mrs Fairbrother said it was time to go back to the inn. The gentlemen attended them and parted at the door; Asheton shook hands, but the baron only bowed low and took off and waved his hat with magnificent politeness.
As soon as the ladies had disappeared. ‘Montcontour,’ said Asheton, ‘I am afraid we shall quarrel. You take unfair advantage of me. Do you know that this sweet girl is worth over six hundred thousand francs now and as many more in prospective?’
‘If you had said a million, mon ami, I would have replied that you undervalued her.’
‘A truce to your complimentary speeches. She can’t hear you and they will not be repeated by me. It is a fact. The mother told me as much, and that old butter-tub is a truthful woman.’
‘You mean this!—in cash, six hundred thousand francs!’
‘Why, I’m not worth as much—that gentile petite would be precious without anything—but——’
‘Yes, exactly, but. What do you mean by that but?’
‘There is a mother.’
‘There is, Alphonse, a serious counterweight. She is a, thoroughly good woman, honourable, kind-hearted, high-principled, but——’
‘Précisément, Jacques—mais——’