In the Days of My Youth Part 9

"Don't flatter yourself that she will displease Corydon to dance with your lords.h.i.+p!" I said, laughingly.

"Pshaw! she would displease fifty Corydons if I chose to make her do so," said Dalrymple, with a smile of conscious power.

"True; but not on her wedding-day."

"Wedding-day or not, I beg to observe that in less than half an hour you will see me whirling along with my arm round little Phillis's dainty waist. Now come and see how I do it."

He made his way through the crowd, and I, half curious, half abashed, went with him. The party was five in number, consisting of the bride and bridegroom, a rosy, middle-aged peasant woman, evidently the mother of the bride, and an elderly couple who looked like humble townsfolk, and were probably related to one or other of the newly-married pair.

Dalrymple opened the attack by stumbling against the mother, and then overwhelming her with elaborate apologies.

"In these crowded places, Madame," said he, in his fluent French, "one is scarcely responsible for an impoliteness. I beg ten thousand pardons, however. I hope I have not hurt you?"

"_Ma foi!_ no, M'sieur. It would take more than that to hurt me!"

"Nor injured your dress, I trust, Madame?"

"_Ah, par exemple_! do I wear muslins or gauzes that they should not bear touching? No, no, no, M'sieur--thanking you all the same."

"You are very amiable, Madame, to say so."

"You are very polite, M'sieur, to think so much of a trifle."

"Nothing is a trifle, Madame, where a lady is concerned. At least, so we Englishmen consider."

"Bah! M'sieur is not English?"

"Indeed, Madame, I am."

"_Mais, mon Dieu! c'est incroyable_. Suzette--brother Jacques--Andre, do you hear this? M'sieur, here, swears that he is English, and yet he speaks French like one of ourselves! Ah, what a fine thing learning is!"

"I may say with truth, Madame, that I never appreciate the advantages of education so highly, as when they enable me to converse with ladies who are not my own countrywomen," said Dalrymple, carrying on the conversation with as much studied politeness as if his interlocutor had been a d.u.c.h.ess. "But--excuse the observation--you are here, I imagine, upon a happy occasion?"

The mother laughed, and rubbed her hands.

"_Dame_! one may see that," replied she, "with one's eyes shut! Yes, M'sieur,--yes--their wedding-day, the dear children--their wedding-day!

They've been betrothed these two years."

"The bride is very like you, Madame," said Dalrymple, gravely. "Your younger sister, I presume?"

"_Ah, quel farceur_! He takes my daughter for my sister! Suzette, do you hear this? M'sieur is killing me with laughter!"

And the good lady chuckled, and gasped, and wiped her eyes, and dealt Dalrymple a playful push between the shoulders, which would have upset the balance of any less heavy dragoon.

"Your daughter, Madame!" said he. "Allow me to congratulate you. May I also be permitted to congratulate the bride?" And with this he took off his hat to Suzette and shook hands with Andre, who looked not overpleased, and proceeded to introduce me as his friend Monsieur Basil Arbuthnot, "a young English gentleman, _tres distingue_"

The old lady then said her name was Madame Roquet, and that she rented a small farm about a mile and a half from Rouen; that Suzette was her only child; and that she had lost her "blessed man" about eight years ago.

She next introduced the elderly couple as her brother Jacques Robineau and his wife, and informed us that Jacques was a tailor, and had a shop opposite the church of St. Maclou, "_la bas_."

To judge of Monsieur Robineau's skill by his outward appearance, I should have said that he was professionally unsuccessful, and supplied his own wardrobe from the misfits returned by his customers. He wore a waistcoat which was considerably too long for him, trousers which were considerably too short, and a green cloth coat with a high velvet collar which came up nearly to the tops of his ears. In respect of personal characteristics, Monsieur Robineau and his wife were the most admirable contrast imaginable. Monsieur Robineau was short; Madame Robineau was tall. Monsieur Robineau was as plump and rosy as a robin; Madame Robineau was pale and bony to behold. Monsieur Robineau looked the soul of good nature, ready to chirrup over his _grog-au-vin,_ to smoke a pipe with his neighbor, to cut a harmless joke or enjoy a harmless frolic, as cheerfully as any little tailor that ever lived; Madame Robineau, on the contrary, preserved a dreadful dignity, and looked as if she could laugh at nothing on this side of the grave. Not to consider the question too curiously, I should have said, at first sight, that Monsieur Robineau stood in no little awe of his wife, and that Madame Robineau was the very head and front of their domestic establishment.

It was wonderful and delightful to see how Captain Dalrymple placed himself on the best of terms with all these good people--how he patted Robineau on the back and complimented Madame, banished the cloud from Andre's brow, and summoned a smile to the pretty cheek of Suzette. One would have thought he had known them for years already, so thoroughly was he at home with every member of the wedding party.

Presently, he asked Suzette to dance. She blushed scarlet, and cast a pretty appealing look at her husband and her mother. I could almost guess what she whispered to the former by the motion of her lips.

"Monsieur Andre will, I am sure, spare Madame for one gallop," said Dalrymple, with that kind of courtesy which accepts no denial. It was quite another tone, quite another manner. It was no longer the persuasive suavity of one who is desirous only to please, but the politeness of a gentleman to au inferior.

The cloud came back upon Andre's brow, and he hesitated; but Madame Roquet interposed.

"Spare her!" she exclaimed. "_Dame_! I should think so! She has never left his arm all day. Here, my child, give me your shawl while you dance, and bake care not to get too warm, for the evening air is dangerous."

And so Suzette took off her shawl, and Andre was silenced, and Dalrymple, in less than the half hour, was actually whirling away with his arm round little Phillis's dainty waist.

I am afraid that I proved a very indifferent _loc.u.m tenens_ for my brilliant friend, and that the good people thought me exceedingly stupid. I tried to talk to them, but the language tripped me up at every turn, and the right words never would come when they were wanted.

Besides, I felt uneasy without knowing exactly why. I could not keep from watching Dalrymple and Suzette. I could not help noticing how closely he held her; how he never ceased talking to her; and how the smiles and blushes chased each other over her pretty face. That I should have wit enough to observe these things proved that my education was progressing rapidly; but then, to be sure, I was studying under an accomplished teacher.

They danced for a long time. So long, that Andre became uneasy, and my available French was quite exhausted. I was heartily glad when Dalrymple brought back the little bride at last, flushed and panting, and (himself as cool as a diplomatist) a.s.sisted her with her shawl and resigned her to the protection of her husband.

"Why hast thou danced so long with that big Englishman?" murmured Andre, discontentedly. "When _I_ asked thee, thou wast too tired, and now...."

"And now I am so happy to be near thee again," whispered Suzette.

Andre softened directly.

"But to dance for twenty minutes...." began he.

"Ah, but he danced so well, and I am so fond of waltzing, Andre!"

The cloud gathered again, and an impatient reply was coming, when Dalrymple opportunely invited the whole party to a bowl of punch in an adjoining arbor, and himself led the way with Madame Roquet. The arbor was vacant, a waiter was placing the chairs, and the punch was blazing in the bowl. It had evidently been ordered during one of the pauses in the dance, that it might be ready to the moment--a little attention which called forth exclamations of pleasure from both Madame Roquet and Monsieur Robineau, and touched with something like a gleam of satisfaction even the grim visage of Monsieur Robineau's wife.

Dalrymple took the head of the table, and stirred the punch into leaping tongues of blue flame till it looked like a miniature Vesuvius.

"What diabolical-looking stuff!" I exclaimed. "You might, to all appearance, be Lucifer's own cupbearer."

"A proof that it ought to be devilish good," replied Dalrymple, ladling it out into the gla.s.ses. "Allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to propose the health, happiness, and prosperity of the bride and bridegroom. May they never die, and may they be remembered for ever after!"

We all laughed as if this was the best joke we had heard in our lives, and Dalrymple filled the gla.s.ses up again.

"What, in the name of all that's mischievous, can have become of Sullivan?" said he to me. "I have not caught so much as a glimpse of him for the last hour."

"When I last saw him, he was dancing."

"Yes, with a pretty little dark-eyed girl in a blue dress. By Jove! that fellow will be getting into trouble if left to himself!"

"But the girl has her mother with her!"

"All the stronger probability of a scrimmage," replied Dalrymple, sipping his punch with a covert glance of salutation at Suzette.

"Shall I see if they are among the dancers?"