The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 14 April 1910, Page 563

The Storyteller

A GOOD MARRIAGE ~ When the prosperous grocer, Charles Lorbier, married Mariette Malm, the pretty daughter of the small farmer from whom he was accustomed to purchase his butter and cheese, people said he could have done better; also that she had done most wonderfully well for herself. Perhaps both w .®y e correct. At any rate, the couple were well satisfied with each other, and when; three years after their marriage, a beautiful little girl came to bless their union there was no happier pair in town than the Lorbiers, at the Sign of the Golden Goat, in the Rue Viagere. .. Mariette wished to call the child after the Virgin Mother, to whom she was so devoted, but her husband thought the name of Mary too ordinary for so beautiful an infant. He therefore selected Ernestine, from that of a heroine m one of the feuilletons he was in the habit of reading after the day s work was done. M. Lorbier was of a more romantic temperament than his simple spouse. His ambitions, too, were soaring, and they were centred now m the tiny babe, of whom the mother only realised that she " as hers to feed and clothe, to love and caress, without a single thought of the future, which, from the moment of the child’s birth, had, in the mind of the father, begun to unfold illimitable possibilities for the coming years. It was not long before he revealed these hopes and plans to his wife, who, like the dutiful spouse and fond mother that she was, could not help but share in them when she heard them drummed into her ears day after day. Ernestine’s first tooth had not appeared when her father had already arranged the amount of the dot it would thenceforward be his ambition to bestow upon her, and as money, even in the hands of a successful grocer, does not doubly ; itself any too quickly, by the time she was . walking, ■ he®** parents had begun to practise in her behalf many small?; economies which had not been considered necessary before she came. At the end of the child’s second year, Marietta had begun to think of Ernestine’s trousseau, and, being; quite skilful with her needle, employed all, her spare moments in hemstitching and embroidering ‘ linen articles, domestic and personal, which, as soon as they were finished, she deposited in the large brass-bound armoire that stood in her own bedchamber. The watchword of the Lorbier household, oft repeated and never lost sight of for a single day, was comprised in the follow ing sentence: ‘ We must make a good marriage for Ernestine.’ With this constantly repeated thought in their minds, it is not strange that with regard to themselves, at least— the child was greatly indulgedthe economies of the father and mother constantly increased, lyhen Charles felt tempted to treat himself to a cigar or a glass of beer, ho would think, * So much from Ernestine’s dot ’ —and if now and then Mariette felt inclined to buy a new' gown or hat, or to purchase a ribbon or flower to freshen up the old, she would be reminded by her husband, if the thought had temporarily escaped her mind, that ‘ we must remember Ernestine’s dot.’ And these sacrifices were made not only ungrudgingly, but with joy and content, those two simple souls believing that the future, held for them a magnificent reward for their deprivations. When Ernestine was between twelve and thirteen, having made her First Communion, M. Lorbier decided that she must be sent to a boarding-school. At first her mother demurred, saying: ‘ Ah, Charles, why is it necessary to do this ? Why tear from me my child, from whom I have never been parted for a single day Soon she will be able to assist, us in the shop, she is so quick at figures, and I shall work all the harder helping you behind the counter. , We can thus dispense with all but a boy to carry parcels and run errands, and her dot will be increasing all the time.’ But her husband met her, objections with loud reproaches. ‘Stupid woman!’ he cried; ‘not to know that our Ernestine is not for the shop at all ! We have other designs for her. What kind of a marriage will she make if we put her up behind the desk like an ordinary girl? We mean to make a fine match for Ernestine —a fine match, I tell you.’ ‘ I don’t know, Charles,’ faltered Mariette, ‘ To give the child a good dot, that is all right. I am her mother and I am willing to work my fingers to the bone for it, but to lift her above her station —to put false notions into her —M. le Cure says ’ ‘ How dare M. le Cure meddle with my affairs till he is asked?’ cried Lorbier, striking his fist on the counter with an angry vehemence Mariette had never before seen, and which caused her to shrink away from his final objurgations. ‘ M. le Cure, indeed! Let him mind his business. I will show him — will show him! And it is not to a convent school, either, that we will send our daughter, but , to a place where she will be taught something besides Avb ' Marias and Pater Nosters.’ ‘ So Ernestine was sent to a private school in . the suburbs, kept by two maiden ladies of somewhat liberal

principles and would-be * aristocratic patrons,’ as their prospectus had it, where, in company with the daughters of petty officials and small proprietors, she ‘ finished ’ her education. She had always been a selfish child, though her parents in their blind idolatry had never realised the fact. Mariette was the first to see it when she returned to the •paternal roof. Nothing pleased herneither the house, nor the meals, nor the old-fashioned furniture, which her doting father began to replace in order to humor her. Her days were passed in idleness and solitude; for, insignificant, comparatively, as had been the social status of her companions at school, they were still several steps removed from the rank of tradesmen’s daughters, and their intimacy, even their acquaintanceship, lapsed with the close of their schooldays. On the other hand, Ernestine held herself entirely aloof from her former playmates of the Fauborg, to whom she became an object of ridicule. She was still her father’s idol and used him for her own .purposes by cajoling, flattering, reproaching him as the mood seized her, while for her mother she appeared to have nothing but contempt. Poor Mariette had learned to efface herself completely; she was nothing more than a servant in the household." Meanwhile Ernestine lived in comparative isolation. The marriage on which her father had so counted seemed as far distant of accomplishment as a voyage to the moon. The young messieurs upon whom the girl would have smiled had they come to her vicinity would have nothing to say to the daughter of a common grocer, and toward the young men in her own rank of life she had no inclination. * She had been educated above her station and was now reaping the harvest of her parents’ mistake. ° Thus three years passed and Ernestine was nearly twenty, when a young apothecary, sent by a firm that had a chain of shops in various cities and towns, established himself on a corner not far from Lofbier’s shop. He fitted up the place very prettily, introducing among other things the novelty of ‘ American soda water,’ which soon brought him many patrons. M. Lorbier, attired in his Sunday clothes, was rather a good-looking man, and Ernestine was not above going for a walk with her father on Sunday afternoons. They found it pleasant and convenient to stop for refreshment at the apothecary’s, and thus an-intimacy was established. One autumn afternoon the grocer burst into the kitchen, where his wife was preparing supper, with a letter in his hand.

‘ M. Baptiste Huet asks for the hand of our Ernestine !’ he cried. ‘ What do you think of that, mother ? ’ 1 The cloth with which she had been drying the lettuce fluttered from the good woman’s hand to the floor. *An excellent match, is it not, Charles?’ she murmured, trembling all over at the news. ‘I should —an excellent match. The finest shop in the town and a splendid fellow. He must be very well fixed.’

* Probably. But is he not working for others? The shop is not his own.’ ‘ But what a salary he must have! There are four clerks. They only pick out first-class men for managers, and M. Huet has done a fine business since he has been here. I should not wonder if he would soon be promoted to Paris! That would take Ernestine away from us.’ The poor mother, who, though she now enjoyed very little of her daughter’s society, began to be alarmed at the idea of being entirely separated from her.

‘ Pooh, pooh! ’ rejoined her husband. ‘ That is only my idea. It may never happen. And if it should—parents must be prepared to be separated from their children when they marry.’

‘ I don’t know ’ began Mariette, reflectively, wiping her eyes with the napkin she had recovered from the kitchen floor. _ ‘ Until I married we had all remained for generations in the same neighborhood, but I remember ’ ‘ Yes, yes, but those were different times and different circumstances. These young people belong to another day and generation. And now it is to see the girl herself, and tell her, and then to settle her dot.’ With Ernestine there was no difficulty. She hailed the arrival of a suitor as a parched tree welcomes water in a desert land. But regarding the dot, it was not so easy as M. Lorbier had expected, ‘How much do you ask with my daughter? ’ he inquired of the prospective son-in-law at the first interview on the subject. ‘How much did you think of giving her?’ was the reply. ‘lam no money-hunter, M. Lorbier —my ideas are very moderate.’ ‘Twenty-five thousand francs,’ answered the grocer complacently, inwardly chuckling at the effect the announcement would be likely to produce upon the apothecary. It was not what he had anticipated. The young man leaned back in his —they were seated in the laboratory behind the drug storehe lifted his eyebrows, passing his right forefinger lightly across his forehead, while with the left he flecked a. scrap of lint from his coat sleeve, and replied in a suave but decided tone: ‘ Forty thousand was what I had calculated upon, Monsieur. With your business and accumulated competence it should be easy, very easy, and socially it is for you a—

you understand. Of course, Monsieur, if you do not wish to, or find it impossible—-but I have been led to believe etc. 9

ai A a moment, Monsieur,’ interposed the grocer, knitting his brows and leaning heavily upon the little table, om the other side of which the apothecary was calmly regarding him. ' . J He began to run over rapidly in his own mind a list or securities which he might —securities on which he had depended for his old age when he and Mariette would not -have to work any longer. Indeed, he had always contemplated retirement on the marriage of his daughter, who would naturally not enjoy introducing her parents as the keepers of a corner grocery. After a moment or two he continued : fj. * *.i Can it * w *h d° M. Huet; you shall have the forty thousand.’ After that all went smoothly. to be sure, said Lor bier to his wife, as they conversed in the solitude of their chamber, ‘ it will mean a little more hard work for you and me, Mariette, a little longer to hold our noses to the grindstone, but we shall be compensated in the good fortune we shall have brought to our daughter, x es, yes, my dear always believed that Ernestine would make a good match, and, you see, it is coming to pass.’ • And, as had always been her custom since their marriage, Mariette acquiesced in what her husband said. During the period that elapsed between the betrothal and the marriage, Ernestine was amiability itself. Knowing that she would soon be free of the undesirable environment at which she had long chafed and which she despised, and wishing to obtain from her parents all they could possibly bestow upon her, she wheedled and flattered them into spending a great deal more upon her trousseau than they could afford.

. This means altogether at least five more years for us in harness, Mariette/ said the grocer one evening to his wife as he examined some bills. ‘But it is all for the child. i When we are gone she will be provided for. We shall have the consolation of knowing, when we are dying that Ernestine has made a good marriage. } * Mariette did not say much on these occasions; the penetration of the mother had begun to understand of what small account her parents were to the daughter in whom the pride of the father had centred every hope and ambition of his heart. She had-long since become unexpectant and resigned. But she did not try to undeceive her husband. N M. Lorbier would have liked a large wedding, to which he could have invited his friends and neighbors; but, as Mariette had foreseen, both Ernestine and her fiance opposed it. His father, mother, sister, and brother were and all must be done quietly, as they were of a different order from the friends and patrons of the grocer M. Lorbier was not a little disapponted, but, being a sensible man, he saw the wisdom of this course. The wedding, therefore, was very simple and unostentatious; the relatives of M. Huet, though somewhat distant, were not at all patronising. The young couple went for a few days to the seashore, and M. Lorbier and his wife returned to their counter. And then began anew the refrain from the lips of the grocer: ‘Now we shall have to work a little harder, Mariette, and to economise in order to make up for Ernestine’s dot. But it is a fine thing for us to know that she has made a good marriage.’ Sometimes Mariette would murmur a mechanical * Yes, Charles/ but more often she said nothing. She spent the first hours of Ernestine’s absence in alternate hope and fear, mingled with bitter self-reproach that she could so soon pass judgment on the daughter whose future was yet untried. But it happened as she had anticipated. The morning after the young people returned Ernestine made her appearance in the house of her parents. She looked very pretty and seemed very happy M. Lorbier beamed all over with pride and affection.

Almost as soon as she had saluted them the bride said: ‘ Papa, you must begin to think about giving up the shop as soon as ever you can sell out to some one who will give you what it is worth. It will be very embarrassing, otherwise, for me You see, my circle of friends will be—.well, different, M. Huet’s family associate only with the best people.’ ‘My dear Ernestine/ replied her father, ‘it will be impossible for me to sell out immediately. In order to meet M. Huet’s demands as to your dowry, I have been obliged to dispose of some securities on which I had counted as a provision for our old age. It is necessary to make up that amount. For a time we shall have to work harder than ever.’

Ernestine shrugged her shoulders and, rising, shook out her ruffled and embroidered skirts.

‘ I shall be mortified all the time, then,’ she said, ‘I think it is too bad, after all these years, fathersurely you must have saved enough to retire to some little placefarm, garden, or whatever you have been planning for l know nothing about such things. You could raise all your own vegetables, fowl, and so on. Mother is such an admirable manager that you could live on almost nothing. Think about it, I beseech you.’

• l lt is out of the question,’ replied the grocer impatiently. ‘ What you say is rank nonsense. Neither your mother nor myself will ever trouble your fine friends, Ernestine. We are fully aware of the gap that lies between us. Since you were born our ambition has been that you should make a good marriage. You have done so and we are satisfied. Ail our lives wo have sacrificed ourselves for your happiness. Is it not so, mother?’ ‘ It is so,’ replied Mariette, as she looked steadfastly at her daughter in a manner that made the apothecary’s wife uneasy. For the first time in her selfish life she felt that her mother read her through and through. She flushed a deep red and turned again- to her father. She was about to speak, when Mariette said, still in the same calm voice: ‘ There is a shop offered for sale down at Barrere-sur-Mer, Charles. I have seen it, advertised in the Grocer’s Journal. It is a pretty place; we should not have to work so hard there, and you love the sea; so do I. If we could but sell out here we might go to Barrere.’ ‘Thunder, woman! What is the matter with you?’ cried Lorbier. ‘Of course we could sell here, and to advantage, but don’t you understand, either of you, that I must make a great deal of money? What you say is impossible. And once more I tell you, Ernestine, that we shall not trouble you—-but here I stay, as long as I please.’ Ernestine dashed a couple of tears from a pair of angry blue eyes. ‘You need hot be so ungracious, papa,’ she said. ‘I assure you it is not' becoming. And one thing I hope you will do to please me. It is that you put on a hat in future when you go out in the street, instead of that ridiculous skull-cap which makes you look like a barber. And also that you will take off your apron when you go out of the shop. In that much, at least, you can oblige me.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘ Baptiste will be waiting dejeuner for me,’ she said. And without, further salutation she took her departure. It was significant of the effect her conduct had upon them, that Monsieur and Madame Lorbier did not discuss their daughter. Mariette had learned the wisdom of silence; her husband seemed to bo brooding deeply. A week passed without another visit from Ernestine—a long and unhappy week for both. One evening Mariette found her husband reading the Grocer’s Journal. It was open at the advertising page. Are you thinking anything of making a change?’ she asked, taking up her knitting. ‘ What change ? ’ he inquired harshly. ‘ Of Barrere.’ —why should we do that?’ ‘We could do it, Charles. Very little will suffice to keep you and me, and this morning, while you were away, my brother Francois came in to say that the mills are going to be built at La Harpe, and they will pay us a good. yearly sum for the water rights. It would give us at least four hundred francs annually.’ ‘ Your money, Mariette.’ ‘ Our money, Charles. In all your life you have never before said to me so unkind a thing.’ ‘ It is good news, Mariette,’ said the grocer, kindly, reaching across the table and pressing her hand. ‘ You are the best of wivesyou have been the best of mothers.’ She returned the pressure and smiled bravely. ‘ Do think of Barrere,’ she said. He shook his head. ‘ltis no good, that place,’ he replied. That advertisement has been in the paper for months.’ ‘ Perhaps they want too much money. Shall we go down and look at it ? ’ Again he shook his head. But in the vehemence of the gesture the wife thought she read capitulation. Two days more and still no Ernestine, or word from her. One morning Lorbier announced that he would be absent for the day on business. In the evening he returned after the shop had been closed. Mariette arranged his supper on the table. ‘ I have been to Barrere,’ he said. ( ‘lt is a pretty place, and they tell me in the summer very flourishing. In the winter only the fishermen and their families.’ ‘And the grocery?’ . ‘lt is well enough. The people, a man and his wife, are old; they wish to retire. It is small enough a shop in front, the dwelling behind, a pretty garden, well-kept vegetables and flowers, and an orchard. And always the view and the sound of the sea. You would like it, Mariette.’ ‘ And you ? ’ , ■... ~ ‘lt calls to me. It is ideal for old age, and with the additional four hundred francs we could manage. Shall we go, Charles ? ‘I cannot decide— And neither of them mentioned Ernestine. - . Three days more, and a rainy Sunday. Since his daughter’s marriage, Lorbier had accompanied his wire to Mass. She began to hope be might soon go to the Sacraments, for several times lately she had heard him defending Church and Cure against scoffing customers in the shop. It was a sweet drop in the bitterness of her cup. . ~ At dinner he said; .. 0 , ‘ Mariette, should we not go to see Ernestine r

?cn e ’ P aus pd for a moment before she answered. ( She has- not invited us, Charles.’ Mariette, should that be - necessary? Do you not think, perhaps, that the child is offended because we * j 1 1?? Sp • , Otherwise, would she not have been here And Huet, also; he may resent it.’ ‘ I cannot say. ‘She was displeased that day. If she wished to see us she would come, I think.’ . , •i j (0 m s pouting, that is all. You know she is a spoiled child. And in some respects she has right on her side. It is natural; I can understand it. She has married above us and we must make it as easy as possible for her. Shall we —this afternoon ? ’ . ‘lf you wish it, Charles,’ said Mariette. ‘lt is raining they may be alone. Let us go and have a cup of tea with them.’ ‘"Very well,’ said Mariette, after we have had our nap. At four o’clock the couple set forth under a huge umbrella, which completely shielded them from the' rain that had .been pouring steadily since noon, making rivulets of the gutters and little puddles of the badly-kept roadway. Lorbier ore his best suit of dark blue, with brass buttons, a yellow waistcoat and neckcloth. and his large Sunday hat. ■ j Mariette was attired in black cashmere, a long waterproof cloak covering this — holiday dressblack congress gaiters with white stockings, and goloshes that came above ail kles. On her head she had tied a small black scarf of Chantilly lace, which Lorbier had brought her from the Pans Exposition, but which—so highly did she prize she had never before worn. She knew it to be far more becoming than the shabby bonnet with attenuated jet flowers she had worn for so many years to Mass—as well as to market. And, if some stranger should happen to be visiting the apothecary and his wife, she would present a better appearance with that pretty scarf tied over her soft, wavy gray hair. Ernestine and her husband lived over the shop, in a very nice apartment, reached by a separate entrance. The door opened into a little hall, or reception-room, .from which the stairs ascended. A neat maid, in cap and apron, answered Lorbier’s ring. ‘Madame is engaged!’ she said, politely enough. ‘Whom shall I say?’ " ‘ Her father and mother,’ answered the grocer. ‘ But we will announce ourselves.’ The maid looked doubtfully at the couple. The grocer went up three or four steps, his wife following, while the maid, still uncertain, stood at the foot of the stairs. A door opened and closed above; Ernestine, dressed in red silk, leaned over the railing at the top. Papa, mamma! she exclaimed in a loud whisper. 1 Why did you come out on such a rainy day ? And I should have told you— always intend to have friends on Sunday afternoon. It makes it awkward.’ They paused on the stairs; the grocer looked at his wife—his eyes were moist, but hers were dry and blazing. The maid had disappearedprobably behind the door. Without again glancing upward, without uttering a word, the couple turned, descended the stairs, and passed into the street. The grocer opened the dripping umbrella, which he had left on the outside step, and drawing his wife close to him with the other hand, muttered something of which she understood only the last word —‘ Barrere.’ She made no reply; she could not have spoken. But she clung to him under the flapping umbrella, forgetting to lift her best cashmere skirt, which dragged behind her on the wet pavement. At the corner they stepped into a deep, dirty puddle, the muddy water splashing above their shoes and upon their lower garments. As, in their efforts to restore their footing, the pair first swayed toward each other and then back again, a group of street urchins out for a lark, began to ridicule them. Look at the old woman in white stockings! ’ cried one. ‘ I bet you they’ll be black when she gets home.’ ‘ See them stagger! ’ cried another. ‘ They’re both drunk! At which humorous sally the whole party burst into a chorus of wild, jeering laughter. But the man and woman, t. looking neither to the right nor to the left, plodded slowly on with bowed heads, under the now streaming —through the pitiless rain.— Translated from the French for Extension.