Cousin Bette (14 page)

‘If it were twelve hundred francs,' she said, ‘I would ask you to have it sent to me.'

‘It is antique, Mademoiselle,' the dealer pointed out, thinking, like all his fellows, that he had said everything with this
ne plus ultra
, supreme accolade of the bric-à-brac trade.

‘Excuse me, Monsieur, it was made this year,' she answered gently, ‘and that is precisely why I am here, to ask you – if you will agree to that price – to send the artist to us, for we may be able to obtain quite important commissions for him.'

‘If he gets twelve hundred francs, what do I get out of it? I am a dealer,' the man said, good-humouredly enough.

‘Ah, that's true,' the girl replied, not hiding her scorn.

‘Oh, Mademoiselle, take it! I'll settle things with the dealer,' exclaimed the Livonian, unable to restrain himself.

Fascinated by Hortense's noble beauty and by her evident love of the arts, he added: ‘I am the sculptor of the group. For the past ten days I've been coming three times a day to see if someone would realize its value and make an offer for it. You are the first to admire it. Take it!'

‘Come an hour from now, with the dealer, Monsieur – here is my father's card,' Hortense said in reply.

Then, as she saw the dealer go into another room to wrap the group in cloths, she added in a whisper, to the artist's amazement, for he thought he must be dreaming: ‘In the interests of your career, Monsieur Wenceslas, don't show the card or mention the name of your purchaser to Mademoiselle Fischer. She is our cousin.'

The words ‘our cousin' made the artist's eyes dazzle; he caught a glimpse of paradise, at sight of one of the Eves fallen from there. He had been dreaming of the beautiful cousin of whom Lisbeth had spoken, just as Hortense had dreamed of her cousin's sweetheart, and when she had entered the shop he had thought: ‘Ah! if only she could be like that!'

One may imagine the look the two lovers exchanged – it was a flame; for virtuous people in love have not the least hypocrisy.

‘Well, what in the world are you doing in here?' Hortense's father demanded.

‘I have spent my savings, twelve hundred francs. Come home and see.'

She put her arm through her father's again, as he repeated:

‘Twelve hundred francs?'

‘Thirteen hundred, actually!… but you will lend me the difference.'

‘And what could you possibly find there to spend so much money on?'

‘Ah, that's the question!' the girl replied gaily. ‘If I have found a husband, it won't be wasted money.'

‘A husband, child, in that shop?'

‘Listen, darling Papa, would you forbid me to marry a great artist?'

‘No, child. A great artist nowadays is an untitled prince; he has fame and fortune, the two highest social advantages… after virtue,' he added, a little sanctimoniously.

‘Of course,' answered Hortense. ‘And what do you think of sculpture?'

‘It's a very unrewarding profession,' said Hulot, shaking his head. ‘One needs powerful patrons, as well as great talent, for the Government is the only purchaser. It's an art without a market nowadays, when there are no longer people
who live splendidly; and there are no great fortunes now, no hereditary mansions, nor entailed estates. We have only house-room for small pictures, small statues; and
smallness
, the petty, is a menace to the arts.'

‘But suppose he were a great artist who could find a market?' persisted Hortense.

‘That would solve the problem.'

‘And with influence?'

‘Better still!'

‘And titled?'

‘Come, come!'

‘A Count?'

‘And a sculptor!'

‘He has no money.'

‘And he is counting on Mademoiselle Hortense Hulot's?' said the Baron banteringly, with a keen searching look into his daughter's eyes.

‘This great artist, a Count and a sculptor, has just seen your daughter for the first time in his life, and for a period of five minutes, Monsieur le Baron,' Hortense answered her father, serenely. ‘Yesterday, do you hear, my dear sweet good Papa, while you were at the Chamber, Mama fainted. That faint, which she said was just an attack of nerves, was the result of some distress caused by negotiations for my marriage having been broken off, for she told me that, in order to get me off your hands –'

‘She is too fond of you to have used an expression –'

‘Which is rather unparliamentary,' finished Hortense, laughing. ‘No, she didn't use those words; but I know that a marriageable daughter who doesn't get married is a very heavy cross for proper parents to bear. Well, Mama thinks that if a resolute talented man presented himself, who would be satisfied with a thirty thousand franc dowry, we should all be pleased! The fact is that she thought it right to prepare me for the modesty of my future lot in life, and prevent me from indulging in any too grand castles in the air. And that means that my marriage has been called off and there is no dowry.'

‘Your mother is an exceedingly good, noble, and wise
woman,' her father said, deeply humiliated, in spite of considerable relief at this confidence.

‘Yesterday, she told me that you would allow her to sell her diamonds to provide for my marriage; but I would rather she kept her diamonds and that I found a husband for myself. I think I have found the man, the suitor who answers to Mama's specifications.'

‘There! In the place du Carrousel! In one morning?'

‘Oh, Papa, there's more behind this than you know,' she said, teasingly.

‘Well, come now, dear child, just tell your old father the whole story,' he coaxed her, concealing his uneasiness.

Under promise of absolute secrecy, Hortense related the substance of her conversations with Cousin Bette. Then, when they had reached home, she showed her father the famous seal to prove how well-founded her conjectures were. The father marvelled, in his heart, at the profound insight and the address of young girls acting on instinct, and admired the simplicity of the plan which an ideal love had suggested, in the course of one night, to this innocent girl.

‘You'll see the masterpiece that I have just bought. They're going to bring it, and dear Wenceslas is coming with the dealer. The man who created a group like that is bound to make his fortune; but you must use your influence to get him a commission for a statue, and then rooms at the Institut.…'

‘How you do run on!' exclaimed her father. ‘If you were given your head you would be a wife as soon as it was legally possible, in eleven days.…'

‘Does one have to wait eleven days?' she said, laughing. ‘It took me only five minutes to fall in love with him, just as you did with Mama, at first sight! And he loves me, as if we had known each other for two years. Yes,' she affirmed, as her father shook his head doubtfully, ‘I have read ten volumes of love written in his eyes. And you and Mama are surely bound to accept him as my future husband when you have been shown that he is a man of genius? Sculpture is the highest art of all!' she cried, clapping her hands and skipping. ‘Listen, I'll tell you everything.…'

‘So there's more to tell?' her father asked, with a smile.

The transparent innocence of her eager chatter had completely reassured the Baron.

‘A declaration of the utmost importance,' she replied. ‘I loved him before I knew him, but I am madly in love since I saw him an hour ago.'

‘Rather too madly,' observed the Baron, who was delighted and amused by the spectacle of this artless passion.

‘Don't make me suffer for confiding in you,' she begged him. ‘It is so sweet to cry to one's father's heart “I love, I am so happy to be in love!” You will soon see my Wenceslas… his brow, shadowed with melancholy! Grey eyes shining in the sun of genius!… And he looks so distinguished! Is Livonia a beautiful country, do you think? My Cousin Bette marry that young man? Why, she's old enough to be his mother… it would be a crime! How jealous I feel of what she must have done for him! It seems to me that she will not be very pleased to see me marry him.'

‘Come, my angel, we must not keep anything from your mother,' the Baron said.

‘But I would have to show her the seal, and I promised not to give my cousin away – she says she's afraid of Mama's making fun of her,' replied Hortense.

‘You show some scruples about the seal, but steal your Cousin Bette's sweetheart!'

‘I promised about the seal, but made no promises about the man who made it.'

This romantic plan of Hortense's, of a patriarchal simplicity, fitted in remarkably well with the family's secret straits. The Baron, however, when he had commended his daughter for confiding in him, told her that from now on she must rely altogether on her parents' discretion.

‘You understand, my dear child, that it is not for you to make sure that your cousin's sweetheart
is
a Count, and has his papers in order, and that his behaviour warrants our trust. As for your cousin, she refused five offers of marriage when she was twenty years younger; she won't stand in your way, I'll answer for that.'

‘Listen, Papa. If you want to see me married, don't speak to
my cousin about this sweetheart until you come to sign my marriage contract. I've been questioning her about the matter for the last six months!… Well, there's something unaccountable about her.…'

‘What, exactly?' said her father, surprised and interested.

‘Well, there's no good-will in the way she looks at me when I go too far, even in fun, about her friend. Make your inquiries, but let me steer my own ship. I know what I'm doing, and that should reassure you!'

‘Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me!” You are one of those who go their own way,' the Baron remarked, with a hint of irony.

After lunch the dealer, the artist, and the group were announced. The sudden colour in her daughter's face made the Baroness first uneasy and then watchful, and Hortense's confusion, the ardour in her eyes, soon betrayed the secret so ill-concealed in her young heart.

Count Steinbock, dressed in black, struck the Baron as a very distinguished young man.

‘Would you undertake a large bronze figure?' he asked him, with the group in his hand.

Having admired it, with some confidence in his own judgement, he handed the group to his wife, who did not know much about sculpture.

‘Don't you think it's lovely, Mama?' Hortense whispered in her mother's ear.

‘To make a statue, Monsieur le Baron, is not so difficult as to model a clock like this one, which the dealer has kindly brought,' the artist replied to the Baron's question.

The dealer, at the dining-room sideboard, was busy unwrapping the wax model of the twelve Hours pursued in their flight by Cupids.

‘Leave the clock with me,' the Baron said, astonished at the beauty of the piece. ‘I want to show it to the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister of Commerce.'

‘Who is this young man that you are so interested in?' the Baroness asked her daughter.

‘An artist rich enough to exploit this model might make a hundred thousand francs from it,' said the antique-dealer,
looking knowing and mysterious, as he noticed the sympathy between the artist and the girl that shone in their eyes. ‘He would only have to sell twenty casts at eight thousand francs, for each cast would cost about a thousand francs to make; and if he numbered the casts and destroyed the model it would be easy enough to find twenty patrons of art pleased to be among the few to possess the work.'

‘A hundred thousand francs!' exclaimed Steinbock, looking first at the dealer, and then in turn at Hortense, the Baron, and the Baroness.

‘Yes, a hundred thousand francs!' the dealer repeated, ‘and if I had the money I would give you twenty thousand for it myself. With the power to destroy the model, I should be making a good investment. But one of the Princes would certainly pay thirty or forty thousand for this fine piece, to adorn his drawing-room. There has never yet been a clock made, in the history of the arts, able to please both the man in the street and the connoisseur, and this one, Monsieur, solves the problem.'

‘This is for yourself,' Hortense said, giving the dealer six gold coins, and he left.

‘Say nothing to anyone about this visit,' the artist said to the dealer, following him to the door. ‘If you are asked where we have taken the group, mention the Duc d'Hérouville's name – you know, the well-known collector who lives in the rue de Varennes.'

The dealer nodded.

‘Your name is…?' the Baron asked the artist when he returned.

‘Count Steinbock.'

‘Have you papers to prove your identity?'

‘Yes, Monsieur le Baron, papers in Russian and German, but not legally authenticated.'

‘Do you feel that you are capable of undertaking a nine-foot statue?'

‘Yes, Monsieur.'

‘Well, if the persons that I am going to consult are pleased with these examples of your work, I can obtain a commission for you – a statue of Marshal Montcornet, which is to be erected
at Père-Lachaise over his grave. The Minister of War and his old officers of the Imperial Guard are subscribing a considerable sum, so that we should have a deciding voice in choosing the artist.'

‘Oh, that would make my fortune, Monsieur!' said Stein-bock, who was dazed by so much good luck descending upon him all at once.

‘Set your mind at rest,' the Baron replied graciously. ‘If the two Ministers to whom I shall show your group and this model admire the pieces, you are well on the road to success.'

Hortense squeezed her father's arm hard enough to make him wince.

‘Bring me your papers, and say nothing of your hopes to anyone, not even to our old Cousin Bette.'

‘Lisbeth?' exclaimed Madame Hulot, at last understanding the connexion, although unable to guess the point of contact.