The Child Wife

Cornelia, who occupied the chair, rose to her feet, laying aside the crochet on which she had been engaged, and going off to be dressed by Keziah.

Julia, on the sofa, simply yawned.

Only at a third admonition from her mother, she flung the French novel she had been reading upon the floor, and sat up.

“Bother the gentlemen?” she exclaimed, repeating the yawn with arms upraised. “I wish, ma, you hadn’t asked them to come. I’d rather have stayed in all day, and finished that beautiful story I’ve got into. Heaven bless that dear Georges Sand! Woman that she is, she should have been a man. She knows them as if she were one; their pretensions and treachery. Oh, mother! when you were determined on having a child, why did you make it a daughter? I’d give the world to have been your son!”

“Fie, fie, Jule! Don’t let any one hear you talk in that silly way!”

“I don’t care whether they do or not. I don’t care if all Paris, all France, all the world knows it. I want to be a man, and to have a man’s power.”

“Pff, child! A man’s power! There’s no such thing in existence, only in outward show. It has never been exerted, without a woman’s will at the back of it. That is the source of all power.”

The storekeeper’s relict was reasoning from experience. She knew whose will had made her the mistress of a house in the Fifth Avenue; and given her scores, hundreds, of other advantages, she had never credited to the sagacity of her husband.

“To be a woman,” she continued, “one who knows man and how to manage him, that is enough for me. Ah! Jule, if I’d only had your opportunities, I might this day have been anything.”

“Opportunities! What are they?”

“Your beauty for one.”

“Oh, ma! you had that. You still show it.”

To Mrs Girdwood the reply was not unpleasant. She had not lost conceit in that personal appearance that had subdued the heart of the rich retailer; and, but for a disinheriting clause in his will, might have thought of submitting her charms to a second market. But although this restrained her from speculating on matrimony, she was still good for flattery and flirtation.

“Well,” she said, “if I had good looks, what mattered they without money? You have both, my child.”

“And both don’t appear to help me to a husband – such as you want me to have, mamma.”

“It will be your own fault if they don’t. His lordship would never have renewed his acquaintance with us if he didn’t mean something. From what he hinted to me yesterday, I’m sure he has come to Paris on our account. He almost said as much. It is you, Julia, it is you.”

Julia came very near expressing a wish that his lordship was at the bottom of the sea; but knowing how it would annoy her mother, she kept the sentiment to herself. She had just time to get enrobed for the street; as the gentleman was announced. He was still plain Mr Swinton, still travelling incognito, on “seqwet diplomatic business for the Bwitish Government.” So had he stated in confidence to Mrs Girdwood.

Shortly after, Messrs Lucas and Spiller made their appearance, and the party was complete.

It was only to be a promenade on the Boulevards, to end in a little dinner in the Café Riche, Royale, or the Maison Doré.

And with this simple programme, the six sallied forth from the Hotel de Louvre.

Chapter Thirty Two.

On the Boulevards

On the afternoon of that same Second of December, a man, sauntering along the Boulevards, said to himself:

“There’s trouble hanging over this gay city of Paris. I can smell mischief in its atmosphere.”

The man who made this remark was Captain Maynard. He was walking out alone, having arrived in Paris only the day before.

His presence in the French metropolis may be explained by stating, that he had read in an English newspaper a paragraph announcing the arrival of Sir George Vernon at Paris. The paragraph further said, that Sir George had returned thither after visiting the various courts of Europe on some secret and confidential mission to the different British ambassadors.

Something of this Maynard knew already. He had not slighted the invitation given him by the English baronet on the landing-wharf at Liverpool. Returning from his Hungarian expedition, he had gone down to Sevenoaks, Kent. Too late, and again to suffer disappointment. Sir George had just started for a tour of travel on the Continent, taking his daughter along with him. He might be gone for a year, or maybe more. This was all his steward could or would tell.

Not much more of the missing baronet could Maynard learn in London. Only the on dit in political circles that he had been entrusted with some sort of secret circular mission to the European courts, or those of them known as the Great Powers.

Its secrecy must have been deemed important for Sir George to travel incognito. And so must he have travelled; else Maynard, diligently consulting the chronicles of the times, should have discovered his whereabouts.

This he had daily done, making inquiries elsewhere, and without success; until, months after, his eye fell upon the paragraph in question.

Had he still faith in that presentiment, several times so confidently expressed?

If so, it did not hinder him from passing over to Paris, and taking steps to help in the desired destiny.

Certain it was still desired. The anxiety he had shown to get upon the track of Sir George’s travel, the haste made on discovering it, and the diligence he was now showing to find the English baronet’s address in the French capital, were proofs that he was not altogether a fatalist.

During the twenty-four hours since his arrival in Paris, he had made inquiries at every hotel where such a guest was likely to make stay. But no Sir George Vernon – no English baronet could be found.

He had at length determined to try at the English Embassy. But that was left for the next day; and, like all strangers, he went out to take a stroll along the Boulevards.

He had reached that of Montmartre as the thought, chronicled above, occurred to him.

It could scarce have been suggested by anything he there saw. Passing and meeting him were the Parisian people – citizens of a free republic, with a president of their own choice. The bluff bourgeois, with sa femme linked on his left arm, and sa fille, perhaps a pretty child, hand-led, on his right. Behind him it might be a brace of gaily-dressed grisettes, close followed by a couple of the young dorés, exchanging stealthy glance or bold repartee.

Here and there a party of students, released from the studies of the day, a group of promenaders of both sexes, ladies and gentlemen, who had sallied out to enjoy the fine weather, and the walk upon the broad, smooth banquette of the Boulevard, all chatting in tranquil strain, unsuspicious of danger, as if they had been sauntering along a rural road, or the strand of some quiet watering-place.

A sky over them serene as that which may have canopied the garden of Eden; an atmosphere around so mild that the doors of the cafés had been thrown open, and inside could be seen the true Parisian flaneur– artists or authors – seated by the marble-topped table, sipping his eau sucré, slipping the spare sugar lumps into his pocket for home use in his six francs-a-week garret, and dividing his admiration between the patent-leather shoes on his feet and the silken-dressed damsels who passed and repassed along the flagged pavement in front.

It was not from observation of these Parisian peculiarities that Maynard had been led to make the remark we have recorded, but from a scene to which he had been witness on the preceding night.

Straying through the Palais Royal, then called “National,” he had entered the Café de Mille Colonnes, the noted resort of the Algerine officers. With the recklessness of one who seeks adventure for its own sake, and who has been accustomed to having it without stint, he soon found himself amidst men unaccustomed to introductions. Paying freely for their drinks – to which, truth compels me to say, as far as in their purses they corresponded – he was soon clinking cups with them, and listening to their sentiments. He could not help remarking the recurrence of that toast which has since brought humiliation to France.

“Vive l’Empereur!”

At least a dozen times was it drunk during the evening – each time with an enthusiasm that sounded ominous in the ears of the republican soldier. There was a unanimity, too, that rendered it the more impressive. He knew that the French President was aiming at Empire; but up to that hour he could not believe in the possibility of his achieving it.

As he drank with the Chasseurs d’Afrique in the Café de Mille Colonnes, he saw it was not only possible but proximate; and that ere long Louis Napoleon would either wrap his shoulders in the Imperial purple or in a shroud.

The thought stung him to the quick. Even in that company he could not conceal his chagrin. He gave expression to it in a phrase, half in soliloquy, half meant for the ear of a man who appeared the most moderate among the enthusiasts around him.

“Pauvre France!” was the reflection.

“Pauvre France!” cried a fierce-looking but diminutive sous-lieutenant of Zouaves, catching up the phrase, and turning toward the man who had given utterance to it.

“Pauvre France! Pourquoi, monsieur?”

“I pity France,” said Maynard, “if you intend making an Empire of it.”

“What’s that to you?” angrily rejoined the Zouave lieutenant, whose beard and moustache, meeting over his mouth, gave a hissing utterance to his speech. “What does it concern you, monsieur?”