Part 9 (1/2)
”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.