Part 1 (2/2)
”Oh, I don't complain,” answered Jeanne lightly. ”Of course, it's fair-time just now, you know, and we're always busy then. But work will be lighter soon, and then I'll get a day off, and we'll have a delightful ramble and picnic in the woods, as we used to do when we were children. What fun we had in those old days, Enguerrand! Do you remember when we were quite little tots, and used to play at executions in the back-garden, and you were a bandit and a buccaneer, and all sorts of dreadful things, and I used to chop off your head with a paper-knife?
How pleased dear father used to be!”
”Jeanne,” said Enguerrand, with some hesitation, ”you've touched upon the very subject that I came to speak to you about. Do you know, dear, I can't help feeling--it may be unreasonable, but still the feeling is there--that the profession you have adopted is not quite--is just a little----”
”Now, Enguerrand!” said Jeanne, an angry flash sparkling in her eyes.
She was a little touchy on this subject, the word she most affected to despise being also the one she most dreaded,--the adjective ”unladylike.”
”Don't misunderstand me, Jeanne,” went on Enguerrand imploringly: ”you may naturally think that, because I should have succeeded to the post, with its income and perquisites, had you relinquished your claim, there is therefore some personal feeling in my remonstrances. Believe me, it is not so. My own interests do not weigh with me for a moment. It is on your account, Jeanne, and yours alone, that I ask you to consider whether the higher aesthetic qualities, which I know you possess, may not become cramped and thwarted by 'the trivial round, the common task,'
which you have lightly undertaken. However laudable a professional life may be, one always feels that with a delicate organism such as woman, some of the bloom may possibly get rubbed off the peach.”
”Well, Enguerrand,” said Jeanne, composing herself with an effort, though her lips were set hard, ”I will do you the justice to believe that personal advantage does not influence you, and I will try to reason calmly with you, and convince you that you are simply hide-bound by old-world prejudice. Now, take yourself, for instance, who come here to instruct me: what does _your_ profession amount to, when all's said and done? A ma.s.s of lies, quibbles, dodges, and tricks, that would make any self-respecting executioner blus.h.!.+ And even with the dirty weapons at your command, you make but a poor show of it. There was that wretched fellow you defended only two days ago. (I was in court during the trial--professional interest, you know.) Well, he had his regular _alibi_ all ready, as clear as clear could be; only you must needs go and mess and bungle the thing up, so that, just as I expected all along, he was pa.s.sed on to me for treatment in due course. You may like to have his opinion--that of a shrewd, though unlettered person. 'It's a real pleasure, miss,' he said, 'to be handled by you. You _knows_ your work, and you _does_ your work--though p'raps I ses it as shouldn't. If that blooming fool of a mouthpiece of mine'--he was referring to you, dear, in your capacity of advocate--'had known his business half as well as you do yours, I shouldn't a bin here now!' And you know, Enguerrand, he was perfectly right.”
”Well, perhaps he was,” admitted Enguerrand. ”You see, I had been working at a sonnet the night before, and I couldn't get the rhymes right, and they would keep coming into my head in court and mixing themselves up with the _alibi_. But look here, Jeanne, when you saw I was going off the track, you might have given me a friendly hint, you know--for old times' sake, if not for the prisoner's!”
”I daresay,” replied Jeanne calmly: ”perhaps you'll tell me why I should sacrifice my interests because you're unable to look after yours. You forget that I receive a bonus, over and above my salary, upon each exercise of my functions!”
”True,” said Enguerrand gloomily: ”I did forget that. I wish I had your business apt.i.tudes, Jeanne.”
”I daresay you do,” remarked Jeanne. ”But you see, dear, how all your arguments fall to the ground. You mistake a prepossession for a logical base. Now if I had gone, like that Clairette you used to dangle after, and been waiting-woman to some grand lady in a chateau,--a thin-blooded compound of drudge and sycophant,--then, I suppose, you'd have been perfectly satisfied. So feminine! So genteel!”
”She's not a bad sort of girl, little Claire,” said Enguerrand reflectively (thereby angering Jeanne afresh): ”but putting her aside,--of course you could always beat me at argument, Jeanne; you'd have made a much better lawyer than I. But you know, dear, how much I care about you; and I did hope that on that account even a prejudice, however unreasonable, might have some little weight. And I'm not alone, let me tell you, in my views. There was a fellow in court only to-day, who was saying that yours was only a _succes d'estime_, and that woman, as a naturally talkative and hopelessly unpunctual animal, could never be more than a clever amateur in the profession you have chosen.”
”That will do, Enguerrand,” said Jeanne proudly; ”it seems that when argument fails, you can stoop so low as to insult me through my s.e.x.
You men are all alike,--steeped in brutish masculine prejudice. Now go away, and don't mention the subject to me again till you're quite reasonable and nice.”
III
Jeanne pa.s.sed a somewhat restless night after her small scene with her cousin, waking depressed and unrefreshed. Though she had carried matters with so high a hand, and had scored so distinctly all around, she had been more agitated than she had cared to show. She liked Enguerrand; and more especially did she like his admiration for her; and that chance allusion to Clairette contained possibilities that were alarming. In embracing a professional career, she had never thought for a moment that it could militate against that due share of admiration to which, as a girl, she was justly ent.i.tled; and Enguerrand's views seemed this morning all the more narrow and inexcusable. She rose languidly, and as soon as she was dressed sent off a little note to the Mayor, saying that she had a nervous headache and felt out of sorts, and begging to be excused from attendance on that day; and the missive reached the Mayor just as he was taking his usual place at the head of the Board.
”Dear, dear!” said the kind-hearted old man, as soon as he had read the letter to his fellow-councilmen: ”I'm very sorry. Poor girl! Here, one of you fellows, just run round and tell the gaoler there won't be any business to-day. Jeanne's seedy. It's put off till to-morrow. And now, gentlemen, the agenda----”
”Really, your wors.h.i.+p,” exploded Robinet, ”this is simply ridiculous!”
”Upon my word, Robinet,” said the Mayor, ”I don't know what's the matter with you. Here's a poor girl unwell,--and a more hard-working girl isn't in the town,--and instead of sympathising with her, and saying you're sorry, you call it ridiculous! Suppose you had a headache yourself! You wouldn't like----”
”But it _is_ ridiculous,” maintained the tanner stoutly. ”Who ever heard of an executioner having a nervous headache? There's no precedent for it. And 'out of sorts,' too! Suppose the criminals said they were out of sorts, and didn't feel up to being executed?”
”Well, suppose they did,” replied the Mayor, ”we'd try and meet them half-way, I daresay. They'd have to be executed some time or other, you know. Why on earth are you so captious about trifles? The prisoners won't mind, and _I_ don't mind: n.o.body's inconvenienced, and everybody's happy!”
”You're right there, Mr. Mayor,” put in another councilman. ”This executing business used to give the town a lot of trouble and bother; now it's all as easy as kiss-your-hand. Instead of objecting, as they used to do, and wanting to argue the point and kick up a row, the fellows as is told off for execution come skipping along in the morning, like a lot of lambs in May-time. And then the fun there is on the scaffold! The jokes, the back answers, the repartees! And never a word to shock a baby! Why, my little girl, as goes through the market-place every morning--on her way to school, you know--she says to me only yesterday, she says, 'Why, father,' she says, 'it's as good as the play-actors,' she says.”
”There again,” persisted Robinet; ”I object to that too. They ought to show a properer feeling. Playing at mummers is one thing, and being executed is another, and people ought to keep 'em separate. In my father's time, that sort of thing wasn't thought good taste, and I don't hold with new-fangled notions.”
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