Part 12 (1/2)

”Yes,” she exclaimed, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. ”Your wife will sell her wardrobe and her dowry--little enough it was--for my son shall not want while he has a mother, and that mother owns a st.i.tch.”

It was when it came to meeting clap-trap sentiment that trader's inferior grain showed, and he faltered.

”I will go as far as a thousand. It is all it is worth.”

By that word he exposed the small side of an otherwise worthy nature.

She sprang to the attack.

”_Diable!_ am I linked to a skinflint?”

”A skinflint, forsooth, at a thousand livres!”

”Yes,” she cried in a fresh flood of tears. ”A wretch, a miser. You are unworthy, sir, to be linked to a family from whom Germain takes his gentlemanly qualities. Had he nothing but you in him, he would be a grovelling clod-hopper to-day instead of a favourite of kings.”

Lecour laid down his wooden spoon in his pea-soup-bowl. He phlegmatically took his clasp knife from its pouch, hung round his neck by a string, struck his blade into the piece of cold pork upon the table and cut off a large corner, in defiant silence. But his heart was heavy.

It was no pleasure to wrangle with so able a wife. He had no wish to quarrel. Only, he knew the value of a livre. Germain was really becoming a shocking expense. He felt that his wife would in the end persuade him against his better judgment. In truth he liked to hear of his son's successes, but it went against his prudence. There was to him something out of joint in the son of a man of his condition attempting to figure among the long-lined contemptuous elegants who had commanded him in the army during his youth. The gulf, he felt, was not pa.s.sable with security nor credit.

Just as he was hacking off the piece of pork, a high-spirited black pony dashed into the courtyard, attached to a calash driven by a very stout, merry-eyed priest, who pulled up at the doorstep.

Lecour and Madame at once rose and hurried out to welcome him. At the same time an Indian dwarf in Lecour's service moved up silently and took the reins out of the Cure's hands. The latter came joyously in and sat down.

”Oho,” he cried, surveying the preparations on the table. ”My good Madame Lecour, I was right when I said an hour ago I knew where to stop at noon in my parish of Repentigny.”

”Father, I have something extra for you this time,” she replied laughing, and crossing to her cupboard, exhibited triumphantly a fine cold roast duck.

”You shall have absolution without confession,” he cried. ”Let me prepare for that with some of the magnificent pea-soup a la Lecour. Oh, day of days!”

She went to the crane at the fireplace, uncovered the hanging pot, and ladled out a deep bowl of steaming soup. At the same time she told him excitedly of Germain's presentation at Court.

”What! what! these are fine proceedings. The Lecours are always going up, up, up. Our Germain's distinction is a glory for the whole parish.

Lecour here ought to be proud of it.”

Flattery from his Cure weighed more with Lecour _pere_ than bushels of argument. The wife saw her accidental advantage and took it.

”He does not like to pay for it,” she remarked demurely.

”What! what! my rich friend Lecour. The owner of seventeen good farms, of three great warehouses, of four hundred cattle, of untold merchandise, and a credit of 500,000 livres in London, the best payer of t.i.thes in the country, the father of the most brilliant son in the province, the husband of the finest wife, a woman fit to adorn the castle of the governor,” cried the ecclesiastic, finis.h.i.+ng his soup and attacking the duck.

Lecour thawed fast. But he reserved a doubt for the consideration of his confessor.

”Is it honest to pa.s.s for a n.o.ble when one is not one?”

”I do not see that he has done so. It is not his fault, in the manner that he has explained it. Let the young man enjoy himself a little and see a little of life. We are only young once, and you laics must not be too severely impeccable, otherwise what would become of us granters of absolution. Furthermore, we must not be too old-fas.h.i.+oned. Our people here are getting out of the strictness of the old social distinctions.

It may be so too in France. On my advice, dear Lecour, accept every honour to your family your son may bring, and pay for it in the station fitted to your great means, that I may be proud of all the Lecour family when I go to Quebec and boast about my parish at the dinner-table of the Bishop. Come,” exclaimed he, at length, pus.h.i.+ng aside his plate with the ruins of the duck, ”bring out that game of draughts, and let us see if the honours of Germain have not put new skill into the play of a proud father.”

Madame brought out the checkerboard. She brought besides for the Cure a little gla.s.s of imported _eau de vie_, and her husband, taking out his bladder tobacco pouch, commenced to fill his pipe, and that of his Reverence, and to smoke himself into a condition of bliss.