Charlottes Inheritance | Page 7

bestowed upon his sister a resounding
kiss. Yes; it was clear that he was heart-whole. These noisy, boisterous
good spirits were not characteristic of a lover. Even innocent Cydalise
knew that to be in love was to be miserable.
From this time mother and sister tormented their victim with the merits
and charms of his predestined bride. Madelon on the piano was
miraculous; Madelon's little songs were enchanting; Madelon's
worsted-work was a thing to worship; Madelon's devotion to her
mother and her mother's poodle was unequalled; Madelon's respectful
bearing to the good Abbé St. Velours--her mother's director--was
positively beyond all praise. It was virtue seraphic, supernal. Such a
girl was too good for earth--too good for anything except Gustave.

The young man heard and wondered.
"How you rave about Madelon Frehlter!" he exclaimed. "She seems to
me the most commonplace young person I ever encountered. She has
nothing to say for herself; she never appears to know where to put her
elbows. I never saw such elbows; they are everywhere at once. And her
shoulders!--O heaven, then, her shoulders!--it ought to be forbidden to
wear low dresses when one has such shoulders."
This was discouraging, but the schemers bore up even against this. The
mother dwelt on the intellectual virtues of Madelon; and what were
shoulders compared to mind, piety, amiability--all the Christian graces?
Cydalise owned that dear Madelon was somewhat gauche; Gustave
called her bête. The father remonstrated with his son. Was it not
frightful to use a word of the barracks in connection with this charming
young lady?
At last the plot revealed itself. After a dinner at Côtenoir and a dinner at
Beaubocage, on both which occasions Gustave had made himself very
agreeable to the ladies of the Baron's household--since, indeed, it was
not in his nature to be otherwise than kind and courteous to the weaker
sex--the mother told her son of the splendid destiny that had been
shaped for him. It was a matter of surprise and grief to her to find that
the revelation gave Gustave no pleasure.
"Marriage was the last thing in my thoughts, dear mother," he said,
gravely; "and Madelon Frehlter is the very last woman I should think of
for a wife. Nevertheless, I am gratified by the honour Monsieur le
Baron has done me. That goes without saying."
"But the two estates!--together they would make you a great proprietor.
You would not surely refuse such fortune?"
Cydalise gave a little scream of horror.
"Côtenoir! to refuse Côtenoir! Ah, surely that would be impossible! But
figure to yourself, then, Gustave--"

"Nay, Cydalise, you forget the young lady goes with the château; a
fixture that we cannot dispense with."
"But she, so amiable, so pious--"
"So plain, so stupid--"
"So modest, so charitable--"
"In short, so admirably adapted for a Sister of Charity," replied Gustave.
"But no, dear Cydalise. Côtenoir is a grand old place; but I would as
soon spend my life at Toulon, dragging a cannon-ball at my heels, as in
that dreary salon where Madame Frehlter nurses her maladies and her
poodle, and where the good-humoured, easy-going old Baron snores
away existence. 'Tis very well for those elderly folks, you see, my sister,
and for Madelon--for hers is an elderly mind in a youthful body; but for
a young man full of hope and gaiety and activity--bah! It would be of
all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the hope of
escaping--an underground passage, burrowed out with one's
finger-nails in the dead of the night--a work lasting twenty years or so,
but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the
passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good,
unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the
plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there
would be no escape. Ah, bah!"
Gustave shuddered, and the two women shuddered as they heard him.
The prospect was by no means promising; but Madame Lenoble and
her daughter did not utterly despair. Gustave's heart was disengaged.
That was a great point; and for the rest, surely persuasion might do
much.
Then came that phenomenon seen very often in this life--a
generous-minded, right-thinking young man talked into a position
which of all others is averse from his own inclinations. The mother
persuaded, the sister pleaded, the father dwelt dismally upon the
poverty of Beaubocage, the wealth of Côtenoir. It was the story of auld
Robin Gray reversed. Gustave perceived that his refusal to avail

himself of this splendid destiny would be a bitter and lasting grief to
these people who loved him so fondly--whom he loved as fondly in
return. Must he not be a churl to disappoint hopes so unselfish, to balk
an ambition so innocent? And