The Two Vanrevels | Page 5

with hostility;
while every polished button of his blue coat seemed to reflect their
malignancy, and to dart little echoing shafts of venom at Mr. Vanrevel.
Tom was dismayed by the acuteness of his perception that a man who
does not speak to you has no right to have a daughter like the lady in
the carriage; and, the moment of this realization occurring as he sat
making a poor pretence to eat his evening meal at the "Rouen House,"
he dropped his fork rattling upon his plate and leaned back, staring at
nothing, a proceeding of which his table-mate, Mr. William Cummings,
the editor of the Rouen Journal, was too busy over his river bass to take
note.
"Have you heard what's new in town?" asked Cummings presently,
looking up.
"No," said Tom truthfully, for he had seen what was new, but not heard
it.
"Old Carewe's brought his daughter home. Fanchon Bareaud was with
her at St. Mary's until last year and Fanchon says she's not only a great
beauty but a great dear."

"Ah!" rejoined the other with masterly indifference. "Dare say--dare
say."
"No wonder you're not interested," said Cummings cheerfully,
returning to the discussion of his bass. "The old villain will take
precious good care you don't come near her."
Mr. Vanrevel already possessed a profound conviction to the same
effect. Robert Meilhac Carewe was known not only as the wealthiest
citizen of Rouen, but also as its heartiest and most steadfast hater: and,
although there were only five or six thousand inhabitants, neither was a
small distinction. For Rouen was ranked, in those easy days, as a
wealthy town; even as it was called an old town; proud of its age and
its riches, and bitter in its politics, of course. The French had built a fort
there, soon after LaSalle's last voyage, and, as Crailey Gray said, had
settled the place, and had then been settled themselves by the pioneer
militia. After the Revolution, Carolinians and Virginians had come, by
way of Tennessee and Kentucky; while the adventurous countrymen
from Connecticut, travelling thither to sell, remained to buy--and then
sell--when the country was in its teens. In course of time the little
trading-post of the Northwest Territory had grown to be the leading
centre of elegance and culture in the Ohio Valley--at least they said so
in Rouen; only a few people in the country, such as Mr. Irving of
Tarrytown, for instance, questioning whether a centre could lead.
The pivotal figure, though perhaps not the heart, of this centre, was
unquestionably Mr. Carewe, and about him the neat and tight
aristocracy of the place revolved; the old French remnant, having
liberally intermarried, forming the nucleus, together with descendants
of the Cavaliers (and those who said they were) and the industrious
Yankees, by virtue (if not by the virtues) of all whom, the town grew
and prospered. Robert Carewe was Rouen's magnate, commercially and
socially, and, until an upstart young lawyer named Vanrevel struck into
his power with a broad-axe, politically. The wharves were Carewe's;
the warehouses that stood by the river, and the line of packets which
plied upon it, were his; half the town was his, and in Rouen this meant
that he was possessed of the Middle Justice, the High and the Low. His

mother was a Frenchwoman, and, in those days, when to go abroad was
a ponderous and venturesome undertaking, the fact that he had spent
most of his youth in the French capital wrought a certain glamour about
him; for to the American, Paris was Europe, and it lay shimmering on
the far horizon of every imagination, a golden city. Scarce a drawing-
room in Rouen lacked its fearsome engraving entitled "Grand Ball at
the Tuileries," nor was Godey's Magazine ever more popular than when
it contained articles elaborate of similar scenes of festal light, where
brilliant uniforms mingled with shining jewels, fair locks, and the white
shoulders of magnificently dressed duchesses, countesses, and ladies.
Credit for this description should be given entirely to the above-
mentioned periodical. Furthermore, a sojourn in Paris was held to
confer a "certain nameless and indescribable polish" upon the manners
of the visitor; also, there was something called "an air of foreign
travel."
They talked a great deal about polish in those days; and some examples
still extant do not deny their justification; but in the case of Mr. Carewe,
there existed a citizen of Rouen, one already quoted, who had the
temerity to declare the polish to be in truth quite nameless and
indescribable for the reason that one cannot paint a vacuum. However,
subscription to this opinion should not be over-hasty, since Mr. Crailey
Gray had been notoriously a rival of Carewe's with every pretty woman
in town, both having the same