A Marriage Settlement

Monsieur de Manerville the elder was a worthy gentleman of Normandy, well known to the Maréchal de Richelieu, who arranged his marriage with one of the richest heiresses of Bordeaux at the time when the old Duke held court in that city as Governor of Guienne. The Norman gentleman sold the lands he owned in Bessin, and established himself as a Gascon, tempted to this step by the beauty of the estate of Lanstrac, a delightful residence belonging to his wife. Towards the end of Louis XV’s reign, he purchased the post of Major of the King’s bodyguard, and lived till 1813, having happily survived the Revolution.

This was how. In the winter of 1790 he made a voyage to Martinique, where his wife had property, leaving the management of his estates in Gascony to a worthy notary’s clerk named Mathias, who had some taint of the new ideas. On his return, the Comte de Manerville found his possessions safe and profitably managed. This shrewdness was the fruit of a graft of the Gascon on the Norman.

Madame de Manerville died in 1810. Her husband, having learned by the dissipations of his youth the importance of money, and, like many old men, ascribing to it a greater power in life than it possesses, Monsieur de Manerville became progressively thrifty, avaricious, and mean. Forgetting that stingy fathers make spendthrift sons, he allowed scarcely anything to his son, though he was an only child.

Paul de Manerville came home from college at Vendôme towards the end of 1810, and for three years lived under his father’s rule.

After laying the overtures before Madame Evangelista, the experienced old lady came to report to Paul on the results of this step.

“My boy,” said she, “I have settled the matter. In discussing money matters I discovered that Madame Evangelista gives her daughter nothing. Mademoiselle Natalie marries with but her barest right.⁠—Marry, my dear; men who have a name and estates to transmit must sooner or later end by marriage. I should like to see my dear Auguste do the same.

“You can get married without me, I have nothing to bestow on you but my blessing, and old women of my age have no business at weddings. I shall return to Paris tomorrow. When you introduce your wife to society, I shall see her much more comfortably than I can here.⁠—If you had not your house in Paris, you would have found a home with me. I should have been delighted to arrange my second-floor rooms to suit you.”

“Dear aunt,” said Paul, “thank you very warmly.⁠ ⁠… But what do you mean by saying her mother gives her nothing, ana that she marries only with her bare rights?”

“Her mother, my dear boy, is a very knowing hand, who is taking advantage of the girl’s beauty to make terms and give you no more than what she cannot keep back⁠—the father’s fortune. We old folks, you know, think a great deal of ‘How much has he? How much has she?’ I advise you to give strict instructions to your notary. The marriage contract, my child, is a sacred duty. If your father and mother had not made their bed well, you might now be without sheets.⁠—You will have children⁠—they are the usual result of marriage⁠—so you are bound to think of this. Call in Maître Mathias, our old notary.”

When the maid had left them, and Madame Evangelista was sure that nobody was within hearing, she arranged her daughter’s curls as a preliminary.

“My dear child, are you sincerely attached to Monsieur de Manerville?” said she in a steady voice.

The mother and daughter exchanged a strangely meaning glance.

“Why, my little mother, should you ask today rather than yesterday? Why have you allowed me to imagine a doubt?”

“If it were to part you from me forever, would you marry him all the same?”

“I could give him up without dying of grief.”

“Then you do not love him, my dear,” said the mother, kissing her daughter’s forehead.

“But why, my dear mamma, are you playing the grand inquisitor?”

“I wanted to see if you cared to be married without being madly in love with your husband.”

“I like him.”

“You are right; he is a Count, and, between us, he shall be made peer of France. But there will be difficulties.”

“Difficulties between people who care for each other?⁠—No! Pease-blossom, my dear mother, is too well planted there,” and she pointed to her heart with a pretty gesture, “to make the smallest objection; I am sure of that.”

“But if it were not so?”

“I should utterly forget him.”

“Well said! You are a Casa-Real.⁠—But though he is madly in love with you, if certain matters were discussed which do not immediately concern him, but which he would have to make the best of for your sake and mine, Natalie, heh? If, without proceeding in the least too far, a little graciousness of manner might turn the scale?⁠—A mere nothing, you know, a word? Men are like that⁠—they can resist sound argument and yield to a glance.”

“Poor dear child,” said the mother, shedding genuine tears, “I cannot bear to think that, after having had your own way all your life, tomorrow evening you will be bound to a man whom you must obey!”

“Oh, my dear mother, as to obeying him!” said Natalie, with a little wilful nod expressive of pretty rebellion. “You laugh!” she went on, “but my father always indulged your fancies. And why? Because he loved you. Shall not I be loved?”

“Yes, Paul is in love with you. But if a married woman is not careful, nothing evaporates so quickly as conjugal affection. The influence a wife may preserve over her husband depends on the first steps in married life, and you will want good advice.”

“But you will be with us.”

“Perhaps, my dear child.⁠—Last evening, during the ball, I very seriously considered the risks of our being together. If my presence were to be disadvantageous to you, if the little details by which you must gradually confirm your authority as a wife should be ascribed to my influence, your home would become a hell. At the first frown on your husband’s brow, should not I, so proud as I am, instantly quit the house? If I am to leave it sooner or later, in my opinion, I had better never enter it. I could not forgive your husband if he disunited us.

“On the other hand, when you are the mistress, when your husband is to you what your father was to me, there will be less fear of any such misfortune. Although such a policy must be painful to a heart so young and tender as yours, it is indispensable for your happiness that you should be the absolute sovereign of your home.”

Just as the anchor was weighed, Paul saw that Mathias was signaling to him by waving his handkerchief. The old housekeeper had come in hot haste, and was standing by her master, who seemed greatly excited by some matter of importance. Paul persuaded the captain to wait a few minutes and send a boat to land, that he might know what the old lawyer wanted; he was signaling vigorously, evidently desiring him to disembark. Mathias, too infirm to go to the ship, gave two letters to one of the sailors who were in the boat.

“My good fellow,” said the old notary, showing one of the letters to the sailor, “this letter, mark it well, make no mistake⁠—this packet has just been delivered by a messenger who has ridden from Paris in thirty-five hours. Explain this clearly to Monsieur le Comte, do not forget. It might make him change his plans.”

“And we should have to land him?”

“Yes,” said the lawyer rashly.

The sailor in most parts of the world is a creature apart, professing the deepest contempt for all landlubbers. As to townsfolk, he cannot understand them; he knows nothing about them; he laughs them to scorn; he cheats them if he can without direct dishonesty. This one, as it happened, was a man of Lower Brittany, who saw worthy old Mathias’ instructions in only one light.

“Just so,” he muttered, as he took his oar, “land him again! The captain is to lose a passenger! If we listened to these landlubbers, we should spend our lives in pulling them between the ship and shore. Is he afraid his son will take cold?”