Here’s a fine business! It is my uncle who has got into trouble this time! My aunt Eudoxia has found out everything, and I have just spent two days in helping my aunt Van Cloth to pack up and get back to Holland with my long string of cousins, the fat Dirkie, the cooking moulds, and the barrel-organ following by goods’ train.

It was a veritable thunderclap!

I have told you all about this Dutch household and its patriarchal felicity, its sweetmeat and sausage pastries, and its inimitable tarts less appetizing, however, than my aunt’s fine eyes. I have told you about their quiet family evenings with my uncle’s pipe and schiedam, in which domino-parties of three were varied by the delightful treat of a symphony from one of the great masters, executed in a masterly style by a pretty little plump hand covered with pink dimples.

Once or twice a week, as became a favourite and affectionate nephew, I came into the midst of this idyll of the land of tulips; and always quitted it full of sweetmeats and good advice.

However, the day before yesterday, Ernest, the second of my cousins, who is five years old, suddenly caught a violent fever; he grew scarlet in the face, and his stomach swelled up like a balloon.

My poor aunt, having exhausted all her arsenal of aperients and astringents against what she reckoned to be an indigestion due to preserved plums, quite lost her head. In the afternoon the child grew worse. Where in Paris could she find a Dutch doctor? She could only place confidence in a Dutchman. At the end of her wits with fear, she thought she would go after my uncle or me; so, without thinking any more about it, as she knew our address, she takes a cab and gets driven to the Rue de Varennes, believing in her simplicity that this was where our shops and offices were.

She arrives and asks for my uncle. Being seven o’clock, the hall-porter tells her that the captain will soon be in, shows her to the staircase, and rings the bell; one of the men-servants asks her for her name, and then opens the folding doors, announcing

“Madame Barbassou!”

It is my aunt Eudoxia who receives her.

My aunt Van Cloth, who is distracted with anxiety, thinks that she sees before her some lady of my family, and in order to excuse herself for disturbing her, begins by saying that she has come to see Captain Barbassou, her husband.

Imagine the stupefaction of my aunt Eudoxia! But being too astute to betray herself, she lets the other speak, questions her and learns the whole story. Then, like the good soul that she is, and feeling sorry for poor Ernest and his swollen stomach, she rings and orders the carriage to be ready, so that she may go as soon as possible to her own doctor; upon which my aunt Van Cloth, who is of an effusive nature, embraces her most affectionately, calling her her dearest friend.

Just then my uncle arrives.

I was not present; but my aunt Eudoxia, who continues to laugh over it, has related to me all the details of the affair. At the sight of this remarkable fusion of “the two branches of his hymens,” as she termed it, the Pasha was positively dumbfounded. All the more so as my aunt Van Cloth, who understood no more about this extraordinary position of affairs than she did of Hebrew, threw herself into his arms, and exclaimed:

“Ah! Anatole! here you are, dear! Our Ernest is in danger!”

The bravest man will quail occasionally; and at this unfortunate and unavoidable attack, which tore asunder the whole veil of mystery, the splendid composure with which Nature has armed my uncle Barbassou really deserted him for a moment. But, like a man who is superior to misfortunes of this sort, when he found himself caught he did not on this occasion, more than on any other, waste any time over spilt cream.

“Quick! we must go and fetch the child!” he said.

And taking advantage of the fact that my aunt Van Cloth was hanging to him, he carried her off without any more ado, and went out by the door, without leaving her time to kiss the Countess of Monteclaro, as she certainly would have done out of politeness. From the ante-room he dragged her down to the carriage, where he packed her in.

I was coming down from my own chambers just as he returned from this summary execution. Although about the last thing I expected to come in for was the climax of a tragic occurrence, I could see easily enough that my uncle had experienced some little shock; but the announcement of dinner and the ordinary tone of my aunt’s reception creating a diversion, I did not feel certain until we were seated at table that there was some storm in the air which was only restrained from bursting by the presence of the servants. The Pasha, sitting in silence with his head bent down into his plate, seemed to be absorbed by some abstruse considerations, which caused him that evening to forget to grumble at the cook. My aunt, on the contrary, sparkling with humour, and in her most charming and gracious mood, suggested by her smiles a certain lightness of heart: he eyed her suspiciously from time to time, like a man with an uncomfortable conscience.

When the meal was over we returned to the drawing-room, and coffee being served, remained there alone. The Countess of Monteclaro, still as gracious as ever, made some sly thrusts at him, the significance of which escaped me somewhat. The captain evidently was keeping very quiet. Finally, after half an hour, as I was about to leave, and he showed symptoms of an intention to slip off, she said to him, in her most insinuating manner

“I will detain you for a minute, my dear; I must have a little conversation with you about a matter on which I want to take your advice.”

I kissed the hand which she held out to me, and which indicated that my presence was not wanted.

“Well, good night, old good-for-nothing!” she added, as she accompanied me as far as the door of the adjoining room.

What passed after I left, none will ever know. My aunt, with her exquisite tact, has only related to me the original and amusing side of the matter, laughing at her unfortunate discovery in the lofty manner of a noble lady who is smoothing over a family trouble. Apart from her very genuine affection for my uncle, she entertains also a certain esteem for him, which she could never depart from before his nephew.

As for myself, I remained still in ignorance of everything until nine o’clock, when the Pasha joined me again at the club, where he had particularly asked me to wait for him.

At the first glance I guessed that there had been a row. Without saying a word, he led me into a little detached room: there he fell into an arm-chair, and shook his head in silence, as he looked at me.

“Good gracious! what’s the matter, uncle?” I asked.

“Pfuiii!” he replied, staring with his full eyes, and prolonging this kind of whistling exclamation, like a man who is breathing more freely after a narrow escape.

His gestures were so eloquent, his sigh so expressive and so reinvigorating, that I waited until he had given complete vent to it. When I saw him quite exhausted by it, I continued, feeling really anxious

“Come! what is it?”

“Oh, I’ve just had such a nasty turn!” he answered at last, “Pfuiii!”

I respected this new effort at relief, which, moreover set him right this time.

“You’ve had some words with my aunt, I suppose?” I added, at a venture, recollecting the cloud which seemed to hang over us at dinner.

“A regular earthquake!” he drawled out, in that appalling Marseilles accent which he falls into whenever he is overcome by any strong emotion. “Your aunt Eudoxia has discovered the whole bag of tricks! The story of the Passy house, your aunt Gretchen, the children, Dirkie, and the whole blessed shop!”

“But, perhaps she has only suspicions the consequence of some gossip she has heard?”

“Suspicions?” he exclaimed; “why, they have met each other!”

“Nonsense, that’s impossible! Are you really sure of this?”

“Te! Sure indeed? I should think so! I return home to dinner, come into the drawing-room, and I actually find them both there, talking together. They were kissing each other!”

“The deuce!” I exclaimed, quite alarmed this time.

“Well, that was a stunner, wasn’t it, my dear boy?”

“It was indeed! Whatever did you do?”

“I separated them, carrying Gretchen back at once to her carriage.”

“Then now I understand the chill which seemed to be over us all dinner-time. So, after I went out, you had a heavy downfall?”

“Pfuiii!” my uncle began again.

This last sigh seemed to lose itself in such a vista of painful souvenirs, that the whole of Theramene’s narrative would certainly have taken less time to tell. I proceeded as quickly as I could, foreseeing that my intervention would be necessary.

“Had I not better run over to my aunt Gretchen’s?” I asked him.

“Yes, I certainly think you had. I promised that, except in case of Ernest’s illness proving serious, they should all leave Paris to-morrow! You may still have time to arrange that this evening,” he added, looking at the clock.

“All right, I’m off!” I replied, rising up.

As I was about to go out, he called me back.

“Ah! above all,” he continued sharply, “don’t forget to tell Eudoxia to-morrow that it is you who have undertaken this business, and that as for me, I have not stirred from here!”

“That’s quite understood, uncle,” I answered, laughing to myself at the blue funk he was in.

Needless to add, I did not lose any time. In a quarter of an hour I was at Passy. It so happened that a favourable crisis had come over Ernest and relieved him, and he gave no further cause for anxiety. My aunt Gretchen, who had gone through all this business as a blind man might pass under an arch, without knowing anything about it, did not evince the least surprise on hearing that my uncle “having received a telegram which had obliged him to leave Paris that evening, had commissioned me in his absence to send her off immediately to Amsterdam.” She entrusted me with no end of compliments for the Countess of Monteclaro, whose acquaintance she was charmed to have made.

The next morning she was rolling away in the express, delighted to have made such an agreeable and enjoyable visit.

A week has now passed since this affair, and beyond that my uncle is still quite humiliated by a malicious sort of gaiety affected by my aunt, who often calls him “The Pasha,” instead of “The Captain,” which is the title she always gave him formerly, everything has resumed the harmonious tranquillity of the best regulated household. Attentions, politenesses, gallantries, &c., are quite the order of the day. Only he is ruining me with all the presents he lavishes upon her; and I have been forced to make serious complaints on the subject to my aunt, who has laughed insanely at them, maintaining that it is “the sinner’s ransom.” Still, some kind of restrictions are necessary in families, and I have warned her that, if it continues, I shall stop “the late Barbassou’s” credit, seeing that he is dead.

“You see what a simple matter it is, as my uncle says,” I added.

But she only laughed again, louder than ever. We have got on no further.

Louis, go and hang yourself! I was married yesterday, and you were not there!

The ceremony was very fine. It was at the church of Sainte Clotilde; all the Faubourg St. Germain was there, delighted at Kondje-Gul’s conversion, and with her beauty, her charming manners, and the romance connected with our marriage. Everyone was there who has made any name in the world of art, not to speak of that of finance. There was Baron Rothschild, who had a long conversation with my uncle. Three special correspondents for London newspapers were present, and all our own Paris reporters. High Mass, full choral; Faure sang his Pie Jesus, Madame Carvalho and Adelina Patti the Credo.

At the entrance, the crowd nearly crushed us. Barbassou-Pasha, Count of Monteclaro, gave his arm to the bride. Poor Kondje, what agitation, what emotion, what delight she evinced! I escorted Madame Murrah in a splendid costume, tamed but very dignified still, and playing her part with noble airs, like a fatalist. “It was written!” She started off the same day to Rhodes, where my uncle is finding a position for her as head manager of his Botany Bay.

The Countess of Monteclaro was there, and Anna Campbell was smiling all over as she acted, in company with Maud and Susannah Montague, as bridesmaid to her friend Kondje-Gul.

It took them all exactly an hour to pass in procession through the vestry. We had to sign the register there, and my uncle headed it with his self-assumed title of “The late Barbassou,” to which he clings.

Then came the deluge of congratulations, my beautiful Christian wife blushing in her emotion, with her garland of orange-flowers. (Well, yes! And why not? It’s the custom, you know.)

At two o’clock, back to the house, a family love-feast, and preparations for the flight of the young couple to Ferouzat. Peace and joy in all hearts. My uncle, at last admitted to absolution, quivering with pleasure at hearing my aunt Eudoxia calling him no longer “Pasha,” but “Captain,” as of old.

Everywhere Love and Spring!

Come now, Louis, quite seriously, are you, who have made the experiment, quite sure that one heart suffices for one veritable love? I am anxious to know.

When evening arrived, the Count and Countess of Monteclaro accompanied us to the railway station. They will join us at the end of the month.

I leave you to imagine for yourself all the kisses and salutations, promises and grandparents’ advice.

While my aunt was exhorting Kondje-Gul, my uncle favoured me with a few words on his part.

“You see,” he said to me quietly, standing by the side of our carriage, “there is one thing which it is indispensable for you not to forget, and that is never on any account to have two wives in the same town!”

Louis, I think my uncle is a little wanting in principle.