The great feature of the breakfast came on when every crumb of breakfast had been eaten. Charles and the maid cleared away the table, and the notary stood up to read the marriage contract. The reading, ordinarily a dull affair, was in this instance vivified by curious incidents. In the first place, Frau Kranich. amending the injustice her over-credulity had caused, gave her protègée a wedding-present of twenty thousand francs, accompanying the gift with some singularly tart remarks about her nephew: this sum was increased by the groom to sixty thousand. The second incident was when Joliet, amid the almost incredulous surprise of the whole table, raised the gift, by the addition of ten thousand, to seventy thousand francs: the money was the product of his former house and gardenthat house of shreds and patches which had cost him ten francs. When it came to affixing the signatures, the notary appealed to Joliet for his name. He could not sign it, being gouty and half forgetful of pen-practice, but he responded to the question as bold as a lion: "John Thomas Joliet, baron de Rouvière," throwing to the lawyer a fine bunch of papers bearing witness to the validity of the title; after which he added, no less proudly, "wine-merchant, wholesale and retail, at the sign of the Golden Chickens, Noisy."
In truth, Joliet's father had rightfully borne the title of baron de Rouvière, but, ruined by '48, had abandoned the practice of signing it. Joliet resumed it for this special occasion, having every warrant for the act, but whispered to me that he should never so call himself in future, greatly preferring the enumeration of his qualities on his business-card.
Poor Francine meanwhile had looked so timid and blushed so that Frau Kranich nodded to her permission of absence. She gave one glance at Fortnoye, buried her face in her hands, laughed a sweet little gurgle, and fled. When her presence was again necessary, she reappeared, drowned in white. We went to the mayor's office, where she lost a pretty little surname that had always seemed to fit her like a glove; then to the church, an obscure one in the neighborhood of Frau Kranich's house. But at the door of the sacred edifice the elder lady said, with much conciliatory grace in her manner, "I claim exemption from witnessing this part of the ceremony; and you, Mr. Flemming, must resume or discover your Protestantism and enter the carriage with me. I must show you a little of the city while these young birds are pairing."
No objection was made to this rather strange proposal. The bride, between her father and husband, forgot that she had no friend of her own sex to stand near her. We arranged for a general meeting at the dinner.
In the carriage she said, "I brought you away because I am devoured with uneasiness. Mrs. Ashburleigh wrote me that she would certainly be here for at least the principal part of the ceremony. I do not know what to make of it. It may be of no use, but we will scour the city. These throngs, this noise, make me uneasy. I fear some accident, having," she added with a smile, "one lone woman's sympathy for another lone woman."
I peered through the crowds at this, right and left, with inexpressible emotion. Perhaps this accidental sort of quest was that which destiny had arranged for the solution of my life-problem. To light upon Mary Ashburleigh in these festal throngs, perhaps wanting assistance, perhaps calling upon my name even now through her velvet lips, was a chance the mere notion of which made my blood leap.
When Brussels gives herself over to holiday-making, she does it in a whole-souled and self-consistent way that has plenty of attractiveness. The houses seemed to have turned themselves inside out to replenish the streets. People in their best clothes, equipages, processions, bands, troops of children, filled the avenues. Some conjecture that there might have been a mistake about the church took us to the cathedral of St. Gudule. Here, amid the superb spectrums of the stained windows, we searched through the vari-colored throngs that covered the floor, but no familiar face looked upon us. Strange to us as the old, impassive monumental dukes of Brabant who occupy the niches, the people made way to let us pass from the doorway between the lofty brace of towers to the high altar, which is a juggler's apparatus, and has concealed machinery causing the sacred wafer to come down seemingly of its own accord at the moment when the priest is about to lift the Host. All was unfamiliar and splendid, and we came away, feeling as if our own little wedding-group would have been lost in so magnificent a tabernacle. The Grande Place, on which lay the wedge-like shadow of the high-towered Hôtel de Ville, was perhaps as thronged a honeycomb of buzzing populace as when Alva looked out upon it to see the execution of Egmont and Horn. Among all the good-natured Netherlandish countenances that paved the square there was none that responded to my own.
We drove vaguely through the principal streets, and then, baffled, made our way to the faubourg in which is situated the zoological garden, toward which a considerable portion of the inhabitants was going even as ourselves. At the entrance our carriage encountered that of the bride and groom, and soon the whole party of the breakfast-table assembled by the gate, for the great coffee-rooms at which our meal was laid were close by the garden, and a promenade in this famous living museum was a premeditated part of the day's enjoyment. We entered the grounds in character, frankly putting forward our claims as a wedding-procession. That is the delightful French custom among those who are brought up as Francine had been: her father would have been heartbroken to have been denied the proud exhibition of his joy, and Fortnoye was too great a traveler, too cosmopolitan, to object to a little family pageant that he had seen equaled or exceeded in publicity in most of the Catholic countries on the globe. Francine, her artisanne cap for ever lost, her gleaming dark hair set, like a Milky Way, with a half wreath of orange-blossoms, the silvery gauzes of her protecting veil floating back from her forehead, strayed on at the head of the little parade. She was wrapped in the delicious reverie of the wedding-day. She was not yellow nor meagre, nor uglier than herself, as so many brides contrive to be. Her air of delicacy and tenderness was a blossom of character, not a canker of ill-health. Her color was hardly raised, though her head was perpetually bent. Fortnoye, holding her on his firm arm, seemed like a man walking through enchantments. Just behind, protecting Madame Kranich with an action of effusive gallantry that must have been seen to be conceived, walked the baron de Rouvière, his brave knotted hands, for which he had not found any gloves, busily occupied in pointing out the animated rarities that to him seemed most worthy of selection. The hilarious hyenas, the seals, the polar bears plunging from their lofty rocks, all attracted his commendation; and we, who walked behind in such order as our friendships or familiarity taught us, were perpetually tripping upon his honest figure brought to a halt before some object more than usually interesting. Exclamations of delight at the bride's beauty, politely wrapped in whispers, arose on all sides as we penetrated the throng: it was a proud thing to be a part of a procession so distinguished. My good Joliet beamed with complacency, and drove his little herd up and down and across and about till the greater part of the garden was explored. The zoological garden of Brussels has the beauty of not showing too obviously the character of a prison. It is extensive, umbrageous, and the poor captives within its borders have enough air and space around their eyes to give them a semblance of liberty. For the special feast-day on which we visited it the place had been arranged with particular adaptation to the character of the time. There were elephant-races and rides upon the camels free to all ladies who would make the venture. In addition to the zebras, gnus and Shetlands, there was that species of race-horse which never wins and never spoils a course, being of wood and constructed to go round in a tent, and never to arrive anywhere or lose any prizes. The pelicans were in high excitement, for all along their beautiful little river, where it winds through bowery trees, a profusion of living fish had been emptied and confined here and there by grated dams, so that the awkward birds had opportunity to angle in perfect freedom and to their hearts' content. In the more wooded part of the garden a mimic hunt had been arranged, and sportsmen in correct suits of green, with curly brass horns and baying hounds, coursed through the grounds, following a stag which, though mangy and asthmatic, may yet have been a descendant of the fawn that fed Genevieve of Brabant. We had re-entered one of the grand alleys, and were receiving again the little tribute of encomiums which the greater privacy of the groves had pretermittedwe were parading happily along, conscious of nothing to be ashamed of, our orange-blossoms glistening, our veil flying, our broadcloth and wedding-favors gleamingwhen we met another group, which, though more furtively, bore that matrimonial character which distinguished our own.