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14
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MR. CASTLE TEACHES TOBY TO RIDE.
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When Toby got within sight of the ring he was astonished at what he saw. A horse, with a broad wooden saddle, was being led slowly around the ring; Mr. Castle was standing on one side, with a long whip in his hand; and on the tent-pole, which stood in the centre of the ring, was a long arm, from which dangled a leathern belt attached to a long rope that was carried through the end of the arm and run down to the base of the pole.
Toby knew well enough why the horse, the whip, and the man were there, but the wooden projection from the tent-pole, which looked so much like a gallows, he could not understand at all.
"Come, now," said Mr. Castle, cracking his whip ominously as Toby came in sight, "why weren't you here before?"
"Mr. Lord just sent me in," said Toby, not expecting that his excuse would be received, for they never had been since he had arrived at the height of his ambition by joining the circus.
"Then I'll make Mr. Job understand that I am to have my full hour of your time; and if I don't get it there'll be trouble between us."
It would have pleased Toby very well to have had Mr. Castle go out with his long whip just then and make trouble for Mr. Lord; but Mr. Castle had not the time to spare, because of the trouble which he was about to make for Toby, and that he commenced on at once.
"Well, get in here, and don't waste any more time," he said, sharply.
Toby looked around curiously for a moment, and, not understanding exactly what he was expected to get in and do, asked, "What shall I do?"
"Pull off your boots, coat, and vest."
Since there was no other course than to learn to ride, Toby wisely concluded that the best thing he could do would be to obey his new master without question; so he began to take off his clothes with as much alacrity as if learning to ride was the one thing upon which he had long set his heart.
Mr. Castle was evidently accustomed to prompt obedience, for he not only took it as a matter of course but endeavored to hurry Toby in the work of undressing.
With his desire to please, and urged by Mr. Castle's words and the ominous shaking of his whip, Toby's preparations were soon made, and he stood before his instructor clad only in his shirt, trousers, and stockings.
The horse was led around to where he stood, and when Mr. Castle held out his hand to help him to mount Toby jumped up quickly without aid, thereby making a good impression at the start as a willing lad.
"Now," said the instructor, as he pulled down the leathern belt which hung from the rope, and fastened it around Toby's waist, "stand up in the saddle, and try to keep there. You can't fall, because the rope will hold you up, even if the horse goes out from under you; but it isn't hard work to keep on, if you mind what you are about; and if you don't this whip will help you. Now stand up."
Toby did as he was bid; and as the horse was led at a walk, and as he had the long bridle to aid him in keeping his footing, he had no difficulty in standing during the time that the horse went once around the ring; but that was all.
Mr. Castle seemed to think that this was preparation enough for the boy to be able to understand how to ride, and he started the horse into a canter. As might have been expected, Toby lost his balance, the horse went on ahead, and he was left dangling at the end of the rope, very much like a crab that has just been caught by the means of a pole and line.
Toby kicked, waved his hands, and floundered about generally, but all to no purpose, until the horse came round again, and then he made frantic efforts to regain his footing, which efforts were aided--or perhaps it would be more proper to say retarded--by the long lash of Mr. Castle's whip, that played around his legs with merciless severity.
"Stand up! stand up!" cried his instructor, as Toby reeled first to one side and then to the other, now standing erect in the saddle, and now dangling at the end of the rope, with the horse almost out from under him.
This command seemed needless, as it was exactly what Toby was trying to do; but as it was given he struggled all the harder, until it seemed to him that the more he tried the less did he succeed.
And this first lesson progressed in about the same way until the hour was over, save that now and then Mr. Castle would give him some good advice, but oftener he would twist the long lash of the whip around the boy's legs with such force that Toby believed the skin had been taken entirely off.
It may have been a relief to Mr. Castle when this first lesson was concluded, and it certainly was to Toby, for he had had all the teaching in horsemanship that he wanted, and he thought, with deepest sorrow, that this would be of daily occurrence during all the time he remained with the circus.
[Illustration: THE FIRST LESSON.]
As he went out of the tent he stopped to speak with his friend the old monkey, and his troubles seemed to have increased when he stood in front of the cage calling "Mr. Stubbs! Mr. Stubbs!" and the old fellow would not even come down from off the lofty perch where he was engaged in monkey gymnastics with several younger companions. It seemed to him, as he afterward told Ben, "as if Mr. Stubbs had gone back on him because he knew that he was in trouble."
When he went toward the booth Mr. Lord looked at him around the corner of the canvas--for it seemed to Toby that his employer could look around a square corner with much greater ease than he could straight ahead--with a disagreeable leer in his eye, as though he enjoyed the misery which he knew his little clerk had just undergone.
"Can you ride yet?" he asked, mockingly, as Toby stepped behind the counter to attend to his regular line of business.
Toby made no reply, for he knew that the question was only asked sarcastically, and not through any desire for information. In a few moments Mr. Lord left him to attend to the booth alone, and went into the tent, where Toby rightly conjectured he had gone to question Mr. Castle upon the result of the lesson just given.
That night Old Ben asked him how he had got on while under the teaching of Mr. Castle; and Toby, knowing that the question was asked because of the real interest which Ben had in his welfare, replied, "If I was tryin' to learn how to swing round the ring, strapped to a rope, I should say that I got along first-rate; but I don't know much about the horse, for I was only on his back a little while at a time."
"You'll get over that soon," said Old Ben, patronizingly, as he patted him on the back. "You remember my words, now: I say that you've got it in you, an' if you've a mind to take hold an' try to learn you'll come out on the top of the heap yet, an' be one of the smartest riders they've got in this show."
"I don't want to be a rider," said Toby, sadly; "I only want to get back home once more, an' then you'll see how much it'll take to get me away again."
"Well," said Ben, quietly, "be that as it may, while you're here the best thing you can do is to take hold an' get ahead just as fast as you can; it'll make it a mighty sight easier for you while you're with the show, an' it won't spoil any of your chances for runnin' away whenever the time comes."
Toby fully appreciated the truth of this remark, and he assured Ben that he should do all in his power to profit by the instruction given, and to please this new master who had been placed over him.
And with this promise he lay back on the seat and went to sleep, not to awaken until the preparations were being made for the entrée into the next town, and Mr. Lord's harsh voice had cried out his name, with no gentle tone, several times.
Toby's first lesson with Mr. Castle was the most pleasant one he had; for after the boy had once been into the ring his master seemed to expect that he could do everything which he was told to do, and when he failed in any little particular the long lash of the whip would go curling around his legs or arms, until the little fellow's body and limbs were nearly covered with the blue-and-black stripes.
For three lessons only was the wooden upright used to keep him from falling; after that he was forced to ride standing erect on the broad wooden saddle, or pad, as it is properly called; and whenever he lost his balance and fell there was no question asked as to whether or not he had hurt himself, but he was mercilessly cut with the whip.
Messrs. Lord and Jacobs gained very much by comparison with Mr. Castle in Toby's mind. He had thought that his lot could not be harder than it was with them; but when he had experienced the pains of two or three of Mr. Castle's lessons in horsemanship he thought that he would stay with the candy venders all the season cheerfully rather than take six more lessons of Mr. Castle.
Night after night he fell asleep from the sheer exhaustion of crying, as he had been pouring out his woes in the old monkey's ears and laying his plans to run away. Now, more than ever, was he anxious to get away, and yet each day was taking him farther from home, and consequently necessitating a larger amount of money with which to start. As Old Ben did not give him as much sympathy as Toby thought he ought to give--for the old man, while he would not allow Mr. Job Lord to strike the boy if he was near, thought it a necessary portion of the education for Mr. Castle to lash him all he had a mind to--he poured out all his troubles in the old monkey's ears, and kept him with him from the time he ceased work at night until he was obliged to commence again in the morning.
The skeleton and his wife thought Toby's lot a hard one, and tried by every means in their power to cheer the poor boy. Neither one of them could say to Mr. Castle what they had said to Mr. Lord, for the rider was a far different sort of a person, and one whom they would not be allowed to interfere with in any way. Therefore poor Toby was obliged to bear his troubles and his whippings as best he might, with only the thought to cheer him of the time when he could leave them all by running away.
But, despite all his troubles, Toby learned to ride faster than his teacher had expected he would, and in three weeks he found little or no difficulty in standing erect while his horse went around the ring at his fastest gait. After that had been accomplished his progress was more rapid, and he gave promise of becoming a very good rider--a fact which pleased both Mr. Castle and Mr. Lord very much, as they fancied that in another year Toby would be the source of a very good income to them.
The proprietor of the circus took considerable interest in Toby's instruction, and promised Mr. Castle that Mademoiselle Jeannette and Toby should do an act together in the performance just as soon as the latter was sufficiently advanced. The boy's costume had been changed after he could ride without falling off, and now while he was in the ring he wore the same as that used by the regular performers.
The little girl had, after it was announced that she and Toby were to perform together, been an attentive observer during the hour that Toby was under Mr. Castle's direction, and she gave him many suggestions that were far more valuable, and quicker to be acted upon, than those given by the teacher himself.
"To-morrow you two will go through the exercise together," said Mr. Castle to Toby and Ella, at the close of one of Toby's lessons, after he had become so skilful that he could stand with ease on the pad, and even advanced so far that he could jump through a hoop without falling more than twice out of three times.
The little girl appeared highly delighted by this information, and expressed her joy.
"It will be real nice," she said to Toby, after Mr. Castle had left them alone. "I can help you lots, and it won't be very long before we can do an act all by ourselves in the performance, and then won't the people clap their hands when we come in!"
"It'll be better for you to-morrow than it will for me," said Toby, rubbing his legs sorrowfully, still feeling the sting of the whip. "You see Mr. Castle won't dare to whip you, an' he'll make it all count on me, 'cause he knows Mr. Lord likes to have him whip me."
"But I sha'n't make any mistake," said Ella, confidently, "and so you won't have to be whipped on my account; and while I am on the horse you can't be whipped, for he couldn't do it without whipping me, so you see you won't get only half as much."
Toby brightened up a little under the influence of this argument; but his countenance fell again as he thought that his chances for getting away from the circus were growing less each day.
"You see I want to get back to Uncle Dan'l an' Guilford," he said, confidentially; "I don't want to stay here a single minute."
Ella opened her eyes in wide astonishment as she cried, "Don't want to stay here? Why don't you go home, then?" " 'Cause Job Lord won't let me," said Toby, wondering if it was possible that his little companion did not know exactly what sort of a man his master was.
Then he told her--after making her give him all kinds of promises, including the ceremony of crossing her throat, that she would never tell a single soul--that he had had many thoughts, and had formed all kinds of plans for running away. He told her about losing his money, about his friendship for the skeleton and the fat lady, and at last he confided in her that he was intending to take the old monkey with him when he should make the attempt.
She listened with the closest attention, and when he told her that his little hoard had now reached the sum of seven dollars and ten cents--almost as much as he had before--she said, eagerly, "I've got three little gold dollars in my trunk, an' you shall have them all; they're my very own, for mamma gave them to me to do just what I wanted to with them. But I don't see how you can take Mr. Stubbs with you, for that would be stealing."
"No, it wouldn't, neither," said Toby, stoutly. "Wasn't he give to me to do just as I wanted to with? an' didn't the boss say he was all mine?"
"Oh, I'd forgotten that," said Ella, thoughtfully. "I suppose you can take him; but he'll be awfully in the way, won't he?"
"No," said Toby, anxious to say a good word for his pet; "he always does just as I want him to, an' when I tell him what I'm tryin' to do he'll be as good as anything. But I can't take your dollars."
"Why not?" " 'Cause that wouldn't be right for a boy to let a girl littler than himself help him; I'll wait till I get money enough of my own, an' then I'll go."
"But I want you to take my money too; I want you to have it."
"No, I can't take it," said Toby, shaking his head resolutely as he put the golden temptation from him; and then, as a happy thought occurred to him, he said, quickly, "I tell you what to do with your dollars: you keep them till you grow up to be a woman, an' when I'm a man I'll come, an' then we'll buy a circus of our own. I think, perhaps, I'd like to be with a circus if I owned one myself. We'll have lots of money then, an' we can do just what we want to."
This idea seemed to please the little girl, and the two began to lay all sorts of plans for that time when they should be man and woman, have lots of money, and be able to do just as they wanted to.
They had been sitting on the edge of the newly-made ring while they were talking, and before they had half-finished making plans for the future one of the attendants came in to put things to order, and they were obliged to leave their seats, she going to the hotel to get ready for the afternoon's performance, and Toby to try to do such work as Mr. Job Lord had laid out for him.
Just ten weeks from the time Toby had first joined the circus Mr. Castle informed him and Ella that they were to appear in public on the following day. They had been practising daily, and Toby had become so skilful that both Mr. Castle and Mr. Lord saw that the time had come when he could be made to earn some money for them.
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{
"id": "32393"
}
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15
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TOBY'S FRIENDS PRESENT HIM WITH A COSTUME.
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During this time Toby's funds had accumulated rather slower than on the first few days he was in the business, but he had saved eleven dollars, and Mr. Lord had paid him five dollars of his salary, so that he had the to him enormous sum of sixteen dollars; and he had about made up his mind to make one effort for liberty, when the news came that he was to ride in public.
He had, in fact, been ready to run away any time within the past week; but, as if they had divined his intentions, both Mr. Castle and Mr. Lord had kept a very strict watch over him, one or the other keeping him in sight from the time he got through with his labors at night until they saw him on the cart with Old Ben.
"I was just gettin' ready to run away," said Toby to Ella, on the day Mr. Castle gave his decision as to their taking part in the performance, and while they were walking out of the tent, "an' I shouldn't wonder now if I got away to-night."
"Oh, Toby!" exclaimed the girl, as she looked reproachfully at him, "after all the work we've had to get ready, you won't go off and leave me before we've had a chance to see what the folks will say when they see us together?"
It was impossible for Toby to feel any delight at the idea of riding in public, and he would have been willing to have taken one of Mr. Lord's most severe whippings if he could have escaped from it; but he and Ella had become such firm friends, and he had conceived such a boyish admiration for her, that he felt as if he were willing to bear almost anything for the sake of giving her pleasure. Therefore he said, after a few moments' reflection, "Well, I won't go to-night, anyway, even if I have the best chance that ever was. I'll stay one day more, anyhow, an' perhaps I'll have to stay a good many."
"That's a nice boy," said Ella, positively, as Toby thus gave his decision, "and I'll kiss you for it."
Before Toby fully realized what she was about, almost before he had understood what she said, she had put her arms around his neck and given him a good sound kiss right on his freckled face.
Toby was surprised, astonished, and just a little bit ashamed. He had never been kissed by a girl before--very seldom by any one, save the fat lady--and he hardly knew what to do or say. He blushed until his face was almost as red as his hair, and this color had the effect of making his freckles stand out with startling distinctness. Then he looked carefully around to see if any one had seen them.
"I never had a girl kiss me before," said Toby, hesitatingly, "an' you see it made me feel kinder queer to have you do it out here, where everybody could see."
"Well, I kissed you because I like you very much, and because you are going to stay and ride with me to-morrow," she said, positively; and then she added, slyly, "I may kiss you again, if you don't get a chance to run away very soon."
"I wish it wasn't for Uncle Dan'l an' the rest of the folks at home, an' there wasn't any such men as Mr. Lord an' Mr. Castle, an' then I don't know but I might want to stay with the circus, 'cause I like you awful much."
And as he spoke Toby's heart grew very tender toward the only girl-friend he had ever known.
By this time they had reached the door of the tent, and as they stepped outside one of the drivers told them that Mr. Treat and his wife were very anxious to see both of them in their tent.
"I don't believe I can go," said Toby, doubtfully, as he glanced toward the booth, where Mr. Lord was busy in attending to customers, and evidently waiting for Toby to relieve him, so that he could go to his dinner; "I don't believe Mr. Lord will let me."
[Illustration: ELLA AND TOBY.]
"Go and ask him," said Ella, eagerly. "We won't be gone but a minute."
Toby approached his employer with fear and trembling. He had never before asked leave to be away from his work, even for a moment, and he had no doubt but that his request would be refused with blows.
"Mr. Treat wants me to come in his tent for a minute; can I go?" he asked, in a timid voice, and in such a low tone as to render it almost inaudible.
Mr. Lord looked at him for an instant, and Toby was sure that he was making up his mind whether to kick him, or catch him by the collar and use the rubber cane on him. But he had no such intention, evidently, for he said, in a voice unusually mild, "Yes, an' you needn't come to work again until it's time to go into the tent."
Toby was almost alarmed at this unusual kindness, and it puzzled him so much that he would have forgotten he had permission to go away if Ella had not pulled him gently by the coat.
If he had heard a conversation between Mr. Lord and Mr. Castle that very morning he would have understood why it was that Mr. Lord had so suddenly become kind. Mr. Castle had told Job that the boy had really shown himself to be a good rider, and that in order to make him more contented with his lot, and to keep him from running away, he must be used more kindly, and perhaps be taken from the candy business altogether, which latter advice Mr. Lord did not look upon with favor, because of the large sales which the boy made.
When they reached the skeleton's tent they found to their surprise that no exhibition was being given at that hour, and Ella said, with some concern, "How queer it is that the doors are not open! I do hope that they are not sick."
Toby felt a strange sinking at his heart as the possibility suggested itself that one or both of his kind friends might be ill; for they had both been so kind and attentive to him that he had learned to love them very dearly.
But the fears of both the children were dispelled when they tried to get in at the door, and were met by the smiling skeleton himself, who said, as he threw the canvas aside as far as if he were admitting his own enormous Lilly, "Come in, my friends, come in. I have had the exhibition closed for one hour, in order that I might show my appreciation of my friend Mr. Tyler."
Toby looked around in some alarm, fearing that Mr. Treat's friendship was about to be displayed in one of his state dinners, which he had learned to fear rather than enjoy. But, as he saw no preparations for dinner, he breathed more freely, and wondered what all this ceremony could possibly mean.
Neither he nor Ella was long left in doubt, for as soon as they had entered, Mrs. Treat waddled from behind the screen which served them as a dressing-room, with a bundle in her arms, which she handed to her husband.
He took it, and, quickly mounting the platform, leaving Ella and Toby below, he commenced to speak, with very many flourishes of his thin arms.
"My friends," he began, as he looked down upon his audience of three, who were listening in the following attitudes: Ella and Toby were standing upon the ground at the foot of the platform, looking up with wide-open, staring eyes; and his fleshy wife was seated on a bench which had evidently been placed in such a position below the speaker's stand that she could hear and see all that was going on without the fatigue of standing up, which, for one of her size, was really very hard work--"My friends," repeated the skeleton, as he held his bundle in front of him with one hand and gesticulated with the other, "we all of us know that to-morrow our esteemed and worthy friend Mr. Toby Tyler makes his first appearance in any ring, and we all of us believe that he will soon become a bright and shining light in the profession which he is so soon to enter."
The speaker was here interrupted by loud applause from his wife, and he profited by the opportunity to wipe a stray drop of perspiration from his fleshless face. Then, as the fat lady ceased the exertion of clapping her hands, he continued: "Knowing that our friend Mr. Tyler was being instructed, preparatory to dazzling the public with his talents, my wife and I began to prepare for him some slight testimonial of our esteem; and, being informed by Mr. Castle some days ago of the day on which he was to make his first appearance before the public, we were enabled to complete our little gift in time for the great and important event."
Here the skeleton paused to take a breath, and Toby began to grow most uncomfortably red in the face. Such praise made him feel very awkward.
"I hold in this bundle," continued Mr. Treat as he waved the package on high, "a costume for our bold and worthy equestrian, and a sash to match for his beautiful and accomplished companion. In presenting these little tokens my wife (who has embroidered every inch of the velvet herself) and I feel proud to know that, when the great and auspicious occasion occurs to-morrow, the worthy Mr. Tyler will step into the ring in a costume which we have prepared expressly for him; and thus, when he does himself honor by his performance and earns the applause of the multitude, he will be doing honor and earning applause for the work of our hands--my wife Lilly and myself. Take them, my boy; and when you array yourself in them to-morrow you will remember that the only Living Skeleton, and the wonder of the nineteenth century in the shape of the Mammoth Lady, are present in their works if not in their persons."
As he finished speaking Mr. Treat handed the bundle to Toby, and then joined in the applause which was being given by Mrs. Treat and Ella.
Toby unrolled the package, and found that it contained a circus-rider's costume of pink tights and blue velvet trunks, collar and cuffs, embroidered in white and plentifully spangled with silver. In addition was a wide blue sash for Ella, embroidered to correspond with Toby's costume.
The little fellow was both delighted with the gift and at a loss to know what to say in response. He looked at the costume over and over again, and the tears of gratitude that these friends should have been so good to him came into his eyes. He saw, however, that they were expecting him to say something in reply, and, laying the gift on the platform, he said to the skeleton and his wife, "You've been so good to me ever since I've been with the circus that I wish I was big enough to say somethin' more than that I'm much obliged, but I can't. One of these days, when I'm a man, I'll show you how much I like you, an' then you won't be sorry that you was good to such a poor little runaway boy as I am."
Here the skeleton broke in with such loud applause and so many cries of "Hear! hear!" that Toby grew still more confused, and forgot entirely what he was intending to say next.
"I want you to know how much obliged I am," he said, after some hesitation, "an' when I wear 'em I'll ride just the best I know how, even if I don't want to, an' you sha'n't be sorry that you gave them to me."
As Toby concluded he made a funny little awkward bow, and then seemed to be trying to hide himself behind a chair from the applause which was given so generously.
"Bless your dear little heart!" said the fat lady, after the confusion had somewhat subsided. "I know you will do your best, anyway, and I'm glad to know that you're going to make your first appearance in something that Samuel and I made for you."
Ella was quite as well pleased with her sash as Toby was with his costume, and thanked Mr. and Mrs. Treat in a pretty little way that made Toby wish he could say anything half so nicely.
The hour which the skeleton had devoted for the purpose of the presentation and accompanying speeches having elapsed, it was necessary that Ella and Toby should go, and that the doors of the exhibition be opened at once, in order to give any of the public an opportunity of seeing what the placards announced as two of the greatest curiosities on the face of the globe.
That day, while Toby performed his arduous labors, his heart was very light, for the evidences which the skeleton and his wife had given of their regard for him were very gratifying. He determined that he would do his very best to please so long as he was with the circus, and then, when he got a chance to run away, he would do so, but not until he had said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Treat, and thanked them again for their interest in him.
When he had finished his work in the tent that night Mr. Lord said to him, as he patted him on the back in the most fatherly fashion, and as if he had never spoken a harsh word to him, "You can't come in here to sell candy now that you are one of the performers, my boy; an' if I can find another boy to-morrow you won't have to work in the booth any longer, an' your salary of a dollar a week will go on just the same, even if you don't have anything to do but to ride."
This was a bit of news that was as welcome to Toby as it was unexpected, and he felt more happy then than he had for the ten weeks that he had been travelling under Mr. Lord's cruel mastership.
But there was one thing that night that rather damped his joy, and that was that he noticed that Mr. Lord was unusually careful to watch him, not even allowing him to go outside the tent without following. He saw at once that, if he was to have a more easy time, his chances for running away were greatly diminished, and no number of beautiful costumes would have made him content to stay with the circus one moment longer than was absolutely necessary.
That night he told Old Ben of the events of the day, and expressed the hope that he might acquit himself creditably when he made his first appearance on the following day.
Ben sat thoughtfully for some time, and then, making all the preparations which Toby knew so well signified a long bit of advice, he said, "Toby, my boy, I've been with a circus, man an' boy, nigh to forty years, an' I've seen lots of youngsters start in just as you're goin' to start in to-morrow; but the most of them petered out, because they got to knowin' more'n them that learned 'em did. Now, you remember what I say, an' you'll find it good advice: whatever business you get into, don't think you know all about it before you've begun. Remember that you can always learn somethin', no matter how old you are, an' keep your eyes an' ears open, an' your tongue between your teeth, an' you'll amount to somethin', or my name hain't Ben."
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{
"id": "32393"
}
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16
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TOBY'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN THE RING.
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When the circus entered the town which had been selected as the place where Toby was to make his _début_ as a circus rider the boy noticed a new poster among the many glaring and gaudy bills which set forth the varied and numerous attractions that were to be found under one canvas for a trifling admission fee, and he noticed it with some degree of interest, not thinking for a moment that it had any reference to him.
It was printed very much as follows: MADEMOISELLE JEANNETTE AND MONSIEUR AJAX, two of the youngest equestrians in the world, will perform their graceful, dashing, and daring act entitled THE TRIUMPH OF THE INNOCENTS!
This is the first appearance of these daring young riders together since their separation in Europe last season, and their performance in this town will have a new and novel interest. See MADEMOISELLE JEANNETTE AND MONSIEUR AJAX.
"Look there!" said Toby to Ben, as he pointed out the poster, which was printed in very large letters, with gorgeous coloring, and surmounted by a picture of two very small people performing all kinds of impossible feats on horseback. "They've got some one else to ride with Ella to-day. I wonder who it can be?"
Ben looked at Toby for a moment, as if to assure himself that the boy was in earnest in asking the question, and then he relapsed into the worst fit of silent laughing that Toby had ever seen. After he had quite recovered he asked, "Don't you know who Monsieur Ajax is? Hain't you never seen him?"
"No," replied Toby, at a loss to understand what there was so very funny in his very natural question. "I thought that I was goin' to ride with Ella."
"Why, that's you!" almost screamed Ben, in delight. "Monsieur Ajax means you--didn't you know it? You don't suppose they would go to put 'Toby Tyler' on the bills, do you? How it would look! --'Mademoiselle Jeannette an' Monsieur Toby Tyler!'"
Ben was off in one of his laughing spells again; and Toby sat there, stiff and straight, hardly knowing whether to join in the mirth or to get angry at the sport which had been made of his name.
"I don't care," he said at length. "I'm sure I think Toby Tyler sounds just as well as Monsieur Ajax, an' I'm sure it fits me a good deal better."
"That may be," said Ben, soothingly; "but you see it wouldn't go down so well with the public. They want furrin riders, an' they must have 'em, even if it does spoil your name."
Despite the fact that he did not like the new name that had been given him, Toby could not but feel pleased at the glowing terms in which his performance was set off; but he did not at all relish the lie that was told about his having been with Ella in Europe, and he would have been very much better pleased if that portion of it had been left off.
During the forenoon he did not go near Mr. Lord nor his candy stand, for Mr. Castle kept him and Ella busily engaged in practising the feat which they were to perform in the afternoon, and it was almost time for the performance to begin before they were allowed even to go to their dinner.
Ella, who had performed several years, was very much more excited over the coming _début_ than Toby was, and the reason why he did not show more interest was, probably, because of his great desire to leave the circus as soon as possible, and during that forenoon he thought very much more of how he should get back to Guilford and Uncle Daniel than he did of how he should get along when he stood before the audience.
Mr. Castle assisted his pupil to dress, and when that was done to his entire satisfaction he said, in a stern voice, "Now, you can do this act all right, and if you slip up on it, and don't do it as you ought to, I'll give you such a whipping when you come out of the ring that you'll think Job was only fooling with you when he tried to whip you."
Toby had been feeling reasonably cheerful before this, but these words dispelled all his cheerful thoughts, and he was looking most disconsolate when Old Ben came into the dressing-tent.
"All ready are you, my boy?" said the old man, in his cheeriest voice. "Well, that's good, an' you look as nice as possible. Now, remember what I told you last night, Toby, an' go in there to do your level best an' make a name for yourself. Come out here with me an' wait for the young lady."
These cheering words of Ben's did Toby as much good as Mr. Castle's had the reverse, and as he stepped out of the dressing-room to the place where the horses were being saddled Toby resolved that he would do his very best that afternoon, if for no other reason than to please his old friend.
Toby was not naturally what might be called a pretty boy, for his short red hair and his freckled face prevented any great display of beauty; but he was a good, honest-looking boy, and in his tasteful costume looked very nice indeed--so nice that, could Mrs. Treat have seen him just then, she would have been very proud of her handiwork and hugged him harder than ever.
He had been waiting but a few moments when Ella came from her dressing-room, and Toby was very much pleased when he saw by the expression of her face that she was perfectly satisfied with his appearance.
"We'll both do just as well as we can," she whispered to him, "and I know the people will like us, and make us come back after we get through. And if they do mamma says she'll give each one of us a gold dollar."
She had taken hold of Toby's hand as she spoke, and her manner was so earnest and anxious that Toby was more excited than he ever had been about his _début;_ and, had he gone into the ring just at that moment, the chances are that he would have surprised even his teacher by his riding.
"I'll do just as well as I can," said Toby, in reply to his little companion, "an' if we earn the dollars I'll have a hole bored in mine, an' you shall wear it around your neck to remember me by."
"I'll remember you without that," she whispered; "and I'll give you mine, so that you shall have so much the more when you go to your home."
There was no time for further conversation, for Mr. Castle entered just then to tell them that they must go in in another moment. The horses were all ready--a black one for Toby, and a white one for Ella--and they stood champing their bits and pawing the earth in their impatience until the silver bells with which they were decorated rung out quick, nervous little chimes that accorded very well with Toby's feelings.
Ella squeezed Toby's hand as they stood waiting for the curtain to be raised that they might enter, and he had just time to return it when the signal was given, and almost before he was aware of it they were standing in the ring, kissing their hands to the crowds that packed the enormous tent to its utmost capacity.
Thanks to the false announcement about the separation of the children in Europe and their reunion in this particular town, the applause was long and loud, and before it had died away Toby had time to recover a little from the queer feeling which this sea of heads gave him.
He had never seen such a crowd before, except as he had seen them as he walked around at the foot of the seats, and then they had simply looked like so many human beings; but as he saw them now from the ring they appeared like strange rows of heads without bodies, and he had hard work to keep from running back behind the curtain from whence he had come.
Mr. Castle acted as the ring-master this time, and after he had introduced them--very much after the fashion of the posters--and the clown had repeated some funny joke, the horses were led in, and they were assisted to mount.
"Don't mind the people at all," said Mr. Castle, in a low voice, "but ride just as if you were alone here with me."
The music struck up, the horses cantered around the ring, and Toby had really started as a circus rider.
"Remember," said Ella to him, in a low tone, just as the horses started, "you told me that you would ride just as well as you could, and we must earn the dollars mamma promised."
It seemed to Toby at first as if he could not stand up; but by the time they had ridden around the ring once, and Ella had again cautioned him against making any mistake, for the sake of the money which they were going to earn, he was calm and collected enough to carry out his part of the "act" as well as if he had been simply taking a lesson.
The act consisted in their riding side by side, jumping over banners and through hoops covered with paper, and then the most difficult portion began.
The saddles were taken off the horses, and they were to ride first on one horse and then on the other, until they concluded their performance by riding twice around the ring side by side, standing on their horses, each one with a hand on the other's shoulder.
All this was successfully accomplished without a single error, and when they rode out of the ring the applause was so great as to leave no doubt but that they would be recalled, and thus earn the promised money.
In fact, they had hardly got inside the curtain when one of the attendants called to them, and before they had time even to speak to each other they were in the ring again, repeating the last portion of their act.
When they came out of the ring for the second time they found Old Ben, the skeleton, the fat lady, and Mr. Jacob Lord waiting to welcome them; but before any one could say a word Ella had stood on tiptoe again and given Toby just such another kiss as she did when he told her that he would surely stay long enough to appear in the ring with her once.
[Illustration: MADEMOISELLE JEANNETTE AND MONSIEUR AJAX.]
"That's because you rode so well and helped me so much," she said, as she saw Toby's cheeks growing a fiery red; and then she turned to those who were waiting to greet her.
Mrs. Treat took her in her enormous arms, and having kissed her, put her down quickly, and clasped Toby as if he had been a very small walnut and her arms a very large pair of nut-crackers.
"Bless the boy!" she exclaimed, as she kissed him again and again with an energy and force that made her kisses sound like the crack of the whip, and caused the horses to stamp in affright. "I knew he'd amount to something one of these days, an' Samuel an' I had to come out, when business was dull, just to see how he got along."
It was some time before she would unloose him from her motherly embrace, and when she did the skeleton grasped him by the hand, and said, in the most pompous and affected manner, "Mr. Tyler, we're proud of you, and when we saw that costume of yours, that my Lilly embroidered with her own hands, we was both proud of it and what it contained. You're a great rider, my boy, a great rider, and you'll stand at the head of the profession some day, if you only stick to it."
"Thank you, sir," was all Toby had time to say before Old Ben had him by the hand, and the skeleton was pouring out his congratulations in little Miss Ella's ear.
"Toby, my boy, you did well, an' now you'll amount to something, if you only remember what I told you last night," said Ben, as he looked upon the boy whom he had come to think of as his _protégé_, with pride. "I never seen anybody of your age do any better; an' now, instead of bein' only a candy peddler, you're one of the stars of the show."
"Thank you, Ben," was all that Toby could say, for he knew that his old friend meant every word that he said, and it pleased him so much that he could say no more than "Thank you" in reply.
"I feel as if your triumph was mine," said Mr. Lord, looking benignly at Toby from out his crooked eye, and assuming the most fatherly tone at his command; "I have learned to look upon you almost as my own son, and your success is very gratifying to me."
Toby was not at all flattered by this last praise. If he had never seen Mr. Lord before, he might, and probably would, have been deceived by his words; but he had seen him too often, and under too many painful circumstances, to be at all swindled by his words.
Toby was very much pleased with his success and by the praise he received from all, and when the proprietor of the circus came along, patted him on the head, and told him that he rode very nicely, he was quite happy, until he chanced to see the greedy twinkle in Mr. Lord's eye, and then he knew that all this success and all this praise were only binding him faster to the show which he was so anxious to escape from; his pleasure vanished very quickly, and in its stead came a bitter, homesick feeling which no amount of praise could banish.
It was Old Ben who helped him to undress after the skeleton and the fat lady had gone back to their tent, and Ella had gone to dress for her appearance with her mother, for now she was obliged to ride twice at each performance. When Toby was in his ordinary clothes again Ben said, "Now that you're one of the performers, Toby, you won't have to sell candy any more, an' you'll have the most of your time to yourself, so let's you an' I go out an' see the town."
"Don't you s'pose Mr. Lord expects me to go to work for him again to-day?"
"An' s'posin' he does?" said Ben, with a chuckle. "You don't s'pose the boss would let any one that rides in the ring stand behind Job Lord's counter, do you? You can do just as you have a mind to, my boy, an' I say to you, let's go out an' see the town. What do you say to it?"
"I'd like to go first-rate, if I dared to," replied Toby, thinking of the many whippings he had received for far less than that which Ben now proposed he should do.
"Oh, I'll take care that Job don't bother you, so come along;" and Ben started out of the tent, and Toby followed, feeling considerably frightened at this first act of disobedience against his old master.
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{
"id": "32393"
}
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17
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OFF FOR HOME!
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During this walk Toby learned many things that were of importance to him, so far as his plan for running away was concerned. In the first place, he gleaned from the railroad posters that were stuck up in the hotel to which they went that he could buy a ticket for Guilford for seven dollars, and also that, by going back to the town from which they had just come, he could go to Guilford by steamer for five dollars.
By returning to this last town--and Toby calculated that the fare on the stage back there could not be more than a dollar--he would have ten dollars left, and that surely ought to be sufficient to buy food enough for two days for the most hungry boy that ever lived.
When they returned to the circus grounds the performance was over, and Mr. Lord in the midst of the brisk trade which he usually had after the afternoon performance, and yet, so far from scolding Toby for going away, he actually smiled and bowed at him as he saw him go by with Ben.
"See there, Toby," said the old driver to the boy, as he gave him a vigorous poke in the ribs and then went off into one of his dreadful laughing spells--"see what it is to be a performer, an' not workin' for such an old fossil as Job is! He'll be so sweet to you now that sugar won't melt in his mouth, an' there's no chance of his ever attemptin' to whip you again."
Toby made no reply, for he was too busily engaged thinking of something which had just come into his mind to know that his friend had spoken.
But as Old Ben hardly knew whether the boy had answered him or not, owing to his being obliged to struggle with his breath lest he should lose it in the second laughing spell that attacked him, the boy's thoughtfulness was not particularly noticed.
Toby walked around the show-grounds for a little while with his old friend, and then the two went to supper, where Toby performed quite as great wonders in the way of eating as he had in the afternoon by riding.
As soon as the supper was over he quietly slipped away from Old Ben, and at once paid a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Treat, whom he found cosily engaged with their supper behind the screen.
They welcomed Toby most cordially, and, despite his assertions that he had just finished a very hearty meal, the fat lady made him sit down to the box which served as table, and insisted on his trying some of her doughnuts.
Under all these pressing attentions it was some time before Toby found a chance to say that which he had come to say, and when he did he was almost at a loss how to proceed; but at last he commenced by starting abruptly on his subject with the words, "I've made up my mind to leave to-night."
"Leave to-night?" repeated the skeleton, inquiringly, not for a moment believing that Toby could think of running away after the brilliant success he had just made. "What do you mean, Toby?"
"Why, you know that I've been wantin' to get away from the circus," said Toby, a little impatient that his friend should be so wonderfully stupid, "an' I think that I'll have as good a chance now as ever I shall, so I'm goin' to try it."
"Bless us!" exclaimed the fat lady, in a gasping way. "You don't mean to say that you're goin' off just when you've started in the business so well? I thought you'd want to stay after you'd been so well received this afternoon."
"No," said Toby--and one quick little sob popped right up from his heart and out before he was aware of it--"I learned to ride because I had to, but I never give up runnin' away. I must see Uncle Dan'l, an' tell him how sorry I am for what I did; an' if he won't have anything to say to me then I'll come back; but if he'll let me I'll stay there, an' I'll be _so_ good that by-'n'-by he'll forget that I run off an' left him without sayin' a word."
There was such a touch of sorrow in his tones, so much pathos in his way of speaking, that good Mrs. Treat's heart was touched at once; and putting her arms around the little fellow, as if to shield him from some harm, she said, tenderly, "And so you shall go, Toby, my boy; but if you ever want a home or anybody to love you come right here to us, and you'll never be sorry. So long as Sam keeps thin and I fat enough to draw the public, you never need say that you're homeless, for nothing would please us better than to have you come to live with us."
For reply Toby raised his head and kissed her on the cheek, a proceeding which caused her to squeeze him harder than ever.
During this conversation the skeleton had remained very thoughtful. After a moment or two he got up from his seat, went outside the tent, and presently returned with a quantity of silver ten-cent pieces in his hand.
"Here, Toby," he said--and it was to be seen that he was really too much affected even to attempt one of his speeches--"it's right that you should go, for I've known what it is to feel just as you do. What Lilly said about your having a home with us I say, an' here's five dollars that I want you to take to help you along."
At first Toby stoutly refused to take the money; but they both insisted to such a degree that he was actually forced to, and then he stood up to go.
"I'm goin' to try to slip off after Job packs up the outside booth if I can," he said, "an' it was to say good-bye that I come around here."
Again Mrs. Treat took the boy in her arms, as if it were one of her own children who was leaving her, and as she stroked his hair back from his forehead she said, "Don't forget us, Toby, even if you never do see us again; try an' remember how much we cared for you, an' how much comfort you're taking away from us when you go; for it was a comfort to see you around, even if you wasn't with us very much. Don't forget us, Toby, an' if you ever get the chance come an' see us. Good-bye, Toby, good-bye." And the kind-hearted woman kissed him again and again, and then turned her back resolutely upon him, lest it should be bad luck to him if she again saw him after saying good-bye.
The skeleton's parting was not quite so demonstrative. He clasped Toby's hand with one set of his fleshless fingers, while with the other he wiped one or two suspicious-looking drops of moisture from his eyes, as he said, "I hope you'll get along all right, my boy, and I believe you will. You will get home to Uncle Daniel, and be happier than ever, for now you know what it is to be entirely without a home. Be a good boy, mind your uncle, go to school, and one of these days you'll make a good man. Good-bye, my boy."
The tears were now streaming down Toby's face very rapidly; he had not known, in his anxiety to get home, how very much he cared for this strangely assorted couple, and now it made him feel very miserable and wretched that he was going to leave them. He tried to say something more, but the tears choked his utterance, and he left the tent quickly to prevent himself from breaking down entirely.
In order that his grief might not be noticed, and the cause of it suspected, Toby went out behind the tent, and, sitting there on a stone, he gave way to the tears which he could no longer control.
While he was thus engaged, heeding nothing which passed around him, he was startled by a cheery voice which cried, "Halloo! down in the dumps again? What is the matter now, my bold equestrian?"
Looking up, he saw Ben standing before him, and he wiped his eyes hastily, for here was another from whom he must part, and to whom a good-bye must be spoken.
Looking around to make sure that no one was within hearing, he went up very close to the old driver, and said, in almost a whisper, "I was feelin' bad 'cause I just come from Mr. and Mrs. Treat, an' I've been say in' good-bye to them. I'm goin' to run away to-night."
Ben looked at him for a moment, as if he doubted whether the boy knew exactly what he was talking about, and then said, "So you still want to go home, do you?"
"Oh yes, Ben, _so_ much," was the reply, in a tone which expressed how dear to him was the thought of being in his old home once more.
"All right, my boy; I won't say one word agin it, though it do seem too bad, after you've turned out to be such a good rider," said the old man, thoughtfully. "It's better for you, I know; for a circus hain't no place for a boy, even if he wants to stay, an' I can't say but I'm glad you're still determined to go."
Toby felt relieved at the tone of this leave-taking. He had feared that Old Ben, who thought a circus-rider was almost on the topmost round of Fortune's ladder, would have urged him to stay, since he had made his _début_ in the ring, and he was almost afraid that he might take some steps to prevent his going.
"I wanted to say good-bye now," said Toby, in a choking voice, "'cause perhaps I sha'n't see you again."
"Good-bye, my boy," said Ben as he took the boy's hand in his. "Don't forget this experience you've had in runnin' away; an' if ever the time comes that you feel as if you wanted to know that you had a friend, think of Old Ben, an' remember that his heart beats just as warm for you as if he was your father. Good-bye, my boy, good-bye, an' may the good God bless you!"
"Good-bye, Ben," said Toby; and then, as the old driver turned and walked away, wiping something from his eye with the cuff of his sleeve, Toby gave full vent to his tears, and wondered why it was that he was such a miserable little wretch.
There was one more good-bye to be said, and that Toby dreaded more than all the others. It was to Ella. He knew that she would feel badly to have him go, because she liked to ride the act with him that gave them such applause, and he felt certain that she would urge him to stay.
Just then the thought of another of his friends--one who had not yet been warned of what very important matter was to occur--came into his mind, and he hastened toward the old monkey's cage. His pet was busily engaged in playing with some of the younger members of his family, and for some moments could not be induced to come to the bars of the cage.
At last, however, Toby did succeed in coaxing him forward, and then, taking him by the paw, and drawing him as near as possible, Toby whispered, "We're goin' to run away to night, Mr. Stubbs, an' I want you to be all ready to go the minute I come for you."
The old monkey winked both eyes violently, and then showed his teeth to such an extent that Toby thought he was laughing at the prospect, and he said, a little severely, "If you had as many friends as I have got in this circus you wouldn't laugh when you was goin' to leave them. Of course I've got to go, an' I want to go; but it makes me feel bad to leave the skeleton, an' the fat woman, an' Old Ben, an' little Ella. But I mustn't stand here. You be ready when I come for you, an' by mornin' we'll be so far off that Mr. Lord nor Mr. Castle can't catch us."
The old monkey went toward his companions, as if he were in high glee at the trip before him, and Toby went into the dressing tent to prepare for the evening's performance--which was about to commence.
It appeared to the boy as if every one was unusually kind to him that night, and, feeling sad at leaving those in the circus who had befriended him, Toby was unusually attentive to every one around him. He ran on some trifling errand for one, helped another in his dressing, and in a dozen kind ways seemed as if trying to atone for leaving them secretly.
When the time came for him to go into the ring and he met Ella, bright and happy at the thought of riding with him and repeating her triumphs of the afternoon, nothing save the thought of how wicked he had been to run away from good old Uncle Daniel, and a desire to right that wrong in some way, prevented him from giving up his plan of going back.
The little girl observed his sadness, and she whispered, "Has any one been whipping you, Toby?"
Toby shook his head. He had thought that he would tell her what he was about to do just before they went into the ring, but her kind words seemed to make that impossible, and he had said nothing, when the blare of the trumpets, the noisy demonstrations of the audience, and the announcement of the clown that the wonderful children riders were now about to appear, ushered them into the ring.
If Toby had performed well in the afternoon, he accomplished wonders on this evening, and they were called back into the ring, not once, but twice; and when finally they were allowed to retire, every one behind the curtain overwhelmed them with praise.
Ella was so profuse with her kind words, her admiration for what Toby had done, and so delighted at the idea that they were to ride together, that even then the boy could not tell her what he was going to do, but went into his dressing-room, resolving that he would tell her all when they both had finished dressing.
Toby made as small a parcel as possible of the costume which Mr. and Mrs. Treat had given him--for he determined that he would take it with him--and, putting it under his coat, went out to wait for Ella. As she did not come out as soon as he expected he asked some one to tell her that he wanted to see her, and he thought to himself that when she did come she would be in a hurry, and could not stop long enough to make any very lengthy objections to his leaving.
But she did not come at all--her mother sent out word that Toby could not see her until after the performance was over, owing to the fact that it was now nearly time for her to go into the ring, and she was not dressed yet.
Toby was terribly disappointed. He knew that it would not be safe for him to wait until the close of the performance if he were intending to run away that night, and he felt that he could not go until he had said a few last words to her.
He was in a great perplexity, until the thought came to him that he could write a good-bye to her, and by this means any unpleasant discussion would be avoided.
After some little difficulty he procured a small piece of not very clean paper and a very short bit of lead-pencil, and using the top of one of the wagons, as he sat on the seat, for a desk, he indited the following epistle: "deaR ella I Am goin to Run away two night, & i want two say good by to yu & your mother. i am Small & unkle Danil says i dont mount two much, but i am old enuf two know that you have bin good two me, & when i Am a man i will buy you a whole cirkus, and we Will ride together. dont forgit me & I wont yu in haste TOBY TYLER."
Toby had no envelope in which to seal this precious letter, but he felt that it would not be seen by prying eyes, and would safely reach its destination, if he intrusted it to Old Ben.
It did not take him many moments to find the old driver, and he said, as he handed him the letter, "I didn't see Ella to tell her I was goin', so I wrote this letter, an' I want to know if you will give it to her?"
"Of course I will. But see here, Toby"--and Ben caught him by the sleeve and led him aside where he would not be overheard--"have you got money enough to take you home? for if you haven't I can let you have some." And Ben plunged his hand into his capacious pocket, as if he was about to withdraw from there the entire United States Treasury.
Toby assured him that he had sufficient for all his wants; but the old man would not be satisfied until he had seen for himself, and then, taking Toby's hand again, he said, "Now, my boy, it won't do for you to stay around here any longer. Buy something to eat before you start, an' go into the woods for a day or two before you take the train or steamboat. You're too big a prize for Job or Castle to let you go without a word, an' they'll try their level best to find you. Be careful, now, for if they should catch you, good-bye any more chances to get away. There"--and here Ben suddenly lifted him high from the ground and kissed him--"now get away as fast as you can."
Toby pressed the old man's hand affectionately, and then, without trusting himself to speak, walked swiftly out toward the entrance.
He resolved to take Ben's advice and go into the woods for a short time, and therefore he must buy some provisions before he started.
As he passed the monkeys' cage he saw his pet sitting near the bars, and he stopped long enough to whisper, "I'll be back in ten minutes, Mr. Stubbs, an' you be all ready then."
Then he went on, and just as he got near the entrance one of the men told him that Mrs. Treat wished to see him.
Toby could hardly afford to spare the time just then, but he would probably have obeyed the summons, if he had known that by so doing he would be caught, and he ran as fast as his little legs would carry him toward the skeleton's tent.
The exhibition was open, and both the skeleton and his wife were on the platform when Toby entered; but he crept around at the back and up behind Mrs. Treat's chair, telling her as he did so that he had just received her message, and that he must hurry right back, for every moment was important then to him.
"I put up a nice lunch for you," she said as she kissed him, "and you'll find it on the top of the biggest trunk. Now go; and if my wishes are of any good to you, you will get to your uncle Daniel's house without any trouble. Good-bye again, little one."
Toby did not dare to trust himself any longer where every one was so kind to him. He slipped down from the platform as quickly as possible, found the bundle--and a good-sized one it was too--without any difficulty, and went back to the monkeys' cage.
As orders had been given by the proprietor of the circus that the boy should do as he had a mind to with the monkey, he called Mr. Stubbs; and as he was in the custom of taking him with him at night, no one thought that it was anything strange that he should take him from the cage now.
[Illustration: THE RUNAWAYS.]
Mr. Lord or Mr. Castle might possibly have thought it queer had either of them seen the two bundles which Toby carried, but, fortunately for the boy's scheme, they both believed that he was in the dressing-tent, and consequently thought that he was perfectly safe.
Toby's hand shook so that he could hardly undo the fastening of the cage, and when he attempted to call the monkey to him his voice sounded so strange and husky that it startled him.
The old monkey seemed to prefer sleeping with Toby rather than with those of his kind in the cage; and as the boy took him with him almost every night, he came on this particular occasion as soon as Toby called, regardless of the strange sound of his master's voice.
With his bundles under his arm, and the monkey on his shoulder, with both paws tightly clasped around his neck, Toby made his way out of the tent with beating heart and bated breath.
Neither Mr. Lord, Castle, nor Jacobs were in sight, and everything seemed favorable for his flight. During the afternoon he had carefully noted the direction of the woods, and he started swiftly toward them now, stopping only long enough, as he was well clear of the tents, to say, in a whisper, "Good-bye, Mr. Treat, an' Mrs. Treat, an' Ella, an' Ben. Some time, when I'm a man, I'll come back, an' bring you lots of nice things, an' I'll never forget you--never. When I have a chance to be good to some little boy that felt as bad as I did I'll do it, an' tell him that it was you did it. Good-bye."
Then, turning around, he ran toward the woods as swiftly as if his escape had been discovered and the entire company were in pursuit.
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{
"id": "32393"
}
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18
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A DAY OF FREEDOM.
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Toby ran at the top of his speed over the rough road; and the monkey, jolted from one side to the other, clutched his paws more tightly around the boy's neck, looking around into his face as if to ask what was the meaning of this very singular proceeding.
When he was so very nearly breathless as to be able to run no more, but was forced to walk, Toby looked behind him, and there he could see the bright lights of the circus, and hear the strains of the music as he had heard them on the night when he was getting ready to run away from Uncle Daniel; and those very sounds, which reminded him forcibly of how ungrateful he had been to the old man who had cared for him when there was no one else in the world who would do so, made it more easy for him to leave those behind who had been so kind to him when he stood so much in need of kindness.
"We are goin' home, Mr. Stubbs!" he said, exultantly, to the monkey--"home to Uncle Dan'l an' the boys; an' won't you have a good time when we get there! You can run all over the barn, an' up in the trees, an' do just what you want to, an' there'll be plenty of fellows to play with you. You don't know half how good a place Guilford is, Mr. Stubbs."
The monkey chattered away as if he were anticipating lots of fun on his arrival at Toby's home, and the boy chattered back, his spirits rising at every step which took him farther away from the collection of tents where he had spent so many wretched hours.
A brisk walk of half an hour sufficed to take Toby to the woods, and after some little search he found a thick clump of bushes in which he concluded he could sleep without the risk of being seen by any one who might pass that way before he should be awake in the morning.
He had not much choice in the way of a bed, for it was so dark in the woods that it was impossible to collect moss or leaves to make a soft resting-place, and the few leaves and pine-boughs which he did gather made his place for sleeping but very little softer.
But during the ten weeks that Toby had been with the circus his bed had seldom been anything softer than the seat of the wagon, and it troubled him very little that he was to sleep with nothing but a few leaves between himself and the earth.
Using the bundle in which was his riding costume for a pillow, and placing the lunch Mrs. Treat had given him near by, where the monkey could not get at it conveniently, he cuddled Mr. Stubbs up in his bosom and lay down to sleep.
"Mr. Lord won't wake us up in the mornin' an' swear at us for not washin' the tumblers," said Toby, in a tone of satisfaction, to the monkey; "an' we won't have to go into the tent to-morrow an' sell sick lemonade an' poor pea-nuts. But"--and here his tone changed to one of sorrow--"there'll be some there that 'll be sorry not to see us in the mornin', Mr. Stubbs, though they'll be glad to know that we got away all right. But won't Mr. Lord swear, an' won't Mr. Castle crack his whip, when they come to look round for us in the mornin' an' find that we hain't there!"
The only reply which the monkey made to this was to nestle his head closer under Toby's coat, and to show, in the most decided manner, that he was ready to go to sleep.
And Toby was quite as ready to go to sleep as he was. He had worked hard that day, but the excitement of escaping had prevented him from realizing his fatigue until after he had lain down; and almost before he had got through congratulating himself upon the ease with which he had gotten free, both he and the monkey were as sound asleep as if they had been tucked up in the softest bed that was ever made.
Toby's very weariness was a friend to him that night, for it prevented him from waking; which, if he had done so, might have been unpleasant when he fully realized that he was all alone in the forest, and the sounds that are always heard in the woods might have frightened him just the least bit.
The sun was shining directly in his face when Toby awoke on the following morning, and the old monkey was still snugly nestled under his coat. He sat up rather dazed at first, and then, as he fully realized that he was actually free from all that had made his life such a sad and hard one for so many weeks, he shouted aloud, revelling in his freedom.
The monkey, awakened by Toby's cries, started from his sleep in affright and jumped into the nearest tree, only to chatter, jump, and swing from the boughs when he saw that there was nothing very unusual going on, save that he and Toby were out in the woods again, where they could have no end of a good time and do just as they liked.
After a few moments spent in a short jubilee at their escape Toby took the monkey on his shoulder and the bundles under his arm again, and went cautiously out to the edge of the thicket, where he could form some idea as to whether or no they were pursued.
He had entered the woods at the brow of a small hill when he had fled so hastily on the previous evening, and looking down, he could see the spot whereon the tents of the circus had been pitched, but not a sign of them was now visible. He could see a number of people walking around, and he fancied that they looked up every now and then to where he stood concealed by the foliage.
This gave him no little uneasiness, for he feared that Mr. Lord or Mr. Castle might be among the number, and he believed that they would begin a search for him at once, and that the spot where their attention would first be drawn was exactly where he was then standing.
"This won't do, Mr. Stubbs," he said, as he pushed the monkey higher up on his shoulder and started into the thickest part of the woods; "we must get out of this place, an' go farther down, where we can hide till to-morrow mornin'. Besides, we must find some water where we can wash our faces."
The old monkey would hardly have been troubled if they had not their faces washed for the next month to come; but he grinned and talked as Toby trudged along, attempting to catch hold of the leaves as they were passed, and in various other ways impeding his master's progress, until Toby was obliged to give him a most severe scolding in order to make him behave himself in anything like a decent manner.
At last, after fully half an hour's rapid walking, Toby found just the place he wanted in which to pass the time he concluded it would be necessary to spend before he dare venture out to start for home.
It was a little valley entirely filled by trees, which grew so thickly, save in one little spot, as to make it almost impossible to walk through. The one clear spot was not more than ten feet square, but it was just at the edge of a swiftly running brook; and a more beautiful or convenient place for a boy and a monkey to stop who had no tent, nor means to build one, could not well be imagined.
Toby's first act was to wash his face, and he tried to make the monkey do the same; but Mr. Stubbs had no idea of doing any such foolish thing. He would come down close to the edge of the water and look in; but the moment that Toby tried to make him go in he would rush back among the trees, climb out on some slender bough, and then swing himself down by the tail, and chatter away as if making sport of his young master for thinking that he would be so foolish as to soil his face with water.
After Toby had made his toilet he unfastened the bundle which the fat lady had given him, for the purpose of having breakfast. As much of an eater as Toby was, he could not but be surprised at the quantity of food which Mrs. Treat called a lunch. There were two whole pies and half of another, as many as two dozen doughnuts, several large pieces of cheese, six sandwiches, with a plentiful amount of meat, half a dozen biscuits, nicely buttered, and a large piece of cake.
The monkey had come down from the tree as soon as he saw Toby untying the bundle, and there was quite as much pleasure depicted on his face, when he saw the good things that were spread out before him, as there was on Toby's; and he showed his thankfulness at Mrs. Treat's foresight by suddenly snatching one of the doughnuts and running with it up the tree, where he knew Toby could not follow.
"Now look here, Mr. Stubbs!" said Toby, sternly, "you can have all you want to eat, but you must take it in a decent way, an' not go to cuttin' up any such shines as that."
And after giving this command--which, by-the-way, was obeyed just about as well as it was understood--Toby devoted his time to his breakfast, and he reduced the amount of eatables very considerably before he had finished.
Toby cleared off his table by gathering the food together and putting it back into the paper as well as possible, and then he sat down to think over the situation, and to decide what he had better do.
He felt rather nervous about venturing out when it was possible for Mr. Lord or Mr. Castle to get hold of him again; and as the weather was yet warm during the night, his camping-place everything that could be desired, and the stock of food likely to hold out, he concluded that he had better remain there for two days at least, and then he would be reasonably sure that if either of the men whom he so dreaded to see had remained behind for the purpose of catching him, he would have got tired out and gone on.
This point decided upon, the next was to try to fix up something soft for a bed. He had his pocket-knife with him, and in his little valley were pine and hemlock trees in abundance. From the tips of their branches he knew that he could make a bed as soft and fragrant as any that could be thought of, and he set to work at once, while Mr. Stubbs continued his antics above his head.
After about two hours' steady work he had cut enough of the tender branches to make himself a bed into which he and the monkey could burrow and sleep as comfortably as if they were in the softest bed in Uncle Daniel's house.
When Toby first began to cut the boughs he had an idea that he might possibly make some sort of a hut; but the two hours' work had blistered his hands, and he was perfectly ready to sit down and rest, without the slightest desire for any other kind of a hut than that formed by the trees themselves.
Toby imagined that in that beautiful place he could, with the monkey, stay contented for any number of days; but after he had rested a time, played with his pet a little, and eaten just a trifle more of the lunch, the time passed so slowly that he soon made up his mind to run the risk of meeting Mr. Lord or Mr. Castle again by going out of the woods the first thing the next morning.
Very many times before the sun set that day was Toby tempted to run the risk that night, for the sake of the change, if no more; but as he thought the matter over he saw how dangerous such a course would be, and he forced himself to wait.
That night he did not sleep as soundly as on the previous one, for the very good reason that he was not as tired. He awoke several times; and the noise of the night-birds alarmed him to such an extent that he was obliged to awaken the old monkey for company.
But the night passed despite his fears, as all nights will, whether a boy is out in the woods alone or tucked up in his own little bed at home. In the morning Toby made all possible haste to get away, for each moment that he stayed now made him more impatient to be moving toward home.
He washed himself as quickly as possible, ate his breakfast with the most unseemly haste, and, taking up his bundles and the monkey, once more started, as he supposed, in the direction from which he had entered the woods.
Toby walked briskly along, in the best possible spirits, for his running away was now an accomplished fact, and he was going toward Uncle Daniel and home just as fast as possible. He sung "Old Hundred" through five or six times by way of showing his happiness. It is quite likely that he would have sung something a little more lively had he known anything else; but "Old Hundred" was the extent of his musical education, and he kept repeating that, which was quite as satisfactory as if he had been able to go through with every opera that was ever written.
The monkey would jump from his shoulder into the branches above, run along on the trees for a short distance, and then wait until Toby came along, when he would drop down on his shoulder suddenly, and in every other way of displaying monkey delight he showed that he was just as happy as it was possible.
Toby trudged on in this contented way for nearly an hour, and every moment expected to step out to the edge of the woods, where he could see houses and men once more. But instead of doing so the forest seemed to grow more dense, and nothing betokened his approach to the village. There was a great fear came into Toby's heart just then, and for a moment he halted in helpless perplexity. His lips began to quiver, his face grew white, and his hand trembled so that the old monkey took hold of one of his fingers and looked at it wonderingly.
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{
"id": "32393"
}
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19
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MR. STUBBS'S MISCHIEF, AND HIS SAD FATE.
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Toby had begun to realize that he was lost in the woods, and the thought was sufficient to cause alarm in the mind of one much older than the boy. He said to himself that he would keep on in the direction he was then travelling for fifteen minutes; and as he had no means of computing the time he sat down on a log, took out the bit of pencil with which he had written the letter to Ella, and multiplied sixty by fifteen. He knew that there were sixty seconds to the minute, and that he could ordinarily count one to each second; therefore, when he learned that there were nine hundred seconds in fifteen minutes, he resolved to walk as nearly straight ahead as possible until he should have counted that number.
He walked on, counting as regularly as he could, and thought to himself that he never before realized how long fifteen minutes were. It really seemed to him that an hour had passed before he finished counting, and then when he stopped there were no more signs that he was near a clearing than there had been before he started.
"Ah, Mr. Stubbs, we're lost! we're lost!" he cried, as he laid his cheek on the monkey's head and gave way to the lonesome grief that came over him. "What shall we do? Perhaps we won't ever find our way out, but will die here, an' then Uncle Dan'l won't ever know how sorry I was that I run away."
Then Toby lay right down on the ground and cried so hard that the monkey acted as if it were frightened, and tried to turn the boy's face over, and finally leaned down and licked Toby's ear.
This little act, which seemed so much like a kiss, caused Toby to feel no small amount of comfort, and he sat up again, took the monkey in his arms, and began seriously to discuss some definite plan of action.
"It won't do to keep on the way we've been goin', Mr. Stubbs," said Toby, as he looked full in his pet's face--and the old monkey sat as still and looked as grave as it was possible for him to look and sit--"for we must be goin' into the woods deeper. Let's start off this way"--and Toby pointed at right angles with the course they had been pursuing--"an' keep right on that way till we come to something, or till we drop right down an' die."
It is fair to presume that the old monkey agreed to Toby's plan; for although he said nothing in favor of it he certainly made no objections to it, which to Toby was the same as if his companion had assented to it in the plainest English.
Both the bundles and the monkey were rather a heavy load for a small boy like Toby to carry; but he clung manfully to them, walked resolutely on, without looking to the right or to the left, glad when the old monkey would take a run among the trees, for then he would be relieved of his weight, and glad when he returned, for then he had his company, and that repaid him for any labor which he might have to perform.
Toby was in a hard plight as it was; but without the old monkey for a companion he would have thought his condition was a hundred times worse, and would hardly have had the courage to go on as he was going.
On and on he walked, until it seemed to him that he could really go no farther, and yet he could see no signs which indicated the end of the woods, and at last he sunk upon the ground, too tired to walk another step, saying to the monkey--who was looking as if he would like to know the reason of this pause--"It's no use, Mr. Stubbs, I've got to sit down here an' rest awhile, anyhow; besides, I'm awfully hungry."
Then Toby commenced to eat his dinner, and to give the monkey his, until the thought came to him that he neither had any water nor did he know where to find it, and then, of course, he immediately became so thirsty that it was impossible for him to eat any more.
"We can't stand this," moaned Toby to the monkey; "we've got to have something to drink, or else we can't eat all these sweet things, an' I'm so tired that I can't go any farther. Don't let's eat dinner now, but let's stay here an' rest, an' then we can keep on an' look for water."
Toby's resting spell was a long one, for as soon as he stretched himself out on the ground he was asleep from actual exhaustion, and did not awaken until the sun was just setting, and then he saw that, hard as his troubles had been before, they were about to become, or in fact had become, worse.
He had paid no attention to his bundles when he lay down, and when he awoke he was puzzled to make out what it was that was strewn around the ground so thickly.
He had looked at it but a very short time when he saw that it was what had been the lunch he had carried so far. After having had the sad experience of losing his money he understood very readily that the old monkey had taken the lunch while he slept, and had amused himself by picking it apart into the smallest particles possible, and then strewn them around on the ground where he now saw them.
Toby looked at them in almost speechless surprise, and then he turned to where the old monkey lay, apparently asleep; but as the boy watched him intently, he could see that the cunning animal was really watching him out of one half-closed eye.
"Now you have killed us, Mr. Stubbs," wailed Toby. "We never can find our way out of here; an' now we hain't got anything to eat, and by to-morrow we shall be starved to death. Oh dear! wasn't you bad enough when you threw all the money away, so you had to go an' do this just when we was in awful trouble?"
Mr. Stubbs now looked up as if he had just been awakened by Toby's grief, looked around him leisurely as if to see what could be the matter, and then, apparently seeing for the first time the crumbs that were lying around on the ground, took up some and examined them intently.
"Now don't go to makin' believe that you don't know how they come there," said Toby, showing anger toward his pet for the first time. "You know it was you who did it, for there wasn't any one else here, an' you can't fool me by lookin' so surprised."
It seemed as if the monkey had come to the conclusion that his little plan of ignorance wasn't the most perfect success, for he walked meekly toward his young master, climbed up on his shoulder, and sat there kissing his ear, or looking down into his eyes, until the boy could resist the mute appeal no longer, but took him into his arms and hugged him closely as he said, "It can't be helped now, I s'pose, an' we shall have to get along the best way we can; but it was awful wicked of you, Mr. Stubbs, an' I don't know what we're going to do for something to eat."
While the destructive fit was on him the old monkey had not spared the smallest bit of food, but had picked everything into such minute shreds that none of it could be gathered up, and everything was surely wasted.
While Toby sat bemoaning his fate, and trying to make out what was to be done for food, the darkness, which had just begun to gather when he first awoke, now commenced to settle around, and he was obliged to seek for some convenient place in which to spend the night before it became so dark as to make the search impossible.
Owing to the fact that he had slept nearly the entire afternoon, and also rendered wakeful by the loss he had just sustained, Toby lay awake on the hard ground, with the monkey on his arm, hour after hour, until all kinds of fancies came to him, and in every sound feared he heard some one from the circus coming to capture him, or some wild beast intent on picking his bones.
The cold sweat of fear stood out on his brow, and he hardly dared to breathe, much more to speak, lest the sound of his voice should betray his whereabouts, and thus bring his enemies down upon him. The minutes seemed like hours, and the hours like days, as he lay there, listening fearfully to every one of the night-sounds of the forest; and it seemed to him that he had been there very many hours when at last he fell asleep, and was thus freed from his fears.
Bright and early on the following morning Toby was awake, and as he came to a realizing sense of all the dangers and trouble that surrounded him he was disposed to give way again to his sorrow; but he said resolutely to himself, "It might be a good deal worse than it is, an' Mr. Stubbs an' I can get along one day without anything to eat; an' perhaps by night we shall be out of the woods, an' then what we get will taste good to us."
He began his walk--which possibly might not end that day--manfully, and his courage was rewarded by soon reaching a number of bushes that were literally loaded down with blackberries. From these he made a hearty meal, and the old monkey fairly revelled in them, for he ate all he possibly could, and then stowed away enough in his cheeks to make a good-sized luncheon when he should be hungry again.
Refreshed very much by his breakfast of fruit, Toby again started on his journey with renewed vigor, and the world began to look very bright to him. He had not thought that he might find berries when the thoughts of starvation came into his mind, and now that his hunger was satisfied he began to believe that he might possibly be able to live, perhaps for weeks, in the woods solely upon what he might find growing there.
Shortly after he had had breakfast he came upon a brook, which he thought was the same upon whose banks he had encamped the first night he spent in the woods, and, pulling off his clothes, he waded into the deepest part, and had a most refreshing bath, although the water was rather cold.
Not having any towels with which to dry himself, he was obliged to sit in the sun until the moisture had been dried from his skin and he could put his clothes on once more. Then he started out on his walk again, feeling that sooner or later he would come out all right.
All this time he had been travelling without any guide to tell him whether he was going straight ahead or around in a circle, and he now concluded to follow the course of the brook, believing that that would lead him out of the forest some time.
During the forenoon he walked steadily, but not so fast that he would get exhausted quickly, and when by the position of the sun he judged that it was noon he lay down on a mossy bank to rest.
He was beginning to feel sad again. He had found no more berries, and the elation which had been caused by his breakfast and his bath was quickly passing away. The old monkey was in a tree almost directly above his head, stretched out on one of the limbs in the most contented manner possible; and as Toby watched him, and thought of all the trouble he had caused by wasting the food, thoughts of starvation again came into his mind, and he believed that he should not live to see Uncle Daniel again.
Just when he was feeling the most sad and lonely, and when thoughts of death from starvation were most vivid in his mind, he heard the barking of a dog, which sounded close at hand.
His first thought was that at last he was saved, and he was just starting to his feet to shout for help, when he heard the sharp report of a gun and an agonizing cry from the branches above, and the old monkey fell to the ground with a thud that told he had received his death-wound.
All this had taken place so quickly that Toby did not at first comprehend the extent of the misfortune which had overtaken him; but a groan from the poor monkey, as he placed one little brown paw to his breast, from which the blood was flowing freely, and looked up into his master's face with a most piteous expression, showed the poor little boy what a great trouble it was which had now come.
Poor Toby uttered a loud cry of agony, which could not have been more full of anguish had he received the ball in his own breast, and, flinging himself by the side of the dying monkey, he gathered him close to his breast, regardless of the blood that poured over him, and stroking tenderly the little head that had nestled so often in his bosom, said, over and over again, as the monkey uttered short moans of agony, "Who could have been so cruel? --who could have been so cruel?"
Toby's tears ran like rain down his face, and he kissed his dying pet again and again, as if he would take all the pain to himself.
"Oh, if you could only speak to me!" he cried, as he took one of the poor monkey's paws in his hand, and, finding that it was growing cold with the chill of death, put it on his neck to warm it. "How I love you, Mr. Stubbs! An' now you're goin' to die an' leave me! Oh, if I hadn't spoken cross to you yesterday, an' if I hadn't a'most choked you the day that we went to the skeleton's to dinner! Forgive me for ever bein' bad to you, won't you, Mr. Stubbs?"
[Illustration: "HOW I LOVE YOU, MR. STUBBS!"]
As the monkey's groans increased in number but diminished in force Toby ran to the brook, filled his hands with water, and held it to the poor animal's mouth.
He lapped the water quickly, and looked up with a human look of gratitude in his eyes, as if thanking his master for that much relief. Then Toby tried to wash the blood from his breast; but it flowed quite as fast as he could wash it away, and he ceased his efforts in that direction, and paid every attention to making his friend and pet more comfortable. He took off his jacket and laid it on the ground for the monkey to lie upon; picked a quantity of large green leaves as a cooling rest for his head, and then sat by his side, holding his paws, and talking to him with the most tender words his lips--quivering with sorrow as they were--could fashion.
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{
"id": "32393"
}
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20
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HOME AND UNCLE DANIEL.
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Meanwhile the author of all this misery had come upon the scene. He was a young man, whose rifle and well-filled game-bag showed that he had been hunting, and his face expressed the liveliest sorrow for what he had so unwittingly done.
"I didn't know I was firing at your pet," he said to Toby as he laid his hand on his shoulder and endeavored to make him look up. "I only saw a little patch of fur through the trees, and, thinking it was some wild animal, I fired. Forgive me, won't you, and let me put the poor brute out of his misery?"
Toby looked up fiercely at the murderer of his pet and asked, savagely, "Why don't you go away? Don't you see that you have killed Mr. Stubbs, an' you'll be hung for murder?"
"I wouldn't have done it under any circumstances," said the young man, pitying Toby's grief most sincerely. "Come away, and let me put the poor thing out of its agony."
"How can you do it?" asked Toby, bitterly. "He's dying already."
"I know it, and it will be a kindness to put a bullet through his head."
If Toby had been big enough perhaps there might really have been a murder committed, for he looked up at the man who so coolly proposed to kill the poor monkey after he had already received his death-wound that the young man stepped back quickly, as if really afraid that in his desperation the boy might do him some injury.
"Go 'way off," said Toby, passionately, "an' don't ever come here again. You've killed all I ever had in this world of my own to love me, an' I hate you--I hate you!"
Then, turning again to the monkey, he put his hands on each side of his head, and, leaning down, kissed the little brown lips as tenderly as a mother would kiss her child.
The monkey was growing more and more feeble, and when Toby had shown this act of affection he reached up his tiny paws, grasped Toby's finger, half-raised himself from the ground, and then with a convulsive struggle fell back dead, while the tiny fingers slowly relaxed their hold of the boy's hand.
Toby feared that it was death, and yet hoped that he was mistaken; he looked into the half-open, fast-glazing eyes, put his hand over his heart, to learn if it were still beating; and getting no responsive look from the dead eyes, feeling no heart-throbs from under that gory breast, he knew that his pet was really dead, and flung himself by his side in all the childish abandonment of grief.
He called the monkey by name, implored him to look at him, and finally bewailed that he had ever left the circus, where at least his pet's life was safe, even if his own back received its daily flogging.
The young man, who stood a silent spectator of this painful scene, understood everything from Toby's mourning. He knew that a boy had run away from the circus, for Messrs. Lord and Castle had stayed behind one day, in the hope of capturing the fugitive, and they had told their own version of Toby's flight.
For nearly an hour Toby lay by the dead monkey's side, crying as if his heart would break, and the young man waited until his grief should have somewhat exhausted itself, and then approached the boy again.
"Won't you believe that I didn't mean to do this cruel thing?" he asked, in a kindly voice. "And won't you believe that I would do anything in my power to bring your pet back to life?"
Toby looked at him a moment earnestly, and then said, slowly, "Yes, I'll try to."
"Now will you come with me, and let me talk to you? for I know who you are, and why you are here."
"How do you know that?"
"Two men stayed behind after the circus had left, and they hunted everywhere for you."
"I wish they had caught me," moaned Toby; "I wish they had caught me, for then Mr. Stubbs wouldn't be here dead."
And Toby's grief broke out afresh as he again looked at the poor little stiff form that had been a source of so much comfort and joy to him.
"Try not to think of that now, but think of yourself, and of what you will do," said the man, soothingly, anxious to divert Toby's mind from the monkey's death as much as possible.
"I don't want to think of myself, and I don't care what I'll do," sobbed the boy, passionately.
"But you must; you can't stay here always, and I will try to help you to get home, or wherever it is you want to go, if you will tell me all about it."
It was some time before Toby could be persuaded to speak or think of anything but the death of his pet; but the young man finally succeeded in drawing his story from him, and then tried to induce him to leave that place and accompany him to the town.
"I can't leave Mr. Stubbs," said the boy, firmly; "he never left me the night I got thrown out of the wagon an' he thought I was hurt."
Then came another struggle to induce him to bury his pet; and finally Toby, after realizing the fact that he could not carry a dead monkey anywhere with him, agreed to it; but he would not allow the young man to help him in any way, or even to touch the monkey's body.
He dug a grave under a little fir-tree near by, and lined it with wild flowers and leaves, and even then hesitated to cover the body with the earth. At last he bethought himself of the fanciful costume which the skeleton and his wife had given him, and in this he carefully wrapped his dead pet. He had not one regret at leaving the bespangled suit, for it was the best he could command, and surely nothing could be too good for Mr. Stubbs.
Tenderly he laid him in the little grave, and, covering the body with flowers, said, pausing a moment before he covered it over with earth, and while his voice was choked with emotion, "Good-bye, Mr. Stubbs, good-bye! I wish it had been me instead of you that died, for I'm an awful sorry little boy now that you're dead!"
Even after the grave had been filled, and a little mound made over it, the young man had the greatest difficulty to persuade Toby to go with him; and when the boy did consent to go at last he walked very slowly away, and kept turning his head to look back just so long as the little grave could be seen.
Then, when the trees shut it completely out from sight, the tears commenced again to roll down Toby's cheeks, and he sobbed out, "I wish I hadn't left him. Oh, why didn't I make him lie down by me? an' then he'd be alive now; an' how glad he'd be to know that we was getting out of the woods at last!"
But the man who had caused Toby this sorrow talked to him about other matters, thus taking his mind from the monkey's death as much as possible, and by the time the boy reached the village he had told his story exactly as it was, without casting any reproaches on Mr. Lord, and giving himself the full share of censure for leaving his home as he did.
Mr. Lord and Mr. Castle had remained in the town but one day, for they were told that a boy had taken the night train that passed through the town about two hours after Toby had escaped, and they had set off at once to act on that information.
Therefore Toby need have no fears of meeting either of them just then, and he could start on his homeward journey in peace.
The young man who had caused the monkey's death tried first to persuade Toby to remain a day or two with him, and, failing in that, he did all he could toward getting the boy home as quickly and safely as possible. He insisted on paying for his ticket on the steamboat, although Toby did all he could to prevent him, and he even accompanied Toby to the next town, where he was to take the steamer.
He had not only paid for Toby's ticket, but he had paid for a state-room for him; and when the boy said that he could sleep anywhere, and that there was no need of such expense, the man replied, "Those men who were hunting for you have gone down the river, and will be very likely to search the boat, when they discover that they started on the wrong scent. They will never suspect that you have got a state-room; and if you are careful to remain in it during the trip, you will get through safely."
Then, when the time came for the steamer to start, the young man said to Toby, "Now, my boy, you won't feel hard at me for shooting the monkey, will you? I would have done anything to have brought him to life; but, as I could not do that, helping you to get home was the next best thing I could do."
"I know you didn't mean to shoot Mr. Stubbs," said Toby, with moistening eyes as he spoke of his pet, "an' I'm sorry I said what I did to you in the woods."
Before there was time to say any more the warning whistle was sounded, the plank pulled in, the great wheels commenced to revolve, and Toby was really on his way to Uncle Daniel and Guilford.
It was then but five o'clock in the afternoon, and he could not expect to reach home until two or three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day; but he was in a tremor of excitement as he thought that he should walk through the streets of Guilford once more, see all the boys, and go home to Uncle Daniel.
And yet, whenever he thought of that home, of meeting those boys, of going once more to all those old familiar places, the memory of all that he had planned when he should take the monkey with him would come into his mind and damp even his joy, great as it was.
That night he had considerable difficulty in falling asleep, but did finally succeed in doing so; and when he awoke the steamer was going up the river, whose waters seemed like an old friend, because they had flowed right down past Guilford on their way to the sea.
At each town where a landing was made Toby looked eagerly out on the pier, thinking that by chance some one from his home might be there and he would see a familiar face again. But all this time he heeded the advice given him and remained in his room, where he could see and not be seen; and it was well for him that he did so, for at one of the landings he saw both Mr. Lord and Mr. Castle come on board the boat.
Toby's heart beat fast and furious, and he expected every moment to hear them at the door demanding admittance, for it seemed to him that they must know exactly where he was secreted.
But no such misfortune occurred. The men had evidently only boarded the boat to search for the boy, for they landed again before the steamer started, and Toby had the satisfaction of seeing their backs as they walked away from the pier. It was some time before he recovered from the fright which the sight of them gave him; but when he did his thoughts and hopes far outstripped the steamer which, it seemed, was going so slowly, and he longed to see Guilford with an impatience that could hardly be restrained.
At last he could see the spire of the little church on the hill, and when the steamer rounded the point, affording a full view of the town, and sounded her whistle as a signal for those on the shore to come to the pier, Toby could hardly restrain himself from jumping up and down and shouting in his delight.
He was at the gang-plank ready to land fully five minutes before the steamer was anywhere near the wharf, and when he recognized the first face on the pier what a happy boy he was!
He was at home! The dream of the past ten weeks was at length realized, and neither Mr. Lord nor Mr. Castle had any terrors for him now.
He ran down the gang-plank before it was ready and clasped every boy he saw there round the neck, and would have kissed them, if they had shown an inclination to let him do so.
Of course he was overwhelmed with questions, but before he would answer any he asked for Uncle Daniel and the others at home.
Some of the boys ventured to predict that Toby would get a jolly good whipping for running away, and the only reply which the happy Toby made to that was, "I hope I will, an' then I'll feel as if I had kinder paid for runnin' away. If Uncle Dan'l will only let me stay with him again he may whip me every mornin', an' I won't open my mouth to holler."
The boys were impatient to hear the story of Toby's travels, but he refused to tell it them, saying, "I'll go home; an' if Uncle Dan'l forgives me for bein' so wicked I'll sit down this afternoon an' tell you all you want to know about the circus."
Then, far more rapidly than he had run away from it, Toby ran toward the home which he had called his ever since he could remember, and his heart was full almost to bursting as he thought that perhaps he would be told that he had forfeited all claim to it, and that he could never more call it "home" again.
When he entered the old familiar sitting-room Uncle Daniel was seated near the window, alone, looking out wistfully--as Toby thought--across the fields of yellow waving grain.
Toby crept softly in, and, going up to the old man, knelt down and said, very humbly, and with his whole soul in the words, "Oh, Uncle Dan'l! if you'll only forgive me for bein' so wicked an' runnin' away, an' let me stay here again--for it's all the home I ever had--I'll do everything you tell me to, an' never whisper in meetin' or do anything bad."
And then he waited for the words which would seal his fate. They were not long in coming.
"My poor boy," said Uncle Daniel, softly, as he stroked Toby's refractory red hair, "my love for you was greater than I knew, and when you left me I cried aloud to the Lord as if it had been my own flesh and blood that had gone afar from me. Stay here, Toby, my son, and help to support this poor old body as it goes down into the dark valley of the shadow of death; and then, in the bright light of that glorious future, Uncle Daniel will wait to go with you into the presence of Him who is ever a father to the fatherless."
[Illustration: UNCLE DANIEL'S BLESSING.]
And in Uncle Daniel's kindly care we may safely leave Toby Tyler.
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{
"id": "32393"
}
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1
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The Fall of the House of Frode
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Full stocked folds I saw at the sons of Fitjung, Now they carry beggars’ staffs; Wealth is Like the twinkling of an eye, The most unstable of friends. Ha’vama’l.
As the blackness of the midsummer night paled, the broken towers and wrecked walls of the monastery loomed up dim and stark in the gray light. The long-drawn sigh of a waking world crept through the air and rustled the ivy leaves. The pitying angel of dreams, who had striven all night long to restore the plundered shrine and raise from their graves the band of martyred nuns, ceased from his ministrations, softly as a bubble frees itself from the pipe that shaped it, and floated away on the breath of the wind. Through a breach in the moss-grown wall, the first sunbeam stole in and pointed a bright finger across the cloister garth at the charred spot in the centre, where missals and parchment rolls had made a roaring fire to warm the invaders’ blood-stained hands.
As the lark rose through the brightening air to greet the coming day, a woman in the tunic and cowl of a nun opened what was left of the wicket-gate in the one unbattered wall. A trace of the luxury that had dwelt under the gilded spires survived in her robes, which had been of a royal purple and embroidered with silken flowers; but the voice of Time and of Ruin spoke from them also, for the purple was faded to a rusty brown, and the silken embroideries were threadbare. She struck a note in perfect harmony with her surroundings, as she stood under the crumbling arch, peering out into the flowering lane.
Stretching away from her feet in dewy freshness, it made a green link between the herb-garden of St. Mildred’s and the highway of the Watling Street. Like the straggling hedges that were half buried under a net of wild roses, red and white, the path was half effaced by grass; but beyond, her eye could follow the straight line of the great Roman road over marsh and meadow and hill-top. If grass had gathered there also, during the Anglo-Saxon times, there were no traces of it now, in the days of Edmund Ironside when Canute of Denmark was leading his war-host back and forth over its stones. Between the dark walls of oak and beech, it gleamed as white as the Milky Way. The nun was able to trace its course up the slope of the last hill. Just beyond the crest, a pall of smoke was spread over a burning village. Though it was miles away, it seemed to her that the wind brought cries of anguish to her ear, and prayers for mercy. Shivering, she turned her face back to the desolate peace of the ruins.
“Now is it clear to all men why a bloody cloud was hung over the land in the year that Ethelred came to the throne,” she said. “I feel as the blessed dead might feel should they be forced to leave the shelter of their graves and look out upon the world.”
Rising from its knees beside a bed of herbs, a second figure in faded robes approached the gate. Sister Sexberga was very old, much older than her companion, and her face was a wrinkled parchment whereon Time had written some terrible lessons.
She said gently, “We are one with the dead, beloved sister. Those who lie under the chancel lay no safer than we, last night, though the Pagans’ passing tread shook the ground we lay on, and their songs broke our slumbers. Let us cease not to give thanks to Him who has spread over us the peace of the grave.”
The shadows deepened in the eyes of Sister Wynfreda as she turned them back toward the lane, for her patience was not yet ripe to perfect mellowness. She was but little past the prime of her rich womanhood, and still bore the traces of a great beauty. She bore in addition, upon cheek and forehead, the scars of three frightful burns.
“The peace of the grave can never be mine while my heart is open to the sorrows of others,” she answered with sadness. “Sister Sexberga, that was an English band which passed last night. I made out English words in their song. I am in utmost fear for the Danes of Avalcomb.”
“‘They that take the sword shall perish with the sword,’” the old nun quoted, a little sternly. “An Englishman was despoiled of his lands when Frode the Dane took Avalcomb. If now Frode’s turn has come--” Her companion made a gesture of entreaty. “It is not for Frode that I am timorous, dear sister, nor for the boy, Fridtjof; it is for Randalin, his daughter.”
Sister Sexberga was some time silent. When at last she spoke, it was but to repeat slowly, “Randalin, his daughter. God pity her!”
Sister Wynfreda was no longer listening. She had quitted her hold upon the gate and taken a step forward, straining her eyes. They had not deceived her. Out of a tall mass of golden bloom at the farther end of the lane, an arm clad in brown homespun had tossed itself for one delirious instant. Trailing her robes over the daisied grass, the nun came upon a wounded man lying face downward in the tangle.
There was little in that to awaken surprise; it would have been stranger had warriors passed without leaving some such mute token in their wake. Yet when the united strength of the four arms had turned the limp weight upon its back, a cry of astonishment rose from each throat.
“The woodward of Avalcomb!”
“The hand of the Lord hath fallen!”
After a moment the younger woman said in a trembling voice, “The whisper in my heart spoke truly. Dearest sister, put your arm under here, and we will get him to his feet and bring him in, and he will tell us what has happened. See! he is shaking off his swoon. After he has swallowed some of your wine, he will be able to speak and tell us.”
It was muscle-breaking work for women’s backs, for though he tried instinctively to obey their directions, the man was scarcely conscious; his arms were like lead yokes upon his supporters’ shoulders. Just within the gate their strength gave out, and they were forced to put him down among the spicy herbs. There, as one was pulling off her threadbare cloak to make him a pillow, and the other was starting after her cordial, he opened his eyes.
“Master!” he muttered. “Master? Have they gone?”
In an instant Sister Wynfreda was on her knees beside him. “Is it the English you mean? Did they beset the castle?”
Slowly the man’s clouded eyes cleared. “The Sisters--” he murmured. “I had the intention--to get to you--but I fell--” His words died away in a whisper, and his eyelids drooped. Sister Sexberga turned again to seek her restorative. Sister Wynfreda leaned over and shook him.
“Answer me, first. Where is your master? And young Fridtjof? And your mistress?”
He shrank from her touch with a gasp of pain. “Dead,” he muttered. “Dead--At the gate--Frode and the boy--The raven-starvers cut them down like saplings.”
“And Randalin?”
“I heard her scream as the Englishman seized her--Leofwinesson had her round the waist--they knocked me on the head, then--I--I--” Again his voice died away.
Sister Wynfreda made no attempt to recall him. Mechanically she held his head so that her companion might pour the liquid down his throat. That done, she brought water and bandages, and stood by, absent-eyed and in silence, while Sexberga found his wounds and dressed them. It was the older woman who spoke first.
“The fate of this maiden lies heavy on your mind, beloved,” she said tenderly; “and I would have you know that my heart also is sorrowful. For all that she is the fruit of darkness, it was permitted by the Lord that Randalin, Frode’s daughter, should be born with a light in her soul. It was in my prayers that we might be enabled to feed that light as it were a sacred lamp, to the end that in God’s good time the spreading glory of its brightness might deliver her from the shadows forever.”
Staring before her with unseeing eyes, Sister Wynfreda nodded an absent assent. “To me also it seemed that the Lord had led her to us... I keep in mind how she looked when she came that first morning... a bit of silk was in her hand, which Frode had given her for a present, because a golden apple was wrought upon it. She came on her horse, with the boy Fridtjof, to offer us bread from the castle kitchen if we would agree to teach her the secret of such handiwork. And when we said that for the sake of bread to lighten the evil days we would comply with her in the matter, she laughed with pleasure, and her laughter was as grateful to the ear as the chime of matin bells. I can see her again as she sat above us in her saddle, laughing: her long hair blew about her, and the red blood glowed in her cheeks, and her eyes were like pools that the sun is shining on--” Suddenly the Sister’s voice broke, and she hid her face in her hands.
The old nun regarded her compassionately. Hers had been a long hard life, and she was very near the mountain-top from whose summit the mystery of the valleys is revealed.
After a time she spoke with tender reverence: “Almighty Father, who hast given us strength to endure our own trials without murmuring, grant us also the grace to accept patiently the chastening of those we love.”
The bowed head of Sister Wynfreda sank lower, and slowly the heaving of her breast was stilled. In the chapel four feeble old voices raised a chant that trembled and shook like a quivering heart-string.
“I beseech thee now, Lord of Heaven, And pray to thee, Best of human-born, That thou pity me, Mighty Lord! And aid me, Father Almighty, That I thy will May perform Before from this frail life I depart.”
Tremulously sweet it drifted out over the garden and blended with the aroma in the air. The wounded man smiled through his pain.
Raising her tear-stained face at last, Sister Wynfreda said humbly, “God pardon me if I sin in my grief, but to me it seems so bitter a thing when trouble comes upon the young. The first fall of the young bird in its flight, the first blow that startles the young horse,--I flinch before them as before my own wounds. When the light of the fair young day dies before the noon, I feel the shadow in my heart; and it saddens me to find a flower that worms have eaten in the bud and robbed of its brief life in the sun. How much more, then, shall I grieve for the blighting of this human flower? I declare with truth that the first time I saw her my heart went out to her in a love which taught me how mothers feel. Her freshness and gladness have fed my starved heart like wine. I cannot bear that trouble should crush them out of her in the very flower of her youth; I cannot bear that tears should wear channels down her soft cheeks and dim the brightness of her eyes. Sooner would I give what remains to me of life! Sister, do I sin? Do I seem to murmur against His will? But I have grown used to suffering, while she--what has she known but love? Oh, have I not suffered enough for both? Could she not have been spared?” Her voice mounted to a cry of exceeding bitterness.
Sister Sexberga rose, stretching toward her a tremulous pitying hand. The light that shines on the mountain-top was very bright on her wrinkled old face. She said softly, “It is not for me to say that you sin in your grief, most dear sister. But I give you this thought for your comfort: if you, who are tied to her by no bond of the flesh can feel for her so great and brooding an affection, what then must be the love of Him who fashioned her fair young body and lit the light of her glad spirit? Of a surety its tender yearning can be no less than yours. It may be that with tears He would wash the dust of the world from her eyes, that her sight may be clear for a vision of holier things. But believe that, even as you would shelter her, so will He not forsake her in her helplessness. Believe, and be eased of your fear.” A rustling of her robe across the grass, and she was gone.
The chant ceased, the wavering treble dying away in a note of haunting sweetness. The man moaned and clutched at his wound; and the bowed figure by his side roused herself to tend him. Then a grating of rusty hinges made her turn her head.
Under the crumbling arch, relieved against the green of the lane beyond, stood the figure of a slender boy wrapped in a mantle of scarlet that bore a strangely familiar look. His hair fell upon his shoulders in soft wavy locks of raven blackness; but his face was turned away as his hands fumbled at the fastening.
Sister Wynfreda rose and took a step forward, staring at him in bewilderment.
“Fridtjof?” she questioned.
At the sound of her voice, the boy turned and hastened toward her. Then a great cry burst from Sister Wynfreda, for the face under the black locks was the face of Randalin.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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2
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Randalin, Frode’s Daughter
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At a hoary speaker Laugh thou never. Often is good that which the aged utter; Oft from a shrivelled hide Discreet words issue. Ha’vama’l.
She made a convincing boy, this daughter of the Vikings. Though she was sixteen, her graceful body had retained most of the lines and slender curves of childhood; and she was long of limb and broad of shoulder. Her head was poised alertly above her strong young throat, and she was as straight as a fir-tree and as supple as a birch. A life out-of-doors had given to her skin a tone of warm brown, which, in a land that expected women to be lily-fair, was like a mask added to her disguise. The blackness of her hair was equally unconnected with Northern dreams of beautiful maidens. “Dark-haired women, like slaves, black and bad,” was the proverb of the Danish camps. Some fair-tressed ancestor back in the past must have qualified his blood from the veins of an Irish captive; in no other way could one account for those locks, and for her eyes that were of the grayish blue of iris petals.
The eyes were a little staring this morning, as though still stretched wide with the horror of the things they had looked upon; and all the glowing red blood had ebbed away from the brown cheeks.
She said in a low voice, “My father... Fridtjof...” then stopped to draw a long hard breath through her set teeth.
For the moment Sister Wynfreda was not a nun but a woman,--a woman with a great yearning tenderness that might have been a beautiful mother-love. She ran to the girl and caught her tremblingly by the hands, feeling up her arms to her shoulders and about her face, as if to make sure that she was really unharmed.
“Praise the Lord that you are delivered whole to me!” she breathed. “Gram told us--that they had taken you.”
Gazing at her out of horror-filled eyes, Randalin stood quite still in her embrace. Her story came from her in jerks, and each fragment seemed to leave her breathless, though she spoke slowly.
“I broke away,” she said. “They stood around me in a ring. Norman Leofwinesson said he would carry me before a priest and marry me, so that Avalcomb might be his lawfully, whichever king got the victory. I said by no means would I wed him; sooner would I slay him. All thought that a great jest and laughed. While they were shouting I slipped between them and got up the stairs into a chamber, where I bolted the door and would not open to them, though they pounded their fists sore and cursed at me. After a while the pounding became an exertion to them, and one began to talk about the mead that was waiting below. And after that they whispered together for a space. At last they began to laugh and jeer, and called to me that they would go down and drink my wedding toast before they broke in the door and fetched me; and then they betook themselves to feasting.”
Sister Wynfreda bent her head to murmur a prayer: “God forgive me if I have lacked charity in my judgment on the Pagans! If they who have seen the light can do such deeds, what can be expected of those who yet labor under the curse of darkness?”
“I do not understand you,” Randalin said wearily, sinking on the grass and passing her hands over her strained eyes. “When a man looks with eyes of longing upon another man’s property, it is to be expected that he will do as much evil as luck allows him. Though he has got Baddeby, Norman was covetous of Avalcomb. When his lord, Edric Jarl, was still King Edmund’s man, he twice beset the castle, and my father twice held it against him. And his greed was such that he could not stay away even after Edric had become the man of Canute.”
It was the nun’s turn for bewilderment. “The man of Canute? Edric of Mercia, who is married to the King’s sister? It cannot be that you know what you say!”
“Certainly I know what I say,” the girl returned a little impatiently. “All English lords are fraudulent; men can see that by the state of the country. Though he be thrice kinsman to the English King, Edric Jarl has joined the host of Canute of Denmark; and all his men have followed him. But even that agreement could not hold Norman back from Avalcomb. He lay hidden near the gate till he saw my father come, in the dusk, from hunting, when he fell upon him and slew him, and forced an entrance--the nithing! When he had five-and-fifty men and my father but twelve!”
She paused, with set lips and head flung high. The nun got down stiffly beside her and laid a gentle hand upon her knee.
“Think not of it, my daughter,” she urged. “Think of your present need and of what it behooves us to do. Tell me how you escaped from the chamber, and why you wear these clothes.”
“They were Fridtjof’s.” She spoke his name very softly. “I found them hanging on the chamber wall. In the night the men began to entertain themselves with singing, and it could be heard that they were getting drunk. It had been in my mind that I would stay where I was until they forced the door; then, because I would like it better to die than to marry any of them, I would throw myself out of the window, and the stones below would cause my death. But now it came to me that if I could dress so that they would not notice me, there were many good chances that I might slip past them and get out through the postern. I waited till they were all still, and then I crept into the women’s room, and found the bondmaids huddled in their beds. They got afraid at the sight of me, for they thought I was Fridtjof’s ghost; and they dared not move. So I had to go down alone.” She shuddered in spite of herself. “Never did I think that darkness could be so unpleasant,--when one is listening for sounds and fears to put out a hand lest it touch something alive! But I got past the door and through the guard-room, where the Englishmen were snoring so loud that they would not have heard if I had stamped. In a niche in the wall outside I found Almstein the steward hiding, full of fear. I made him follow me out of the postern and around to the gate where...my father...and...Fridtjof...” Her voice broke, but she struggled on. “The English dogs had left them there... My father’s face was...wounded...and the moon made his hair all silver round it, so that the blood looked to be black blots... And Fridtjof’s sword was in his hand... Always he had wished to go into battle, though he was no more than fourteen winters old... There was a smile on his lips... I made Almstein dig two graves. He is a cowardly fellow, and it is likely that he would have left them there till the English were gone. I kissed Fridtjof’s mouth...and...and I laid...my father’s cloak...over...over his...face.”
It was useless trying to go on; a deep sob shut off her voice and threatened to rend her when she tried to hold it back. Sister Wynfreda strove with gentle arms to draw her down upon her breast.
“Suffer the tears to come, my daughter,” she urged her tenderly, “or sooner or later they must.”
Randalin pulled away almost roughly, dashing the drops from her eyes.
“They shall not!” she cried brokenly. “They shall not! Am I a weak-minded English woman that I should shed tears because my kin are murdered? I will shed blood to avenge them; that is befitting a Danish girl. I will not weep,--as though there were shame to wash out! They died with great glory, like warriors. I will fix it in my mind that I am a kinswoman of warriors. I will not weep.”
The older woman shrank a little. To ears attuned to the silence of the grave, such an outburst was little less than terrifying; she was at a loss how to soothe the girl. To gain a respite, she stole away and renewed the wounded man’s bandages.
After a moment Randalin rose and followed, buckling her cloak as she went.
“Since I am become this man’s lord, I think it right for me to see how he fares before I leave him,” she explained. Once more she spoke gently, though the fire of her pride had quite dried her tears.
“Before you leave him?” The form in the faded robes turned inquiringly toward the erect young figure in its brave scarlet cloak. “What is it you say, my child?”
But Randalin was bending low over the green couch. “Do you know who I am?” she was asking urgently of the woodward. “Fix your eyes on me and try to gather together your wits.”
Slowly the man’s wandering gaze focussed itself; a silly laugh welled up in his throat. “It would be no strange wonder if I did not,” he chuckled. “Odin has changed you greatly; your face was never so beautiful. But this once you cannot trick me, Fridtjof Frodesson.”
There came a time when this mistake was a source of some comfort to Randalin, Frode’s daughter; but now she stirred impatiently.
“Look again, and try to command your tongue. Tell me the state of your feelings. Can you live?”
The man shook with his foolish laughter. “You cub! Will not even being killed cure you of your tricks? If you who have been in Valhalla do not know what Odin intends about my life, how can I know, who have stayed on earth?”
Sister Wynfreda’s hand fell upon the girl’s arm. “Disquiet yourself no further,” she whispered. “It is useless and to no end. If it please the Lord to bless our labors, the wound will soon be healed. Come this way, where he cannot hear our voices, and tell me what moves you to speak of leaving. Is it not your intention to creep in with us?”
As she yielded reluctantly to the pressure, Randalin even showed surprise at the question. “By no means. My errand hither was only to ask for bread. I thought it unadvisable to venture into the castle kitchen, yet it is needful that I keep up my strength. I go direct to the Danish camp to get justice from King Canute.”
The nun reached out and caught the gay cloak, gasping. “The Danish camp? You speak in a raving fit! Better you thrust yourself into a den of ravenous beasts. You know not what you say.”
Offense stiffened the figure under the cloak. “It is you who do not know. Now, as always, you think about Canute what lying English mouths have told of him. I know him from my father’s lips. No man on the Island is so true as he, or so generous to those who ask of him. Time and again have I heard my father bid Fridtjof to imitate him. He is the highest-minded man in the world.” Her voice as she ended was a stone wall of defiance. Sister Wynfreda made a desperate dash down another road.
“My daughter, I entreat that you will not despise my offer. The yoke is not so heavy here. Here is no strict convent rule; how could there be? We are but a handful of feeble old women left living after those who led us are gone, to the end that heathen fog smother not utterly the light which once was so bright. In truth, most dear child, you would have no hard lot among us. A few hours’ work in the garden,--surely that is a pleasure, watching the fair green things spring and thrive under your care. And when the tenderness of the birds and the content of the little creeping creatures have filled your heart to bursting with a sense of God’s goodness, to come and stand before the Holy Table and pour out your joys in sweet melody--” But Randalin’s head was shaking too decidedly, though she was not ungentle in her answering. “I give you thanks, Sister Wynfreda, but such a life is not for me. My nature is such that I do not like the gloomy songs you sing; nor do I care for green things, except to wear in my hair. And it seems to me that I should be spiritless and a coward if I should like such a life. I am no English girl, to tremble and hide under a mean kirtle. I am a Norse maiden, the kinswoman of warriors. I think I should not show much honor to my father and my brother were I to leave them unavenged and sit down here with you. No, I will go to my King and get justice. When he has slain the murderer and given me the castle again, I will come back; and you shall come and live with me, and eat meat instead of herbs, and--” In her desperation, Sister Wynfreda caught her by the wrists and held her. “My daughter, my daughter, shake off this sleep of your wits, I entreat you! The men you are trusting in are dreams which you have dreamed in the safety of your father’s arms. They among whom you are going are barbarians,--yea, devils! It were even better had you married the son of Leofwine. Think you I know nothing of the Pagans, that you set my words at naught? Who but Danish-men laid low these walls, and slaughtered the holy nuns as lambs are torn by wild beasts? Have I not seen their horrid wickedness? You think a nun a coward? Know you how these scars came on my face? Three times, with my own hands, I pressed a red-hot iron there to destroy the beauty that allured, else had the Pagans dragged me with them. Was I a coward?”
Randalin’s eyes were very wide. “It seems to me that you were simple-minded,” she breathed. “Why did you not thrust the iron in _his_ face?”
But Sister Wynfreda’s expression changed so strangely that the girl foresaw an attack along another line, and hastened to forestall it. “It is not worth while to tell me further about the matter. Do you not see that it is by no means the same? I shall be a Danish woman among Danish men. I shall not be a captive, to be made a drudge of and beaten. It is altogether different. I shall be with my own people, my own King. Let us end this talk. Give me the bread and let me go. The sun is getting high.”
She glanced at it as she spoke, and found it so much higher than she had realized that her haste increased.
“No, I dare not wait for it. It is necessary that I get a good start, or they will overtake me. They are to join Canute near Scoerstan; I heard it talked among them. My horse is somewhat heavy in his movements, for he is the one Gram rode yesterday; I found him grazing by the road. Let me go, Sister Wynfreda. Bid me farewell and let me go.”
Clutching at her belt, her arm, her cloak, the nun strove desperately to detain her. “Randalin! Listen! Alas! how you grieve me by talking after this manner! Wait, you do not understand. It is not their cruelty I fear for you. Child, listen! It is not their blows--” But Randalin had wrenched herself free. “Oh, fear, fear, fear!” she cried impatiently. “Fear your enemies; fear your friends; fear your shadow! Old women are afraid of everything! You will see when I come back. No, no, do not look at me like that; I do not mean to behave badly toward you, but it will become a great misfortune to me ii I am hindered; it will, in truth. See now; I will kiss you--here where your cheek is softest. I cannot allow you to take hold of my cloak again. There! Now lay your hand upon my head, as you do with the children when you wish them good luck.”
Because there was nothing else to do, and because the thought of doing this gave her some comfort, Sister Wynfreda complied. Laying her trembling hands upon the bared black head, she raised her despairing face to heaven and prayed with all the earnestness that was hers. Then she stood at the gate in silence and watched the girl set forth. As Randalin turned into the sunny highway, she looked back with a brave smile and waved her cap at the faded figure under the arch. But the nun, left in the moss-grown garden, wrapped in the peace of the grave, saw her through a blur of tears.
“God guard you, my fledgeling,” she whispered over and over. “My prayers be as a wall around you. My love go with you as a warm hand in your loneliness. God keep you in safety, my most beloved daughter!”
|
{
"id": "3323"
}
|
3
|
Where War-dogs Kennel
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Openly I now speak Because I both sexes know: Unstable are men’s minds toward women; ‘T is when we speak most fair, When we most falsely think: That deceives even the cautious. Ha’vama’l.
This morning there were few travellers upon the Street. South of the highway the land was held by English farmers, who would naturally remain under cover while a Danish host was in the neighborhood; while north of the great dividing line lay Danish freeholds whose masters might be equally likely to see the prudence of being in their watch-towers when the English allies were passing. Barred across by the shadows of its mighty trees, the great road stretched away mile after mile in cool emptiness. At rare intervals, a mounted messenger clattered over the stones, his hand upon his weapon, his eyes rolling sharply in a keen watch of the thicket on either side. Still more rarely, foraging parties swept through the morning stillness, lowing cows pricked to a sharp trot before them, and squawking fowls slung over their broad shoulders. Captured pigs gave back squeal for squawk, and the voices of the riders rose in uproarious laughter until the very echoes revolted and cast back the hideous din.
The approach of the first of these bands caused Randalin’s heart to leap and sink under her brave green tunic. For all that she could tell from their dress, they might as well be English as Danish. If her disguise should fail! As they bore down upon her, she drew her horse to the extreme edge of the road and turned upon them a pale defiant face.
On they came. When they caught sight of a sprig of a boy drawn up beside the way with his hand resting sternly on his knife, they sent up a shout of boisterous merriment. The blood roared so loudly in Randalin’s ears that she could not understand what they said. She jerked her horse’s head toward the trees and drove her spur deep into his side. Only as he leaped forward and they swept past her, shouting, did the words reach home.
“Look at the warrior, comrades!” “Hail, Berserker!” “Scamper, cub, or your nurse will catch you!” “Tie some of your hair on your chin, little one!”
As the sound of hoof-beats died away, and the nag settled back to his steady jog-trot, the girl unclenched her hands and drew a long breath.
“Though it seems a strange wonder that they should not know me for a woman, I think I need give myself no further uneasiness. It must be that I am very like Fridtjof in looks. It may be that it would not be unadvisable now for me to ask advice of the next person how I can come to the camp.”
The asking had become a matter of necessity by the time she found anyone capable of answering the question. Three foreign merchants whom she overtook near noon could give her no information, and she covered the next five miles without seeing a living creature; then it was only a beggar, who crawled out of the bushes to offer to sell the child beside him for a crust of bread. The petition brought back to Randalin her own famished condition so sharply that her answer was unnecessarily petulant, and the man disappeared before the question could even be put to him. Two miles more, and nothing was in front of her but a flock of ragged blackbirds circling over a trampled wheat-field. Already the sun’s round chin rested on the crest of the farthest hill. In desperation, she turned aside and galloped after a mailed horseman who was trotting down a clover-sweet lane with a rattle and clank that frightened the robins from the hedges. He reined in with a guffaw when he saw what mettle of blade it was that had accosted him.
“Is it your intention to join the army?” he inquired. “Canute will consider himself in great luck.”
“I am desirous to--to tell him something,” Red Cloak faltered.
His grin vanishing, the man leaned forward alertly. “Is it war news? Of Edric Jarl’s men?”
Before her tongue could move, Randalin’s surprised face had answered. The warrior smote his thigh resoundingly.
“You will be able to tell us tidings we wish to know. Since the fight this morning we have been allowed to do no more than growl at the English dogs across the plain, because it was held unadvisable to make an onset until the Jarl’s men should increase our strength. It is to be hoped they are not far behind?”
“You make a mistake,” Randalin began hesitatingly. “My news does not concern the doings of Edric Jarl, but the actions of his man Norman--” A blow across her lips silenced her.
“Hold your tongue until you come in to the Chief,” the man admonished her, with good-humored severity. “Have you not learned that babbling turns to ill, you sprouting twig? And waste no more time upon the road, either. Yonder is your shortest way, up that lane between the barley. When you come to a burned barn, do you turn to the left and ride straight toward the woods; it should happen that an old beech stock stands where you come out. Take then the path that winds up-hill, and it will bring you to the war booths before you can open your foolish mouth thrice. Trolls! what a cub to send a message by! But get along, now; you will suffer from their temper if they think it likely that you have kept them waiting.” He gave the horse a stinging slap upon the flank, that sent him forward like a shaft from a bow.
Snatching up her slackened rein with one hand, his rider managed to secure her leaping cap with the other; and after the first bounce, she caught the jerky gait instinctively and swayed her body into its uneven swing. But her heart was all at once a-throb in a wild panic. Was this what a boy must expect? This challenging brutal downrightness, which made one seem to have become a dog that must prove his usefulness or be kicked aside? Her spirit felt as bruised as a fledgeling fallen upon stony ground. She shivered as the old beech stock loomed up before her.
“If these other men behave so, it is in my mind to tell them that I am a woman,” she decided. “Since they are my own people, no evil can come of their knowing; and I dislike the other feeling.”
The recollection that she had always this escape open gave her a new lease of boldness. Her courage rose as fast as her body when they began to climb the hillside toward the ruddy light that slanted down between the tree-trunks. When a sentinel stopped her near the top, she faced him with a fairly firm front.
“I have war news for King Canute,” she told him haughtily; and he let her pass with no more than a grin.
The camp appeared to be strung through the whole beech grove that covered the crest of the hill. The first sign of it began less than ten yards beyond the sentry, where a couple of squatting thralls were skinning a slain deer; and as far as eye could swim in the flood of sunset light, the green aisles were dotted with scattered groups. Every flat rock had a ring of dice-throwers bending over it; every fallen trunk its row of idlers. Wherever a cluster of boulders made a passable smithy, crowds of sweating giants plied hammer and sharpening-stone. The edges of the little stream that trickled down to the valley were thronged with men bathing gaping wounds and tearing up the cool moss to staunch their flowing blood. Never had the girl dreamed of such chaos. It gave her the feeling of having plunged into a whirlpool. She threaded her way among the groups as silently as the leaf-padded ground would permit.
She had come in by the back door, but now she began to reach the better quarters. Her nose reported sooner than her eyes that a meal was in making; and a glow of anticipation braced her famished body. Here, in this green alcove, preparations were just beginning; a white-robed slave knelt by the curling thread of smoke and nursed the flickering flame with his breath, while his circle of hungry masters pelted him with woolly beech-nuts and cursed his slowness. There, a dozen yards to the left, the meal was nearly over; between the gnarled trunks the fire shone like a red eye; and bursts of merriment and snatches of boisterous song marked the beginning of the drinking.
Sometimes a woman’s lighter laughter would mingle with the peal. Sometimes, through the sway-ing branches, Randalin caught sight of the flower-fair face of an English girl, bending between the shaggy yellow heads of the captors. Once she came upon a brawny Viking employing his huge fingers to twine a golden chain around a white throat. The girl’s face was dimpling bewitchingly as she held aside her shining hair. Randalin had an impulse of triumph.
“I wish that Sister Wynfreda could see that, now, since it is her belief that Danes are always overbearing toward their captives,” she told herself. “This one has no appearance of having felt blows or known hard labor. She could not have been entertained with greater liberality in her father’s house--” She broke off suddenly, as the words suggested a new train of thought. This girl must have been driven from her father’s house by Danes, even as she herself had been driven forth by the English. Yet here was she eating with her foes, taking gold from their hands! Could she have honor who would thus make friends with the slayers of her kin? Randalin watched her wonderingly until leaves shut out the picture.
Another sentinel hailed her, and she gave him absently her customary answer. He pointed to a great striped tent of red and white linen, adorned with fluttering streamers and guarded by more sentries in shining mail; and she rode toward it in a daze.
More revellers sprawled under these trees, and she looked at them curiously. The women here did not seem to be amusing themselves so well. One was weeping; and one--a slip of a girl with a face like a rose--was trying vainly to rise from her place beside a drunken warrior, who held her hands and strove to pull her lips down to his wine-stained mouth. In imagination Randalin felt again Norman’s arm around her waist, and a wild pity was quickened in her. This was worse than drudgery, worse than blows! For the credit of Danish warriors, it was well that Sister Wynfreda could not see this.
Again her own words raised a startling apparition. What had been the Sister’s last cry of warning? “It is not their cruelty I fear for you. Child, listen! It is not their blows--” Could it be possible that this was what-- Like a merciless answer came a scream from the girl,--a short piercing cry of horror and loathing and agonized appeal as she was drawn down upon the leering face. At that cry, childhood’s blind trust died forever in Randalin. As she rode past the pair, with clenched hands and flashing eyes, she knew without reasoning that tortures would not tear from her the secret of her disguise.
When the sentinel before the tent challenged her roughly, it was her tongue, not her brain, that answered him.
“I have war news for the King.”
In a twinkling he had dropped his spear, plucked her from her saddle, and was marching her toward the entrance by her collar.
“In the Troll’s name, get in to the Chief, and let nothing hinder you!” he growled. “From your snail’s pace I got the idea that you had come a-begging. Get in, and set your tongue wagging as speedily as you can! Why do you draw back? I tell you to make haste!”
Before she could so much as catch her breath, he had raised the tent-flap, pushed her bodily through the entrance, and dropped the linen door behind her.
|
{
"id": "3323"
}
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4
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When Royal Blood Is Young Blood
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The mind only knows What lies near the heart; That alone is conscious of our affections. No disease is worse To a sensible man Than not to be content with himself. Ha’vama’l. Three richly dressed warriors, clinking golden goblets across a table,--so much Randalin caught in her first glance. On the spot where the sentinel had released her she stopped, stock-still, and with eyes bent on the ground tremblingly awaited the royal attention.
Clink-clank,--the golden goblet lips continued their noisy kissing. The hum of the low-toned voices droned on without interruption. Minute after minute dragged by. She ventured to shift her weight and steal an upward glance.
Her first thought was that a king’s tent was very like a trader’s booth. Spears and banners and gold-bossed shields decorated the walls, while the reed-strewn ground was littered with furs and armor, with jewelled altar-cloths and embroidered palls and wonder-ful gold-laced garments. The rude temporary benches were spread with splendid covers of purple and green, upon which silver lilies and gold-eyed peacocks had been wrought with exquisite skill. And the rough-hewn table bore such treasures as plunderers dream of when their sleeping-bags are lying the most comfortably,--ivory relique caskets, out of which the sacred bones had been unceremoniously turned, gemmed chalices from earls’ feasting-halls, and amber chains and silver mirrors and strings of pearls from their ladies’ bowers. Randalin’s gaze lingered, dazzled, then slowly rose to examine the master of all this wealth.
He was not so easy to pick out. Of the three men around the table, only one was a graybeard; and of the two striplings left, either might have been the son of Sven of Denmark. Both were finely formed; both were dressed with royal splendor, and the hair of each fell from under a jewelled circlet in uncut lengths of shining fairness. The hair of the shorter one, though, was finer; and no red tainted the purity of its gold. When one came to look at it, it was like a royal cloak. Perhaps he might be the King! She wished he would raise his face from his hands, that she might see it. Then she noticed that his shoulders lacked the breadth of his companion’s by as much as a palm’s width; and her mind wavered. Surely so great a king as Canute must be broader-shouldered than any of his subjects! This youth was hardly brawny at all; as Vikings went, he was even slender. She turned her attention to the other man. He was big enough, certainly; the fist that he was waving in the air was like nothing so much as a sledge-hammer, and there was a likeness to the Jotuns in his florid coarse-featured face.
As she watched it, Randalin felt a coldness creep over her. His great jaws were like the jowl of a mastiff. His thick-lipped mouth--what was it that made that so terrible, even in smiling? Watching it with the fascination of terror, it occurred to her to endow him with the appetite of the drunken warrior at the table outside the tent. Suppose, just as they stood now, he should take the fancy to turn and kiss her lips; would anything stop him? In the drawing of a breath, her overwrought nerves had painted the picture so clearly that she was sick with horror. Sister Wynfreda’s red-hot iron would not keep him back, instinct told her. That sacrifice of beauty had not been simple-minded; it had been the one alternative. The girl’s light-hearted boldness went from her in a gasp. Her shaking limbs gave way beneath her, so that she sank on the nearest bench and cowered there, panting.
Though the men were too intent to notice her, in some sub-conscious way her moving seemed to rouse them. Their discussion had been growing gradually louder; now the bearded man and the young Jotun rose suddenly and faced their companion, whose voice became audible in an obstinate mutter,-- “Nevertheless, I doubt that it was wise to join hands with an English traitor.”
The older man said in a tone of slowly gathering anger, “I told you to make the bargain, and I stand at the back of my counsels. Have you become like the wind, which tries every quarter of the sky because it knows not its own mind?”
While the young man warned in his heavy voice, “You will have your will in this as in everything, King Canute; but I tell you that if you keep the bargain, you will act against my advice.”
Randalin had been mistaken in her deductions. It was not the brawny body that was King of the Danes; the leader’s spirit lodged in the slender frame of the youth with the cloak of yellow hair.
He raised from his hands now a face of boyish sullenness, and sat glaring over his clenched fists at his counsellors.
“Certainly it would become a great misfortune to me if I should act against the advice of Rothgar Lodbroksson,” he made stinging answer. “He is as wise and long-sighted as though he had eaten a dragon’s heart. It was he who gave me the advice, when the English broke faith, to vent my rage upon the hostages. Men have not yet ceased to lift their noses at me for the unkingliness of the deed.” His eyes blazed at the memory. They were not pleasant eyes when he was angry; the blue seemed to fade from them until they were two shining colorless pools in his brown face.
The son of Lodbrok shrugged his huge shoulders in stolid resignation; but the wrinkled forehead of the older man became somewhat smoother. There was nothing Jotun-like about his long, lean features, yet his expression was little pleasanter on that account. From under his lowering shaggy brows he appeared to see without being seen; and one distrusted his hidden eyes as a traveller in the open distrusts a skulker in the thicket.
He said in his measured voice, “In that matter my opinion stands with Canute. When bloodshed is unnecessary, it becomes a drawback. Craft is greatly to be preferred. One does not cross deep snow by stamping through it on iron-shod feet; one slides over it on skees.”
Over the brown fists, the fierce bright eyes bent themselves upon him in his turn. The biting young voice said, “It is likely that Thorkel the Tall speaks from experience. It stands in my memory how well craft served him when he had deserted my father for Ethelred and then became tired of the Englishman. To procure himself peace, he was forced to creep back to my feet like a dog that has been kicked. Was there gold enough in his bribe to regild his fame?”
The gnarled old face of Thorkel the Tall grew livid; growling in his grizzled beard, his hand moved instinctively toward his sword. But Rothgar caught his arm with a boisterous laugh.
“Slowly, old wolf!” he admonished. “Never snarl at the snapping of the cub you have raised.”
The King had not moved at the threatening gesture, and he did not move now, but he echoed the laugh bitterly. “In that, you say more truth than you know, foster-brother. He is a wolf, and I am a wolf’s cub, and you are no better. We are all a pack of ravening beasts, we Northmen, that have no higher ambition than to claw and use our teeth. Talk of high-mindedness to such--bah!” He flung his arms apart in loathing; then, in a motion as boyishly weary as it was boyishly petulant, crossed them on the table before him and pillowed his head upon them.
His companions did not seem to be unused to such outbursts. Rothgar appeared to find it more amusing than anything else, for his mouth expanded slowly in a grin. A snort of impatience distended the nostrils of Thorkel the Tall. “At such times as these,” he said, “are brought to my mind the words of Ulf Jarl, that a man does not really stand well upon his legs until he has lived twenty-five winters.”
Up came the young King’s yellow head. There was no question now about his temper. A spot of fiery red marked each cheek-bone, and his colorless eyes were points of blazing light.
“Better is it to stand unsteadily upon two legs than to go naturally upon four,” he retorted. “If I also am a beast, at least there is a man’s mind in me that tells me to loathe myself for being so. Even as I loathe you--both of you--and all your howling pack! Make me no answer or, by the head of Odin, you shall feel my fangs! You say that my will is like the wind’s will. Can you not see why, dull brutes that you are? Because it is not my will, but yours,--now Rothgar’s beast-fierceness, now your low-minded craft. Because I am not content with myself, I listen to you. And you--you--Oh, leave me, leave me, before I lose my human nature and go mad like a dog! Leave--You laugh!” As he caught sight of Rothgar, he interrupted himself with a roar. His hand shot to his belt and plucking forth the jewelled knife that hung there, hurled it, a glittering streak, at the grinning face. If it had reached home, one of Rothgar’s eyes would have gone out in darkness.
But the son of Lodbrok had known his royal foster-brother too long to be taken by surprise. Throwing up a wooden platter like a shield, he caught the quivering blade in its bottom, whence he drew it forth with good-humored composure.
“If you wish to give a friend a present, King, you should not throw it at him so angrily,” he suggested. “Had you given me the sheath too, your gift would have been doubly dear.”
The fiery spots in Canute’s cheeks deepened and spread. He turned away without answering, and stood a long time beating his fingers on the table in a sharp tattoo.
What does it mean, the pause that follows the storm, when Nature’s accumulated discontent has vented itself in a passionate outbreak? The trees stand motionless, with hanging heads; the blue of the clearing sky is divinely tender; under the spangling drops, the flowers look up like tear-filled eyes. Does it mean repentance, or only exhaustion?
Gradually the color flowed back to the young King’s eyes and softened them; gradually his mouth relaxed from its fierce lines and drooped in bitter curves. When at last his fingers stopped their nervous beat, it was to unfasten the sheath of chased gold which was attached to his waist, and stretch it out to Rothgar.
“Have it your own way,” he said gravely. “It is right that I pay some fine; I have a troll’s temper. Take the sheath. But do not make the mistake again of laughing at me because you cannot understand me. But one person may do that and live; and that person is a woman, and my wife... There is a strange feeling in my heart that we have begun to travel different paths, you and I,--and that it is because we no longer walk on the same level of ground, that we no longer see any object in the same light... And my mind tells me that in time to come your path will lead you down into the valley and my road will take me up the mountain-side,...until even our voices shall no longer reach across.” He came out of his dreaming abruptly. “It is not worth while to speak further. I do not blame my foster-father that he is lifting the corner of his mouth at me. And you--you think I am talking in my sleep. Leave me, as I ordered you. There is no unfriendliness in my mind at this, but I can command myself no further. Go.”
Rothgar said, with some approach to formal courtesy, “I ask you to pardon it that I have done what you dislike, for I wish that the least of all the world. And I give you thanks for your gift.” Their hands clasped strongly as the trinket passed from grasp to grasp.
Then the sage and the soldier turned and strode past the cowering figure of Randalin and out of the linen doorway.
|
{
"id": "3323"
}
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5
|
Before The King
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Know if thou hast a friend Whom thou little trustest Yet wouldst good from him derive Thou shouldst speak him fair, But think craftily, And leasing pay with lying. Ha’vama’l.
When the curtain had fallen behind his advisers, the young King threw himself back upon his rude high-seat and rested motionless among its cushions, his head hanging heavily upon his breast.
Crouching on her bench near the door, Randalin watched him as a fly caught in a web watches the approaching spider. She had forgotten her errand; she had forgotten her disguise; she had forgotten where she was; her one conscious emotion was fear. Her eyes followed his roving glance from spear to banner, from floor to ceiling, in terrible anticipation. It approached her; it turned aside; it passed above her, hesitated, sank, touched her! Ashen-white, she staggered to her feet and faced him.
A lithe boyish figure with wide boyish eyes and a tanned boyish face,--Canute gazed incredulously; rubbed his eyes and looked again.
“In the Troll’s name, who are you?” he ejaculated. “How came you here?”
The pale lips moved, but no sound came from them.
Their fruitless twitching seemed to irritate him. He made a petulant gesture toward the half-filled goblet. “Why do you stand there making mouths? Drink that and get a man’s voice into your throat, if you have anything to say to me.”
“A man’s voice!” The girl stared at him. “A _man_‘s voice?” Then, like lungfuls of fresh air, it entered into her that she was not really the naked fledgeling she felt herself. She was in the toils, surely, but there was a shell around her. Glad to hide her face for a moment, she seized the goblet and drained it slowly to the last drop. If only she could remember just how Fridtjof had borne himself! As she swallowed the last mouthful, a recollection came to her of the thrall-women grumbling over Fridtjof’s wine-stained tunics; and she carefully drew her sleeve across her mouth as she set down the cup.
Leaning back in his seat, the King took frowning measure of his guest, from the toe of her spurred riding-boot to the top of the green cap which she had forgotten to remove. His mood seemed wavering between annoyance and amusement; a word could decide the balance. With her last swallow he repeated his challenge.
“Are you capable now of giving me any reason why I should not have you flogged from the camp? Is it your opinion that because I choose to behave foolishly before my friends, I am desirous to have tale-bearing boys listening?”
“Boys” again! Randalin’s sinking spirit rallied at the assurance as her fainting body had revived under the rich warmth of the mead.
She managed to stammer out, “I entreat you not to be angry, Lord King. It was the fault of the man on guard that I came in as I did. And I did not understand six of the words you spoke,--I beseech you to believe it.”
That she had in truth been too frightened for intelligent eavesdropping, the remaining pallor of her face made it easy to believe. The scales tipped ever so little.
“Did you think you had fallen into a bear pit?” the King asked with a faint smile, that sharpened swiftly to bitterness. “After all, it would matter little what anyone told of me. Without doubt your kin have already taught you to call me thrall-bred and witless. Little more can be said.”
That from the warrior whose foot was already planted on the neck of England! In her surprise, Randalin’s eyes met his squarely. “By no means, King Canute; my father called you the highest-minded man in the world.”
The young leader flushed scarlet, flushed till he felt the burning, and averted his face to hide it. He said in a low voice, “Many things have been told of me that I count for naught, but this--this has not been said of me before. Tell me his name.”
“He was called Frode, the Dane of Avalcomb.” The red mouth trembled a little. “He is dead now. He was slain last night, by Norman Leofwinesson, who is Edric Jarl’s thane.”
As both horseman and sentinel had started at that name, so now the King straightened into alertness, forgetting everything else.
“Leofwinesson? What know you of him or his Jarl? Where are they? When saw you them?”
“Last night; when they lay drunk in my father’s castle at Avalcomb, after--” “Avalcomb? Near St. Alban’s? The swine!” The monarch was a soldier now, shooting his questions like arrows. “After I bade them at Gillingham come straight to me! How many were they? Where is the Jarl?”
“He was not with them. It was Norman of Baddeby who led, and he had no more than five-and-fifty men. It was spoken among them that they would join you at sunset to-day--” Canute’s hand shot out and gripped her arm and shook it. “You know this for certain? I will have your tongue if you lie to me! You are sure that they intend coming,--that it is not their intention to play me false and return to Edmund?” His voice was stern, his gaze mercilessly direct. An hour before, the girl would have shrunk from them both.
One can learn life-lessons in an hour. She faced the roughness now as one faces a rush of bracing north wind. “I know what I heard them say, Lord King. They said that Edric Jarl had marched on to St. Alban’s to lie there over-night. Leofwinesson stopped at Avalcomb because he wished to vent his spite upon my father. It was their intention to meet at the city gate at noon and come on to join you. They will be here before the sun is set.”
Canute released her arm to reach for his goblet. “I wish I could know it for certain,” he muttered. “But it is as the saying has it, ‘Though they fight and quarrel among themselves, the eagles will mate again. ’” He looked at her with a half-smile as he refilled his cup, motioning toward the other flagon. “Fill up, and we will drink a toast to their loyalty and to your beard; they appear to be equally in need of encouragement.” Draining it off, he sat staring down into the dregs, twirling the stem thoughtfully between his fingers.
By the time she had shifted her weight twice for each foot, the petitioner ventured to recall him.
“It gives me some hope, to hear what you say about suspecting Edric Jarl,” she said timidly; “for that makes it appear more likely that you will be willing to give me justice on his man.”
“Justice?” The King’s mind came back to her slowly, as from an immense distance. “By Thor, I had forgotten! There have not been so many to me on that errand... Though I take it well that you should trust me... Yes, certainly; I will be king-like once. Stand here before me, while I question you.”
She caught her breath rather sharply as she stepped forward. Would she be able to tell a straight story? She stood with fingers interlacing nervously.
“Tell me first how you are called?”
“I am called Fridtjof Frodesson.”
“Frode of Avalcomb! Now I know where I have heard that name; my father spoke it often, and always with great respect. It will go hard with me if I must return an unfavorable answer to his son. Tell me how his death was brought about.”
Randalin thrust the sobs back from her throat; the tears back from her eyes. Only a clear head could deliver her out of the snare. She began slowly: “Leofwinesson set upon him last night, at the gate of the castle, and slew him. The Englishman had long been covetous of Avalcomb, so that even his fear of you was not so great as his greed. He had five-and-fifty men, and my father but twelve--besides me; he--we--had just come in from hunting. Then he rode over my father’s body into the castle.” She stopped uncertainly to glance at her listener.
The brightness of his eyes startled her, though they were not turned in her direction. They were blazing down into the cup that he was turning and pinching between his fingers. He said, half as though to himself: “Vermin! What would I give if I might take them in my teeth and shake them like the filth-fed rats they are! Ten hundred such do not reach the value of one finger of a warrior like Frode! I knew that the fetters of Thorkel’s craftiness would pinch me some-where--” He broke off and flung the goblet from him, burying his hands in his yellow hair. “How I hate them!” he breathed between his teeth. “How I hate their smooth-tongued Jarl, and all their treacherous hides! Oh, for the day when I no longer need their aid; when I am free to strike!” The joy of his face was a terrible thing to hold in one’s memory.
Perhaps he saw its awfulness reflected in the wide blue eyes, for he checked himself abruptly. When he spoke again, he had himself well in hand.
“I act like a fool to let you hear my ravings. Poor cub! it is likely you will call me a worse name when you find out how I am hindered! Yet go on and tell me the rest. How comes it that you escaped unharmed?”
With Gram’s experience to follow, it was not hard to frame that answer. “They knocked me on the head with a spear-butt and left me for dead. When I got my senses again, I found my way to the nuns of St. Mildred’s; and they gave me food, and I rode hither.”
“It is the Troll’s luck! I--yet, go on. The day will come! Did they further harm within the castle? Have you women-kin?”
Randalin hesitated. Would it not be safer if she could deny altogether the existence of a daughter of Frode? But no, that was not possible, in the face of what Norman might reveal. She began very, very carefully: “It happened that my mother died before we came to Avalcomb; and my father had but one daughter. She was called Randalin. I did not see what became of her, for I was outside; but I think that she is dead. A--her thrall-woman told me that Leofwinesson pursued her to a chamber in the wall. And and because she could not escape from him--she--she threw herself from the window, and the stones below caused her death.”
The King’s hands clenched convulsively. “It is like them!” he muttered. “It has happened as I supposed. If the master be like his men, I ask you in what their God is to be preferred to ours? Have no fear but that I will avenge your kinswoman. Those of her own blood-ties could do no more. And Frode also. You need not wait long for me when the day comes; the last hair of the otter-skin shall be covered, though I take from them the Ring itself. You shall see! Have patience, and you shall see!”
Upon burning ears the word “patience” falls coldly.
“Patience!” the child of Frode repeated.
Perhaps in days gone by the young King himself had rebelled at the tyranny of that word. Perhaps the smart of its scourge was still upon him. He put forth a kindly hand and drew the boy down beside him.
“Listen, young one,” he said, “and do not blame me for what I cannot help. Had I come hither only to get property and go away again, as Northmen before me have come, it would not matter to me whom I killed, and I would slay Leofwinesson more gladly than I would eat; may the Giant take me if I lie! But I have come to the Island to set up my seat-pillars and get myself land. I think no one guesses how much I have the ambition at heart; even to me it appears a strange wonder. But it is true that I look upon the fair rolling meadows with such eyes of love that when it is necessary that I should set fire to them, it is as though I had laid the torch to my hair. And because of that, in order that I be not kept destroying them until they are not worth the having, I have made a bargain with Edric Jarl, who is dissatisfied with his king, that we are to support each other in the game. There it is all open to you. Leofwinesson is the man of Edric. Until such time as I get the kingship firmly in my hands, it would be unadvisable for me to reckon with him though he had slain my foster-brother. You see? It is the way the Fates order things. I must submit to them, though I am a king. Can you not, then, bend your head without shame, and wait with me?”
Reasoning was lost on Randalin. The bitterness of failure had swept over her and maddened her. Was she mistaken, then, about everything? Could those trembling old women behind the broken wall read the world like witches? Was everyone false or a beast? Oh, how her father had been wronged! She shook off the King’s hand and faced him with blazing eyes, seeking for words that should bite like her thoughts. Then she became conscious that a word would precipitate a flood of hysterical tears, to the eternal disgrace of her warrior kin. All that was left for her was to get away without speaking. Out in the woods there would be no one to see; and the grass would hide the quivering of her lips. She put up her hand now to hide it and, struggling to her feet, began groping toward the door.
She did not stop when Canute’s voice called after her,--not until she had reached the entrance, and the rattle of crossing spears, without, had told her that her way was barred. Then she whirled back with a sharp cry.
“Let me go! I hate you! Let me go!”
He did not bid his guards kill her, as she half expected. Instead, he said patiently, “I foresaw that you would take it ill; there is the greatest excuse for you. In your place I should be equally unruly. Indeed, there is a likeness about our luck, which causes my heart to go out to you as it has done to no one else. I will grant your boon in time to come; so sure as I live, I will. And until then, since all your stock has been cut off, I will be your guardian and you shall be my ward, as though you were my own brother. Come, sit here, and I will tell you.”
She repulsed him sharply. “No, no, you shall do nothing for me! I am going back. I ask you to let me go.”
“Let you go, to starve under a hedge?”
“I shall not starve; Avalcomb is mine.”
“What food will that put in your mouth, since Leofwinesson has conquered it and driven out your servants and set his own in their place?”
Her heart sickened within her. Once more the impulse came to creep away, like a wounded animal, and fight it out alone. She turned again to the door.
“I will starve, then. Let me go.”
Leaning at his ease in the great chair, the young King regarded his ward thoughtfully. “It is not possible that the son of Frode the Fearless should be a coward,” he said at last; “but you are over-peevish, boy. That you have never known government is easily seen. Listen now to the truth of the matter. If you were a maiden, it would be easy for me to--Are you listening?” He paused, for the slim figure had suddenly become so statue-like that he suspected it of plotting another attack upon the door.
The boy answered very low, “Yes, Lord King, I am listening.”
Canute went on again: “I say that if you were a maiden,--if you were your sister, to tell it shortly,--I could easily dispose of you in marriage. Thus would you get protection, and your father’s castle would gain a strong arm to fight for it. I would wed you to my foster-brother, Rothgar Lodbroksson, and thus bring good to both of--Are you finding fault with that also?”
But the lad stood before him like a stone. If a faint cry had come from him, it was not repeated; and there was nothing offensive about a hidden face and shaking limbs.
The King continued more gently: “But since you were so simple as to be born a boy, such good luck is not to be expected. It is the best that I can do to offer you to become my ward and follow me as my page, until the sword’s game has decided between me and Edmund of England. But I do not know where your ambition is if that does not content you. There are lads in Denmark who would give their tongues for the chance. What say you, Fridtjof the Bold?”
For a time it looked as if “Fridtjof the Bold” did not know what to say. He stood without raising his hanging head or moving a muscle. Silence filled the tent, while from outside leaked in the noise of the revel. Then, through that noise or above it, there became audible the notes of far-away horns. Edric Jarl was fulfilling his pledge. Cheers answered the blast. An exclamation broke from the King’s lips, and he leaped up. At that moment, “Fridtjof the Bold” fell at his feet with clasped hands and supplicating eyes.
“Let me go, Lord King,” he besought passionately. “Let me go, and I will ask nothing further of you. I will never trouble you again. Let me go! --only let me go!”
Canute of Denmark is not to be blamed that he stamped with exhausted patience.
“Go into the hands of the Trolls!” he swore. And again, “In the Fiend’s name!” And at last, “By the head of Odin, it would serve you well did I take you at your word! It would serve you right did I turn you out to starve. Were it not for your father’s sake, and for the sake of my own honor, I vow I would! Now hearken to this.” Bending, he picked the boy up by his collar and shook him. “Listen now to this, and understand that you cannot move me by the breadth of a hair. I shall not let you go, and you shall be my ward, whether you will or no. And if you run away, soldiers shall go after you and bring you back, as often as you run. And if you answer me now or anger me further--but I will not say that, for it is your misfortune that makes you unruly, and you are weak-spirited from hunger. Take this bread now for your meal, and that bench yonder for your bed, and trouble me no more to-night. I would not be hard upon you, yet it would be advisable for you to remember that I have sufficient temper for one tent. Go as I bid you. I must meet with the Jarl. Go! Do you heed my orders?”
Only one answer was possible. After a moment the page gave it in a low voice.
“Yes, Lord King,” he whispered, and crept away to his corner.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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6
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The Training of Fridtjof The Page
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A foolish man Is all night awake, Pondering over everything; He then grows tired, And when morning comes All is lament, as before. Ha’vama’l.
Who that has youth and a healthy body is not made a new being by a night of dreamless slumber? What young heart is so despairing that to waken into a fair day does not bring courage? Wakened by the sun’s caress, to the morning song of blowing trees, Randalin faced her future as became the kinswoman of warriors.
“I do not know why it was that fear crept into my breast last night,” she told herself severely, when the first wave of strangeness and grief had broken over her, and she had come up again into the sparkling air. “Great dangers have threatened me, but I have escaped them all with great luck; it is poor-spirited of me to despair. And it must be that witches had thinned my blood with water that I should have thought of running away. To do that would be to lose my revenge forever. I should become a creature without honor, like the girl with the necklace. To stay is no less than my duty. If I think all the time of Fridtjof, it is certain that I can hide it that I am a girl.” Turning in her furry bed, she rose cautiously upon her elbow and looked about.
The tent was empty, though scattered furs along the benches showed where sleepers might have rested. But from outside, a clatter of hurrying feet and excited voices broke suddenly upon her. Did it mean a battle? She sat up, straining eye and ear. The jubilant voices shouted greetings that just missed being intelligible. The sun, glancing from moving weapons, flashed through the doorway in fantastic shapes.
While she was trying to unravel it all, one pair of the hurrying feet halted before the entrance. After a muttered word with the sentinel, they came on and brought the son of Lodbrok into view. The girl started up with a gasp of alarm, then made the strange discovery that she was no longer afraid of him. Though he showed against the linen wall as brawny and big of jowl as he had loomed up the night before, she found herself moved only to dislike. What had been the matter last night? Understanding nothing of the clairvoyant power of sharpened nerves, she set it down to cowardice, and put on an extra swagger now as her eyes met his.
Rothgar surveyed the sprig of defiance with no more than a perfunctory interest. “It seems that you are the son of Frode the Dane,” he said in his heavy voice. “Frode was a mighty raven-feeder; for his sake I am going to support you until you can go well on your legs. Have you had anything to eat?”
As she shook her head, Randalin’s heart rather softened toward him. But it hardened again when the thralls had brought the food, and he had sat down and begun to share it. Seen in a strong light, his rich tunic proved to be foul with beer stains, while his great hands reeked with grease. His thick lips, his heavy breathing--bah, he was revolting! Before she had finished the meal, she had come to the conclusion that she hated him.
Perhaps it was as well that there was something to add firmness to her bearing. As he swallowed his last mouthful of food, Rothgar said abruptly, “Canute has put your training into my hands. It is his will that I find out how much skill you have with weapons.”
It was nothing more than she should have expected, yet it came upon her with the suddenness of a blow. She could only stammer, “Weapons?”
The Jotun’s voice rumbled hideously as he talked into his goblet. “Have you the accomplishment to wield a battle-axe or throw a spear? Can you shoot straight?”
“No,” she faltered.
He rolled his eyes around at her as he threw back his head to catch the last drop that clung to the golden rim. “Can you handle a sword?”
Randalin hesitated, uncertain how far her idle play at fencing with her brother would bear her out; she provided as many loop-holes as she could devise. “I think you will find my skill slight. I have--I have grown so fast that I lack strength in my arms. And I have not exercised myself as much as I should have done.”
“It is in my mind that you have been a lazy cub,” the warrior pronounced deliberate sentence, as he set down his goblet. “It is easily seen that Frode has been over-gentle with you. But you will pay now for your laziness, by receiving a cut each time I pass your guard. Stand forth, and show what your skill is worth. This sword will not be too heavy.” Selecting the smallest of the jewelled blades upon the floor, he thrust it into her hands.
It is good to have in one’s veins the liquid fire of the North, blood to which the presence of peril is like the touch of the Ice King to water. At the first clash of the blades, strange tingling fires began to flash through Randalin,--and then a hardness, that burnt while it froze. The first pass, her hands had parried seemingly by their own instinct; now she flung back her tumbling curls and proceeded to give those hands the aid of her eyes. They were marvellously quick eyes; for Fridtjof’s thrusts, consulting no rule but his own will, had required lightning to follow them and something like mind-reading to anticipate them. Three times her blade met Rothgar’s squarely, and deftly turned it aside. The big warrior gave a grunt of approval and tried a more complicated pass. Her backward leap, the sudden doubling of her body, and the excited clawing of her free hand, were not graceful swordsmanship, certainly, but her steel was in the right place. The next instant, she even drew a little clink from one of the Jotun’s silver buttons.
As she was recovering herself, she felt something like a pin prick her wrist; and she wondered vaguely what brooch had become unfastened. But she gave it scant attention for the big blade was threatening her from a new direction. She leaped to meet it, and for the next minute was kept turning, twisting, dodging, till her breath began to come in gasps, and her exhausted hand to relax its hold. Her weapon was almost falling from it by the time the son of Lodbrok lowered his point. Imitating him, she stood leaning on her sword, making futile gasps after her lost breath.
A grin slowly wrinkled his face as he watched her. “It appears that one who is no bigger around than a willow twig may be capable of a berserk rage,” he said. “Do you not feel it that you are wounded?”
Following his eyes down to her hand, she found blood trickling from her sleeve. Oh, and pain! Now that she had wakened to it--pain! pricking, stinging, stabbing. Dropping her sword, she caught at her wrist.
“How did it happen? I thought a pin had pricked me!”
Roaring with laughter, he caught her under the arms and tossed her in the air.
“A pin!” he shouted. “A pin! That is Frode himself! A beard on your chin, and you also will be a feeder of wolves! For that you shall have a share in the battle. I swear it by the hilt of the Hanger!”
For the moment, the girl forgot her wound and hung limp in the great hands. “The battle?” she gasped. “I--I fight?”
Roaring afresh, the Jotun gave her another jubilant toss. “You blustering field-mouse! Showing your teeth already? Who knows? If you meet a blind Englishman without a weapon, you may even kill him. Here,” he tumbled her roughly to the ground, “tie up your pin-scratch and then come after me. I must go up yonder to Canute, under the oak tree. If you are too tired to wield the sword, tie your hand to the hilt, and no man shall have a better will to do harm to the English. Frode the Dane will experience great pride when he looks out of Valhalla to-day.” Putting out one great hand, he patted her soft curls as though she were some shaggy dog, then hurried out to his chief.
It was a respite to be alone, and she accepted it gratefully, sinking among the cushions with closed eyes and a hand on her throbbing wrist. But it was only a respite; she never for a moment lost sight of that. The battle must be faced, and faced boldly. One word of reluctance would be the surest betrayal of her secret. And betrayal meant Rothgar! She shivered as she fancied she still felt his greasy touch upon her hair. To become his property that he might even kiss! With a gasp of relief, she turned her thoughts back to the battle.
After all, it was not unthinkable. Her riding would never betray her; and in the confusion, who would notice whether or not she used her sword? She did grow a little cold as the possibility of being killed occurred to her; but even that darkness gave birth to a light. Being dressed in man’s garments, it was likely that the Valkyrias would mistake her for a boy; if she bore herself bravely, it was possible that they might carry her up to Valhalla. Should she once reach her father’s arms, he would not let Odin himself drive her forth. The hot tears gathered under her lids. If only she could get to her father! He would be glad to see her, and he would be proud of her; Rothgar himself had said it. Even Fridtjof would not be ashamed that she had borne his name. She must be very careful about that, she realized suddenly. He had never known what the word “fear” meant; even in Valhalla he would turn from her, should she disgrace him. It would become an unheard-of wickedness to borrow a name from the helpless dead if you could not wear it worthily. Her conscience smote her now, for her shirking, and she struggled to her feet.
None too soon; above the outside din a horn clarioned, loud and clear. Through the hush that followed could be heard the voice of Canute, assigning their positions to the different bands.
“I and my kinsman, Ulf Jarl, shall be foremost. To the right of my standard Edric Jarl shall stand, and the men with whom he joined us. He shall have another standard. To the left of my bodyguard shall stand the men of Eric of Norway. Friends and kinsmen shall stand together. There each will defend the other best.”
Then Rothgar’s harsh voice sounded, shouting her name,--Fridtjof’s name. Giving her scarf a hasty twist about her arm, she knotted it with her teeth; and seizing the sword in her little brown hand clotted with her own blood, she ran out into the tumult.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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7
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The Game of Swords
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It is better for the brave man Than for the coward To join in the battle. It is better for the glad Than for the sorrowing In all circumstances. Fafnisma’l.
It would have been a dull soul that would not have been stirred by a sight of Danish camp. The host was like a forest of mighty trees tossing and swaying before the approach of a storm. Lines of moving shot lightning flashes through the dusk of the shady grove; while the hundreds of jubilant voices blended into rumbling thunder. Through the tumult, the blaring horns thrilled like pulse-beats.
Flaring crimson under her brown skin, Randalin’s Viking blood leaped to answer the call. For Rothgar’s shout she gave another, and laughed out of sheer delight when he tossed her upon the back of a pawing horse. Away with woman’s fears! The world was a grand brave place, and men a race of heroes. To ride by their sides, and share their mighty deeds, and see their glory,--what keener joy had life to offer? Away with fear, with foreboding! The present was all-glorious, and there would be no to-morrow.
Shrill and clear from the opposite hill came the notes of the English horns, as down the green slope moved the ranks of English bowmen. The hum of Danish voices sank in a breathless hush; through the stillness, Tovi, the royal bannerman, galloped to his post. A rustle, a boom, and the great standard was unfurled, giving to the breeze the dread Raven of Denmark. Anxious eyes scanned its mien; should it hang motionless, drooping--but no, it soared like a living bird! Exultation burst from a thousand throats.
Down the line came the young King upon his white war-horse, clad for the battle as for a feast. The sun at noonday is not more fiercely bright than was his face. His long locks flowed behind him on the wind like tongues of yellow flame; and like northern lights in a blue northern sky, the leader’s fire flashed in his eyes. So Balder the Beautiful might have come among the Jotuns. So the brawny sweating hard-breathing giants might have jostled and crowded toward him, expectant, adoring.
As he came, he was calling out terrible reminders: words that were to the ears of his champing host what the smell of blood is to the nostrils of wolves.
“Free men, true men, remember that ye face oath-breakers! Remember how they have spoken fine words to us of plighted faith...and when we have believed them and laid down our arms...they have stolen upon us in our sleep. . and murdered our comrades! And our kinswomen whom they had taken to be their wives! Remember Saint Brice’s day! Remember our murdered kin!”
On he went down the line; and like a trail in his wake, rose an answering chorus of growls and clashing steel. Down some of the battered old faces tears of excitement began to flow, like the water out of the riven rock; while the delirium of others took the form of mirth, so that they sent forth wild terrible laughter to swell the uproar.
Above the tumult his voice rang like a bell: “Heroes and sons of heroes, remember you fight cowards! Remember that, since the days of our fathers, they have made gold do the work of steel. To get gold to buy peace, they will sell their children into slavery. Sooner than look our swords in the face, they will yield us their daughters to be our thralls! Oath-breakers, nithings! Will you be beaten by such? Vikings, Odinmen, forward!”
His answer was the bursting roar of the Danish battle-cry. Like an avalanche loosed from its moorings, they swept down the hillside upon the English bow-men. From that moment, Randalin rode in a dream.
At first it was a glorious dream. On, on, over the green plain, with the wind fresh in her face and the music of the horns in her ears. The son of Lodbrok was beside her, singing as he went, and tossing his great battle-axe in the air to catch it again by the handle. In front of them rode Canute the King; in his hand his gleaming blade, whose thin edge he tried now and again on a lock of his floating hair, while he laughed with boyish delight. Once he turned his bright face back over his shoulder to call gayly to the Jotun: “Brother, you were right in despising craft. When the battle-madness fills a man, he becomes a god!” On, till the bowmen’s faces were plain before them; then suddenly it began to hail,--“the hail of the string.” Arrows! One hissed by the girl’s ear, and one bit her cloak, to hang there quivering with impotent fury. The man on her right made a terrible gurgling sound and put up his hand to tear a shaft from his throat. Would they be slain before--Canute rose in his stirrups with a great shout. The horns echoed it; the trot became a gallop, and the gallop a run. On, on, into the very heart of the hail-cloud. How the stones rattled on the armor! And hissed! There! a man was death-doomed; he was falling.
Her cry was cut short by the flashing of a blade before her. They had passed through the hail and reached the lightning! Throwing up her sword, she swerved to one side and escaped the bolt. Another faced her in this direction. The air was shot with bright flashes. Swish--clash! they sounded behind her; then a sickening jar, as Rothgar’s terrible axe fell. A yell of agony rent the air. Swish--clash! the blows came faster; her ear could no longer separate them. The thud of the falling axes became one continuous pound. Faster and faster, heavier and heavier,--they blended into a discordant roar that closed around her like a wall. Here and there and to and fro, Rothgar’s great charger followed the King; and here and there and to and fro, on her foam-flecked horse, Randalin followed the son of Lodbrok, staring, dazed, stunned.
Her wits were like a flock of birds loosed from the cage of her will, alighting here, upstarting there, without let or hindrance. Sometimes they stooped to so foolish a thing as a notch on her horse’s ear, and spent whole minutes questioning dully whether the teeth of another horse had made the wound or whether a sword had nicked it in battle. Sometimes they followed the notes of the horns, as the ringing tones passed the order along. From the blaring blast at her ear, the sound was drawn out on either side of her as fine as silver wire, far, far away toward the hills. It gave her no conscious impression of the vastness of the hosts, but it brought a vague sense of wandering, of helplessness, that caused her fluttering wits to turn back, startled, and set to watching the pictures that showed through rifts in the swirling dust clouds,--an Englishman falling from his saddle, his fingers widespread upon the air; a Danish bowman wiping blood from his eyes that he might see to aim his shaft; yonder, the figure of Leofwinesson himself, leaping forward with swift-stabbing sword. But whether they were English who fell or Danes who stood, she had no thought, no care; they meant no more to her than rune figures carved in wood.
The sun rose higher in the heavens, till it stood directly overhead, and sweat mingled with the blood. Suddenly, the girl awoke to find that Rothgar’s singing had changed into cursing.
“Heed him not, King,” he was bellowing over his horse’s head. “We have no need of trick-bought victories. We bear the highest shields; warrior-skill will win. We need not his snake-wisdom.”
To the other side of the young leader, Thorkel the Tall was spurring, bending urgently from his saddle. “Craft, my King! Craft! It will take till nightfall to decide the game. Why spill so much good blood? Listen to Edric the Gainer--” Canute’s furious curse cut him short. “To the Troll with your craft! Swords shall make us, or swords shall mar us. Use your blade, or I will sheathe it in you.”
Only the wind that took it from his lips heard the Tall One’s answer; for at that moment his horse reared and sheered away before a spear-prick, and into the rift a handful of English rushed with shouts of triumph.
There were no more than half-a-dozen of them, and all were on foot, the two whose gold-hilted swords proclaimed their nobility of birth sharing the lot of their lesser comrades according to the old Saxon war-custom; but it needed not the daring of the attack to mark them as the very flower of English chivalry. The young noble, who hovered around his chief much as Rothgar circled about Canute, would have been lordly in a serf’s tunic; and the leader’s royal bearing distinguished him even more than his mighty frame.
At the sight of him, Rothgar uttered a great cry of “Edmund!” and moved forward, swinging his uplifted axe. But the Ironside caught it on his shield and delivered a sword-thrust in return that dropped the Dane’s arm by his side. As it fell, Rothgar’s left hand plucked forth his blade, but the English king had pressed past him toward his master.
Canute’s weapon had need to dart like a northern light. The noble and one of the soldiers had forced their way to the side from which Thorkel had been riven, and a third threatened him from the rear. Three blades stabbed at him as with one motion.
It was a strange thing that saved him,--Randalin could explain it least of all. But in a lightning flash it was burnt into her mind that, while her King’s sword was a match for the two in front of him, the one behind was going to deal him his death. And even as she thought it, she found that she had thrown herself across her horse’s neck and thrust out her sword-arm,--out with the force of frenzy and down into the shoulder of the Englishman. In a kind of dazed wonder, she saw his blade fall from his grasp and his eyes roll up at her, as he staggered backwards.
Canute laughed out, “Well done, Berserker!” and redoubled his play against those before him.
A turn of his wrist disarmed the soldier, and his point touched the young noble’s breast; but before he could lunge, the mighty figure of Edmund rose close at hand, his blade heaved high above his head.
For such a stroke there was no parry. A kingdom seemed to be passing. Canute threw his shield before him, while his spur caused his horse to swerve violently; but the blade cleft wood and iron and golden plating like parchment, and falling on the horse’s neck, bit it to the bone. Rearing and plunging with pain, the animal crashed into those behind him, missed his footing and fell, entangling his rider in the trappings. Bending over him, the Ironside struck again.
But the son of Lodbrok had still his left arm. Bearing his shield, it shot out over the body of his King. The falling brand bit this screen also, and lopped off the hand that held it, but the respite was sufficient. In a flash Canute was on his feet, both hands grasping the hilt of his high-flung sword.
It was a mighty blow, but it fell harmless. A sudden surge in the tide of struggling bodies swept the Ironside out of reach and engulfed him in a whirlpool of Danish swords. He laid about him like mad, and was like to have cleared a passage back, when a second wave carried him completely from view.
Canute cursed at the anxious faces that surrounded him. “What means it, this swaying? What is herding them? Who are flying? Fools! Can you not tell a retreat? Bid the horns blow--” “The English!” bellowed Rothgar. “The English are flying--Edmund’s head! Yonder!”
Frode’s daughter had Viking blood, but she hid her face with a cry. There it was, high upon a spear-point, dripping, ghastly. Could the sun shine upon such a thing?
Ay, and men could rejoice at it. Above the panic scream she heard cries of savage joy. But Canute sat motionless, on the new horse they had brought him. “It is not possible,” he muttered. “The flight began while he still faced me. It was their crowding that saved him.”
To stare before him, Rothgar let the blood pour unheeded from his wounded arm. “Yonder Edmund rides now!” he gasped. “You can tell him by his size--Yonder! Now he is tearing off his helmet--” Nor was he mistaken; within spear-throw the mighty frame of the Ironside towered above his struggling guard. As he bared his head, they could even distinguish his face with its large elegantly-formed features and Ethelred’s prominent chin. Brandishing his sword, shouting words of reassurance, exposing his person without a thought of the darts aimed at him, he was making a heroic effort to check the rush of his panic-stricken host. There was no question both that he was alive and that he knew who was belying him; even as they looked he hurled his spear, with a cry of rage, at the form of Edric Jarl.
Missing the Mercian, it struck down a man at his side; and high above the voice of the ill-fated King rose the shrill alarms of the traitor’s heralds.
“Fly, ye men of Dorsetshire and Devon! Fly and save yourselves! Here is your Edmund’s head!”
Randalin stared about her, doubting her senses. But light had begun to dawn on Canute. He wheeled sharply, as Thorkel pushed his horse to their sides.
“Whose head was that?” he demanded.
Thorkel’s face was a lineless mask. “I believe his name was Osmaer,” he answered without emotion.
“It was unheard-of good fortune that he should be so like Edmund in looks.”
The young King’s face was suffused with bitterness. “Good fortune!” he cried sharply. “Good fortune! Am I a fool or a coward that I am never to win except by craft or good fortune? Had you let me alone--” His voice broke, so bitter was his disappointment.
His foster-father regarded him from under lowered lids.
“Would you have won without them to-day?” he inquired.
“Yes!” Canute cried savagely, “had you given me time. Yes!”
But what else he answered, Randalin never knew. Some unseen obstacle turned in their direction the stream of rushing horsemen. In an instant the torrent had caught them in its whirling eddies, and they were so many separate atoms borne along on the flood. To hold back was to be thrown down; to fall was to be trampled into rags. The battle had changed into a hunt.
Thundering hoof-beats, crashing blows, shrieks and groans and falling bodies,--a sense of being caught in a wolf pack took possession of the girl; and the feeling grew with every sidelong glance she had of the savage sweating dust-grimed faces, in their jungles of blood-clotted hair. The battle-madness was upon them, and they were no longer men, but beasts of prey. Amid the chaos of her mind, a new idea shaped itself like a new world. If she could but work her way to the edge of the herd, she might escape down one of those green aisles opening before them. If she only could! Every fibre in her became intent upon it.
A little opening showed on her right. Though she could not see the ground before her, she took the risk and swung her horse into the breach. His forefeet came down upon the body of a fallen man, but it was too late to draw back. Gripping her lip in her teeth, she spurred him on. The man turned over with a yell, and used his one unbroken arm to thrust upward his broken sword. The blade cut her leg to the bone, and she shrieked with the pain; but her startled horse had no thought of stopping. Making his way with plunges and leaps, he carried her out of the press sooner than she could have guided him out. Once on the edge, he broke into a run. The agony of the shaken wound was unbearable. Shrieking and moaning, she twisted her hands in the lines and tried to stop him. But her strength was ebbing from her with her blood. By and by she dropped the rein altogether and clung to the saddle-bow.
They reached the woods at last, cool and sweet and hushed in holy peace. The frantic horse plunged into one of the arching lanes, and the din of the hunt died behind her; silence fell like a curtain at their heels; even the thudding hoof-beats were softened on the leafy ground. Randalin lay along the horse’s neck now, and her senses had begun to slip away from her like the tide from the shore. It occurred to her that she was dying, and that the Valkyrias could not find her if she should be carried too far away from the battle-field. Trying to hold them back, she stretched a feeble hand toward the trees; and it seemed to her that they did not glide past quite so rapidly. And the green river that had been rushing toward her, that passed under her more slowly too. Sometimes she could even make out violets amid the waves. But the waves were rising strangely, she thought,--rising, rising-- At last, she felt their cool touch upon her fore-head. They had risen and stopped her. Somewhere, there was the soft thud of a falling body; then the cool greenness closed around her and held her tenderly, a crumpled leaf that the whirlwind had dropped from its sport.
|
{
"id": "3323"
}
|
8
|
Taken Captive
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No one turns from good, if it can be got. Ha’vama’l. Lying drowned in cool silence, the girl came slowly to a consciousness that someone was stooping over her. Raising her heavy lids, eyes rested on a man’s face, showing dimly in the dusk of the starlight.
He said in English, “Canute’s page, by the Saints!”
A chorus of voices answered him: “The fiend’s brat that pierced your shoulder?” --“Choke him!” --“Better he die now than after he has waxed large on English blood.” --“Finish him!”
Opening her eyes wider, she found that heads and shoulders made a black hedge around her.
The victim of her blade straightened, shaking his shaggy mane. “Were I a Pagan Dane, I would run my sword through him. But I am a Christian Englishman. Let him lie. He will bleed his life out before morning.”
“Come on, then,” the chorus growled. “The Etheling is asking what hinders us.” --“Make haste!” --“The Etheling is here!”
While the warrior was turning, a new voice spoke.
“Canute’s page?” it repeated after some unseen informant. “Is he dead?”
It was a young voice, and deep and soft, for all the note of quiet authority ringing through it; something in its tone was agreeably different from the harsh utterance of the first speaker. Randalin’s eyes rose dreamily to find the owner. He had ridden up behind the others on a prancing white horse. Above the black hedge, the square strength of his shoulders and the graceful lines of his helmed head were silhouetted sharply against the starry sky. Why had they so familiar a look? Ah! the noble who had followed Edmund-- So far she got, and then all was blotted out in a flash of pain, as the man nearest her put out a hand and touched her torn limb.
“Wriggling like a fish, lord,” he answered the new-comer.
A sound on the soft turf told that the horseman had alighted. “The bantling is of too good quality to leave,” he said good-naturedly. “Catch my bridle, Oswin. Where is he wounded?”
He made a quick step toward her, then paused as suddenly, his chin thrust out in listening. A gesture of his hand imposed a sudden silence, through which the sound became distinct to all ears,--a trampling and crashing in the brush beyond the moonlit open. As they wheeled to face it, a shout came from that direction.
“What ho! Does the Lord of Ivarsdale go there?”
He whom they had called the Etheling drew himself up alertly. “I make no answer to hedge-creepers,” he said. “Come out where you can be seen.”
The voice took on a mocking edge. “There is no gainsaying that I feel safer here. I am the messenger of Edric of Mercia.”
Only a warning sign from the Lord of Ivarsdale restrained an angry chorus. He said with slow contempt, “I grant that it is well fitting the Gainer’s deeds that his men should flinch from the light--” “Misgreet me not,” the mocking voice interrupted. “Before cockcrow we shall be sworn brothers. I bear a message to King Edmund. And I want you to further me on my way by telling which direction will fetch me to his camp.”
Derisive laughter went up from the band of King’s men. Their leader snapped his fingers. “That for your slippery devices! Is the Gainer so ill-advised as to imagine that he is dealing with a second Ethelred?”
“I tell you to keep in mind,” the voice retorted, “that before the cock crows we shall be sworn brothers.”
The Etheling’s anger leaped out like a flame; even in the starlight it could be seen how his face crimsoned.
“No, as God lives!” he answered swiftly. “It is not to Edmund alone that the Gainer is loathful. Should he pass the King’s sword, a hundred blades wait for him, mine among them. Seek what he may seek, he shall not have peace of us. When I guide a wolf to my sheep-fold, I will show you the way to Edmund’s camp. Take yourself out of reach if you would not be sped with arrows.”
A jeering laugh was the only answer, but the tramping of hoofs suggested that his advice was being taken.
When the sound had faded quite away, the Lord of Ivarsdale breathed out the rest of his resentment in a hearty imprecation, and, turning, came on to his patient. His voice was as gentle as a woman’s as he dropped on his knee beside the slim figure.
“What is your need, little fire-eater?”
A memory of her haunting terror stirred in the girl. Shrinking from him, she made a desperate effort to push away his outstretched hand, threatening him in a broken whisper.
“If you touch me--I will--kill you.”
They were brave men, those Englishmen. The Etheling only smiled, and one of his warriors chuckled. With a touch as gentle as it was strong, he put aside her resisting hands and began swiftly to cut away the blood-stiffened hose. Darkness closed around Randalin again, darkness shot with zigzag lightnings of pain, and throbbing with pitiful moans.
The idea took possession of her that she was once more on the battle-field, that it was the cries of the men who were falling around her which pierced the air, and their weapons that stabbed her as they fell. Then their hands clutched her in a dying grip. Horse-men loomed up before her and came nearer, and she could not get out of their path, though she struggled with all her force. The hoofs were almost upon her... Uttering a wild scream, she put forth all her strength in a last effort.
“It will be like holding a young tiger, lord,” a harsh voice suddenly reached her ear. She came to herself to find that soldiers were lifting her up to the horseman, where he sat again in his saddle. She recognized the squareness of his shoulders; and she knew the gentleness of his touch as he slipped his free arm around her and drew her carefully into place, making of his stalwart body a support for her weakness. No strength was in her to struggle against him; only her wide bright eyes sought his, with the terror of a snared bird.
Meeting the look and understanding a small part of its question, he said a reassuring word in his pleasant low-pitched voice: “Be of good cheer, youngling; there is no thought of eating you. I will bring you to a cup of wine before moonrise, if you hold fast.”
It is doubtful if the girl so much as heard him. Her eyes were passing from feature to feature of his face, as the stars revealed it above her,--from the broad comely brow to the square young chin, from the clean-cut fine-tempered mouth to the clear true eyes. One by one she noted them, and shade by shade her strained look of fear relaxed. Slowly she forgot her dread; and forgetting, her mind wandered to other things,--to memories of her father, and of the happy evenings by the fire when she had nestled safe in his arms,--safe and sheltered and beloved. With eyes still turned up toward his face, her lids drooped and fell; and her head sank upon his breast and lay there, in the peace of perfect faith.
|
{
"id": "3323"
}
|
9
|
The Young Lord of Ivarsdale
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Brand is kindled from brand Till it is burnt out; Fire is kindled from fire; A man gets knowledge By talk with a man, But becomes wilful by self-conceit. Ha’vama’l. Tap--tap, tap--tap, like dripping water dripping slowly. Drop by drop the sound filtered through the thick wrappings of Randalin’s slumber, till she knew it for the beat of horses’ hoofs, and stirred and opened her eyes.
The silver shimmer of starlight falling through purple deeps had given way to the ruddy glare of a camp fire, and she was lying just beyond its heat, cloak-wrapped, on a bed of leaves. Above her, interlacing beech boughs made an arching roof, under which the shadows clustered as swallows under eaves. Before her, green tree-lanes opened out like corridors. As far as the fireglow could reach, they were flooded with golden light; where it stopped, they were closed across by darkness as by gray-black doors. Within the sylvan alcove, some four-score battle-stained warriors were taking their ease after a hard day. Some of them were engaged in the ghastly business of bandaging wounds, and some were already asleep; but the greater number lounged in the firelight, drinking and feasting on strips of venison which serfs had cooked in the flames.
Through the fog of her drowsiness Randalin recognized them slowly. Yonder was the Englishman who had found her in the bushes. Beyond him, across the fire, the soldiers who had lifted her up to the horse-man. Here, just in front of her, was the leader himself. Her gaze settled upon him dreamily.
He had finished his meal, if meal it could be called, and was making some attempt at a toilet. While one serf knelt beside him, scrubbing at his muddy riding-boots with a wisp of wet grass, another held a gilt shield up for a mirror, and before this the Etheling was carefully parting his shining hair. His captive’s eyes were not the only ones upon him, and the bright metal showed that he was laughing a little at the comments his performance drew forth from the three old cnihts lounging near him.
“Tending by five hairs to the sword-side, Lord Sebert,” one of them was offering quizzical criticism over his drinking-horn.
“The Etheling must needs have extraordinary respect for the endurance of Harald Fairhair, for it is said that to accomplish a vow he went three years without barbering himself,” another said gravely. While a third became slyly reminiscent, as he chewed his venison.
“These are soft days, comrades. The last time I followed the old chief, of honored memory, we held our war-council standing knee-deep in a fen. We had neither eaten nor drunk for two days, and three days’ blood was on our hands.”
The young chief took it all with careless good-humor.
“When you leave off eating, in memory of that brave time, I will leave off washing,” he returned. “Would you have me go into a royal council looking as though birds had nested in my hair?” With a parting scrutiny of his smooth locks, he motioned the shield-bearer aside and turned back to them his comely face, rosy from his recent ablutions and alight with a momentary enthusiasm.
“I tell you, nothing but a warrior’s life becomes ethel-born men,” he said as he straightened himself with a gallant gesture. “Nor sluggishness nor junketings, but days under fire and nights among the Wise Men of the council; that, in truth, becomes their station. By Saint Mary, I feel that I have never lived before! One week at the heels of Edmund Ironside is worth a lifetime under the banner of any other king.”
A pause met his warmth somewhat coldly; and the warrior who broke the silence lowered his voice to do it.
“Keep in mind, lord, that it is no more than a week that you have been at his heels,” he said.
“Likewise bear in mind whose son he is,” the man with the drinking-horn added grimly. He was a stout white-bearded old cniht with an obstinate old face that looked something like a ruddy apple in a snow-bank. Flushing, the young noble ceased examining his sword-edge to meet the eyes bent upon him.
“I hope you do not think I stand in need of a rebuke for lukewarmness, Morcard,” he said gravely. “I have no more forgot that King Edmund’s father gave the order for my father’s murder than I have forgot that Edric was the tool who did the deed. May Saint Peter exterminate him with his sword! Did I not live even as a lordless man the while that Ethelred remained upon the throne? But what sense to continue at that after Ethelred was dead, and the valor of his son was to that degree exalted as if he had sprung from Alfred? Yourself counselled me to join him at Gillingham, and take the post under his banner that my fathers have always held beside his fathers.”
Two of the three warriors made no other answer than to gurgle their drink noisily in their throats; but the one whom he had called Morcard answered dryly, “It is not against testing the new king that we would advise you, Lord Sebert; it is against trusting him. But we will not be troublesome.” He lifted his hand suddenly to his ear. “Horses’ feet! And stopping by the King’s fire--” What else he said, Randalin did not hear. Her wits had crawled heavily after the sound of the hoofs. Now the beat changed to a champing and stamping among dry leaves not many rods to her right. She wondered indifferently if there was any likelihood of their running over her; then forgot the query before she had answered it.
The Etheling was speaking again, with all the earnestness of hero-worship. “--the battles he has fought, the abundance of warriors he has gathered together, the land he has won back since his father’s death! Only take to-day--” “Ay, take to-day!” the old man snapped him up with unexpected vehemence. “And the Devil take me if I ever heard of such witless folly! What! To go plunging off into the thick of the enemy, endangering in his person the hope of the whole English nation--” The young noble relaxed from his earnestness to laugh. “Now has habit outrid your manners, Morcard. So long have you been wont to use your tongue on my heedlessness, that it begins mechanically to perform the same office for Edmund. In a king, such courage inspires--” “Courage!” Morcard’s fingers snapped loudly. “Did not the henchman who followed you have courage? Yet do we think of crowning him? I tell you that a king needs to have something besides courage. He needs to have judgment. Then will he know better than to leave his men like sheep without a leader. The old proverb has it right, ‘When the chief fails, the host quails.’ It was when they had become frightened about him that they began to give way, and after that it was easy for any oaf to jump out of the bushes and put them to flight.”
This time the Etheling’s smile was rather unwilling. “Oh! If you think fit to set at naught a brave deed because nothing arose from it! After his father’s cowardice, such energy and dauntlessness alone--” “Dauntlessness!” the old cniht snorted again. “It is the dauntlessness of the man in Father Ingulph’s story, who was so much wiser than his advisers that he must try to drive the sun a new way, till it came so nigh as it nighest may to setting the world afire.” So hot was his scorn that he was obliged to cool it in his ale, coming to the surface slightly mollified. “However, Lord Sebert, you have cast your colt’s-teeth, and I have no desire to tread upon the toes of your dignity. If I have been over-free, excuse it in your father’s old servant and comrade who has guarded and guided you since--since you have had teeth to cast.”
The young man laughed good-humoredly as he straightened himself for action. “Too often has my dignity bent under your rod, Morcard, to hold itself very stiff against you now. Never fear; I will be an owl of discretion. Give you favorable dreams over your horns!” He picked up his cloak and was turning to depart, when one of the warriors flung up a hand.
“Soft, my lord. Yonder comes Wikel making strange signs to you.” All heads but Randalin’s turned in the direction he was looking. She was still too lethargic for curiosity; and she found a kind of dreamy content in lying with her eyes upon the Etheling’s handsome face. Though its prevailing characteristic was the easy amiability of one who has known little of opposition or dislike, there was no lack of steel in the blue eyes or of iron in the square chin; now and then a spark betrayed them, thrilling pleasantly through her drowsiness.
Presently, however, between her and the comely apparition there intervened the brawny figure of a yeoman-soldier. He said breathlessly, “Chief--before you go to the King--be it known to you that those horse-feet you heard--belong to the mounts of Edric of Mercia and his men--and he is with King Edmund now!”
The three stolid old warriors got to their feet with curses. The Etheling bent forward to gaze incredulously into the man’s face.
“Edric of Mercia? With the King? Why do you think so?”
“I was a little way beyond the King’s fire, watching a fellow who was showing how he could jump over the flames, when I saw the Gainer ride past; and I followed him, as near as the guards would permit--near enough to see that the King received him--let him settle it with Saint Cuthbert!”
There was a pause of utter stupefaction; then, from all within hearing, a clamorous outburst: “It is the Gainer’s luck again!” --“The messenger knew what he was saying!” --“No sharpness of wit can comprehend it!” --“It is the magic of his flattering tongue.” --“A hundred tongues had done no harm if Edmund--” The voices sank into a snarling undertone: “Ay, there it is!” --“Ethelred’s blood!” --“It is no more to be counted on than is water--” “What could have moved him to it?”
Morcard’s throat emitted a sound that might have been a chuckle or might have been a growl. “I will tell you plainly for why; it is his dauntlessness. He is going to pit his green wit against Edric’s, that has made two kings as wax between his fingers! And he has begun by letting the wolf into the fold.”
It appeared that the Etheling had recovered from his surprise, for now he said steadily, “I will not believe it. Until their oaths have been spoken and their hands have clasped and my own eyes have witnessed it, I will not believe it of him.”
Motioning them from his path, he was starting forward a second time, when the old cniht laid a hand lightly upon his shoulder.
“Hear me, Lord Sebert! If then,--to weigh all perils like a soldier,--if then, you do witness it with your own eyes?”
The blue gave out a flash of smitten steel.
Morcard answered as to words: “You will be one against many, lord.”
“You cannot mean that the Witan will comply with him!” the Etheling cried.
“How is it possible that they should do otherwise? The odal-born men could not prevent it when Ethelred took Alfric back. And to-night, few but thanes have resorted thither--men whom the Redeless took from ploughing his fields to gild with nobility. Is it likely that they will oppose the hand that can strip off their gilding?”
It appeared that the young man could find no answer to that, for he made none. “At least once, my lord, Ethelred’s wilfulness has shown in his son, when he set aside the King’s command to take possession of Sigeferth’s widow and her estates. And I think it was Ethelred’s temper that moved him to spend an energy, much better directed against the Pagans, in laying waste two of his own shires. Remember what happened when your father raised himself against Ethelred.”
Restive under the restraining hand, the young noble faced him desperately. “Morcard, in God’s name, what would you have me do? I will not bend to it, nor would you wish me to. Or sooner or later--” “Let it be later, lord. After you have had time to marshal your wits, and when it is daylight, and you have your men at your back.”
After a while, the Etheling yielded and turned aside. “Let it be as you have said--though I cannot believe yet that it will happen.” Coming back where a fallen tree made a mossy seat, he dropped down upon it and sat staring at the ground in frowning abstraction.
The motion dropped him out of the range of Randalin’s vision, and her eyes wandered away discontentedly. If there was nothing more to look at, she might as well go to sleep. The fire was dying down so that the overhanging shadow was drooping lower, like a canopy that would fall and smother them when the spears of light that upheld it should sink at last in the ashes. The doors of darkness had moved far up the tree-corridors, and strange flickering shapes peered through. Her eyes followed them heavily. The forest was very still now; even the grating sound of the frogs was hushed, and the low hum of the voices around the fire was soothing as the sound of swarming bees.
She was just losing consciousness when the figure of a second yeoman-soldier moved across her vision, looming black against the fireglow. His whisper came sharply to her ears. “It is done, chief. May they have the wrath of the Almighty! Their hands have met, Edric’s and the King’s, and his thanes’ and Norman of Baddeby’s, who is with Edric. Now are they lying down in their man-ties, as it were to seal their pledge by sleeping within reach of each other’s knives.”
“Norman of Baddeby!” the name leaped out of the rest to bite at her like a dog, worrying deeper and deeper through the wrappings of her stupor. Her eyes widened in troubled questioning. She heard the angry voices rise, and she saw the Etheling leap to his feet and shake his clenched hand above his head. Then she lost sight of everything, for the fang had pierced her torpor and touched her.
“Norman of Baddeby”--her father’s slayer! Memory entered like poison to spread burning through every vein. Her father--Fridtjof--the Jotun--the battle--Her ears were dinned with terrible noises; her eyes were seared by terrible pictures. She crushed her hands against her head, but the sound came from within and would not be stilled. She buried her face in the leaves, but the visions pressed faster before her. The son of Leofwine and the drunken feast--the girl outside the tent--the Jotun within it--her terrible young guardian--the battle-madness--whichever way she looked, a new spectre confronted her. Helpless in their grip, she tossed to and fro in agony--to and fro.
Though it was so tortured that she could not tell it from her waking thoughts, sleep must have come to her; for when at last she reached the point where she could endure it no longer and struggled up, panting, to her elbow, to try to recall herself by a sight of those about her, she found that the hum of excited voices was stilled, and the silence throbbed with the deep breathing of sleepers. From under the canopy of darkness the fiery spears had dropped away, leaving the thick folds sagging lower and lower. Swarming under its shelter, the shadow-shapes were closing in upon her.
For a while she watched them absently; then a whim of her tortured brain poisoned them also. They became terrible nameless Things, mouthing at her, darting upon her. She drew her eyes resolutely away and set herself to listening to the breathing that throbbed in a dozen keys through the silence.
Almost at her feet, the Etheling was stretched out in his cloak, motionless as the fallen tree. Her face was slowly relaxing when, a second time, memory betrayed her. Just so, she recollected, Leofwine’s son was lying, not a hundred yards away. Through the trees, the glow of the King’s fire came distinctly; gazing toward it, she could almost convince herself that she could see the murderer, peaceful, secure. She ground her teeth in a sudden spasm of rage. Would that some of those weak-witted thanes would prove the mettle of the knives he was daring!
The next instant, she had thrown herself down with terror-widened eyes, and was trying to bury her face in the leaves, while the tongueless mouth of every shadowy shape seemed to shriek above her,-- “Odin sends you revenge!” --“It is the will of Odin that has drawn you together!” --“Strange and wonderful is the way in which you are hesitating!” --“Would you become like the girl with the necklace?” --“Are you a coward, that you do not prefer to die in good repute rather than live in the shame of neglecting your duty?”
She flung up her haggard face in appeal. “No, no, I am not a coward,” her spirit cried within her. “I was brave in the battle. It is not death I fear; but I cannot kill! Odin, have mercy on me! I cannot kill. I have tried to be brave, but I am really a woman; it is not possible for me to have a man’s heart.”
The grinning shadows mouthed at her. “You have not dared to be a woman,” they mocked. “You have not dared to be a woman, so you must dare to be a man.”
A night wind shuddered through the trees, and the hovering shades seemed to hiss in her ear. “Coward! Traitor! Nithing! Do you not get afraid that you will experience the wrath of the dead? Listen! Is that the wind rustling the leaves? Or is it--” A gasp burst from the white lips, and the die was cast. While the cold drops started on her pain-racked body, she dragged herself to her knees and fumbled with trembling hands about her belt. For an instant, something like a moonbeam glimmered amid the shadow; then her lips closed convulsively upon the steel. Tipping forward upon her hands, she tested cautiously the strength of her wounded leg, smothering groans of pain that seemed to tear her throat in the swallowing. But the whispering of the night-wind was like a spur in her side; inch by inch, she crawled steadily toward the flickering light.
|
{
"id": "3323"
}
|
10
|
As The Norns Decree
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This I thee counsel tenthly; That thou never trust A foe’s kinsman’s promises, Whose brother thou hast slain, Or sire laid low; There is a wolf In a young son, Though he with gold be gladdened. Sigrdri’fuma’l.
It was a long way to the King’s fire, but at last it lay before her; before and below her, for it had been built in a depression of the little open. The last charred log had fallen apart, spreading a swarm of golden glow-worms over the black earth, there was still enough light to reveal a ring of muffled forms sprawling around the sloping sides of the hollow, with their feet toward the fire and their heads lost in darkness. Pausing in the tree-shadow, the girl thrilled with sudden hope. Since their faces were all hidden, how was she to distinguish her victim? Even the dead must see that it would be impossible. If the burden could only be lifted from her!
Fate was inexorable. At that moment, the warrior directly in front of her stirred in his sleep and flung a jewelled hand over his face. Those broad gold rings with the green stones that sparkled like serpents’ eyes as they caught the light! They were fixed indelibly in her memory, for she had seen them on the rapacious hand that had seized upon her while it was still red with her father’s blood. Only from them, she could reconstruct every hard line of the hidden face. Suddenly, in the rage that rose in her at the recollection, she found determination for the deed.
The sentinel nearest her was snoring at his post; the further one would not be able to reach her in time, even should he see her. Somewhere, far away, a cock was crowing; and it came to her suddenly that the breathlessness about her was the hush that precedes the dawn. There was no time to lose, she told herself feverishly, and moved forward with snake-like stillness. Between the sheltering arm and the neck of the steel shirt there was a space of naked throat. Setting her teeth, she raised her knife and struck down at it with a strong hand.
The point never reached its mark. For an instant she could not tell what had happened. Fingers closed like iron bands around her wrist, pulling her backwards so that the pain of her twisted wound wrung a cry from her lips. They were not Norman’s fingers, yet he also was stirring; while darting flashes from the dusk about them told that the other sleepers were drawing their weapons. Then some one threw a branch-ful of dead leaves upon the fire.
The flame that flared up showed her arm to be in the grasp of the Lord of Ivarsdale.
“You mad young one!” he gasped, as he wrenched the blade from her hold.
Voices rose in angry questioning, but Randalin was too fear-benumbed to understand what they said. Norman’s keen eyes were turned upon her, and recognition was dawning in their gaze.
Suddenly, he snatched her from Sebert’s grasp and held her down to the firelight. Could she have seen the mask which dust and blood had made for her, she would have been spared the terror-swoon that left her limp in his grasp. But it only bewildered her when, after an instant’s scrutiny, he let her fall with an angry laugh.
“The boy from Avalcomb! Certainly these Danes are as hard to kill as cats! I would have sworn to it that I had separated his life from his body not eight-and-forty hours ago.” A gleam of eagerness came into his face, and he bent over her again. “You shall serve my purpose by your obstinacy,” he said under his breath. “You shall tell me where your sister is. You know, for you escaped together. When I was restored to my senses, I found you both gone. Tell me where she lies hidden, and it may be that I will grant to you a longer life.”
Her stiff lips could not have spoken an answer had her paralyzed brain been able to frame one. She could only gaze back at him in helpless waiting. A second time he was bending toward her, when something stopped him midway so that he straightened and drew back with a bow. It came to her suddenly that they were all bowing, and that the hubbub had died in mid-air. Through the hush, a quiet voice spoke.
“You are eager in rising, my lords,” it said. From the shelter, half cave, half bower, which had been contrived amid the bushes, a warrior of mighty frame had emerged and stood examining the scene. Though with soldierly hardiness he had taken his rest in his war-harness, he was unhelmed, and the light that revealed the protruding chin had no need to pick out the jewelled diadem to mark him as Edmund Ironside. The irregularity was very slight--not large enough to give him a combative look or to mar the fine proportions of his face, but it did unquestionably add to his stately bearing an expression of complacency that was unforgettable.
He repeated his inquiry: “What is the amusement, my thanes? From the clamor which awakened me, I had some notion of an attack.”
Norman of Baddeby bent in a second reverence. “Your expectations are to this degree fulfilled, my royal lord,” he made answer. “Behold the enemy!” Stooping, he raised the red-cloaked figure by its collar and held it up in the firelight. As a murmur of laughter went around, he lowered it again and spoke more gravely. “A hand needs not be large to get a hilt under its gripe, however. The young wolf is of northern breed,--how he penetrated to the heart of an English camp, I cannot tell,--and there grows in his spirit a bloodthirsty disposition. He seeks my life because in a skirmish, a few days gone by, I had the good luck to kill his father. If it--” He said more, but Randalin did not listen to him. All at once Sebert of Ivarsdale reached out, and taking her by her cloak, drew her gently to his side, interposing his sword-arm between her and the others. Though his hand manacled her slim wrists securely, the clasp was more one of protection than of restraint; and the warm human touch was like a talisman against the haunting shadows. Suddenly it came over her, in a burst of heavenly relief, that this hand had lifted the burden of vengeance forever. Even Fridtjof could not be so unreasonable as to ask more of her, so plainly was it Odin’s will that justice should be left for Canute. She had done her duty, and yet she was free of it free of it! Her heart burst out singing within her, and the eyes she raised toward her captor were adoring in their gratitude.
The look she met in return was the same look of mingled strength and gentleness which had come through the starlight to answer her question. Once again that calm of weary trustfulness settled over her. Since he had saved her from the dead, she had no doubt whatever of his ability to save her from the living. Her head drooped against his arm, and her hands, ceasing their struggles, rested in his grasp like folded wings.
It had not taken a moment; the instant Norman finished his explanation, the Etheling was speaking quietly: “As the Lord of Baddeby says, King Edmund, it was I who stayed the boy’s hand, and it was I also who fetched him into camp. I found him after the battle, bleeding his life out in the bushes, and I brought him in my arms, like a kitten, and dropped him down by my fire. Waking in the night and missing him, I traced him hither. As I have had all to do with him in the past, so, if you will grant that I may keep him, will I take his future upon me. With your consent, I will attend to it that he does no more mischief.”
A momentary cordiality came into the King’s manner; as though recognizing it for the first time, he turned to the figure across the fire with a courteous gesture. “My lord of Ivarsdale! I am much beholden to you. Had any chance wrought evil to the Lord of Baddeby while under my safeguard, my honor would have been as deeply wounded as my feelings.”
As he bowed in acknowledgment, some embarrassment was visible in Sebert’s manner; but he was spared a reply, for after a moment’s rubbing of his chin, the King continued,-- “As regards the boy, however, there is something besides his knife to be taken into consideration. I think we run more risk from his tongue.”
The words of the Earl’s thane fairly grazed the heels of the King’s words: “The imp can do no otherwise than harm, my sovereign. Should he bring his tongue to Danish ears, he could cause the utmost evil. For the safety of the Earl of Mercia,--ay, for your own need,--I entreat you to deliver the boy up to my keeping.”
“I am no less able than the Lord of Baddeby to restrain him,” the Etheling said with some warmth. “If it be your pleasure, King Edmund, I will keep him under my hand until the end of the war, and answer for his silence with my life.”
Then Norman’s eagerness got the better of his discretion.
“Now, by Saint Dunstan,” he cried, “you take too much upon you, Lord of Ivarsdale! The boy’s life is forfeit to me, against whom his crime was directed.” A grim look squared his mouth as suddenly he stretched his hand past Sebert and caught the red cloak.
It may have been this which the Etheling had foreseen, for he was not taken by surprise. Jerking up his sword-arm, he knocked the thane’s hand loose with scant ceremony. “You forget the law of the battle-field, Norman of Baddeby,” he said swiftly. “The life of my captive is mine, and I am the last man to permit it to be taken because he sought a just revenge. I know too well how it feels to hate a father’s murderer.” He shot a baleful glance toward a half-seen figure that all this time had stood motionless in the shadow behind the King.
Probably this figure and the Earl’s thane were the only hearers he was conscious of, but his tone left the words open to all ears. There was a sudden indrawing of many breaths, followed by a frightened silence. The only sound that disturbed it was a growing rustle in the bush around them, which was explained when the old cniht Morcard and some two-score armed henchmen and yeoman-soldiers, singly and in groups, filtered quietly through the shadows and placed themselves at their chief’s back.
But though the King’s brows had met for an instant in a lowering arch, some second thought controlled him. When he spoke, his words were even gracious: “I think the Lord of Ivarsdale has the right of it. The crime the boy purposed was not carried out; and in each case, Lord Sebert was his captor. I am content to trust to his wardership.”
Sebert’s frank face betrayed his surprise at the complaisance, but he gave his pledge and his thanks with what courtliness he could muster, and releasing his passive prisoner, pushed her gently into the safe-keeping of the old cniht. Yet he was not so obtuse as to step back, as though the incident were closed; he read the King’s inflection more correctly than that. Holding himself somewhat stiff in the tenseness of his feelings, he stood his ground in silent alertness.
A rustle of uneasiness crept the round of the assembled nobles. Only the monarch’s bland composure remained unruffled. Advancing with the deliberate grace that so well became his mighty person, he seated himself upon a convenient boulder and signed the figure in the shadow to draw nearer.
As it obeyed, every one of the yeomen-soldiers strained his eyes in that direction, as though hoping to surprise in the great traitor’s face some secret of his power, the power that had made three kings as wax between his fingers! But just short of the fire-glow the Gainer paused, and the hooded cloak which shrouded him merged him hopelessly into the shadow. Only the hand that rested on his sword-hilt protruded into the light. It was a broad hand, and thick-fingered as a butcher’s, but it was milk-white and weighted with massive rings.
Meanwhile, the King was speaking affably: “As you did not favor us with your presence among the Wise Men, my lord, it is likely that you do not know of the good luck which has befallen our cause. This prudent Earl, who before the battle had concluded with himself that England had so little to hope for from our reign that he was willing to throw his weight against us, has found his victory so without relish that he has become our sworn ally.”
As he paused,--perhaps to leave space for an answer,--the complacency of his face was heightened by a smile, faintly shrewd, touching the corners of his mouth. But when Sebert limited his reply to a respectful inclination of his head, the smile vanished abruptly. Under the affability there became evident a certain stern insistence.
“In former days, I think there was some hostile temper between the Earl and you. But I expect you will see that under the stress of a foreign war all lesser strife must give way. So I desire that you will repeat in my presence the troth already plighted by these others.”
He made a slight gesture, and the Gainer took a step forward. The light that fell back from his hooded face played curiously about his jewelled hand; as it rose from the gilded hilt, it could be seen that to remedy the bluntness of the thick fingers the nails had been allowed to grow very long, which gave it now, in its half-curve, the look of a claw, upon which the red gems shone like blood-drops.
Hesitating, the Etheling went from red to white. Then, with a swift motion, he unsheathed his sword and stretched it out, point-foremost.
“King Edmund,” he said, “in no other way does my hand go forth toward a traitor.”
This time there was no sound of breaths drawn in; it was as though the whole world had ceased breathing. The sternness that had underlain the King’s manner rose slowly and spread over the whole surface of his person, as he drew himself up in towering offence.
“Lord of Ivarsdale, bethink yourself to whom you speak!”
He was royally imposing in his displeasure; the Etheling flushed like a boy before his master; but he had his answer ready, and his head was steadily erect as he gave it.
“King of the Angles, the right of open speech has belonged to my race as long as the right to the crown has belonged to yours. So my father’s fathers spoke to yours under the council-tree, and so I shall speak to you while I live.”
Back in the shadow, each yeoman laid one hand upon his weapon, and with the other, thrust an exulting thumb into his neighbor’s ribs. But they did not turn to look at each other; every eye was fastened upon the two by the fire. Freeman and his leader, or feudal lord and his dependant? For the moment they stood forth as representatives of a mighty conflict, and every breath hung upon their motions.
After a time the King made a slight movement with his shoulders.
“I should have remembered,” he said, “that your father was ruined by rebellion.”
In a flash the rebel’s son had forgotten boyish embarrassment. “Whoso told you that, royal lord, told you lies. My father stood upon his right. Steel to turn against the Danes, Ethelred had a right to require; and steel my father was ready to pay. But Ethelred demanded gold, and the Lord of Ivarsdale would not stoop to bribe. Nor has it been proven that his policy was wrong,” he added under his breath.
Then there was no longer any doubt concerning the position of Ethelred’s son. He said with deliberate emphasis, “The only policy which concerns those of your station is obedience.”
If there was enough of the old free blood left in the King’s thanes to redden their cheeks, that was all there was. But while they stood in silence, a mutter ran like a growl through the ranks of yeomen; the gaze they bent upon their leader had in it almost the force of a command.
He was young, their chief, too young for impassivity. Despite himself, his hands trembled with excitement. But there was no tremor in his words.
“We of Ivarsdale do not profess such obedience, King Edmund. That is for thanes and for the unfree, who owe their all to your generosity. Our land we hold as our fathers held it--from God’s bounty and the might of our swords. When we have paid the three taxes of fort-building and bridge-building and field-service, we have paid all that we owe to the State.”
At last they stood defined, the first of the feudal lords and the last of the odal-born men. Even through the King’s loftiness it was suddenly borne in that, behind the insignificance of the revolt, loomed a mighty principle, mighty enough to merit force. For the first time he stooped to a threat, though still it was tinged with scorn.
“I observe that the men of your race have not been of great importance in the land. It appears that Ethelred was able to do without the rebel Lord of Ivarsdale.”
“I admit that he was able to lose his crown without him,” the rebel’s son retorted swiftly.
The King’s wounded dignity bled in his cheeks; he was stung into a movement that brought him to his feet.
“This is insufferable!” he cried. It was evident that the crisis had come. While the Etheling faced him with a defiance that in its utter abandon was a little mad, a sensation as of bracing muscles and setting teeth went around the group. Several of the thanes laid their hands upon their swords. And the half-dozen ealdormen present bent toward one another in hasty consultation. At an almost imperceptible sign from the old cniht, the henchmen made a noiseless step nearer their master. There were not more than a dozen of them, but behind them loomed some two-score yeomen-soldiers, with a score more in the brush at their back; and the faces of all told more plainly than words what it would mean to attack them.
But the blood of Cerdic, once fired, burned too rapidly for policy. Edmund’s jaw was set in savage menace as he turned and beckoned to his guard. Had he spoken the words on his lips, there is little doubt what his order would have been.
Interruption came from an unexpected quarter. Even as his lips were opening, that white taloned hand reached out of the shadow and touched his arm.
“Most royal lord! If it may be permitted me?” Earl Edric said swiftly.
His voice was very low, and every roughness had been filed away until it flowed like oil. Upon the King’s wounded temper it appeared to fall as softly as drops of healing balm. With his mouth still set, he paused and bent his ear. There was a murmur of whispered words.
What they were no one ever knew, and each man had a different theory; but their result was plain to all. Slowly Edmund’s knitted brows unravelled; slowly his mouth relaxed into its wonted curves. At last he had regained all his lofty composure and turned back.
“Lord of Ivarsdale, I am not rich of time, and my present need is too great to spare any of it to the chastising of rebellious boys. Go back to your toy kingdom, and lord it over your serfs until I find leisure to teach you who is master.” Making a disdainful gesture of dismissal, he turned with deliberate grace and entered into conversation with the Mercian.
At the moment, it is likely that the young noble would have preferred arrest. The utter scorn of word and act lashed the blood to his cheeks and the tears to his eyes. With boyish passion, he snatched the sword from its sheath, and breaking it in pieces across his knee, flung the fragments clinking into the dead embers.
But if he had hoped to provoke an answer, it was in vain; the King deigned him no further notice. Resuming his seat, Edmund continued to talk quietly with the Earl, a half-smile playing about his complacent chin.
The old cniht bent forward and whispered in his chief’s ear: “Make haste, Lord Sebert; they will be cheering in a moment, the churls; so pleased are they at the thought of going home. Hasten with your retiring.”
It was a clever appeal. Forgetting, for the moment, humiliation in responsibility, the young leader whirled to his men. A gesture, a muttered order, and they were drawing back among the trees in silent retreat. A few steps more, and the bushes had blotted out the Ironside and his thanes.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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11
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When My Lord Comes Home From War
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One’s own house is best, Small though it be; At home is every one his own master. Bleeding at heart is he Who has to ask For food at every mealtide. Ha’vama’l. Slowly the bleak light warmed into golden radiance and the touch of dawn strung the scattered bird-notes into a chain of joyous song. Passing at last from the forest shades, the men of Ivarsdale came out into the grassy lane-like road that wound away over the Middlesex hills.
The Destroyer had not passed this way, it seemed, for the oat-fields stretched before them in unbroken silvery sheen; and the straight young corn dared to rustle its green ribbons boastfully. Fowls still uncaptured crowed lustily in adjacent barnyards; and now and again, sweet as echoes from elfin horns, came the tinkling music of cow-bells. Here and there, the little shock-headed boys who were driving their charges afield paused knee-deep in rosy clover to watch the band ride by.
“Yon must be a mighty warrior,” they whispered as they stared at the sober young leader. “Take notice how his eyes gaze straight ahead, as though he were seeking more people to overcome.” And they spoke enviously of the red-cloaked page who sat on the croup of the leader’s white charger.
“See the sword he wears in his gay clothes. Likely he also has been in battle. He must needs be happy who can strike out into the world like that.” Envying, they gazed after him until the horses’ hoofs threw up a yellow wall between.
They would have opened their wide mouths wider had they known that the red-cloaked page was looking wistfully at them and their kine and the nodding clover.
“It must be very enjoyable to wander all day in the peace of the meadows and hear nothing louder than cow-bells,” she was thinking. “It is good to see creatures that no man is stabbing or doing harm to.”
Through warm sunshine, tempered by fresh breezes, they came yet deeper into the drowsy farmland. Gradually the yeomen-soldiers, who had been wrangling over the mystery of Edric’s actions, dropped one by one into lazy silence, or set their tongues to whistling cleverly turned answers to the bird-calls in the hedges. Another mile, and from somewhere in the fields came the swinging chant of a ploughman, as he turned the soil between the rows of rustling corn,-- “Hail, Mother Earth, thou feeder of folk! Be thou growing, by goodness of God, Filled with fodder, the folk to feed.”
Like the unbinding of a spell, the words fell upon the farmer-soldiers. Dropping every other topic, they began to argue over the crops; and after that they could not pass a harmless calf tethered to a crab-tree that they did not quarrel over the breed, nor start a drove of grunting swine out of the mast but they must lay wagers on the weight.
Running wild in the animation, it was not long before the clamor caught up with the Etheling where he rode before them in sober reflection. He smiled faintly as he caught the burden of the disjointed phrases.
“...Twelve stone; I will peril my head upon it!” ... “Yorkshire, I tell you, Yorkshire.” ... “A fortnight? It will be ready in a week, or I have never grown barley corn!”
“I do not believe that a tree-toad can change color more easily,” he observed to the old cniht who rode at his side. “That Englishmen are not stout fighters, no man can say, but the love of it is not in their breasts; while with Northmen--” “With Northmen,” Morcard added, “to fight is to eat.”
Another faint smile touched Sebert’s mouth as he glanced over his shoulder at the red-cloaked boy. “After seeing this sprout, that is easy to believe. Except that time alone when a two-year-old colt kicked me on the head, I have never had my life threatened by so young a thing.”
He grew grave again as his glance rested on his captive. “I want you to tell me something,” he said presently. “You were Canute’s page; I saw that you accompanied him in battle. I want you to tell me what he is like in his temper.”
“It would be more easy to tell you what he is unlike,” Randalin answered slowly; “for in no way whatever is he like your King Edmund.” She sat awhile in silence, her eyes absently following the course of the wind over a slope of bending grain. At the foot, it caught a clump of willow-trees so that they flashed with hidden silver and tossed their slender arms like dancers. “I think this is the difference, to tell it shortly,” she said at last; “while it sometimes happens that Canute is driven by necessity or evil counsels to act deceitfully toward others, he is always honest in his own mind; while your Edmund,--I think he lies to himself also.”
Morcard gave out a dry chuckle. “By Saint Cuthbert,” he muttered, “too much has not been told concerning the sharpness of children!”
But the Etheling made no answer whatever. After he had ridden a long time staring away across the fields, he met the old man’s eyes gravely.
“It is not alone because I am sore under his tongue, Morcard. Were he what I had thought him, I would remain quiet under harder words. But he is not worth enduring from; there is not enough good in him to outweigh the evil.”
Old Morcard said thoughtfully: “The tree of Cerdic has borne many nuts with prickly rinds in former times, but there has been wont to be good meat inside. Since Ethelred, I have been in fear that the tree is dying at the root.”
They swung over another piece of the road in silence, when the young man started up and shook himself impatiently. “Wel-a-way! What use to think of it? For the present, at least, I am a lordless man. Let us speak of the defences we must begin to raise against Edmund’s coming.”
While they discussed watch-towers and barriers, the horses took them along at a swinging pace. The heath-clad upland over which they were passing sloped into another fertile valley, through which a lily-padded stream ran between rows of drooping willows. Suddenly the Lord of Ivarsdale broke off with an exclamation.
“It was not in my mind that we could see the old forked elm from here. Hey, comrades!” he called over his shoulder. “Yonder--to the left--the old land-mark! Do you see?” His glance, as it came back, took in his captive. “The first bar of your cage, my hawk. Yonder is the first boundary of Ivarsdale.”
Every man started up in his saddle, and the cheers they had held back upon leaving camp burst forth now with added zest. Peering over her captor’s shoulder, Randalin looked forward anxiously.
Below the plain in whose centre the old elm held up its blasted top to be silvered by the sun, the land dipped abruptly toward the river, to rise beyond in a long low hill. Rolling green meadows lay at its foot, and warm brown fields dotted with thatched farm-houses; and its sides were checkered with patches of woodland and stretches of golden barley. Just below the crest, the tower of the Lords of Ivarsdale reared its gray walls above the surrounding greenery. Far away, a speck through the dark foliage, the great London road gleamed white; but wooded hills made a sheltering hedge between, and all around spread the great beech forest that fostered the markmen’s herds. It was a kingdom to itself, with the light slanting warmly upon its fertile slopes and the forest standing like a strong army at its back.
Because it was so peacefully lovely, and because of her utter weariness, tears welled up under the girl’s heavy lids as she looked. She said unsteadily, “Saw I never a fairer cage, lord.”
But the Etheling’s eager glance had travelled on; for the first time the sun was shining out brightly in his face.
“The sight has more cheer than has wine,” he said. “I cannot comprehend my folly in wanting to leave it. To live one’s own master on one’s own land, that is the only life!” He looked back at the yeomen with a sudden smile. “Noise!” he ordered. “Cheer again! it expresses the state of my feelings. And let your horn sound merrily, Kendred, that they may know we are coming.”
Amid a joyous tumult, they swept over the terrace-like plain and broke ranks around the old elm. Evidently it was the disbanding place, for the yeomen-soldiers, one and all, came crowding around their leader to press his hand and speak a parting word.
“You have fought with the sword of your tongue, chief!” ... “as worthy a battle as when you strove against the Danes!” ... “The spirit of the old days is not dead while you are alive, Oswald’s son.” ... “None now are born thereto save you alone!” ... “Till that time when you send for us, my chief.” ... “One eye on our ploughs and one watching for your messenger.” ... “God keep you in safety, young lord!”
In the meadows beyond the stream, little shepherd boys had heard the horn and were swarming, spider-like, over the hedges, sending up shrill shouts. And now women came running across the fields from the farmhouses, waving their aprons. More children raced behind them; and then a dozen old men, limping and hobbling on crutches and canes. A moment, and they were all over the foot-bridge and up the slope; and the sweet clamor of greetings was added to the tumult. Now it was a crowd of little brothers throwing themselves upon a big one; now a blooming lass flinging her arms around her sweetheart’s neck; and again, a farmer’s little daughter leaping joyously into her father’s embrace.
In the midst of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale looked around and found that Fridtjof the page was crying as though his heart would break.
“How! Tears, my Beowulf!” he said in amazement.
She was far beyond words, the girl in the page’s dress; she could only bury her face deeper in her slender hands and try to control the sobs that shook her from head to foot.
But it was not long before the young man’s kind-ness divined the source of her pain. He spoke a quick word to those behind, and waving aside those before, touched spur to the white horse. In a moment, the good steed had borne them out of the crowd and down the slope, followed only by the old cnihts and the dozen armed retainers.
As the hoofs rang hollow on the little bridge that spanned the stream, the Etheling spoke again in his voice of careless gentleness. “It is easy to enter into the sorrowfulness of your heart, youngling, and I think it no dishonor to your courage that you should mourn your kin with tears; yet I pray you to lay aside as much grief as you can. Bear in mind that no dungeon is gaping for you.”
She could not speak to him yet, but when he put his hand back to feel of a strap, she bent and touched the brown fingers gratefully with her lips. The answer seemed to renew his kindly impulse.
“After all, you should not feel so strange among us,” he said lightly. “Do you know that it was one of your own countrymen who built the Tower? Ivar Wide-Fathomer he was named, whence it is still called Ivarsdale. He was of the stock of Lodbrok, they say; and it is said, too, that one of his race is even now with Canute. Since Alfred, my fathers have had possession of it, but it is Danish-built, every stone. You must make believe that you are coming home.” So he spun on, carelessly good-humored, as they climbed the wind-ing hill-path.
Across the ditch and through the wide-open gate in the moss-grown palisade, and they came into a broad grassy space that was more like a lawn than a court. Ahead of them rose the massive three-storied tower, built of mighty gray stones without softening wings or adorning spires, beautiful only in its mantling ivy. From the great door in its side a crowd of serfs came running, ducking grinning salutations; and they were followed by a half-dozen old warriors. Seized by a boyish whim, their master rode past them with no more than a wave of his hand.
“If we make haste, it may be that we can take Hildelitha and Father Ingulph by surprise,” he laughed, leaping down on the crumbling doorstep and pulling his captive with him.
In the tunnel-like arch of the great entrance they met another throng, but he shook them off with good-natured impatience and hurried through the great guard-room to the winding stairs, that were cut out of the core of the massive stones. Up and across another mighty hall, and then up again, and into a great women’s-room, full of looms and spinning-wheels, where a buxom English housewife and half-a-dozen red-cheeked maids were gaping over their distaffs at the tale a jolly old monk was telling between swallows of wine.
He choked in his cup when he saw who stood laughing in the doorway, and there was a great screaming and scrambling among his audience. Knocking over her spinning-wheel to get to him, the woman Hildelitha threw her arms around her young lord’s neck and gave him a hearty smack on either cheek; while the fat monk sputtered blessings between his paroxysms of coughing, and the six blooming girls made a screaming circle around them.
Though he endured it amiably enough, the Etheling appeared in some haste to offer a diversion. He evaded a second embrace by turning and beckoning to his shrinking captive.
“Save a little of your greeting for my guest, good nurse. Behold the fire-eating Dane that I have captured with my own right arm!” As the red-cloaked figure still hung back, he pulled it gently forward until the light of the notched candles fell brightly on the face, pitifully white for all its blood-stains, in the frame of tumbled black tresses.
“A Dane?” the women cried shrilly; then, with equal unanimity, burst out laughing. Randalin drew a little nearer the Etheling’s sheltering side. He said half reprovingly, half freakishly, “It would not be well for you to anger him. He is the page of Canute himself, a real Wandering Wolf, and recks not whom he attacks. He came near to spitting Oslac at the battle, and even threatened me.”
“Oslac!” screamed one of the serving-maids, turning very red. “The murderous little fiend!”
“He deserves to have his neck wrung!” two more cried out.
And Father Ingulph cleared his throat loudly. “Well-fitting is your charity both toward my teachings and your heart, my son; and yet--Discretion is the mother of other virtues. To bring one of those roving children of Satan into a Christian household will lay upon me a responsibility which--which--” He paused to take a mouthful of wine and eye the stranger over the goblet rim with much disfavor.
While the maids whispered excitedly in one another’s ears, Hildelitha began to sniff behind her apron. “I do not see why you wanted to bring him home, Lord Sebert. You know that Danes are odious to me since my husband, of holy memory, fell under their axes--most detestable--Yet I would not anger you, my honey-sweet lord,” she broke off abruptly.
For the Lord of Ivarsdale had suddenly grown very stiff and grave; there was something curiously haughty in the quiet distinctness of his words.
“I have brought the boy home by reason of the King’s command that he be held in safety--and because it was my pleasure to succor him. And I have fetched him up here in order that you should supply his needs, being distressed for want of food and drink and healing salves. I am not pleased that you should meet my wishes in so light and cold a manner. I desire your love will, as is becoming, receive him kindly and charitably.”
He raised his hand as the pertest of the maids would have answered him, and there followed an uncomfortable pause. Then seven gowns swept the reed-strewn floor as seven courtesies fell, and Hildelitha thrust out her palm to give the pert maid a resounding box on the ear.
“You have heard your master, hussy! Why do you not exert yourself to bring food? Elswitha, if you do not want the mate to that, fetch the salve out of my chest.”
In an instant all was confusion; under cover of it the fat monk returned to his cup and the young master walked quietly to the door.
Homesick and heartsick, the waif in the page’s dress was left facing the unfriendly glances. Even in her bravest days, she had never known what it was to be disliked, and now--! Suddenly she limped after her friend and caught at his cloak.
“Let me go with you,” she cried. “I beseech it of you! I want not their service.”
After a moment, the Etheling threw his arm protectingly around the boyish figure.
“I do not blame you, poor youngling,” he said. “I was wrong to treat you as a child when you were bred up as a man. You shall have a bed in the closet off my chamber, and they shall not enter except as you will it. And you shall eat off my plate and drink from my cup. Come!”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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12
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The Foreign Page
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Early should rise He who has few workers, And go his work to see to; Greatly is he retarded Who sleeps the morn away; Wealth half depends on energy. Ha’vama’l.
It was August, when Mother Earth had nearly completed her task of providing for her children, and the excitement of a mighty work drawing to its close was in the air; when the sun-warmed stillness was a-quiver with the of growing things coming to their strength, and every cloudless day held in its golden heart a song of exultation. The grassy space around the Tower, which was wont to be thronged with joyous idlers, was to-day almost deserted. A single groom lounged in the shade of the wide-spreading trees as he kept a lazy eye on the croppings of two saddled horses, and an endless chain of fagot-laden serfs plodded joylessly across the open. On one side of the great entrance arch a half-dozen of the manor poor gabbled and basked in the sun while they waited to receive their daily dole of food; on the other, a dark-locked foreign page sat on the mossy step abiding the coming of his master.
Leaning back with one arm bent carelessly behind his head and one hand caressing a shaggy hound that pressed against his knee, the boy’s far-away gaze was designed to intimate his haughty oblivion to the castle-world in general and the movements of the almsfolk in particular. Seeing which, the people on the other side of the step had laid aside any reserve they might have felt and were indulging their curiosity with cheerful freedom.
“Six weeks he has been here, and this is the first good look I have had at him,” the buzzing whispers ran. “It is said that they were obliged to catch him between shields before they could take him.” ... “Such hair on a Dane is more rare than a white crow.” ... “I believe no good of any one with locks of that color.” ... “Tibby, the weaving-woman, says he is skilful in magic.” ... “It is by reason of that, that he has become my lord’s darling.” ... “Why is he not in the hall, then, while the ethel-born is sitting at table?” ... “Perhaps his luck is beginning to fail him.” ... “Perhaps he has fallen out of favor.”
The two old men who offered these last suggestions chuckled with malicious enjoyment, and two of the old women mumbled with their toothless gums as though tasting sweet morsels; but the third drew herself up with a kind of grotesque coquetry.
“You can tell by the green silk of his tunic that he is of some quality,” she reproved them. “Danishmen are ever the ones to adorn themselves. It occurs to my mind how, in Edgar’s time, when I was a girl, one was quartered in my father’s house. He changed his raiment once a day and bathed every Sunday. I used to comb his yellow hair when I took in his ale, of a morning.” Long after her voice had passed into a rattle, she stood in a simpering revery, her palsied hands resting heavily upon her stick, her blinking eyes fixed on the picturesque young foreigner musing in the sunshine.
Then the voice of the steward sounded sharply in the archway. There was an eager catching up of bags and baskets, a shuffling forward of unsteady feet, and the goody came out of her day-dream to throw herself into the strife over a jar of peppered broth.
The Danish page bent to pillow a very red cheek on the soft cushion of the dog’s head, then drew back and straightened himself stiffly as a strapping serving-lass, flagon-laden, came out of the door behind him. She saw the motion and looked down with a teasing laugh. “Aha, young Fridtjof! How do you like being sent to cool your heels on the doorstep while your master eats? What! I think that the next time you thrust your foot out to trip me up as I hand my lord his ale, you will attend to keeping it under your stool.”
Young Fridtjof regarded her with a kind of righteous indignation. “And I think that the next time you will look where you are going, even if it happen that it is Lord Sebert’s ale you are bearing. Silly jades, that cannot come nigh him without biting your lips or sparkling your eyes! I wonder he does not clap masks over your faces.”
“And I wonder he does not clap rods to your back,” the lass retorted with sudden spite. She flounced past him down the step, on her way to the great lead-roofed storehouse that flanked the forest side of the Tower.
The boy looked after her sternly. “It is likely that you will be less pert of tongue after I tell what I found out in the corn-bins yesterday,” he said.
The maid whirled. “What did you find out, you mischief-full brat?”
He continued to stroke the dog’s head in dignified silence. “If you mean the--the brown-cloaked beggar, let me inform you that that is naught.”
Busying himself with pulling burrs from the hound’s ears, the page began to hum softly.
She came a step nearer, and her voice wheedled. “It was only that he was distressed for want of drink, poor fellow, and followed me into the storehouse when he saw me go in to fill the master’s flagon. It was naught but a swallow. My lord would be the last to grudge a harmless body--” “Harmless?” the page said sternly. “Did I not hear him tell you the same as that he was an English spy?”
The girl abandoned the last shred of her dignity, to come and stand before him, nervously fingering her apron. “For the dear saints’ sake, let no one hear you say that, good Fridtjof! Alas, how you have got it twisted! He is an Englishman who bent his head for food in the evil days. And now they that bought him will not set him loose, so he has cast off their yoke and fled to the Danes to get freedom and fortune. He was on his way to join your people when he stopped to beg food. I could not be so hard of heart as to refuse, though Hildelitha’s hand would be hot about my ears did she suspect it. Say that you will hold your tongue, sweet lad, and I will make boot with anything you like.”
He was very deliberate about it, the page, pursing his rosy mouth into any number of judicial puckers; but at last he conceded, “Now, since you know for certain that he is not one of Edmund’s spies,--and you are so penitent, as is right,”--pausing, he regarded her severely,--“if I do promise, will you make a bargain to put an end to your silly behavior toward my lord? Will you undertake to deliver his dishes into my hands, and leave it for me to pass his cup?”
“Yes, in truth; by Father Ingulph’s book!” the maid cried, wringing her hands.
The page made her a magnanimous gesture. “In that case I will not be so mean as to refuse you,” he consented. And he sat smiling to himself in sly content after she had hurried away.
Emboldened by that smile, the dog suddenly laid aside his soberness of demeanor. Pouncing upon a fagot which had fallen from one of the loads, he brought it in his teeth, with shining eyes and much frantic tail-wagging, and rubbed it against his friend’s knee. He had not miscalculated. The boy’s smile deepened easily into a laugh, and he leaped to his feet to accept the challenge. Seizing the stick, he put all the strength of his lithesome body into an effort to make off with it, while the great hound braced himself, with a rapture of rumbling growls and short delighted barks. So they tussled, back and forth, this way and that, amid a merry tumult of barking and laughter,--such a tumult that neither heard the steps that both were waiting for, when at last those steps came briskly through the archway. The first they knew of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale was standing under the lintel, chatting with those who came behind him.
With lips yet parted by their breathless laughter, the lad straightened quickly from his sport, and stood shaking back his tumbling curls and mopping his hot face, in which the rich color glowed through the tanned skin like the velvety red on a golden peach. When, for one flashing instant, they encountered a keen glance from the young lord, the color deepened, and the iris-blue eyes suddenly brimmed over with mischievous sparkles; then the black lashes were lowered demurely, and the page, retreating to his place beside the step, signified only deference and decorum.
Followed by old Morcard and the fat monk, the Etheling descended from the doorway and stood on the broad step, shading his eyes from the glare of brilliant light while he looked about him with evident pleasure in the fairness of the day.
“Now is the time to lay by a store of sweet memories against the stress of winter weather,” he said. “Whither do you go to harvest the sunshine, father?”
The monk pulled his round red face to a devout length. “Why, there is a good woman at the other end of the dale, my son, that labors under a weakness of her limbs; and I have bethought me that it would be a Christian act to fetch her this holy relique I wear about my neck, that she may lay it upon the afflicted members and perhaps, aided by my exhortations, experience some relief.”
“If the question may be permitted me, whither do you betake yourself, my lord?” the old cniht asked.
With the light wand he carried, the young man made a gesture quite around the horizon. “Everywhere and nowhere. After I have been to see what they are doing with that portion of the palisade which I bade them repair as soon as they had finished the barrier, I am--” “That is something that had clean fallen out of my mind to tell you, Lord Sebert,” Morcard spoke up hastily. “Yesterday, before you had got in from hunting, Kendred of Hazelford came, as spokesman for the rest, to say that inasmuch as the Barn Month is well begun, it will not be possible for them to labor more upon the building; and, by your leave, they will put off this, which is not pressing, until after the time of the harvest.”
It was several moments before the Etheling spoke, and then his voice was noticeably deliberate. “Oh!” he said, “so they ask my leave, but stop at their pleasure?”
“My lord!” --the old man looked at him in surprise--“they act only according to custom. Surely you would not have them neglect the harvest, which waits no man’s leisure, to put to their hands as laborers when there is no present need, now that they have completed the barriers by the stream? What present harm because the drain off the hill has rotted the palisade? All of that part is toward the forest. How? Do you expect some Grendel of the March to fall upon us from that direction?”
The Etheling smiled against his will. “Our foe would needs be a Grendel to reach us from that side.” He struck the wand sharply against his riding-boots. “Oh, it is not that I think the work so pressing.”
“In the Fiend’s name, what then is the cause of your distemper?” Father Ingulph inquired impatiently, as he finished the girding-up of his robes and picked up his staff preparatory to setting forth.
After a moment, the young noble began to laugh. “Why, to tell it frankly, methinks it is more temper than distemper. That they should take it upon them to decide how much of my order is necessary--” He let a pause finish for him, and suddenly he turned with a flourish of gay defiance: “I will tell you how I am going to spend my morning, Morcard. I am going to ride over every acre that is under my hand and see how much I can spare for loan-land. And when I have found out, I will rent every furlong to boors who shall be bound to pay me service, not when it best pleases them, but whensoever I stand in need of it.”
Rubbing his chin, the monk heard him in silence; but the old warrior grew momentarily grave. “Take care that you seem not over proud, young lord. It is in such a mood that Edmund creates thanes.”
It may be that the Etheling’s eyes widened for an instant, but directly after he laughed with gay perverseness. “Is it?” he said. “Then, for the first time in six weeks, I see that the Ironside is cunning in thought.”
Shaking his head, Father Ingulph moved down the step. “Nay, if you are in that humor, my son, I waste no breath. Speed you well, and may you wax in wisdom!” With a gesture, half paternal, half respectful, he betook himself across the grass to the gate.
Old Morcard turned and stepped up into the doorway, from which he looked down indulgently upon his laughing master. “It happened formerly, Lord Sebert, that I knew how to command your earnestness, and that speedily; but that time has long gone by. Methinks I can accomplish more among the watchmen upon the platform. By your leave, my lord!” Bowing, he disappeared in the dark tunnel of the archway, and the Etheling was left alone save for the graceful figure awaiting him beside the step. The instant he moved, it sprang forward.
“Lord, is it your wish that I get the horses?”
As the old man had looked down upon the young one, so now the young man stood looking down upon the boy, regarding him with tolerant severity. “You most mischief-full elf!” he said. “It would be treating you deservedly were I to leave you at home.”
It did not appear that the lad was seriously cast down; a betraying dimple came out and played in his cheek, though his mouth struggled for gravity. “That is unjustly spoken, lord,” he protested. “Did I not bear my punishment with befitting penitence?”
“Penitence!” the Etheling gave one of the small ears a menacing pull as he descended to the grass. “What! Do you think I did not see your antics with the dog? You made a jest of the matter, you pixie!”
The page sobered. “I think it great luck that I could, Lord Sebert! Your servants were eager in making a jest of me when they got the courage from your displeasure.”
But Lord Sebert reached out the wand and gave him a gentle stroke across the shoulders.
“Take that for your foolishness,” he said lightly. “What matters their babble when you know how safe you sit in my favor?”
Through lowered lashes the boy stole him a glance, half mischievous, half coaxing. “How safe, lord?” he murmured.
But the Etheling only laughed at him, as he drew up his long riding-boots and readjusted his belt. “Safe enough so that I forgive you some dozen floggings a day, you imp; and choose you for my comrade when I should be profiting by the companionship of your betters. Waste no more golden moments on whims, youngling, but go bid them fetch the horses, and we will have another day of blithe wandering.”
Blithe they were, in truth, as they cantered through shaded lanes and daisied meadows, nothing too small to be of interest or too slight to give them pleasure. An orchard of pears, whose ripening they were watching with eager mouths, a group of colts almost ready for the saddle,--for the young master the fascination of ownership gave them all a value; while another fascination made his companion hang on his least word, respond to his lightest mood.
By grassy commons and rolling meadows sweet with clustering haycocks, they came at last to the crest of the hill that guarded the eastern end of the dale. The whole round sweep of the horizon lay about them in an unbroken chain of ripening vineyards and rich timber-land, of grain-fields and laden orchards; not one spot that did not make glorious pledges to the harvest time. Drinking its fairness with his eyes, the lord of the manor sighed in full content. “When I see how fine a thing it is to cause wealth to be where before was nothing, I cannot understand how I once thought to find my pleasure only in destroying,” he said. “Next month, when the barley beer is brewed, we will have a harvest feast plentiful enough to flesh even your bones, you bodkin!”
The Danish page laughed as he dodged the plaguing wand. “It is true that you owe something to my race, lord. He had great good sense, the Wide-Fathomer, to stretch his strips of oxhide around this dale and turn it into an odal.”
“Nay now, it was Alfred who had sense to take it away from him,” the Etheling teased.
But the boy shook back his long tresses in airy defiance. “Then will Canute be foremost in wisdom, for soon he will get it back, together with all England. Remember who got the victory last week at Brentford, lord.”
In the midst of his exulting, a cloud came over the young Englishman’s smile. “I would I knew the truth concerning that,” he said slowly. “The man who passes to-day says one thing; whoso comes to-morrow tells another story. Yet since Canute is once more free to beset London--” He did not finish, and for a while it appeared as though he did not see the sunlit fields his eyes were resting on.
But suddenly the boy broke in upon him with a burst of stifled laughter. “Look, lord! In yonder field, behind the third haycock!”
The moment that he had complied, laughter banished the Etheling’s meditations. Cozily ensconced in the soft side of a haycock was Father Ingulph, a couple of jovial harvesters sprawled beside him, a fat skin of ale in his hands on its way to his mouth. As the pair on the hilltop looked down, one of the trio began to bellow out a song that bore no resemblance whatever to a hymn. Keeping under cover of the bushes, the eavesdroppers laughed with malicious enjoyment.
“But I will make him squirm for that!” the Etheling vowed. “I will tell him that your paganism has made spells over me so that I cannot tell a holy relique from an ale-skin; and a bedridden woman looks to me like two strapping yeomen. I will, I swear it!”
“And I shall be able to hold it against him as a shield, the next time he is desirous to fret me about taking a new belief,” the boy rejoiced.
But presently Sebert’s remarks began to take a new tone. “They have the appearance of relishing what they have in that skin,” he observed first. And then, “I should not mind putting my own teeth into that bread-and-cheese.” And at last, “By Saint Swithin, lad, I think they have more sense than we, that linger a half-hour’s ride from food with a noonday sun standing in the sky! It is borne in upon me that I am starving.”
Backing his horse out of the brush, he was putting him about in great haste, when the boy leaped in his stirrups and clapped his hands.
“Lord, we need not be a half-hour from food! Yonder, across the stubble, is a farmhouse. If you would consent that I might use your name, then would I ride thither and get their best, and serve it to you here in the elves’ own feast-hall.”
The answer was a slap on the green shoulders that nearly tumbled their owner from the saddle. “Now, I was right to call you elf, for you have more than human cleverness!” the Etheling cried gayly. “Do so, by all means, dear lad; and I promise in return that I will tell every puffed-up dolt at home that you are the blithest comrade who ever fitted himself to man’s moods. There, if that contents you, give wings to your heels!”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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13
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When Might Made Right
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Now may we understand That men’s wisdom And their devices And their councils Are like naught ‘Gainst God’s resolve. Saxon Chronicle.
What difference that, somewhere beyond the hills, men were fighting and castles were burning? At Ivarsdale in the shelter and cheer of the lord’s great hall, the feast of the barley beer was at its height. While one set of serfs bore away the remnants of roast and loaf and sweetmeat, another carried around the brimming horns; and to the sound of cheers and hand-clapping, the gleeman moved forward toward the harp that awaited him by the fireside.
Where the glow lay rosiest, the young lord sat in the great raised chair, jesting with his Danish page who knelt on the step at his side. Now the boy’s answering provoked him to laughter, and he put out a hand and tousled the thick curls in his favorite caress. One of the tresses caught in his jewelled ring; and as he bent to unfasten it, he stared at the wavy mass in lazy surprise. It was as soft and rich as the breast of a blackbird, and the fire had laid over it a sheen of rainbow lights.
“Never did I think there could be any black hair so alluring,” he said involuntarily.
He could not see how the face under the clark veil grew suddenly as bright as though the sun had risen in it. And the lad said, rather breathlessly, “I wonder at your words, lord. You know that such hair is the curse of black elves.”
Leaning back in his chair, the Etheling shook his head in whimsical obstinacy. “Not so, not so,” he persisted. “It has to it more lustre than has yellow. My lady-love shall have just such locks.”
He had a glimpse like the flash of a bluebird’s wing in the sun, as the page glanced up at him, and the sight of a face grown suddenly rose-red. Then the boy turned shyly, and slipping back to his cushion on the step, nestled himself against the chair-arm with a sigh that was almost pathetic in its happiness.
Like a quieting hand, the first of the mellow chords fell upon the noise of the revel. The servants bearing away the dishes began to tread the rushes on tiptoe, and a dozen frowns rebuked any clatter. Through the hush, the gleeman began to sing the “Romance of King Offa,” the king who married a wood nymph for dear love’s sake. It began with the wooing and the winning, out in the leafy greenwood amid bird-voices and murmuring brooks; but before long the enmity of the queen-mother entered, with jarring discords, to send the lovers through bitter trials. Lord and page, man and maid and serf, strained eye and ear toward the harper’s tattered figure. So breathless grew the listening stillness that the crackling of the fire became an annoyance. What matter that outside an autumn wind was howling through the forest and stripping the leaves through the vines? Within sound of the mellow harp-music it was balmiest spring-time, as the castlefolk followed the gleeman over the hills and dales of a flowering dream-world.
For a space after he had finished, the silence remained unbroken, then gave way only to an outburst of applause. And one did even better than applaud. Bending forward, his beautiful face quite radiant with his pleasure, the curly-headed page pulled a golden ring from his pouch and tossed it into the harper’s lap.
As he caught the largess, the man’s mouth broadened. “I thank you for your good-will, fair stripling,” he returned. “May you find as true a love when your time comes to go a-wooing.”
The maids tittered, while the men guffawed, and a richer glow came into the cheeks of Fridtjof the page. Suddenly his iris-blue eyes were daringly a-sparkle.
“The spirits will have forgot your wish before that time comes,” he laughed, “for I vow that I will raise a beard or ever I woo a maiden.”
Above the mirth that followed rose the voice of the brawniest of the henchmen, passing his judgment on the ballad. “Now that is my own desire of songs,” he declared. “That was worth possessing,--the love of that lass. A sweetheart who will cleave to your side when your fortune is most severe, and despise every good because she has not you also, she is the filly to yoke with. Drink to the wood maiden, comrades, bare feet and wild ways and all!” Swinging up his horn, he drained off the toast at a draught. “Give us a mistress like that, my lord,” he cried merrily, “and we will hold Ivarsdale for her though all of Edmund’s men batter at the doors.”
Laughing, they all looked up where the young master leaned in his chair, watching the revels with a smile of idle good-humor. All except the blue-eyed page; he bent forward instead, so that his long locks fell softly about his face.
The Lord of Ivarsdale shook his head indolently against the cushion. “No wood lass for me, friend Celric,” he said. “The lady of my love shall be a high-born maid who knows no more of the world’s roughness than I of woman’s ways. Nor shall she follow me at all, but stay modestly at home with her maids and keep herself gentle and fair against my return. Deliver me from your sun-browned, boy-bred wenches!”
“I am consenting to that, lord!” a voice cried from the benches; and a hubbub of conflicting opinions arose. Only the page neither spoke or moved.
The henchman would not be downed; again his voice rose above the others. “In soft days, my lord, in soft days, it might easily be so. But bear in mind such times as these, when grief happens to a man oftener than joy. Methinks your lily-fair lady would swoon at the sight of your blood; and tears would be the best answer you would get, should you seek to draw comfort out of her.”
White as a star at dawn, the page’s face was raised while his wide eyes hung on his master’s; and from the little reed wound between his brown fingers, the juice began to ooze slowly as though some silent force were crushing the life out of its green heart.
But the young noble laughed with gay scorn: “Tears would be in all respects a better answer than I should deserve, should I whimper faint-hearted words into a maiden’s ear. What folly-fit do you speak in, fellow? What! Do you think I would wed another comrade like yourself, or a playfellow like this youngster?” Ever so gently his foot touched the boyish form on the step. “It is something quite different from either of you that is my desire; something that is as much higher as the stars are above these candles.”
Disputing and agreeing, the clamor rose anew, and the Etheling turned to his favorite with a jest. But the page was no longer in his place. He had risen to his feet and was standing with his head flung back like one in pain, both hands up tearing the tunic away from his throat. Sebert bent toward him with a question on his lips.
He forgot the query before he could speak it, however, for at that moment there was a sound of hurried steps on the stone stairs, and one of the armed watchmen from the top of the Tower burst into the room.
“Lord,” he gasped, “some one is upon us! We thought first it was naught but the noise of the wind--then Elward saw a light. We swear they came not over the bridge, yet--” His words were cut short by a horn-blast from the darkness, loud and clear above the whistling wind. Though only one woman screamed out Edmund’s name, it is probable that the same thought was in every mind. Jests and laughter died on the lips that bore them, and with one accord the men turned in their seats to watch their master.
His face had sobered as he listened; before the first echo had died away he had spoken swiftly to the fellow at his side. “Celric, get you down to the guard at the gate and inquire into the meaning of that.”
When the henchman had left, he began a sharp questioning of the sentinel, and the noise did not begin again. Whispering, the women drew together like herded sheep; and the men left their barley beer, to stand in little groups, muttering in one another’s ears. An old bowman took his weapon down from the wall and set silently to work to restring it.
In the quiet, the tap of the man’s feet upon the steps was audible long before he reached the waiting roomful. Every eye fastened itself upon the curtained doorway.
Swinging back, the arras disclosed a face full of amazement. “Lord,” the man said, “it is Danes! None know how many or how they came there. And their chief has sent you a messenger.”
“Danes!” For the first time in the history of Ivarsdale, the word was spoken with an accent of relief.
The page turned from the fire with a cry of bitter rejoicing: “If it is Canute, I will go to him!”
In the revulsion of his feelings, the Etheling laughed outright. “Since it is not Edmund, I care not if it be the Evil One himself; and it cannot be he, for Canute is in Mercia.” He rose and faced them cheerily. “Lay aside your uneasiness, friends; it is likely only such another band as we put to flight last month, that hopes to surprise us into some weakness. Let the signal fires blaze to warn the churls, while we amuse ourselves with the messenger. To-morrow we will chase them so far over the hills that they will never find their way back again.”
Beckoning to Morcard, he began to consult him concerning the most effective arrangement of the sentinels; and there was a muffled clatter of weapons as men went to and fro with hasty steps. At a word from the steward, the women went softly from the room and up the winding stairs to their quarters, the rustling of their dresses coming back with ghostly stealthiness.
When all was ready the messenger was brought in between guards. Wrapped in dirty sheepskins, he swaggered to the centre of the room, and the light that fell on his tanned face showed a scar running the full length of his cheek. With his first glance, the Lord of Ivarsdale uttered an exclamation.
“Now, by Saint Mary, I have seen you before, fellow! Were you not the leader of the band we drove away last month?”
The Scar-Cheek laughed impudently. “I will not conceal it; yet I did not know that my beauty was so showy. The chief was wise to send Brown-Cloak to do the spying.”
“Brown-Cloak! The beggar?” was cried all down the hall.
But the messenger’s eyes had fallen on the black-haired boy, who stood staring at him from the fireside. His wide mouth opened in astonishment. “The King’s ward? Here is a happening!” he ejaculated. “If I am not much mistaken, Canute will be glad to find this out. It was his belief that you had got your death-blow at Scoerstan, and he took it ill.”
The King’s ward made no other answer than to regard him with a strange mixture of attention and aversion; but the Etheling reached out and pushed the boy farther behind the great chair.
“Fridtjof Frodesson is my captive and no longer concerns you,” he said briefly. “Give him no further thought, but come to your message.”
The swaggering assurance of the man’s laugh was more offensive than rudeness would have been. “If I say that we will shortly set him free, I shall not be going very wide from my message. My errand hither is that I bring word from Rothgar Lodbroksson to surrender the Tower.”
The page uttered a little cry, and his lord raised a hand mechanically to impose silence; but no one else seemed able to speak or to move. From the master in his chair to the serf by the door, they stared dumb-founded at the messenger.
He, on his part, appeared to realize all at once that the time for formality had come. Pitching his cloak higher on his shoulders, he fastened his eyes on a hole in the tapestry behind the Etheling’s chair and began monotonously to recite his lesson: “Rothgar, the son of Lodbrok, sends you greeting, Sebert Oswaldsson; and it is his will that you surrender to him the odal and Tower of Ivarsdale; as is right, because the odal was created and the Tower was built by Ivar Vidfadmi, who was the first son of Lodbrok and the father’s father’s father of my chief---” In spite of himself, he was obliged to stop to take in breath.
In the pause, the page bent toward his master, his face alight with a sudden fierce triumph. “Lord,” he whispered, “you can never get out! You are caught as though they had you in a trap!”
Astounded, Sebert drew back to stare at him. “Fridtjof! It is not possible that you are unfaithful to me!”
The boy’s only answer was to drop down upon the step and bury his face in his hands. And nov: the messenger had recovered his wind and his place.
“Since the time of Alfred,” he went on, “my chief and his kin have been kept out of the property by your stock and you; yet because he does not wish to look mean, he offers you to go out in safety with all of your housefolk, both men and women, and as much property as you can walk under,--if you go quietly and in peace.” This time his inflection showed that he had finished. He turned his eyes from the hole and fastened them on the Lord of Ivarsdale, in the confidence of invincible power.
The room was so still that when a gust came in around the ill-fitting windows, the flare of the torch-flames sounded loud as the hiss of serpents.
The Etheling’s voice was very deep and quiet. “If we go in peace,” he repeated slowly. “And if we do not?”
The Dane shrugged his burly shoulders. “There are no terms for that. You will find it necessary to take what comes.”
Again there was silence.
Sebert put his last question: “How long does the son of Lodbrok give me to consider how I am to order things?” The man shattered the silence with his boisterous laughter. “It is not a lie about you English that you never do aught that you do not sit down first and consider, till the crews have eaten all your provisions and the timbers of your boats are rotting. When a Dane strikes, it is like the striking of lightning. So soon as you hear the thunder of his coming, that instant you see the flashing of his weapon. My chief gives you no time at all. So long a time, he has studied out, will it take me to come in to you; so much longer to do my errand; and so much longer to get back. At the end of that time he will blow his horn, and if your gates do not fly open in obedience, he will take that for your answer.”
Either the Lord of Ivarsdale had been doing some rapid thinking during the long speech, or else he was too incensed to think. Now he rose with sparks flashing from the steel of his eyes. “By Peter, he is right! I do not need even that long,” he cried. “Since the Wide-Fathomer began the game, the Tower has been the prize of the strongest. Shall I flinch from a challenge? Our rights are equal; our luck shall decide. For his answer, be he reminded of his own Danish saying, that ‘It is a strong bird that can take what an eagle has in his claws,’ and let him get what comfort he can from that.”
After his ringing tones, the unmoved voice of the messenger fell flat on the ear. “It has happened as we supposed, that you would answer unfavorably,” he said as he turned. “It was seen in battle that you are a brave man. Otherwise the chief would not have thought it necessary to hew a path through the forest in order to take you by surprise.” Saluting with some appearance of respect, he joined his conductors at the door and passed out of sight down the stair.
Like smoke in the wake of a firebrand, confusion rose behind him; a din of exclamations loosed on the air and the clangor of weapons caught down from the wall. Through it, the Etheling’s voice sounded strongly. “To the palisade, all of you! They may not wait till morning. To the forest side; and keep them from it as you would keep off death!” He bent and shook the crouching page. “My armor, boy! How! Would you have me read treason in your sluggishness? My armor!”
The page started up, but it was only to stare past him and fling out his hand toward a window, where a bright light had suddenly shot athwart the darkness: “Lord, they have set fire to something!”
The voice of old Morcard rose shrill: “To the storehouses! Save the grain!”
There was a wild rush for the door; but on the threshold they were met by the shouts of watchmen hurrying from the parapets.
“Lord, the court is swarming with them!” ... “They have cut through the palisade on the forest side!” ... “They had brush laid ready--“... “Waited only for him--“... “Holy saints, what is the meaning of that?” ... “Something else has taken!”
From the stairway above them came a piercing cry: “The storehouses! They have fired them from inside! The lead is melting like ice!” ... “The grain!” ... “The grain!”
In their midst the young lord stood in helpless fury; and the hand he had grasped around his sword-hilt gripped it so hard that blood started under each nail. But his page bent and kissed the clenched fist with a cry of fierce exulting.
“You will never get out to find your lily-fair lady. You will never have a lady wife, lord! We shall die together.”
|
{
"id": "3323"
}
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14
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How The Fates Cheated Randalin
|
There is a mingling of affection Where one can tell Another all his mind. Ha’vama’l.
After that night the deep-set windows of Ivarsdale looked out upon some grim sights. The first morning it was a skirmish in the meadow beyond the foot-bridge, when the three-score farmer-soldiers came loyally to their leader’s aid. Though Kendred of Hazelford marched bravely at their head, they were practically uncaptained; with any kind of weapon in their hands and no kind of armor over their home-spun. What chance had they against sixty picked warriors, led by the fiercest chief of a race of chieftains? They met, and there was a moment of clash and of clangor, a moment of awful commotion; and when the whirling dust-clouds settled, the only homespun that was moving was that which was flying, sped by Danish arrows. All the rest of the day the Tower windows looked out upon a litter of brown heaps, here and there a white face upturned or a scarf-end fluttering in the autumn wind.
Wild with helpless misery, the Lord of Ivarsdale would have charged the Berserkers with his handful of armed servants if the old cniht had not restrained him almost by force; when he spent his breath in railing at everything between earth and sky.
“It is the folly of it that maddens me,” he cried over and over, “the needless folly! Had I but used my mind to think with, instead of to plan feasts--I am moved to dash my brains out when I remember it!”
“Nay, it is my judgment that was lacking,” Morcard said bitterly. “I was an old dog that could not learn a new trick. I should have seen that the old ways no longer avail. The fault was mine.” His wrinkled old face was so haggard with self-reproach that the Etheling hastily recanted.
“Now I bethink me, I am wrong, and it is no one’s fault. It comes of the curse that lies over the Island. Was there not something rotten in all English palisades, it would never have happened that the pirates got their first foothold. But we have shaken off the spell, and they have not mastered us yet. To-night we will try to get a messenger out to my kinsman in Yorkshire, and another to my father’s friend in Essex.”
The next day, and for many days thereafter, the Tower windows stared out like expectant eyes. But no delivering bands ever came over the hills to reward their watching. From the moment that he was swallowed by the outer darkness, the messenger for Yorkshire was as lost to their sight and their knowledge as though he had plunged into the ocean. And a week later, the man who had been sent into Essex crept back with a dejection that foretold his ill success. The ealdorman was taxed, might and main, to protect his own lands. He regretted it, to his innermost vitals, but these were days when each must stand or fall for himself. He could only send his sympathy and the counsel to hold out unflinchingly in the hope that some fortune of war would call the besiegers away.
When he heard that, Father Ingulph forgot his robes to indulge in a curse. “Does he think we have possession of the widow’s blessed oil-cruse? If the larder had not been stocked for a week’s feasting, we must needs have been starved under ere this. How much longer can we endure, even at one meal a day?” He sighed as he drew his belt in another notch.
When the beginning of the Wine Month came, the bitterest sight that the Tower windows gave out upon was the band of foragers that every morning went forth from the Danish camp-fires. Every noon they returned, amid a taunting racket, with armfuls of ale-skins, back-loads of salted meats, and bags bulging with the bread which they had forced the terrorized farm-women into baking for them. “They have the ingenuity of fiends!” Father Ingulph was wont to groan after each of these spectacles.
At last the time arrived when it looked as though these visions were to be the only glimpses of food vouchsafed to them.
“Bread for one more meal; and the last ale-cask has been broached,” the steward answered in a very faint voice when Morcard put the nightly question.
Because it was not possible for the old man’s face to record more misery, the light of the guard-room fire over which he crouched showed no change whatever in his expression.
It was the young lord, who sat beside him, that answered. After a pause he said gently, “Go and try to get some sleep. At least you can dream of food.”
“I have done no otherwise for a sennight,” the man sighed as he hurried away to snatch the tongs from a serf who was spending an unnecessary fagot upon the fire. At any other time he would have shouted at him, but it was little loud talking that was done within the walls these days.
When they were left alone, the old cniht threw himself back upon the bench and covered his face with his mantle. “I have outlived my usefulness,” he moaned. “I have lived to bring ruin on the house that has sheltered me. What guilt I lie under!” For a time he lay as stark and rigid under his cloak as though death had already closed about him. The guard-room seemed to become a funeral chamber, with a mass of hovering shadows for a pall. The fire held up funeral tapers of flickering flame, and the whispers of the starving men who warmed themselves in its heat broke the silence as dismally as the voices of mourners.
But the Lord of Ivarsdale said steadily, “Not so, good friend; and it hurts my pride sorely that you should speak as if I were still of no importance in my father’s house. That which I call myself lord of, it behooved me to rule over. If ever I get out of this--” checking himself, he rose to his feet. “The smoke makes my wits heavy. Methinks I will go up into the air a while.”
He took a step toward the door, but halted when the red-cloaked page, who had been stretched near him on the bench, started up as though preparing to accompany him. “Stay where you are, lad. These fasts from sleep will parch your young brains. I go up to the platform because I would rather walk than rest; but do you remain here by the fire and try to catch a drowsiness from its heat.”
But the page advanced with the old wilful shake of his curly head. “I also would rather walk, if you please.” As he looked at him, compassion came into the Etheling’s face. The hollowness of their sockets made the boy’s large eyes look larger, and his fever-flush trebled their brightness. Sebert said, with a poor attempt at a smile, “Little did I think that my hospitality would ever produce such a guest. Poor youngling! You would better have crept out to your countrymen, as I bade you.”
Again the dark head shook obstinately. “Rather would I starve with you than feast with them. I go not out till you go.”
Something seemed to come into the young man’s throat as he was about to speak, for he swallowed hard and was silent. Putting an arm about the slender figure, he drew it to his side; and so they left the room and began to climb the stairs.
As soon as the curtain fell at their heels a stifling mustiness came to their nostrils, and a chill that was like the flat of a knife-blade pressed against their cheeks. They drew breath thankfully when they had come up into the sweet freshness of the night air. Flashing on the weapons of the pacing sentinels, a glory of silver moonlight lay like a visible silence over the parapets. In the darkness below, a sea of forest trees was murmuring and splashing at the passing of a wind. Yet deeper down in the dark glowed the fires of the Danish camp,--red eyes of the dragon that would rise ere long and crush them under his iron claws.
After they had twice made the round without speaking, the page said gravely, “I heard what Brithwald told you about the bread, lord. What will overtake us when that is gone? Shall we charge them, so that we may die fighting?” When the Etheling did not answer immediately, his companion looked up at him with loving reproach. “You forget that you need conceal nothing from me, dear lord. I am not as those clowns below. You have even said that you found pleasure in telling me your mind.”
Sebert’s hand was lifted from the red cloak to touch the thin cheek caressingly. “I should be extreme ungrateful were I to say less, dear lad. There is a man’s courage in your boy’s body, and I think a woman could not be more faithful in her love--How! Are you cold that you shiver so? Pull the corner of my cloak about you.”
But the page cast it off impatiently. “No, no, it is nothing; no more than that one of those men out there may have walked across the spot that is to be my grave. Sooner would I bite my tongue off than interrupt you. I ask you not to let it hinder your speech.”
Again a kind of affectionate pity came into the young noble’s face. “Does it mean so much to you to hear that you have been faithful in your service?”
“It means--so much to me!” the boy repeated softly; and if the man’s ear had not been far afield, he might have divined the secret of the green tunic only from the tenderness of the low voice. But when his mind came back to his companion again, the lad was looking at him with a little smile touching the curves of his wistful mouth.
“Do you know why this mishap which has occurred to you seems great luck for me? Because otherwise it is not likely that you would have found out how true a friend I could be. If it had happened that I had gone with Rothgar’s messenger that night, you would have remembered me only as one who could entertain you when it was your wish to laugh. But now, since it has been allowed me to endure suffering with you and to share your mind when it was bitterest, you have given me a place in your heart. And to-morrow, when we go forth together, and the Dane slays me with you because it will be open to him then that for your sake I have become unfaithful to him, you will remember our fellowship even to--” But Sebert’s hand silenced the tremulous lips. “No more, youngling! I adjure you by your gentleness,” he whispered unsteadily. “You owe me no such love; and it makes my helplessness a thousand-fold more bitter. Say no more, little comrade, if you would not turn my heart into a woman’s when it has need to be of flint. Sit you here on the ledge the while that I take one more turn. You will not? Then come with me, and we will make the round together, and apply our wits once more to the riddle. Until swords have put an end to me, I shall not cease to believe that it has an answer.”
Below, in the dense blackness of the forest, an occasional owl sounded his echoless cry. From still deeper in the dark, where the Danish camp-fires glowed, a harp-note floated up on the wind with a fragment of wild song. But it was many a long moment before the silence that hovered over the doomed Tower was broken by any sound but the measured tramp of the sentinels.
It was Sebert who brought the dragging pace finally to a halt, throwing himself upon a stone bench to hold his head in his hands. “We cannot drive them off; that needs no further proof. And I do not see how we can hold out till the time that chance entices them away, when but one meal stands between us and starvation, and already we are as weak as rabbits. Naught can profit us save craft.”
The dark head beside him shook hopelessly; but he repeated the verdict with additional emphasis. “I tell you, craft is our only hope; some artfulness that shall undermine their strength even as their tricks crept, snake-like, under our guard.” Turning in his seat, he set his face toward the darkness, clutching his head in renewed effort.
No word came from the page, but a strange look was dawning in his upturned face. Whether it was a great terror that had shaken his soul or whether a joy had come to him that raised him to heaven itself, it was impossible to tell, for the signs of both were in his eyes. And when at last he spoke, both thrilled through his voice. “Lord,” he said slowly, “I think I see where a trick is possible.”
As Sebert turned from the darkness, the boy struggled up and stood before him. “If they could be made to believe a lie about the food? If they could be made to believe that you have enough to continue this for a long time? Their natures are such that already it must have become a hardship for them to remain quiet.”
The Etheling’s eyes were riveted on the other’s lips; his every muscle strained toward him. Under the stimulus the page’s words seemed to come a little less uncertainly, a little more quickly.
“I think I could manage it for you, lord. They think me your unwilling captive: you remember what the messenger said about freeing me? If I should go to Rothgar--” his voice broke and his eyes sought his friend’s eyes as though they were wine-cups from which he would drink courage-- “if I should go to Rothgar, lord, I could declare myself escaped, and he would be likely to believe any story I told him.”
Sebert leaped up and caught the lad by the shoulders, then hesitated, weighing it in his mind, half fearing to believe. “But are you sure that your tongue will not trip you? Or your face, poor mouse? What! Can you make them believe in abundance when your cheeks are like bowls for the catching of your tears?”
The boy seemed to gather strength from the caressing hands, as Thor from the touch of his magic belt. He even gave a little breathless laugh of elation. “As to that, I think he is not wise enough to guess the truth. I will tell him that you have thought it revengeful toward him to starve your Danish captive; and because it is in every respect according to what he would do in your place, I think he will have no misgivings.”
Pulling the soft curls with a suggestion of his old lightheartedness, the Etheling laughed with him. “You bantling! Who would have dreamed you to that degree artful? Are you certain your craft will bear you out? I would not have you suffer their anger. Are you capable of so much feigning?”
For an instant the boy’s eyes were even audacious; and all the hollowness of the cheeks could not hide a flashing dimple. “Oh, my dear lord, I am capable of so much more feigning than you guess!” he answered daringly.
“Nay, have I not been wont to call you elf?” Sebert returned. Then his voice deepened with feeling. “By the soul of my father, Fridtjof, if you bring me out of this snare, me and mine, I declare with truth that there will be no recompense you can ask at my hands which I shall not be glad to grant--” He paused in the wonder of seeing the sparkle in the blue eyes flee away like a flitting light.
The page turned from him almost with a sob. “Pray you, promise me nothing!” he said hastily. “If ever I see you again, and you have more to give me than pity--Nay, I shall lose my courage if I think of that part. Get me out quickly while the heart is firm within me. And give me a draught from your cup to warm my blood.”
“Certainly it would be best for you to come to them while they are in such a state of feasting that their good-humor is keenest and their wits dullest,” Sebert assented.
He spoke but with the matter-of-factness of a soldier reconnoitring a position, but on the girl in the page’s dress the words fell like blows. Then it was that she realized for the first time how ill a crumb can satisfy the hunger which asks for a loaf; that she knew that her body was not the only part of her which was starving. Somewhere on that dark stairway she lost the boyishness out of her nature forever. The thin cheeks were white under their tan when they came again into the light of the guard-room fire; and the blue eyes had in them a woman’s reproach.
“It would show no more than friendship if you said that you were sorry to have me go,” she told him with quivering lips. “Are you so eager in getting me off that you cannot say you will miss me?”
But the young lord only laughed good-humoredly as he poured the wine. “What a child you are! Do you not know those things without my telling you? And as for missing you, I am not likely to have time. The first chance you get, you will slip back to me if you do not, I will come after you and flog you into the bargain; be there no forgetting!”
She could not laugh as she would once have done; instead she choked in the cup and pushed it from her. A passionate yearning came over her for one such word, one such look, as he would give the dream-lady when she should come. With her secret on her lips, she lifted her eyes to his.
A little amused but more pitying, and withal very, very kind, his glance met hers; and her courage forsook her. Suppose the word she was about to speak should not make his face friendlier? Suppose his surprise should be succeeded by haughtiness, or, worse than all, by a touch of that gay scorn? Even at the memory of it she shrank. Better a crumb than no bread at all. Turning away, she followed him in silence down the dark passage.
When the moment of parting arrived, and Sebert’s hand lay on the last bolt, that mood was so strong upon her that it seemed to her as though she were passing out of life into death. Clinging to his cloak, with her face buried in its folds, she wet it with far bitterer tears than any she had shed over her murdered kinsmen.
“I wish I had not thought of it! I wish I had not told you!” she sobbed into the soft muffling. “Only to be near you I thought heaven; and now the Fates have cheated me even out of that.”
The Etheling put his hand under the bent head to raise it that he might hear what the lips were saying, and she covered his palm with kisses. Then slipping away, like the elf he had called her, she glided through the narrow space of the half-open door and was gone, sobbing, out into the night.
|
{
"id": "3323"
}
|
15
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How Fridtjof Cheated The Jotun
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“‘Such is the love of women, Who falsehood meditate, As if one drove not rough-shod On slippery ice A spirited two-year-old And unbroken horse. Ha’vama’l. I trust my sword; I trust my steed; But most I trust myself at need,’” the fair-haired scald sang exultingly to the Danishmen sprawled around the camp-fire. It was to no graceful love-song that his harp lent its swelling chords, but to a stern chant of mighty deeds, whose ringing notes sped through the forest like the bearers of war-arrows, knocking at the door of each sleeping echo until it awoke and carried on the summons.
Echoes awoke as well in the breasts of those who listened. When the minstrel laid aside his harp for his cup, Snorri Scar-Cheek brought his fist down in a mighty blow upon the earth. “To hear such words and know one’s self doomed to wallow in mast!”
A dozen shaggy heads wagged surly acquiescence. But from the figure outstretched upon the splendid bearskin a harsh voice sounded. “Now! see that because you lie in mast you have a swine’s wit,” it said. “Do you want the thrall to stand forth and prove for the hundredth time that their bins must needs be as empty as your head?”
Venturing no more than a growl, the man dropped his chin back upon his fists. But Brown-Cloak, the English serf, found somewhere the notion that here was an opportunity to rehearse once more the service which was his sole claim upon his new masters’ indulgence, and he got on his legs accordingly.
“I can say soothly that you will not have to bear it much longer, Lord Dale,” he reassured. “My own eyes saw that--” He ended in a howl as a half-gnawed sheep-bone from the warrior’s hand struck him with a force that knocked him sprawling among the ashes.
“Do not trouble yourself to answer until you are questioned,” the Scar-Cheek recommended briefly. And a round of laughter followed the poor scapegoat as he picked himself up, groaning, and crept away into the shadow. In the restlessness of their inactivity, and this swift breaking into passages of growling and tooth-play whenever, in their narrow confines, they chanced to jostle each other, they were like nothing so much as a pack of caged wolves.
Into the den, a few minutes later, the daughter of Frode came on her difficult mission. Her face was so ghastly that the man who first caught sight of it did not recognize her, and snatched up his weapon as against an enemy. It was the Scar-Cheek who offered the first welcome in a jovial shout. “The hawk escaped from the cage! Well done, champion! Did you batter a way out with your mighty fists? Did you get fretful and slay the Englishman? Leave off your bashfulness and tell us your deeds of valor!” A score of hands were stretched forth to draw the boy into the circle; a score of horns were held out for his refreshment.
To all of them Randalin yielded silently,--silently accepting the cup which was nearest, in order to gain time by sipping its contents. She realized that only a manner of perfect unconcern could carry her through, yet she felt herself shaking with excitement.
Rothgar sat up on the great skin with a gesture of some cordiality. “Hail to you, Fridtjof Frodesson!” he said. “Your escape is a thing that gladdens me. I did not like the thought of starving you, and I hope your father will overlook the unfriendliness of it.”
The Scar-Cheek, who had been scanning her critically where she stood before them, drinking, gave a pitying grunt. “By the crooked horn, boy, you must have had naught but ill luck since the time of Scoerstan! No more meat is on you than a raven could eat; and the night I was in the Englishman’s hall, you had the appearance of having been under a lash. Your guardian spirit must have gone astray.”
Though she managed to keep her eyes upon her cup, Randalin could not hinder a wave of burning color from over-running her face. Seeing it, Rothgar held up his handless left arm for silence.
“You act in a mannerless way, Snorri Gudbrandsson, when you remind a high-spirited youth that he has been disgraced in his mind. Yet do not let that prevent your joy, my Bold One. To make up for the injury I have been to you, I will give you a revenge on the Englishman that shall wipe out everything you have endured from him. If it is possible for me to take him alive and bind him, your own hand shall be the one to strike Sebert Oswaldsson his death-blow.”
The girl’s nervousness betrayed her into a burst of hysterical laughter, but her wits were quick enough to turn it to good account. She said with Fridtjof’s own petulance, “Your boon is like the one Canute has in store for me. I am likely to wait so long for both that I shall have no teeth left to chew them with. I like it much better to take your kindness in the shape of food, if that is a loaf yonder.”
The abruptness with which silence fell over the group was startling. Snorri bent forward and plucked her sternly back as she made a move toward the bread. A dozen voices questioned her.
“What do you mean by that?” ... “Why will it take long?” ... “Are they not short in food?”
Knowing that she could not achieve unconcern, she kept to her petulance, jerking her cloak away from the hand that detained it. “Should I be apt to blame him for starving me if he did it because no better cheer was to be had? Nor do I think you have proved much more liberal. Let me by to the bread.”
Instead, the ring narrowed around her; and the chief himself put peremptory questions in his heavy voice. “Has he food? What do you mean? Clear your wits and answer distinctly. Can you not understand that we think this food-question of great importance? The thrall told us they are wont to keep their provisions in the house we burned. Did he lie?”
“I do not know whether he lied or not,” Randalin answered slowly; “but it seems to me great foolishness that you did not take the time into consideration. At the end of the harvest, any English house would be fitted out for weeks of feasting. You came the night the larder was fullest; and they have only spent one meal a day since.”
Rothgar got upon his feet and towered over her, his Jotun-frame appearing to swell with irritation. “Do you not know how provoking your words are, that you are so glib of tongue?” he thundered. “Tell shortly what you think of their case; can they last one day more?”
The black head nodded emphatically.
“Can they last two days?”
Another nod.
“A week?”
Fridtjof the Bold took refuge in sullenness. “They can last two weeks as easily as one. How much longer are you going to keep me from food?” She was free after that to do anything she liked, for their excitement was so great that they forgot her existence. Those whose fluency was not hampered by their feelings, relieved their minds by cursing. Those whose anger could be vented only in action, made after the blundering serf. And the few who were boldest turned and bearded the son of Lodbrok himself.
“How much longer must we endure this?” ... “Think of the game we are missing!” ... “There is little need to remind me. My naked fists could batter the stones from their places--“... “In a week more, it is possible that England may be won!” ... “What do you care for their wretched land, chief?” ... “Chief, how much longer must we lie here?”
When that question was finally out, every man heaved a sigh of relief, straightening in his place like a dog that is pricking his ears, and there was a pause.
A fell look came into the Jotun’s face as he gazed back at them; and for a time it seemed that he would either answer with his fist or not at all. But at length he began to speak in a voice as keen and hard as his sword.
“You know my temper, and that I must have my will. Always I have thought it shame that my kinsman’s odal should lie in English hands, and now I have made up my mind to put an end to it. You know that I am in no way greedy for property. When I obtain the victory, you shall have every acre and every stick on it to burn or plunder or keep, as best pleases you. But I do not want to reproach myself longer with my neglect; and whether it take two weeks or whether it take twenty--” He interrupted himself to bend forward, shading his eyes with his hands. “If I am not much mistaken,” he said in quite another voice, “yonder is Brass Borgar at last! Yonder, near those oak-trees.”
In an instant they had all turned to scan the moon-lit open. And now that they were silent, the thud of hoofs became distinct. Shouting their welcome, some hurried to heap fresh fuel on the fire, and some ran after more ale-skins; while others rushed forward to meet the messenger and run beside his horse, riddling him with questions.
Folding his arms, the chief awaited him in grim silence. If glances could have burned, he would have writhed under the look that a pair of iris-blue eyes was dealing him over a bread crust. But it may be that his skin was particularly thick, for he betrayed no uneasiness whatever.
When the man finally stood before him, Rothgar said sternly, “It is time you were here! Ten days have gone over your head since I sent you out. You must do one of two things,--either tell great tidings or submit to sharp words.”
The Brass One laughed as he saluted. “I should have been liable to sharp steel had I come sooner, chief. Would you have taken it well if I had left without knowing how it went with the battle?”
“Battle!” three-score mouths cried as with one voice. “Who were victorious?”
The man laughed again. “Should I come to you with a noisy voice and my chin held high, if other than one thing had happened? Honor to the Thunderer, the Raven possessed the field!”
Such a clamor arose as though the wolf-pack had tasted blood. Three times, through the trumpet of his hands, Rothgar bawled a command for silence. “One horn you may have, then all this must be told before you eat,” he gave orders. And he strode restlessly to and fro until the time came when the horn stood on end above the man’s mouth and then was lowered reluctantly.
Drawing his hand across his lips, the Brass One cleared his throat. “At your pleasure, chief. Is it to your mind to begin with the battle? Or do you rather wish to hear of my journey thence? I admit that that part is somewhat likely to stick in my teeth and in your ears. From Otford to Shepey was little better than a retreat, and if--” “The battle! the battle!” a chorus of voices cried, and the chief confirmed the choice.
“The battle, by all means! The other will do for lesser dishes when the first edge is off our appetite. Where was it? And how long since? Yet, before any of these, how goes it with my royal foster-brother? And how do his traitors carry sail, Odin’s curse upon them! Speak! How fares he?”
“On the top of the wave, my chief,--though it is my belief that he has your mind toward Edric Jarl, for all that Thorkel is ever on hand to urge the value of his craft. And certainly it was exceedingly useful to them at Assington--” “Assington!” ... “In Essex?” the chorus broke in upon him. “It happened as Grimalf said--“... “--the horse with the bloody saddle which he found over the hill--“... “Do you know for certain if Edric--“... “Why will you interrupt him?” ... “Yes, end this talk!” ... “Go on, go on!”
“I also say go on, in the Troll’s name!” the Jotun roared. “Go on and tell us what Edric the Gainer did which they else could not have done.”
“I said not that he did what they could not, chief. He did what they would not, as the thrall who pulls off our boots muddies his hands that we may keep ours clean. And a strange wonder is the way in which the English king trusts him even after this treason has been committed! The Gainer fled, with all his men, at the moment when most King Edmund depended upon his support; and in this way left for Danish feet a hewn path where a forest of battle-trees had stood.”
Rothgar took no part in the stream of questions and comments that again drowned the voice of the messenger, until suddenly he launched an oath that out-thundered them all: “May Thor feel otherwise than I do, for I vow that were I in his place, I would raise Danish warriors in wool-chests! Is that the valor of the descendants of Odin, that they go not into battle until a foul-hearted traitor has swept the way clean of danger? Is the heart of the King become wax within him? Or is it that cold-blooded fox at his side that is draining the manhood out of him? I would give much if I had been there!” Casting himself down upon the bearskin, he lay there breathing hard and tearing the fur out in great handfuls.
Brass Borgar spoke with the utmost deprecation: “I say nothing against your feelings, chief; and there are not a few who think as you do; yet I ask you to remember one thing. I ask you to remember that no Dane has ever held back in battle because he had the Traitor’s help. Canute uses him to strengthen his back; never to shield his face. The Islanders’ own mouths have admitted that the odds are against ten Englishmen if they face one Dane. I think it is because he is out of patience with the war that the King makes of the Gainer a time-saver. It has been told me that he fights not for love of it, nor yet for glory, but because he covets the land of--” Like the bellow of an angry bull, Rothgar’s voice broke through his. “Land! Quickly will I proclaim my opinion of any man who sets his heart on that! He who forgets glory in his eagerness for property, deserves the curse of Thor!”
“Prepare yourself, then, for a thunderbolt, Rothgar Lodbroksson,” a clear voice spoke up suddenly.
None but had forgotten the red-cloaked figure munching its bread in the shadow behind them. One and all started in surprise. And the chief turned over his shoulder a face that was livid with anger. “You--you dare!” he roared.
But Randalin’s heart was too full of bitterness to leave any room for fear. At the moment, it seemed to her that it did not matter what happened. She stood before the Jotun as straight and unbending as a spear-shaft, and her eyes were reflections of his own. Her wonder was great when slowly, even while his eyes blazed, Rothgar’s mouth began to twitch at the corners. All at once he rolled over on his back with a shout of laughter.
“By Ragnar, there will not be many jests to equal this!” he gasped. “That a titmouse should ruffle its feathers and upbraid me! Here is merriment!” He lay there laughing after the others had joined in with him; and his face was not entirely sober the next time he turned it toward her. “Good Berserker, give me leave to live some while longer in order that I may explain my intentions.”
Yet when he had risen, a change came into his voice that brought every man to his feet. “We will make ready to go at cockcrow,” he said abruptly. “If it were only a matter of a couple of days, I would wait; but since it will be at least a week before we can expect them to give in, I think it unadvisable to waste more time. Since the King is in this temper, the next battle may well be the last; and much shame would come of it if we did not have our share. We will start when the cock crows. As soon as Canute gets the kingship over the English realm, Ivarsdale will fall to me anyway. Let the Angle enjoy himself until then.”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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16
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The Sword of Speech
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Speech-runes thou must know If thou wilt that no one For injury with hate requite thee. Sigdri’fuma’l. No holiday finery tricked out the Danish host where it squatted along the Severn Valley that dreary October day; neither festal tables nor dimpling women nor even the gay striped tents. Of all the multitude of flags but one banner pricked the murky air,--the Raven standard that marked the headquarters of the King; and its sodden folds distinguished nothing more regal than a shepherd’s wattled cote. Scattered clumps of trees offered the weary men their only protection against the drizzling rain; and the sole suggestions of comfort were the sickly fires that patient endeavor had managed to coax into life in these retreats. Some, whom exhaustion had robbed even of a fire-tender’s ambition, had dropped down on the very spot where they had slipped from their saddles, and slept, cloak-wrapped, in the wet. And the circles about the fires were not much noisier.
Rothgar’s face gathered gravity as he gained the crest of the last hill that lay between him and the straggling encampment.
“The rain appears to fall as coldly on their cheer as on their fires,” he commented. “They hug the earth like the ducks on Videy Island.”
“And look about as much like warriors who have got a victory,” the child of Frode added wonderingly.
The Jotun threw her a glance, where she rode at his side. “Hear words of fate! I think that is the first time you have spoken in three days.”
“You would think that great luck if you knew the kind of thoughts that have been in my mind,” she muttered. But the son of Lodbrok was already leading his men down the hillside toward the point where the silken banner mocked at the wattled walls.
Under the thatched roof of the hut, a still more striking contrast awaited the eyes of those who entered. With a milking-stool for his table and the shepherd’s rude bunk for a throne, the young King of the Danes was bending in scowling meditation over an open scroll. Against the mud-plastered walls, the crimson splendor of his cloak and the glitter of his gold embroideries gave him the look of a tropical bird in an osier cage; while the fiery beauty of his face shone like a star in the dusk of the windowless cell. Days in the saddle and nights in the council had pared away every superfluous curve from cheek and chin, until there was not one line left that did not tell of impatient energy; and every spark of his burning soul seemed centred in his brilliant eyes. At the sight of him, the girl’s heart started and shook like a harp-string under the touch of the master; and Rothgar, the stolid, the stern, who had come to upbraid, bowed reverently as he grasped the hand his leader stretched out.
“King, I would not have kept away had I guessed that my sword would be useful to you. It was my belief that you were entertaining yourself with getting property in Mercia, else would I have left all to come to you.”
Canute half pressed the huge paw and then half spurned it. “It was in my mind to give you a great scolding when I got you again. I thought you had drunk sea-water and blood out of a magic horn and forgotten me utterly. You must have gotten yourself fitted out for the rest of your life since at last you were willing to leave.”
“Lord,” Rothgar began, “I have come back to you as poor as I went--” But the King interrupted him, as at that moment, in the figure hesitating at the door, he recognized his missing ward. “Say not so, when you have brought back the bright blade we mourned as lost!” He put out his other hand with a gleam of pleasure in his changeful eyes. “Welcome to you, Fridtjof the Bold! I should like to believe that you are as glad to return to me as I am glad to receive you.”
As she stood there watching him, Randalin had been undergoing a strange transformation. For four months she had almost forgotten his existence, he had been little more than an empty name, while she gave every energy of mind and heart to the things about her. But now, behold! One sight of his life-full face, one moment in his dominating presence, and those months were swept into the land of dreams. His deeds alone appeared vital; he alone seemed real. She, the Etheling himself, were but as shadows depending upon his sun-like career. If he should choose to shine upon them, what dark evil could come nigh? It was in all sincerity that she bent her knee as she took his hand. “Lord,” she cried impulsively, “I have brought you back a loyal heart! I have been very close to the English King, and he is unworthy to hold your sword.”
Canute gave a sudden laugh; but it was a short one, and he turned away abruptly to begin a restless pacing to and fro. “You choose your words in a thoughtful way,” he said. “It is seen that you do not say how it would be if he were to hold his sword against mine.” Pausing before Rothgar, he jerked his head toward the scroll. “Do you know what that is? That is a challenge from the Ironside.”
“A challenge?” his listeners cried in chorus.
He seemed to take petulant offence at their surprise. “A challenge. Did you never hear the word before, that you stare like oxen? He invites me to settle this affair by single combat on the island, yonder; and there is the greatest sense in what he says. Every one who has a man’s wit is tired of the strife; and if we continue at it, there will not be much to win besides ashes and bones.”
Rothgar sat gazing at the wooden door as though he could see through it the huddled groups outside. “Now by no means do I think it strange that your host is not in high spirits,” he said.
With an impatient shrug the King moved on again. “It has happened, then, that the news has spread? I wonder whether they are troubling themselves most for fear that I shall undertake this fight and get killed, or for fear that I shall turn back from it and the war will be obliged to go on. And I should be glad if I knew what expectation was uppermost in the Gainer’s mind when he made the plan. For certainly one sees his claw behind the pen.”
“May wolves tear him!” Rothgar burst out. “Two kings he has used as oaten pipes, but never did I think that you would make the third.”
Canute’s foot jarred upon the earth; his face was suddenly aflame. “And never will I, while my head remains above ground! Now are you even more rash than you are wont! It is I who play on him, not he on me. Through him, as through a pipe, I have tempted Edmund on; and through him, as through a pipe, I have called Edmund off; and as with a broken pipe I shall part with him when I am done,--and think it no falseness either, since I know for certain that it is the fate he has in store for me, as soon as I cease to be gainful for him.” The worst of the young chief’s nature showed for an instant in the smile that widened his nostrils. Then it gave way to another flash of temper. “Nor am I a pipe for your plaything, either. What! Am I to be as a child between you and Thorkel, that each time I follow the advice of one of you, I am to get a tongue-lashing from the other? Have you not got it into your head that I am your King?”
Rothgar gave a short laugh. “I do not know if I have got it into my head or not,” he said; “but I am certain that my body is aware of your kingship.” He did not even move his eyes toward the stump of his wrist, but Canute turned from him suddenly, his lip caught in his teeth, and once more strode up and down the narrow space.
After the fourth round, he stopped and laid his hands affectionately upon his foster-brother’s shoulders. “Too long have we endured each other’s roughness, comrade, for you to think that unfriendliness is in my mind because I foam over in this way. I tell you, you would not wonder at it if you knew the state of my feelings. And I will not conceal it that I am glad you have come to share them--though I have not the intention to heed a word of your advice,” he added, half laughing, half threatening. Pushing the other down upon the rough bunk, he seated himself beside him, his elbows on his knees, his chin cupped in his palms.
“The host is full of impatience; and I am weary unto madness. Never do we come to any end, nor ever shall until that time when the wolf shall catch the sun! I have nowhere heard of a more foolish war than this. It was in my mind, as you came in, that I would send a favorable answer to the Englishman and get the matter decided, one way or another.”
Even Randalin uttered a cry; and Rothgar caught his King by the arm as though to snatch him out of bodily peril. “Only one way would be possible, Canute! Your waist is not so big as one of his arms. His sword would cleave you as if it cut water.”
Half laughing, but more resentful, the King freed himself. “Now do you hold my power so lightly? More than once have I gotten under your guard. If skill could accomplish anything, you would not have to wait long for what I should fix upon.” He broke off with a shrug and flung himself back upon the straw of the bunk. “Let us speak of something else,” he said. “What did the boy say about having seen Edmund?”
Somewhat ramblingly, as uncertain of his interest, Randalin told him of her glimpse of the Ironside; and he listened lying back on the straw, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. She had begun to think he had forgotten her, when all at once he shot out a swift question: “Did you never find out what the wool was that Edric Jarl pulled over his eyes?”
“Not unless one could guess it from what King Edmund said, lord,--that the Jarl had found them so much cleverer than he expected that his victory was without relish to him, and he was desirous to regain their friendship.”
A distinct chuckle came from Canute, and some murmur about the Ironside’s chin. Then he said, “Go on, and tell me everything you can remember;” and once more lay staring at the ceiling in silence. He did not appear to notice it when she stopped; the pause lasted so long that Rothgar concluded that sleep had overtaken their host and rose softly to betake himself to such cheer as the fires offered. As he made the first step, however, Canute sat up suddenly, striking his fist upon the bunk.
“I will do it!” he said. While they stared, he rose and recommenced his hurried pacing, his eyes keen and far away, his mouth set in grim resolve.
“Do what, King?” the son of Lodbrok ventured at last.
Canute’s eyes appeared to rest upon the pair without seeing them. “Accept the challenge,” he answered absently. Then the utter horror in both faces brought him momentarily back. “You need not look like that. I would not do it if I did not see a good chance to win. There are other weapons than those which dwell in sheaths.”
“But if you lose?” Rothgar’s harsh voice was discordant with emotion. “If you lose?”
The King silenced him impatiently. “I do not think I shall lose; but if it be otherwise, then Fate will rule it. I prefer to risk everything rather than to experience more delay.” Catching the bewildered page by the collar, he pushed him toward the door. “Run, boy, with all the speed of your legs, and find Ingimund the Swimmer and fetch him here. And you, foster-brother, if my fame is important to you, do you betake yourself to those dumpish oafs around the fires and try, by any means whatever, to remedy their faint-heartedness. Ask them if they want the host across the river to think them turned into a herd of weeping bondwomen. Ask them if they think thus to show honor to their King. Tell them that I take it as no proof of their love; that I will have none of that halting faith which limps up with a great cry after the show is over. Tell them--Oh, tell them anything you think worth while--only that you get some noise out of them! Evil will come of it if the Englishman is allowed to believe that he has beaten us before ever he has struck a blow.”
Rothgar sighed as he moved forward. “I am very unfit to speak words of cheerfulness to anybody; but this shall, like other things, be as you wish.”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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17
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The Judgment of The Iron Voice
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His power should Every sagacious man Use with discretion, For he will find, When among the bold he comes, That no one alone is doughtiest. Ha’vama’l. Fold by fold, the sun’s golden fingers drew apart the mists that hid the valley. One by one, the red Severn cliffs were uncovered, and the wooded steeps on which the rival hosts were encamped. Brighter and brighter the river’s silver gleamed through its veilings. Finally the moment came when the last mist-wreath floated up like a curtain, and there lay open the shining water, and the rocky islet it seethed about, and the vision of two boats setting forth from the two shores amid the noise of shouting thousands. It was the hour of the royal duel, when the fate-thread of a nation, beaded with human destinies, lay between the fingers of two men. What a scattering of the beads if the cord should be cut!
Under the elms of the east bank, the daughter of Frode stood and watched the boats set out; and the hands that hung at her side opened and shut as though they were gasping for breath. For a moment she tortured herself with the thought that she knew not which side to pray for, since the victory of either would mean her beloved’s undoing; then she forgot Sebert’s future in her own present. Turning, she found herself facing a wall of stalwart bodies, a sea of coarse faces, and discovered, with a sudden tightening of her muscles, that all the eyes which were not following the boat were centred curiously upon herself.
Before she could take a step, the nearest warrior thrust out a hand and caught her by her black locks. “Stop a little, my Bold One,” he said gruffly. “Now that you have a moment to spare from the high-born folk, it is the wish of us churls to hear some of your news.”
A score of heavy voices seconded the demand, and the wall gradually curved into a circle around her. They were good-natured enough,--even the grasp on her hair was roughly playful,--but her heart seemed to stop in her as a swimmer’s might the first instant he lost sight of land and beheld only towering billows looming around him. She darted one swift glance at her knife, and another at an old willow-tree that overhung the bank, some thirty yards away. But even as she thought it, the hand left her hair and closed about her wrist.
“No cause for knife-play or leg-play either, my hawk,” the gruff voice rebuked her. “To no one are we more anxious to show friendship than to Canute’s ward; and you act like no true man if you cannot, when occasion requires, leave off your high-born ways and be a plain comrade among plain men.”
Again a murmur approved his words: “That is well spoken. Frode of Avalcomb would be the first to thank us for teaching it to you.” ... “He carried no such haughty head, young boy. I fought more than one battle at his heels.” ... “Come on, now!” ... “Make haste! We want to get into place before they come to land.”
This time it was not a shadow but a sparkle of sunshine that mocked in Randalin’s ear: “You have not dared to be a woman, so you must dare to be a man.” She acknowledged the pitiless truth with a sigh of submission.
“Take your hands off me, and it shall be as you wish.” The big Swede released her wrist to catch her around the waist and toss her like a bone upon the platter of his shield, which four of them promptly raised between them and bore along, laughing uproariously at her sprawling efforts for dignity. When they came to a spot along the bank which was open enough to give them an unobstructed view of the island, they permitted her to scramble down and seat herself upon the grass, where they ringed themselves around her, twenty deep.
“Now for it! While they are waiting for Edmund to land; before there is anything to watch,” the Scar-Cheek commanded. “Tell what you told Canute with regard to the English King which made him so reckless as to agree to this bargain.”
There was nothing for it but obedience. A flower in a thicket of thistles, a lamb in the midst of wolves, she sat and watched the tipping of the scales that had her fortune among their weights.
A shout from the surging mass of English opposite told when the Ironside had landed; and as soon as it was seen whom he had chosen to accompany him as his witness, a buzz of excitement passed along the Danish line.
“Edric! by all the gods, Edric Jarl!”
“Now, for the first time, I believe that victory will follow Canute’s sword!” Brass Borgar ejaculated. “Since nothing less than the madness betokening death could cause Edmund to continue his trust in the Gainer, it is seen from this that he is a death-fated man.”
From the others there came a volley of epithets, so foul a flight that the girl’s knuckles whitened in her struggles to keep her hands down from her ears. A picture rose in her mind of Sebert’s dream-lady, passing her waiting-time among soft-voiced maids, and her heart turned sick within her.
It was little time that the pack gave her for revery, however; now it was Edric Jarl of whom they wanted to hear.
“While they are talking about the terms, there is nothing to look at; tell us how the Gainer pulled the net around King Edmund,” the rough voices demanded. And again she was obliged to bend her wits to their task.
But it came at last, the end that was the beginning. Suddenly a hand reached around her neck and shut over her mouth. “Stop! They are taking their places. Look!”
He need not have added that last word; from that moment for many thousands of eyes there was but one object in the world,--the strip of rock-ribbed earth and the two figures that faced each other upon it.
As they fixed their gaze on their champion, the English yelled exultantly, and the Danes bravely rivalled them in noise; but it was more a cry of rage and grief than a cheer. Now that the royal duellists stood forth together, stripped of cloak and steel shirt, and wearing no other helm than the golden circlet of their rank, their inequality was even more glaring than alarmed fancy had painted it. The crown of Canute’s shining locks reached only to the chin of the mighty Ironside; and the width of nearly two palms was needed on his shoulders.
Borgar turned, with tears in his bleared eyes, and threw himself face-downward on the earth; and the fellow next to him, with the mien of a madman, thrust his mantle between his teeth and bit and tore at it like a dog. “It is murder,” he snarled, “murder.”
Of all the Northmen, the young King alone appeared serenely undisturbed. When he had saluted the Ironside with royal courtesy, he met his sword as though he were beginning a practising bout with his foster-brother. Smoothly, evenly, without haste or fury, the blades began to sing their wordless song to the listening banks.
After a time Borgar dared to raise his face from the grass. “Is he yet alive?” he whispered.
The men did not seem to hear him. Humped over the earth, with starting eyes and necks stretched to their uttermost, they were like so many boulders. Nor did Frode’s daughter seem to feel that the hand the Brass One had raised himself upon was crushing her foot; she did not even glance toward him as she answered: “Simpleton! Do you think the King does not know how to handle his weapon? If only his strength--” Her sentence was not finished, and the man next to her drew in his breath with a great whistling rush. Canute’s weapon, playing with the lightness of a sun-beam, had evaded a stroke of the great flail and touched for an instant the shoulder of its wielder. Had he put a pound more force into the thrust--A groan crept down the Danish line when the bright blade rose, as lightly as it had fallen, and continued its butterfly dance. It consoled them a little, however, that no cheer went up from the English,--only a low buzz that was half of anger, half of astonishment.
Farther along the eastern bank, where Thorkel the Tall stood beside Ulf Jarl and Eric of Norway, there was not even a groan. The first rift came in the puzzled clouds of Eric’s face. “Here is the first happening that makes me hope!” he said. “If he has something more than his fencing accomplishment to support him, it may be that an unfavorable outcome need not be expected.”
The Tall One’s brows relaxed ever so little from their snarl of worry. “The boy has experienced good training, for all that he has at present the appearance of a great fool. If Rothgar’s warrior skill is in his arm, yet my caution should be in his head.”
Certainly there was no Berserk madness about the young Danishman; there was hardly even seriousness. Now his blade was a fleeing will-o’-the-wisp, keeping just out of reach of Edmund’s brand with apparently no thought but of flight. Now, when the Ironside’s increasing vehemence betrayed him into an instant’s rashness, it was a humming-bird darting into a flower-cup. But it always rose again as daintily as it had alighted.
The Danish bank was frantic with excitement. “It is the dance of the Northern Lights!” they cried. “Thor has sent him his own sword!”
The lines of English were wild with anger. “Crush him, the hornet, the wasp! Crush him, Edmund!” they roared.
In his exultation, the Scar-Cheek rolled himself over and over on the grass, and wound up by thrusting his shaggy head into the lap of the red-cloaked page. “I must do something for joy,” he panted; “and--except for your hair--you look near enough like a handsome woman. Do you bend down and kiss me every time Canute pricks him.”
His head fell to the ground with a thump as the child of Frode leaped to her feet.
“If you lay finger on me again,” she whispered, “I will caress you with this!” and for an instant a knife-blade glittered before the bulging eyes. Snorri rolled back with alacrity and an oath; and after a moment Frode’s daughter dropped down again and hid her face in her hands. If the King should be slain and she be left adrift in this foul sea! She might as well have screamed as moaned, for all that they would have noticed.
About this time Canute’s blade appeared to have become in earnest. Ceasing its airy defence, it took on the aggressive. Instead of a flitting sunbeam, it became a shaft from a burning glass; instead of one merry humming-bird, it became a whole swarm of skimming, swooping, darting swallows, waging war on a bewildered owl. Before the sudden fury of the onslaught, Edmund gave back a pace. And either because his anger made him reckless or his great bulk was against him, he presently was forced to draw back another step. Wildest cheers went up from the North-men. It seemed as though they would wade in a body across the river.
Only Eric of Norway stamped with uneasiness; and the overhanging brows of Thorkel the Tall were as lowering hoods above his eyes. “Well has he hoarded his strength,” he muttered. “Well has he saved it, yet--yet--” At that moment such a roar went up from Northern throats as might well have startled the wolf’s shadow off the face of the sun; for Edmund Ironside had retreated a third step, and the Dane’s point appeared to lie at the Englishman’s heart. Then the uproar died somewhere in mid-air, for in what seemed the very act of thrusting, Canute had leaped backward and lowered his blade. So deep was the hush on either side the river that the whir of a bird’s wing sounded as loud as a flight of arrows. Bending forward, with strained ears and starting eyes, the spectators saw that the Northern King was speaking, eagerly, with now and then an impulsive gesture, while the English King listened motionless.
“Has he got out of his wits?” the Scar-Cheek roared, fairly dancing with impatience.
In Randalin’s face a flash of memory was struggling with bewilderment. “Other weapons than those which dwell in sheaths.” Had he meant “the sword of speech,” his tongue?
With the deliberate grace which characterized his every motion, the Ironside slid his sword back to its case, and they saw him take a slow step forward and slowly extend his hand. Then they saw Canute spring to meet him, and their palms touch in a long grasp.
From the English shore there went up a joyful shout of “Peace!” And a deafening clamor rose in answer from the Danish bank. But what sentiment predominated in that, it would be difficult to say. Blended with rejoicing over their King’s safety, were cries of bitter disappointment, the cries of thirsty men who have seen wine dashed from their lips.
In their retreat, the two Northern jarls and the young monarch’s foster-father faced each other uncertainly. “Here is mystery!” Eric of Norway said at last. “I should be thankful if you would tell me whether he thought it unwise to kill the Englishman before the face of his army; or whether he is in truth struck with love toward him, as the fools seem to believe?”
“Or whether he had reached the exact limit of his strength so that he was obliged to save himself by some trick of words?” Ulf Jarl suggested.
The Tall One shook his head slowly. “Now, as always, it is he alone who can altogether explain his actions. It might easily be that in his mad impatience he overvalued his strength, so that he was obliged to stop short to keep within bounds. But I think you will find that there is still some trick which is not open to our sight. His man-wit is deepening very fast; I will not be so bold as to say that I can always fathom it.”
“Perhaps he thinks a short peace would be useful to the host,” the Norwegian said, and laughed. “Such a truce is as comfortable as a cloak when the weather is stark, and as easy to get rid of when the sun comes out.”
By their faces, the others appeared to agree with him; but before they could express themselves, a swimmer rose like a dripping seal out of the water at their feet.
“Peace and division again!” he cried breathlessly. “And it is the King’s will that you get into a boat and come to him at once.”
The rush of the crowd to the water-side to question the messenger gave Randalin her chance for freedom; and she was not slow in taking it. A moment more, and she was in the very top of the willow-tree, clasping her hands and wringing them in alternate thanksgiving and terror.
“Whatever it bring upon me, I will get back to my woman’s clothes,” she vowed to herself over and over. “Though it become a hindrance to me, though it be the cause of my death, I will be a woman always. Odin forgive me that I thought I had courage enough to be a man!”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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18
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What The Red Cloak Hid
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At eve, the day is to be praised; A woman, after she is dead. Ha’vama’l.
In the vault overhead blue had deepened into purple, and all the silver star-lamps been hung out, their flames trembling unceasingly in the playing winds. By the soft light, the Jotun, who was striding across the camp, saw a graceful boyish form leave the circle around the King’s fire and join a group of mounted men waiting on the river bank, some fifty yards away.
“Ho there, Fridtjof!” he roared wrathfully.
The figure turned, and he had a fleeting glimpse of a hand waved in mocking farewell. Then the boy sprang into the saddle of a horse that one of the warriors was holding, and the whole band moved forward at a swinging pace.
“If you had waited a little, you would be less light on your feet,” the Jotun growled as he strode on, striking his heels savagely upon the frosty ground.
“Where is the King?” he demanded, as soon as he had reached the ring of nobles sipping mead around the royal fire. Between swallows, they were carrying on a heated discussion of the day’s events; but Eric of Norway stopped long enough to nod toward the wattled hut beneath the silken banner.
“In there; and I will give you this chain off my neck if you can guess what he is doing.”
“It is likely that he is busy with messengers,” Rothgar said with an accent of vexation. “I had hoped to reach him before he finished drinking, but there was a brawl among my men which--” “He is playing chess,” Eric said dryly.
“Chess!”
The Norwegian nodded as he swallowed. “Heard you ever anything to equal that? He has the appearance of a boy who has been released from a lesson. I wish that you had been here to see him at meal-time. So full of jests and banter was he that I could scarcely eat for laughing. Yet when I took courage from his good-nature to ask him concerning his plans for the future, he pretended that he did not hear me, and put an end to questioning by bidding Ulf come and play chess with him in the hut. Whether he is mad, or bewitched, or feigning like Amleth, it is not easy to tell.”
“I do not think it is any of these,” Rothgar said slowly. “I think it is because he likes it so well that he has got peace in which to amuse himself. Sooner would he hunt than fight, any day; and I have often seen him express pleasure in this manner. I remember how his wife Elfgiva once said of him that it was well his crown was no more than a ring of gold, for then, when his mood changed, he could use it for such a gold hoop as kings’ children are wont to play with.”
“Said Elfgiva of Northampton that?” Eric asked in surprise. “Never would I have believed her so wise in words. That she is the most beautiful of women, all the world knows; but I have always supposed that her wit stopped with her temper, which is suspected to be shorter than her hair.”
Rothgar grunted scornfully. “It is easy for a fool to speak some wisdom if she keeps her tongue moving all the time.”
Laughing, the Norwegian plunged again into the general discussion; and the son of Lodbrok stood listening discontentedly, while he kept a sharp watch of the low-browed entrance.
Presently his patience was rewarded. Within the hut there arose all at once a duet of voices, half angrily accusing, half laughingly protesting. Then the chess-board came flying through the doorway, followed by a handful of chessmen and the person of the big good-natured Jarl, still uttering his laughing protests. And finally Canute himself stood under the lintel, storming through his laughter.
“Blockhead, that you cannot keep your thoughts on what you are doing! One might expect as good a game from the tumbler’s dog. Is it the drink that you have got into your head, or the war matters that you cannot get out? You deserve--” “To lose the honor of playing with the King,” the Jotun broke in, making a long step forward. “Be so good as to allow me to take his place, lord. I have some words for your ear which are worth a hearing.”
“Rothgar!” the King exclaimed with great cordiality, and stepped from the doorway to meet him. “Willingly do I make the change, for I have been wishing to speak with you this last hour. I have thought of a fine plan for to-morrow’s sport.” Laying his arm boy-fashion across his foster-brother’s shoulders, he swung him around toward the river. “But we will not go in there to do our talking. We will walk along the shore. To-night I feel as though I could walk to the rainbow-bridge.” He shook back his headful of long hair and drew a deep breath, like a man from whom a burden has been lifted.
As they strolled beside the moonlit water, the son of Lodbrok listened in secret amazement to the string of plans that unfolded itself,--hunts and horse-races, swimming matches and fishing trips.
“But where will you get the fishing tackle, lord? And the hawks and the hounds for all this?” he ventured presently. They were some little distance up the bank now, where trees screened them from the camp-fires. Suddenly the young King made a leaping grab at a bough overhead and hung by it, looking down at his companion with the face of a mischievous boy.
“How joyfully you will take my answer! I have sent to Northampton for them. And I have bidden Elfgiva accompany them, with all her following of maids and lap-dogs and beardless boys. Before the end of the week, I expect that the Abbey guest-house will have the appearance of a woman’s bower; and the monks will have taken to the woods.”
As his foster-brother stood gazing at him in speechless dismay, he laughed maliciously. “Where are your manners, partner, that you do not praise my foresight? Here am I eager to go to her to celebrate my victory; and yet because I think it unadvisable for me to leave the camp, I remain like a rock at my post. Where is your praise?”
“King,” Rothgar said gravely, “is the truce going to last long enough to make it worth while to fetch those trinkets here?”
His laughter vanishing, the King came to earth in both senses of the phrase. “Now I do not know what you mean by that,” he said. “You were with me on the island. You heard what was said. You heard that we made peace together to last the whole of our lives, in truth, longer; since he who outlives is to inherit peacefully after him who dies. Did you not hear that?”
Rothgar kicked a stone out of his way with impatient emphasis. “Oh, yes, I heard it. I heard also how you said that you would rather have the Englishman’s friendship than his kingdom.”
The eyebrows Canute had drawn down into a frown rose ironically. “There is room in your breast for more sense, Rothgar, my brother, if you think, because I am forced into one lie, that I never speak the truth,” he said. “We will not talk of it further. I should like to remain good-humored to-night, if it were possible. What are the words you have waiting for my ears?”
The Jotun’s sudden frown quite eclipsed his eyes. “It is not likely that I shall remain good-humored if I put my tongue to them. Oh! Now it becomes clear in my mind what you have sent your black-haired falcon down the wind after,--to carry your order to Northampton?” “Certainly it is,” Canute assented. “When the boy found that I had need of a messenger, he begged it of me as a boon that he might be the one to carry the good news to my lady. I thought it a well-mannered way to show his thankfulness. But why is your voice so bitter when you speak of him?”
“Because I have just found out that he is a fox,” Rothgar bellowed. “Because it has been borne in upon me that he has played me a foul trick, by which I lost property that was already under my hands; lost it forever, Troll take him! if it be really true that we are to make no more warfare upon the lands south of the Watling Street.”
“It is not possible!” Canute ejaculated. “He looks to be as truthful as Balder.”
Rothgar uttered his favorite grunt. “Never did I hear that Loke had crooked eyes or a tusk, and black hair grows on both of them. I tell you, I know it for certain. I have just been to find the English serf who became my man after Brentford; and he has told me what he says he tried to tell the night before we left Ivarsdale, but no one would listen to him without pounding him,--that the servant-maid, who informed him concerning the provision house, spoke also of a Danish page her lord had, whom he treated with such great love that it was commonly said he was bewitched. And before that, when the brat was telling you how the Englishman had saved him from Norman’s sword, it occurred to me that he talked more as a woman talks of her lover than as a man speaks of his foe. I had my mouth open to tax him with it, when you threw this duel at me like a rock and knocked everything else out of my head.”
“May the gallows take my body!” the King breathed. And he sat down upon a grassy hummock as suddenly as though a rock had been thrown at him that knocked the legs from under him. Nor did he get up immediately, but remained gazing at the string of bright beads which English camp-fires made along the opposite bluff, his face intent with pondering.
Meanwhile the son of Lodbrok strode to and fro, declaiming wrathfully. “There is not an honest bone in the imp’s body,” he wound up. “It is certainly my belief that he was in league with the Englishman; and his freedom was the reward he got for drawing me off.”
“Certainly you are a very shrewd man,” Canute murmured. But something in his voice did not stand firm; his foster-brother darted him a keen glance. His suspicions were well founded. Canute’s face was crimson with suppressed laughter; he was biting his lips frantically to hold back his mirth. The temper of the son of Lodbrok left him in one inarticulate snarl. Turning on his heel, with a whirlwind of flying cloak and a thunder of clashing weapons, he would have stalked away if the King had not made him the most peremptory of gestures.
“No, wait! Wait, good brother! I will show you whether I offend you intentionally or not! It is--it is--the--the jest--” Again he became unintelligible.
Rothgar stopped, but it was to glower over his folded arms. “Do you think I do not know as well as you that I behaved like a fool? What I dislike is that you cannot see as plainly that your ward is a troll. Because his womanish face has caught your fancy, you will neither blame him yourself nor allow others to make a fuss--” “That is where you are wrong,” the King interrupted, with as much gravity as he could command. “When Fridtjof Frodesson comes again into your presence, I give you leave to take whatever revenge you like. Lash him with your tongue or your belt, as you will; and I promise that I will not lift finger to hinder you from it.”
“And not hold it against me?” Rothgar demanded incredulously.
“And not hold it against you,” Canute agreed. Then he tilted his head back to laugh openly in the other’s face. “Will you wager a finger-ring against my knife that your mind will not change when my ward stands again before you?”
The Jotun smiled grimly. “Is that the expectation you are stringing your bow with? It will fail you as surely as the hair of Hother’s wife failed him. The wager shall be as you have made it; and may I lack strength if I do not deal with him--” He paused, blinking like a startled owl, as his royal foster-brother leaped to his feet and fronted him with shouts of laughter.
“You dolt, you!” Canute cried. “Do you not see it yet? Frode’s child is a woman!”
Rothgar’s jaw dropped and his bulging eyes seemed in danger of following. “What!” he gasped; and then his voice rose to a roar. “And the Englishman is her lover?”
“You are wiser than I expected,” the King laughed. “I intend to call you Thrym after this, for it is unlikely that Loke made a greater fool of the Giant. Your enemies will make derisive songs about it.”
Stamping with rage, the Jotun hammered his huge fist upon a tree-trunk until bark flew in every direction. “King, I will give you every ring off my hand if you will give me leave to strangle her!”
“You remind me that I will take one of your rings now,” Canute said, reaching out and opening the mallet-like fist that he might make his choice. Then, as he fitted on his prize and held it critically to the light, he added with more sympathy: “I will arrange for you a more profitable revenge than that. I will make a condition with Edmund that the Etheling’s odal shall not be included in the land which is peace-holy, and that to ravage it shall not be looked upon as breaking the truce. Then can you betake yourself thither and sit down with your following, and have no one but yourself to blame if you fail a second time. Only,”--he thrust his knuckles suddenly between the other’s ribs,--“only, before we get serious over it, do at least give one laugh. Though she be Ran herself, the maiden has played an excellent joke upon you.”
“I do not see how you make out that it is all upon me,” Rothgar said sulkily. “It did not appear that you got suspicious in any way, until I told you myself what she talked like. You did not have the appearance of choking much on her stories.”
The King seemed all at once to recover his dignity. “I will not deny that,” he said gravely; “and have I not said that I expect to be angry about it presently? Certainly I do not think she has treated me with much respect. That she did not tell you, is by no means to be wondered at; it might even count as something in her favor. But me she should have given her confidence. That she should dare to offer her King that lying story about her sister’s death--” His face flushed as though he were remembering his emotion on receiving that same story; and his foster-brother’s observation did not tend to mollify him.
“And not only to offer it,” the son of Lodbrok chuckled, “but to cram it down his throat and make him swallow it.”
Canute’s heels also began to ring with ominous sharpness upon the frosty ground. “She must be Ran herself! Oh, you need not be afraid that I shall not get overbearing enough after I am started! Had she been no more than her father’s daughter, her behavior would have been sufficiently bad; but that she whom I had made my ward should withhold her confidence from me to give it to an Englishman! Become his thrallwoman, by Odin, and betray my people for his sake! Now, as I am a king, I will punish her in a way that she will like less than strangling! I tell you, her luck is great that she is not here to-night.”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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19
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The Gift of The Elves
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Fair shall speak And money offer, Who would obtain a woman’s love. Ha’vama’l.
It was the edge of a forest pool, and a slender dark-haired girl bending from the brink to see herself in the water. Looking, she smiled,--and small wonder!
Below her, framed in green rushes, was the reflection of a high-born maiden dressed according to her rank. Clinging silk and jewelled girdle lent new grace to her lithesome form, while the mossy green of her velvet mantle brought out the rich coloring of her face as leaves bring out the glowing splendor of a rose. Gold was in the embroidery that stiffened her trailing skirts; gold was sewn into her gloves, and golden chains twined in her lustrous hair added to the spirited poise of her head a touch of stateliness. No wonder that her mouth curved into a smile as she gazed.
“It cannot be denied that I look woman-like now,” she murmured. “It is a great boon for me that he likes my hair.”
Then the water lost both the reflection and the face above it as a sweet voice sounded up the bank, calling, “Randalin! Randalin!”
Picking up the branchful of scarlet berries which she had dropped, Frode’s daughter moved toward the voice. “Are they about to go, Dearwyn?” she asked the little gentlewoman who came toward her around a hawthorn bush, lifting her silken skirts daintily.
Dearwyn shook her head. “My lady wishes to try on you the wreath she has made. She thinks your dark locks will set it off better than our light ones.”
“I was on my way thither,” Randalin said, quickening her steps.
With timid friendliness in her pretty face, Dearwyn waited, and the Danish girl gave her a shy smile when at last they stood side by side; but their acquaintanceship did not appear to have reached the point of conversation, for they walked back in silence to the spot where the Lady Elfgiva’s train had halted on its journey for a noonday meal and rest.
Along the bank of a pebbly stream, between pickets of mounted guards, the troop of holiday-folk was strung in scattered groups. Yonder, a body of the King’s huntsmen struggled with braces of leashed hounds. Here were gathered together the falconers bearing the King’s birds. Nearer, a band of grooms led the King’s blooded horses to the water. And nearer yet, where the sun lay warm on a leafy glade, the King’s beautiful “Danish wife” took her nooning amid her following of maids and of pages, of ribboned wenches and baggage-laden slaves.
As her glance fell upon this last picture, Randalin drew a quick breath of admiration. While they waited for the bondwomen to restore to the hampers the crystal goblets and gold-fringed napkins that even in the wood wastes must minister to such delicate lips, one merry little lady was launching fleets of beech-nut rinds down the stream; another, armed with a rush-spear, was making bold attack on the slumbers of some woodland creature which she had spied out basking on the sunny side of a stump; and in the centre of the open, the Lady Elfgiva was amusing herself with the treasures of red and gold leaves which silk-clad pages were bringing from the thicket.
Gazing at her, Randalin’s admiration mounted to wistfulness. “Were I like that, I should be sure of his feeling toward me,” she sighed.
Certainly, as she looked to-day sitting under the towering trees, it was easy to understand why the King’s wife had been named “the gift of the elves.” Every lovely thing in Nature had been robbed to make her, and only fairy fingers could have woven the sun’s gold into such tresses, or made such eyes from a scrap of June sky and a spark of opal fire. From the crown of her jewelled hair to the toe of her little red shoe, there was not one line misplaced, one curve forgotten, while her motions were as graceful as blowing willows.
When the pair came toward her over the carpet of leather-hued leaves, she put out a white hand in beckoning. “Come here, my Valkyria, and let me try if I can make you look still more like a gay bird from over the East Sea.”
“You have made me look a very splendid bird, lady,” Randalin said gratefully, as she knelt to receive the woodland crown.
Elfgiva patted the brown cheeks in acknowledgment, and also in delight at the effect of her handiwork. “You are an honor to my art. Do you know that the night before you came to me I dreamed I held a burning candle in my hand, and that is known by everybody to be a sign of good. A hundred plans are in my mind against the time that this peace shall be over, and we are obliged to return to that loathful house where we suffer so much with dulness that the quarrels of my little brats are the only excitement we have.”
Still kneeling for the white fingers to pat and pull at her head-dress, Randalin looked up wonderingly. “Is it your belief that King Canute will not carry out his intention, lady, that you say ‘when the peace is over’? I know for certain that it is expected to last forever.”
“Forever?” The lady’s voice was an echo of sweet mockery. “Take half a kingdom when a whole lies almost within his reach? Now I will not deny that the King is sometimes boyish of mood, but rarely that foolish.” She seemed to toss the idea from her with the leaves she shook from her robe as she rose and moved back a step to see the wreath from a new point. “Turn your head this way, child. Yes, there is still one thing wanting on this side; berries if I have them, or grasses if I have not,--here are more berries! Oh, yes, I declare that I expect to be very merry through your spirits! You shall have the rule over my pages and devise games and junketings without end.”
Humming gayly, she began to weave in the bright berries; and it struck Randalin that here was a good opportunity to make the plea she had in her mind. She said gravely, “I shall be thankful if you are able to manage it, lady, so that I may go back with you.”
Pausing in her work, Elfgiva looked down in surprise. “Now what should prevent?” she asked.
The girl colored a little as she answered: “It was in the King’s mind once, lady, that a good way to dispose of Randalin, Frode’s daughter, would be to marry her to the son of Lodbrok. If he should still keep that opinion--I would prefer to die!” she ended abruptly.
But the King’s wife laughed her rippling laughter that had in it all the music of falling waters. “Shed no tears over that, ladybird! Would I be apt to let such an odious bear as Rothgar Lodbroksson rob me of my newest plaything? Whence to my dulness a pastime but for your help? Though he were the King’s blood-brother, he should tell for naught. You do not guess half the entertainment your wild ways will be to me. I expect it will be more pleasant for me to have you than that Norman ape which Canute sent me at the beginning of the summer,--which is dead now, unfortunately, because Harald would insist upon shooting his arrows into it. There! Now my work could not be improved upon.” Again she moved back, her beautiful head tilted in birdlike examination. Randalin arose slowly and stood before her with widening eyes.
But it was not long that the Lady of Northampton had for her or for the wreath. Now her attention was attracted to the farthest group of guards and huntsmen, whose motions and shouting seemed to indicate some unusual commotion. Bending, she peered curiously under the branches. “I wonder if it has happened that the King has sent someone to meet us?” she exclaimed. “I see a gleam of scarlet, lady,” the maiden of the riverbank came to tell her eagerly.
But even as Elfgiva was turning to despatch a page for news, the throng of moving figures parted, and from it two horsemen emerged and rode toward them. One was the mighty son of Lodbrok, clad in the scarlet mantle and gilded mail of the King’s guard. The other, who wore no armor at all, only feasting-clothes of purple velvet, was the King himself.
The whole troop of butterfly pages rushed forward to take possession of the horses; the little gentlewomen made a fluttering group behind their mistress; and Elfgiva, laughing in sweetest mockery, swept back her rosy robes in a lowly reverence.
“Hail, lord of half a kingdom but of the whole of my heart!” she greeted him.
Canute seemed to drink in her fairness like wine; his face was boyish in its radiance as he leaped from his horse before her. “What! The first word a gibe?” he cried, then caught her in his arms and stilled her silvery laughter with his lips.
It was so charming a picture that Randalin smiled in sympathy, where she stood a little way behind the young wife, awaiting the moment when the King should have leisure to discover her. Not the faintest doubt of his friendliness was in her mind. She was still smiling, when at last he raised his head and looked at her over Elfgiva’s shoulder.
Then alas, the smile died, murdered, on her lips. Turning, Canute beckoned to the son of Lodbrok, who was enduring the scene with the same stolid resignation which he displayed toward his chief’s other follies. “Foster-brother, how comes it that you do not follow my example and embrace the bride that I have given you?”
As ice breaks and reveals sullen waters underneath, so stolidity broke in Rothgar’s face. With a harsh laugh, he strode forward.
Perhaps it was to follow the King’s suggestion, perhaps it was only to vent his reproaches; but Randalin did not wait to see. Before she knew how she got there, she was at Elfgiva’s side, clutching at her mantle.
“Lady! You promised me--” she cried.
And for all her chiming laughter, Elfgiva’s silken arm was stretched out like a bar. “No further, good Giant!” she said gayly. “The King gave what was not his, for this toy has become mine.” She turned to Canute with a little play of smiling pouts, very bewitching on such lips. “Fie, my lord! Be pleased to call your wolves off my lambs.”
Plainly, Canute’s frown was unable to withstand such witcheries. Despite himself he laughed, and his voice was more persuasive than commanding. “Now he will not rob you of the girl, my Shining One. Once he has wedded her, you may keep her until you tire. It was only because--” But there he stopped, for all at once a mist had come over the heavenly eyes, and the smiling lips had drawn themselves into a trembling bunch. The sweet voice too was subtly tremulous.
“It is because you are to a greater degree anxious to please him than me, though it is a whole year that I have pined away, day and night, in the utmost loneliness. Wel-a-way! What! Why have you troubled to send for me, if you hold my happiness so lightly that you will not comply with me in so small a matter?” Bridling softly, she was turning away, when the young King threw up his hands in good-humored surrender.
“To this I will quickly reply that my shield does not secure me against tears! If it is not to your wish we will not speak of it. Give back, foster-brother, and choose two of the others to be your drinking-companions. Look up, my fair one, and admit that I am the most obedient of your thralls. Never, on former days or since, have I so much as kicked one of your little yelping dogs, though I hate them as Stark Otter hated bells.”
Sunshine through the mist, Elfgiva laughed. “Nay, but you have them drowned when I am not looking,” she retorted.
He did not take the trouble to deny it; indeed he laughed as though the accusation was especially apt. “Have I ever wounded you more deeply than a trinket would cure?” he demanded.
And behold, she had already forgotten the matter, to catch at the huge arm-ring which was slipping up and down his sleeve, so loose a fit was it. “What Grendel’s neck did you take it from! If it had but an opening, I could use it for a belt.”
Smiling, the King looked down on his monster bracelet. “That,” he said, “does not altogether do me credit, for it shows the difference in girth between me and Edmund Ironside. When we set the peace between us, we exchanged ornaments and weapons. Think if we had followed the custom in every respect and exchanged garments likewise!”
Elf-fires were in Elfgiva’s blue eyes when she raised them to his. “Rule your words so that no one else hears you say that, bright Lord of the Danes,” she murmured, “lest they think you mean by it that the English crown would fit you as loosely, and forget that you are a boy who will grow.” The King’s mouth sobered.
“Nay, a man, who has got his growth.”
Her little hand spurned the ring that the instant before it had caressed. “Not a man, but a King!” she reminded him, and drew herself up proudly before him, a queen in beauty, crowned with the sun’s gold.
His eyes devoured her; his breath seemed to come faster as he looked. All at once he caught her hands and crushed them against his lips. “Neither man nor king,” he cried, “but the lover who has adored you since he came to plunder but stayed to woo! Do you know that when I came upon you to-day, my heart burst into flower as a tree blooms in the spring-time? Had I a harp in my hand, my lips would blossom into song. Get me one from your minstrels, and I will sing to you as we ride, and we will forget that a day has passed since the time when first we roved together through the Northampton meadows.”
Forgetful of all the world beside, he led her away toward the horses.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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20
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A Royal Reckoning
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A tale is always half told if only one man tells it. GRETTI’S SAGA.
Whether from policy or necessity, the guest-house of Gloucester Abbey was surrendered to the royal band with open-armed hospitality. Every comfort the place afforded was heaped together to soften the bare rooms for the accommodation of the noble ladies; every delicacy the epicurean abbot could obtain loaded the table; and what little grass the frost had left in the cloister garth was sacrificed to the swarm of pages and henchmen, minstrels and tumblers. Now a tournament of games in the riverside meadows took up the day, now a pageant up the river itself; again, a ride with the hawks or a run after the hounds,--and the nights were one long revel. Time slipped by like a song off the lips of a harper.
To-day it was to chase a boar over the wooded hills that the holiday troop was awake and stirring at sunrise. The silvery bell-notes that called the monks to morning prayer were jostled in mid-air by the blare of hunters’ horns. Stamping iron-shod hoofs and the baying of deep-voiced hounds broke the stillness of the cloister, and threescore merry voices laughed out of memory the Benedictine vow of silence.
Voices and horns made a joyous uproar when the King led forth his lady and her fair following; and he smiled with pleasure at the welcome and the picturesque beauty of the gay throng between the gray old walls.
“Now how could I come upon a better sight if I were the King of a hundred islands?” he demanded of Elfgiva.
But he did not wait for her answer; instead, he stepped forward as though to avoid it and put a question to one of his huntsmen. And his wife turned and spoke sharply to the blond maiden behind her, whose more than usual fairness had given her the name of Candida, or “the white one.”
“Where is Randalin? I sent the garments to her an hour ago. She stands in need of a taste of Teboen’s rod to teach her promptness.”
Little Dearwyn, watching the doorway with fluttering color, cried out eagerly, “Here she is, lady!”
There she was, in truth, standing on the threshold with crimson cheeks and flashing eyes. At the sight of her every huntsman uttered a whistle of amazement, then settled into an admiring stare; and Canute, glancing over his shoulder, laughed outright.
“What!” he said. “Have you tired of woman’s clothes already?”
For, once more, Frode’s daughter was attired in a man’s short tunic and long silken hose. It was a suit much richer than the old one, since silver embroidery banded the blue, and precious furs lined the cloak; but that fact was evidently of little comfort to her, as her eyes were full of angry tears, and she deigned the King no answer whatever.
“I am obliged to pay dearly for your amusement, lady,” she said bitterly.
Elfgiva chimed her bell-like laughter. “I will not deny that you pay liberally for my trouble, sweet. Does it not add spice to her stories, maidens, to see her habited thus? She looks like one of the fairy lords Teboen is wont to sing of.”
“She holds her head like Emma of Normandy,” the King said absently.
In wide-eyed surprise, Elfgiva looked up at him. “Ethelred’s widow? Never did I hear that you had seen her! Why has this been passed over in silence? I have abundance of questions to ask about her garments and her appearance. When saw you her? And where?”
Canute stirred uneasily. “It is not worth a hearing. I spoke but a few words with her, about ransoms, the time that I sat before London. And I remember only that her bearing was noble and her countenance most handsome, such as I had never seen before, nor did I think that there could be any woman so queenlike.” Because he did not choose to say more, or because some wrinkle in Elfgiva’s satin brow warned him off, he turned hastily to another topic. “Foolishly do we linger, when we have none too much time to get to covert. Do you still want your way about accompanying us? I have warned you that a boar hunt is little like hawking; nor do Northmen stand in one spot and wait for game to come to them.”
“I hold to it with both hands,” the lady returned with a gayety which had in it a touch of defiance. “Nor will I consent to do anything except that alone. We will partake in the excitement of your sport, and each of these brave heroes of yours shall answer for the safety of one of us.” A gesture of her hand included Thorkel the Tall, the two Northern jarls, and the King’s foster-brother.
“And is it your belief that a man can at the same time chase a boar and talk fine words to a woman?” Canute demanded between amusement and impatience. “Call it a ride, if you will, but leave the boar out for reason’s sake, as he would leave us out ere we were so much as on his track.”
She gave him a sidelong glimpse of her wonderful eyes, and drooped her head like a lily grown heavy on its stem. “Would that be so great a misfortune then?” she murmured. “Do you think it unpleasant to be passing your time at my side?”
Smiling, he watched the play of her long silken lashes, yet shook his head. “Nay, when I hunt, I hunt,” he said. “I would have idled in your bower if you had chosen it, but you urged me to this, and now if it happens that you cannot keep up, you must bear your deed.”
As one casts aside an ill-fitting glove, she threw aside her pouts, looking up at him with a flash of dainty mimicry. “Hear the fiery Thor! Take notice that I shall bear all down before me like a man mowing ripe corn. You cannot guess how much warlikeness I have caught from my Valkyria.” She glanced back where the girl in the short tunic stood drawing on her gloves, a picture of stormy beauty.
Amused, the King’s eyes followed hers, then lighted with sudden purpose. “As you will,” he laughed, “and I will give your Valkyria a steed that shall match her appearance.” Advancing again, he spoke to a groom; and the signal set the whole party in motion.
Randalin heard his words, but at the moment she was too deep in angry embarrassment to heed them. It seemed to her that every eye in the throng was fastened upon her as she walked forward, that every mouth buzzed comment behind her. It was not until she was in the saddle that his intention reached her understanding.
The powerful black charger, which a groom led toward her, had been pawing and arching his glossy neck impatiently since the first horn set his blood-drops dancing; at the touch of her foot upon the stirrup, he snorted satisfaction through his wide-flaring nostrils and would have leaped forward like a stone from a sling, if the man had not hung himself upon the bit. The girl awoke to surprise as she barely managed to reach her seat by the most agile of springs.
“This is not the horse I ride, Dudda! He must belong to one of the nobles.”
“He is--the horse--that King Canute said--you should take,” the man panted, as he struggled to keep his footing. “He said to fetch--Praise Odin!” For at that moment, Canute’s silver horn gave the signal, and he was free to leap aside.
Randalin’s trained hand upon the reins was as firm as it was light, and her trained eye was keenly alert to every motion of the black ears, but in her brain all was whirling confusion,--and no longer any thought of her tunic. What was the King’s purpose in making this change? Certainly he was in no mood to honor her,--what could he have in his mind? While her tongue answered mechanically to Ulf Jarl’s observations concerning the weather and the fair farmland they were riding through, her eyes were furtively examining her companions’ steeds. No fiery ambitions disturbed their easy gait, spirited though they were. Indeed, Elfgiva, looking back at this moment, singled her out with a rippling laugh.
“By the blessed Ethelberga, you have a horse in all respects befitting your spirit, my shield-maiden! I hope it is not the King’s intention to punish you by frightening you.”
Could it be possible that he should stoop to so unworthy an action, the girl asked herself? And yet it was as understandable as any of his behavior during the last fortnight. Suddenly it seemed that a hand had awakened the Viking blood which slumbered in her veins; it fired her cheeks and flashed from under her lashes. She answered clearly, “I hope it is not, lady,--for he would experience disappointment.”
From all sides laughter went up, but there was no time for more, for now a hunter--one of the men who had brought news of the lair--galloped up, dust-choked and breathless.
“He has broken cover, King!” he gasped. “He is moving windward--loose the hounds--or--you will miss him--” Canute’s horn was at his lips before the last broken phrase was out. “Forward!” he shouted with a blast. “The hounds, and forward!” A whirlwind seemed to strike the ambling train and sweep them over the ground like autumn leaves.
Over stubble fields and leaf-carpeted lanes, with half frightened smiles upon their parted lips, Elfgiva and her fair ones kept up bravely; then across a stream into a thicket, over hollows and fallen logs, under low-hanging boughs, through brush and brier and bramble,--leaping, dodging, tearing, crashing. Leonorine the Timid uttered a cry, as her horse slid down a bank with his feet bunched under him; and the Lady Elfgiva dropped her reins to press her hand where a thorn had scratched her cheek.
“Stop!” she commanded. “Stop! We will turn back and wait--until he strikes across a field.”
As well have tried to call off the hounds after they had caught the scent and doubled themselves over the trail! It is unlikely that any man so much as heard her. For one flash of time she beheld them seesawing in the air before her, as their horses rose over the brush; then there was nothing but the distant crashing of dry timber and the echo of Canute’s jubilant horn.
“And the Valkyria has gone also!” the lady ejaculated, when her injured gaze was able to come sufficiently close to earth.
And so the Valkyria had, though with as little of free will as on that day when her runaway steed carried her out of the press of the fleeing army. At the first call of the horn, Black Ymer had taken the bronze bit between his teeth and followed, and his rider’s one concern in life became--not the guiding of him--but the staying on. Before they left the first thicket her mantle was torn from her shoulders, and she was lying along his neck, now on this side, now on that, to escape the whipping twigs that lashed at her, threatening to cut out her eyes. From the thicket out into the open, where it seemed as if the wind that rushed against her would blow not only the clothes from her body but the flesh from her bones!
Far ahead, where the little valley ended and the wood began again, she caught a fleeting glimpse of the boar as it burst covert with the yelping pack at its heels and was for one instant revealed, snarling, bare-tusked, and flecked with bloody foam. Then it dived again under cover and was gone in a new direction. Canute’s horn sounded a recall, and one by one the hunters checked their onward rush and wheeled.
Black Ymer’s rider also tried to obey, but all the strength of her body was not enough to sway him by a hair’s breadth. On he shot into the thicket.
“He will have enough sense to stop when he finds out that he is alone,” was her despairing thought.
But he continued to forge ahead like a race horse,--in uneven leaps as though some sound from behind were urging him on. Suddenly, through the roaring of her ears, it broke upon her that he was not alone, that at least one horse was following. Its approaching tread was like thunder in the stillness. If it could but get ahead of her, all would be well. Her heart beat hopefully as the jar sounded nearer and nearer. When the snorting nostrils seemed at the Black One’s very flank, at the risk of her neck she turned her head.
Looking, she understood why a steed had been given her which should carry her out of Elfgiva’s reach, for the horseman who was even now stretching his gauntleted hand toward her rein was the King himself. No one followed, and the forest around them was silent as a vault. At last, he was free to speak his mind.
Under the drag of his hand, the horse came slowly to a halt and stood panting and trembling in the middle of a little dell. For a while, she could do no more than cling to the saddle-bow, sick with dizziness.
Still holding her rein, her royal guardian sat regarding her critically. “Now it seems to me that your boasting is less than before,” he said. “And you were mistaken in supposing that I would have given this animal to you if I had not known you could ride him.” When she made no reply, he shook the rein impatiently. “Is it still the horse that makes you heavy in your breathing? Or perhaps you scarcely dare to face my justice? I warn you that I shall not take it well if you begin to weep.”
A spark was drawn out of her by that. With an effort, she raised her head and shot him a glance from bright angry eyes. “No such intention have I, Lord King. Certainly I do not fear your justice. Why should I?”
“Since I have little time to spend upon your freaks, I will tell you why,” he said sternly. “Because you have betrayed one of my people for the sake of an Englishman.”
With surprise, her glance wavered. “I did not know you knew that,” she said slowly. But, as he expected her to droop, she bristled instead. “Nor was it to be expected, Lord King, that you would be the one to blame me for using craft.”
His eyes kindled; if she had stopped there it might have gone hard with her, but she spoke on swiftly, her head indignantly erect. “If Rothgar Lodbroksson thinks he should have indemnity because he was too stupid to see through a trick, let him have Avalcomb, when you get it back from the English, and feel that he has got more than he deserves; but your anger--” she broke off abruptly and sat with her lips pressed tight as though keeping back a sob. “In the beginning, I got great kindness at your hands, Lord King,” she said at last, “and your anger--hurts me!”
On the point of softening, the King’s face hardened, and he averted his head. “You value my favor rather late in the day, Frode’s daughter. It would have been better if you had shown honor to it when you came in to me at Scoerstan, by giving me truth in return for friendship.”
If she had laughed as though recalling the jest in that scene, it is possible that he would have struck her with his glove. It was fortunate that her sense of humor was no more than a bubble on the foam of her high spirits. Her eyes were dark with earnestness as they sought his.
“Lord King, I was hindered by necessity. Your camp--was it a place for women? And did not your own mouth tell me that Randalin, Frode’s daughter, should wed the son of Lodbrok if she were alive?”
He struck his knee a ringing slap. “I confess that it is not easy to be a match for you! But I can tell you one thing which you will not be able to explain, as heretofore,--and it is a thing which has made me get bitterest against you. If you had kept your confidence from all it might have passed for discreetness, but that you should keep it from me to give it to an Englishman--” “But I did not give it to the Englishman,” she interrupted. For an instant he stared at her; directly after he burst into a loud laugh. “Now that is the best thing that has occurred yet! Where you cannot crawl through, you break through!” He laughed again, and was opening his mouth to repeat some of the suspicions he had shared with Rothgar when something about her stopped him,--whether it was the way she bore her head or something in her deep eyes. Dropping his derision, he spoke bluntly: “What reason in the world could cause you to behave thus if it is not that he is your lover?”
The color gathered and spread over her face in maiden shame, until her tunic became the cruelest of mockeries.
“Short is the reason to tell, Lord King,” she said, “it is because I love him.” As he sat regarding her, she put out her hand and played with a tendril of wild grapevine that hung from the tree beside her, her eyes following her fingers. “I do not know why I should be ashamed of the state of my feelings. I should not be able to stand alive before you if he had not been a better lord to me than you are to English captives; and he is more gentle and high-minded than any man I ever heard sung of. Sometimes I think I should have more to be ashamed of if I did not feel love toward him.” A little defiantly, she raised her eyes to his, only to drop them back to the spray. “But he does not love me. He knows me only as the boy he was kind to. I have given him the high-seat in my heart, but I sit only within the door of his.”
The forest seemed very still when she had done,--the only sound the clanking of the bits as the horses cropped the withered grass. Then suddenly the King gathered up his lines with a jerk.
“I cannot believe it,” he said harshly. “You are all alike, you women, with your cat-like purrings and tricksy eyes that surpass most other things in deceit. I do not deny both that you know well how to feign and that I would like to believe you, but you must prove it first before I do.”
“How can I do that, lord?” she said helplessly; but shrank, the next moment, as she saw that already he had a plan in his mind. Moving his horse a step nearer, he bent toward her triumphantly. “I will send for the Englishman, in your name--or the name you wore--and you shall meet him in my presence, and I shall be able to tell from his manner whether or not you have spoken truthfully.”
Send for him! At the very thought her face was ecstatic with happiness. Then she clasped her hands in dismay. “But not if I must continue in these garments, lord! You can decide over my fate, but I will never face him again in anything but woman’s weeds.”
The King frowned. “Strangely do you speak; as if I did not know what is befitting a Danish woman that I would allow one who is noble-born in all her kindred to be treated disgracefully after I had taken her into my wardership!”
A while longer he sat there, watching her changeful face with its lovely mouth and the eyes that some trick of light and shade had deepened to the purple of an iris petal’s markings; and the sight seemed to gentle his mood.
“I should like to reconcile myself to you,” he said slowly. “Since first you came before me and showed by your entreaty that you thought me something besides an animal, I have felt friendliness toward you. And I should like to believe that some woman loves some man as you say you love this Englishman.” Out of the very wishfulness of his voice, a terrible menace spoke: “I should like it so much that I shall neither spare you in word nor deed if you have deceived me!” Then once more his manner softened. “Yet my mind feels a kind of faith toward you. I shall try you, to make sure, but until you have proved that you are unworthy of it, I will not keep you out of my friendship.” Drawing off his glove, he stretched forth his hand. “You may find that a man’s harshness is little worse than a woman’s guile,” he said bitterly.
Dimly guessing what was in his mind, she dared not trust herself to words but told her gratitude with her eyes, as she returned his clasp. Then he sent her back by the one semblance of a path which ran through the forest, and himself rode on to his hunters.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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21
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With The Jotun as Chamberlain
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All doorways, Before going forward, Should be looked to; For difficult it is to know Where foes may sit Within a dwelling. Ha’vama’l. “Once more, Lord Sebert, be exhorted to turn back,” old Morcard spurred forward to offer a last remonstrance as city gates yawned before them. “Even if the message be genuine, you are putting your life in peril. If men speak rightly, Gloucester Town is no better than a camp of carousing Danes. Is it likely that they care enough about this peace to stick at so small a thing as man-slaying?”
The Etheling replied without slackening his pace: “I do not think they are liable to molest a peaceful traveller. I will take care that I upheave no strife, and I will make all my inquiries of the monks.”
“Go a little more slowly, lord, and consider the other side of it,” the old knight entreated. “Suppose the message is false,--the black tress around it proves nothing. Suppose the son of Lodbrok has spread a net for you?”
“Then should I keep on my way still more lustily,” the Lord of Ivarsdale answered, “for his making use of the boy’s name to entice me would show that he had discovered our friendship, in which case the youngling would be suffering from his anger.”
The old man plucked violently at his beard as the walls loomed clearer before them. “Lord, you have already gone through some risk in leaving home. It is by no means impossible that Edmund will fall upon the Tower during your absence.”
“Edmund is too busy with big game at Oxford to have that trouble about such quarry as I,” the young man said lightly, “and the Gainer is not likely to stir far from Edmund while land is being distributed.” Then, sobering, he gave the other a grave glance over his shoulder. “Even though the errand for danger could not be accomplished, how could I do less than undertake it? Did not the boy go through some risk for me when he betrayed his own countryman to get me out of a hard place? Had they guessed his treason, they would have torn him in pieces. I owe him a debt which it concerns my honor to pay. It lies not on your shoulders, however,--” his gravity gave way to his gay smile,--“if it is more pleasant for you not to enter the city, you may ride back to the hostelry we passed, and await me in its shelter.”
The old cniht’s courage was too well approved to require any defence. Contenting himself with an indignant grunt, he reined back to his place at the head of the dozen armed servants who formed the Etheling’s safeguard, and the young lord galloped on between the bare fields, humming absently under his breath.
“Poor bantling!” he was thinking compassionately. “I shall be right glad to get sight of him again. I hope he will not betray himself in his joy when he sees me. Anything like showing that one is fond of him is apt to turn him a little soft.”
None of these undercurrents was visible in his face however, when, having left his escort in one of the outer courts, he stood at last in the parlor of the Abbey guest-house.
“I am a traveller, reverend brother, journeying from London to Worcester,” he said with grave courtesy to the gaunt black-robed monk who admitted him. “And my errand hither is to ask refreshment for myself and my men, as we have been in the saddle since cockcrow.”
“The brother whose duty it is to attend upon travellers is at this hour in the Chapter House, with the rest of the household,” the monk made answer. “When he comes forth, I will acquaint him with your needs. Until then, bide here, and I will bring you a morsel to stay your stomach.”
Sebert smiled his satisfaction as the sandals pattered away. He had foreseen this interval of waiting, indeed, he had timed his arrival to gain it,--and it was his design to put it to good use. While he swallowed what he wanted of the wafers and wine which were brought him, he took measure of the reverend servitor, with the result that, as he set down the goblet, he ventured a question.
“From the numbers and heaps of attendants I saw in the outer courts, holy brother, it appears that this season of peace has in no way lessened the tax on your generosity. Is rumor right in declaring the Danish King to be one of the guests of your bounty?”
Either it was the agreeable presence of the young noble which relaxed the Benedictine’s austerity, or else the fact that Sebert had left half his wine in his cup. The holy man answered with unwonted readiness.
“Rumor, which is the mother of lies, has given birth to one truth, noble stranger. The King whom a chastening Providence has set over the northern half of the Island, has been our guest for the space of four weeks,--together with the gold-bought English woman who is known as his ‘Danish wife. ’” The monk’s watery eyes were rolled upward in pious disapproval, before he turned them earthward with a sigh of resignation. “Nevertheless, it is the will of Heaven,--and he is very open-handed with lands and gold when his meals please him.” He cast a thirsty glance toward the half-filled goblet which Sebert was absently fingering. “If you have eagerness for a sight of him, you have but to walk through the galleries until you come to the garden in which he is fleeting his time with his women.”
“Now I think I should like to take a look at him while I am waiting,” the Etheling assented, rising gravely. “Should Edmund be the first to pay the debt of nature, which God avert! the Dane will become my King also. Is it this door that commands the cloister?”
“The door on your left,” the monk corrected; and shuffled away lest some envious chance should snatch the cup from him before his thirsty throat could close on the sweet remnant.
At the moment that he was making sure of his booty in the safe darkness of a passage, the Lord of Ivarsdale was pursuing his object along the chill enclosure of the gallery. The November sunlight that, unsoftened by any filter of rich-tinted glass, fell coldly upon the worn stone, showed the carrels beneath the windows to be one and all deserted by their monkish occupants, and he strode along unhampered by curious eye or ear.
“After all this luck,” he congratulated himself, “it will go hard with me if I do not either stumble on the youngling himself, or someone who can give me news of him.”
He had no more than thought it, when the sound reached him of a door closing somewhere along the next side of the square, followed by the clank of spurred feet coming heavily toward him. As they drew nearer, the rattle of a sword also became audible. Lifting his eyebrows dubiously, the Etheling grasped his own weapon beneath his cloak.
When the feet had brought their owner around the corner into sight, he did not feel that his motion had been a mistaken one, for the man who was advancing was Rothgar Lodbroksson. It flashed through Sebert’s mind that the old cniht’s forebodings had not been without cause, and that Ivarsdale was in danger of changing masters by a process much quicker than a month’s siege. He stared in amazement when the Dane, instead of flashing out his blade, stopped short with a burst of jeering laughter.
“Here is the Englishman arrived, and he looks small enough now!” he cried in his thunderous voice. “Has it happened that I am to be the bower-thane who is to fetch you in!”
Sebert’s grasp tightened around his hilt. Apparently the son of Lodbrok was expecting him! Yet even on a forlorn hope, he deemed it wise not to commit himself. He said with what haughtiness he could muster, “What should a plain traveller want with a bower-thane, Danishman? I stand in more need of the cellarer who is to provide me with a meal.”
Another jeering outburst interrupted him. “Now I say nothing against it if you declare yourself looking for sweetmeats! Well, I will be the cellarer, and lead you to them.”
“I do not understand you,” Sebert said slowly, and quite truthfully.
The Dane grinned at him. “I mean that I will fetch you in to the one who sent you the summons.”
“The one who sent you the summons?” Certainly that sounded as though he were using the words to conceal a name. Neither the Etheling’s patience nor his temper was long enough to reach below the knee. He made a swift gesture of throwing aside all reserve. “Enough of mystery, Danishman! If the message which I have received was not sent by Fridtjof Frodesson, it was sent by you. Be honest enough to admit it and say plainly what your intention is toward me.”
“Fridtjof Frodesson,” the Jotun mocked, and his fiery eyes probed the Englishman like knives. “Now since honesty is to your wish, I will go so far as to confess that the word came neither from Frode’s son nor from me.”
Sebert’s foot rang upon the ground. “Say then that the Devil sent it, and a truce to this juggling! Since you know that I am the boy’s friend, you understand that any harm he has suffered is a harm to me, and that my sword is equally ready to avenge it.”
Much to his surprise, the Dane accorded this challenge no notice whatever. He stood studying the Lord of Ivarsdale with eyes in which malicious amusement was growing into open mirth. It came out in another laugh. “Now it would be more unlikely than the wonder which has occurred, yet I begin to believe you! I myself will guide you to your Fridtjof, only for the pleasure of watching your face. The Fates are no such step-mothers after all!” He turned in the direction from which he had come and made the other a sign. “This way, if you dare to follow. I am not afraid to go first, so you need give no thought of the chances of steel between your ribs.”
The Etheling took his hand off his weapon with a twinge of shame; but he was not without misgivings as he strode along at Rothgar’s heels. Unless the youngling had made a decided change for the worse, what satisfaction could the Jotun expect to get from witnessing their meeting? Before his mind, there rose again the tear-stained boyish face which had bidden him farewell that night at the postern, and his pulses throbbed with a fierce pity.
“He took himself from the one person who was dear to him, poor little cub,” he murmured. “If they have maimed him, I swear I will tuck him under my arm and cut my way out though there be a wall of the brutes around him.”
His musings came to an end, as the man preceding him stopped suddenly where one of the milky panes broken from the cloister window gave a view of the cloister garden. With the cold November sunshine a hum of voices was coming in, now brightened by peals of laughter, again blurred by the thud of falling quoits. Over the Jotun’s shoulder, he caught a glimpse of gorgeous nobles and fair-haired women scattered in graceful groups about a sunny old garden, green in the very face of winter, thanks to the protecting shelter of the gray walls.
Only a glimpse,--for even as he looked, Rothgar caught his cloak and pulled him ahead. “Yonder door is a better place to look through; already it is open, and the shadow inside is thick enough to hide us.”
Pricked as he was by a dozen spurs, Sebert offered no resistance. In a moment, they stood just out of reach of the square of light which fell through the open doorway. Framed in carved stone, the quaint old garden with its gravelled paths, its weedless turfs and its background of ivy-hung walls, lay before them like a picture.
In the longest of the oval spaces, a group of maidens and warriors were gathered to watch a wonderful flower-faced woman play at quoits under the instruction of a noble tutor. At every one of her graceful blunders her laughter rang out in fairy music, which was sweetly echoed by her maids; but the men appeared to see nothing but her beauty as she poised herself lightly before them like some shining azure bird on tiptoe for flight. Sebert paid her the tribute of a quickly drawn breath, even as he took his eyes from her to scan the butterfly pages who ran to and fro, recovering the gilded rings. Yellow hair and red hair and brown hair curled on their gaudy shoulders, but no black. In all the picture there was but one figure crowned with such raven locks as had distinguished Fridtjof the Bold, and that figure belonged to a girl standing directly opposite by the mossy curb of the old well, which, guarded by a circle of carefully tended trees, rose like an altar in the centre of the inclosure. Four of the red-cloaked Danish nobles stood about her,--and one of them wore a golden circlet upon the gold of his hair,--but the Etheling’s eyes passed them almost unheedingly to dwell upon the black-tressed maiden.
Something about her, while it was entirely strange, was yet so absurdly familiar. She was some very high-born lady, there could be no doubt of that, for the delicate fabric of her trailing kirtle was flowered with gold, and gold and coral were twined in the dusky softness of her hair and hung around her neck in a costly chain, which the King was fingering idly as he talked with her. Now she looked up to answer the jesting words, and the man in the passage saw her smile and shake back her clustering curls with a gesture so familiar... so familiar... Rothgar’s gloating eyes detected light breaking in his victim’s face, incredulity, amazement, consternation; and he began to jeer under his breath. “A great joy is this that you see your Fridtjof again! Why do you not go in boldly and rescue him? Does he not look to be in need of your help?” To stifle his laughter, he muffled his head in his cloak and leaned, shaking, against the wall.
Flushing a deeper and deeper red, the Lord of Ivarsdale stared at the smiling maiden. Just so, a hundred times, she had lifted her sparkling face toward him, and he--fool that he was! --where had been his eyes? Perhaps it is not strange that after the surprise had faded from his look, the first feeling to show was bitterest mortification. Turning, he forced a laugh between his teeth.
“I do not deny you the right to be amused. You speak truly that she needs no help from me. I will hinder you no longer.”
Rothgar leaped forward to bar the passage, and the mantle that fell from his face showed no laughter of mouth or eyes. “I have not as yet spoken harm, but it is not sure that I do not mean it,” he said. “If you take it in this manner to see how you have been tricked, you may suppose how well I like it to remember the lies she fed to me, who would have staked my life upon her truthfulness. It is not allowed me to take revenge on her for her treachery, but I think I need not spare you, as you got the profit of her falseness.”
The Etheling’s sword was out while the other was still speaking. “By Saint Mary, do you imagine that I am fearful of you? Never in my life was I more thirsty for fighting.”
But Rothgar pushed the blade aside with his naked palm. “Not here, where she could come between. Besides, the King wants a thrust at you first. Nor have you yet greeted Randalin, Frode’s daughter.” His hand, which was itching for a sword, began to tear the fur from his cloak, and his lips curved in a grin that had in it little of mirth. “Certainly you would not rob the maiden of the pleasure of seeing the one she has taken so much trouble for?” he mocked.
On the verge of an angry retort, Sebert paused to regard him, a suspicion darting spark-like through his mind. Did the Jotun’s words smack of jealousy? It was true that it needed not that to explain their bitterness, and yet--What more natural than that the King’s foster-brother should love the King’s ward? If it was so, it was small wonder the girl had said that he would slay her when he discovered her unfaithfulness. Unfaithfulness! Sebert started. Had she not in that very word acknowledged a bond? Not only did he love her, but she must have returned his affections. The spark of suspicion flared into a flame. That would solve so many riddles. For one, her presence in the Danish camp,--for surely, as a chieftain’s daughter, she would have been sent on to the care of the Lady of Northampton! Was it not thoroughly in accordance with her elfish wildness to have chosen man’s attire and the roughness of camp-life in order to remain near her lover? Her lover! The young noble’s lips curled as he glanced at the warrior beside him, at the coarse face under the unkempt locks, at the huge body in its trap-pings of stained gaudiness. Involuntarily, he looked again at the group by the well. She was very winsome in her smiling, and the graceful lines of her trailing robes, their delicacy and soft richness, threw about her all the glamour of rank and state. He clenched his hands at the thought of such treasures thrown down for brutal feet to trample on; and his heart grew hot with anger against her, anger and scorn that were almost loathing, that she who looked so fine should be so poor, so--But he did not finish his thought, for on its heels came another, a recollection that stayed his anger and changed his scorn to compunction. However dear Rothgar might have been to her, he could be dear no longer, or she would never have betrayed his trust and dared his hate to save Ivarsdale Tower--and its master. Sebert winced and put up his hand to shut out the vision as he realized at whose feet her heart lay now, like a pitiful bruised flower.
Meanwhile, the son of Lodbrok had been drawing heavily on his scant stock of patience. Suddenly, he ran out completely. Seizing the Etheling by the shoulders, before he could raise finger in resistance, he thrust him through the open doorway into the garden, a target for every startled glance. After which, he himself stalked grimly on to await him at the city gate.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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22
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How The Lord of Ivarsdale Paid His Debt
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To his friend A man should be a friend, And gifts with gifts requite. Ha’vama’l.
A moment, it was to Randalin, Frode’s daughter, as if the heavens had let fall a star at her feet. Then her wonder changed to exultation, as she realized that it was not chance but because of her bidding that the man she loved stood before her. Only because she had asked it, he had come through pitfalls and death-traps, and now faced, alone, the gathered might of his foes. Glorying in his deed, she stood shining sun-like upon him until the red cloaks of the advancing warriors came between like scarlet clouds.
“Who are you? .... What is your errand? .... How came you here?” she heard them demand. And, after a pause, in disbelieving chorus, “Rothgar Lodbroksson! .... Does that sound likely? .... Where is he, then?” “You are trying to lie out of something--” “You are an English spy! Seize him! Bind him!”
The scarlet cloaks drew together into a swaying mass; a dozen blades glittered in the sun. With a gasp, she came out of her trance to catch at the royal mantle.
“Lord King, you promised to give him safety!” The seriousness which had darkened Canute’s face at the intrusion vanished off it as breath-mist off a mirror. “Is it only your Englishman?” he asked, between a laugh and a frown.
She grudged the time the words took. “Yes, yes! Pray be as quick as you can!”
He did not seem bitten by her haste, but he took a step forward, clanging his gold-bound scabbard against the stone well-curbing to make himself heard. “Unhand the Lord of Ivarsdale, my chiefs,” he ordered. As they sent him incredulous glances over their shoulders, he further explained his will by a gesture; and they fell away, murmuring, the swords gliding like bright serpents back to their holes. Then he made another sign, this time to the stranger. “We will accept your greeting now, Englishman, even though you have been hindered in the giving of it,” he said politely.
Standing there, watching the young noble advance, it seemed to Randalin that there was not room between her heart-beats for her breathing. How soon would he look up and know her? How would his face change when he did? His color now was a match for the warriors’ cloaks, and there was none of his usual ease in his manner when at last he bowed before the King. Presently it occurred to her to suspect that he had already recognized her,--perhaps from the doorway,--and in her rush of relief at the idea of the shock being over, she found even an impulse of playfulness. Borrowing one of Elfgiva’s graces, she swept back her rustling draperies in a ceremonious courtesy before him.
Again he bent in his bow of stiff embarrassment; but he did not meet her glance even then, returning his gaze, soldier-like, to the King. Suppose he were going to treat her with the haughtiness she had seen him show Hildelitha or the old monk when they had displeased him! At the mere thought of it, she shrank and dropped her eyes to the coral chain that she was twining between her fingers.
The awkwardness of the pause seemed to afford Canute a kind of mischievous amusement, for all the courtesy in which he veiled it. His voice was almost too cheerful as he addressed the Etheling. “Now as always it can be told about my men that they stretch out their hands to greet strangers,” he said, “but I ask you not to judge all Danish hospitality from this reception, Lord of Ivarsdale. Since Frode’s daughter has told me who you are, I take it for granted that they were wrong, and that you came here with no worse intention than to obey her invitation.”
His glance sharpened a little as he pronounced those last words, and the girl’s hands clasped each other more tightly as she perceived the snare in the phrase. If the Etheling should answer unheedingly or obscurely, so that it should not be made quite clear to the King-- But it appeared that the Etheling was equally anxious that Canute should not believe him the lover of Frode’s daughter. His reply was distinct to bluntness: “Part of your guess is as wrong as part of it is right, King of the Danes. Certainly I came here with no thought of evil toward you, but neither had I any thought soever of the Lady Randalin, of whose existence I was ignorant. I answered the call of Fridtjof Frodesson, to whom I owe and I pay all the service which lies in my power,--as it is likely you know.”
Did his voice soften as he recalled his debt? Randalin ventured to steal a glance at his face,--then her own clouded with puzzlement. No haughtiness was in it, but a kind of impatient pain, and now he winced under the smart and stirred restlessly in his place. The lightness of the King’s voice grated on her ear.
“Then I think you must have got surprised, if this is true, which seems impossible.”
The Etheling answered almost impatiently, “If your mind feels doubt of it, Lord Canute, you have but to ask your foster-brother, who conducted me hither.”
A while longer, Canute’s keen eyes weighed him; then their sky was cleared of the last cloud. The best expression of which his brilliant face was capable was on it as he turned and held out his hand to the girl beside him.
“Shall we pledge our friendship anew, Frode’s daughter?” was all he said; but she knew from his look that he had taken her under his shield for all time to come; and it was something to know, now when her world seemed falling about her. For an instant, as she yielded her trembling fingers to his palm, her groping spirit turned and clung to him, craving his sympathy.
It seemed that he divined the appeal, for with the hand that pressed hers he drew her forward a step. “Is it not your wish to speak to the Lord of Ivarsdale yourself and thank him for keeping his troth with Fridtjof?” he said kindly; and without waiting for an answer, moved away and joined a group of those who had been his companions before the interruption.
At last she stood face to face with the man she loved, face to face, and alone. And still he neither spoke to her nor looked at her! So strange and terrible was it all that it gave her resolution to speak and end it. Her Viking blood could not color her cheeks, but her Viking courage found her a whisper in which to offer her plea for the “sun-browned boy-bred wench.”
“Lord, it is difficult to know whether or not to expect your friendship, for--for I have heard what your mind feels toward most matters--and you see now what I have done--” Did he wince again? She paused in astonishment. It could not be that he was surprised,--was it displeasure? Her words came a little more swiftly, a tremor of passionate pleading thrilling through them.
“You need not think that I did it willingly, lord. Very roughly has fortune handled me. The reason I first came into camp-life was that I trusted someone too much, knowing no more of the world than my father’s house. And after the bonds were laid on me, it was not easy to rule matters. The helplessness of a woman is before the eyes of all people--” His words broke through hers: “No more, I beseech you!” His voice was broken and unsteady as she had never known it. “Who am I that I should blame you? Do not think me so--so despisable! If unknowingly I have done you any wrong when I owe you--” He paused and she guessed that it had swept over him afresh how much he did owe her. Perhaps also how much he had promised to pay?
“There will be no recompense that you can ask at my hands which I shall not be glad to give,” he had said; and she had checked him, bidding him wait to see if he would have more than pity. If he should have no more! She dared not look at him but she felt that he opened his lips to speak, then turned away, stifling a groan. It seemed to her that her breath ceased while she waited, and her hands tightened on the coral chain so that suddenly it burst and scattered the beads like rosy symbols of her hopes. If he should have no more!
At last he turned and came a step nearer her, courtly and noble as he had always been. “I owe to you everything I have, even life itself,” he said, “and I offer them all in payment of the debt. May I ask the King to give you to me for my wife?”
In its infinite gentleness, his voice was almost tender. For as long as the space between one breath and the next, her spirit leaped up and stretched out its arms to its joy; but she stayed it on the threshold of utterance to look fearfully into his face, whose every shade was open to her as the day. Looking into his eyes, she knew that it was no more than pity. He guessed that she loved him and he pitied her; but he could not forgive her unmaidenliness, he could not love her.
Slowly and quite easily she felt her heart die in her breast, leaving only the shell, the husk, of what had been Randalin, Frode’s daughter. Her first thought Was a vague wonder that after it she could breathe and move as if she were still alive. Her next, a piteous desire to escape from him while she had this strength, before the end should really come. Clutching the broken chain, she drew herself up bravely, her words coming in uneven breathfuls. “I want not that recompense, lord. I want--nothing you have to give. Little shall you think of the debt,--or think that in helping you, I repaid you for your hospitality, your--” Her voice broke as the memory of that time passed over her like bitter waters, and she was obliged to stand silent before him, steadying her lip with her teeth, until the waters had fallen. She had a faint consciousness that he was speaking to her, but she did not understand what he said, she did not care. Her only wish was for words that should send him away so that she might be free to sink down beside the old well and press her burning face against its smooth coldness and finish dying there.
“It was the King who sent for you, that he might know whether I had spoken the truth concerning my disguise--” she said when at last her voice returned. “Now, by coming, you have helped me against his anger,--let that settle all debt between us. I thank you much and--and I bid you farewell.” Again Elfgiva’s schooling came to her mind and she swayed before him in a courtesy. She even bent her lips into a little smile so that he should not be sorry for her and stay to tell her so. She did not know that her cheeks were as white as her kerchief, that her eyes were dark wells of unshed tears. She knew only that at last he was bowing, he was turning, in a moment more he would be gone--But just short of that point he stopped, and all motion around her appeared to stop, as a noise down the corridor blotted out every sound in the garden,--the noise of a great body of people rousing the echoes with jubilant shouting.
“The King! The King!” could be heard again and again, and after it a burst of deafening cheers that drowned the rest.
Elfgiva dropped the gilded quoits to wring her hands. “Is it the English, my lord?” she implored of Eric of Norway. “Is it the English attacking us? Shall we be killed?”
“Think you that Danes cheer like that when they are expecting death?” the Norseman reassured her with a hearty laugh. “It is good news,--great news since the whole mob has thought it safe to bring it. Hark! Can you hear what it is that they add after the King’s name?”
Listening, everyone stood motionless as the babel came nearer with a swiftness which spoke much for the speed of the shouters. Only Randalin’s little red shoe began to tap the earth impatiently. What did it matter what they said?
“Hail to Canute of Denmark!” “Hail to the King of the Danes and--” Again cheers drowned the rest.
The pages, who had sped at the first alarm like a covey of gay birds, came panting back, tumbling over one another in their efforts to impart the news.
“A messenger!” “A messenger from Oxford--” “From Edric--” “Edmund is--” “--Edmund--” “A messenger!” one cancelled another in the wild excitement.
Elfgiva caught the nearest and shook him until his teeth chattered; and in the lull, the swelling shout reached them for the first time unbroken: “Honor to the King! Hail to the King of the Danes and the Angles!”
From the Lord of Ivarsdale came a cry, sharp as though a heart-string had snapped in its utterance, the tie that for generations had bound those of his blood to the house of Cerdic.
“Edmund?”
The mob of soldiers and servants that burst through the doorway answered his question with exultant shouts: “Edmund is dead! Edmund is dead! Long live Canute the King! King of the Danes and the Angles!”
Unbidden, memory raised before Randalin a picture of the English camp-fire in the glade, with the English King standing in its light and the hooded figure bending from the shadow behind him, its white taloned hand resting on his sleeve. An instant she shivered at it; then again her foot stirred with unendurable restlessness. If he was dead, he was dead, and there was no more to be said. Was the Etheling always going to stand as though he were turned to stone? Would he never---- Ah, at last he was moving! As if the news had only just reached home to him, she saw him draw himself together sharply and stride toward the door; and she watched feverishly to see if anyone would think to stop him. One group he passed--and another--and another--now he was on the threshold. Her pulses leaped as she recognized Rothgar, in the throng pouring into the garden with the messenger, but quieted again when she saw that the two passed shoulder to shoulder without a look, without a thought, for each other. Now he was out of sight.
She let her suspended breath go from her in a long sigh. “It is good that everyone is too excited to notice what I do,” she said to herself. And even as she said it she realized that her limbs were shaking under her, that she was sick unto faintness. “I am going to finish dying now, and I welcome it,” she murmured. Staggering to a little bench under one of the old oaks, she sank down upon it and leaned her head against the tree trunk and waited.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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23
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A Blood-stained Crown
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He is happy Who in himself possesses Fame and wit while living; For bad counsels Have oft been received From another’s breast. Ha’vama’l. “Tata!” That was the pet name which Elfgiva had given to her Danish attendant because it signified lively one. “Tata! I have looked everywhere for you!” The pat of light feet, a swish of silken skirts, and Dearwyn had thrown herself upon the bench under the oak tree, her little dimpled face radiant. “What are you doing here in this corner where you can see nothing? How! Are you not overcome with delight? Only think that Elfgiva will be a queen and we shall all go to London!” As the only adequate means of expression, she threw her arms around her friend in a rapturous embrace.
Something in the touch of her soft body, the caress of her satin hands, was indefinably comforting. Randalin’s arms closed about her and pressed her close, while the little gentlewoman chided her gayly.
“What is the matter with you that you are so silent as to your tongue, when you must needs be shouting in your heart? You are as bad as the King, who stands looking from one to another and speaks not a word. Does your coldness arise from dignity? Then let me lose all the state I have and be held for a farmer’s lass, for I am going to stand up here where I can see everything.” Disengaging herself gently, she climbed upon the bench as she chattered. “The messenger had a leather bag around his neck which I think likely contains Edmund’s crown and--Ah, Tata, look l look! Thorkel is holding it up!”
As cries of savage rejoicing mingled with the uproar, Randalin found herself dragged up, whether she would or no, until she stood beside her companion, gazing over the heads of the shouting throng.
Yes, it was Edmund’s crown. Again, a picture of the English camp-fire rose before her, and she shivered as she recognized the graceful pearled points she had last seen upon the Ironside’s stately head. Now Thorkel was setting them above the Danish circlet on Canute’s shining locks, while the shouts merged into a roar of acclamation. Like blowing flowers, the women bent before him, and the naked swords of his nobles made a glittering arch above him.
“But why does he look so strange?” Randalin said suddenly.
And Dearwyn laid a finger on her lip. “Hush! At last he is going to speak.”
For now it was plain that Canute’s attention was given neither to the nobles nor to the fluttering women. He was bending toward the messenger, holding him with his glance. “Tell more news, messenger,” he was saying sternly. “Tell about the cause of my royal brother’s death.”
The messenger seemed to lose what little breath his ride on the shoulders of the crowd had left him. “My errand extends no further,” he panted. “It is likely that the Earl will send you more news--I am but the first--” His breath gave out in an inarticulate gasp, and he began to back away.
But the King moved after him. “Stop--” he commanded,--“or it may be that I will cause you to remain quiet for the rest of time. You must know what separated his life from his body. Tell it.”
Stammering with terror, the man fell upon his knees. “Dispenser of treasures, how should I know? The babblings of the ignorant durst not be repeated. Many say that the Ironside was worn sick with fighting.”
“You lie!” Canute roared down upon him. “You know they say that Edric murdered him.”
At that, the poor fool seemed to cast to the winds his last shred of sense. “They do say that the Earl poisoned him,” he blubbered. “But none say that you bade him to do it. No one dares to say that.”
“How could they say that?” Randalin cried in amazement, while the King drew back as though the grovelling figure at his feet were a dog that had bitten him.
“I bid him do it?” he repeated. All at once his face was so terrible that the man began to crawl backward, screaming, even before Canute’s hand had reached his hilt.
Before the blade could be drawn, Rothgar had stepped in front of his royal foster-brother with a savage sweep of his handless arm. “Do not waste your point on the churl, King,” he said in his bull’s voice. “If you want to play this game further, deal with me, for I also believe that you bade the Gainer murder Edmund.”
As though paralyzed by his amazement, Canute’s arm dropped by his side. “You also believe it?”
Little Dearwyn hid her face on the Danish girl’s breast. “Oh, Randalin, would he do such a deed?” she gasped. “The while that he seemed so kind and gentle with us! Would he do such horrid wickedness?”
“No!” Randalin cried passionately. “No!”
But even as she cried it, Thorkel the Tall dared to lean forward and give the royal shoulder a rallying slap. “Amleth himself never played a game better,” he said; “but is it worth while to continue at it when no Englishmen are watching?” And his words seemed to open a door against which the others were crowding.
“King Canute, I willingly admit myself the block-head you called me.” Ulf Jarl hastened to declare in his good-natured roar. “When I saw you take your point away from Edmund’s breast, that day, my heart got afraid that you were obliged to do it to save yourself. Even after I heard how you had made a bargain to inherit after each other, I never suspected what kind of a plan was in your mind.”
And Eric of Norway smote his thigh with the half resentful laugh of a man who has been told the answer to a riddle which he has given up. “I will confess that your wit surpasses mine in matters of cunning. I did suspect that you might think it unfeasible to kill him before the face of his army, but I had no idea that it would be possible to get the land from him both according to law and without further fighting or loss of men. On a lucky day is the King born who has a mind like this!”
One after another, all the nobles echoed the sentiment; until even the mob of soldiers found courage to voice their minds.
“His wit is made out of Sleipnir’s heels!” “Skroppa herself could not be foreknowing about him!” “I am as glad now as I was disappointed when I saw him take his blade off the Ironside--” “When I saw that, I thought I would turn English--” “They will try now to turn Danish.” “You speak well, for he will get great fame on account of his wisdom.” So they filled the air with marvelling admiration.
Standing in silent listening, Canute’s gaze travelled from face to face until it came to the spot where Elfgiva fluttered among her women, holding her exquisite head as if it already wore a crown. An odd gleam flickered over his eyes, and he made a step toward her. “You!” he said. “What do you believe?”
Pealing her silvery laughter, she turned toward him, her eyes peeping at him like bright birds from under the eaves of her hood. “Lord, I believe that I am afraid of you!” she coquetted. “When I bethink me that all the time I have been chiding you for being unambitious for glory, you have had this in your mind! I shall never presume to compass your moods again. Yes. Oh, yes! I shall see daggers in your smile and poison in your lightest word.” Laughing, she stooped and kissed his hand with the first semblance of respect which she had ever shown him.
In the Danish girl’s embrace, Dearwyn shivered and nestled closer. “Randalin, you hear her? She thinks he did it.”
“She is a foolish woman,” Randalin said impatiently, “and if she do not take care, she will feel it for speaking so. See how his fingers tap his belt for all that his face is so still.”
His face was curiously still as he regarded the beautiful Elfgiva,--and stilly curious, as though he were examining some familiar object in a new light. “You believe then that I had him murdered?” he asked. “And you find pleasure in believing it?”
“Now it is not murder!” she protested. “When a king kills--in war--” “But this is not war,” he said slowly. Lifting one of the jewelled braids from her shoulder, he played with it as he studied her. “This is not war, for I had reconciled myself to him. I had plighted faith with Edmund Ethelredsson and vowed to avenge his death like a brother.”
Her white forehead drew itself into a puzzled frown. “But you were not so foolish as to swear it on the holy ring were you?” When he did not answer, she raised her shoulders lightly. “What should I know about such matters? Have you not told me, many times and oft, that it behooves a woman to shun meddling with great affairs?”
He gave a short laugh, “And when were you ever before content to follow that advice?” Letting the braid slip from his fingers, he stood looking her up and down, his lips curling with scorn. “Yet this was not needful to show me that the elves felt they had done their full day’s work when they had made you a body,” he said. And whether he did not see her bridling displeasure, or whether he saw and no longer cared to appease it, the result was the same.
Randalin spoke abruptly to her companion. “Dearwyn, I can tell you something. Elfgiva will never get the queenship over England.”
“What moves you to say that?” the little English girl asked her, startled.
But Randalin’s attention had gone back to the King, who had turned where the son of Lodbrok waited regarding him over sternly-folded arms.
“Brother,” he was saying gravely, “your opinion is powerful with me, so I will openly tell you that you are wrong in your belief. I was satisfied with the crown of an under-king, satisfied to pass the time as I had been doing. Never have I so much as hinted to yonder peace-nithing a word of harm against Edmund Ironside.”
From Thorkel the Tall came one of his rare laughs,--a sound like the grating of a rusty hinge,--and Rothgar unfolded his arms to fling them out in angry rejection.
“This is useful to learn!” he sneered. “Do you think I could not guess that you had no need to put your desire into words after you had shown Edric by your actions that your mind and his are one, after you had admitted by your bond with him that you hold the same curious belief about honor?”
This time it was Randalin who clutched the English girl. “Oh!” she gasped.
For Canute’s eyes were less like eyes than holes through which light was pouring, while his fingers opened and shut as though he had forgotten his sword and would leap upon the scoffer with bare hands. Thorkel left off laughing to grasp the Jotun’s arm and try to drag him backwards.
“Do you want to drive it from his mind that he has loved you? Go hide yourself in Fenrir’s mouth!”
But the King did not spring upon his foster-brother. Even as they looked, the fire went out in his eyes, spark by spark, until they were lustreless as ashes, and at last he put up his hand and wiped great drops from his forehead. “Never had you the keenness to father that judgment,” he said in a strangely dull voice. “It must be that a god spoke through your mouth.” Leaving them, he moved forward to the well and stood gazing into it, his fingers mechanically raking together and crushing the dead leaves that had fluttered down upon the curbing.
Dearwyn’s pretty lips began to quiver with approaching tears. “Randalin, I am miserably terrified. The air feels as though awful things were about to happen.”
“It seems that the world has begun to fall to pieces everywhere,” Randalin said wearily. The momentary forgetfulness which the happenings around her had created was beginning to give way before the weight in her breast. She drew herself up listlessly. “Is it of any use to remain up here, Dearwyn?”
But Dearwyn’s grasp had tightened. “See! the King is beginning to speak.”
Whom he was addressing was not quite clear even though he had turned back to the group of nobles, for his eyes still gazed into space, but his words sounded distinctly: “Heavy is it to lose faith in others, but heavier still to lose faith in one’s self... I know that no word of mine urged Edric to this deed, but what my eyes may have said, or some trick of my voice or my face, is not so sure... It may be that I wanted this thing to happen without knowing it. When I see what it has brought me, I cannot understand how I could help wanting it... It is true that I do not always know for certain what I have at heart.” His eyes came back from space to rest musingly on Elfgiva. “When I began this feasting-time, I thought I had grasped heaven with my hands, but now--” he spread out his fingers and released the little bunch of dead leaves that he had been rolling against his palm--“now I let not this go from me more easily... You see that a man is not sure even of his own mind.”
Again his head was sinking on his breast, when he raised it with a fierceness that startled them. “One thing only I am sure of, and that is that I have done forever with craft. Hereafter, if a man is a hindrance to me, Rothgar’s axe shall send him to Hel while it is broad daylight and all his friends are looking. Such is my luck with craft as though I had grasped a viper by the tail, in the belief that I had seized its snout... I have been finely treated... Not only have I been betrayed by all of you who have thought such thoughts of me, but now some troll has got into me and turned me false to myself so that I cannot give you punishment for your treason! Certainly the gods must think this crown of great value since, before they give it to me, they take from me all that I have thought my happiness, and rob me of my honor as well!”
He dashed his fist against the tree beside him and did not seem to feel it when his hand was bleeding. “Here I take oath that they shall cause their gift to prove its value! It shall be meat and drink to me, and honor and life itself. Many happenings shall spring from this gift, for I will put my whole strength into the holding of it; Odin himself shall not wrest it from me! I will be such a king that there will not be many to equal me; such a king that they will wish they had given me happiness and left me a man.”
Whirling, he flung out his bleeding hand toward Elfgiva, and his mouth was distorted with its bitterness. “Hear that, you who were so mad to have your lord the King of England that you could not spend a thought on the love of Canute of Denmark! You have got your wish,--go back now to your Northamptonshire castle and think whether or not you are gladdened by it.”
“Go back!” Elfgiva fell from her height of injured dignity with a piercing scream. “What is it you say, King? Now by the splendor of heaven, you depart not for London without me! Be it known to you that I am going to be your Queen.”
At first he looked at her in genuine astonishment; after that he laughed, neither angrily nor bitterly, but with the quietness of utter contempt. “I will have the London goldsmiths send you a crown if you wish,” he said. “That is all you understand about being a queen.”
She tried to protest, to cajole, to threaten. She tried to do so many things at once that she accomplished none of them. Her speech became less and less intelligible until tears and hysterical laughter reduced it to mere mouthings, while her tiny hands beat the air with fingers bent hook-like.
But the young King did not look at her again. He had rejoined his nobles and was leading them toward the door, giving rapid orders as he walked. “Do you, Rothgar, see to it that the horses are saddled. Kinsman Ulf, it is my will that you join us some while later, when you have seen these women returned in safety. You, my chiefs, get you ready to ride to Oxford as quick as is possible.” His voice was lost in the trampling as they stepped from the turf upon the flagging of the gallery.
When the echoing tread was gone at last from the cloister, the garden seemed strangely silent in spite of the hurrying servants,--silent and empty. In the stillness, it came slowly to Randalin that life was not so simple as she had supposed; that she was not going to die of her grief but to live with it,--live with this dead emptiness in her breast. The years seemed to stretch before her like the snow wastes of the North,--white, white, white, without a break of living green.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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24
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On The Road to London
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Hotter than fire Love for five days burns Between false friends; But is quenched When the sixth day comes, And friendship is all impaired. Ha’vama’l. From Edgeware, where the Watling Street left the Middlesex Forest to cross the barren heath known as Tyburn Lane, the great road was crowded with travellers. A small portion of them--messengers, soldiers, and hunting parties--were riding northward, but the great mass was facing the City whither they were pressing to warm themselves in the glow of the Coronation. On foot, on horseback, in wagons and on crutches, they were as motley a throng as had ever trod the Roman stones; and the respectable element among them was by no means large enough to leaven the lump. Sometimes a group of merchants was to be seen, conducting loaded wagons; sometimes, a thane’s pompous thane, ensheathed in his retinue; while occasionally, as they neared the New Gate, the crowd was swelled by squads of the lesser Cheapside dealers making the daily pilgrimage from their country dwellings to their stalls in the City. But these were as scattered islands in the stream of half drunken seamen, masterless thralls, wolf-eyed beggars, paupers, vagabonds and criminals, who were pushing toward London in hopes of pleasure or gain or for want of another goal.
Amid such a rabble, and as out of place as a swarm of butterflies in frost-silvered air, a band of high-born women was to be seen approaching the City this early December morning. Gorgeously attired pages, hardly more warlike than the women, made a blooming hedge around them, while a sufficiently strong guard of men-at-arms protected them from actual harm, but from impudent comment and ribald jest there was no defence. Their hoods were pulled down as before a storm, their mantles drawn up above their chins; and all but two of them appeared to be trying to shrink into their gilded saddles.
The two who rode at their head, however, looked to be of a different mettle. Indeed, in the quality of her courage, each appeared to differ from the other, though muffling folds blotted out anything like individuality. The shorter of the two, while she rode with gracefully drooping head, had left her face practically uncovered, seemingly unconscious of the half slighting, half pitying admiration elicited by its pathetic beauty. The other, who showed no more than the tip of her nose, held her head bravely erect, while, even through her wrappings, the straightness of her back breathed haughtiness.
Yet it was not to the pensive fair one that a timid companion appealed for comfort, when a temporary damming of the stream pressed those who led, back upon those who followed. She stretched out an en-treating hand toward the girl with the haughtily carried head.
“Randalin! What will he do--the King--when he finds that we have fooled Ulf Jarl, and come hither against his command?”
The Danish girl laughed recklessly. “Little do I care, Candida, to tell it truthfully. Nothing can be worse than sitting in that Abbey. Here at least there is a chance that something may happen to help us to forget that we are alive.”
Candida shook the cloak she had grasped. “But you expect that he will be angry! You told Elfgiva not to undertake the journey because of it. And you were able to say the soothest about his temper.”
“I was obliged to tell her that to be honest,” Randalin answered, and again there was a little wildness in her laugh, “but I should have gone stone-mad if she had not come.” Yet, as her horse commenced to bear her forward once more, she consented to speak more encouragingly across the widening space. “If his humor is right, it may be that nothing disagreeable will happen. She is very fair to look at,--it may be that his mind will change at the sight of her. Think that you will sleep in the Palace to-night.”
Catching this last phrase, as her Valkyria came abreast of her, Elfgiva spoke pettishly: “You see fit to sing a different tune from what you did when you tried to hinder me from this undertaking. I should have brighter hopes if I had not given ear to your advice to send a messenger ahead. If I could have come upon him before he had time to work himself into a hostile temper--” Her attention wandered as a couple of tipsy soldiers elbowed themselves between the guards only to catch a nearer glimpse of her face, after which they allowed themselves to be thrust back, shouting drunken toasts to her beauty.
“Is it your wish that I help you to lower your hood, lady?” the Danish girl made offer.
Elfgiva’s half smile deepened into a laugh. “Not so, not so!” she said. “What! Have you seen so much of war and battle axes that you have forgotten the ways that are pleasing to men? Yet methinks you must needs have taken notice that, always before he goes into battle, a soldier tests the sharpness of his weapon. It is to that end that I endure the gaze of these serfs,--to test the power of my face.”
“It would not be unadvisable for you to whet your wits as well,” Frode’s daughter muttered scornfully, and somewhat rashly, since Elfgiva’s wits had been sharp enough to guess the significance of her hand-maiden’s interview with the young English noble, and the knowledge had given her a weapon which she was skilful in using.
“Has the sharpness of your mind brought you so much success then, my sweet?” she inquired with her faultless smile; and had the satisfaction of seeing her rebel shrink into silence like a child before a rod.
The crowding of the highway became more noticeable as they neared the point where the Watling Street swerved from its old course, toward the ford and the little Isle of Thorns, to bend eastward toward the New Gate. Some obstruction at the forking of the roads impeded their progress almost to a walk. After a brief experience of it, Elfgiva spoke impatiently to the nearest soldier.
“Why does it become more crowded when two paths open before us? Why does it not happen that some of these cattle turn down the old way?”
The man shook his head. “I do not think there is much likelihood of that, lady; since the Bridge was built, no one has wanted to use the ford; and there is little else to take that way for, unless you are going to service in the West Minster or to the Monastery.”
“Wanted!” the Lady of Northampton repeated in the extremity of scorn. “Bid them turn into that road at once. They stand some chance of their faces getting clean if they take the ford,--if they also get drowned matters very little. Tell them, seek what they may seek, to take that way instantly, or the King shall punish them for interfering with their betters.”
The man pushed up his leather cap to scratch his head. He was not unacquainted with her custom of sweeping the Northamptonshire serfs off any road she wished to possess, but that struck him as being somewhat easier than dispersing a Coronation mob at the gates of London; and yet to defy her--that was harder than either of them! It was an interposition of his good angel that at this moment provided a diversion.
Randalin broke from her silence with an exclamation: “Thorkel! Yonder!”
Less than fifty paces ahead of them, the grizzled head of the King’s foster-father rose steeple-like above the crowd, while the mighty shoulders of the King’s foster-brother made a bulwark beside it, and the gilded helms of the King’s guard formed a palisade around them. The obstacle in the way was nothing less than a royal detachment drawn up in waiting beside the road.
Elfgiva’s frown relaxed; for the first time in many days she let the liquid music of her laughter trickle forth. “Be blithesome in your minds, maidens!” she called gayly over her shoulder. “Friends are at hand to take charge of us.”
Taking into consideration what they had expected, the attention was so flattering that at first they scarcely dared believe it; but its truth was proved the moment Thorkel turned his head and saw them coming. At his command, the line of gilded helms quickly drew out across the road in a barrier which once more dammed the human stream to overflowing. A break in the middle allowed the party from Gloucester to filter through; then the opening closed behind them; the line bent at either end, and they moved as between walls, guarded against any further jostling or rude contact. Elfgiva sparkled with delight and greeted the Tall One with more affability than she had ever before deigned his gruffness.
“Since my royal lord came not himself to meet us,” she said graciously,--and pushing her hood entirely back so that he might get the full benefit of her face, “he has well honored us in his messengers, than whom no persons could be more welcome. I pray you, tell me without delay how it stands with his health and his fortunes.”
Turning from a muttered word to the soldier at his side, Thorkel answered her with his usual curtness. “He thrives well, but his time is full of great matters. To-day he is with the English Witan. Yesterday they chose him to be their king. To-morrow he is to be crowned.”
“To-morrow? And he would have let me remain in ignorance!” The Lady of Northampton was unable to repress a start of anger, though she turned it as soon as possible into a plaintive sigh. “Let me be thankful that my arrival is not too late. I cannot tell you how we have been beset with hardships!” Whereupon, she instantly began telling him, giving free rein to eyes and lips and all the graceful tricks of her hands. It did not disturb her in the least that he rode beside her in silence, when she had observed that from under the bristling thatch of his brows his gaze never left her face.
So complete was her preoccupation that she dis-regarded another thing,--the highway along which they were travelling. It was Randalin who first awoke to a consciousness that the noise of the rabble had become very faint behind them, that no sounds at all broke the stillness ahead of them, that the uneven weed-grown path they were treading was very different from the smooth hardness of the Watling Street. Fens on either side of them, a low hill to the front--was this the way to London? For the first time, she spoke to the son of Lodbrok, who had silently taken his place at her side.
“This is not the Watling Street! Yet we have not turned--Where are we?” Rothgar gnawed at his heavy moustache as though the answer were difficult to frame; and before he had time to evolve it, Elfgiva, who had caught the exclamation, had broken off her prattle.
“That is true! The crowd has disappeared--the stones are overlaid with weeds--” In her bewilderment, she reined in her horse and would have stopped to look about her, if Thorkel’s hand upon her bridle had not compelled her to remain in motion.
“You are still on the Watling Street,” he said harshly. “It is only that this is the old bed of it that has not been used much since the Bridge was built. Besides the ford, it leads also to Saint Peter’s Monastery on Thorney--” Stung with fear, she tried to snatch the lines from him. “I am not going to a monastery! I am going to the Palace.”
As a cliff stands against the fretting of waves, his grasp stood against hers; and his voice was as immovable as his hand. “Certainly you are going to a palace, you did not let me carry out my meaning. Adjoining the Monastery there is a dwelling-place which was once a house for travellers, that King Edgar himself has slept in--” “It is a prison you are taking me to!” Her voice rose in a shriek. “It is a prison! You are mocking me I will scream for help!”
His smile mocked her openly then. “By all means,”--he assented,--“and see how much it will profit you.”
She realized then that walls were for shutting people in as well as for shutting people out, and she could have screamed for very temper. Yet she made one more attempt before giving way. Abandoning her struggle for the lines, she let her little gloved hands alight like fluttering birds upon his mailed arm, and summoned all the eloquence of her beauty into her heavenly eyes.
“No, sooner would I trust to you,” she murmured. “You could not mistreat me so! I beseech it of you, take me to the Palace where the King is.”
On what she based her belief that he was incapable of thwarting her is not quite clear, for he had never taken the trouble to hide the fact that he considered her a nuisance, and her civil marriage with the King a piece of youthful folly on Canute’s part. Sinister satisfaction was in his tone when he answered her.
“The Palace where the King is,” he said, “is the Palace for a Queen.”
At first, it seemed that she would either scratch out his eyes or throw herself from her saddle. But in the end she did neither, for a sense of her helplessness turned her faint. To one who has always ruled undisputed, there is something benumbing in the first collision with the pitiless hand of Force. “If I had the good luck to see a bee caught in a brier, I should wish your death,” she threatened. But she said it under her breath; and after that, rode with drooping head and eyes that saw nothing of the scene before her.
When the road had left the fens, it climbed a low hill, beyond which it entered a wood. A brook was the further boundary of the wood, and across its brawling brown water a rude stone bridge continued their path, and linked the bank with the little Isle of Thorns. Nature must have had a prison in mind when she constructed this island, Elfgiva thought with a shiver. A low sandy hillock rising amid three streams or water, the high tide would have cut it off completely but for the friendly arm which the Watling Street extended to it from the Tot Hill, while a thicket of brambles and briers edged it like a natural prison wall. Nor had man forgotten such defences, she found when they had passed a gap in the thorny hedge; a fence of stone rose sheer before them and extended on either hand as far as eye could reach. In the fence was a great gate of black oak, which a black-robed Benedictine presently opened to their summons.
Now for the first time, Thorkel took his hand from her rein. “I will go no farther,” he said. “You are expected, and one of the monks will be your guide. It lies only across the court and through one more door.” His lips curled in their cruel smile as he motioned her forward. “Go in and take possession. It is not sure how soon the King will get time to come to you. His mood has not been very playful lately. Rothgar’s sword has scarcely had time to go to bed in its sheath--” “The King is occupied with great matters,” Rothgar’s heavy voice bore down the old man’s thinner tones. “It is not only that he has to be crowned and make laws. He has many Englishmen to dispose of, and much land to divide up among his following.”
While Elfgiva’s glance passed him uncomprehendingly, Randalin lifted startled eyes. When she saw that he was looking directly at her, she knew that it was no chance shaft, but an arrow aimed at her heart. The time had come that he had looked forward to, when Canute should get the kingship over the English, and Ivarsdale should come back to the race that had built it. And it was all fair, quite fair, quite within the rules of the game at which she herself had played. She had not a word to offer as she lowered her eyes and let her horse follow the others as it would. There was satisfaction on the lips of each of the King’s deputies as they rode cityward that day.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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25
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The King’s Wife
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Long is and indirect the way To a bad friend’s, Though by the road he dwell. Ha’vama’l.
The fact that King Edgar had slept under its uneven on some visit to Dunstan’s monkish colony, was scarcely sufficient to make a palace of the rambling rookery which a wall separated from the West Minster. It was an irregular one-storied building,--or, rather, group of buildings connected by covered passages,--and every kind of material had been used in its construction,--brick and stone and wood,--while some of the smaller offices were even straw-thatched and wattled.
“It is the waste-place of ruins,” Elfgiva said on the day of their arrival, when the monk who guided them proudly identified the brick portions as fragments of the old Roman Temple to Apollo, the wooden door-posts as beams from the Saxon Seberht’s refectory, and the stone walls as contributions from Dunstan’s chapel, which the Danes of the year one thousand and twelve had reduced to a crumbling pile.
To-day, a fortnight later, Randalin repeated the comment with a despondent addition: “It is the waste-place of ruins, and ruins have come to dwell in it. I can believe that it is no lie about the Fates to call them women, when they put like with like in so housewifely a manner.”
She was alone in one of the bare mouldering rooms, leaning against the deep-set small-paned window which had become her accustomed post. It offered no pleasanter outlook than the snow-powdered thicket beyond the wall and a glimpse of the Thames, spreading silently over the surrounding marshes; but from it her fancy’s eye could follow the mighty stream around its eastern bend to the point where the City walls began, and Saint Paul’s shingled steeple reared itself in lofty pride. The Palace stood in the shade of that steeple,--the real Palace, where the King sat deciding over the fate of his new subjects, taking their lands from them, when he did not take their lives, and banishing them across the sea to live and die in beggary. Her fingers tapped the glass in desperation as she realized her helplessness even to get news of his judgments.
“The King will never come to this rubbish heap,” she told herself despairingly. “Here we are buried no less than if we lay in a mound. It is not likely that we shall get news by an easier way than by going to him.”
Straining her eyes out over the mist-robed river, she tried for the thousandth time to think of some bait alluring enough to tempt Elfgiva to that point of daring. Hope the Lady of Northampton had every morning when she awoke and looked in her mirror, and Wrath lay down with her every night, but the rashness which had prompted her first attempt, Thorkel must have taken away with him, a trophy tied to his saddle-bow. She made big plans and she talked big words,--but always she put off their fulfilment until the morrow.
“At this gait, he could be dead and in his grave without my knowing it!” Randalin cried in despair, and her voice made it quite clear that “he” no longer meant the King. Since there was no one to see it, she even allowed her head to fall forward on her arms, and let the ache in her throat ease itself in a little sob. “Now it is open to me that I was foolish to let what happened in the garden, that day, cause so much sadness in my heart,” she sighed. “It should have been a great joy to me that he was still safe and happy... and I should have found some hope in it, also, for as long as he is in England there would always be the chance that I might see him again... And perhaps, after a long while, when he had quite forgotten how I looked as Fridtjof... if I should be able to learn many graceful woman’s ways from Elfgiva... and if he should come upon me when I had on a very beautiful kirtle... so long as he likes my hair...” But even as the smile budded on her lips, she plucked it from them, trembling. “How dare I think of such things, when already they may have driven him across the sea! It would be quite enough if I could know that the same land is to hold us both, if I could have the hope of seeing him again to make it seem worth while for me to go on living. Oh, I did not dream how much I leaned on that, until it was taken from me!” In the utter loneliness of her despair, she crushed her face against her arm, pressing back the burning tears, and her heart rose in a prayer to the Englishman’s God, since her own no longer answered her: “Oh, Thou God, if Thou art kind and helpful as he says, it is easy for Thee to let him remain here where I can sometimes see him! Leave me this one hope, and I also will believe in Thee.” With her face hidden, she stood there praying it until it rang so strong through her soul that it seemed to her the Power could not but hear. And after He had heard, it would be so simple,--if He was as helpful as Sebert said.
There was new resolution in her movements when at last she left the window and went toward Elfgiva’s bower. “I will try once more to entice her to the Palace, so that I can get tidings,” she determined. “Perhaps it will be easier if at first I suggest no more than a ride, and after that allure her by degrees. I wonder what kind of humor she is in.”
It was not necessary to go far to obtain a hint as to that. Even as she entered the passage, she heard from the bower-chamber the crash of a chair overturned, the scramble of scurrying feet, and then screams and the thud of blows.
“Now it is heard that she is not sulking among her cushions,” Randalin observed. “When her temper is up she is little afraid of doing things which she else would not dare do.”
According to that her expectations should have mounted high, as she drew aside the door curtain, for the Lady of Northampton was far from sulking. Partially disrobed, as she had sprung up from before her mirror, she was holding the luckless Dearwyn with one hand while with the other she administered pitiless punishment from a long club-like candle which she had snatched from its holder. Between her entreaties for mercy, the little maid was shrieking with pain; now, at sight of Randalin, she redoubled her struggles so that the belt by which her mistress grasped her burst and left her free to dart forward and fling herself behind the Danish girl.
“Help me, help me!” she gasped; as Elfgiva swooped upon both of them, her streaming hair taking on a resemblance to bristling fur, her eyes showing more of opal’s fire than of heaven’s blue.
“Come not betwixt, or I will treat you in a like manner,” the mistress panted. “Do you understand the evil she has wrought? She has broken the wing off my gold fly, besides tearing the hair half out of my head. It is not to be borne with!”
But the Valkyria’s fear of Elfgiva’s tongue did not extend to Elfgiva’s hands. Catching the dimpled wrists, she held them off with perfect coolness, as she said soothingly, “Now you tire yourself much, lady; and you will tire yourself more if you consent to the entertainment I came hither to propose.” She laughed, a little excitedly, as a thought struck her. “It may even be that you will not blame her for this, but rather take it as a sign that my advice is good.”
To say “sign” to Elfgiva was something like saying “cream” to a cat. Gradually she ceased trying to free her hands, to gaze at her captor. “What do you mean by that? Or have you any meaning except only trying for an excuse to get this hussy off from punishment?”
“No, in truth, for I thought of it before I knew that trouble had happened to her,” Randalin answered; and now she knew that it was safe to release the wrists. “I will show you. I was thinking how it might cause amusement to us to ride into the City and see what the goldsmiths have in their booths. And then I came in here and found you in need of goldsmiths’ mending! Does not that look like a sign that my thought is good?”
Elfgiva threw aside the candle to come close and lay her hands upon the girl’s breast. “Good for what?” she demanded. “Do you think it likely that I might fall in with the King somewhere in the City?”
This was going a bit faster than Randalin had planned, and her breath came quickly, but she took the risk and admitted it. “I did hope that it might happen that we would see the King,” she said, “and--what is more important to us--that the King might see you.”
Slowly, the King’s wife went back to her seat before the mirror, and sat there fingering and turning the jewelled rouge-pots in a deep study.
“Deliver me your opinion of this, Teboen?” she said, at last, to the big raw-boned British woman who was her nurse and also the female majordomo of her household.
Teboen was enough mistress of the magic art to give anything like an omen its due weight,--and perhaps she was also human enough to be weary of a fortnight’s imprisonment with a porcupine. After becoming deliberation, she replied that she thought rather favorably of the plan, that certainly it could do no harm, since a visit to the booths had never been forbidden to them, while it would be almost as sure to do good if the King could be reminded of how beautiful a woman he was neglecting.
Elfgiva’s laughter was like returning sunshine. “How! You say so? Then will we make ready without delay! Leonorine, come hither and finish clothing me,--Dearwyn would shake too much. Lay aside your whimpering, child; the scourging is forgiven you. Tata, I could find it in my mind to scold you for not thinking of this before. You must mouth the order for the horses, though,” she added as an afterthought. “I should expect it would be told me that I am a prisoner, whereat I should weep for rage.”
Another flash of daring lighted Randalin’s eyes, though her mouth remained quiet. “A good way to keep them from thinking you a prisoner, lady, is to act like a free woman,” she said. “I shall tell them that you are going to the Palace to see your husband.” Sowing her seed, she left it to take root, and went away to convince the head of the grooms.
As she had foretold, he was too uncertain regarding their position to dare contest their order, little as he liked it. In something less than an hour, the five women, fur-wrapped and flanked by pages and soldiers, were riding across the little stone bridge and up the wooded slope of the Tot Hill. In something more than an hour after that, they were passing under the deep arch of the New Gate into the great City itself.
“Do you purpose to visit the Palace first, noble one?” the leader of the guards inquired with a respectful if uneasy salute.
The seed had rooted so far that Elfgiva did not disclaim the intention; but she hesitated a long time, pulling nervously at the embroidered top of her riding glove. “In what direction lie the goldsmiths?” she asked at last.
“Straight ahead, lady. Nothing very pleasant is at the beginning; neither the shambles which lie across the way, nor the wax chandler’s which is opposite; but when you get beyond Saint Martin’s to the Commons, you will find--” The lady’s nose wrinkled disdainfully. “Which way lies the Palace?”
“Down the lane on your left, noble one. You can see where the wall of the King’s garden makes one side of Paternoster Row. You can reach the Cheapside along the road also,” he added, “if you do not turn in your way until you come where the Churchyard joins the Folk--” “Turn then to the left.”
They obeyed her, but their gay chatter died on their lips. If the road bore none of the repulsiveness of the shambles, it was still little more cheerful than the graveyard. On their right, an ice-stiffened marsh reached to the great City wall, while a remnant of the primeval beech forest lay along their left, leafless, wind-lashed and groaning. Ahead, behind its walls and above its gardens of clustering fruit-trees, rose the towers and gilded spires of the King’s Palace.
As they neared the arched gateway, red with the cloaks of the royal guards, it seemed to Randalin that an icy hand had closed about her heart. The blood was ebbing from Elfgiva’s face, and it could be seen that she was forced to keep moistening her lips with her tongue. Nearer--now they were in front of the entrance--All at once, the lady thrust a spur into her horse as he was slackening his pace in obedience to her tightened rein.
“To the goldsmiths’ first,” she ordered. “On our way back--” Her words were lost on the frosty wind.
The master of the first booth in the row of wretched little stalls was humped with steaming breath over a brazier of glowing coals. He leaped to greet such splendid ladies with a profusion of salaams and a mouthful of pretty speeches that brought some of the color back to Elfgiva’s cheeks.
“Do not have me in contempt, Tata,” she admonished with a laugh of some unsteadiness. “It is not certain that I am going to belie you to the guards, or that I have lost faith in your sign. Let me sharpen my weapon for some space among these precious things, and it may be that I shall go hence panting for the field.”
“Ah, gracious lady, you must needs buy my whole stock,” the merchant cried with ingratiating smiles, “for I can never endure to sell to another what I have once seen near your face.”
Elfgiva laughed beautifully then, and the Danish girl took a fresh grip upon her patience. Certainly the jewelled bugs, the golden snakes, the strands of amber and jet and pearl, seemed to act as tonics upon the Northampton lady. If she had not traded away, at the first two stalls, every ornament in her possession, she would have investigated each booth in the square. She came out in bubbling spirits to the waiting horses and the half-frozen guards.
“This Cheapside is a very fairy garden,” she prattled, lingering with her foot in the hand of the kneeling groom. “Everything in beds and rows as they were herbs,--milk down this lane, soap down that, jewels, fabrics--” She turned with a sudden inspiration. “Maidens, would not this be a merry thought? To find out where the fabrics are kept and try some cloth of gold against these pearls?”
As the servile murmur answered, Randalin’s brow darkened. Cloth of gold and pearls,--when a wolf was tearing at her heart! She spoke desperately, “I wish that the way to the fabrics might lie past the King’s House, lady.”
The King’s wife sent her a glance, half resentful, half questioning. “Why do you say that?”
“Because if Canute could see you as you look now, with your cheeks a-flower and that ermine, like snow, upon your hair, there is nothing in the world he could refuse you.”
Elfgiva’s mouth curved bewitchingly. “You speak as though you had jewels to sell. What fine manners they have, these London merchants! Tell me, Candida, Leonorine, does she speak the truth? On your crosses, has not the cold reddened my nose? Or pinched the bloom off my lips?”
If the murmur that answered lacked any heartiness, their mistress did not perceive it, for every man within earshot swelled it with reassurance,--thinking perhaps of the hot spiced wine in the King’s cups.
After a moment of hesitation, she flew up to her saddle like a bird. “Do you all think so?” she laughed. “Certainly I never felt in lustier spirits. I declare that I will try it. Hasten, before the roses wilt in my cheeks. Forward! To the Palace!”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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26
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In The Judgment Hall
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Strong is the bar That must be raised To admit all. Ha’vama’l.
While he kept a firm hold upon the spear which he had dropped like a gilded bar across the door, the English sentinel repeated for the tenth time his respectful denial: “I will take it upon me to admit you to the gallery, noble lady; but you were the Queen herself, I dare not let you in to the lower part. There be none but men with the King, and it is not fitting--” “And is the son of a Saxon serf to decide where it is fitting for me to go?” the Lady of Northampton demanded, facing him in a tempest of angry beauty. “Whatsoever you shall do by my direction, dog, will in all respects be available to your credit. Let me through to my husband, or I can tell you that you will find your wariness terribly misplaced!”
The guard discreetly held his tongue,--but he likewise held his position. Elfgiva’s bosom was beginning to heave in hysterical menace when a second soldier, lounging against the wall behind the first, ventured a soothing word.
“For your own safety, noble one, ask it not. The King is listening to a quarrel between an Englishman and a Dane; and by reason of it, there are many in the room whose tempers may--” Randalin, who alone of all the maidens had remained undauntedly at her mistress’ elbow, caught that elbow in a vice-like grip. “Take the gallery, then, lady!” she urged in a piercing whisper. “The gallery, as quick as you can.”
As an angry cat wounds whoever is nearest, Elfgiva scratched her in the same undertone. “Stupid! Do you imagine that the only Englishman who has part in the world is the one you showed yourself a fool for? Do you not understand that if I let them assign me to some dark gallery, Canute will not be able to see me?”
It did not appear that the girl so much as felt the claws. Her eyes had a look of strained listening as they gazed past the sentinel and across the ante-room to the great curtained doorway. “He will succeed better in seeing you through a dim light than through a stone wall,” she returned.
Biting her lips, the fair Tyrant of Northampton measured the man through her lashes. He might have been of the same material as his spear for all the sign he showed of yielding. She could not understand such defiance, and, like mysteries in general, it awed even while it angered her. Affecting to draw herself up in disdain, she really gave back a step. “Perhaps it would be wise to put off our visit until a day that there is a man at the door instead of a blockhead--” Randalin’s arm was an iron barrier behind her. “Now I do not know where you think the power to do that will come from!” she hissed in her ear. “Do you not see that if you go back to your grooms and let them know that you have not got enough honor with the King to gain an entrance, they will never dare do your bidding again? Do you not see that you must do one of two things, or now win, or now lose?”
Apparently Elfgiva saw. After a moment’s bridling, she whirled back with an angry flounce of her draperies. “The gallery, then, dog! I shall reach my lord’s ear from that, which will be an unlucky thing for you.”
Saluting in silence, the guard drew back to let her pass, at the same time signing to a row of men-at-arms standing motionless as pillars against the stone wall of the ante-room. With a rattle and clank they came to life, and the little band of five kirtles, surrounded and led, was marched to a low side-door which gave in upon a short flight of stone steps, white-frosted now with the dampness and their distance from the fire. At the head of the flight, another door gave entrance to a narrow passage that probably reached the length of the hall below, though it seemed to the shivering women to extend the length of the Palace itself. A third door, ending this corridor, admitted them to the gallery that ran across the upper end of the hall.
As she passed the threshold Elfgiva exclaimed in vexation, for the light of the log fire, whose rudely carved chimney-piece broke the long side-wall, succumbed at the balcony’s lower edge to the shadows of the raftered ceiling, and all above was wrapped in soft twilight. “He cannot tell me from a monster,” she fumed, letting herself sink into a faded tapestry chair, standing forgotten amid a pile of mouldering cushions.
The three English girls, pressing timidly to her side, answered with indistinct murmurs which she could interpret to suit her pleasure. The Danish girl made her no reply whatever. Half kneeling, half sitting upon the cushions, her head was already bent over the gallery’s edge, and the scene below had claimed her eye and ear to the exclusion of all else.
Whatever its shortcomings as a show-case, the balcony was excellently adapted both for spectators and for eavesdroppers, its distance from the floor being little more than twice a man’s height, while the fire which doled its light so stingily, lavished a glory of brightness on the spot where the King’s massive chair stood beside the chimney-piece. After one petulant glance, even Elfgiva’s pique gave way to a curiosity that gradually drew her forward to the very edge of her seat and held her there, the three maids crouching at her feet.
Encircled by a martial throng, so massed and indistinct that they made a background like embroidered tapestry, three figures were the centre of attention,--the figure of the young King in his raised chair, and the forms of the Dane and the Angle who fronted each other before his footstool. Shielded from the heat by his palm, Canute’s face was in the shadow, and the giant shape of the son of Lodbrok was a blot against the flames, but the glare lay strong on Sebert of Ivarsdale, revealing a picture that caused one spectator to catch her breath in a sob. Equally aloof from English thane and Danish noble, the Etheling in the palace of his native king stood a stranger and alone, while his swordless sheath showed him to be also a prisoner. He bore himself proudly, one of his blood could scarcely have done otherwise, but his fine face was white with misery, and despair darkened his eyes as they stared unseeingly before him.
As well as though he had put his thoughts into words, the girl who loved him knew that his mind was back in the peaceful manor between the hills, foreseeing its desecration by barbarian hands, foretasting the ruin of those who looked to him for protection. From the twilight of the balcony, she stretched out her arms to him in a passion of yearning pity, and all of selfishness that had been in her grief faded from it utterly, as her heart sent forth a second prayer.
“Oh, Thou God, forget what I asked for myself! Think only of helping him, of comforting him, and I will love Thee as though Thou hadst done it to me. Help him! Help him!”
Answering a question from the King, Rothgar began to speak, his heavy voice seeming to fill all the space from floor to ceiling: “By all the laws of war, King Canute, the Odal of Ivarsdale should come to me. The first son of Lodbrok took the land before ever this Angle’s kin had seen it. He built the tower that stands on it, and the name it bears to this day is the name of his giving. Under Guthrum, a weak-kneed son of his lost it to the English Alfred, and we fell out of our fortunes with the tipping of the scales, and Angles have sat since then in the seat of Lodbrok’s sons. But now the scales have risen again. Under Canute, Ivarsdale, with all other English property, comes back to Danish hands. By all the laws of war, my kinsman’s inheritance should be my share of the spoil.”
Ending roundly, he drew himself up in an attitude of bold assurance. Wherever a group of scarlet cloaks made a bright patch upon the human arras, there was a flutter of approval. Even the braver of the English nobles, who for race-pride alone might have supported Sebert in a valid claim, saw nothing to do now but to draw away, with a silent interchange of shrugs and headshakes, and leave him to his doom.
In the shadow of his hand, Canute nodded slowly. “By all the laws of war,” he affirmed, “your kinsman’s inheritance should be your share of the spoil.”
Again an approving murmur rose from Danish throats; and Rothgar was opening his lips to voice a grateful answer, when a gesture of the royal hand checked him.
“Recollect, however, that just now I am not only a war-chief, but also a law-man. I think it right, therefore, to hear what the Englishman has to say for his side. Sebert Oswaldsson, speak in your defence.”
Not even a draft appeared to stir the human tapestry about them. Sebert started like a man awakened from sleep, when he realized that every eye was hanging upon him. Swiftly, his glance passed around the circle, from the averted faces of his countrymen to the foreign master on the throne, then bitterly he bent his head to his fate.
“I have nothing to say. Your justice may most rightly be meted out.”
“Nothing to say?” The King’s measured voice sounded sharply through the hush. For the first time, he lowered his hand and bent forward where the fire-glow could touch him.
As she caught sight of his face Elfgiva shrank and clutched at her women. “Ah, Saints, I am thankful now that it is dark!” she murmured.
Sebert sustained the look with proud steadiness. “Nothing that would be of use to me,” he said; “and I do not choose to pleasure you by setting up a weak plea for you to knock down again. The right which gave Britain to the Saxons has given England to the Danes, and it is not by words that such a right can be disputed. If your messengers had not taken me by surprise--” He paused, with an odd curl to his lips that could hardly be called a smile; but Canute gave him grim command to finish, and he obeyed with rising color. “If your messengers had not come upon me as I was riding on the Watling Street and brought me here, a prisoner, I would have argued the matter with arrows, and you would needs have battered down the defence of stone walls to convince me.”
Mutters of mingled admiration and censure buzzed around; and one English noble, more daring and also more friendly than the others, drew near and spoke a word of friendly warning in Sebert’s ear. Through it all, Canute sat motionless, studying the Etheling with his bright colorless eyes.
At last he said unexpectedly, “If you would not obey my summons until my men had dealt with you by force, it cannot be said that you have much respect for my authority. Do you not then acknowledge me as King of the English?”
Rothgar betrayed impatience at this branching aside. Sebert himself showed surprise.
He said hesitatingly, “I--I cannot deny that. You have the same right that Cerdic had over the Britons. Nay, you have more, for you are the formal choice of the Witan. I cannot rightly deny that you are King of the Angles.”
“If you acknowledge me to be that,” Canute said, “I do not see why you have not an argument for your defence.”
While all stared at him, he rose slowly and stood before them, a dazzling figure as the light caught the steel of his ring-mail and turned his polished helm to a fiery dome.
“Sebert Oswaldsson,” he said slowly, “I did not feel much love toward you the first time I saw you, and it is hard for me not to hate you now, when I see what you are going to be the cause of. If your case had come before Canute the man, you would have received the answer you expect. But it is your luck that Canute the man is dead, and you stand before Canute the King. Hear then my answer: By all the laws of war, the land belongs to Ivar’s son; and had he regained it while war ruled, I had not taken it from him, though the Witan itself commanded me. But instead of regaining it, he lost it.” He stretched a forbidding hand toward Rothgar, feeling without seeing his angry impulse. “By what means matters not; battles have turned on a smaller thing, and the loyalty of those we have protected is a lawful weapon to defend ourselves with. The kinsman of Ivar a second time lost his inheritance, and the opportunity passed--forever. For now it is time to remember that this is not war, but peace; and in times of peace it is not allowed to take a man’s land from him unless he has broken the law or offended honor, which no one can say this Englishman has done. What concerns war-time is a thing by itself; as ruler over laws and land-rights, I cannot give one man’s lands to another, though the one be a man I care little for, and the other is my foster-brother. Go back therefore, unhindered, Lord of Ivarsdale, and live in peace henceforth. I do not think it probable that I shall ever call you to my friendship, but when the time comes that there is need of a brave and honest man to serve the English people in serving me, I shall send for you. Beware you that you do not neglect the summons of one whom you have acknowledged to be your rightful King! Orvar, I want you to restore to him his weapon and see him on his way in safety. Your life shall answer for any harm that comes to him.”
With one hand, he struck down the murmur that was rising; with the other he made an urgent gesture of haste, which Orvar seemed to understand. Even while he was returning to the Lord of Ivarsdale his sword, he seized him by the arm and hurried him down the room, the Etheling walking like a man in a dream.
From the dusk of the rafters, the girl who loved him stretched out her hands to him in tender fare-well, but there was no more of anguish in the gesture. Gazing after him, the tears rose slowly to her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks, but on her mouth was a little smile whose wondering joy mounted to exaltation.
No need was there for her to hide either tear or smile, for no one of the women about her was so much as conscious of her existence. The murmur below was growing, despite the King’s restraining hand; and now, crashing through it in hideous discord, came a burst of jeering laughter from the Jotun. What words he also spoke they could not catch, but they heard the Danish cries sink and die, aghast, and they saw a score of English thanes spring upon him and drag him backwards. Above the noise of their scuffling, the King’s voice sounded stern and cold.
“While I act as law-man in my judgment hall, I will hear no disputing of my judgments. Whoso comes to me in my private chamber, as friend to friend, may tell his mind; but now I speak as King, and what I have spoken shall stand.”
Struggling with those who would have forced him from the room, Rothgar had no breath to retort with, but the words did not go unsaid because of that. Wherever scarlet cloaks made a bright patch, the human arras swayed and shook violently, and then fell apart into groups of angry men whose voices rose in resentful chorus: “Such judgment by a Danish King is unexampled!” “King, are we all to expect this treatment? ... This is the third time you have ruled against your own men--” “Sven you punished for the murder of an Englishman--” “Because you forced Gorm to pay his debt to an Englishman, he has lost all the property he owns.” “Now, as before, we want to know what this means.” “You are our chief, whose kingship we have held up with our lives--” “What are these English to you?” ... “They are the thralls your sword has laid-under, while we are of your own blood--” “It is the strong will of us warriors to know what you mean--” “Yes, tell it plainly!” ... “We speak as we have a right.” Snarling more and more openly, they surged forward, closing around the dais in a fiery mass.
In the cushions of the balcony, Leonorine hid her face with a cry; “They will murder him!” And Elfgiva rose slowly from her chair, her eyes dark with horror yet unable to tear themselves from the scene below. The mail-clad King no longer looked to her like a man of flesh and blood but like a figure of iron and steel, that the firelight was wrapping in unendurable brightness. His sword was no more brilliantly hard than his face, and his eyes were glittering points. The ring of steel was in his voice as he answered: “You speak as you have a right,--but you speak as men who have swines’ memories. Was it your support or your courage that won me the English crown? It may be that if I had waited until pyre and fire you would have done so, but it happened that before that time the English Witan gave it to me as a gift, in return for my pledge to rule them justly. My meaning in this judgment, and the others you dislike, is that I am going to keep that pledge. You are my men, and as my men you have supported me, and as my men I have rewarded you,--no chief was ever more open-handed with property toward his following,--but if you think that on that account I will endure from you trouble and lawlessness, you would better part from me and get into your boats and go back to my other kingdom. For I tell you now, openly and without deceit, that here henceforth there is to be but one rule for Angle and Dane alike; and I shall be as much their King as yours; and they shall share equally in my justice. You may like it or not, but that is what will take place.”
How they liked it was suggested by a bursting roar, and the scuffling of many feet as the English leaped forward to protect their new King and the Danes whirled to meet them, but the women in the gallery did not wait to see the outcome. In a frenzy of terror, Elfgiva dragged up the kneeling maids and herded them through the door.
“Go,--before they get into the ante-room!” she gasped. “Do you not see that he is no longer human? We should be pleading with iron. Go! Before they tear down the walls!”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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27
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Pixie-led
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To a good friend’s The paths lie direct, Though he be far away. Ha’vama’l.
So Sebert of Ivarsdale went to his tower unhindered; and the rest of the winter nights, while the winds of the Wolf Month howled about the palisades, he listened undisturbed to his harper; and the rest of the winter days he trod in peace the homely routine of his lordship,--in peace and in absent-eyed silence.
“The old ways are clean fallen out of England, and it becomes a man to consider diligently how he will order his future,” he told Hildelitha and the old cniht when they inquired the reason for his abstraction. Perhaps it was the future that was engrossing his mind, but sometimes it came to him dimly as a strange thing how so small a matter as a slip of a girl in a page’s dress could loom so large that there was no corner of manor or tower but recalled some trick of her tossing curls, some echo of her ringing laughter. The platform whereon they had walked in the moonlight, facing death together, he shunned as he would have shunned a grave; and the postern where they had parted was haunted ground. Did he tramp across the snow-crusted fields, memory clothed them again in nodding grain, and between the golden walls a figure in elfin green flitted like a will o’ the wisp. Did he outsit the maids and men around his hearth and watch the dying fire with no other companions than his sleeping dogs, fancy placed a scar-let-cloaked figure on the cushion at his feet and raised at his knee a face of sweetest friendliness, whose flower-blue eyes brightened or gloomed in response to his lightest mood... Once more he heard the harp-notes that told of the wood-nymph’s sorrow;... once more he heard his laughing denunciation;... again there looked back at him the wounded eyes... Whenever this vision rose before him, he stirred in his chair and turned his face from the light.
“May heaven grant that she is not remembering it!” he would murmur. And for a while he would see her as he had left her in the garden, holding herself so bravely erect in her shining robes, her white cheeks mocking at her smiling lips. A great well of pity would spring in his breast, drowning his heart with its pent-up gushing, and the waters would rise, rise, until they had touched his eyes. But always before they brimmed over, another change would come. Slowly, the rigid figure before him would relax into an attitude of idle grace, the white cheeks would regain their color, the eyes their brightness, and--presto! she stood before him as he had seen her from the passage, a high-born maid among her kind, favored by the King, guarded by her lover. When he reached this point, he always rose with an abruptness that swept his goblet to the floor and awakened the sleeping dogs.
“Fool!” he would spurn himself. “Mad puffed-up fool! Keep in mind that she has her consolers, while you have only your wound. If she could stake her all upon the son of Lodbrok and then give him up at the turn of the wheel, is it in any way likely that she is dead with tears for you? What? It may easily be that she has had a new love for every month that has passed.”
As the winter wore on, he grew restless in his solitude, restless and sullen as the waters of the little stream in their prison of ice. He told himself that when the spring came he would feel more settled; but when on one of his morning rides he came upon the first crocus, lifting its golden cup toward the sun, it only gave to his pointless restlessness a poisoned barb. Involuntarily his first thought was, “It would look like a spark of fire in the dusk of her hair.” When he realized what he had said, he planted the great fore-foot of his horse squarely on the innocent thing and crushed it back into the earth; but it had done its work, for after that he knew that neither the promise of the springtime nor the fullness of the harvest would bring him any pleasure, since his eyes must see them alone.
“The next time they sing the ‘Romance of King Offa,’ before me, I will not hold back my sympathy,” he scorned himself, “for at last I understand how it is possible for an elf to lure a man’s reason off its seat and leave him a dreaming dolt.”
Like a new lease of life it came to him when the last of the April days brought the long-delayed summons to the King. The old cniht, who considered that a command to military service could be justified only by imminent national destruction, was deeply incensed when he learned that the call was to no more than an officership in the new body of Royal Guards, but the young lord checked him with even a touch of impatience.
“What a throng of many words, my friend Morcard, have you spoken! Did you learn naught from the palisade that gave way because churls paid me their service when and how they would?” he demanded. “Now let me inform you that I have got that lesson by heart, and hereafter no king shall have that trouble about me. At sunrise, I ride back with the messenger.” And he maintained this view so firmly that his face was rather stern as he spent the night settling matters of ploughing and planting and pasturage with the indignant old servitor.
But the next morning, after he had set forth and found how every mile lengthening behind him lightened the burden of his depression, a kind of joy rose phoenix-like out of the gray ashes of duty.
“If I had continued there, I should have become feeble in mind,” he said. “Now, since I have got out of that tomb that she haunts, it may be that I can follow my art more lustily.” And suddenly his sternness melted into a great warmth, toward the strapping soldier riding beside him, toward the pannier-laden venders swinging along in their tireless dog-trot, even toward the beggar that hobbled out of the ditch to waylay him. “To live out in the world, where you are pulled into others’ lives whether you will or no, is the best thing to teach people to forget,” he said. “Solitude has comfort only for those who have no sorrows, for Solitude is the mother of remembrance.”
He got genuine enjoyment out of the hour that he was obliged to sit in the ante-room, waiting to be admitted to the King. On one side of him, a group was discussing a Danish rebellion that seemed to be somewhere in progress; on the other, men were speculating on the chances of a Norman invasion,--news of keenest interest was flying thick as bees in June; and the coming and going of the red-cloaked warriors, the occasional passing of some great noble through the throng, stimulated him like wine.
“Praise to the Saint who has brought me into a life where there are no women!” he told himself. “Yes! Oh, yes! Here once more I shall rule my thoughts like a man.” When a page finally came to summon him, he followed with buoyant step and so gallant a bearing that more than one turned to look at him as he passed.
“Yonder goes the new Marshal,” he heard one say to another, and gave the words a fleeting wonder.
The bare stone hall into which the boy ushered him was the same room in which he had had his last audience, and now as then the King sat in the great carved chair by the chimney-piece, but other things were so changed that inside the threshold the Etheling checked his swinging stride to gaze incredulously. No soldiers were to be seen but the sentinels that had been placed beside the doorways, stiff as their gilded pikes, and they counted strictly in the class with the ebony footstools and other furnishings. The knots of men, scattered here and there in buzzing discussion, were all dark-robed merchants and white-bearded judges, while around the table under the window a dozen shaven-headed monks were working busily with writing tools. The King himself was no longer armored, but weapon-less and clad in velvet. Stopping uncertainly, Sebert took from his head the helmet which he had worn, soldier fashion, into the presence of his chief, and into his salutation crept some of the awe that he had felt for Edmund’s kingship, before he knew how weak a man held up the crown.
Certainly Edmund had never received a greeting with more of formal dignity than the young Dane did now, while Edmund could never have spoken what followed with this grim directness which sent every word home like an arrow to its mark.
“Lord of Ivarsdale, before I speak further I think it wise that we should make plain our minds to each other. Some say that you are apt to be a hard man to deal with because you bend to obedience only when the command is to your liking. I want to know if this is true of you?”
Half in surprise, half in embarrassment, the Etheling colored high, and his words were some time coming; but when at last they reached his lips, they were as frank as Canute’s own. “Lord King,” he made answer, “that some truth is in what you have heard cannot be gainsaid; for a king’s thane I shall never be, to crouch at a frown and caper according to his pleasure. What service I pay to you, I pay as an odal-man to the State for which you stand. Yet I will say this,--that I think men will find me less unruly than formerly, for, as I have accepted you for my chief, so am I willing to render you obedience in any manner soever you think right to demand it. This I am ready to swear to.”
Canute’s fist struck his chair-arm lightly. “Nothing more to my mind has occurred for a long time, and I welcome it! Better will both of us succeed if we declare openly that friendship between us must always be rather shallow. I love not men of your nature, neither is it possible for me to forget what you have cost me. Hatred would come much easier to me,--and I will not deny that you will feel it if ever you give me fair cause for anger.” For an instant an edge of his Viking savagery made itself felt through his voice; then faded as quickly into cold courtesy. “As to this which I now offer you, however, I think few are proud enough to find fault about it, for I have called you hither to be a Marshal of the kingdom and to have the rule over my Guards. Men from many lands will be among them, and it is a great necessity that I have at their head a man I can trust, while it is also pleasing to the English that that man be an Englishman. Concerning the laws which I shall make to govern them, Eric Jarl will tell you later.”
“Marshal!” That then was what the mutter in the ante-room had meant. Sebert would not have been young and a soldier if he had not felt keen delight tingle through every nerve. Indeed, his pleasure was so great that he dared say little in acknowledgment, lest it betray him into too great cordiality toward this stern young ruler who, though in reality a year younger than he, seemed to have become many years his senior. He said shortly, “If I betray your trust, King Canute, let me have no favor! Is it your intention to have me make ready now against this incursion of the Normans, of which men are--” He did not finish his question, for the King raised his hand impatiently.
“It is not likely that swords will have any part in that matter, Lord Marshal. There is another task in store for you than to fight Normans,--and it may be that you will think it beneath your rank, for instead of the State, it concerns me and my life, which someone has tried to take. Yet I expect you will see that my death would be little gainful to England.” A second curt gesture cut short Sebert’s rather embarrassed protest. “Here are no fine words needed. Listen to the manner in which the deed was committed. Shortly before the end of the winter, it happened that Ulf Jarl saw the cook’s scullion pour something into a broth that was intended for me to eat. Suspecting evil, he forced the fellow instead to swallow it, and the result was that, that night, the boy died.”
The Etheling exclaimed in horror: “My lord! know you whence he got it?”
“You prove a good guesser to know that it was not his crime,” the King said dryly. “A little while ago, I found out that he got it from the British woman who is nurse to Elfgiva of Northampton.” To this, the new Marshal volunteered no answer whatever, but drew his breath in sharply as though he found himself in deep water; and the King spoke on. “I did not suspect the Lady of Northampton of having evil designs toward me, because--because she is more prosperous in every respect while I am alive; and now that belief is proved true, for I am told for certain that, the day before the British woman gave the boy the liquid, a Danishman gave the British woman an herb to make a drink of.” He paused, and his voice became slower and much harder, as though he were curbing his feelings with iron. “Since you have heard the Norman rumor,” he said, “it is likely that you have heard also of the discontent among the Danes, who dislike my judgments; but in case you have not, I will tell you that an abundance of them have betaken themselves to a place in the Middlesex forest where they live outlaws,--and their leader is Rothgar Lodbroksson.”
To motion back a man who was approaching him with a paper, he turned away for a moment; and Sebert was glad of the excuse to avoid meeting his glance. Not until now had he understood what the judgment in his favor had cost the judge, and his heart was suddenly athrob with many emotions. “In no way is it strange that I am hateful to him,” he murmured. “But by Saint Mary, _he_ is of the sort that is worth enduring from!”
He inclined his head in devoted attention as the King turned back, lowering his tone to exclude all but the man before him. “Even less than I believe it of Elfgiva of Northampton, do I believe it of Rothgar Lodbroksson, that he would seek my life. But often that happens which one least expects, and it is time that I use forethought for myself. Now I know of no man in the world who is better able to help my case than you.”
“I!” the Etheling ejaculated. Suddenly it occurred to him to suspect that his new-sworn vow of obedience was about to be put genuinely to the test, and he drew himself up stiffly, facing the King. But Canute was tracing idle patterns on the carving of his chair-arm.
“Listen, Lord of Ivarsdale,” he said quietly. “It is unadvisable for me to stir up further rebellion among the Danes by accusing them of things which it is not certain they have done, and even though I seized upon these women it would not help; while I cannot let the matter continue, since one thing after another, worse and worse, would be caused by it. The only man who can end it, while keeping quiet, is the one who has the friendship of the only woman among them to whose honor I would risk my life. I mean Randalin, Frode’s daughter.”
Whether or not he heard Sebert’s exclamation, he spoke on as though it had not been uttered. “One thing is, that she knows nothing of a plot; for did she so, she would have warned me had it compelled her to swim the Thames to reach me. But she must be able to tell many tidings that we wish to know, with regard to the use they make of their jewels, and the Danes who visit them, and such matters, which might be got from her without letting her suspect that she is telling news. Now you are the one person who might do this without making any fuss, and it is my will therefore that you go to her as soon as you can. Your excuse shall be that the Abbot has in his keeping some law-parchments which I have the wish to see, but while you are there, I want you to renew your friendship with her and find out these things for me. By obeying me in this, you will give the State help where it is most needed and hard to get.” When that was out, he raised his head and met the Etheling’s eyes squarely, and it was plain to each of them that the moment had come which must, once and forever, decide their future relations.
It was a long time that the Lord of Ivarsdale stood there, the pride of his rank, and the prejudice of his blood, struggling with his new convictions, his new loyalty. But at last he took his eyes from the King’s to bow before him in noble submission.
“This is not the way of fighting that I am used to, King Canute,” he said, “and I will not deny that I had rather you had set me any other task; but neither can I deny that, since you find you have need of my wits rather than of my sword, it is with my wits that it behooves me to serve you. Tell me clearly what is your command, and neither haughtiness nor self-will shall hinder me from fulfilling it.”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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28
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When Love Meets Love
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Rejoiced at evil Be thou never, But let good give thee pleasure. Ha’vama’l. Before the time of the Confessor, the West Minster was little more than the Monastery chapel, in which the presence of the parish folk, if not forbidden, was still in no way encouraged. To-day, when the Lord of Ivarsdale came unnoticed into the dim light while the last strains of the vesper service were rising, there were no more than a score of worshippers scattered through the north aisle,--a handful of women, wives of the Abbot’s military tenants, a trader bound for the land beyond the ford, a couple of yeomen and a hollow-eyed pilgrim, drifting with the current of his unsteady mind. After a searching glance around him, the Etheling took up his station in the shelter of a pillar.
“Little danger--or hope--is there than I can miss her,” he told himself, “if she is indeed here, as the page said. Yet of all the unlikely places to seek her!” he smiled faintly as the figure in elfin green flitted through his mind. As well look for a wood-nymph at confession--unless indeed, Elfgiva had taken her there against her will--But that was scarcely likely, he remembered immediately afterwards, since an English-woman who had entered into a civil marriage with a Dane would be little apt to frequent an English church. “Doubtless she makes of it a meeting place with her newest lover,” he concluded. And the anger the thought gave him, and a sense of the helplessness of his own position, was so great that he could not remain quiet under it but was tortured into moving restlessly to and fro in the shadow.
Tender as the gloaming of a summer day was the shade in the great nave, with the ever-burning candles to remind one of the eternal stars. Now their quivering light called into life, for one brief moment, the golden dove that hung above the altar; now it touched with dazzling brightness the precious service on the holy table itself; again it was veiled by drifting incense as by heaven’s clouds. From the throats of the hidden choir, the last note swelled rich and full, to roll out over the pillared aisles in a wave of vibrant sound and pass away in a sigh of ineffable sweetness under the rafters.
As he bowed his head in the holy hush that followed, the hush of souls before a wordless bene-diction, some of Sebert’s bitterness gave way to a great compassion. What were we all, when all was told, but wrong-doers and mourners? Why should one hold anger against another? In pity for himself and the whole world, his heart ached within him, as a rustling of gowns and a shuffling of feet told that the worshippers had risen from their knees and were coming toward him. He raised his bowed head sadly, fearfully.
First came the merchant, tugging at his long beard as he advanced,--though whether his meditations were the leavings of the mood that had held him or a reaching forward into the busy future, none could tell. Him, Sebert’s eye dismissed with a listless glance. Behind the trader came the yeomen, one of them yawning and stretching noisily, the other energetically pulling up his belt as one tightens the loosened girth on a horse that has had an interval of rest. The young noble’s glance leaped them completely in its haste to reach those who followed,--the knot of women, fluttering and rustling and preening like a flock of birds. But the bird he sought was not of their number. He stared blindly at the pilgrim as the wanderer shuffled past, muttering and beating his breast. Only one figure followed the penitent, and if that should not be she! Even though he felt that it could not be--even though he hoped it was not--hoping and fearing, dreading and longing, his eyes advanced to meet the last of the worshippers.
Only one figure, but all at once it was as though the whole world were before him!
Coming slowly toward him out of the soft twilight, with eyes downcast and hands folded nun-like before her, the daughter of Frode did not look out of place amid blue wreaths of incense and starry altar tapers. Even her robes were in keeping, gold-weighted as they were, for hood and gown and fur-bordered mantle were of the deepest heliotrope, that color which bears the majesty of sorrow while yet it holds within it the rose-tint of gladness. Beneath its tender shadow the dusk of her hair became deeper, and her face, robbed by winter of its brownness, took on the delicacy of a cameo. Ah, what a face it was now, since pain had deepened its sweetness and patience had purified its ardor! The radiance of a newly-wakened soul was like a halo around it.
Standing there gazing at her, a wonderful change came over the Lord of Ivarsdale. Neither then nor ever after could he understand how it happened, but, all at once, the barrier that circumstances had raised against her fell like the city walls before the trumpet blast, until not one stone was left standing upon another. Without knowing how or why,--looking at her, he believed in her; and his manner, which a moment before had been constrained and hesitating, became easeful with perfect confidence. Without knowing how or why he knew it, he knew that she had never squandered her love on the Jotun, neither had she come here to meet any Dane of the host. He knew her for his dream-love, sweet and true and fine; and he stepped out of the shadow and knelt before her, raising the hem of her cloak to his lips.
“Most gentle lady, will you give a beggar alms?” he said with tender lightness.
The sound of his voice was like a stone cast into still water. The rapt peace of her look was broken into an eddy of conflicting emotions. Amazement was there and a swift joy, which gave way almost before it could be named to something approaching dread, and that in turn yielded place to wide-eyed wonder. With her hands clasped tightly over her breast, she stood looking down at him.
“My lord?” she faltered.
As one who spreads out his store, he held out his palms toward her. “Randalin, I have sought you to add to the payment of my debt the one thing that in my blindness I held back,--I have come to add my true love to the rest I lay before you.”
As a flower toward the sun, she seemed to sway toward him, then drew back, her sweet mouth trembling softly. “I--I want not your pity,” she said brokenly. Still kneeling before her, he possessed himself of her hands and drew them down to his lips.
“Is it thus, on his knee, that one offers pity?” he said. Holding the hands fast, he rose and stood before her. “Heart beloved of my heart, you were merciless to read the truth before. Look again, and take care that you read me as fairly now.”
Despite his gentleness, there was a strength in his exaltation which would not be resisted. Turning shrinkingly, she looked into his eyes.
In the gray-blue depths of her own he saw the shimmer of a dawning light, as when the evening star first breaks through a June sky, and gradually the star-splendor spread over her face, until it touched her parted lips.
“You--love me--” she breathed, but her voice no longer made it a question.
Still gazing into his eyes, she let him draw her closer and closer, till he had gathered her to his breast.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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29
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The Ring of The Coiled Snake
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He is happy Who for himself obtains Fame and kind words; Less sure is that Which a man must have In another’s breast. Ha’vama’l.
The murmur of the rain that was falling gently on the roses of the Abbey garden stole in through the open windows of Elfgiva’s bower and blended softly with the music of Candida’s lyre. Poring over the dingy scrolls spread out on the table before her, the Lady of Northampton yawned until she was moved to throw herself back among her cushions with a gesture of graceful surrender.
“It seems that the Saints are going to take pity on me and shorten one of these endless days with a nap. Nurse, have a care for these scrolls. And if it happen that the King’s Marshal comes--Randalin! Where is Randalin?”
Beyond Leonorine’s embroidery frame and the stool where Candida bent over her lyre, the length of the room away, a figure in iris-blue turned from the window by which it stood.
“Here, lady. What is your need?”
To place the speaker Elfgiva raised her head slightly, laughing as she let it sink back. “Watching for him already, and the sun but little past noon? For shame, moppet! Come here.”
“So please you, I was watching the rain on the roses,” Randalin excused herself with a blush as she came forward.
A merry chorus mocked her: “Is it to watch the roses that you have put on the gown which matches your eyes, you sly one?” ... “And the lilies in your hair, sweet? Is it to shelter them from the rain that you wear them?” ... “Fie, Tata! Can you not fib yet without changing color?”
But Elfgiva raised an impatient hand. “Peace, chatterers!” she commanded; and drawing the girl to her, she spoke low and earnestly in her ear.
Randalin looked up in surprise. “You will not see him, lady? Not though he bring news of the doings in the Palace?”
“Heaven’s mercy!” Elfgiva shrugged with a touch of scorn. “What abundance of news he has found to bring since the day he fell in with you at even-song!” Then she consented to smile faintly as she settled her head among the cushions. “I would rather sleep, child. Comfort him as best you can,--only not so well that you forget that which I enjoined you. If he fail us, I cannot tell what we shall do,--now that the second scullion has been so foolish as to get himself killed in some way. Where bear you the ring?”
The girl touched the spot where the gold chain that encircled her neck crept into the breast of her gown. The lady shook her head.
“Never would you think of it again. Take it out and wear it on your finger.”
As she obeyed, Randalin laughed a little, for the ring was a man’s ring, a massive spiral whose two ends were finished with serpents’ heads, and her thickest finger was but a loose fit in its girth. But Elfgiva, when she had seen it on, closed her eyes with an air of satisfaction.
“To keep from losing it, will keep it in your mind,” she said. “Now leave me. Candida,--more softly! And see to it that you do not stop the moment my eyes are closing. Leonorine, why are you industrious in singing only when it is not required of you? ... That is better... Let no one wake me.”
They drew silence around her like a curtain through whose silken web the blended voices of rain and lyre and singer crept in soothing melody. To escape its ensnaring folds, Randalin stole back to the distant window beneath which Dearwyn sat on a little bench, weaving clover blossoms into a chain.
The little gentlewoman looked up with her soft pretty smile. “How mysterious you are, you two!” she whispered, as she swept the mass of rosy bloom to the floor to make room for her friend. “What with Teboen always seething ill-smelling herbs and--Tata, I pray you to tell who has gifted you with such a monster?”
Waving the ring where the light might catch the serpents’ eyes, Randalin pursed her lips with so much mystery that her friend was tempted to catch the hand and hold it prisoner while she examined the ornament. After one look, however, she let it fall with an expression of awe upon her dimpled face.
“The ring Canute gave Elfgiva--that he won from the giant Rothgar? Heaven forbid that I should press upon her secrets! My ears tingle yet from the cuff I got only for looking at yonder dirty scroll. Yet how long is it since you were taken into their councils, Tata? Yesterday you were no better able than I to say how things were with her.”
“How long?” Randalin repeated dreamily. Her gaze had gone back again to the rain, falling so softly that every pool in the sodden paths seemed to be full of lazily winking eyes. “Oh, there are many good chances that he will be here soon now. He is seldom later than the third hour after noon.”
After a bewildered gasp, Dearwyn stifled a burst of laughter in her garlands. “Oh, Tata, come to earth!” she admonished. “Come to earth!” And scooping up a handful of the fragrant bloom, she pelted the dreamer with rosy balls.
Shaking them from robe and clustering hair, Randalin turned back, smiling. But her lips sobered almost to wistfulness as she sank down upon the seat beside her friend. “It seems that I must do that against my will,” she said. “Dearwyn, do you get afraid when you are happy? Sometimes, when I stand here watching for him and think how different all has happened from what I supposed, I am so happy,”--she paused, and it was as though the sun had caught the iris flowers in her eyes, until a cloud came between and the blue petals purpled darkly--“so happy that it causes fear to me, lest it be no more than a dream or in some way not true.”
Her cheek, as she ended, was softly pale, but Dearwyn brushed it pink with sweeps of the long-stemmed blossom in her hand.
“Sweet, it is the waxing of the moon. I pray you be blithe in your spirits. Small wonder your lover bears himself as gravely as a stone man on a tomb if you talk such--” “Dearwyn, the same thought has overtaken us both!” Randalin broke in anxiously, and now she was all awake and staying the other’s busy fingers to ensure her attention. “Not a few times it has seemed to me that he looks weary of heart, as though some struggle were sapping his strength. He swears it is not so, yet I think the rebellion of his pride against king-serving--” “If you want to know my belief, it is that he carries trouble in his breast about you,” Dearwyn interrupted.
“About me?” So much hurt surprise was in Randalin’s manner that the little maid begged forgiveness with caresses of the swaying clover.
“Be not vexed, honey, but in truth he is overcome by the oddest look whensoever he watches you without your seeing,--as though he were not sure of you, in some way, and yet--Oh, I cannot explain it! Only tell me this,--does he not ask you, many times and oft, if you love him, or if others love you, or such like?”
In the midst of shaking her head, Randalin paused and her mouth became as round as her eyes. “Foolishly do I recall it! As if he would! And yet--Dearwyn, he has asked me four times if any Danes visit us here. Would you think that he could be--” “Jealous?” Dearwyn dropped her flowers to clap her hands softly. “Tata, I have guessed his distemper rightly. Let no one say that I am not a witch for cleverness! Ah, you can have the best fun that ever any maid could have! If you could but make him believe something about that Danishman that Teboen saw last winter!”
“Last winter?” Randalin repeated. “Oh! I had altogether forgotten him. It seems that it has not been truthfully spoken when--” The little Angle smothered the rest in her rapturous embrace. “The ring, Tata,--that would be the cream of all! Let him think that Rothgar gave it to you, that he is your lover! I would give many kirtles to see his face.” “Rothgar?” Randalin’s voice was light with scorn. “As likely would! be to think him love-struck for the serving-wench who sparkled her eyes at him, as he to think that Rothgar Lodbroksson could count for aught with me! Yet I say nothing against the fun it would be. It may be that if he take notice of the thing and question me--just to see how he would look--” She broke off discreetly, but the one elf which the Abbot had not exorcised crept out and danced in the dimple of her cheek.
Dearwyn shook her floral rod with an assumption of severity. “I trust he will be sorely disquieted,” she said. “He deserves no otherwise for his behavior last winter. Are you so soft of heart, Tata, that you are never going to reckon with him for that?”
The dimple-elf took wing and all the mischief in the girl’s eyes seemed to go with him. “Those days are buried,” she said. “Let the earth grow green above them.” And suddenly she leaned forward and hid her face on the other’s shoulder. “Bring them not before me, Dearwyn, my friend, until I am a little surer of my happiness. It is so new yet, Dearwyn, so new! And it came to me so suddenly that sometimes it almost seems as if it might depart as suddenly from me.” A while they nestled together without speaking, the little maid’s cheek resting lovingly on her friend’s dark hair.
It was a page thrusting aside the arras that broke the spell. Opening his mouth to make a flourishing announcement, the words were checked on his tongue by four white hands motioning stern commands for silence.
“It is the King’s Marshal,” he framed with protesting lips. But even that failed to gain him admittance.
Rising, flushed and smiling, the girl with the blue lilies in her hair tiptoed toward him. “I have orders to receive the Marshal,” she whispered. “Where is he?”
“He is in the Old Room,” the page answered rather resentfully, but resigned himself as he remembered that, however this curtailed his importance, it left open a prompter return to his game of leap-frog along the passage.
In all probability his nimble departure saved him from a scolding for, as she tripped after him down the corridor, a little frown was forming between Randalin’s brows. “I think it is not well-mannered of the fellow to say ‘the King’s Marshal’ as though my lord were Canute’s thane,” she was reflecting, “and I shall put an end to it. Whatever others say, one never needs to tell me that Sebert is not suffering in his service.”
With this thought in her mind, she raised the moth-eaten tapestry and stood looking at him with a face full of generous indignation. Except for the noble’s embroidered belt and gold-hilted sword, his dress now differed in no way from that of the hundreds and hundreds of red-cloaked guards who were spread over the country like sparks after a conflagration. As he turned at the end of the beat he was pacing and came slowly toward her, she could see that in its gravity his face was as soldier-like as his clothes. Always she found it so when she came upon him unawares; and always, when she spoke to him--She held her breath as his eyes rose to her, and let it go with a little sigh of happiness as she saw gloom drop from him like a mask at the sight of her.
“Randalin!” he cried joyously, and made a step toward her, then stopped to laugh in gay wonder. “Now no poet would call you ‘a weaver of peace’ as you stand there, for you look rather like an elf of battle. What is it, my raven?”
Her lips smiled back at him, but a mist was over her eyes. “It is your King that I am angry with, lord. He is not worthy that a man like you should serve him.”
Moving toward her again, he held himself a little straighter. “I serve not the King, dear heart,” he said gently, “but the State of England, in whose service the highest is none too good to bend.”
She yielded him her hands but not her point. “That does not change the fact that it is his overbearingness which makes your path as though you trod on nettles,--for certainly I know it is so, though you will not say it!”
Neither would he admit it now, but laughed lightly as he drew her to him. “Now may he not give me thorns who gives me also the sweetest rose in his king-dom? I tell you he is the kingliest king ever I had to deal with, and the chief I would soonest trust England to. Be no Danish rebel, shield-maiden, or as the King’s officer I will mulct your lips for every word of treason.”
She showed no rebellion against his authority, at all events; and her hands remained in his clasp until of his own accord he opened his fingers with an exclamation. “Do you wear bracelets for rings, my fair, or what? _What_!” From the monstrous bauble in his palm, he raised his eyes to hers, and if she had seen their look she might have answered differently. But her gaze was still on the ring; and as she felt him start, that impish dimple peeped out of her cheek.
“Is it not a handsome thing?” she said. “It looks to be a ring to belong to a giant.”
“Is it--Rothgar’s?”
The dimple deepened as she heard his tone. For all its absurdity, there must be some truth in Dearwyn’s witch-skill. She was obliged to droop her lashes very low to hide the mischief in her eyes. “It is not his now,” she murmured. “It has been given me--to keep me in mind of something.” But after that her amusement grew too strong to be repressed, and she looked up at him with over-brimming laughter. “There will soon be too much of this! Sweetheart mine, are you in truth so easy to plague?”
Laughing she looked up at him, but, even as his face was clearing, something in it struck her so strangely that her laughter died and she bent toward him in sudden gravity. “Lord! It is not possible for you to believe that I could love Rothgar!” Her manner of uttering that one word made it speak more scorn than volumes might have done.
For a while he only looked at her, that strange radiance growing in his face; but suddenly he caught her to him and kissed her so passionately that he hurt her, and his voice was as passionate as his caress. “No,” he told her over and over. “Would I have offered you my love had I believed that? No! No!”
Satisfied, she made no more resistance but clung to him with her arms as she had clung to him with her heart since the first hour he came into her life. Only, when at last he released her, she took the ring from her finger and thrust it into his hand with a little gesture of distaste. “I shall be thankful if I do not have to see it again. It is Elfgiva’s, that Canute gave her after he had won it from Rothgar in some wager. It is her wish that you bring it to the King again by slipping it into his broth or his wine where he will come upon it after he has finished feeding and is therefore amiable--” She stopped to laugh merrily in his face. “See how the very naming of the King turns you grave again! When one gets a Marshalship, one becomes more and more stark.” Grown mischievous again in her happiness, she mocked him with courtesies.
But it was only very faintly that he smiled at her fooling, as he held the spiral against the light and shook it beside his ear. “Is there no more to the message,” he said slowly. “Am I to know nothing of her object? Or why I am chosen of all others?”
“Easy is it to tell that,” she laughed. “You were not chosen without a reason, and that is because no one else is to be had, since the scullion who formerly served her has gotten himself killed in some way and the man who stepped into his shoes, out of some spite, has refused Teboen’s gold. And as for her object--I wonder at you, lord of my heart! What kind of a lover are you that you cannot guess that?” Feigning to flout him, she drew away; then feigning to relent, turned back and laughed it into his ear. “It is a love-token! To hold him to the fair promises he made at its giving, and to remind him of her, and to win her a crown, and to do so many strange wonders that no tongue can number them! Are you not ashamed to have failed on so easy a riddle?”
To her surprise, his gravity deepened almost to horror. “Love-token!” he repeated; and suddenly he laid his hands on her shoulders and forced her gently to give him eye for eye. “Randalin, if I comply with you in this matter, will you answer me a question? Answer with such care as though your life--nay, as though _my_ life depended on it?”
“Willingly; more than one,” she consented; but forgot to wait for it as a memory, wakened by his words, stirred in her. “Now it is time for me to remember that there is one thing I have not been altogether truthful about, through forgetting,--about the Danes we have seen. I recall now that last winter Teboen often saw one when she was gathering herbs in the wood. She spoke with him of the magic things she brews to make Elfgiva sleep, and he gave her herbs which she thought so useful that she has been fretful because she has not seen him since--” Unconsciously, the young soldier’s hands tightened on her shoulders until she winced. “You know with certainty that she has never seen him since?” he demanded,--“that Danes had naught to do with the last token Elfgiva sent through the scullion? You can swear to it?”
“Certainly, if they speak the truth, I know it,” she answered wonderingly. “How should Danes--why, Sebert, what ails you?”
For he had let go her shoulders as abruptly as he had seized them, and walked away to the window that looked out upon the rain-washed garden. After a moment’s hesitation, she stole after him. “Sebert, my love, what is it? Trouble is in your mind, there is little use to deny it. Dearwyn says it concerns me, but I know that it is no less than the King. Dear one, it seems strange that you cannot disclose your mind to me as well as to--Fridtjof.”
It was the first time, in their brief meetings together, that she had spoken that name, and his smile answered. Even while his lips admitted a trouble, his manner put it aside. “You are right that it concerns the King, my elf. Sometimes the work he assigns me is neither easy nor pleasant to accomplish. Yet without any blame to him, most warlike maiden, for--” But she would not be prevented from saying stern things of her royal guardian, so at last he let her finish the subject, and stood pressing her hands upon his breast, his eyes resting dreamily on her face.
When she had finished, he said slowly, “Sweeting, because my mind is laboring under so many burdens that my wits are even duller than they are wont, will you not have the patience to answer one question that is not clear to me? Do you think it troublesome to tell me why it was that you said, that day in the garden--Now shake off that look, dearest; never will we speak of it again if it is not to your wish! Tell me what you meant by saying that you came into Canute’s camp because you had too much faith in Rothgar, if you despise him--since you despise him so?”
Her eyes met his wonderingly. “By no means could I have said that, lord. When I left home, I knew not that Rothgar lived. The one in whom I had too much faith was the King. Because I was young and little experienced, I thought him a god; and when I came to his camp and found him a man, I thought only to escape from him. That was why I wore those clothes, Sebert--not because I liked so wild a life. That is clear to you, is it not?”
He did not appear to hear her last words at all. He was repeating over and over, “The King, the King!” Suddenly he said, “Then I got that right, that it was he who summoned me to Gloucester to make sure that you had kept your secret from me also? --that he was angry with you for deceiving him?”
“Yes,” she said. But as he opened his lips to put another question, she laid her finger-tip beseechingly upon them, “Sebert, my love, I beg of you let us talk no more of those days. Sometime, when we have a long time to be together, I will tell you everything that I have had in my breast and you shall show me everything that you have had in yours, but--but let us wait, sweetheart, until our happiness seems more real than our sorrow. Even yet I do not like the thought of the ‘sun-browned boy-bred wench. ’” She laughed a little unsteadily at the sudden crimsoning of his face. “And I am still ashamed--and ashamed of being ashamed--that I showed you so plainly what my heart held for you... Elfgiva’s tongue has stabbed me sore... Beloved, can you not be content, for now, with knowing that I have loved no man before you and shall love none after you?”
Bending, he kissed her lips with the utmost tenderness. “I am well content,” he said. And after that they spoke only of the future, when the first period of his Marshalship should be over and he should be free to take his bride back to the fields and woods of Ivarsdale, and the gray old Tower on the hill.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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30
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When The King Takes a Queen
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Moderately wise Should each one be, But never over-wise; For a wise man’s heart Is seldom glad If he is all-wise who owns it. Ha’vama’l. Out under the garden’s spreading fruit trees, the little gentlewomen of Elfgiva’s household were amusing themselves with the flock of peacocks that were the Abbey’s pets. In a shifting dazzling mass of color--blended blue and green and golden fire--all but one of the brilliant birds were pressing around Candida, who scattered largess from a quaint bronze vase, while the one whose vanity was greater even than its appetite was furnishing sport for Dearwyn as she strutted after him in merry mimicry, lifting her satin-shod feet mincingly and trailing her rosy robes far behind her on the grass. The old cellarer, to whose care the birds fell except during those hours when the brethren were free for such indulgences, watched the scene in grinning delight; and Leonorine laughed gaily at them over the armful of tiny bobbing lap-dogs, whose valiant charges she was engaged in restraining. The only person who seemed out of tune with the chiming mirth was the Lady Elfgiva herself. Among the blooming bushes she was moving listlessly and yet restlessly, and each rose she plucked was speedily pulled to pieces in her nervous fingers. A particularly furious outburst from the dogs, followed by peals of ringing laughter, brought her foot down in a stamp of utter exasperation.
“Will you not observe my feelings, if you have none of your own?” she demanded. “Leonorine, take those wretched dogs out of my hearing. Dearwyn, lay aside your nonsense and go ask Gurth if he has heard anything yet of Teboen.” She stamped again, angrily, as her eye went from one to another of the merry-makers. “I suppose it would gladden all of you to feel safe from her hand, but I will plainly tell you that if harm has happened to her, you will find a lair-bear pleasanter company than I shall be.”
The dull red that mottled her face and neck was a danger signal whose warning her attendants had learned to heed, and they scattered precipitately. Only the old cellarer, herding his gorgeous flock with waving arms, ventured to address her.
“Is it the British woman you are enquiring after, lady? The woman who comes to the lane-gate, of a morning, to get new milk for your drinking?”
Elfgiva turned quickly. “Yes,--Teboen my nurse. Have you seen her?” “I saw her between cockcrowing and dawn, noble one, when I let down the bars for the cattle to come in to the milking. The herd-boy who drives them said something to her,--it seemed to me that he named a Danish name and said that person was waiting in the wood to speak with her,--whereat she set down her pitcher and went up the lane. I have not seen her since.”
The lady’s little white hands beat the air like a frightened child’s. “Three candles have burned out since then; it is certain that evil has befallen her. Never since I was born has she left me for so long. I--” She paused to gaze eagerly toward a figure that at this moment appeared in the low arch of the door-way. “Tata! do you bring me news of her?”
Though she shook her head, Randalin’s manner was full of suppressed excitement as she advanced. “Not of her, lady, yet tidings, great tidings! The King has sent--” “His Marshal again? I will not see him.”
“Nay, the Marshal but accompanies the messenger. In truth, lady, it is my belief that the token has accomplished its mission. The message is brought by Thorkel Jarl, as this has not been done before.”
“Earl Thorkel?” Elfgiva cried. “By the Saints, it can be nothing less than the token!” She dropped down upon the rustic seat that stood under the green canopy of the old apple tree and sat there a long time, staring at the grass, her cheeks paling and flushing by turns. Presently, she drew a deep breath of relief. “I was foolish to fret myself over Teboen. Since she is clever enough to bring this to pass, she is clever enough to take care of herself. Without doubt it was the Danish wizard, and he informed her of some new herb, and she has gone to fetch it.”
After a while, an enchanting smile touched her lips. “Surely, a rose garden is a fitting place to receive the ambassadors of a lover,” she said, and straightened herself on her rustic throne, sweeping her draperies into more graceful folds. “Bring them to me here, ladybird. Candida, fetch hither the lace veil from my bower, and call the other maids as you go, and all the pages you can find. Since Teboen is not by, I want all of you behind me. I cannot help it that the Tall One always gives me the feeling of a lamb before a wolf.”
Even had the likeness never occurred to her before, it would not have been strange if she had thought of it to-day as, followed by the Marshal and preceded by their fair usher, the old warrior came across the grass to the little court under the apple tree. The keenness of the hooded eyes that looked out at her from his grizzled locks, the gleam of the white teeth between his bearded lips as he greeted her, was unmistakably wolfish. She relapsed into a kind of lamb-like tremor as she invited them to be seated and commanded the attendance of her cup-bearer. When she caught sight of the misery of discomfort in Sebert’s frank face, she lost her voice entirely and waited in utter silence while they drank their wine.
Yet Thorkel’s manner was unwontedly genial when at last he broached his errand. “You lack the eagerness that is to be expected, lady,” he said as he gave his mouth a last polish with the delicate napkin. “How comes it that you have not guessed I bring you a message from the King?”
She answered doubtfully that the King had not behaved to her so that his messages were apt to be anticipated with much pleasure.
“But it has never occurred that I brought you this kind of news before,” he tempted her. “Will it not interest you to hear that at last the Palace is ready for a Queen?”
That startled her a little out of her wariness, crying the last two words after him with an eagerness of inflection that was as pathetic as though her heart were concerned.
His lips gave out a flash as he nodded. “A Queen. Canute is going to give the Angles a ‘gift of the elves. ’” For an instant, she was betrayed into believing him, and bent forward, her flushing face transfigured with delight. She was starting to speak when the Etheling rose abruptly from his seat.
“Lord Thorkel,” he said angrily, “this cat-play would bring you little thanks from your King, nor will I longer endure it. I pray you to explain without delay that the name of ‘Elfgiva’ is borne also by Emma of Normandy.”
Then the old man snarled as a wolf does whose bone has been seized. “Lord of Ivarsdale, you act in the thoughtless way of youth. I was bringing the matter gently--” But the young man accomplished his purpose in spite of the elder. He did not address the King’s wife--indeed, he refrained even from looking at her--but he spoke swiftly to the dark-haired girl who stood beside the seat. “Randalin, I beg you to tell your lady that Elfgiva Emma, who is Ethelred’s widow and the Lady of Normandy, arrives at Dover to-morrow to be made Queen of the English.”
As all expected, the Lady of Northampton started up shrieking defiance, screaming that it should not be so, that the King was her husband and the soldiers would support her if the monks would not, that he was hers, hers,-and more to that effect, until the plunging words ran into each other and tears and laughter blotted out the last semblance of speech. That she would end by swooning or attacking them with her hands those who knew her best felt sure, and maids and pages crept out of her reach as hunters stand off from a wounded boar. But at the point where her voice gave out and she whirled to do one or perhaps both of these, her eyes fell on the house-door, and her expression changed from rage to amazement and from amazement to horror. Catching Randalin’s arm in fear, not anger, she began to gasp over and over the name of Teboen the nurse.
Those whose glance had not followed hers, thought her mad and shrank farther; but the eyes of those who saw what she did reflected her look. In the doorway the British woman was standing, wagging her head in time to a silly quavering song that she was singing with lips so distorted as to be almost unrecognizable. Her once florid face was ashen gray, and now as she quitted the door post and came toward them she reeled in her \walk, stumbling over stones and groping blindly with her huge bony hands. But still she kept on singing, with twisted lips that strove to simper, and once she tried to sway her ungainly body into an uncouth dancing-step that brought her floundering to her knees.
“A devil has possession of her,” Elfgiva shrieked. “Take her out of my sight, or I shall go mad! Take her away--take her away!” Shrieking in wildest terror she fled before her, and for a moment the garden seemed given over to a grotesque game of blind-man’s buff as women and boys scattered with renewed screaming at each approach of the ghastly face. It did not stop until the two soldiers who had been made keepers of the wretched creature came running out of the house and led her away.
Then it was Thorkel’s sardonic voice that brought the Lady of Northampton back to herself. “Now, is this how you take the sight of your own handiwork? Or is it because you regret that the King is not in this plight? One mouthful and no more has she had of the blood of the coiled snake.”
Stopping where she was, Elfgiva gazed at him, and with a dawning comprehension came back her interrupted fury. “The coiled snake,” she repeated slowly; and after that, in a rush of words, “Then it was you who enticed her away and mistreated her? But what does it concern _you_ that I sent a snake? Where saw you it? How knew you it had blood?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned upon the Marshal, her lids contracted into narrow slits behind which her eyes raged like prisoned animals. “It is you who are to blame for this! You who miscarried my message. You have betrayed me, and I tell you--” Hysterical tears broke her voice, but she pieced it together with her temper and went on telling him all the bitter things she could think of, while he stood before her in the grim silence of one who has long foreseen the disagreeable aspects of his undertaking and made up his mind to endurance.
When she stopped for breath, he said steadily, “I declare with truth that you cannot dislike what I have done much more than I, Lady of Northampton. I hope it will be an excuse with you, as it is a comfort to me, that instead of fetching you into trouble--” Thorkel took the words from his lips, and no longer with sinister deliberation but with a ferocity that showed itself in the gathering swiftness of his speech. “Trouble--yes! By the Hammer of Thor, I think you deserve to have trouble! Had any of your witches’ brew done harm to the King, I can tell you that you would not have lived much longer. What! Are the plans of men to be upset by your baby face, and a king-dom lost because a little fool chooses to play with poison as a child with fire?”
“Poison?” she screamed. She had been facing him with whitening lips, and now the little breath that she had left went from her in a sharp cry. “Not poison; love-philtres! To win him back! Love-philtres,--can you not hear?”
“Love-philtres!” The old warrior’s voice made the words bite with contempt. “Did the mouthful she swallowed have that effect upon your woman? Or do you think you planted love in the breasts of the dead scullions? Had you seen their writhings I think you would have called it by another name.”
He was standing over her now, and she was cowering before him, her shaking hands rising as though to ward off his eyes. “I meant no harm,” she was wailing with stiff lips. “The scroll said not a word that it was hurtful. Do not kill me. I meant no--” The word ended in an inarticulate sound and she swayed backward.
It was Randalin who caught and eased her down upon the rustic chair, and Randalin who turned upon the Tall One. “Saw I never a meaner man!” she cried. “Certainly I think Loke was less wolf-minded than you. You know very well that if Teboen had thought it would become a cause of harm to her, she would have refused to swallow it. I will go to the King myself and tell him how despisable you are.” She stamped her foot at the united ministry of the Kingdom as she turned her back upon its representatives to speak reassuringly to her mistress.
Her lover did not blame her that her flashing eyes seemed to include him among the objects of their wrath. He said fiercely to the Jarl, “For God’s sake, tell her that no one suspects her of seeking his life, and give her his true message, or I will go and hang myself for loathing.”
“Tell her yourself!” the old Dane snapped. “It is seen that you are as rabbit-hearted as the boy who makes her such an offer. Were I in his place, I would have them all drowned for a litter of wauling kittens.” He looked very much indeed like a wolf in a sheepfold as he stamped to and fro, grinding his spurred heels into the patches of clover and growling in his beard.
The young soldier had been known to ride into battle with a happier face, but the sudden gritting of his teeth implied that he would do anything to get the matter over with; and having braved the outburst of hysterics that redoubled at his approach, he managed to slip a soothing word into the lull.
“Lady, the King sends you none but good greetings. It would make you feel better if you would listen to them.”
“Then he--he does not blame me for this?” Elfgiva quavered at last.
“He does not blame you,” the Marshal hastened to reassure her. “And in token thereof he sends you your heart’s desire.”
Plainly, the elves had endowed their “gift” with a wit to match her soul. Her beautiful eyes were simple as an injured child’s as she raised them to his, “can that be, lord, when Emma of Normandy is to get the crown of England? A woman ten years older than he, to put the best face on it! Who can expect me to bear with this insult?” Her scorn went so far toward reviving her that for the first time she drew herself away from the support of her women, and even made one of them a sign to rearrange the locks she had disturbed.
Lest it revive her beyond the point of docility, Sebert spoke the rest of his message in some haste. “It is true, noble one, that for state reasons the King has consented to this union with Emma of Normandy, who will bring him the friendship of Duke Richard besides causing pleasure to the English. But the crown of Denmark is also at his disposal, lady, and this he purposes to bestow upon your son Sven, for whom he has much love. And it is his will and pleasure that you accompany the boy across the sea and, together with the earls of his guardianship, hold the power for him until his hands shall be big enough to grasp it alone. For this he gives you the name of ‘queen’ and all the honor you shall desire.” He paused, more at the wonder of watching her face than because he had finished.
It was as though a rainbow had been set in her showery eyes. “He purposes this?” she murmured; and rose out of her seat in a kind of ecstasy,--then caught at its back, glooming with doubt. “I cannot believe it,--it is too beautiful. Swear that you are not mocking me.”
“I swear it,” he said gravely, but his lips curled a little as he watched her delight bring back her color, her smiles, her every fairy charm.
Throwing her arms about Dearwyn, who chanced to be nearest, she kissed her repeatedly. “Think, mouse,--a queen! a queen! It was not for naught that I dreamed an eagle flew over my head. Ah, how I shall cherish the dear little one who has brought me this!” With her pleasure overflowing as of old in rippling laughter, she turned to greet the King’s foster-father who came stalking toward her. “Now your ill humor no longer appears strange to me, noble wolf, than which no better proof could be had that I have come into good fortune! I pray you tell me when I am to leave, and who goes with me, and every word of the plan, for I could eat them like sweets.”
“Ulf Jarl will feed your ears later,” Thorkel said gruffly. “Your safety on the road is the charge of this battle-sapling.” He jerked his head toward the young Marshal. “You will leave for Northampton this afternoon, to get the boy--and to get rid of you before the Lady of Normandy arrives.”
The shaft fell pointless as she turned her sparkling face toward her women. “You hear that, my lambs? This afternoon,--not one more night in this prison! You cannot apply yourselves too soon to the packing, Candida, Leonorine. And I must see if Teboen’s wits have come back to her. If she should not be restored to them, that would be one bee in the honey. Randalin, learn what disposal is to be made of you, and that, quickly. Nobles, if I am not yet enough queen to dismiss you, still am I queen enough to depart without your leave. I desire you will thank your King as is becoming; and tell him that I am right glad he was not poisoned,--and I trust he will not wish he had been, after he has seen his ancient bride.” Chiming the sweet bells of her laughter, she glided away among her excited attendants, the silver mockery reaching them after she had vanished into the house.
Randalin awoke to a sense of bewilderment. “It is true that I do not know where to go, now that this place is upset.”
The question was repeated in her lover’s attitude; but Thorkel Jarl answered it, coming between them and drawing her aside.
“I will remedy that,” he said. “My men are to fetch you to the Palace so soon as ever your lady has left. The King has a use for you.” The rest he spoke into her ear, but its effect was to blanch her cheeks and cause her hands to clasp each other in terror as she started back.
“I cannot!” she cried. “I cannot.” “You must,” he said harshly. “Or you will do little credit to the blood that is in you. Do you no longer think your father and brother of any importance?”
“They are pitiless to demand it of me,” she murmured, and buried her face in her hands.
Anger leaped from the young noble’s eyes as, in his turn, he came between her and the Jarl. He said forcefully, “No one shall ask anything of you that you do not want, nor shall any king compel you. Yet I think I have a right to know what his will is with you.”
“You have not,” the Dane contradicted. “Do you think the King’s purposes are to be opened to the sight of every Angle who becomes his man? Nor have you ally right soever over her who is the King’s ward. End this talk, maiden, and give me your promise to be obedient.”
She gave it in a cry of despair, “I must--I know I must!” then sought to make peace with her lover by laying caressing hands on his breast. “And he is right, love, that I ought not to tell any one. It is another one of those things that you must trust.”
But for once the Etheling’s will did not bend to her coaxing; his mouth was doggedly set as he looked down upon her. “I trust no man I do not know,” he answered, “and I do not know Canute the man,--nor do I greatly like what I have heard of him, or this plan of sending me from the City at this time. You have no cause to reproach me with lack of faith in you, Randalin, for when every happening--even your own words--made it appear as if it were love for Rothgar Lodbroksson which brought you into the camp, I looked into your eyes and believed them against all else.” In the intensity of the living present he forgot the dead past--until he saw its ghosts troop like gray shadows across her face.
“Love for Rothgar Lodbroksson?” she repeated, drawing back. “Then you did believe that I could love Rothgar?” Her voice rose sharply. “You believed that I followed him!”
Too late he saw what he had done. “I said that I did not believe it,” he cried hastily. “What I thought at first in my bewilderment,--that could not be called belief.” Now it was the present that he had forgotten in the past, as he strove desperately to recapture the phantoms and thrust them back into their graves.
But she did not seem to hear his explanation as she stood there gazing at him, her mind leaping lightning-like from point to point. “It was that which made you behave so strangely in the garden,” she said, and she spoke each phrase with a kind of breathless finality. “You thought that I--I was like those--those other women in the camp.” As he tried to take her hand she drew farther away, and stood looking at him out of eyes that were like purple shadows in her white face. It was with a little movement of anger that she came to herself at last. “And what are you thinking of me now? Do you clare to dream that the King--” Turning, she confronted the old warrior fiercely. “Thorkel Jarl, I ask you to tell the Lord of Ivarsdale as quick as you can what the King wants with me.”
“That I will not do,” the Jarl said quickly. “You know no prudence, maiden. The Lord of Ivarsdale is also English; a mishap might occur if--” She flung the words at him; “I care not if it lose Canute his crown! If you will not risk it, I will tell him that the King settles to-night with Edric of Mercia and his men, and that it is to witness the punishment of my kinsmen’s murderer that he has sent for me. As for my camp-life, ask Rothgar himself, or Elfgiva, or the King--or any soldier of the host! Of them all, you alone have thought such thoughts of me.” She flung up her hands against him in a kind of heart-broken rage. “You! To whose high-mindedness I trusted everything I have!” Hiding her face, she ran from them, sobbing, into the house.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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31
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The Twilight of The Gods
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Circumspect and reserved Every man should be, And wary in trusting friends; Of the words That a man says to another He often pays the penalty. Ha’vama’l. Waking to tapestried walls and jewelled lanterns and a strange splendor of furnishings, Randalin experienced a moment of wild bewilderment. What had happened to the low-ceiled dormitory with its bare wall-spaces splotched with dampness? What had become of the row of white beds, with Dearwyn’s rosy face on the next pillow? And she herself--why was she lying on the outside of the covers, with all her clothes on, a cramped aching heap? Rising on her elbow, she gazed wonderingly at the frowzy woman stretched near her on a pallet. It was not until the woman turned over, puffing out her fat cheeks in a long breath, that the girl on the bed recognized her and knew what room this was and remembered what had happened to separate to-day from all the yesterdays of her life. Falling down upon the pillows, she lay with her face hidden among them, living over with the swift sharpness of a renewed brain the scenes of the previous night.
As she had seen it from the gallery where the King’s soldiers had hidden her, she saw again the great stone hail, enshrining a feasting-table around which a throng of nobles in their gorgeous dresses and their jewels and their diadems made a glittering halo. At the farther end, the King sat in his shining gilded chair. Just below her, was Edric of Mercia with Norman Leofwinesson beside him. She could not see their faces for their backs were toward her, but now and again the Gainer’s velvet voice rose blandly, and each time she was seized with shuddering. How was it possible that he did not feel disaster in the air? To her it seemed that the very torch-flames hissed warnings above the merriment, while the occasional pauses were so heavy with doom that their weight was well-nigh unendurable; at each, she was forced to fight down a mad impulse to scream and scatter the hush.
Then the light from the taper which a page was holding behind Norman of Baddeby fell upon the gemmed collar that was his principal ornament, and the sight wrought a subtle change in her mood. The collar had been her father’s; she could not look at it without seeing again his ruddy old face with its grim mouth and faded kindly eyes. Beside this vision rose another,--the vision of this beloved face dead in the moonlight, with Fridtjof’s near it, his brave smile frozen on his young lips. From that moment, softness and shrinking died out in her bearing as out of her heart, and her blood was turned to fire within her,--the liquid fire of the North. Hour after hour, she sat in rigid waiting while the endless line of servants ran to and fro with their silver dishes and the merriment grew and spread and the clinking came faster and louder and the voices grew thicker and wilder.
When the wave of good-will and fellowship had reached its height, like one who would ride in upon its crest the Gainer rose to his feet and began speaking to the King. His manner was less smoothly deferential than when addressing Edmund, she noticed, affecting more the air of bluff frankness which one might who wished to disarm any suspicion of flattering; but she could not hear what he said because of the noise around him. The first words she heard distinctly were Canute’s, as he paused with upraised goblet to look at the Mercian. Like an arrow his voice cleft the uproar, so that here and there men checked the speech on their lips to look at him, and their neighbors, observing them, paused also, until the lull extended from corner to corner.
“Strangely do you ask,” he said. “Why should I give you more than Edmund gave you?”
She had no difficulty in hearing Edric this time. Aggressively honest, his words rang out with startling sharpness: “Because it was for you that I went against Edmund, and from faithfulness to you that I afterwards destroyed him.”
Out of the stillness that followed, a voice cried, “Are you mad?” and there was the grating of chairs thrust hastily back. But, after a great wrench, her heart stood still within her as through the madness she perceived the purpose. As well as Edric of Mercia she knew that the young Viking’s vulnerable point was his longing for his own self-esteem, a craving so unreckoning in its fervor that--should he have the guilty consciousness the traitor counted on--rather than endure his own reproach for cowardice he would be equal to the wild brazenness of flinging the avowal in the teeth of his assembled court. Her pulses began to pound in a furious dance as the same flash of intuition showed her the rock upon which the Gainer’s audacious steering was going to wreck him.
For no skulking guilt was in the face of the new King of England as he met the startled glances, but instead a kind of savage joy that widened his nostrils and drew his lips away from his teeth in a terrible smile.
“Now much do I thank whatever god has moved you to open speech,” he said, “for with every fibre of my body have I long wanted to requite you for that faithfulness. Knowing that you were coming to-night to ask it, I have the reward ready. Never was recompense given with a better will.” Leaping to his feet, he hurled the goblet in his hand against the opposite wall so that it was shattered on the stone behind the embroidered hangings. At the signal the tapestry was lifted, and in the light stood Eric of Norway, leaning on a mighty battle-axe. To him the King cried in a loud voice, all the irony gone from it, leaving it awful as the voice of Thor at Ragnarok. “Do your work where all can see you, Eric Jarl, that no man shall accuse me of being afraid to bear my deeds. And let Norman Leofwinesson die with his lord for the slaying of Frode of Avalcomb.”
A roar of hideous sound--a confusion of overturned lights, of screeching servants, of writhing struggling bodies--above it all, the vision of that glittering axe poised in the air--then flashing downward,--Randalin’s recollections blurred, ran together, and faded out in broken snatches.
She recalled a brief space of something like sleep-walking as the soldiers led her through branching corridors to this room, and fetched for her attendant the only woman available, a wench they had taken from trencher-washing in the royal kitchen. She remembered irritably rejecting the woman’s clumsy services and sending her to sleep on her pallet, while she herself walked to and fro with her surging thoughts until sheer physical exhaustion forced her to throw herself upon the bed. After that she remembered--nothing.
“I am glad that I did not disgrace my kin by screaming or fainting,” she reflected now, as she raised herself stiffly. “I am glad I did that much credit to my name.” She flushed as her hand, touching the pillow, found it wet, and for an instant the bearing of her head was less erect. “I do not remember what I dreamed,” she murmured, “but full well I know that it was not because Norman Leofwinesson is slain that I shed tears in my sleep.” For a while she drooped there, her eyes on the open window, outside of which a robin was singing blithely among the cherries. But all at once she seized the pillow with a kind of fierceness, and turned it over and piled the others on top of it, crying under her breath, “How dared he! How dared he! I will shed no tears for him while I am awake. I will remember only that I am my father’s daughter and the Lady of Avalcomb.”
Proudly as became an odal-woman, she followed the page when he came at last to call her to the royal presence. The great stone hall in which the King awaited the arrival of his Norman bride was the same room in which he had feasted the night before, but tables and dishes now were gone, gold-weighted tapestries hung once more over the door by which Eric of Norway had made his entrance, and a rich-hued rug from an Eastern loom lay over the spot where she had seen the axe rise and fall. Crossing the threshold, the commonplaceness of it all clashed so discordantly with the scene in her memory that for an instant she grew faint and clung to the curtains between which she was passing. That death should leave so little trace, that the spot which one night was occupied by a headsman, the next, should hold a bride, made her fancy reel with horror even while she pulled herself together sternly.
“This is life as in truth it is,” she said. “It is well that I understand at last how terrible everything really is, and how little anything matters.” Forcing herself to tread the rug with steady step, she came where the King stood by an open window. He was as changed as the room, though in honor of his bride he wore again state robes of silk and cloth-of-gold, for the fire of the Northern lights was gone out of his face, leaving it dull and lustreless. In the garden below, a minstrel was making hay in the sun of the royal glance by a rapid improvising of flattering verses which he was shouting lustily to his twanging harp, but now the King’s hand rose curtly.
“Your imagination has no small power, friend, yet save some virtues in case you should want to sing to me again,” he advised as he tossed down a coin and turned away.
His ward courtesied deeply before him. “For your justice, King Canute, I give you thanks drawn from the bottom of my heart,” she said.
“I welcome you to your own, Lady of Avalcomb,” he answered as he returned her salutation. Leaning against the window frame he stood a long while looking at her in silence,--so long that she was startled when at last he spoke. “Yet for the good of the realm, I must lay on your odal one burden, Frode’s daughter.”
“What is that, King?”
“It is that before the year is out you take a husband who shall be able to defend your land in time of need.”
Her white cheeks went very red before him and then grew very pale again, while her breast rose and fell convulsively. But she clasped her hands over it as though to still its protest and, suddenly, she flung up her head in a kind of trembling defiance. “What does it matter? King, I know what a Danish woman owes her race. Choose you the man and this shall, like other things, be as you wish.”
It was evident that her answer took him by surprise, for he bent from the wall to observe her. “I choose!” he repeated. “Have you then no choice?”
She tried to say “No”; she tried desperately to say it; but already her courage was crumbling under her. All at once she took her hands from her breast to hold them out pleadingly, and her voice was broken: “Lord, let me go back to Avalcomb--now--to-day!”
“Wherefore to-day?” he asked. “I had thought you would remain here for a while and get honor from Queen Emma.” A moment he looked away from her, out of the window at the drifting clouds. “I can tell you, Frode’s daughter, that while she is noble in her birth, she is still nobler in her mind,” he said gravely. “Little would there be in her service for you to take ill. I think it possible that she might be highly helpful to you. There is that about her which makes the good in one come out and bask like a snake in the sun, while the evil slinks away shadow-like--” She interrupted him with a cry that was half a sob. “Lord King, I cannot bear it to see more people that are strange to me! Since I left my father’s house I have felt the starkness of strangers, and now--now I can endure it no longer. My heart within me is as though it were bruised black and blue. Let me go back where all know me,--where none will hold me off at arm’s length to challenge me with his eyes, but all love me and place faith in me because they know me. Lord, give me leave to go home,--I pray it of you! Beseech it of you!” Entreating, she would have fallen at his feet if he had not caught her hands and stayed her.
He did not release them immediately but tightened his grasp as his eyes, grown suddenly keen, searched her face. His voice dropped low. “Randalin, it is very unlikely that Elfgiva’s scratches have brought you to this. Do you stand in need of reminding that any man who has angered you has angered me? That my sword lies under your hand?”
Her face seemed to have become glass before him, through which he looked into the innermost chambers of her mind. Terror-stricken, she snatched her hands away to cover it. “No, no!” she cried wildly. “I am angry with no one. I have found fault with no one. Draw no sword for me--only let me go!”
Again he turned from her and stood looking out at the clouds; but when at last he spoke, his voice was the gentlest she had ever heard it. “You are wise in this, as in other things, Frode’s daughter,” he said, “and you shall certainly have your way. I take it that I am your guardian to protect you from harm, not to force you into things you do not want. Soldiers I can trust shall go with you, in case there be danger from Norman’s people, and for women--” She spoke up eagerly, “There is an old nun at Saint Mildred’s, King, who loves me. I think she would come to me until others could be found.”
“Go then,” he granted. “Thorkel shall see to it that men and horses are ready when you are.” He held out his hand, but when she took it in both of hers and would have saluted it reverently, he would not let her but instead raised her fingers to his lips. An odd note was in his voice. “Heavy is it for my tongue to say farewell to you, Frode’s daughter,” he said, “for your friendship has surpassed most other things in pleasantness to me.”
Frank liking mingled with gratitude and reverence as she looked up at him. “I have got great kindness and favor from you, King Canute; I pray that you will be very happy with your Queen.”
A moment he pressed his lips to her hand; then gently set it free. “I give you thanks,” he returned, “but happiness is for me to wish you. The best you can ask for me is that sometime I shall become what you believed me to be the day you came to me at Scoerstan.”
She tried to tell him that she believed him that now,--but something in her forbade the untruth. She could do no more than leave him, with a mute gesture of farewell.
Perhaps her gaze was not quite clear as she crossed the room, for she did not see that the door-curtains were moving until she was close upon them, when they were thrust apart to admit the form of Rothgar Lodbroksson. Stifling a gasp, she shrank behind a tall chair.
He did not see her, however, for his eyes were fastened upon the King, who had turned back to the window. He had cast aside the splendor of the royal guards, wearing over his steel shirt a kirtle of blue that made his florid face seem redder and gave to his fiery hair a hotter glow. Two sentinels carrying shining pikes had followed him in, uncertainly, and now one plucked at his arm. But the Jotun shook him off to stride forward, clanking his heels with intentional noisiness upon the stone floor.
At the clatter the King looked around, and the tone in which he spoke his friend’s name had in it more of passion than all the lover’s phrases he had ever paid Elfgiva’s ears. At the same time, he made a sharp sign to the two sentinels. “Get back to your posts,” he said.
Hesitating they saluted and unwilling they wheeled, while one spoke bluntly over his shoulder. “It would be better to let us stay, King, if you please. You are weaponless.”
“Go,” Canute repeated. In a moment the doors beyond the curtain had closed behind them, and the two men were alone save for the girl hiding forgotten in the shadow of the chair.
Rothgar laughed jarringly. “Whatever has been told about you, you have not yet been accounted a coward. But I do not see how you know I shall not kill you. I have dreamed of it not a few times.”
Something like a veil seemed to fall over the King’s face; from behind it he spoke slowly as he moved away to the dais upon which his throne-chair stood, and mounted the steps. “The same dream has come to me, but never has it occurred to me to seek you out to tell you of it.”
“No such purpose had I,” the Jotun said with a touch of surliness. Pulling a bag from under his belt, he shook out of it upon the floor a mane of matted yellow hair. “If you want to know my errand, it is to bring you this. Yesterday it came to my ears that one of my men was suspected of having tried to give you poison through your wife’s British thrall. I got them before me and questioned them, and the Scar-Cheek boasted of having done it. This is his hair. If you remember anything about the fellow, you understand that he was not alive when I took it from him.”
The King looked immovably at the yellow mass. “You have behaved in a chieftain-like way and I thank you for it,” he said. “But I would have liked it better if you had come to me about the judgment that raised this wall between us--” Rothgar’s throat gave out a savage sound. “Tempt me not! I am no sluggish wolf.”
But Canute spoke on: “What I expected that day was that you would come to me, as friend comes to friend, and with my loose property I would redeem from you every stick and stone which my kingship had forced me to hold back. Not more than they have called me coward, have men ever called me stingy--” “And when have men called me greedy?” the Jotun bellowed. “Your thoughts have got a bad habit of lying about me if they say that it was greed for land which made me take your judgment angrily. Except for the honor of my stock, what want I with land while I have a ship to bear me? I tell you, now as heretofore, that it was your treachery which unsheathed a sword between us.”
“Rothgar my brother,--” the veil was rent from the King’s face and he had stepped from the dais and seized the other by the shoulders as though he would wrestle bodily with him,--“by the Holy Ring, I swear that I have never betrayed you! If you grudge not the land to the Englishman, you have no cause to grudge him anything under Ymer’s skull. Can a man change his blood? --for so much a part of me is my friendship for you. Time never was when it was not there, and it would be as possible to fill my veins with Thames water as to put an Englishman into your place. Can you not understand--” But Rothgar’s hand had fallen upon the other’s breast and pushed him backward so that he was forced to catch at the chair-arm to save himself from falling. “Never get afraid about that,” he sneered. “Since we slept in one cradle, I have been a thick-headed Thrym and your Loke’s wit has fooled me into doing your bidding and fighting your battles and giving you my toil and my limbs and my faith, but wisdom has grown in me at last. You undertake too steep a climb when you try to make me believe in your love while before my eyes you give to the man I hate my lands and the woman you had promised me and my place above your men--” His rage choked him so that he was obliged to break off and stand drawing his sword from his sheath and slamming it back with a sharp sound. His voice came back in a hoarse roar. “When I reckon up the debt against you, I know that the only thing to wipe it out would be your life. Not taken by poison nor underhandedly, but torn out of your deceitful body as we stand face to face. If I could do that, it might be that my anger would be quenched.” Again he drew his blade half out,--and this time he did not shove it back. His huge body seemed to draw itself together, crouching, as he leaned forward. “Why do you stand there looking as though you thought you were Odin? Do you think to blunt my weapon with your eyes? Why do you tempt me?”
The King had not moved away from the chair against which he had staggered, and the prints of his nails were on its arm. He was as though he had hardened to stone. “To show you that I am stronger than you, though I face you with bare hands,” he said. “To show you that you dare not kill me.”
“Dare not!” Rothgar’s laughter was a hideous thing as he cleared at a bound the space between them. His sword was full-drawn now. “Shout for your guards! It may be that they will get here in time.”
But the King neither gave back nor raised his voice. “I will not,” he said, “nor will I lift hand against you. Never shall you have it to say that I forgot you had endangered your life for mine. On your head it shall be to break the blood-oath.”
Now they were breast to breast. In her mind, the girl in the shadow flung open the doors and shrieked to the sentinels and roused the Palace; in her body, she stood spellbound, voiceless, breathless.
Still Rothgar did not strike. It was the King who spoke this time also. “Among the sayings of men in Norway,” he said coldly, “there is one they tell of a traitor who carried a sword of death against his King, but lacked the boldness to use it before the King’s face. So he begged his lord to wrap a cloak around his head that he might get the courage to ask a boon. When that had been done, he stabbed. Do you want me to cover my eyes?”
With a hoarse cry, Rothgar flung his sword back to his sheath, recoiling,--there was even a kind of fear in his manner: “A fool would I be, to set your ghost free to follow me with that look on its face! Keep your life--and instead I will torture every Angle I can get under my grip, for it is they who have turned a great hero into a nithing--may they despise you as you have despised your people for their sakes!” Invoking the curse with a sweep of his handless arm, he strode from the room.
Randalin did not see when he passed her, for her eyes were on the King as he stood looking after his foster-brother.
“Ah, God, what a terrible world hast Thou made!” she murmured, as she put up her hands to ease the swelling agony in her throat. “No longer will I try to live in it. I will go to the Sisters and remain with them always.”
Through the doors opening before the Jotun there came in a sudden buzz of laughing voices, while a breeze brought through the window a ringing of bells and a clarioning of approaching horns. Upon the girl in the shadow and the King on the dais, the sounds fell like the dissolving of a spell. She ran swiftly to the little door behind the tapestry and let herself out unseen, unheard. The King mounted the throne he had won and sat there in regal state, facing the throng of splendid courtiers trooping in to give him their wedding greetings.
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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32
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In Time’s Morning
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He wins who woos. Ha’vama’l.
The hot glare of a July sun was on the stones of the Watling Street and July winds were driving hosts of battling dust-clouds along the highway, but in the herb garden of Saint Mildred’s cool shadows lay over the dew-beaded grass and all was restfulness and peace. The voice of the girl who was following Sister Wynfreda from mint clump to parsley bed, from fennel to rue, was not much louder than the droning of the bees in the lavender.
“If it be true as you say,--” she was speaking with the passionate bitterness of wounded youth,--“if it be true that in his place anyone would have believed what he believed, then is this a very hateful world and I want no further part in it.”
Over the fragrant leaves which she was touching as fondly as if they had been children’s faces, Sister Wynfreda gently shook her head. “Think not that it is altogether through the world’s evil-heartedness, dear child. Think rather that it is because mankind is not always brave and shrinks from disappointment, that it dares not believe in good until good is proved.”
“I know that one dares not always believe in happiness,” the girl conceded slowly, “for when my happiness was like a green swelling wave, white fear sprang from the crest of it and it fell--Sister, did that forebode my sorrow?”
Awhile, the nun’s eyes widened and paled as eyes that see a vision, but at last she bowed her head to trace a cross upon her breast. “Not so; it is God’s wisdom,” she said, “else would the world be so beautiful that we would never hunger after heaven.”
Mechanically, Randalin’s hands followed hers through the holy sign; then she clasped them before her to wring them in impatient pain. “That is so long to go hungry, Sister! I shall be past my appetite.” Dropping down beside the other, her slim young fingers began to imitate the gnarled old ones as they weeded and straightened. “I wonder at it, Sister Wynfreda, that you do not urge me to creep in with you. A year ago, you wanted it when I wanted it not; but now when I am willing, you hold me off.”
“Is it clear before your mind that you are willing, my daughter?” the nun asked gently. As she drew herself to her feet with the aid of a bush, the cramping of her feeble stiffened muscles contracted her face in momentary pain, but her eyes were serene as the altar lamps. “It lies upon you to remember, little sister, that those who would serve God around the altar must not go thither only because the world has mistreated them and they would cast it off to avenge the smart. She who puts on the yoke of Christ must needs do so because it is the thing she would desire of all, were all precious things spread out for her choosing. Can you look into my eyes and say that it would be so with you?”
Where she knelt before her, the girl suddenly threw her arms around the woman and hid her face in the faded robes. The frail hand stroked the dark hair affectionately. “Think not that I would upbraid you with it, child as dear as my own heart. When the Power that took you from me led you back again, and I read what God’s fingers had written on your face that before was like a lineless parchment, I could not find it in my mind to wish you otherwise. I felt only shame for the weakness of my faith, and joy past all telling.”
Under the soothing hand, Randalin’s sobs slowly ceased; when at last she raised her wet eyes there was no longer rebellion in them but only youth’s measureless despair. “Sister, now as always, I want to do what you would have me--but I am so full of grief! Must I go back to Avalcomb and begin all over again? It seems to me that my life stretches before me no more alluringly than yonder dusty road, that runs straight on, on, over vast spaces but always empty.”
The beauty that had been Sister Wynfreda’s hovered now about her mouth as fragrance around a dead rose. Her gaze was on a branch above them where a little brown bird, calling plaintively, was slipping from her nest. Over the wattled edge, two tiny brown heads were peeping like fuzzy beech-nut rinds. “I wonder,” she said, “what those little creatures up there will think when a few months hence the blue sky becomes leaden, such that no one of them ever before recollected it so dark, and the sun that is wont to creep to them through the leaves has gone out like a candle before the winter winds? By reason of their youth, I suppose they will judiciously conclude with themselves that there is never going to be any blue sky again, that their lives will stretch before them in a dark-hued stress of weather, empty of all save leafless trees and frozen fields. My fledgeling, will they not be a little ashamed of their short-sightedness when the spring has brought back the sun?”
The girl’s lips parted before her quickening breath, and the old nun smiled at her tenderly as she moved away with her hands full of the green symbols of healing. “Settle not the whole day of your life at its morning, most dear child, but live it hour by hour,” she said. “If you would be of use now, go gather the flowers for the Holy Table, and when themselves have drawn in holiness from the spot, then shall you bring them to the sick woman over the hill.”
“Yes, Sister,” the girl said submissively. But when she had crossed the daisied grass and opened the wicket gate and came out into the fragrant lane, something seemed to divide her mind with the roses, for though she sent one glance toward the hedge, she sent another to the spot beyond--where the lane gave out upon the great Street to the City--and after she had walked a little way toward the flowers, she turned and walked a long way toward the road, until she had come where her eyes could follow its white track far away over the hills.
“I wonder if I shall ever hunger for heaven as I hunger for the sight of him,” she murmured as she gazed.
But whatever the valleys might hold, the hillsides showed her nothing; sighing, she turned back. “It seems to me,” she said, “that if we could have little tastes of heaven as we went along, then would there still be enough left and the road would seem much shorter.” Sighing, she set to work upon the roses, that had twined themselves in a kindly veil over the bushes.
Standing so, it happened that she did not see the horseman who was just gaining the crest of the nearest hill between her and the City. The wind being from her, she did not even hear the hoof-beats until the horse had turned from the glare of the sun into the shadow of the fern-bordered lane. The first she knew of it, she glanced over her shoulder and saw the red-cloaked figure riding toward her along the grass-grown path.
As naturally as a flower opens its heart at the coming of the sun, she leaned toward him, breathing his name; then in an impulse equally natural, as he leaped from his saddle before her, she drew back and half averted her face, flickering red and white like the blossoms she was clasping to her breast.
He stopped abruptly, a short stretch of grass still between them, wand it soothed her bruised pride a little that there was no longer any confident ease in his manner but only hesitation and uncertainty. His voice was greatly troubled as he spoke: “Never can I forgive myself for having wounded you, sweetheart, yet had I hoped that you might forgive me, because I knew not what I did and because I have suffered so sorely for it.”
“_You_ have suffered,” she repeated with a little accent of bitterness.
“I beseech you by my love that you do not doubt it!” Hesitation gave way before a warmth of reproach. “For a man to know that he has wounded what he would have died to shield--that he has wronged where he would have given his life to honor--that it may be he has lost what is body and soul to him,--what else is that but suffering?”
It was only a very little that her face turned toward him, and he could not see how her downcast eyes were taking fire from his voice. He stood looking at her in despair, until something in the poise of her head taught him a new rune among love’s spells. Drawing softly near her, he spoke in noblest conciliation: “Is it your pride that cannot pardon me, Lady of Avalcomb? Do I seem to sue for grace too boldly because I forget to make my body match the humbleness of my heart? Except in prayer or courtesy, we are not loose of knee, we Angles, but I would stoop as low as I lowest might if that could make you kinder, dear one.” Baring his head, he knelt down at her feet,--and the difference between this and the time when he had bent before her in the Abbey, was the difference between tender jest and tenderest earnest. “Thus then do I ask you to give me back your love,” he said gently,--and would have said more but that she turned, stirred to a kind of generous shame.
“It needs not that, lord! I know you did not mean it. And they have told me that--that I have no right to be angry with you--” She broke off, as looking into his face she saw something that startled her into forgetfulness of all else. “Why are your cheeks so hollow?” she demanded. “And so gray--as though you had lost blood? Lord, what has come near you?”
He could not conceal the sudden pleasure he got out of her alarm for him, even while he answered as lightly as he could that it was no more than the fatigue of his three days in the saddle; and a lack of food, perhaps, as he had been somewhat pressed for time; and a lack of sleep because of-- But she was a warrior’s daughter, and she would not be put off. Coming close to him, she pulled aside the dusty cloak, hot as a live coal in the glare of the day, and there--behold! --there were blood stains on the breast of his blue kirtle. Forgetful of everything else, she flung her arms around him as though to shield him. “Sebert, you are wounded! What is it?”
Nothing that troubled him very much, apparently, for his haggard face had grown radiant with gladness. Yet he was enough afraid of the reaction to answer her as gravely as possible: “It is Rothgar Lodbroksson, whom I met coming from the City as I was journeying back from my errand in Northampton. Little affection has ever passed between us, and this time something more than usual seemed to have stirred him against me, for--” “He tried to kill you!” The words were not a question but a breathless assertion as she remembered the Jotun’s last threat.
“He tried to kill me,” the Marshal assented quietly. “And his blade did manage to pierce my mail; he is a giant in strength as in other things. But it cut no more than flesh; and after that, Fortune wheeled not toward him.”
“You slew him!” Her lips were white as she gasped it, but he knew now that it was no love for the Jotun that moved her, and he answered promptly to her unspoken thought: “No, sweet,--for the King’s sake, I spared him. Before this, his men have taken him aboard his ship and England is rid of him.”
Murmuring broken phrases of thanksgiving, she stood holding the cloak she had grasped, but he dreaded too much the moment of her awakening to await its coming inactive. Slipping his arms around her, he began to speak swiftly, the moment her silence gave him an opening.
“Never did I blame Rothgar much for his enmity against me, and now I thank him for this cut as for a gift, for through it I know that at least you have not outlawed me from your love. Dear one, as you are not unkind to so slight a thing as this wound in my flesh, so neither be without pity for the one that is so much deeper, in my heart! As the scratch stayed your anger for a while, so, in the gentleness of love, let this which is mortal stay it for all time.”
With his arms around her, she could not shrink very far away,--nor was it seen that she tried to,--but all at once her words came in uneven rushes: “How can I hold anger against you when, with every breath, my lips sigh for your kisses? Yet let no one wonder at it that I am frightened... You cannot conceive what a lurking place for terrors the world looks to me! Never, I think, shall I see men sitting together that I shall not suspect them of having murder in their hearts. Never shall I see two friends clasp hands but my mind will run forward to a time when they shall part in wrath and loneliness. Nay, even of the sound of my own voice I am afraid, lest whomsoever is hearing it--for all that he speak me fair--be twisting the words in his mind into evils I have not dreamed of. Sebert, I do not reproach you with it! I think it all the fault of my own blunders,--and therein I find a new terror. That one should suffer for wrong-doing is to be looked for, but if one is to be dealt with so unsparingly only for making mistakes, who knows where his position is or what to expect? Oh, my best friend, make me brave or I am likely to die only through fearing to live! With my ignorance my boldness went from me, until now my courage is lowly as a willow leaf. Love, make me brave again!” Trusting, in her very declaration of distrust, she clung to him to save her from herself.
It was in the briar-pricked fingers, which he was pressing against his cheek, that he found his answer. Suddenly he spread them out in his palm before her, laughing with joyful lightness. “Randalin, the thorns wounded your hands the while that you stripped yonder hedge, but did you stop for that? If I can prove to you that all these dark days you have been but plucking roses, can you not bravely bear with the pricks?”
Putting her gently from him, he gathered up the spoils she had let fall, picking from among them with great care the fairest of either kind, while she, catching his mood, watched him April-faced. “This,” he said gaily, “is the red rose of my heart. Battle-fields lay between us and tower walls, and the way was long and hard to find, yet can you deny, my elf, that you came in and plucked it and wore it away in your hair,--to keep or to cast aside as pleased you?”
Smiles and tears growing together, she caught the blossom from him and pressed it to her lips. “I will wear it in my bosom,” she answered, “for my breast has been empty--since the day I saw you first.”
Smiling, he held out the white rose, but his mood had deepened until now he looked down upon her as he had looked down upon her in the moonlit forest. “This, beloved, is the symbol of my faith,” he said. “Your eyes took it from me that day at even-song. I hold it the dearer of the two, for with it goes my honor that is as stainless as its petals. It is worth more than life to me,--is it not worth some pricks to you?”
She took it from him reverently, to lay it beside the other, and as her face was too proud for fear so was it too tender for jesting. “I am more honored,” she told him, “than Canute by his crown; and I will live as bravely to defend them.”
But as he would have caught her to him, she leaned back suddenly to stretch a hand toward a dark-robed figure standing under the moss-grown arch, and her pride melted into a laugh of breathless happiness. “Sister Wynfreda, you were very right,” she called softly, “the world can be so beautiful that one has no hunger for heaven.”
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{
"id": "3323"
}
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1
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THE WANDERING JEW'S CHASTISEMENT.
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'Tis night--the moon is brightly shining, the brilliant stars are sparkling in a sky of melancholy calmness, the shrill whistlings of a northerly wind--cold, bleak, and evil-bearing--are increasing: winding about, and bursting into violent blasts, with their harsh and hissing gusts, they are sweeping the heights of Montmartre. A man is standing on the very summit of the hill; his lengthened shadow, thrown out by the moon's pale beams, darkens the rocky ground in the distance. The traveller is surveying the huge city lying at his feet--the City of Paris--from whose profundities are cast up its towers, cupolas, domes, and steeples, in the bluish moisture of the horizon; while from the very centre of this sea of stones is rising a luminous vapor, reddening the starry azure of the sky above. It is the distant light of a myriad lamps which at night, the season for pleasure, is illuminating the noisy capital.
"No!" said the traveller, "it will not be. The Lord surely will not suffer it. Twice is quite enough. Five centuries ago, the avenging hand of the Almighty drove me hither from the depths of Asia. A solitary wanderer, I left in my track more mourning, despair, disaster, and death, than the innumerable armies of a hundred devastating conquerors could have produced. I then entered this city, and it was decimated. Two centuries ago that inexorable hand which led me through the world again conducted me here; and on that occasion, as on the previous one, that scourge, which at intervals the Almighty binds to my footsteps, ravaged this city, attacking first my brethren, already wearied by wretchedness and toil. My brethren! through me--the laborer of Jerusalem, cursed by the Lord, who in my person cursed the race of laborers--a race always suffering, always disinherited, always slaves, who like me, go on, on, on, without rest or intermission, without recompense, or hope; until at length, women, men, children, and old men, die under their iron yoke of self-murder, that others in their turn then take up, borne from age to age on their willing but aching shoulders. And here again, for the third time, in the course of five centuries, I have arrived at the summit of one of the hills which overlooks the city; and perhaps I bring again with me terror, desolation, and death. And this unhappy city, intoxicated in a whirl of joys, and nocturnal revelries, knows nothing about it--oh! it knows not that I am at its very gate. But no! no! my presence will not be a source of fresh calamity to it. The Lord, in His unsearchable wisdom, has brought me hither across France, making me avoid on my route all but the humblest villages, so that no increase of the funeral knell has, marked my journey. And then, moreover, the spectre has left me--that spectre, livid and green, with its deep bloodshot eyes. When I touched the soil of France, its moist and icy hand abandoned mine--it disappeared. And yet I feel the atmosphere of death surrounding me still. There is no cessation; the biting gusts of this sinister wind, which envelop me in their breath, seem by their envenomed breath to propagate the scourge. Doubtless the anger of the Lord is appeased. Maybe, my presence here is meant only as a threat, intending to bring those to their senses whom it ought to intimidate. It must be so; for were it otherwise, it would, on the contrary, strike a loud-sounding blow of greater terror, casting at once dread and death into the very heart of the country, into the bosom of this immense city. Oh, no! no! the Lord will have mercy; He will not condemn me to this new affliction. Alas! in this city my brethren are more numerous and more wretched than in any other. And must I bring death to them? No! the Lord will have mercy; for, alas! the seven descendants of my sister are at last all united in this city. And must I bring death to them? Death! instead of that immediate assistance they stand so much in need of? For that woman who, like myself, wanders from one end of the world into the other, has gone now on her everlasting journey, after having confounded their enemies' plots. In vain did she foretell that great evils still threatened those who are akin to me through my sister's blood. The unseen hand by which I am led, drives that woman away from me, even as though it were a whirlwind that swept her on. In vain she entreated and implored at the moment she was leaving those who are so dear to me. --At least, 0 Lord, permit me to stay until I shall have finished my task! Onward! A few days, for mercy's sake, only a few days! Onward! I leave these whom I am protecting on the very brink of an abyss! Onward! Onward!! And the wandering star is launched afresh on its perpetual course. But her voice traversed through space, calling me to the assistance of my own! When her voice reached me I felt that the offspring of my sister were still exposed to fearful dangers: those dangers are still increasing. Oh, say, say, Lord! shall the descendants of my sister escape those woes which for so many centuries have oppressed my race? Wilt Thou pardon me in them? Wilt Thou punish me in them? Oh! lead them, that they may obey the last wishes of their ancestor. Guide them, that they may join their charitable hearts, their powerful strength, their best wisdom, and their immense wealth, and work together for the future happiness of mankind, thereby, perhaps, enabled to ransom me from my eternal penalties. Let those divine words of the Son of Man, 'Love ye one another!' be their only aim; and by the assistance of their all-powerful words, let them contend against and vanquish those false priests who have trampled on the precepts of love, of peace, and hope commanded by the Saviour, setting up in their stead the precepts of hatred, violence, and despair. Those false shepherds, supported ay the powerful and wealthy of the world, who in all times have been their accomplices, instead of asking here below a little happiness for my brethren, who have been suffering and groaning for centuries, dare to utter, in Thy name, O Lord! that the poor must always be doomed to the tortures of this world, and that it is criminal in Thine eyes that they should either wish for or hope a mitigation of their sufferings on earth, because the happiness of the few and the wretchedness of nearly all mankind is Thine almighty will. Blasphemies! is it not the contrary of these homicidal words that is more worthy of the name of Divine will? Hear, me, O Lord! for mercy's sake. Snatch from their enemies the descendants of my sister, from the artisan up to the king's son. Do not permit them to crush the germ of a mighty and fruitful association, which, perhaps, under Thy protection, may take its place among the records of the happiness of mankind. Suffer me, O Lord! to unite those whom they are endeavoring to divide--to defend those whom they are attacking. Suffer me to bring hope to those from whom hope has fled, to give courage to those who are weak, to uphold those whom evil threatens, and to sustain those who would persevere in well-doing. And then, perhaps, their struggles, their devotedness, their virtues, this miseries might expiate my sin. Yes, mine--misfortune, misfortune alone, made me unjust and wicked. O Lord! since Thine almighty hand hath brought me hither, for some end unknown to me, disarm Thyself, I implore Thee, of Thine anger, and let not me be the instrument of Thy vengeance! There is enough of mourning in the earth these two years past--Thy creatures have fallen by millions in my footsteps. The world is decimated. A veil of mourning extends from one end of the globe to the other. I have traveled from Asia even to the Frozen Pole, and death has followed in my wake. Dost Thou not hear, O Lord! the universal wailings that mount up to Thee? Have mercy upon all, and upon me. One day, grant me but a single day, that I may collect the descendants of my sister together, and save them!" And uttering these words, the wanderer fell upon his knees, and raised his hands to heaven in a suppliant attitude.
Suddenly, the wind howled with redoubled violence; its sharp whistlings changed to a tempest. The Wanderer trembled, and exclaimed in a voice of terror, "O Lord! the blast of death is howling in its rage. It appears as though a whirlwind were lifting me up. Lord, wilt Thou not, then, hear my prayer? The spectre! O! do I behold the spectre? Yes, there it is; its cadaverous countenance is agitated by convulsive throes, its red eyes are rolling in their orbits. Begone! begone! Oh! its hand--its icy hand has seized on mine! Mercy, Lord, have mercy! 'Onward!' Oh, Lord! this scourge, this terrible avenging scourge! Must I, then, again carry it into this city, must my poor wretched brethren be the first to fall under it--though already so miserable? Mercy, mercy! 'Onward!' And the descendants of my sister--oh, pray, have mercy, mercy! 'Onward!' O Lord, have pity on me! I can no longer keep my footing on the ground, the spectre is dragging me over the brow of the hill; my course is as rapid as the death-bearing wind that whistles in my track; I already approach the walls of the city. Oh, mercy, Lord, mercy on the descendants of my sister--spare them! do not compel me to be their executioner, and let them triumph over their enemies. Onward, onward! The ground is fleeing from under me; I am already at the city gate; oh, yet, Lord, yet there is time; oh, have mercy on this slumbering city, that it may not even now awaken with the lamentations of terror, of despair and death! O Lord, I touch the threshold of the gate; verily Thou willest it so then. 'Tis done--Paris! the scourge is in thy bosom! oh, cursed, cursed evermore am I. Onward! on! on!" [34] [34] In 1346, the celebrated Black Death ravaged the earth, presenting the same symptoms as the cholera, and the same inexplicable phenomena as to its progress and the results in its route. In 1660 a similar epidemic decimated the world. It is well known that when the cholera first broke out in Paris, it had taken a wide and unaccountable leap; and, also memorable, a north-east wind prevailed during its utmost fierceness.
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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2
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THE DESCENDANTS OF THE WANDERING JEW.
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That lonely wayfarer whom we have heard so plaintively urging to be relieved of his gigantic burden of misery, spoke of "his sister's descendants" being of all ranks, from the working man to the king's son. They were seven in number, who had, in the year 1832, been led to Paris, directly or indirectly, by a bronze medal which distinguished them from others, bearing these words:-VICTIM of L. C. D. J. Pray for me! -----PARIS, February the 13th, 1682.
IN PARIS, Rue St. Francois, No. 3, In a century and a half you will be. February the 13th, 1832. -----PRAY FOR ME!
The son of the King of Mundi had lost his father and his domains in India by the irresistible march of the English, and was but in title Prince Djalma. Spite of attempts to make his departure from the East delayed until after the period when he could have obeyed his medal's command, he had reached France by the second month of 1832. Nevertheless, the results of shipwreck had detained him from Paris till after that date. A second possessor of this token had remained unaware of its existence, only discovered by accident. But an enemy who sought to thwart the union of these seven members, had shut her up in a mad-house, from which she was released only after that day. Not alone was she in imprisonment. An old Bonapartist, General Simon, Marshal of France, and Duke de Ligny, had left a wife in Russian exile, while he (unable to follow Napoleon to St. Helena) continued to fight the English in India by means of Prince Djalma's Sepoys, whom he drilled. On the latter's defeat, he had meant to accompany his young friend to Europe, induced the more by finding that the latter's mother, a Frenchwoman, had left him such another bronze medal as he knew his wife to have had.
Unhappily, his wife had perished in Siberia, without his knowing it, any more than he did, that she had left twin daughters, Rose and Blanche. Fortunately for them, one who had served their father in the Grenadiers of the Guard. Francis Baudoin, nicknamed Dagobert, undertook to fulfil the dying mother's wishes, inspired by the medal. Saving a check at Leipsic, where one Morok the lion-tamer's panther had escaped from its cage and killed Dagobert's horse, and a subsequent imprisonment (which the Wandering Jew's succoring hand had terminated) the soldier and his orphan charges had reached Paris in safety and in time. But there, a renewal of the foe's attempt had gained its end. By skillful devices, Dagobert and his son Agricola were drawn out of the way while Rose and Blanche Simon were decoyed into a nunnery, under the eyes of Dagobert's wife. But she had been bound against interfering by the influence of the Jesuit confessional. The fourth was M. Hardy, a manufacturer, and the fifth, Jacques Rennepont, a drunken scamp of a workman, who were more easily fended off, the latter in a sponging house, the former by a friend's lure. Adrienne de Cardoville, daughter of the Count of Rennepont, who had also been Duke of Cardoville, was the lady who had been unwarrantably placed in the lunatic asylum. The fifth, unaware of the medal, was Gabriel, a youth, who had been brought up, though a foundling, in Dagobert's family, as a brother to Agricola. He had entered holy orders, and more, was a Jesuit, in name though not in heart. Unlike the others, his return from abroad had been smoothed. He had signed away all his future prospects, for the benefit of the order of Loyola, and, moreover, executed a more complete deed of transfer on the day, the 13th of February, 1832, when he, alone of the heirs, stood in the room of the house, No. 3, Rue St. Francois, claiming what was a vast surprise for the Jesuits, who, a hundred and fifty years before, had discovered that Count Marius de Rennepont had secreted a considerable amount of his wealth, all of which had been confiscated to them, in those painful days of dragoonings, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They had bargained for some thirty or forty millions of francs to be theirs, by educating Gabriel into resigning his inheritance to them, but it was two hundred and twelve millions which the Jesuit representatives (Father d'Aigrigny and his secretary, Rodin) were amazed to hear their nursling placed in possession of. They had the treasure in their hands, in fact, when a woman of strangely sad beauty had mysteriously entered the room where the will had been read, and laid a paper before the notary. It was a codicil, duly drawn up and signed, deferring the carrying out of the testament until the first day of June the same year. The Jesuits fled from the house, in rage and intense disappointment. Father d'Aigrigny was so stupor-stricken at the defeat, that he bade his secretary at once write off to Rome that the Rennepont inheritance had escaped them, and hopes to seize it again were utterly at an end. Upon this, Rodin had revolted, and shown that he had authority to command where he had, so far, most humbly obeyed. Many such spies hang about their superior's heels, with full powers to become the governor in turn, at a moment's notice. Thenceforward, he, Rodin, had taken the business into his own hands. He had let Rose and Blanche Simon out of the convent into their father's arms. He had gone in person to release Adrienne de Cardoville from the asylum. More, having led her to sigh for Prince Djalma, he prompted the latter to burn for her.
He let not M. Hardy escape. A friend whom the latter treated as a brother, had been shown up to him as a mere spy of the Jesuits; the woman whom he adored, a wedded woman, alas! who had loved him in spite of her vows, had been betrayed. Her mother had compelled her to hide her shame in America, and, as she had often said--"Much as you are endeared to me, I cannot waver between you and my mother!" so she had obeyed, without one farewell word to him. Confess, Rodin was a more dextrous man than his late master! In the pages that ensue farther proofs of his superiority in baseness and satanic heartlessness will not be wanting.
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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3
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THE ATTACK.
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On M. Hardy's learning from the confidential go-between of the lovers, that his mistress had been taken away by her mother, he turned from Rodin and dashed away in a post carriage. At the same moment, as loud as the rattle of the wheels, there arose the shouts of a band of workmen and rioters, hired by the Jesuit's emissaries, coming to attack Hardy's operatives. An old grudge long existing between them and a rival manufacturer's--Baron Tripeaud--laborers, fanned the flames. When M. Hardy had left the factory, Rodin, who was not prepared for this sudden departure, returned slowly to his hackney-coach; but he stopped suddenly, and started with pleasure and surprise, when he saw, at some distance, Marshall Simon and his father advancing towards one of the wings of the Common Dwelling-house; for an accidental circumstance had so far delayed the interview of the father and son.
"Very well!" said Rodin. "Better and better! Now, only let my man have found out and persuaded little Rose-Pompon!"
And Rodin hastened towards his hackney-coach. At this moment, the wind, which continued to rise, brought to the ear of the Jesuit the war song of the approaching Wolves.
The workman was in the garden. The marshal said to him, in a voice of such deep emotion that the old man started; "Father, I am very unhappy."
A painful expression, until then concealed, suddenly darkened the countenance of the marshal.
"You unhappy?" cried father Simon, anxiously, as he pressed nearer to the marshal.
"For some days, my daughters have appeared constrained in manner, and lost in thought. During the first moments of our re-union, they were mad with joy and happiness. Suddenly, all has changed; they are becoming more and more sad. Yesterday, I detected tears in their eyes; then deeply moved, I clasped them in my arms, and implored them to tell me the cause of their sorrow. Without answering, they threw themselves on my neck, and covered my face with their tears."
"It is strange. To what do you attribute this alteration?"
"Sometimes, I think I have not sufficiently concealed from them the grief occasioned me by the loss of their mother, and they are perhaps miserable that they do not suffice for my happiness. And yet (inexplicable as it is) they seem not only to understand, but to share my sorrow. Yesterday, Blanche said to me: 'How much happier still should we be, if our mother were with us! --'" "Sharing your sorrow, they cannot reproach you with it. There must be some other cause for their grief."
"Yes," said the marshal, looking fixedly at his father; "yes--but to penetrate this secret--it would be necessary not to leave them."
"What do you mean?"
"First learn, father, what are the duties which would keep me here; then you shall know those which may take me away from you, from my daughters, and from my other child."
"What other child?"
"The son of my old friend, the Indian Prince."
"Djalma? Is there anything the matter with him?"
"Father, he frightens me. I told you, father, of his mad and unhappy passion for Mdlle. de Cardoville."
"Does that frighten you, my son?" said the old man, looking at the marshal with surprise. "Djalma is only eighteen, and, at that age, one love drives away another."
"You have no idea of the ravages which the passion has already made in the ardent, indomitable boy; sometimes, fits of savage ferocity follow the most painful dejection. Yesterday, I came suddenly upon him; his eyes were bloodshot, his features contracted with rage; yielding to an impulse of mad furry, he was piercing with his poinard a cushion of red cloth, whilst he exclaimed, panting for breath, 'Ha blood! --I will have blood!' 'Unhappy boy!' I said to him, 'what means this insane passion?' 'I'm killing the man!' replied he, in a hollow and savage voice: it is thus he designates his supposed rival."
"There is indeed something terrible," said the old man, "in such a passion, in such a heart."
"At other times," resumed the marshal, "it is against Mdlle. de Cardoville that his rage bursts forth; and at others, against himself. I have been obliged to remove his weapons, for a man who came with him from Java, and who appears much attached to him, has informed me that he suspected him of entertaining some thoughts of suicide."
"Unfortunate boy!"
"Well, father," said Marshal Simon, with profound bitterness; "it is at the moment when my daughters and my adopted son require all my solicitude, that I am perhaps on the eve of quitting them."
"Of quitting them?"
"Yes, to fulfil a still more sacred duty than that imposed by friendship or family," said the marshal, in so grave and solemn a tone, that his father exclaimed, with deep emotion: "What can this duty be?"
"Father," said the marshal, after remaining a moment in thoughtful silence, "who made me what I am? Who gave me the ducal title, and the marshal's baton?"
"Napoleon."
"For you, the stern republican, I know that he lost all his value, when from the first citizen of a Republic he became an emperor.
"I cursed his weakness," said Father Simon, sadly; "the demi-god sank into a man."
"But for me, father--for me, the soldier, who have always fought beside him, or under his eye--for me, whom he raised from the lowest rank in the army to the highest--for me, whom he loaded with benefits and marks of affection--for me, he was more than a hero, he was a friend--and there was as much gratitude as admiration in my idolatry for him. When he was exiled, I would fain have shared his exile; they refused me that favor; then I conspired, then I drew my sword against those who had robbed his son of the crown which France had given him."
"And, in your position, you did well, Pierre; without sharing your admiration, I understood your gratitude. The projects of exile, the conspiracies--I approved them all--you know it."
"Well, then, that disinherited child, in whose name I conspired seventeen years ago, is now of an age to wield his father's sword."
"Napoleon II!" exclaimed the old man, looking at his son with surprise and extreme anxiety; "the king of Rome!"
"King? no; he is no longer king. Napoleon? no; he is no longer Napoleon. They have given him some Austrian name, because the other frightened them. Everything frightens them. Do you know what they are doing with the son of the Emperor?" resumed the marshal, with painful excitement. "They are torturing him--killing him by inches!"
"Who told you this?"
"Somebody who knows, whose words are but too true. Yes; the son of the Emperor struggles with all his strength against a premature death. With his eyes turned towards France, he waits--he waits--and no one comes--no one--out of all the men that his father made as great as they once were little, not one thinks of that crowned child, whom they are stifling, till he dies."
"But you think of him?"
"Yes; but I had first to learn--oh! there is no doubt of it, for I have not derived all my information from the same source--I had first to learn the cruel fate of this youth, to whom I also swore allegiance; for one day, as I have told you, the Emperor, proud and loving father as he was, showed him to me in his cradle, and said: 'My old friend, you will be to the son what you have been to the father; who loves us, loves our France.'"
"Yes, I know it. Many times you have repeated those words to me, and, like yourself, I have been moved by them."
"Well, father! suppose, informed of the sufferings of the son of the Emperor, I had seen--with the positive certainty that I was not deceived--a letter from a person of high rank in the court of Vienna, offering to a man that was still faithful to the Emperor's memory, the means of communicating with the king of Rome, and perhaps of saving him from his tormentors--" "What next?" said the workman, looking fixedly at his son. "Suppose Napoleon II. once at liberty--" "What next?" exclaimed the marshal. Then he added, in a suppressed voice: "Do you think, father, that France is insensible to the humiliations she endures? Do you think that the memory of the Emperor is extinct? No, no; it is, above all, in the days of our country's degredation, that she whispers that sacred name. How would it be, then, were that name to rise glorious on the frontier, reviving in his son? Do you not think that the heart of all France would beat for him?"
"This implies a conspiracy--against the present government--with Napoleon II. for a watchword," said the workman. "This is very serious."
"I told you, father, that I was very unhappy; judge if it be not so," cried the marshal. "Not only I ask myself, if I ought to abandon my children and you, to run the risk of so daring an enterprise, but I ask myself if I am not bound to the present government, which, in acknowledging my rank and title, if it bestowed no favor, at least did me an act of justice. How shall I decide? --abandon all that I love, or remain insensible to the tortures of Emperor--of that Emperor to the son of the whom I owe everything--to whom I have sworn fidelity, both to himself and child? Shall I lose this only opportunity, perhaps, of saving him, or shall I conspire in his favor? Tell me, if I exaggerate what I owe to the memory of the Emperor? Decide for me, father! During a whole sleepless night, I strove to discover, in the midst of this chaos, the line prescribed by honor; but I only wandered from indecision to indecision. You alone, father--you alone, I repeat, can direct me."
After remaining for some moments in deep thought, the old man was about to answer, when some person, running across the little garden, opened the door hastily, and entered the room in which were the marshal and his father. It was Olivier, the young workman, who had been able to effect his escape from the village in which the Wolves had assembled.
"M. Simon! M. Simon!" cried he, pale, and panting for breath. "They are here--close at hand. They have come to attack the factory."
"Who?" cried the old man, rising hastily.
"The Wolves, quarrymen, and stone-cutters, joined on the road by a crowd of people from the neighborhood, and vagabonds from town. Do you not hear them? They are shouting, 'Death to the Devourers!'"
The clamor was indeed approaching, and grew more and more distinct.
"It is the same noise that I heard just now," said the marshal, rising in his turn.
"There are more than two hundred of them, M. Simon," said Olivier; "they are armed with clubs and stones, and unfortunately the greater part of our workmen are in Paris. We are not above forty here in all; the women and children are already flying to their chambers, screaming for terror. Do you not hear them?"
The ceiling shook beneath the tread of many hasty feet.
"Will this attack be a serious one?" said the marshal to his father, who appeared more and more dejected.
"Very serious," said the old man; "there is nothing more fierce than these combats between different unions; and everything has been done lately to excite the people of the neighborhood against the factory."
"If you are so inferior in number," said the marshal, "you must begin by barricading all the doors--and then--" He was unable to conclude. A burst of ferocious cries shook the windows of the room, and seemed so near and loud, that the marshal, his father, and the young workman, rushed out into the little garden, which was bounded on one side by a wall that separated it from the fields. Suddenly whilst the shouts redoubled in violence, a shower of large stones, intended to break the windows of the house, smashed some of the panes on the first story, struck against the wall, and fell into the garden, all around the marshal and his father. By a fatal chance, one of these large stones struck the old man on the head. He staggered, bent forward, and fell bleeding into the arms of Marshal Simon, just as arose from without, with increased fury, the savage cries of, "Death to the Devourers!"
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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4
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THE WOLVES AND THE DEVOURERS.
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It was a frightful thing to view the approach of the lawless crowd, whose first act of hostility had been so fatal to Marshal Simon's father. One wing of the Common Dwelling-house, which joined the garden-wall on that side, was next to the fields. It was there that the Wolves began their attack. The precipitation of their march, the halt they had made at two public-houses on the road, their ardent impatience for the approaching struggle, had inflamed these men to a high pitch of savage excitement. Having discharged their first shower of stones, most of the assailants stooped down to look for more ammunition. Some of them, to do so with greater ease, held their bludgeons between their teeth; others had placed them against the wall; here and there, groups had formed tumultuously round the principal leaders of the band; the most neatly dressed of these men wore frocks, with caps, whilst others were almost in rags, for, as we have already said, many of the hangers-on at the barriers, and people without any profession, had joined the troop of the Wolves, whether welcome or not. Some hideous women, with tattered garments, who always seem to follow in the track of such people, accompanied them on this occasion, and, by their cries and fury, inflamed still more the general excitement. One of them, tall, robust, with purple complexion, blood shot eyes, and toothless jaws, had a handkerchief over her head, from beneath which escaped her yellow, frowsy hair. Over her ragged gown, she wore an old plaid shawl, crossed over her bosom, and tied behind her back. This hag seemed possessed with a demon. She had tucked up her half-torn sleeves; in one hand she brandished a stick, in the other she grasped a huge stone; her companions called her Ciboule (scullion).
This horrible hag exclaimed, in a hoarse voice: "I'll bite the women of the factory; I'll make them bleed."
The ferocious words were received with applause by her companions, and with savage cries of "Ciboule forever!" which excited her to frenzy.
Amongst the other leaders, was a small, dry pale man, with the face of a ferret, and a black beard all round the chin; he wore a scarlet Greek cap, and beneath his long blouse, perfectly new, appeared a pair of neat cloth trousers, strapped over thin boots. This man was evidently of a different condition of life from that of the other persons in the troop; it was he, in particular, who ascribed the most irritating and insulting language to the workmen of the factory, with regard to the inhabitants of the neighborhood. He howled a great deal, but he carried neither stick nor stone. A full-faced, fresh-colored man, with a formidable bass voice, like a chorister's, asked him: "Will you not have a shot at those impious dogs, who might bring down the Cholera on the country, as the curate told us?"
"I will have a better shot than you," said the little man, with a singular, sinister smile.
"And with what, I'd like to see?"
"Probably, with this," said the little man, stooping to pick up a large stone; but, as he bent, a well-filled though light bag, which he appeared to carry under his blouse, fell to the ground.
"Look, you are losing both bag and baggage," said the other; "it does not seem very heavy."
"They are samples of wool," answered the man with the ferret's face, as he hastily picked up the bag, and replaced it under his blouse; then he added: "Attention! the big blaster is going to speak."
And, in fact, he who exercised the most complete ascendency over this irritated crowd was the terrible quarryman. His gigantic form towered so much above the multitude, that his great head, bound in its ragged handkerchief, and his Herculean shoulders, covered with a fallow goat skin, were always visible above the level of that dark and swarming crowd, only relieved here and there by a few women's caps, like so many white points. Seeing to what a degree of exasperation the minds of the crowd had reached, the small number of honest, but misguided workmen, who had allowed themselves to be drawn into this dangerous enterprise, under the pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, now fearing for the consequences of the struggle, tried, but too late, to abandon the main body. Pressed close, and as it were, girt in with the more hostile groups, dreading to pass for cowards, or to expose themselves to the bad treatment of the majority, they were forced to wait for a more favorable moment to effect their escape. To the savage cheers, which had accompanied the first discharge of stones, succeeded a deep silence commanded by the stentorian voice of the quarryman.
"The Wolves have howled," he exclaimed; "let us wait and see how the Devourers will answer, and when they will begin the fight."
"We must draw them out of their factory, and fight them on neutral ground," said the little man with the ferret's face, who appeared to be the thieves' advocate; "otherwise there would be trespass."
"What do we care about trespass?" cried the horrible hag, Ciboule; "in or out, I will tear the chits of the factory."
"Yes, yes," cried other hideous creatures, as ragged as Ciboule herself; "we must not leave all to the men."
"We must have our fun, too!"
"The women of the factory say that all the women of the neighborhood are drunken drabs," cried the little man with the ferret's face.
"Good! we'll pay them for it."
"The women shall have their share."
"That's our business."
"They like to sing in their Common House," cried Ciboule; "we will make them sing the wrong side of their mouths, in the key of 'Oh, dear me!'"
This pleasantry was received with shouts, hootings, and furious stamping of feet, to which the stentorian voice of the quarryman put a term by roaring: "Silence!"
"Silence! silence!" repeated the crowd. "Hear the blaster!"
"If the Devourers are cowards enough not to dare to show themselves, after a second volley of stones, there is a door down there which we can break open, and we will soon hunt them from their holes."
"It would be better to draw them out, so that none might remain in the factory," said the little old man with the ferret's face, who appeared to have some secret motive.
"A man fights where he can," cried the quarryman, in a voice of thunder; "all, right, if we can but once catch hold. We could fight on a sloping roof, or on the top of a wall--couldn't we, my Wolves?"
"Yes, yes!" cried the crowd, still more excited by those savage words; "if they don't come out, we will break in."
"We will see their fine palace!"
"The pagans haven't even a chapel," said the bass voice. "The curate has damned them all!"
"Why should they have a palace, and we nothing but dog-kennels?"
"Hardy's workmen say that kennels are good enough for such as you." said the little man with the ferret's face.
"Yes, yes! they said so."
"We'll break all their traps."
"We'll pull down their bazaar."
"We'll throw the house out of the windows."
"When we have made the mealy-mouthed chits sing," cried Ciboule, "we will make them dance to the clatter of stones on their heads."
"Come, my Wolves! attention!" cried the quarryman, still in the same stentorian voice; "one more volley, and if the Devourers do not come out, down with the door!"
This proposition was received with cheers of savage ardor, and the quarryman, whose voice rose above the tumult, cried with all the strength of his herculean lungs: "Attention, my Wolves. Make ready! all together. Now, are you ready?"
"Yes, yes--all ready!"
"Then, present! --fire!" And, for the second time, a shower of enormous stones poured upon that side of the Common Dwelling-house which was turned towards the fields. A part of these projectiles broke such of the windows as had been spared by the first volley. To the sharp smashing and cracking of glass were joined the ferocious cries uttered in chorus by this formidable mob, drunk with its own excesses: "Death to the Devourers!"
Soon these outcries became perfectly frantic, when, through the broken windows, the assailants perceived women running in terror, some with children in their arms, and others raising their hands to heaven, calling aloud for help; whilst a few, bolder than the rest, leaned out of the windows, and tried to fasten the outside blinds.
"There come the ants out of their holes!" cried Ciboule, stooping to pick up a stone. "We must have a fling at them for luck!" The stone, hurled by the steady, masculine hand of the virago, went straight to its mark, and struck an unfortunate woman who was trying to close one of the shutters.
"Hit in the white!" cried the hideous creature.
"Well done, Ciboule! --you've rapped her coker-nut!" cried a voice.
"Ciboule forever!"
"Come out, you Devourers, if you dare!"
"They have said a hundred times, that the neighbors were too cowardly even to come and look at their house," squealed the little man with the ferret's face.
"And now they show the white feather!"
"If they will not come out," cried the quarryman, in voice of thunder, "let us smoke them out!"
"Yes, yes!"
"Let's break open the door!"
"We are sure to find them!"
"Come on! come on!"
The crowd, with the quarryman at their head, and Ciboule not far from him, brandishing a stick, advanced tumultously towards one of the great doors. The ground shook beneath the rapid tread of the mob, which had now ceased shouting; but the confused, and, as it were, subterraneous noise, sounded even more ominous than those savage outcries. The Wolves soon arrived opposite the massive oaken door. At the moment the blaster raised a sledgehammer, the door opened suddenly. Some of the most determined of the assailants were about to rush in at this entrance; but the quarryman stepped back, extending his arm as if to moderate their ardor and impose silence. Then his followers gathered round him.
The half-open door discovered a party of workmen, unfortunately by no means numerous, but with countenances full of resolution. They had armed themselves hastily with forks, iron bars, and clubs. Agricola, who was their leader, held in his hand a heavy sledge-hammer. The young workman was very pale; but the fire of his eye, his menacing look, and the intrepid assurance of his bearing, showed that his father's blood boiled in his veins, and that in such a struggle he might become fear-inspiring. Yet he succeeded in restraining himself, and challenged the quarryman, in a firm voice: "What do you want?"
"A fight!" thundered the blaster.
"Yes, yes! a fight!" repeated the crowd.
"Silence, my Wolves!" cried the quarryman, as he turned round, and stretched forth his large hand towards the multitude. Then addressing Agricola, he said: "The Wolves have come to ask for a fight."
"With whom?"
"With the Devourers."
"There are no Devourers here," replied Agricola; "we are only peaceable workmen. So begone."
"Well! here are the Wolves, that will eat your quiet workmen."
"The Wolves will eat no one here," said Agricola, looking full at the quarryman, who approached him with a threatening air; "they can only frighten little children."
"Oh! you think so," said the quarryman, with a savage sneer. Then raising his weapon, he shook it in Agricola's face, exclaiming: "Is that any laughing matter?
"Is that?" answered Agricola, with a rapid movement, parrying the stone sledge with his own hammer.
"Iron against iron--hammer against hammer--that suits me," said the quarryman.
"It does not matter what suits you," answered Agricola, hardly able to restrain himself. "You have broken our windows, frightened our women, and wounded--perhaps killed--the oldest workman in the factory, who at this moment lies bleeding in the arms of his son." Here Agricola's voice trembled in spite of himself. "It is, I think, enough."
"No; the Wolves are hungry for more," answered the blaster; "you must come out (cowards that you are!) , and fight us on the plain."
"Yes! yes! battle! --let them come out!" cried the crowd, howling, hissing, waving their sticks and pushing further into the small space which separated them from the door.
"We will have no battle," answered Agricola: "we will not leave our home; but if you have the misfortune to pass this," said Agricola, throwing his cap upon the threshold, and setting his foot on it with an intrepid air, "if you pass this, you attack us in our own house, and you will be answerable for all that may happen."
"There or elsewhere we will have the fight! the Wolves must eat the Devourers. Now for the attack!" cried the fierce quarryman, raising his hammer to strike Agricola.
But the latter, throwing himself on one side by a sudden leap, avoided the blow, and struck with his hammer full at the chest of the quarryman, who staggered for a moment, but instantly recovering his legs, rushed furiously on Agricola, crying: "Follow me, Wolves!"
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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5
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THE RETURN.
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As soon as the combat had begun between Agricola and the blaster, the general fight became terrible, ardent, implacable. A flood of assailants, following the quarryman's steps, rushed into the house with irresistible fury; others, unable to force their way through this dreadful crowd, where the more impetuous squeezed, stifled, and crushed these who were less so, went round in another direction, broke through some lattice work, and thus placed the people of the factory, as it were, between two fires. Some resisted courageously; others, seeing Ciboule, followed by some of her horrible companions, and by several of the most ill-looking ruffians, hastily enter that part of the Common-Dwelling house in which the women had taken refuge, hurried in pursuit of this band; but some of the hag's companions, having faced about, and vigorously defended the entrance of the staircase against the workmen, Ciboule, with three or four like herself, and about the same number of no less ignoble men, rushed through the rooms, with the intention of robbing or destroying all that came in their way. A door, which at first resisted their efforts, was soon broken through; Ciboule rushed into the apartment with a stick in her hand, her hair dishevelled, furious, and, as it were, maddened with the noise and tumult. A beautiful young girl (it was Angela), who appeared anxious to defend the entrance to a second chamber, threw herself on her knees, pale and supplicating, and raising her clasped hands, exclaimed: "Do not hurt my mother!"
"I'll serve you out first, and your mother afterwards," replied the horrible woman, throwing herself on the poor girl, and endeavoring to tear her face with her nails, whilst the rest of the ruffianly band broke the glass and the clock with their sticks, and possessed themselves of some articles of wearing apparel.
Angela, struggling with Ciboule, uttered loud cries of distress, and still attempted to guard the room in which her mother had taken refuge; whilst the latter, leaning from the window, called Agricola to their assistance. The smith was now engaged with the huge blaster. In a close struggle, their hammers had become useless, and with bloodshot eyes and clinched teeth, chest to chest, and limbs twined together like two serpents, they made the most violent efforts to overthrow each other. Agricola, bent forward, held under his right arm the left leg of the quarryman, which he had seized in parrying a violent kick; but such was the Herculean strength of the leader of the Wolves, that he remained firm as a tower, though resting only on one leg. With the hand that was still free (for the other was gripped by Agricola as in a vise), he endeavored with violent blows to break the jaws of the smith, who, leaning his head forward, pressed his forehead hard against the breast of his adversary.
"The Wolf will break the Devourer's teeth, and he shall devour no more," said the quarryman.
"You are no true Wolf," answered the smith, redoubling his efforts; "the true Wolves are honest fellows, and do not come ten against one."
"True or false, I will break your teeth."
"And I your paw," said the smith, giving so violent a wrench to the leg of the quarryman, that the latter uttered a cry of acute pain, and, with the rage of a wild beast, butting suddenly forward with his head, succeeded in biting Agricola in the side of the neck.
The pang of this bite forced Agricola to make a movement, which enabled the quarryman to disengage his leg. Then, with a superhuman effort, he threw himself with his whole weight on Agricola, and brought him to the ground, falling himself upon him.
At this juncture, Angela's mother, leaning from one of the windows of the Common Dwelling-house, exclaimed in a heart-rending voice: "Help, Agricola! --they are killing my child!"
"Let me go--and on, my honor--I will fight you tomorrow, or when you will," said Agricola, panting for breath.
"No warmed-up food for me; I eat all hot," answered the quarryman, seizing the smith by the throat, whilst he tried to place one of his knees upon his chest.
"Help! --they are killing my child!" cried Angela's mother, in a voice of despair.
"Mercy! I ask mercy! Let me go!"' said Agricola, making the most violent efforts to escape.
"I am too hungry," answered the quarryman.
Exasperated by the terror which Angela's danger occasioned him, Agricola redoubled his efforts, when the quarryman suddenly felt his thigh seized by the sharp teeth of a dog, and at the same instant received from a vigorous hand three or four heavy blows with a stick upon his head. He relaxed his grasp, and fell stunned upon his hand and knee, whilst he mechanically raised his other arm to parry the blows, which ceased as soon as Agricola was delivered.
"Father, you have saved me!" cried the smith, springing up. "If only I am in time to rescue Angela!"
"Run! --never mind me!" answered Dagobert; and Agricola rushed into the house.
Dogabert, accompanied by Spoil-sport, had come, as we have already said, to bring Marshal Simon's daughters to their grandfather. Arriving in the midst of the tumult, the soldier had collected a few workmen to defend the entrance of the chamber, to which the marshal's father had been carried in a dying state. It was from this post that the soldier had seen Agricola's danger. Soon after, the rush of the conflict separated Dagobert from the quarryman, who remained for some moments insensible. Arrived in two bounds at the Common Dwelling-house, Agricola succeeded in forcing his way through the men who defended the staircase, and rushed into the corridor that led to Angela's chamber. At the moment he reached it, the unfortunate girl was mechanically guarding her face with both hands against Ciboule, who, furious as the hyena over its prey, was trying to scratch and disfigure her.
To spring upon the horrible hag, seize her by her yellow hair with irresistible hand, drag her backwards, and then with one cuff, stretch her full length upon the ground, was for Agricola an achievement as rapid as thought. Furious with rage, Ciboule rose again almost instantly; but at this moment, several workmen, who had followed close upon Agricola, were able to attack with advantage, and whilst the smith lifted the fainting form of Angela, and carried her into the next room, Ciboule and her band were driven from that part of the house.
After the first fire of the assault, the small number of real Wolves, who, as Agricola said, were in the main honest fellows, but had the weakness to let themselves be drawn into this enterprise, under the pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, seeing the excesses committed by the rabble who accompanied them, turned suddenly round, and ranged themselves on the side of the Devourers.
"There are no longer here either Wolves or Devourers," said one of the most determined Wolves to Olivier, with whom he had been fighting roughly and fairly; "there are none here but honest workmen, who must unite to drive out a set of scoundrels, that have come only to break and pillage."
"Yes," added another; "it was against our will that they began by breaking your windows."
"The big blaster did it all," said another; "the true Wolves wash their hands of him. We shall soon settle his account."
"We may fight every day--but we ought to esteem each other." [35] This defection of a portion of the assailants (unfortunately but a small portion) gave new spirit to the workmen of the factory, and all together, Wolves and Devourers, though very inferior in number, opposed themselves to the band of vagabonds, who were proceeding to new excesses. Some of these wretches, still further excited by the little man with the ferret's face, a secret emissary of Baron Tripeaud, now rushed in a mass towards the workshops of M. Hardy. Then began a lamentable devastation. These people, seized with the mania of destruction, broke without remorse machines of the greatest value, and most delicate construction; half manufactured articles were pitilessly destroyed; a savage emulation seemed to inspire these barbarians, and those workshops, so lately the model of order and well-regulated economy, were soon nothing but a wreck; the courts were strewed with fragments of all kinds of wares, which were thrown from the windows with ferocious outcries, or savage bursts of laughter. Then, still thanks to the incitements of the little man with the ferret's face, the books of M. Hardy, archives of commercial industry, so indispensable to the trader, were scattered to the wind, torn, trampled under foot, in a sort of infernal dance, composed of all that was most impure in this assembly of low, filthy, and ragged men and women, who held each other by the hand, and whirled round and round with horrible clamor. Strange and painful contrasts! At the height of the stunning noise of these horrid deeds of tumult and devastation, a scene of imposing and mournful calm was taking place in the chamber of Marshal Simon's father, the door of which was guarded by a few devoted men. The old workman was stretched on his bed, with a bandage across his blood stained white hair. His countenance was livid, his breathing oppressed, his look fixed and glazed.
Marshal Simon, standing at the head of the bed, bending over his father, watched in despairing anguish the least sign of consciousness on the part of the dying man, near whom was a physician, with his finger on the failing pulse. Rose and Blanche, brought hither by Dagobert, were kneeling beside the bed, their hands clasped, and their eyes bathed in tears; a little further, half hidden in the shadows of the room, for the hours had passed quickly, and the night was at hand, stood Dagobert himself, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and his features painfully contracted. A profound and solemn silence reigned in this chamber, only interrupted by the broken sobs of Rose and Blanche, or by Father Simon's hard breathing. The eyes of the marshal were dry, gloomy, and full of fire. He only withdrew them from his father's face, to interrogate the physician by a look. There are strange coincidences in life. That physician was Dr. Baleinier. The asylum of the doctor being close to the barrier that was nearest to the factory, and his fame being widely spread in the neighborhood, they had run to fetch him on the first call for medical assistance.
Suddenly, Dr. Baleinier made a movement; the marshal, who had not taken his eyes off him, exclaimed: "Is there any hope?"
"At least, my lord duke, the pulse revives a little."
"He is saved!" said the marshal.
"Do not cherish false hopes, my lord duke," answered the doctor, gravely: "the pulse revives, owing to the powerful applications to the feet, but I know not what will be the issue of the crisis."
"Father! father! do you hear me?" cried the marshal, seeing the old man slightly move his head, and feebly raise his eyelids. He soon opened his eyes, and this time their intelligence had returned.
"Father! you live--you know me!" cried the marshal, giddy with joy and hope.
"Pierre! are you there?" said the old man, in a weak voice. "Your hand--give--it--" and he made a feeble movement.
"Here, father!" cried the marshal, as he pressed the hands of the old man in his own.
Then, yielding to an impulse of delight, he bent over his father, covered his hands, face, and hair with kisses, and repeated: "He lives! kind heaven, he lives! he is saved!"
At this instant, the noise of the struggle which had recommenced between the rabble, the Wolves, and the Devourers, reached the ears of the dying man.
"That noise! that noise!" said he: "they are fighting."
"It is growing less, I think," said the marshal, in order not to agitate his father.
"Pierre," said the old man, in a weak and broken voice, "I have not long to live."
"Father--" "Let me speak, child; if I can but tell you all."
"Sir," said Baleinier piously to the old workman, "heaven may perhaps work a miracle in your favor; show yourself grateful, and allow a priest--" "A priest! Thank you, sir--I have my son," said the old man; "in his arms, I will render up my soul--which has always been true and honest."
"You die?" exclaimed the marshal; "no! no!"
"Pierre," said the old man, in a voice which, firm at first, gradually grew fainter, "just now--you ask my advice in a very serious matter. I think, that the wish to tell you of your duty--has recalled me--for a moment--to life--for I should die miserable--if I thought you in a road unworthy of yourself and me. Listen to me, my son--my noble son--at this last hour, a father cannot deceive himself. You have a great duty to perform---under pain--of not acting like a man of honor--under pain of neglecting my last will. You ought, without hesitation--" Here the voice failed the old man. When he had pronounced the last sentence, he became quite unintelligible. The only words that Marshal Simon could distinguish, were these: "Napoleon II. --oath--dishonor--my son!"
Then the old workman again moved his lips mechanically--and all was over. At the moment he expired, the night was quite come, and terrible shouts were heard from without, of "Fire! Fire!" The conflagration had broken out in one of the workshops, filled with inflammable stuff, into which had glided the little man with the ferret's face. At the same time, the roll of drums was heard in the distance, announcing the arrival of a detachment of troops from town.
During an hour, in spite of every effort, the fire had been spreading through the factory. The night is clear, cold, starlight; the wind blows keenly from the north, with a moaning sound. A man, walking across the fields, where the rising ground conceals the fire from him, advances with slow and unsteady steps. It is M. Hardy. He had chosen to return home on foot, across the country, hoping that a walk would calm the fever in his blood--an icy fever, more like the chill of death. He had not been deceived. His adored mistress--the noble woman, with whom he might have found refuge from the consequences of the fearful deception which had just been revealed to him--had quitted France. He could have no doubt of it. Margaret was gone to America. Her mother had exacted from her, in expiation of her fault, that she should not even write to him one word of farewell--to him, for whom she had sacrificed her duty as a wife. Margaret had obeyed.
Besides, she had often said to him: "Between my mother and you, I should not hesitate."
She had not hesitated. There was therefore no hope, not the slightest; even if an ocean had not separated him from Margaret, he knew enough of her blind submission to her mother, to be certain that all relations between them were broken off forever. It is well. He will no longer reckon upon this heart--his last refuge. The two roots of his life have been torn up and broken, with the same blow, the same day, almost at the same moment. What then remains for thee, poor sensitive plant, as thy tender mother used to call thee? What remains to console thee for the loss of this last love--this last friendship, so infamously crushed? Oh! there remains for thee that one corner of the earth, created after the image of thy mind that little colony, so peaceful and flourishing, where, thanks to thee, labor brings with it joy and recompense. These worthy artisans, whom thou hast made happy, good, and grateful, will not fail thee. That also is a great and holy affection; let it be thy shelter in the midst of this frightful wreck of all thy most sacred convictions! The calm of that cheerful and pleasant retreat, the sight of the unequalled happiness of thy dependents, will soothe thy poor, suffering soul, which now seems to live only for suffering. Come! you will soon reach the top of the hill, from which you can see afar, in the plain below, that paradise of workmen, of which you are the presiding divinity.
M. Hardy had reached the summit of the hill. At that moment the conflagration, repressed for a short time, burst forth with redoubled fury from the Common Dwelling-house, which it had now reached. A bright streak, at first white, then red, then copper-colored, illuminated the distant horizon. M. Hardy looked at it with a sort of incredulous, almost idiotic stupor. Suddenly, an immense column of flame shot up in the thick of a cloud of smoke, accompanied by a shower of sparks, and streamed towards the sky, casting a bright reflection over all the country, even to M. Hardy's feet. The violence of the north wind, driving the flames in waves before it, soon brought to the ears of M. Hardy the hurried clanging of the alarm-bell of the burning factory.
[35] We wish it to be understood, that the necessities of our story alone have made the Wolves the assailants. While endeavoring to paint the evils arising the abuse of the spirit of association, we do not wish to ascribe a character of savage hostility to one sect rather than to the other to the Wolves more than to the Devourers. The Wolves, a club of united stone-cutters, are generally industrious, intelligent workmen, whose situation is the more worthy of interest, as not only their labors, conducted with mathematical precision, are of the rudest and most wearisome kind, but they are likewise out of work during three or four months of the year, their profession being, unfortunately, one of those which winter condemns to a forced cessation. A number of Wolves, in order to perfect themselves in their trade, attend every evening a course of linear geometry, applied to the cutting of stone, analogous to that given by M. Agricole Perdignier, for the benefit of carpenters. Several working stone-cutters sent an architectural model in plaster to the last exhibition.
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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6
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THE GO-BETWEEN.
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A few days have elapsed since the conflagration of M. Hardy's factory. The following scene takes place in the Rue Clovis, in the house where Rodin had lodged, and which was still inhabited by Rose-Pompon, who, without the least scruple, availed herself of the household arrangements of her friend Philemon. It was about noon, and Rose-Pompon, alone in the chamber of the student, who was still absent, was breakfasting very gayly by the fireside; but how singular a breakfast! what a queer fire! how strange an apartment!
Imagine a large room, lighted by two windows without curtains--for as they looked on empty space, the lodger had fear of being overlooked. One side of this apartment served as a wardrobe, for there was suspended Rose-Pompon's flashy costume of debardeur, not far from the boat-man's jacket of Philemon, with his large trousers of coarse, gray stuff, covered with pitch (shiver my timbers!) , just as if this intrepid mariner had bunked in the forecastle of a frigate, during a voyage round the globe. A gown of Rose Pompon's hung gracefully over a pair of pantaloons, the legs of which seemed to come from beneath the petticoat. On the lowest of several book-shelves, very dusty and neglected, by the side of three old boots (wherefore three boots?) and a number of empty bottles, stood a skull, a scientific and friendly souvenir, left to Philemon by one of his comrades, a medical student. With a species of pleasantry, very much to the taste of the student-world, a clay pipe with a very black bowl was placed between the magnificently white teeth of this skull; moreover, its shining top was half hidden beneath an old hat, set knowingly on one side, and adorned with faded flowers and ribbons. When Philemon was drunk, he used to contemplate this bony emblem of mortality, and break out into the most poetical monologues, with regard to this philosophical contrast between death and the mad pleasures of life. Two or three plaster casts, with their noses and chins more or less injured, were fastened to the wall, and bore witness to the temporary curiosity which Philemon had felt with regard to phrenological science, from the patient and serious study of which he had drawn the following logical conclusion:--That, having to an alarming extent the bump of getting into debt, he ought to resign himself to the fatality of this organization, and accept the inconvenience of creditors as a vital necessity. On the chimney-piece, stood uninjured, in all its majesty, the magnificent rowing-club drinking-glass, a china teapot without a spout, and an inkstand of black wood, the glass mouth of which was covered by a coat of greenish and mossy mould. From time to time, the silence of this retreat was interrupted by the cooing of pigeons, which Rose-Pompon had established with cordial hospitality in the little study. Chilly as a quail, Rose-Pompon crept close to the fire, and at the same time seemed to enjoy the warmth of a bright ray of sunshine, which enveloped her in its golden light. This droll little creature was dressed in the oddest costume, which, however, displayed to advantage the freshness of her piquant and pretty countenance, crowned with its fine, fair hair, always neatly combed and arranged the first thing in the morning. By way of dressing-gown, Rose-Pompon had ingeniously drawn over her linen, the ample scarlet flannel shirt which belonged to Philemon's official garb in the rowing-club; the collar, open and turned down, displayed the whiteness of the young girl's under garment, as also of her neck and shoulders, on whose firm and polished surface the scarlet shirt seemed to cast a rosy light. The grisette's fresh and dimpled arms half protruded from the large, turned-up sleeves; and her charming legs were also half visible, crossed one over the other, and clothed in neat white stockings, and boots. A black silk cravat formed the girdle which fastened the shirt round the wasp-like waist of Rose-Pompon, just above those hips, worthy of the enthusiasm of a modern Phidias, and which gave to this style of dress a grace very original.
We have said, that the breakfast of Rose-Pompon was singular. You shall judge. On a little table placed before her, was a wash-hand-basin, into which she had recently plunged her fresh face, bathing it in pure water. From the bottom of this basin, now transformed into a salad-bowl, Rose Pompon took with the tips of her fingers large green leaves, dripping with vinegar, and crunched them between her tiny white teeth, whose enamel was too hard to allow them to be set on edge. Her drink was a glass of water and syrup of gooseberries, which she stirred with a wooden mustard-spoon. Finally, as an extra dish, she had a dozen olives in one of those blue glass trinket-dishes sold for twenty-five sous. Her dessert was composed of nuts, which she prepared to roast on a red-hot shovel. That Rose-Pompon, with such an unaccountable savage choice of food, should retain a freshness of complexion worthy of her name, is one of those miracles, which reveal the mighty power of youth and health. When she had eaten her salad, Rose-Pompon was about to begin upon her olives, when a low knock was heard at the door, which was modestly bolted on the inside.
"Who is there?" said Rose-Pompon.
"A friend--the oldest of the old," replied a sonorous, jovial voice. "Why do you lock yourself in?"
"What! is it you, Ninny Moulin?"
"Yes, my beloved pupil. Open quickly. Time presses."
"Open to you? Oh, I dare say! --that would be pretty, the figure I am!"
"I believe you! what does it matter what figure you are? It would be very pretty, thou rosiest of all the roses with which Cupid ever adorned his quiver!"
"Go and preach fasting and morality in your journal, fat apostle!" said Rose--Pompon, as she restored the scarlet shirt to its place, with Philemon's other garments.
"I say! are we to talk much longer through the door, for the greater edification of our neighbors?" cried Ninny Moulin. "I have something of importance to tell you--something that will astonish you--" "Give me time to put on my gown, great plague that you are!"
"If it is because of my modesty, do not think of it. I am not over nice. I should like you very well as you are!"
"Only to think that such a monster is the favorite of all the churchgoers!" said Rose-Pompon, opening the door as she finished fastening her dress.
"So! you have at last returned to the dovecot, you stray girl!" said Ninny Moulin, folding his arms, and looking at Rose-Pompon with comic seriousness. "And where may you have been, I pray? For three days the naughty little bird has left its nest."
"True; I only returned home last night. You must have called during my absence?"
"I came, every day, and even twice a day, young lady, for I have very serious matters to communicate."
"Very serious matters? Then we shall have a good laugh at them."
"Not at all--they are really serious," said Ninny Moulin, seating himself. "But, first of all, what did you do during the three days that you left your conjugal and Philemonic home? I must know all about it, before I tell you more."
"Will you have some olives?" said Rose-Pompon, as she nibbled one of them herself.
"Is that your answer? --I understand! --Unfortunate Philemon!"
"There is no unfortunate Philemon in the case, slanderer. Clara had a death in her house, and, for the first few days after the funeral she was afraid to sleep alone."
"I thought Clara sufficiently provided against such fears."
"There you are deceived, you great viper! I was obliged to go and keep the poor girl company."
At this assertion, the religious pamphleteer hummed a tune, with an incredulous and mocking air.
"You think I have played Philemon tricks?" cried Rose-Pompon, cracking a nut with the indignation of injured innocence.
"I do not say tricks; but one little rose-colored trick."
"I tell you, that it was not for my pleasure I went out. On the contrary--for, during my absence, poor Cephyse disappeared."
"Yes, Mother Arsene told me that the Bacchanal-Queen was gone on a journey. But when I talk of Philemon, you talk of Cephyse; we don't progress."
"May I be eaten by the black panther that they are showing at the Porte Saint-Martin if I do not tell you the truth. And, talking of that, you must get tickets to take me to see those animals, my little Ninny Moulin! They tell me there never were such darling wild beasts."
"Now really, are you mad?"
"Why so?"
"That I should guide your youth, like a venerable patriarch, through the dangers of the Storm-blown Tulip, all well and good--I ran no risk of meeting my pastors and masters; but were I to take you to a Lent Spectacle (since there are only beasts to be seen), I might just run against my sacristans--and how pretty I should look with you on my arm!"
"You can put on a false nose, and straps to your trousers, my big Ninny; they will never know you."
"We must not think of false noses, but of what I have to tell you, since you assure me that you have no intrigue in hand."
"I swear it!" said Rose-Pompon, solemnly, extending her left hand horizontally, whilst with her right she put a nut into her mouth. Then she added, with surprise, as she looked at the outside coat of Ninny Moulin, "Goodness gracious! what full pockets you have got! What is there in them?"
"Something that concerns you, Rose-Pompon," said Dumoulin, gravely.
"Me?"
"Rose-Pompon!" said Ninny Moulin, suddenly, with a majestic air; "will you have a carriage? Will you inhabit a charming apartment, instead of living in this dreadful hole? Will you be dressed like a duchess?"
"Now for some more nonsense! Come, will you eat the olives? If not, I shall eat them all up. There is only one left."
Without answering this gastronomic offer, Ninny Moulin felt in one of his pockets, and drew from it a case containing a very pretty bracelet, which he held up sparkling before the eyes of the young girl.
"Oh! what a sumptuous bracelet!" cried she, clapping her hands. "A green-eyed serpent biting his tail--the emblem of my love for Philemon."
"Do not talk of Philemon; it annoys me," said Ninny Moulin, as he clasped the bracelet round the wrist of Rose-Pompon, who allowed him to do it, laughing all the while like mad, and saying to him, "So you've been employed to make a purchase, big apostle, and wish to see the effect of it. Well! it is charming!"
"Rose-Pompon," resumed Ninny Moulin, "would you like to have a servant, a box at the Opera, and a thousand francs a month for your pin-money?"
"Always the same nonsense. Get along!" said the young girl, as she held up the bracelet to the light, still continuing to eat her nuts. "Why always the same farce, and no change of bills?"
Ninny Moulin again plunged his hand into his pocket, and this time drew forth an elegant chain, which he hung round Rose-Pompon's neck.
"Oh! what a beautiful chain!" cried the young girl, as she looked by turns at the sparkling ornament and the religious writer. "If you chose that also, you have a very good taste. But am I not a good natured girl to be your dummy, just to show off your jewels?"
"Rose-Pompon," returned Ninny Moulin, with a still more majestic air, "these trifles are nothing to what you may obtain, if you will but follow the advice of your old friend."
Rose began to look at Dumoulin with surprise, and said to him, "What does all this mean, Ninny Moulin? Explain yourself; what advice have you to give?"
Dumoulin did not answer, but replunging his hand into his inexhaustible pocket, he fished up a parcel, which he carefully unfolded, and in which was a magnificent mantilla of black lace. Rose-Pompon started up, full of new admiration, and Dumoulin threw the rich mantilla over the young girl's shoulders.
"It is superb! I have never seen anything like it! What patterns! what work!" said Rose-Pompon, as she examined all with simple and perfectly disinterested curiosity. Then she added, "Your pocket is like a shop; where did you get all these pretty things?" Then, bursting into a fit of laughter, which brought the blood to her cheeks, she exclaimed, "Oh, I have it! These are the wedding-presents for Madame de la Sainte-Colombe. I congratulate you; they are very choice."
"And where do you suppose I should find money to buy these wonders?" said Ninny Moulin. "I repeat to you, all this is yours if you will but listen to me!"
"How is this?" said Rose-Pompon, with the utmost amazement; "is what you tell me in downright earnest?"
"In downright earnest."
"This offer to make me a great lady?"
"The jewels might convince you of the reality of my offers."
"And you propose all this to me for some one else, my poor Ninny Moulin?"
"One moment," said the religious writer, with a comical air of modesty, "you must know me well enough, my beloved pupil, to feel certain that I should be incapable of inducing you to commit an improper action. I respect myself too much for that--leaving out the consideration that it would be unfair to Philemon, who confided to me the guardianship of your virtue."
"Then, Ninny Moulin," said Rose-Pompon, more and more astonished, "on my word of honor, I can make nothing of it.
"Yet, 'tis all very simple, and I--" "Oh! I've found it," cried Rose-Pompon, interrupting Ninny Moulin; "it is some gentleman who offers me his hand, his heart, and all the rest of it. Could you not tell me that directly?"
"A marriage? oh, laws, yes!" said Dumoulin, shrugging his shoulders.
"What! is it not a marriage?" said Rose-Pompon, again much surprised.
"No."
"And the offers you make me are honest ones, my big apostle?"
"They could not be more so." Here Dumoulin spoke the truth.
"I shall not have to be unfaithful to Philemon?"
"No."
"Or faithful to any one else?"
"No."
Rose-Pompon looked confounded. Then she rattled on: "Come, do not let us have any joking! I am not foolish enough to imagine that I am to live just like a duchess, just for nothing. What, therefore, must I give in return?"
"Nothing at all."
"Nothing?"
"Not even that," said Ninny Moulin, biting his nail-tip.
"But what am I to do, then?"
"Dress yourself as handsomely as possible, take your ease, amuse yourself, ride about in a carriage. You see, it is not very fatiguing --and you will, moreover, help to do a good action."
"What! by living like a duchess?"
"Yes! so make up your mind. Do not ask me for any more details, for I cannot give them to you. For the rest, you will not be detained against your will. Just try the life I propose to you. If it suits you, go on with it; if not, return to your Philemonic household."
"In fact--" "Only try it. What can you risk?"
"Nothing; but I can hardly believe that all you say is true. And then," added she, with hesitation, "I do not know if I ought--" Ninny Moulin went to the window, opened it, and said to Rose-Pompon, who ran up to it, "Look there! before the door of the house."
"What a pretty carriage! How comfortable a body'd be inside of it!"
"That carriage is yours. It is waiting for you."
"Waiting for me!" exclaimed Rose-Pompon; "am I to decide as short as that?"
"Or not at all."
"To-day?"
"On the instant."
"But where will they take me?"
"How should I know?"
"You do not know where they will take me?"
"Not I,"--and Dumoulin still spoke the truth--"the coachman has his orders."
"Do you know all this is very funny, Ninny Moulin?"
"I believe you. If it were not funny, where would be the pleasure?"
"You are right."
"Then you accept the offer? That is well. I am delighted both for you and myself."
"For yourself?"
"Yes; because, in accepting, you render me a great service."
"You? How so?"
"It matters little, as long as I feel obliged to you."
"True."
"Come, then; let us set out!"
"Bah! after all, they cannot eat me," said Rose-Pompon, resolutely.
With a skip and a jump, she went to fetch a rose-colored cap, and, going up to a broken looking-glass, placed the cap very much cocked on one side on her bands of light hair. This left uncovered her snowy neck, with the silky roots of the hair behind, and gave to her pretty face a very mischievous, not to say licentious expression.
"My cloak!" said she to Ninny Moulin, who seemed to be relieved from a considerable amount of uneasiness, since she had accepted his offer.
"Fie! a cloak will not do," answered her companion, feeling once more in his pocket and drawing out a fine Cashmere shawl, which he threw over Rose-Pompon's shoulders.
"A Cashmere!" cried the young girl, trembling with pleasure and joyous surprise. Then she added, with an air of heroism: "It is settled! I will run the gauntlet." And with a light step she descended the stairs, followed by Ninny Moulin.
The worthy greengrocer was at her post. "Good-morning, mademoiselle; you are early to-day," said she to the young girl.
"Yes, Mother Arsene; there is my key."
"Thank you, mademoiselle."
"Oh! now I think of it," said Rose Pompon, suddenly, in a whisper, as she turned towards Ninny Moulin, and withdrew further from the portress, "what is to became of Philemon?"
"Philemon?"
"If he should arrive--" "Oh! the devil!" said Ninny Moulin, scratching his ear.
"Yes; if Philemon should arrive, what will they say to him? for I may be a long time absent."
"Three or four months, I suppose."
"Not more?"
"I should think not."
"Oh! very good!" said Rose-Pompon. Then, turning towards the greengrocer, she said to her, after a moment's reflection: "Mother Arsene, if Philemon should come home, you will tell him I have gone out--on business."
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"And that he must not forget to feed my pigeons, which are in his study."
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"Good-bye, Mother Arsene."
"Good-bye, mademoiselle." And Rose-Pompon entered the carriage in triumph, along with Ninny Moulin.
"The devil take me if I know what is to come of all this," said Jacques Dumoulin to himself, as the carriage drove rapidly down the Rue Clovis. "I have repaired my error--and now I laugh at the rest."
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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7
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ANOTHER SECRET.
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The following scene took place a few days after the abduction of Rose Pompon by Ninny Moulin. Mdlle. de Cardoville was seated in a dreamy mood, in her cabinet, which was hung with green silk, and furnished with an ebony library, ornamented with large bronze caryatides. By some significant signs, one could perceive that Mdlle. de Cardoville had sought in the fine airs some relief from sad and serious thoughts. Near an open piano, was a harp, placed before a music-stand. A little further, on a table covered with boxes of oil and water-color, were several brilliant sketches. Most of them represented Asiatic scenes, lighted by the fires of an oriental sun. Faithful to her fancy of dressing herself at home in a picturesque style, Mademoiselle de Cardoville resembled that day one of those proud portraits of Velasquez, with stern and noble aspect. Her gown was of black moire, with wide swelling petticoat, long waist, and sleeve slashed with rose-colored satin, fastened together with jet bugles. A very stiff, Spanish ruff reached almost to her chin, and was secured round her neck by a broad rose-colored ribbon. This frill, slightly heaving, sloped down as far as the graceful swell of the rose-colored stomacher, laced with strings of jet beads, and terminating in a point at the waist. It is impossible to express how well this black garment, with its ample and shining folds, relieved with rose-color and brilliant jet, skin, harmonized with the shining whiteness of Adrienne's and the golden flood of her beautiful hair, whose long, silky ringlets descended to her bosom.
The young lady was in a half-recumbent posture, with her elbow resting on a couch covered with green silk. The back of this piece of furniture, which was pretty high towards the fireplace, sloped down insensibly towards the foot. A sort of light, semicircular trellis-work, in gilded bronze, raised about five feet from the ground, covered with flowering plants (the admirable passiflores quadrangulatoe, planted in a deep ebony box, from the centre of which rose the trellis-work), surrounded this couch with a sort of screen of foliage enamelled with large flowers, green without, purple within, and as brilliant as those flowers of porcelain, which we receive from Saxony. A sweet, faint perfume, like a faint mixture of jasmine with violet, rose from the cup of these admirable passiflores. Strange enough, a large quantity of new books (Adrienne having bought them since the last two or three days) and quite fresh-cut, were scattered around her on the couch, and on a little table; whilst other larger volumes, amongst which were several atlases full of engravings, were piled on the sumptuous fur, which formed the carpet beneath the divan. Stranger still, these books, though of different forms, and by different authors, alt treated of the same subject. The posture of Adrienne revealed a sort of melancholy dejection. Her cheeks were pale; a light blue circle surrounded her large, black eyes, now half-closed, and gave to them an expression of profound grief. Many causes contributed to this sorrow--amongst others, the disappearance of Mother Bunch. Without absolutely believing the perfidious insinuations of Rodin, who gave her to understand that, in the fear of being unmasked by him, the hunchback had not dared to remain in the house, Adrienne felt a cruel sinking of the heart, when she thought how this young girl, in whom she had had so much confidence, had fled from her almost sisterly hospitality, without even uttering a word of gratitude; for care had been taken not to show her the few lines written by the poor needlewoman to her benefactress, just before her departure.
She had only been told of the note of five hundred francs found on her desk; and this last inexplicable circumstance had contributed to awaken cruel suspicions in the breast of Mdlle. de Cardoville. She already felt the fatal effects of that mistrust of everything and everybody, which Rodin had recommended to her; and this sentiment of suspicion and reserve had the more tendency to become powerful, that, for the first time in her life, Mdlle. de Cardoville, until then a stranger to all deception, had a secret to conceal--a secret, which was equally her happiness, her shame, and her torment. Half-recumbent on her divan, pensive and depressed, Adrienne pursued, with a mind often absent, one of her newly purchased books. Suddenly, she uttered an exclamation of surprise; the hand which held the book trembled like a leaf, and from that moment she appeared to read with passionate attention and devouring curiosity. Soon, her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, her smile assumed ineffable sweetness, and she seemed at once proud, happy, delighted--but, as she turned over the last page, her countenance expressed disappointment and chagrin. Then she recommenced this reading, which had occasioned her such sweet emotion, and this time she read with the most deliberate slowness, going over each page twice, and spelling, as it were, every line, every word. From time to time, she paused, and in a pensive mood, with her forehead leaning on her fair hand, she seemed to reflect, in a deep reverie, on the passages she had read with such tender and religious love. Arriving at a passage which so affected her, that a tear started in her eye, she suddenly turned the volume, to see on the cover the name of the author. For a few seconds, she contemplated this name with a singular expression of gratitude, and could not forbear raising to her rosy lips the page on which it was printed. After reading many times over the lines with which she had been so much struck, forgetting, no doubt, the letter in the spirit, she began to reflect so deeply, that the book glided from her hand, and fell upon the carpet. During the course of this reverie, the eyes of the young girl rested, at first mechanically, upon an admirable bas-relief, placed on an ebony stand, near one of the windows. This magnificent bronze, recently cast after a plaster copy from the antique, represented the triumph of the Indian Bacchus. Never, perhaps, had Grecian art attained such rare perfection. The youthful conqueror, half clad in a lion's skin, which displayed his juvenile grace and charming purity of form shone with divine beauty. Standing up in a car, drawn by two tigers, with an air at once gentle and proud, he leaned with one hand upon a thyrsus, and with the other guided his savage steeds in tranquil majesty. By this rare mixture of grace, vigor, and serenity, it was easy to recognize the hero who had waged such desperate combats with men and with monsters of the forest. Thanks to the brownish tone of the figure, the light, falling from one side of the sculpture, admirably displayed the form of the youthful god, which, carved in relievo, and thus illumined, shone like a magnificent statue of pale gold upon the dark fretted background of the bronze.
When Adrienne's look first rested on this rare assemblage of divine perfections, her countenance was calm and thoughtful. But this contemplation, at first mechanical, became gradually more and more attentive and conscious, and the young lady, rising suddenly from her seat, slowly approached the bas-relief, as if yielding to the invincible attraction of an extraordinary resemblance. Then a slight blush appeared on the cheeks of Mdlle. de Cardoville, stole across her face, and spread rapidly to her neck and forehead. She approached still closer, threw round a hasty glance, as if half-ashamed, or as if she had feared to be surprised in a blamable action, and twice stretched forth her hand, trembling with emotion, to touch with the tips of her charming fingers the bronze forehead of the Indian Bacchus. And twice she stopped short, with a kind of modest hesitation. At last, the temptation became too strong for her. She yielded to it; and her alabaster finger, after delicately caressing the features of pale gold, was pressed more boldly for an instant on the pure and noble brow of the youthful god. At this pressure, though so slight, Adrienne seemed to feel a sort of electric shock; she trembled in every limb, her eyes languished, and, after swimming for an instant in their humid and brilliant crystal, were raised, half-closed, to heaven. Then her head was thrown a little way back, her knees bent insensibly, her rosy lips were half opened, as if to give a passage to her heated breath, for her bosom heaved violently, as thought youth and life had accelerated the pulsations of her heart, and made her blood boil in her veins. Finally, the burning cheeks of Adrienne betrayed a species of ecstasy, timid and passionate, chaste and sensual, the expression of which was ineffably touching.
An affecting spectacle indeed is that of a young maiden, whose modest brow flushes with the first fires of a secret passion. Does not the Creator of all things animate the body as well as the soul, with a spark of divine energy? Should He not be religiously glorified in the intellect as in the senses, with which He has so paternally endowed His creatures? They are impious blasphemers who seek to stifle the celestial senses, instead of guiding and harmonizing them in their divine flight. Suddenly, Mdlle. de Cardoville started, raised her head, opened her eyes as if awakening from a dream, withdrew abruptly from the sculptures, and walked several times up and down the room in an agitated manner, pressing her burning hands to her forehead. Then, falling, as it were, exhausted on her seat, her tears flowed in abundance. The most bitter grief was visible in her features, which revealed the fatal struggle that was passing within her. By degrees, her tears ceased. To this crisis of painful dejection succeeded a species of violent scorn and indignation against herself, which were expressed by these words that escaped her: "For the first time in my life, I feel weak and cowardly. Oh yes! cowardly--very cowardly!"
The sound of a door opening and closing, roused Mdlle. de Cardoville from her bitter reflections. Georgette entered the room, and said to her mistress: "Madame, can you receive the Count de Montbron?"
Adrienne, too well-bred to exhibit before her women the sort of impatience occasioned by this unseasonable visit, said to Georgette: "You told M. de Montbron that I was at home?"
"Yes, Madame."
"Then beg him to walk in." Though Mdlle. de Cardoville felt at that moment much vexed at the arrival of Montbron, let us hasten to say, that she entertained for him an almost filial affection, and a profound esteem, though, by a not unfrequent contrast, she almost always differed from him in opinion. Hence arose, when Mdlle. de Cardoville had nothing to disturb her mind, the most gay and animated discussions, in which M. de Montbron, notwithstanding his mocking and sceptical humor, his long experience, his rare knowledge of men and things, his fashionable training, in a word, had not always the advantage, and even acknowledged his defeat gayly enough. Thus, to give an idea of the differences of the count and Adrienne, before, as he would say laughingly, he had made himself her accomplice, he had always opposed (from other motives than those alleged by Madame de Saint-Dizier) Adrienne's wish to live alone and in her own way; whilst Rodin, on the contrary, by investing the young girl's resolve on this subject with an ideal grandeur of intention, had acquired a species of influence over her. M. de Montbron, now upwards of sixty years of age, had been a most prominent character during the Directory, Consulate, and the Empire. His prodigal style of living, his wit, his gayety, his duels, his amours, and his losses at play, had given him a leading influence in the best society of his day; while his character, his kind-heartedness, and liberality, secured him the lasting friendship of nearly all his female friends. At the time we now present him to the reader, he was still a great gambler; and, moreover, a very lucky gambler. He had, as we have stated, a very lordly style; his manners were decided, but polished and lively; his habits were such as belong to the higher classes of society, though he could be excessively sharp towards people whom he did not like. He was tall and thin, and his slim figure gave him an almost youthful appearance; his forehead was high, and a little bald; his hair was gray and short, his countenance long, his nose aquiline, his eyes blue and piercing, and his teeth white, and still very good.
"The Count de Montbron," said Georgette, opening the door. The count entered, and hastened to kiss Adrienne's hand, with a sort of paternal familiarity.
"Come!" said M. de Montbron to himself; "let us try to discover the truth I am in search of, that we may escape a great misfortune."
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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8
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THE CONFESSION.
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Mdlle. de Cardoville, not wishing to betray the cause of the violent feelings which agitated her, received M. de Montbron with a feigned and forced gayety. On the other hand, notwithstanding his tact and knowledge of the world, the count was much embarrassed how to enter upon the subject on which he wished to confer with Adrienne, and he resolved to feel his way, before seriously commencing the conversation. After looking at the young lady for some seconds, M. de Montbron shook his head, and said, with a sigh of regret: "My dear child, I am not pleased."
"Some affair of the heart, or of hearts, my dear count?" returned Adrienne, smiling.
"Of the heart," said M. de Montbron.
"What! you, so great a player, think more of a woman's whim than a throw of the dice?"
"I have a heavy heart, and you are the cause of it, my dear child."
"M. de Montbron, you will make me very proud," said Adrienne, with a smile.
"You would be wrong, for I tell you plainly, my trouble is caused by your neglect of your beauty. Yes, your countenance is pale, dejected, sorrowful; you have been low-spirited for the last few days; you have something on your mind, I am sure of it."
"My dear M. de Montbron, you have so much penetration, that you may be allowed to fall for once, as now. I am not sad, I have nothing on my mind, and--I am about to utter a very silly piece of impertinence--I have never thought myself so pretty."
"On the contrary, nothing could be more modest than such an assertion. Who told you that falsehood? a woman?"
"No; it was my heart, and it spoke the truth," answered Adrienne, with a slight degree of emotion. "Understand it, if you can," she added.
"Do you mean that you are proud of the alteration in your features, because you are proud of the sufferings of your heart?" said M. de Montbron, looking at Adrienne with attention. "Be it so; I am then right. You have some sorrow. I persist in it," added the count, speaking with a tone of real feeling, "because it is painful to me."
"Be satisfied; I am as happy as possible--for every instant I take delight in repeating, how, at my age, I am free--absolutely free!"
"Yes; free to torment yourself, free to be miserable."
"Come, come, my dear count!" said Adrienne, "you are recommencing our old quarrel. I still find in you the ally of my aunt and the Abbe d'Aigrigny."
"Yes; as the republicans are the allies of the legitimists--to destroy each other in their turn. Talking of your abominable aunt, they say that she holds a sort of council at her house these last few days, a regular mitred conspiracy. She is certainly in a good way."
"Why not? Formerly, she would have wished to be Goddess of Reason, now, we shall perhaps see her canonized. She has already performed the first part of the life of Mary Magdalen."
"You can never speak worse of her than she deserves, my dear child. Still, though for quite opposite reasons, I agreed with her on the subject of your wish to reside alone."
"I know it."
"Yes; and because I wished to see you a thousand times freer than you really are, I advised you--" "To marry."
"No doubt; you would have had your dear liberty, with its consequences, only, instead of Mdlle. de Cardoville, we should have called you Madame Somebody, having found an excellent husband to be responsible for your independence."
"And who would have been responsible for this ridiculous husband? And who would bear a mocked and degraded name? I, perhaps?" said Adrienne, with animation. "No, no, my dear count, good or ill, I will answer for my own actions; to my name shall attach the reputation, which I alone have formed. I am as incapable of basely dishonoring a name which is not mine, as of continually bearing it myself, if it were not held in, esteem. And, as one can only answer for one's own actions, I prefer to keep my name."
"You are the only person in the world that has such ideas."
"Why?" said Adrienne, laughing. "Because it appears to me horrible, to see a poor girl lost and buried in some ugly and selfish man, and become, as they say seriously, the better half of the monster--yes! a fresh and blooming rose to become part of a frightful thistle! --Come, my dear count; confess there is something odious in this conjugal metempsychosis," added Adrienne, with a burst of laughter.
The forced and somewhat feverish gayety of Adrienne contrasted painfully with her pale and suffering countenance; it was so easy to see that she strove to stifle with laughter some deep sorrow, that M. de Montbron was much affected by it; but, dissembling his emotion, he appeared to reflect a moment, and took up mechanically one of the new, fresh-cut books, by which Adrienne was surrounded. After casting a careless glance at this volume, he continued, still dissembling his feelings: "Come, my dear madcap: this is another folly. Suppose I were twenty years old, and that you did me the honor to marry me--you would be called Lady de Montbron, I imagine?"
"Perhaps."
"How perhaps? Would you not bear my name, if you married me?"
"My dear count," said Adrienne, with a smile, "do not let us pursue this hypothesis, which can only leave us--regrets."
Suddenly, M. de Montbron started, and looked at Mdlle, de Cardoville with an expression of surprise. For some moments, whilst talking to Adrienne, he had mechanically--taken up two or three of the volumes scattered over the couch, and had glanced at their titles in the same careless manner. The first was the "Modern History of India." The second, "Travels in India." The third, "Letters on India." Much surprised, M. de Montbron had continued his investigation, and found that the fourth volume continued this Indian nomenclature, being "Rambles in India." The fifth was, "Recollections of Hindostan." The sixth, "Notes of a Traveller in the East Indies."
Hence the astonishment, which, for many serious reasons, M. de Montbron had no longer been able to conceal, and which his looks betrayed to Adrienne. The latter, having completely forgotten the presence of the accusing volumes by which she was surrounded, yielded to a movement of involuntary confusion, and blushed slightly; but, her firm and resolute character again coming to her aid, she looked full at M. de Montbron, and said to him: "Well, my dear count! what surprises you?"
Instead of answering, M. de Montbron appeared still more absorbed in thought, and contemplating the young girl, he could not forbear saying to himself: "No, no--it is impossible--and yet--" "It would, perhaps, be indiscreet in me to listen to your soliloquy, my dear count," said Adrienne.
"Excuse me, my dear child; but what I see surprises me so much--" "And pray what do you see?"
"The traces of so great and novel an interest in all that relates to India," said M. de Montbron, laying a slight stress on his words, and fixing a piercing look upon the young girl.
"Well!" said Adrienne, stoutly.
"Well! I seek the cause of this sudden passion--" "Geographical?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville, interrupting M. de Montbron: "you may find this taste somewhat serious for my age my dear count--but one must find occupation for leisure hours--and then, having a cousin, who is both an Indian and a prince, I should like to know something of the fortunate country from which I derive this savage relationship."
These last words were pronounced with a bitterness that was not lost on M. de Montbron: watching Adrienne attentively, he observed: "Meseems, you speak of the prince with some harshness."
"No; I speak of him with indifference."
"Yet he deserves a very different feeling."
"On the part of some other person, perhaps," replied Adrienne, dryly.
"He is so unhappy!" said M, de Montbron, in a tone of sincere pity. "When I saw him the other day, he made my heart ache."
"What have I to do with it?" exclaimed Adrienne, with an accent of painful and almost angry impatience.
"I should have thought that his cruel torments at least deserved your pity," answered the count gravely.
"Pity--from me!" cried Adrienne, with an air of offended pride. Then restraining herself, she added coldly: "You are jesting, M. de Montbron. It is not in sober seriousness that you ask me to take interest in the amorous torments of your prince."
There was so much cold disdain in these last words of Adrienne, her pale and agitated countenance betrayed such haughty bitterness, that M. de Montbron said, sorrowfully: "It is then true; I have not been deceived. I, who thought, from our old and constant friendship, that I had some claim to your confidence have known nothing of it--while you told all to another. It is painful, very painful to me."
"I do not understand you, M. de Montbron."
"Well then, since I must speak plainly," cried the count, "there is, I see, no hope for this unhappy boy--you love another."
As Adrienne started--"Oh! you cannot deny it," resumed the count; "your paleness and melancholy for the last few days, your implacable indifference to the prince--all prove to me that you are in love."
Hurt by the manner in which the count spoke of the sentiment he attributed to her, Mdlle. de Cardoville answered with dignified stateliness: "You must know, M. de Montbron, that a secret discovered is not a confidence. Your language surprises me.
"Oh, my dear friend, if I use the poor privilege of experience--if I guess that you are in love--if I tell you so, and even go so far as to reproach you with it--it is because the life or death of this poor prince is concerned; and I feel for him as if he were my son, for it is impossible to know him without taking the warmest interest in him."
"It would be singular," returned Adrienne, with redoubled coldness, and still more bitter irony, "if my love--admitting I were in love--could have any such strange influence on Prince Djalma. What can it matter to him?" added she, with almost agonizing disdain.
"What can it matter to him? Now really, my dear friend, permit me to tell you, that it is you who are jesting cruelly. What! this unfortunate youth loves you with all the blind ardor of a first love--twice has attempted to terminate by suicide the horrible tortures of his passion--and you think it strange that your love for another should be with him a question of life or death!"
"He loves me then?" cried the young girl, with an accent impossible to describe.
"He loves you to madness, I tell you; I have seen it."
Adrienne seemed overcome with amazement. From pale, she became crimson; as the redness disappeared, her lips grew white, and trembled. Her emotion was so strong, that she remained for some moments unable to speak, and pressed her hand to her heart, as if to moderate its pulsations.
M. de Montbron, almost frightened at the sudden change in Adrienne's countenance, hastily approached her, exclaiming: "Good heaven, my poor child! what is the matter?"
Instead of answering, Adrienne waved her hand to him, in sign that he should not be alarmed; and, in fact, the count was speedily tranquillized, for the beautiful face, which had so lately been contracted with pain, irony, and scorn, seemed now expressive of the sweetest and most ineffable emotions; Adrienne appeared to luxuriate in delight, and to fear losing the least particle of it; then, as reflection told her, that she was, perhaps, the dupe of illusion or falsehood, she exclaimed suddenly, with anguish, addressing herself to M. de Montbron: "But is what you tell me true?"
"What I tell you!"
"Yes--that Prince Djalma--" "Loves you to madness? --Alas! it is only too true."
"No, no," cried Adrienne, with a charming expression of simplicity; "that could never be too true."
"What do you say?" cried the count.
"But that woman?" asked Adrienne, as if the word scorched her lips.
"What woman?"
"She who has been the cause of all these painful struggles."
"That woman--why, who should it be but you?"
"What, I? Oh! tell me, was it I?"
"On my word of honor. I trust my experience. I have never seen so ardent and sincere a passion."
"Oh! is it really so? Has he never had any other love?"
"Never."
"Yet I was told so."
"By whom?"
"M. Rodin."
"That Djalma--" "Had fallen violently in love, two days after I saw him."
"M. Rodin told you that!" cried M. de Montbron, as if struck with a sudden idea. "Why, it is he who told Djalma that you were in love with some one else."
"I!"
"And this it was which occasioned the poor youth's dreadful despair."
"It was this which occasioned my despair."
"You love him, then, just as he loves you!" exclaimed M. de Montbron, transported with joy.
"Love him!" said Mdlle. de Cardoville. A discreet knock at the door interrupted Adrienne.
"One of your servants, no doubt. Be calm," said the count.
"Come in," said Adrienne, in an agitated voice.
"What is it?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville. Florine entered the room.
"M. Rodin has just been here. Fearing to disturb mademoiselle, he would not come in; but he will return in half an hour. Will mademoiselle receive him?"
"Yes, yes," said the count to Florine; "even if I am still here, show him in by all means. Is not that your opinion?" asked M. de Montbron of Adrienne.
"Quite so," answered the young girl; and a flash of indignation darted from her eyes, as she thought of Rodin's perfidy.
"Oho! the old knave!" said M. de Montbron, "I always had my doubts of that crooked neck!" Florine withdrew, leaving the count with her mistress.
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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9
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LOVE.
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Mdlle. de Cardoville was transfigured. For the first time her beauty shone forth in all its lustre. Until now overshadowed by indifference, or darkened by grief, she appeared suddenly illumined by a brilliant ray of sunshine. The slight irritation caused by Rodin's perfidy passed like an imperceptible shade from her brow. What cared she now for falsehood and perfidy? Had they not failed? And, for the future, what human power could interpose between her and Djalma, so sure of each other? Who would dare to cross the path of those two things, resolute and strong with the irresistible power of youth, love, and liberty? Who would dare to follow them into that blazing sphere, whither they went, so beautiful and happy, to blend together in their inextinguishable love, protected by the proof armor of their own happiness? Hardly had Florine left the room, when Adrienne approached M. de Montbron with a rapid step. She seemed to have become taller; and to watch her advancing, light, radiant, and triumphant, one might have fancied her a goddess walking upon clouds.
"When shall I see him?" was her first word to M. de Montbron.
"Well--say to-morrow; he must be prepared for so much happiness; in so ardent a nature, such sudden, unexpected joy might be terrible."
Adrienne remained pensive for a moment, and then said rapidly: "To morrow--yes--not before to-morrow. I have a superstition of the heart."
"What is it?"
"You shall know. HE LOVES ME--that word says all, contains all, comprehends all, is all--and yet I have a thousand questions to ask with regard to him--but I will ask none before to-morrow, because, by a mysterious fatality, to-morrow is with me a sacred anniversary. It will be an age till then; but happily, I can wait. Look here!"
Beckoning M. de Montbron, she led him to the Indian Bacchus. "How much it is like him!" said she to the count.
"Indeed," exclaimed the latter, "it is strange!"
"Strange?" returned Adrienne, with a smile of gentle pride; "strange, that a hero, a demi-god, an ideal of beauty, should resemble Djalma?"
"How you love him!" said M. de Montbron, deeply touched, and almost dazzled by the felicity which beamed from the countenance of Adrienne.
"I must have suffered a good deal, do you not think so?" said she, after a moment's silence.
"If I had not made up my mind to come here to-day, almost in despair, what would have happened?"
"I cannot tell; I should perhaps have died, for I am wounded mortally here"--she pressed her hand to her heart. "But what might have been death to me, will now be life."
"It was horrible," said the count, shuddering. "Such a passion, buried in your own breast, proud as you are--" "Yes, proud--but not self-conceited. When I learned his love for another, and that the impression which I fancied I had made on him at our first interview had been immediately effaced, I renounced all hope, without being able to renounce my love. Instead of shunning his image, I surrounded myself with all that could remind me of him. In default of happiness, there is a bitter pleasure in suffering through what we love."
"I can now understand your Indian library."
Instead of answering the count, Adrienne took from the stand one of the freshly-cut volumes, and, bringing it to M. de Montbron, said to him, with a smile and a celestial expression of joy and happiness: "I was wrong--I am vain. Just read this--aloud, if you please. I tell you that I can wait for to-morrow." Presenting the book to the count, she pointed out one passage with the tip of her charming finger. Then she sank down upon the couch, and, in an attitude of deep attention, with her body bent forward, her hands crossed upon the cushion, her chin resting upon her hands, her large eyes fixed with a sort of adoration on the Indian Bacchus, that was just opposite to her, she appeared by this impassioned contemplation to prepare herself to listen to M. de Montbron.
The latter, much astonished, began to read, after again looking at Adrienne, who said to him, in her most coaxing voice, "Very slowly, I beg of you."
M. de Montbron then read the following passage from the journal of a traveller in India: "'When I was at Bombay, in 1829, I constantly heard amongst the English there, of a young hero, the son of--'" The count having paused a second, by reason of the barbarous spelling of the name of Djalma's father, Adrienne immediately said to him, in her soft voice: "The son of Kadja-sing."
"What a memory!" said the count, with a smile. And he resumed: "'A young hero, the son of Kadja-sing, king of Mundi. On his return from a distant and sanguinary expedition amongst the mountains against this Indian king, Colonel Drake was filled with enthusiasm for this son of Kadja-sing, known as Djalma. Hardly beyond the age of childhood, this young prince has in the course of this implacable war given proofs of such chivalrous intrepidity, and of so noble a character, that his father has been surnamed the Father of the Generous.'"
"That is a touching custom," said the count. "To recompense the father, as it were, by giving him a surname in honor of his son, is a great idea. But how strange you should have met with this book!" added the count, in surprise. "I can understand; there is matter here to inflame the coolest head."
"Oh! you will see, you will see," said Adrienne.
The count continued to read: "'Colonel Drake, one of the bravest and best officers of the English army, said yesterday, in my presence, that having been dangerously wounded, and taken prisoner by Prince Djalma, after an energetic resistance, he had been conveyed to the camp established in the village of--" Here there was the same hesitation on the part of the count, on seeing a still more barbarous name than the first; so, not wishing to try the adventure, he paused, and said to Adrienne, "Now really, I give this up."
"And yet it is so easy!" replied Adrienne; and she pronounced with inexpressible softness, a name in itself soft, "The village of Shumshabad."
"You appear to have an infallible process for remembering geographical names," said the count, continuing: "'Once arrived at the camp, Colonel Drake received the kindest hospitality, and Prince Djalma treated him with the respect of a son. It was there that the colonel became acquainted with some facts, which carried to the highest pitch his enthusiasm for prince Djalma. I heard him relate the two following. " 'In one of the battles, the prince was accompanied by a young Indian of about twelve years of age, whom he loved tenderly, and who served him as a page, following him on horseback to carry his spare weapons. This child was idolized by its mother; just as they set out on the expedition, she had entrusted her son to Prince Djalma's care, saying, with a stoicism worthy of antiquity, "Let him be your brother." "He shall be my brother," had replied the prince. In the height of a disastrous defeat, the child is severely wounded, and his horse killed; the prince, at peril of his life, notwithstanding the perception of a forced retreat, disengages him, and places him on the croup of his own horse; they are pursued; a musket-ball strikes their steed, who is just able to reach a jungle, in the midst of which, after some vain efforts, he falls exhausted. The child is unable to walk, but the prince carries him in his arms, and hides with him in the thickest part of the jungle. The English arrive, and begin their search; but the two victims escape. After a night and a day of marches, counter-marches, stratagems, fatigues, unheard-of perils, the prince, still, carrying the child, one of whose legs is broken, arrives at his father's camp, and says, with the utmost simplicity, "I had promised his mother that I would act a brother's part by him--and I have done so."'
"That is admirable!" cried the count.
"Go on--pray go on!" said Adrienne, drying a tear, without removing her eyes from the bas-relief, which she continued to contemplate with growing adoration.
The count continued: "'Another time, Prince Djalma, followed by two black slaves, went, before sunrise, to a very wild spot, to seize a couple of tiger cubs only a few days old. The den had been previously discovered. The two old tigers were still abroad. One of the blacks entered the den by a narrow aperture; the other, aided by Djalma, cut down a tolerably large tree, to prepare a trap for one of the old tigers. On the side of the aperture, the cavern was exceedingly steep. The prince mounted to the top of it with agility, to set his trap, with the aid of the other black. Suddenly, a dreadful roar was heard; and, in a few bounds, the tigress, returning from the chase, reached the opening of the den. The black who was laying the trap with the prince had his skull fractured by her bite; the tree, falling across the entrance, prevented the female from penetrating the cavern, and at the same time stopped the exit of the black who had seized the cubs. " 'About twenty feet higher, upon a ledge of rock, the prince lay flat on the ground, looking down upon this frightful spectacle. The tigress, rendered furious by the cries of her little ones, gnawed the hands of the black, who, from the interior of the den, strove to support the trunk of the tree, his only rampart, whilst he uttered the most lamentable outcries.'
"It is horrible!" said the count.
"Oh! go on! pray go on!" exclaimed Adrienne, with excitement; "you will see what can be achieved by the heroism of goodness."
The count pursued: "'Suddenly the prince seized his dagger between his teeth, fastened his sash to a block of stone, took his axe in one hand, and with the other slid down this substitute for a rope; falling a few steps from the wild beast, he sprang upon her, and, swift as lightning, dealt her two mortal strokes, just as the black, losing his strength, was about to drop the trunk of the tree, sure to have been torn to pieces.'"
"And you are astonished at his resemblance with the demi-god, to whom fable itself ascribes no more generous devotion!" cried the young lady, with still increasing excitement.
"I am astonished no longer, I only admire," said the count, in a voice of emotion; "and, at these two noble instances of heroism, my heart beats with enthusiasm, as if I were still twenty."
"And the noble heart of this traveller beat like yours at the recital," said Adrienne; "you will see." " 'What renders so admirable the intrepidity of the prince, is, that, according to the principle of Indian castes, the life of a slave is of no importance; thus a king's son, risking his life for the safety of a poor creature, so generally despised, obeyed an heroic and truly Christian instinct of charity, until then unheard of in this country." " 'Two such actions,' said Colonel Drake, with good reason, 'are sufficient to paint the man; it is with a feeling of profound respect and admiration, therefore, that I, an obscure traveller, have written the name of Prince Djalma in my book; and at the same time, I have experienced a kind of sorrow, when I have asked myself what would be the future fate of this prince, buried in the depths of a savage country, always devastated by war. However humble may be the homage that I pay to this character, worthy of the heroic age, his name will at least be repeated with generous enthusiasm by all those who have hearts that beat in sympathy with what is great and noble.'"
"And just now, when I read those simple and touching lines," resumed Adrienne, "I could not forbear pressing my lips to the name of the traveller."
"Yes; he is such as I thought him," cried the count, with still more emotion, as he returned the book to Adrienne, who rose, with a grave and touching air, and said to him: "It was thus I wished you to know him, that you might understand my adoration; for this courage, this heroic goodness, I had guessed beforehand, when I was an involuntary listener to his conversation. From that moment, I knew him to be generous as intrepid, tender and sensitive as energetic and resolute; and when I saw him so marvellously beautiful--so different, in the noble character of his countenance, and even in the style of his garments, from all I had hitherto met with--when I saw the impression that I made upon him, and which I perhaps felt still more violently--I knew that my whole life was bound up with his love."
"And now, what are your plans?"
"Divine, radiant as my heart. When he learns his happiness, I wish that Djalma should feel dazzled as I do, so as to prevent my gazing on my sun; for I repeat, that until tomorrow will be a century to me. Yes, it is strange! I should have thought that after such a discovery, I should feel the want of being left alone, plunged in an ocean of delicious dreams. But no! from this time till to-morrow--I dread solitude--I feel a kind of feverish impatience--uneasy--ardent--Oh! where is the beneficent fairy, that, touching me with her wand, will lull me into slumber till to-morrow!"
"I will be that beneficent fairy," said the count, smiling.
"You?"
"Yes, I." "And how so?"
"The power of my wand is this: I will relieve you from a portion of your thoughts by making them materially visible."
"Pray explain yourself."
"And my plan will have another advantage for you. Listen to me; you are so happy now that you can hear anything. Your odious aunt, and her equally odious friends, are spreading the report that your residence with Dr. Baleinier--" "Was rendered necessary by the derangement of my mind," said Adrienne, with a smile; "I expected that."
"It is stupid enough; but, as your resolution to live alone makes many envious of you, and many hostile, you must feel that there will be no want of persons ready to believe the most absurd calumny possible."
"I hope as much. To pass for mad in the eyes of fools is very flattering."
"Yes; but to prove to fools that they are fools, and that in the face of all Paris, is much more amusing. Now, people begin to talk of your absence; you have given up your daily rides; for some time my niece has appeared alone in our box at the Opera; you wish to kill the time till to-morrow--well! here is an excellent opportunity. It is two o'clock; at halfpast three, my niece will come in the carriage; the weather is splendid; there is sure to be a crowd in the Bois de Boulogne. You can take a delightful ride, and be seen by everybody. Then, as the air and movement will have calmed your fever of happiness, I will commence my magic this evening, and take you to India."
"To India?"
"Into the midst of one of those wild forests, in which roar the lion, the panther, and the tiger. We will have this heroic combat, which so moved you just now, under our own eyes, in all its terrible reality."
"Really, my dear count, you must be joking."
"Not at all; I promise to show you real wild beasts, formidable tenants of the country of our demigod--growling tigers--roaring lions--do you not think that will be better than books?"
"But how?"
"Come! I must give you the secret of my supernatural power. On returning from your ride, you shall dine with my niece, and we will go together to a very curious spectacle now exhibiting at the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre. A most extraordinary lion-tamer there shows you a number of wild beasts, in a state of nature, in the midst of a forest (here only commences the illusion), and has fierce combats with them all--tigers, lions, and panthers. All Paris is crowding to these representations, and all Paris will see you there, more charming than ever."
"I accept your offer," said Adrienne, with childish delight. "Yes, you are right. I feel a strange pleasure in beholding these ferocious monsters, who will remind me of those that my demi-god so heroically overcame. I accept also, because, for the first time in my life, I am anxious to be admired--even by everybody. I accept finally because--" Here Mdlle. de Cardoville was interrupted by a low knock at the door, and by the entrance of Florine, who announced M. Rodin.
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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10
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THE EXECUTION.
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Rodin entered. A rapid glance at Mdlle. de Cardoville and M. de Montbron told him at once that he was in a dilemma. In fact, nothing could be less encouraging than the faces of Adrienne and the count. The latter, when he disliked people, exhibited his antipathy, as we have already said, by an impertinently aggressive manner, which had before now occasioned a good number of duels. At sight of Rodin, his countenance at once assumed a harsh and insolent expression; resting his elbow on the chimney-piece, and conversing with Adrienne, he looked disdainfully over his shoulder, without taking the least notice of the Jesuit's low bow. On the other hand, at sight of this man, Mdlle. de Cardoville almost felt surprise, that she should experience no movement of anger or hatred. The brilliant flame which burned in her heart, purified it from every vindictive sentiment. She smiled, on the contrary; for, glancing with gentle pride at the Indian Bacchus, and then at herself, she asked herself what two beings, so young, and fair, and free, and loving, could have to fear from this old, sordid man, with his ignoble and base countenance, now advancing towards her with the writhing of a reptile. In a word, far from feeling anger or aversion with regard to Rodin, the young lady seemed full of the spirit of mocking gayety, and her large eyes, already lighted up with happiness, now sparkled with irony and mischief. Rodin felt himself ill at ease. People of his stamp greatly prefer violent to mocking enemies. They can encounter bursts of rage--sometimes by falling on their knees, weeping, groaning, and beating their breasts--sometimes by turning on their adversary, armed and implacable. But they are easily disconcerted by biting raillery; and thus it was with Rodin. He saw that between Adrienne de Cardoville and M. de Montbron, he was about to be placed in what is vulgarly termed a "regular fix."
The count opened the fire; still glancing over his shoulder, he said to Rodin: "Ah! you are here, my benevolent gentleman!"
"Pray, sir, draw a little nearer," said Adrienne, with a mocking smile. "Best of friends and model of philosophers--as well as declared enemy of all fraud and falsehood--I have to pay you a thousand compliments."
"I accent anything from you, my dear young lady, even though undeserved," said the Jesuit, trying to smile, and thus exposing his vile yellow teeth; "but may I be informed how I have earned these compliments?"
"Your penetration, sir, which is rare--" replied Adrienne.
"And your veracity, sir," said the count, "which is perhaps no less rare--" "In what have I exhibited my penetration, my dear young lady?" said Rodin, coldly. "In what my veracity?" added he, turning towards M. de Montbron.
"In what, sir?" said Adrienne. "Why, you have guessed a secret surrounded by difficulties and mystery. In a word, you have known how to read the depths of a woman's heart."
"I, my dear young lady?"
"You, sir! rejoice at it, for your penetration has had the most fortunate results."
"And your veracity has worked wonders," added the count.
"It is pleasant to do good, even without knowing it," said Rodin, still acting on the defensive, and throwing side glances by turns on the count and Adrienne; "but will you inform me what it is that deserves this praise--" "Gratitude obliges me to inform you of it," said Adrienne, maliciously; "you have discovered, and told Prince Djalma, that I was passionately in love. Well! I admire your penetration; it was true."
"You have also discovered, and told this lady, that Prince Djalma was passionately in love," resumed the count. "Well! I admire your penetration, my dear sir; it was true."
Rodin looked confused, and at a loss for a reply.
"The person that I loved so passionately," said Adrienne, "was the prince."
"The person that the prince loved so passionately," resumed the count, "was this lady."
These revelations, so sudden and alarming, almost stunned Rodin; he remained mute and terrified, thinking of the future.
"Do you understand now, sir, the extent of our gratitude towards you?" resumed Adrienne, in a still more mocking tone. "Thanks to your sagacity, thanks to the touching interest you take in us, the prince and I are indebted to you for the knowledge of our mutual sentiments."
The Jesuit had now gradually recovered his presence of mind, and his apparent calmness greatly irritated M. de Montbron, who, but for Adrienne's presence, would have assumed another tone than jests.
"There is some mistake," said Rodin, "in what you have done me the honor to tell me, my dear young lady. I have never in my life spoken of the sentiments, however worthy and respectable, that you may entertain for Prince Djalma--" "That is true," replied Adrienne; "with scrupulous and exquisite discretion, whenever you spoke to me of the deep love felt by Prince Djalma, you carried your reserve and delicacy so far as to inform me that it was not I whom he loved."
"And the same scruple induced you to tell the prince that Mdlle. de Cardoville loved some one passionately--but that he was not the person," added the count.
"Sir," answered Rodin, dryly, "I need hardly tell you that I have no desire to mix myself up with amorous intrigues."
"Come! this is either pride or modesty," said the count, insolently. "For your own interest, pray do not advance such things; for, if we took you at your word, and it became known, it might injure some of the nice little trades that you carry on."
"There is one at least," said Rodin, drawing himself up as proudly as M. de Montbron, "whose rude apprenticeship I shall owe to you. It is the wearisome one of listening to your discourse."
"I tell you what, my good sir!" replied the count, disdainfully: "you force me to remind you that there are more ways than one of chastising impudent rogues."
"My dear count!" said Adrienne to M. de Montbron, with an air of reproach.
With perfect coolness, Rodin replied: "I do not exactly see, sir, first, what courage is shown by threatening a poor old man like myself, and, secondly--" "M. Rodin," said the count, interrupting the Jesuit, "first, a poor old man like you, who does evil under the shelter of the age he dishonors, is both cowardly and wicked, and deserves a double chastisement; secondly, with regard to this question of age, I am not aware that gamekeepers and policemen bow down respectfully to the gray coats of old wolves, and the gray hairs of old thieves. What do you think, my good sir?"
Still impassible, Rodin raised his flabby eyelids, fixed for hardly a second his little reptile eye upon the count, and darted at him one of his rapid, cold, and piercing glances--and then the livid eyelid again covered the dull eye of that corpse-like face.
"Not having the disadvantage of being an old wolf, and still less an old thief," said Rodin, quietly, "you will permit me, sir, to take no account of the pursuit of hunters and police. As for the reproaches made me, I have a very simple method of answering--I do not say of justifying myself--I never justify myself--" "You don't say!" said the count.
"Never," resumed Rodin coolly; "my acts are sufficient for that. I will then simply answer that seeing the deep, violent, almost fearful impression made by this lady on the prince--" "Let this assurance which you give me of the prince's love," said Adrienne interrupting Rodin with an enchanting smile, "absolve you of all the evil you wished to do me. The sight of our happiness be your only punishment!"
"It may be that I need neither absolution nor punishment, for, as I have already had the honor to observe to the count, my dear young lady, the future will justify my acts. Yes; it was my duty to tell the prince that you loved another than himself, and to tell you that he loved another than yourself--all in your mutual interest. That my attachment for you may have misled me, is possible--I am not infallible; but, after my past conduct towards you, my dear young lady, I have, perhaps, some right to be astonished at seeing myself thus treated. This is not a complaint. If I never justify myself, I never complain either."
"Now really, there is something heroic in all this, my good sir," said the count. "You do not condescend to complain or justify yourself, with regard to the evil you have done."
"The evil I have done?" said Rodin, looking fixedly at the count. "Are we playing at enigmas?"
"What, sir!" cried the count, with indignation: "is it nothing, by your falsehoods, to have plunged the prince into so frightful a state of despair, that he has twice attempted his life? Is it nothing, by similar falsehoods, to have induced this lady to believe so cruel and complete an error, that but for the resolution I have to-day taken, it might have led to the most fatal consequences?"
"And will you do me the honor to tell me, sir, what interest I could have in all this despair and error, admitting even that I had wished to produce them?"
"Some great interest no doubt," said the count, bluntly; "the more dangerous that it is concealed. You are one of those, I see, to whom the woes of others are pleasure and profit."
"That is really too much, sir," said Rodin, bowing; "I should be quite contented with the profit."
"Your impudent coolness will not deceive me; this is a serious matter," said the count. "It is impossible that so perfidious a piece of roguery can be an isolated act. Who knows but this may still be one of the fruits of Madame de Saint-Dizier's hatred for Mdlle. de Cardoville?"
Adrienne had listened to the preceding discussion with deep attention. Suddenly she started, as if struck by a sudden revelation.
After a moment's silence, she said to Rodin, without anger, without bitterness, but with an expression of gentle and serene calmness: "We are told, sir, that happy love works miracles. I should be tempted to believe it; for, after some minutes' reflection, and when I recall certain circumstances, your conduct appears to me in quite a new light."
"And what may this new perspective be, my dear young lady?"
"That you may see it from my point of view, sir, allow me to remind you of a few facts. That sewing-girl was generously devoted to me; she had given me unquestionable proofs of her attachment. Her mind was equal to her noble heart; but she had an invincible dislike to you. All on a sudden she disappears mysteriously from my house, and you do your best to cast upon her odious suspicions. M. de Montbron has a paternal affection for me; but, as I must confess, little sympathy for you; and you have always tried to produce a coldness between us. Finally, Prince Djalma has a deep affection for me, and you employ the most perfidious treachery to kill that sentiment within him. For what end do you act thus? I do not know; but certainly with some hostile design."
"It appears to me, madame," said Rodin, severely, "that you have forgotten services performed."
"I do not deny, sir, that you took me from the house of Dr. Baleinier; but, a few days sooner or later, I must infallibly have been released by M. de Montbron."
"You are right, my dear child," said the count; "it may be that your enemies wished to claim the merit of what must necessarily have happened through the exertions of your friends."
"You are drowning, and I save you--it is all a mistake to feel grateful," said Rodin, bitterly; "some one else would no doubt have saved you a little later."
"The comparison is wanting in exactness," said Adrienne, with a smile; "a lunatic asylum is not a river, and though, from what I see, I think you quite capable of diving, you have had no occasion to swim on this occasion. You merely opened a door for me, which would have opened of itself a little later."
"Very good, my dear child!" said the count, laughing heartily at Adrienne's reply.
"I know, sir, that your care did not extend to me only. The daughters of Marshal Simon were brought back by you; but we may imagine that the claim of the Duke de Ligny to the possession of his daughters would not have been in vain. You returned to an old soldier his imperial cross, which he held to be a sacred relic; it is a very touching incident. Finally, you unmasked the Abbe d'Aigrigny and Dr. Baleinier: but I had already made up my mind to unmask then. However, all this proves that you are a very clever man--" "Oh, madame!" said Rodin, humbly.
"Full of resources and invention--" "Oh, madame!"
"It is not my fault if, in our long interview at Dr. Baleinier's, you betrayed that superiority of mind which struck me so forcibly, and which seems to embarrass you so much at present. What would you have, sir? --great minds like yours find it difficult to maintain their incognito. Yet, as by different ways--oh! very different," added the young lady, maliciously, "we are tending to the same end (still keeping in view our conversation at Dr. Baleinier's), I wish, for the sake of our future communion, as you call it, to give you a piece of advice, and speak frankly to you."
Rodin had listened to Mdlle. de Cardoville with apparent impassibility, holding his hat under his arm, and twirling his thumbs, whilst his hands were crossed upon his waistcoat. The only external mark of the intense agitation into which he was thrown by the calm words of Adrienne, was that the livid eyelids of the Jesuit, which had been hypocritically closed, became gradually red, as the blood flowed into them. Nevertheless, he answered Mdlle. de Cardoville in a firm voice, and with a low bow: "Good advice and frankness are always excellent things."
"You see, sir," resumed Adrienne, with some excitement, "happy love bestows such penetration, such energy, such courage, as enables one to laugh at perils, to detect stratagems, and to defy hatred. Believe me, the divine light which surrounds two loving hearts will be sufficient to disperse all darkness, and reveal every snare. You see, in India--excuse my weakness, but I like to talk of India," added the young girl, with a smile of indescribable grace and meaning--"in India, when travellers sleep at night, they kindle great fires round their ajoupa (excuse this touch of local coloring), and far as extends the luminous circle, it puts to flight by its mere brilliancy, all the impure and venomous reptiles that shun the day and live only in darkness."
"The meaning of this comparison has quite escaped me," said Rodin, continuing to twirl his thumbs, and half raising his eyelids, which were getting redder and redder.
"I will speak more plainly," said Adrienne, with a smile. "Suppose, sir, that the last is a service which you have rendered me and the prince--for you only proceed by way of services--that, I acknowledge, is novel and ingenious."
"Bravo, my dear child!" said the count, joyfully. "The execution will be complete."
"Oh! this is meant for an execution?" said Rodin, still impassible.
"No, sir," answered Adrienne, with a smile; "it is a simple conversation between a poor young girl and an old philosopher, the friend of humanity. Suppose, then, that these frequent services that you have rendered to me and mine have suddenly opened my eyes; or, rather," added the young girl, in a serious tone, "suppose that heaven, who gives to the mother the instinct to defend her child, has given me, along with happiness, the instinct to preserve my happiness, and that a vague presentiment, by throwing light on a thousand circumstances until now obscure, has suddenly revealed to me that, instead of being the friend, you are perhaps, the most dangerous enemy of myself and family."
"So we pass from the execution to suppositions," said Rodin, still immovable.
"And from suppositions, sir, if you must have it, to certainty," resumed Adrienne, with dignified firmness; "yes, now I believe that I was for awhile your dupe, and I tell you, without hate, without anger, but with regret--that it is painful to see a man of your sense and intelligence stoop to such machinations, and, after having recourse to so many diabolical manoeuvres, finish at last by being ridiculous; for, believe me, there is nothing more ridiculous for a man like you, than to be vanquished by a young girl, who has no weapon, no defence, no instructor, but her love. In a word, sir, I look upon you from to-day as an implacable and dangerous enemy; for I half perceive your aim, without guessing by what means you will seek to accomplish it, No doubt your future means will be worthy of the past. Well! in spite of all this, I do not fear you. From tomorrow, my family will be informed of everything, and an active, intelligent, resolute union will keep us all upon our guard, for it doubtless concerns this enormous inheritance, of which they wish to deprive us. Now, what connection can there be between the wrongs I reproach you with and the pecuniary end proposed? I do not at all know--but you have told me yourself that our enemies are so dangerously skillful, and their craft so far-reaching, that we must expect all, be prepared for all. I will remember the lesson. I have promised you frankness, sir, and now I suppose you have it."
"It would be an imprudent frankness if I were your enemy," said Rodin, still impassible; "but you also promised me some advice, my dear young lady."
"My advice will be short; do not attempt to continue the struggle, because, you see, there is something stronger than you and yours--it is a woman's resolve, defending her happiness."
Adrienne pronounced these last words with so sovereign a confidence; her beautiful countenance shone, as is it were, with such intrepid joy, that Rodin, notwithstanding his phlegmatic audacity, was for a moment frightened. Yet he did not appear in the least disconcerted; and, after a moment's silence, he resumed, with an air of almost contemptuous compassion: "My dear young lady, we may perhaps never meet again; it is probable. Only remember one thing, which I now repeat to you: I never justify myself. The future will provide for that. Notwithstanding which, my dear young lady, I am your humble servant;" and he made her a low bow.
"Count, I beg to salute you most respectfully," he added, bowing still more humbly to M. de Montbron; and he went out.
Hardly had Rodin left the room than Adrienne ran to her desk, and writing a few hasty lines, sealed the note, and said to M. de Montbron: "I shall not see the prince before to-morrow--as much from superstition of the heart as because it is necessary for my plans that this interview should be attended with some little solemnity. You shall know all; but I write to him on the instant, for, with an enemy like M. Rodin, one must be prepared for all."
"You are right, my dear child; quick! the letter." Adrienne gave it to him.
"I tell him enough," said she, "to calm his grief; and not enough to deprive me of the delicious happiness of the surprise I reserve for to morrow."
"All this has as much sense as heart in it: I will hasten to the prince's abode, to deliver your letter. I shall not see him, for I could not answer for myself. But come! our proposed drive, our evening's amusement, are still to hold good."
"Certainly. I have more need than ever to divert my thoughts till to morrow. I feel, too, that the fresh air will do me good, for this interview with M. Rodin has warmed me a little."
"The old wretch! but we will talk further of him. I will hasten to the prince's and return with Madame de Morinval, to fetch you to the Champs Elysees."
The Count de Montbron withdrew precipitately, as joyful at his departure as he had been sad on his arrival.
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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11
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THE CHAMPS-ELYSEES
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It was about two hours after the interview of Rodin with Mdlle. de Cardoville. Numerous loungers, attracted to the Champs-Elysees by the serenity of a fine spring day (it was towards the end of the month of March) stopped to admire a very handsome equipage. A bright-blue open carriage, with white-and-blue wheels, drawn by four superb horses, of cream color, with black manes, and harness glittering with silver ornaments, mounted by two boy postilions of equal size, with black velvet caps, light-blue cassimere jackets with white collars, buckskin breeches, and top-boots; two tall, powdered footmen, also in light-blue livery, with white collars and facings, being seated in the rumble behind.
No equipage could have been turned out in better style. The horses, full of blood, spirit, and vigor, were skillfully managed by the postilions, and stepped with singular regularity, gracefully keeping time in their movements, champing their bits covered with foam, and ever and anon shaking their cockades of blue and white silk, with long floating ends, and a bright rose blooming in the midst.
A man on horseback, dressed with elegant simplicity, keeping at the other side of the avenue, contemplated with proud satisfaction this equipage which he had, as it were, created. It was M. de Bonneville--Adrienne's equerry, as M. de Montbron called him--for the carriage belonged to that young lady. A change had taken place in the plan for this magic day's amusement. M. de Montbron had not been able to deliver Mdlle. de Cardoville's note to Prince Djalma. Faringhea had told him that the prince had gone that morning into the country with Marshal Simon, and would not be back before evening. The letter should be given him on his arrival. Completely satisfied as to Djalma, knowing that he could find these few lines, which, without informing him of the happiness that awaited him, would at least give him some idea of it, Adrienne had followed the advice of M. de Montbron, and gone to the drive in her own carriage, to show all the world that she had quite made up her mind, in spite of the perfidious reports circulated by the Princess de Saint Dizier, to keep to her resolution of living by herself in her own way. Adrienne wore a small white bonnet, with a fall of blonde, which well became her rosy face and golden hair; her high dress of garnet-colored velvet was almost hidden beneath a large green cashmere shawl. The young Marchioness de Morinval, who was also very pretty and elegant, was seated at her right. M. de Montbron occupied the front seat of the carriage.
Those who know the Parisian world, or rather, that imperceptible fraction of the world of Paris which goes every fine, sunny day to the Champs Elysees, to see and be seen, will understand that the presence of Mdlle. de Cardoville on that brilliant promenade was an extraordinary and interesting event.
The world (as it is called) could hardly believe its eyes, on seeing this lady of eighteen, possessed of princely wealth, and belonging to the highest nobility, thus prove to every one, by this appearance in public, that she was living completely free and independent, contrary to all custom and received notions of propriety. This kind of emancipation appeared something monstrous, and people were almost astonished that the graceful and dignified bearing of the young lady should belie so completely the calumnies circulated by Madame de Saint-Dizier and her friends, with regard to the pretended madness of her niece. Many beaux, profiting by their acquaintance with the Marchioness de Morinval or M. de Montbron, came by turns to pay their respects, and rode for a few minutes by the side of the carriage, so as to have an opportunity of seeing, admiring, and perhaps hearing, Mdlle. de Cardoville; she surpassed their expectations, by talking with her usual grace and spirit. Then surprise and enthusiasm knew no bounds. What had at first been blamed as an almost insane caprice, was now voted a charming originality, and it only depended on Mdlle. de Cardoville herself, to be declared from that day the queen of elegance and fashion. The young lady understood very well the impression she had made; she felt proud and happy, for she thought of Djalma; when she compared him to all these men of fashion, her happiness was the more increased. And, verily, these young men, most of whom had never quitted Paris, or had ventured at most as far as Naples or Baden, looked insignificant enough by the side of Djalma, who, at his age, had so many times commanded and combated in bloody wars, and whose reputation far courage and generosity, mentioned by travellers with admiration, had already reached from India to Paris. And then, how could these charming exquisites, with their small hats, their scanty frock-coats, and their huge cravats, compare with the Indian prince, whose graceful and manly beauty was still heightened by the splendor of a costume, at once so rich and so picturesque?
On this happy day, all was joy and love for Adrienne. The sun, setting in a splendidly serene sky, flooded the promenade with its golden light. The air was warm. Carriages and horsemen passed and repassed in rapid succession; a light breeze played with the scarfs of the women, and the plumes in their bonnets; all around was noise, movement, sunshine. Adrienne, leaning back in her carriage, amused herself with watching this busy scene, sparkling with Parisian luxury; but, in the vortex of this brilliant chaos, she saw in thought the mild, melancholy countenance of Djalma--when suddenly something fell into her lap, and she started. It was a bunch of half-faded violets. At the same instant she heard a child's voice following the carriage, and saying: "For the love of heaven, my good lady, one little sou!" Adrienne turned her head, and saw a poor little girl, pale and wan, with mild, sorrowful features, scarcely covered with rags, holding out her hand, and raising her eyes in supplication. Though the striking contrast of extreme misery, side by side with extreme luxury, is so common, that it no longer excites attention, Adrienne was deeply affected by it. She thought of Mother Bunch, now, perhaps, the victim of frightful destitution.
"Ah! at least," thought the young lady, "let not this day be one of happiness for me alone!"
She leaned from the carriage-window, and said to the poor child: "Have you a mother, my dear?"
"No, my lady, I have neither father nor mother."
"Who takes care of you?"
"No one, my lady. They give me nosegays to sell, and I must bring home money--or they beat me."
"Poor little thing!"
"A sou, my good lady--a sou, for the love of heaven!" said the child, continuing to follow the carriage, which was then moving slowly.
"My dear count," said Adrienne, smiling, and addressing M. de Montbron, "you are, unfortunately, no novice at an elopement. Please to stretch forth your arms, take up that child with both hands, and lift her into the carriage. We can hide her between Lady de Morinval and myself; and we can drive away before any one perceives this audacious abduction."
"What!" said the count, in surprise. "You wish--" "Yes; I beg you to do it."
"What a folly!"
"Yesterday, you might, perhaps, have treated this caprice as a folly; but to-day," said Adrienne, laying great stress upon the word, and glancing at M. de Montbron with a significant air, "to-day, you should understand that it is almost a duty."
"Yes, I understand you, good and noble heart!" said the count, with emotion; while Lady de Morinval, who knew nothing of Mdlle. de Cardoville's love for Djalma, looked with as much surprise as curiosity at the count and the young lady.
M. de Montbron, leaning from the carriage, stretched out his arms towards the child, and said to her: "Give me your hands, little girl."
Though much astonished, the child obeyed mechanically, and held out both her little arms; then the count took her by the wrists, and lifted her lightly from the ground, which he did the more easily, as the carnage was very low, and its progress by no means rapid. More stupefied than frightened, the child said not a word. Adrienne and Lady de Morinval made room for her to crouch down between them, and the little girl was soon hidden beneath the shawls of the two young women. All this was executed so quickly, that it was hardly perceived by a few persons passing in the side-avenues.
"Now, my dear count," said Adrienne, radiant with pleasure, "let us make off at once with our prey."
M. de Montbron half rose, and called to the postilions. "Home!" and the four horses started at once into a rapid and regular trot.
"This day of happiness now seems consecrated, and my luxury is excused," thought Adrienne; "till I can again meet with that poor Mother Bunch, and from this day I will make every exertion to find her out, her place will at least not be quite empty."
There are often strange coincidences in life. At the moment when this thought of the hunchback crossed the mind of Adrienne, a crowd had collected in one of the side-avenues, and other persons soon ran to join the group.
"Look, uncle!" said Lady de Morinval; "how many people are assembled yonder. What can it be? Shall we stop, and send to inquire?"
"I am sorry, my dear, but your curiosity cannot be satisfied," said the count, drawing out his watch; "it will soon be six o'clock, and the exhibition of the wild beasts begin at eight. We shall only just have time to go home and dine. Is not that your opinion, my dear child?" said he to Adrienne.
"And yours, Julia?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville to the marchioness.
"Oh, certainly!" answered her friend.
"I am the less inclined to delay," resumed the count, "as when I have taken you to the Porte-Saint-Martin, I shall be obliged to go for half an-hour to my club, to ballot for Lord Campbell, whom I propose."
"Then, Adrienne and I will be left alone at the play, uncle?"
"Your husband will go with you, I suppose."
"True, dear uncle; but do not quite leave us, because of that."
"Be sure I shall not: for I am curious as you are to see these terrible animals, and the famous Morok, the incomparable lion-tamer."
A few minutes after, Mdlle. de Cardoville's carriage had left the Champs Elysees, carrying with it the little girl, and directing its course towards the Rue d'Anjou. As the brilliant equipage disappeared from the scene, the crowd, of which we before have spoken, greatly increased about one of the large trees in the Champs-Elysees, and expressions of pity were heard here and there amongst the groups. A lounger approached a young man on the skirts of the crowd, and said to him: "What is the matter, sir?"
"I hear it is a poor young girl, a hunchback, that has fallen from exhaustion."
"A hunchback! is that all? There will always be enough hunchbacks," said the lounger, brutally, with a coarse laugh.
"Hunchback or not, if she dies of hunger," answered the young man, scarcely able to restrain his indignation, "it will be no less sad--and there is really nothing to laugh at, sir."
"Die of hunger! pooh!" said the lounger, shrugging his shoulders. "It is only lazy scoundrels, that will not work, who die of hunger. And it serves them right."
"I wager, sir, there is one death you will never die of," cried the young man, incensed at the cruel insolence of the lounger.
"What do you mean?" answered the other, haughtily.
"I mean, sir, that your heart is not likely to kill you."
"Sir!" cried the lounger in an angry tone.
"Well! what, sir?" replied the young man, looking full in his face.
"Nothing," said the lounger, turning abruptly on his heel, and grumbling as he sauntered towards an orange-colored cabriolet, on which was emblazoned an enormous coat-of-arms, surmounted by a baron's crest. A servant in green livery, ridiculously laced with gold, was standing beside the horse, and did not perceive his master.
"Are you catching flies, fool?" said the latter, pushing him with his cane. The servant turned round in confusion. "Sir," said he.
"Will you never learn to call me Monsieur le Baron, rascal?" cried his master, in a rage--"Open the door directly!"
The lounger was Baron Tripeaud, the manufacturing baron the stock-jobber. The poor hunchback was Mother Bunch, who had, indeed fallen with hunger and fatigue, whilst on her way to Mdlle. de Cardoville's. The unfortunate creature had found courage to brave the shame of the ridicule she so much feared, by returning to that house from which she was a voluntary exile; but this time, it was not for herself, but for her sister Cephyse--the Bacchanal Queen, who had returned to Paris the previous day, and whom Mother Bunch now sought, through the means of Adrienne, to rescue from a most dreadful fate.
Two hours after these different scenes, an enormous crowd pressed round the doors of the Porte-Saint-Martin, to witness the exercises of Morok, who was about to perform a mock combat with the famous black panther of Java, named Death. Adrienne, accompanied by Lord and Lady de Morinval, now stepped from a carriage at the entrance of the theatre. They were to be joined in the course of the evening by M. de Montbron, whom they had dropped, in passing, at his club.
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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12
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BEHIND THE SCENES.
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The large theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin was crowded by an impatient multitude. All Paris had hurried with eager and burning curiosity to Morok's exhibition. It is quite unnecessary to say that the lion-tamer had completely abandoned his small taste in religious baubles, which he had so successfully carried on at the White Falcon Inn at Leipsic. There were, moreover, numerous tokens by which the surprising effects of Morok's sudden conversion had been blazoned in the most extraordinary pictures: the antiquated baubles in which he had formerly dealt would have found no sale in Paris. Morok had nearly finished dressing himself, in one of the actor's rooms, which had been lent to him. Over a coat of mail, with cuishes and brassarts, he wore an ample pair of red trousers, fastened round his ankles by broad rings of gilt brass. His long caftan of black cloth, embroidered with scarlet and gold, was bound round his waist and wrist by other large rings of gilt metal. This sombre costume imparted to him an aspect still more ferocious. His thick and red-haired beard fell in large quantities down to his chest, and a long piece of white muslin was folded round his red head. A devout missionary in Germany and an actor in Paris, Morok knew as well as his employers, the Jesuits, how to accommodate himself to circumstances.
Seated in one corner of the room, and contemplating with a sort of stupid admiration, was Jacques Rennepont, better known as "Sleepinbuff" (from the likelihood that he would end his days in rags, or his present antipathy to great care in dress). Since the day Hardy's factory had been destroyed by fire, Jacques had not quitted Morok, passing the nights in excesses, which had no baneful effects on the iron constitution of the lion-tamer. On the other's features, on the contrary, a great alteration was perceptible; his hollow cheeks, marble pallor, his eyes, by turns dull and heavy, or gleaming with lurid fire, betrayed the ravages of debauchery, his parched lips were almost constantly curled by a bitter and sardonic smile. His spirit, once gay and sanguine, still struggled against the besotting influence of habitual intoxication. Unfitted for labor, no longer able to forego gross pleasures, Jacques sought to drown in wine a few virtuous impulses which he still possessed, and had sunk so low as to accept without shame the large dole of sensual gratification proffered him by Morok, who paid all the expenses of their orgies, but never gave him money, in order that he might be completely dependent on him. After gazing at Morok for some time in amazement, Jacques said to him, in a familiar tone: "Well, yours is a famous trade; you may boast that, at this moment, there are not two men like you in the whole world That's flattering. It's a pity you don't stick to this fine trade."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, how is the conspiracy going on, in whose honor you make me keep it up all day and all night?"
"It is working, but the time is not yet come; that is why I wish to have you always at hand, till the great day. Do you complain?"
"Hang it, no!" said Jacques. "What could I do? Burnt up with brandy as I am, if I wanted to work, I've no longer the strength to do so. I have not, like you, a head of marble, and a body of iron; but as for fuddling myself with gunpowder, instead of anything else, that'll do for me; I'm only fit for that work now--and then, it will drive away thought."
"Oh what kind?"
"You know that when I do think, I think only of one thing," said Jacques, gloomily.
"The Bacchanal queen? --still?" said Morok, in a disdainful tone.
"Still! rather: when I shall think of her no longer, I shall be dead--or stupefied. Fiend!"
"You were never better or more intelligent, you fool!" replied Morok, fastening his turban. The conversation was here interrupted. Morok's aider entered hastily.
The gigantic form of this Hercules had increased in width. He was habited like Alcides; his enormous limbs, furrowed with veins as thick as whipcord, were covered with a close-fitting flesh-colored garment, to which a pair of red drawers formed a strong contrast.
"Why do you rush in like a storm, Goliath?" said Morok.
"There's a pretty storm in the house; they are beginning to get impatient, and are calling out like madmen. But if that were all!"
"Well, what else?"
"Death will not be able to play this evening."
Morok turned quickly around. He seemed uneasy. "Why so?" he exclaimed.
"I have just seen her! she's crouching at the bottom of her cage; her ears lie so close to her head, she looks as if they had been cut off. You know what that means."
"Is that all?" said Morok, turning to the glass to complete his head dress.
"It's quite enough; she's in one of her tearing fits. Since that night in Germany, when she ripped up that old hack of a white horse, I've not seen her look so savage! her eyes shine like burning candles."
"Then she must have her fine collar on," said Morok, quietly.
"Her fine collar?"
"Yes; her spring-collar."
"And I must be lady's-maid," said the giant. "A nice toilet to attend to!"
"Hold your tongue!"
"That's not all--" continued Goliath, hesitating.
"What more?"
"I might as well tell you at once."
"Will you speak?"
"Well! he is here."
"Who, you stupid brute?"
"The Englishman!"
Morok started; his arms fell powerless by his side. Jacques was struck with the lion-tamer's paleness and troubled countenance.
"The Englishman! --you have seen him?" cried Morok, addressing Goliath. "You are quite sure?"
"Quite sure. I was looking through the peep-hole in the curtain; I saw him in one of the stage-boxes--he wishes to see things close; he's easy to recognize, with his pointed forehead, big nose, and goggle eyes."
Morok shuddered again; usually fierce and unmoved, he appeared to be more and more agitated, and so alarmed, that Jacques said to him: "Who is this Englishman?"
"He has followed me from Strasburg, where he fell in with me," said Morok, with visible dejection. "He travelled with his own horses, by short stages, as I did; stopping where I stopped, so as never to miss one of my exhibitions. But two days before I arrived at Paris, he left me--I thought I was rid of him," said Morok, with a sigh.
"Rid of him! --how you talk!" replied Jacques, surprised; "such a good customer, such an admirer!"
"Aye!" said Morok, becoming more and more agitated; "this wretch has wagered an enormous sum, that I will be devoured in his presence, during one of my performances: he hopes to win his wager--that is why he follows me about."
Sleepinbuff found the John Bull's idea so amusingly eccentric, that, for the first time since a very long period, he burst into a peal of hearty laughter. Morok, pale with rage, rushed towards him with so menacing an air, that Goliath was obliged to interpose.
"Come, come," said Jacques, "don't be angry; if it is serious, I will not laugh any more."
Morok was appeased, and said to Sleepinbuff in a hoarse voice: "Do you think me a coward?"
"No, by heaven!"
"Well! And yet this Englishman, with his grotesque face, frightens me more than any tiger or my panther!"
"You say so, and I believe it," replied Jacques; "but I cannot understand why the presence of this man should alarm you."
"But consider, you dull knave!" cried Morok, "that, obliged to watch incessantly the least movement of the ferocious beast, whom I keep in subjection by my action and my looks, there is something terrible in knowing that two eyes are there--always there--fixed--waiting till the least absence of mind shall expose me to be torn in pieces by the animals."
"Now, I understand," said Jacques, shuddering in his turn. "It is terrible."
"Yes; for once there, though I may not see this cursed Englishman, I fancy I have his two round eyes, fixed and wide open, always before me. My tiger Cain once nearly mutilated my arm, when my attention was drawn away by this Englishman, whom the devil take! Blood and thunder!" cried Morok: "this man will be fatal to me." And Morok paced the room in great agitation.
"Besides, Death lays her ears close to her skull," said Goliath, brutally. "If you persist--mind, I tell you--the Englishman will win his wager this evening."
"Go away, you brute! --don't vex my head with your confounded predictions," cried Morok: "go and prepare Death's collar."
"Well, every one to his taste; you wish the panther to taste you," said the giant, stalking heavily away, after this joke.
"But if you feel these fears," said Jacques, "why do you not say that the panther is ill?"
Morok shrugged his shoulders, and replied with a sort of feverish ferocity, "Have you ever heard of the fierce pleasure of the gamester, who stakes his honor, his life, upon a card? Well! I too--in these daily exhibitions where my life is at stake--find a wild, fierce pleasure in braving death, before a crowded assembly, shuddering and terrified at my audacity. Yes, even in the fear with which this Englishman inspires me, I find, in spite of myself, a terrible excitement, which I abhor, and which yet subjugates me."
At this moment, the stage-manager entered the room, and interrupted the beast-tamer. "May we give the signal, M. Morok?" said the stage-manager. "The overture will not last above ten minutes."
"I am ready," said Morok.
"The police-inspector has just now given orders, that the double chain of the panther, and the iron ring riveted to the floor of the stage, at the end of the cavern in the foreground, shall be again examined; and everything has been reported quite secure."
"Yes--secure--except for me," murmured the beast-tamer.
"So, M. Morok, the signal may be given?"
"The signal may--be given," replied Morok. And the manager went out.
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{
"id": "3346"
}
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13
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UP WITH THE CURTAIN.
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The usual bell sounded with solemnity behind the scenes the overture began, and, to say the truth, but little attention was paid to it. The interior of the theatre offered a very animated view. With the exception of two stage-boxes even with the dress circle, one to the left, the other to the right of the audience, every seat was occupied. A great number of very fashionable ladies, attracted, as is always the case, by the strange wildness of the spectacle, filled the boxes. The stalls were crowded by most of the young men who; in the morning, had walked their horses on the Champs-Elysees. The observations which passed from one stall to another, will give some idea of their conversation.
"Do you know, my dear boy, there would not be so crowded or fashionable an audience to witness Racine's Athalia?"
"Undoubtedly. What is the beggarly howling of an actor, compared to the roaring of the lion?"
"I cannot understand how the authorities permit this Morok to fasten his panther with a chain to an iron ring in the corner of the stage. If the chain were to break?"
"Talking of broken chains--there's little Mme. de Blinville, who is no tigress. Do you see her in the second tier, opposite?"
"It becomes her very well to have broken, as you say, the marriage chain; she looks very well this season."
"Oh! there is the beautiful Duchess de Saint-Prix; all the world is here to-night--I don't speak of ourselves."
"It is a regular opera night--what a festive scene!"
"Well, after all, people do well to amuse themselves, perhaps it will not be for long."
"Why so?"
"Suppose the cholera were to come to Paris?"
"Oh! nonsense!"
"Do you believe in the cholera?"
"To be sure I do! He's coming from the North, with his walking-stick under his arm."
"The devil take him on the road! don't let us see his green visage here."
"They say he's at London."
"A pleasant journey to him."
"Come, let us talk of something else; it may be a weakness, if you please, but I call this a dull subject."
"I believe you."
"Oh! gentlemen--I am not mistaken--no--it is she!"
"Who, then?"
"Mdlle. de Cardoville! She is coming into the stage-box with Morinval and his wife. It is a complete resuscitation: this morning on the Champs-Elysees; in the evening here."
"Faith, you are right! It is Mdlle. de Cardoville."
"Good heaven! how lovely she is!"
"Lend me your eyeglass."
"Well, what do you think of her?"
"Exquisite--dazzling."
"And in addition to her beauty, an inexhaustible flow of wit, three hundred thousand francs a year, high birth, eighteen years of age, and--free as air."
"Yes, that is to say, that, provided it pleased her, I might be to morrow--or even to-day--the happiest of men."
"It is enough to turn one's brain."
"I am told that her mansion, Rue d'Anjou, is like an enchanted palace; a great deal is said about a bath-room and bedroom, worthy of the Arabian Nights."
"And free as air--I come back to that."
"Ah! if I were in her place!"
"My levity would be quite shocking."
"Oh! gentlemen, what a happy man will he be who is loved first!"
"You think, then, that she will have many lovers?"
"Being as free as air--" "All the boxes are full, except the stage-box opposite to that in which Mdlle. de Cardoville is seated. Happy the occupiers of that box!"
"Did you see the English ambassador's lady in the dress circle?"
"And the Princess d'Alvimar--what an enormous bouquet!"
"I should like to know the name--of that nosegay."
"Oh! --it's Germigny."
"How flattering for the lions and tigers, to attract so fashionable an audience."
"Do you notice, gentlemen, how all the women are eye-glassing Mdlle. de Cardoville?"
"She makes a sensation."
"She is right to show herself; they gave her out as mad."
"Oh! gentlemen, what a capital phiz!"
"Where--where?"
"There--in the omnibus-box beneath Mdlle. de Cardoville's."
"It's a Nuremburg nutcracker."
"An ourang-outang!"
"Did you ever see such round, staring eyes?"
"And the nose!"
"And the forehead!"
"It's a caricature."
"Order, order! the curtain rises."
And, in fact, the curtain rose. Some explanation is necessary for the clear understanding of what follows. In the lower stage-box, to the left of the audience, were several persons, who had been referred to by the young men in the stalls. The omnibus-box was occupied by the Englishman, the eccentric and portentous bettor, whose presence inspired Morok with so much dread.
It would require Hoffman's rare and fantastic genius to describe worthily that countenance, at once grotesque and frightful, as it stood out from the dark background of the box. This Englishman was about fifty years old; his forehead was quite bald, and of a conical shape; beneath this forehead, surmounted by eyebrows like parenthesis marks, glittered large, green eyes, remarkably round and staring, and set very close to a hooked nose, extremely sharp and prominent; a chin like that on the old fashioned nutcrackers was half-hidden in a broad and ample white cravat, as stiffly-starched as the round-cornered shirt-collar, which nearly touched his ears. The face was exceedingly thin and bony, and yet the complexion was high-colored, approaching to purple, which made the bright green of the pupils, and the white of the other part of the eyes, still more conspicuous. The mouth, which was very wide, sometimes whistled inaudibly the tune of a Scotch jig (always the same tune), sometimes was slightly curled with a sardonic smite. The Englishman was dressed with extreme care; his blue coat, with brass buttons, displayed his spotless waistcoat, snowy, white as his ample cravat; his shirt was fastened with two magnificent ruby studs, and his patrician hands were carefully kid gloved.
To any one who knew the eccentric and cruel desire which attracted this man to every representation, his grotesque face became almost terrific, instead of exciting ridicule; and it was easy to understand the dread experience by Morok at sight of those great, staring round eyes, which appeared to watch for the death of the lion-tamer (what a horrible death!) with unshaken confidence. Above the dark box of the Englishman, affording a graceful contrast, were seated the Morinvals and Mdlle. de Cardoville. The latter was placed nearest the stage. Her head was uncovered, and she wore a dress of sky-blue China crepe, ornamented at the bosom with a brooch of the finest Oriental pearls--nothing more; yet Adrienne, thus attired, was charming. She held in her hand an enormous bouquet, composed of the rarest flowers of India: the stephanotis and the gardenia mingled the dead white of their blossoms with the purple hibiscus and Java amaryllis.
Madame de Morinval, seated on the opposite side of the box, was dressed with equal taste and simplicity; Morinval, a fair and very handsome young man, of elegant appearance, was behind the two ladies. M. de Montbron was expected to arrive every moment. The reader will please to recollect that the stage-box to the right of the audience, opposite Adrienne's, had remained till then quite empty. The stage represented one of the gigantic forests of India. In the background, tall exotic trees rose in spiral or spreading forms, among rugged masses of perpendicular rocks, with here and there glimpses of a tropical sky. The side-scenes formed tufts of trees, interspersed with rocks; and at the side which was immediately beneath Adrienne's box appeared the irregular opening of a deep and gloomy cavern, round which were heaped huge blocks of granite, as if thrown together by some convulsion of nature. This scenery, full of a wild and savage grandeur, was wonderfully "built up," so as to make the illusion as complete as possible; the footlights were lowered, and being covered with a purple shade, threw over this landscape a subdued reddish light, which increased the gloomy and startling effect of the whole. Adrienne, leaning forward from the box, with cheeks slightly flushed, sparkling eyes, and throbbing heart, sought to trace in this scene the solitary forest described by the traveller who had eulogized Djalma's generosity and courage, when he threw himself upon a ferocious tigress to save the life of a poor black slave. Chance coincided wonderfully indeed with her recollections. Absorbed in the contemplation of the scenery and the thoughts it awakened in her heart, she paid no attention to what was passing in the house. And yet something calculated to excite curiosity was taking place in the opposite stage-box.
The door of this box opened. A man about forty years of age, of a yellow complexion, entered; he was clothed after the East Indian fashion, in a long robe of orange silk, bound round the waist with a green sash, and he wore a small white turban. He placed two chairs at the front of the box; and, having glanced round the house for a moment, he started, his black eyes sparkled, and he went out quickly. That man was Faringhea. His apparition caused surprise and curiosity in the theatre; the majority of the spectators not having, like Adrienne, a thousand reasons for being absorbed in the contemplation of a picturesque set scene. The public attention was still more excited when they saw the box which Faringhea had just left, entered by a youth of rare beauty, also dressed Oriental fashion, in a long robe of white Cashmere with flowing sleeves, with a scarlet turban striped with gold on his head, and a sash to correspond, in which was stuck a long dagger, glittering with precious stones. This young man was Prince Djalma. For an instant he remained standing at the door, and cast a look of indifference upon the immense theatre, crowded with people; then, stepping forward with a majestic and tranquil air, the prince seated himself negligently on one of the chairs, and, turning his head in a few moments towards the entrance, appeared surprised at not seeing some person whom he doubtless expected. This person appeared at length; the boxkeeper had been assisting her to take off her cloak. She was a charming, fair-haired girl, attired with more show than taste, in a dress of white silk, with broad cherry-colored stripes, made ultra fashionably low, and with short sleeves; a large bow of cherry-colored ribbon was placed on each side of her light hair, and set off the prettiest, sprightliest, most wilful little face in the world.
It was Rose-Pompon. Her pretty arms were partly covered by long white gloves, and ridiculously loaded with bracelets: in her hand she carried an enormous bouquet of roses.
Far from imitating the calm demeanor of Djalma, Rose-Pompon skipped into the box, moved the chairs about noisily, and fidgeted on her seat for some time, to display her fine dress; then, without being in the least intimidated by the presence of the brilliant assembly, she, with a little coquettish air, held her bouquet towards Djalma, that he might smell it, and appeared finally to establish herself on her seat. Faringhea came in, shut the door of the box, and seated himself behind the prince. Adrienne, still completely absorbed in the contemplation of the Indian forest, and in her own sweet thoughts, had not observed the newcomers. As she was turning her head completely towards the stage, and Djalma could not, for the moment, see even her profile, he, on his side, had not recognized Mdlle. de Cardoville.
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{
"id": "3346"
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DEATH.
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The pantomime opening, by which was introduced the combat of Morok with the black panther, was so unmeaning, that the majority of the audience paid no attention to it, reserving all their interest for the scene in which the lion-tamer was to make his appearance.
This indifference of the public explains the curiosity excited in the theatre by the arrival of Faringhea and Djalma--a curiosity which expressed itself (as at this day, when uncommon foreigners appear in public) by a slight murmur and general movement amongst the crowd. The sprightly, pretty face of Rose-Pompon, always charming, in spite of her singularly staring dress, in style so ridiculous for such a theatre, and her light and familiar manner towards the handsome Indian who accompanied her, increased and animated the general surprise; for, at this moment, Rose-Pompon, yielding without reserve to a movement of teasing coquetry, had held up, as we have already stated, her large bunch of roses to Djalma. But the prince, at sight of the landscape which reminded him of his country, instead of appearing sensible to this pretty, provocation, remained for some minutes as in a dream, with his eyes fixed upon the stage. Then Rose-Pompon began to beat time on the front of the box with her bouquet, whilst the somewhat too visible movement of her pretty shoulders showed that this devoted dancer was thinking of fast-life dances, as the orchestra struck up a more lively strain.
Placed directly opposite the box in which Faringhea, Djalma, and Rose Pompon had just taken their seats, Lady Morinval soon perceived the arrival of these two personages, and particularly the eccentric coquetries of Rose-Pompon. Immediately, the young marchioness, leaning over towards Mdlle. de Cardoville, who was still absorbed in memories ineffable, said to her, laughing: "My dear, the most amusing part of the performance is not upon the stage. Look just opposite."
"Just opposite?" repeated Adrienne, mechanically: and, turning towards Lady Morinval with an air of surprise, she glanced in the direction pointed out.
She looked--what did she see? --Djalma seated by the side of a young woman, who was familiarly offering to his sense of smell the perfume of her bouquet. Amazed, struck almost literally to the heart, as by an electric shock, swift, sharp, and painful, Adrienne became deadly pale. From instinct, she shut her eyes for a second, in order not to see--as men try to ward off the dagger, which, having once dealt the blow, threatens to strike again. Then suddenly, to this feeling of grief succeeded a reflection, terrible both to her love and to her wounded pride.
"Djalma is present with this woman, though he must have received my letter," she said to herself,--"wherein he was informed of the happiness that awaited him."
At the idea of so cruel an insult, a blush of shame and indignation displaced Adrienne's paleness, who overwhelmed by this sad reality, said to herself: "Rodin did not deceive me."
We abandon all idea of picturing the lightning-like rapidity of certain emotions which in a moment may torture--may kill you in the space of a minute. Thus Adrienne was precipitated from the most radiant happiness to the lowest depths of an abyss of the most heart-rending grief, in less than a second; for a second had hardly elapsed before she replied to Lady Morinval: "What is there, then, so curious, opposite to us, my dear Julia?"
This evasive question gave Adrienne time to recover her self-possession. Fortunately, thanks to the thick folds of hair which almost entirely concealed her cheeks, the rapid and sudden changes from pallor to blush escaped the notice of Lady Morinval, who gayly replied: "What, my dear, do you not perceive those East Indians, who have just entered the box immediately opposite to ours? There, just before us!"
"Yes, I see them; but what then?" replied Adrienne, in a firm tone.
"And don't you observe anything remarkable?" said the marchioness.
"Don't be too hard, ladies," laughingly interposed the marquis; "we ought to allow the poor foreigners some little indulgence. They are ignorant of our manners and customs; were it not for that, they would never appear in the face of all Paris in such dubious company."
"Indeed," said Adrienne, with a bitter smile, "their simplicity is touching; we must pity them."
"And, unfortunately, the girl is charming, spite of her low dress and bare arms," said the marchioness; "she cannot be more than sixteen or seventeen at most. Look at her, my dear Adrienne; what a pity!"
"It is one of your charitable days, my dear Julia," answered Adrienne; "we are to pity the Indians, to pity this creature, and--pray, whom else are we to pity?"
"We will not pity that handsome Indian, in his red-and-gold turban," said the marquis, laughing, "for, if this goes on, the girl with the cherry colored ribbons will be giving him a kiss. See how she leans towards her sultan."
"They are very amusing," said the marchioness, sharing the hilarity of her husband, and looking at Rose-Pompom through her glass; then she resumed, in about a minute, addressing herself to Adrienne: "I am quite certain of one thing. Notwithstanding her giddy airs, that girl is very fond of her Indian. I just saw a look that expresses a great deal."
"Why so much penetration, my dear Julia?" said Adrienne, mildly; "what interest have we to read the heart of that girl?"
"Why, if she loves her sultan, she is quite in the right," said the marquis, looking through his opera-glass in turn; "for, in my whole life, I never saw a more handsome fellow than that Indian. I can only catch his side-face, but the profile is pure and fine as an antique cameo. Do you not think so?" added the marquis, leaning towards Adrienne. "Of course, it is only as a matter of art, that I permit myself to ask you the question."
"As a work of art," answered Adrienne, "it is certainly very fine."
"But see!" said the marchioness; "how impertinent the little creature is! --She is actually staring at us."
"Well!" said the marquis; "and she is actually laying her hand quite unceremoniously on her sultan's shoulder, to make him share, no doubt, in her admiration of you ladies."
In fact, Djalma, until now occupied with the contemplation of the scene which reminded him of his country, had remained insensible to the enticements of Rose-Pompon, and had not yet perceived Adrienne.
"Well, now!" said Rose-Pompon, bustling herself about in front of the box, and continuing to stare at Mdlle. de Cardoville, for it was she, and not the marchioness, who now drew her attention; "that is something quite out of the common way--a pretty woman, with red hair; but such sweet red, it must be owned. Look, Prince Charming!"
And so saying, she tapped Djalma lightly on the shoulder; he started at these words, turned round, and for the first time perceived Mdlle. de Cardoville.
Though he had been almost prepared for this meeting, the prince was so violently affected by it, that he was about involuntarily to rise, in a state of the utmost confusion; but he felt the iron hand of Faringhea laid heavily on his shoulder, and heard him whisper in Hindostanee: "Courage! and by to-morrow she will be at your feet."
As Djalma still struggled to rise, the half-caste added to restrain him: "Just now, she grew pale and red with jealousy. No weakness, or all is lost!"
"So! there you are again, talking your dreadful gibberish," said Rose Pompon, turning round towards Faringhea. "First of all, it is not polite; and then the language is so odd, that one might suppose you were cracking nuts."
"I spoke of you to my master," said the half-caste; "he is preparing a surprise for you."
"A surprise? oh! that is different. Only make haste--do you hear, Prince Charming!" added she, looking tenderly at Djalma.
"My heart is breaking," said Djalma, in a hollow voice to Faringhea, still using the language of India.
"But to-morrow it will bound with joy and love," answered the half-caste. "It is only by disdain that you can conquer a proud woman. To-morrow, I tell you, she will be trembling, confused, supplicating, at your feet!"
"To-morrow, she will hate me like death!" replied the prince, mournfully.
"Yes, were she now to see you weak and cowardly. It is now too late to draw back; look full at her, take the nosegay from this girl, and raise it to your lips. Instantly, you will see yonder woman, proud as she is, grow pale and red, as just now. Then will you believe me?"
Reduced by despair to make almost any attempt, and fascinated, in spite of himself, by the diabolical hints of Faringhea, Djalma looked for a second full at Mdlle. de Cardoville; then, with a trembling hand he took the bouquet from Rose-Pompon, and, again looking at Adrienne, pressed it to his lips.
Upon this insolent bravado, Mdlle. de Cardoville could not restrain so sudden and visible a pang, that the prince was struck by it.
"She is yours," said the half-caste, to him. "Did you see, my lord, how she trembled with jealousy? --Only have courage! and she is yours. She will soon prefer you to that handsome young man behind her--for it is he whom she has hitherto fancied herself in love with."
As if the half-caste had guessed the movement of rage and hatred, which this revelation would excite in the heart of the prince, he hastily added: "Calmness and disdain! Is it not his turn now to hate you?"
The prince restrained himself, and drew his hand across his forehead which glowed with anger.
"There now! what are you telling him, that vexes him so?" said Rose Pompon to Faringhea, with pouting lip. Then, addressing Djalma, she continued: "Come, Prince Charming, as they say in the fairy-tale, give me back my flowers."
As she took it again, she added: "You have kissed it, and I could almost eat it." Then, with a sigh, and a passionate glance at Djalma, she said softly to herself: "That monster Ninny Moulin did not deceive me. All this is quite proper; I have not even that to reproach myself with." And with her little white teeth, she bit at a rosy nail of her right hand, from which she had just drawn the glove.
It is hardly necessary to say, that Adrienne's letter had not been delivered to the prince, and that he had not gone to pass the day in the country with Marshal Simon. During the three days in which Montbron had not seen Djalma, Faringhea had persuaded him, that, by affecting another passion, he would bring Mdlle. de Cardoville to terms. With regard to Djalma's presence at the theatre, Rodin had learned from her maid, Florine, that her mistress was to go in the evening to the Porte-Saint Martin. Before Djalma had recognized her, Adrienne, who felt her strength failing her, was on the point of quitting the theatre; the man, whom she had hitherto placed so high, whom she had regarded as a hero and a demi-god and whom she had imagined plunged in such dreadful despair, that, led by the most tender pity, she had written to him with simple frankness, that a sweet hope might calm his grief--replied to a generous mark of sincerity and love, by making himself a ridiculous spectacle with a creature unworthy of him. What incurable wounds for Adrienne's pride! It mattered little, whether Djalma knew or not, that she would be a spectator of the indignity. But when she saw herself recognized by the prince, when he carried the insult so far as to look full at her, and, at the same time, raise to his lips the creature's bouquet who accompanied him, Adrienne was seized with noble indignation, and felt sufficient courage to remain: instead of closing her eyes to evidence, she found a sort of barbarous pleasure in assisting at the agony and death of her pure and divine love. With head erect, proud and flashing eye, flushed cheek, and curling lip, she looked in her turn at the prince with disdainful steadiness. It was with a sardonic smile that she said to the marchioness, who, like many others of the spectators was occupied with what was passing in the stage-box: "This revolting exhibition of savage manners is at least in accordance with the rest of the performance."
"Certainly," said the marchioness; "and my dear uncle will have lost, perhaps, the most amusing part."
"Montbron?" said Adrienne, hastily, with hardly repressed bitterness; "yes, he will regret not having seen all. I am impatient for his arrival. Is it not to him that I am indebted for his charming evening?"
Perhaps Madame de Morinval would have remarked the expression of bitter irony, that Adrienne could not altogether dissemble, if suddenly a hoarse and prolonged roar had net attracted her attention, as well as that of the rest of the audience, who had hitherto been quite indifferent to the scenes intended for an introduction to the appearance of Morok. Every eye was now turned instinctively towards the cavern situated to the left of the stage, just below Mdlle. de Cardoville's box; a thrill of curiosity ran through the house. A second roar, deeper and more sonorous, and apparently expressive of more irritation than the first, now rose from the cave, the mouth of which was half-hidden by artificial brambles, made so as to be easily put on one side. At this sound, the Englishman stood up in his little box, leaned half over the front, and began to rub his hands with great energy; then, remaining perfectly motionless, he fixed his large, green, glittering eyes on the mouth of the cavern.
At these ferocious howlings, Djalma also had started, notwithstanding the frenzy of love, hate, and jealousy, to which he was a prey. The sight of this forest, and the roarings of the panther, filled him with deep emotion, for they recalled the remembrance of his country, and of those great hunts which, like war, have their own terrible excitement. Had he suddenly heard the horns and gongs of his father's army sounding to the charge, he could not have been transported with more savage ardor. And now deep growls, like distant thunder, almost drowned the roar of the panther. The lion and tiger, Judas and Cain answered her from their dens at the back of the stage. On this frightful concert, with which his ears had been familiar in the midst of the solitudes of India, when he lay encamped, for the purposes of the chase or of war, Djalma's blood boiled in his veins. His eyes sparkled with a wild ardor. Leaning a little forward, with both hands pressed on the front of the box, his whole body trembled with a convulsive shudder. The audience, the theatre, Adrienne herself no longer existed for him; he was in a forest of his own lands, tracking the tiger.
Then there mingled with his beauty so intrepid and ferocious an expression, that Rose-Pompon looked at him with a sort of terror and passionate admiration. For the first time in her life, perhaps, her pretty blue eyes, generally so gay and mischievous; expressed a serious emotion. She could not explain what she felt; but her heart seemed frightened, and beat violently, as though some calamity were at hand.
Yielding to a movement of involuntary fear, she seized Djalma by the arm, and said to him: "Do not stare so into that cavern; you frighten me."
Djalma did not hear what she said.
"Here he is! here he is!" murmured the crowd, almost with one voice, as Morok appeared at the back of the stage.
Dressed as we have described, Morok now carried in addition a bow and a long quiver full of arrows. He slowly descended the line of painted rocks, which came sloping down towards the centre of the stage. From time to time, he stopped as if to listen, and appeared to advance with caution. Looking from one side to the other, his eyes involuntarily encountered the large, green eyes of the Englishman, whose box was close to the cavern. Instantly the lion-tamer's countenance was contracted in so frightful a manner, that Lady Morinval, who was examining him closely with the aid of an excellent glass, said hastily to Adrienne: "My dear, the man is afraid. Some misfortune will happen."
"How can accidents happen," said Adrienne, with a sardonic smile, "in the midst of this brilliant crowd, so well dressed and full of animation! Misfortunes here, this evening! why, dear Julia, you do not think it. It is in darkness and solitude that misfortunes come--never in the midst of a joyous crowd, and in all this blaze of light."
"Good gracious, Adrienne! take care!" cried the marchioness, unable to repress an exclamation of alarm, and seizing her arm, as if to draw her closer; "do you not see it?" And with a trembling hand, she pointed to the cavern's mouth. Adrienne hastily bent forward, and looked in that direction. "Take care, do not lean so forward!" exclaimed Lady Morinval.
"Your terrors are nonsensical, my dear," said the marquis to his wife. "The panther is securely chained; and even were it to break its chains (which is impossible), we are here beyond its reach."
A long murmur of trembling curiosity here ran through the house, and every eye was intently fixed on the cavern. From amongst the artificial brambles, which she abruptly pushed aside with her broad chest, the black panther suddenly appeared. Twice she stretched forth her flat head, illumined by yellow, flaming eyes; then, half-opening her blood-red jaws, she uttered another roar, and exhibited two rows of formidable fangs. A double iron chain, and a collar also of iron, painted black, blended with the ebon shades of her hide, and with the darkness of the cavern. The illusion was complete, and the terrible animal seemed to be at liberty in her den.
"Ladies," said the marquis, suddenly, "look at those Indians. Their emotion makes them superb!"
In fact, the sight of the panther had raised the wild ardor of Djalma to its utmost pitch. His eyes sparkled in their pearly orbits like two black diamonds; his upper lip was curled convulsively with an expression of animal ferocity, as if he were in a violent paroxysm of rage.
Faringhea, now leaning on the front of the box, was also greatly excited, by reason of a strange coincidence. "That black panther of so rare a breed," thought he, "which I see here at Paris, upon the stage, must be the very one that the Malay"--the Thug who had tatooed Djalma at Java during his sleep--"took quite young from his den, and sold to a European captain. Bowanee's power is everywhere!" added the Thug, in his sanguinary superstition.
"Do you not think," resumed the marquis, addressing Adrienne, "that those Indians are really splendid in their present attitude?"
"Perhaps they may have seen such a hunt in their own country," said Adrienne, as if she would recall and brave the most cruel remembrances.
"Adrienne," said the marchioness, suddenly, in an agitated voice, "the lion-tamer has now come nearer--is not his countenance fearful to look at? --I tell you he is afraid."
"In truth," observed the marquis, this time very seriously, "he is dreadfully pale, and seems to grow worse every minute, the nearer he approaches this side. It is said that, were he to lose his presence of mind for a single moment, he would run the greatest danger."
"O! it would be horrible!" cried the marchioness, addressing Adrienne, "if he were wounded--there--under our eyes!"
"Every wound does not kill," replied her friend, with an accent of such cold indifference, that the marchioness looked at her with surprise, and said to her: "My dear girl, what you say there is cruel!"
"It is the air of the place that acts on me," answered Adrienne, with an icy smile.
"Look! look! the lion-tamer is about to shoot his arrow at the panther," said the marquis, suddenly. "No doubt, he will next perform the hand to hand grapple."
Morok was at this moment in front of the stage, but he had yet to traverse its entire breadth to reach the cavern's mouth. He stopped an instant, adjusted an arrow to the string, knelt down behind a mass of rock, took deliberate aim--and then the arrow hissed across the stage, and was lost in the depths of the cavern, into which the panther had retired, after showing for a moment her threatening head to the audience. Hardly had the arrow disappeared, than Death, purposely irritated by Goliath (who was invisible) sent forth a howl of rage, as if she had been really wounded. Morok's actions became so expressive, he evinced so naturally his joy at having hit the wild beast, that a tempest of applause burst from every quarter of the house. Then, throwing away his bow, he drew a dagger from his girdle, took it between his teeth, and began to crawl forward on hands and knees, as though he meant to surprise the wounded panther in his den. To render the illusion perfect, Death, again excited by Goliath, who struck him with an iron bar, sent forth frightful howlings from the depths of the cavern.
The gloomy aspect of the forest, only half-lighted with a reddish glare, was so effective--the howlings of the panther were so furious--the gestures, attitude, and countenance of Morok were so expressive of terror, that the audience, attentive and trembling, now maintained a profound silence. Every one held his breath, and a kind of shudder came over the spectators, as though they expected some horrible event. What gave such a fearful air of truth to the pantomime of Morok, was that, as he approached the cavern step by step, he approached also the Englishman's box. In spite of himself, the lion-tamer, fascinated by terror, could not take his eyes from the large green eyes of this man, and it seemed as if every one of the abrupt movements which he made in crawling along, was produced by a species of magnetic attraction, caused by the fixed gaze of the fatal wagerer. Therefore, the nearer Morok approached, the more ghastly and livid he became. At sight of this pantomime, which was no longer acting, but the real expression of intense fear, the deep and trembling silence which had reigned in the theatre was once more interrupted by acclamations, with which were mingled the roarings of the panther, and the distant growls of the lion and tiger.
The Englishman leaned almost out of his box, with a frightful sardonic smile on his lip, and with his large eyes still fixed, panted for breath. The perspiration ran down his bald red forehead, as if he had really expended an incredible amount of magnetic power in attracting Morok, whom he now saw close to the cavern entrance. The moment was decisive. Crouching down with his dagger in his hand, following with eye and gesture Death's every movement, who, roaring furiously, and opening wide her enormous jaws, seemed determined to guard the entrance of her den, Morok waited for the moment to rush upon her. There is such fascination in danger, that Adrienne shared, in spite of herself, the feeling of painful curiosity, mixed with terror, that thrilled through all the spectators. Leaning forward like the marchioness, and gazing upon this scene of fearful interest, the lady still held mechanically in her hand the Indian bouquet preserved since the morning. Suddenly, Morok raised a wild shout, as he rushed towards Death, who answered this exclamation by a dreadful roar, and threw herself upon her master with so much fury, that Adrienne, in alarm, believing the man lost, drew herself back, and covered her fact with her hands. Her flowers slipped from her grasp, and, falling upon the stage, rolled into the cavern in which Morok was struggling with the panther.
Quick as lightning, supple and agile as a tiger, yielding to the intoxication of his love, and to the wild ardor excited in him by the roaring of the panther, Djalma sprang at one bound upon the stage, drew his dagger, and rushed into the cavern to recover Adrienne's nosegay. At that instant, Morok, being wounded, uttered a dreadful cry for help; the panther, rendered still more furious at sight of Djalma, make the most desperate efforts to break her chain. Unable to succeed in doing so, she rose upon her hind legs, in order to seize Djalma, then within reach of her sharp claws. It was only by bending down his head, throwing himself on his knees, and twice plunging his dagger into her belly with the rapidity of lightning, that Djalma escaped certain death. The panther gave a howl, and fell with her whole weight upon the prince. For a second, during which lasted her terrible agony, nothing was seen but a confused and convulsive mass of black limbs, and white garments stained with blood--and then Djalma rose, pale, bleeding, for he was wounded--and standing erect, his eye flashing with savage pride, his foot on the body of the panther, he held in his hand Adrienne's bouquet, and cast towards her a glance which told the intensity of his love. Then only did Adrienne feel her strength fail her--for only superhuman courage had enabled her to watch all the terrible incidents of the struggle.
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{
"id": "3346"
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1
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None
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In another minute the Kaiser Wilhelm would push off from her pier in Hoboken. The last bell had rung, the last uniformed officer and white-jacketed steward had scurried up the gangway. The pier was massed with people who had come to bid their friends good-by. They were all Germans, and there had been unlimited embracing and kissing and sobs of "Ach! mein lieber Sckatz!" and "Gott bewahre Dick!"
Now they stood looking up to the crowded decks, shouting out last fond words. A band playing "The Merry Maiden and the Tar" marched on board.
The passengers pressed against the rails, looking down. Almost every one held flowers which had been brought to them: not costly bouquets, but homely bunches of marigolds or pinks. They carried, too, little German or American flags, which they waved frantically.
The gangways fell, and the huge ship parted from the dock. It was but an inch, but the whole ocean yawned in it between those who went and those who stayed. There was a sudden silence; a thousand handkerchiefs fluttered white on the pier and the flags and flowers were waved on the ship, but there was not a cry nor a sound.
James Perry, one of the dozen Americans on board, was leaning over the rail watching it all with an amused smile. "Hello, Watts!" he called, as another young man joined him. "Going over? Quite dramatic, isn't it? It might be a German ship going out of a German port. The other liners set off in as commonplace a way as a Jersey City ferryboat, but these North German Lloyd ships always sail with a certain ceremony and solemnity. I like it."
"I always cross on them," said Dr. Watts. "I have but a month's vacation--two weeks on board ship, two on land. Now you, I suppose, don't have to count your days? You cross every year. I can't see, for my part, what business the assistant editor of a magazine has abroad."
"Oh, we make a specialty of articles from notorieties over there; statesmen, scientific fellows, or people with titles. I expect to capture a paper from Lorne and some sketches by the Princess Beatrice this time."
"Lorne? It throws you into contact with that sort of folk, eh?" said the doctor, looking at him enviously. "How do they strike you, Jem?"
"Well," said Perry importantly, "well-bred people are the same the world over. I only see them in a business way, of course, but one can judge. Their voices are better than ours, but as to looks--no! It's queer, but American women--the wives and daughters of saddlers or farmers, perhaps--have more often the patrician look than English duchesses. Now there, for example," warming to the subject, "that woman to whom you bowed just now, the middle-aged one in blue cloth. Some Mrs. Smith or Pratt, probably. A homely woman, but there is a distinction in her face, a certain surety of good breeding, which is lacking in the heavy-jawed English royalties."
"Yes; that is a friend of mine," said Watts.
"She is a Mrs. Waldeaux from Wier, in Delaware. You could hardly call her a typical American woman. Old French emigre family. Probably better blood than the Coburgs a few generations back. That priggish young fellow is her son. Going to be an Episcopalian minister."
Mr. Perry surveyed his friend's friends good-humoredly. "Brand new rugs and cushions," he said. "First voyage. Heavens! I wish it were my first voyage, and that I had their appetite for Europe."
"You might as well ask for your relish of the bread and butter of your youth," said Watts.
The two men leaned lazily against the bulwark watching the other passengers who were squabbling about trunks.
Mr. Perry suddenly stood upright as a group of women passed.
"Do you know who that girl is?" he said eagerly. "The one who looked back at us over her shoulder."
"No. They are only a lot of school-girls, personally conducted. That is the teacher in front." "Of course, I see that. But the short, dark one--surely I know that woman."
The doctor looked after her. "She looks like a dog turning into a human being," he said leisurely. "One often sees such cases of arrested evolution. D'ye see? Thick lips, coarse curls, flat nostrils----" Perry laughed. "The eyes, anyhow, are quite human," he said. "They challenge the whole world of men. I can't place her!" staring after her, perplexed. "I really don't believe I ever saw her before. Yet her face brings up some old story of a tragedy or crime to me."
"Nonsense! The girl is not twenty. Very fetching with all her vulgarity, though. Steward, send some coffee to my stateroom. Let's go down, Jem. The fog is too chilly."
Frances Waldeaux did not find the fog chilly. She had been thinking for thirty years of the day when she should start to Europe--ever since she could think at all.
This was the day. It was like no other, now that it had come. The fog, the crowd, the greasy smells of the pier, all familiar enough yesterday, took on a certain remoteness and mystery. It seemed to her that she was doing something which nobody had ever done before. She was going to discover the Old World.
The New was not more tremendous or unreal before the eyes of Columbus when he, too, stood on the poop of his ship.
Her son was arguing with the deck steward about chairs.
"Now, mother," he said at last, "it's all right. They are under cover so that the glare will not strain your eyes, and we can keep dry while we watch the storms."
"How did you know about it all? One would think you had crossed a dozen times, George."
"Oh, I've studied the whole thing up thoroughly," George said, with a satisfied little nod. "I've had time enough! Why, when I was in petticoats you used to tell me you would buy a ship and we would sail away together. You used to spoil all my school maps with red lines, drawing our routes."
"Yes. And now we're going!" said Frances to herself.
He sat down beside her and they watched the unending procession of passengers marching around the deck. George called her attention by a wink to any picturesque or queer figure that passed. He liked to watch her quiet brown eyes gleam with fun. Nobody had such a keen sense of the ridiculous as his mother. Sometimes, at the mere remembrance of some absurd idea, she would go off into soft silent paroxysms of laughter until the tears would stream down her cheeks.
George was fond and proud of his childish little mother. He had never known any body, he thought, so young or so transparent. It was easily understood. She had married at sixteen, and had been left a widow little more than a year afterward. "And I," he used to think, "was born with an old head on my shoulders; so we have grown up together. I suppose the dear soul never had a thought in her life which she has not told me."
As they sat together a steward brought Mrs. Waldeaux a note, which she read, blushing and smiling.
"The captain invites us to sit at his table," she said, when the man was gone.
"Very proper in the captain," said George complacently. "You see, Madam Waldeaux, even the men who go down in ships have heard of you and your family!"
"I don't believe the captain ever heard of me," she said, after a grave consideration, "nor of the Waldeaux. It is much more likely that he has read your article in the Quarterly, George."
"Nonsense!" But he stiffened himself up consciously.
He had sent a paper on some abstruse point of sociology to the Quarterly last spring, and it had aroused quite a little buzz of criticism. His mother had regarded it very much as the Duchess of Kent did the crown when it was set upon her little girl's head. She always had known that her child was born to reign, but it was satisfactory to see this visible sign of it.
She whispered now, eagerly leaning over to him. "There was something about that paper which I never told you. I think I'll tell you now that the great day has come."
"Well?"
"Why, you know--I never think of you as my son, or a man, or anything outside of me--not at all. You are just ME, doing the things I should have done if I had not been a woman. Well,"--she drew her breath quickly,--"when I was a girl it seemed as if there was something in me that I must say, so I tried to write poems. No, I never told you before. It had counted for so much to me I could not talk of it. I always sent them to the paper anonymously, signed 'Sidney.' Oh, it was long--long ago! I've been dumb, as you might say, for years. But when I read your article, George--do you know if I had written it I should have used just the phrases you did? And you signed it 'Sidney'!" She watched him breathlessly. "That was more than a coincidence, don't you think? I AM dumb, but you speak for me now. It is because we are just one. Don't you think so, George?" She held his arm tightly.
Young Waldeaux burst into a loud laugh. Then he took her hand in his, stroking it. "You dear little woman! What do you know of sociology?" he said, and then walked away to hide his amusement, muttering "Poems? Great Heavens!"
Frances looked after him steadily. "Oh, well!" she said to herself presently.
She forced her mind back to the Quarterly article. It was a beginning of just the kind of triumph that she always had expected for him. He would soon be recognized by scientific men all over the world as their confrere, especially after his year's study at Oxford.
When George was in his cradle she had planned that he should be a clergyman, just as she had planned that he should be a well-bred man, and she had fitted him for both roles in life, and urged him into them by the same unceasing soft pats and pushes. She would be delighted when she saw him in white robes serving at the altar.
Not that Frances had ever taken her religion quite seriously. It was like her gowns, or her education, a matter of course; a trustworthy, agreeable part of her. She had never once in her life shuddered at a glimpse of any vice in herself, or cried to God in agony, even to grant her a wish.
But she knew that Robert Waldeaux's son would be safer in the pulpit. He could take rank with scholars there, too.
She inspected him now anxiously, trying to see him with the eyes of these Oxford magnates. Nobody would guess that he was only twenty-two. The bald spot on his crown and the spectacles gave him a scholastic air, and the finely cut features and a cold aloofness in his manner spoke plainly, she thought, of his good descent and high pursuits.
Frances herself had a drop of vagabond blood which found comrades for her among every class and color. But there was not an atom of the tramp in her son's well-built and fashionably clothed body. He never had had a single intimate friend even when he was a boy. "He will probably find his companions among the great English scholars," she thought complacently. Of course she would always be his only comrade, his chum. She continually met and parted with thousands of people--they came and went. "But George and I will be together for all time," she told herself.
He came up presently and sat down beside her, with an anxious, apologetic air. It hurt him to think that he had laughed at her. "That dark haze is the Jersey shore," he said. "How dim it grows! Well, we are really out now in the big world! It is so good to be alone there with you," he added, touching her arm affectionately. "Those cynical old-men-boys at Harvard bored me."
"I don't bore you, then, George?"
"You!" He was very anxious to make her forget his roughness. "Apart from my affection for you, mother," he said judicially, "I LIKE you. I approve of you as I never probably shall approve of another woman. Your peculiarities--the way your brown hair ripples back into that knot "--surveying her critically. "And the way you always look as if you had just come out of a bath, even on a grimy train; and your gowns, so simple--and rich. I confess," he said gravely, "I can't always follow your unsteady little ideas when you talk. They frisk about so. It is the difference probably between the man's mind and the woman's. Besides, we have been separated for so many years! But I soon will understand you. I know that while you keep yourself apart from all the world you open your heart to me."
"Wrap the rug about my feet, George," she said hastily, and then sent him away upon an errand, looking after him uneasily.
It was very pleasant to hear her boy thus formally sum up his opinion of her. But when he found that it was based upon a lie?
For Frances, candid enough to the world, had deceived her son ever since he was born.
George had always believed that she had inherited a fortune from his father. It gave solidity and comfort to his life to think of her in the stately old mansion on the shores of Delaware Bay, with nothing to do except to be beautiful and gracious, as befitted a well-born woman. It pleased him, in a lofty, generous way, that his father (whom she had taught him to reverence as the most chivalric of gentlemen) had left him wholly dependent upon her. It was a legal fiction, of course. He was the heir--the crown prince. He had always been liberally supplied with money at school and at Harvard. Her income was large. No doubt the dear soul mismanaged the estates fearfully, but now he would have leisure to take care of them.
Now, the fact was that Colonel Waldeaux had been a drunken spendthrift who had left nothing. The house and farm always had belonged to his wife. She had supported George by her own work all of his life. She could not save money, but she had the rarer faculty of making it. She had raised fine fruit and flowers for the Philadelphia market; she had traded in high breeds of poultry and cattle, and had invested her earnings shrewdly. With these successes she had been able to provide George with money to spend freely at college. She lived scantily at home, never expecting any luxury or great pleasure to come into her own life.
But two years ago a queer thing had happened to her. In an idle hour she wrote a comical squib and sent it to a New York paper. As everybody knows, fun, even vulgar fun, sells high in the market. Her fun was not vulgar, but coarse and biting enough to tickle the ears of the common reader. The editor offered her a salary equal to her whole income for a weekly column of such fooling.
She had hoarded every penny of this money. With it she meant to pay her expenses in Europe and to support George in his year at Oxford. The work and the salary were to go on while she was gone.
It was easy enough to hide all of these things from her son while he was in Cambridge and she in Delaware. But now? What if he should find out that his mother was the "Quigg" of the New York ----, a paper which he declared to be unfit for a gentleman to read?
She was looking out to sea and thinking of this when her cousin, Miss Vance, came up to her. Miss Vance was a fashionable teacher in New York, who was going to spend a year abroad with two wealthy pupils. She was a thin woman, quietly dressed; white hair and black brows, with gold eye-glasses bridging an aquiline nose, gave her a commanding, inquisitorial air.
"Well, Frances!" she began briskly, "I have not had time before to attend to you. Are your bags hung in your stateroom?"
"I haven't been down yet," said Mrs. Waldeaux meekly. "We were watching the fog in the sun."
"Fog! Mercy on me! You know you may be ill any minute, and your room not ready! Of course, you did not take the bromides that I sent you a week ago?
"No, Clara."
Miss Vance glanced at her. "Well, just as you please. I've done what I could. Let me look at your itinerary. You will be too ill for me to advise you about it later."
"Oh, we made none!" said George gayly, coming up to his mother's aid. "We are going to be vagabonds, and have no plans. Mother's soul draws us to York Cathedral, and mine to the National Gallery. That is all we know."
"I thought you had given up that whim of being an artist?" said Miss Vance, sharply facing on him.
Young Waldeaux reddened. "Yes, I have given it up. I know as well as you do that I have no talent. I am going to study my profession at Oxford, and earn my bread by it."
"Quite right. You never would earn it by art," she said decisively. "How long do you stay in York, Frances?"
"Oh, a day, or a month--or--years, as we please," said Frances, lazily turning her head away. She wanted to set Clara Vance down in her proper place. Mrs. Waldeaux abhorred cousinly intimates--people who run into your back door to pry into the state of your larder or your income. But Miss Vance, as Frances knew, unfortunately held a key to her back door. She knew of George's wretched daubs, and his insane desire, when he was a boy, to study art. He gave it up years ago. Why should she nag him now about it? By virtue of her relationship she knew, too, all of Mrs. Waldeaux's secrets. It was most unfortunate that she should have chosen to sail on this vessel.
"Well, mother," George said, uneasy to get away, "no doubt Miss Vance is right. We should set things in order. I am going now to give my letter of credit to the purser to lock up; shall I take yours?"
Mrs. Waldeaux did not reply at once. "No," she said at last. "I like to carry my own purse."
He smiled indulgently as on a child. "Of course, dear. It IS your own. My father was wise in that. But, on this journey, I can act as your paymaster, can't I? I have studied foreign money----" "We shall see. I can keep it as safe as any purser now," she said, obstinately shaking her head.
He laughed and walked away.
"You have not told him, then?" demanded Clara.
"No. And I never will. I will not hurt the boy by letting him know that his mother has supported him, and remember, Clara, that he can only hear it through you. Nobody knows that I am 'Quigg' but you."
Miss Vance lifted her eyebrows. "Nothing can need a lie," she quoted calmly. Presently she said earnestly, "Frances, you are making a mistake. Somebody ought to tell you the truth. There is no reason why your whole being should be buried in that man. He should stand on his own feet, now. You can be all that he needs as a mother, and yet live out your own life. It is broader than his will ever be. At your age, and with your capabilities, you should marry again. Think of the many long years that are before you."
"I have thought of them," said Mrs. Waldeaux slowly. "I have had lovers who came close to me as friends, but I never for a moment was tempted to marry one of them. No, Clara. When the devil drove my father to hand me over--innocent child as I was--to a man like Robert Waldeaux, he killed in me the capacity for that kind of love. It is not in me." She turned her strenuous face to the sea and was silent. "It is not in me," she repeated after a while. "I have but one feeling, and that is for my boy. It is growing on me absurdly, too." She laughed nervously. "I used to be conscious of other people in the world, but now, if I see a boy or man, I see only what George was or will be at his age; if I read a book, it only suggests what George will say of it. I am like one of those plants that have lost their own sap and color, and suck in their life from another. It scares me sometimes."
Miss Vance smiled with polite contempt. No doubt Frances had a shrewd business faculty, but in other matters she was not ten years old.
"And George will marry some time," she said curtly.
"Oh, I hope so! And soon. Then I shall have a daughter. I know just the kind of a wife George will choose," she chattered on eagerly. "I understand him so thoroughly that I can understand her. But where could he find her? He is so absurdly fastidious!"
Miss Vance was silent and thoughtful a moment. Then she came closer. "I will tell you where to find her," she said, in a low voice. "I have thought of it for a long time. It seems to me that Providence actually made Lucy Dunbar for George."
"Really?" Mrs. Waldeaux drew her self up stiffly.
"Wait, Frances. Lucy has been with me for three years. I know her. She is a sincere, modest, happy little thing. Not too clever. She is an heiress, too. And her family is good; and all underground, which is another advantage. You can mould her as you choose. She loves you already."
"Or is it that she----?"
"You have no right to ask that!" said Miss Vance quickly.
"No, I am ashamed of myself." Mrs. Waldeaux reddened.
A group of girls came up the deck. Both women scanned the foremost one critically. "I like that wholesome, candid look of her," said Miss Vance.
"Oh, she is well enough," said Frances. "But I am sure George does not like yellow hair. Nothing but an absolutely beautiful woman will attract him."
"An artist," said Miss Vance hastily, "would tell you her features were perfect. And her flesh tints----" "For Heaven's sake, Clara, don't dissect the child. Who is that girl with the red cravat? Your maid?"
"It is not a cravat, it's an Indian scarf. If it only were clean----" Miss Vance looked uneasy and perplexed. "She is not my maid. She is Fraulein Arpent. The Ewalts brought her as governess from Paris, don't you remember? They sent the girls to Bryn Mawr last week and turned her adrift, almost penniless. She wished to go back to France. I engaged her as assistant chaperone for the season."
Mrs. Waldeaux's eyebrows went up significantly. She never commented in words on the affairs of others, but her face always was indiscreet. George, who had come up in time to hear the last words, was not so scrupulous. He surveyed the young woman through his spectacles as she passed again, with cold disapproval.
"French or German?" he asked.
"I really don't know. She has a singular facility in tongues," said Miss Vance.
"Well, that is not the companion _I_ should have chosen for those innocent little girls," he said authoritatively, glad to be disagreeable to his cousin. "She looks like a hawk among doves."
"The woman is harmless enough," said Miss Vance tartly. "She speaks exquisite French."
"But what does she say in it?" persisted George. "She is vulgar from her red pompon to her boots. She has the swagger of a soubrette and she has left a trail of perfume behind her--pah! I confess I am surprised at you, Miss Vance. You do not often slip in your judgment."
"Don't make yourself unpleasant, George," said his mother gently. Miss Vance smiled icily, and as the girls came near again, stopped them and stood talking to Mlle. Arpent with an aggressive show of familiarity.
"Why do you worry Clara?" said Mrs. Waldeaux. "She knows she has made a mistake. What do you think of that little blonde girl?" she asked presently, watching him anxiously. "She has remarkable beauty, certainly; but there is something finical--precise----" "Take care. She will hear you," said George. "Beauty, eh? Oh, I don't know," indifferently. "She is passably pretty. I have never seen a woman yet whose beauty satisfied ME."
Mrs. Waldeaux leaned back with a comfortable little laugh. "But you must not be so hard to please, my son. You must bring me my daughter soon," she said.
"Not very soon. I have some thing else to think of than marriage for the next ten years."
Just then Dr. Watts came up and asked leave to present his friend Perry. The doctor, like all young men who knew Mrs. Waldeaux, had succumbed to her peculiar charm, which was only that of a woman past her youth who had strong personal magnetism and not a spark of coquetry. George's friends all were sure that they would fall in love with a woman just like her--but not a man of them ever thought of falling in love with her.
Young Perry, in twenty minutes, decided that she was the most brilliant and agreeable of companions. He had talked, and she had spoken only with her listening, sympathetic eyes. He was always apt to be voluble. On this occasion he was too voluble. "You are from Weir, I think, in Delaware, Mrs. Waldeaux?" he asked. "I must have seen the name of the town with yours on the list of passengers, for the story of a woman who once lived there has been haunting me all day. I have not seen nor thought of her for years, and I could not account for my sudden remembrance of her."
"Who was she?" asked George, trying to save his mother from Perry, who threatened to be a bore.
"Her name was Pauline Felix. You have heard her story, Mrs. Waldeaux?"
"Yes" said Frances coldly. "I have heard her story. Can you find my shawl, George?"
But Perry was conscious of no rebuff, and turned cheerfully to George. "It was one of those dramas of real life, too unlikely to put into a novel. She was the daughter of a poor clergyman in Weir, a devout, good man, I believe. She had marvellous beauty and a devilish disposition. She ran away, lived a wild life in Paris, and became the mistress of a Russian Grand Duke. Her death----" He could not have told why he stopped. Mrs. Waldeaux still watched him, attentive, but the sympathetic smile had frozen into icy civility. She had the old-fashioned modesty of her generation. What right had this young man to speak of "mistresses" to her? Clara's girls within hearing too! She rose when he paused, bowed, and hurried to them, like a hen fluttering to protect her chicks.
"He was talking to me of a woman," she said excitedly to Clara, "who is never mentioned by decent people."
"Yes, I heard him," said Miss Vance. "Poor Pauline! Her career was always a mystery to me. I was at school with her, and she was the most generous, lovable girl! Yet she came to a wretched end," turning to her flock, her tone growing didactic. "One is never safe, you see. One must always be on guard."
"Oh, my dear!" cried Frances impatiently. "You surely don't mean to class these girls and me with Pauline Felix! Come, come!"
"None of us is safe," repeated Clara stiffly. "Somebody says there is a possible vice in the purest soul, and it may lie perdu there until old age. But it will break out some day."
Mrs. Waldeaux looked, laughing, at the eager, blushing faces around her. "It is not likely to break out in us, girls, eh! Really, Clara," she said, in a lower tone, "that seems to me like wasted morality. Women of our class are in no more danger of temptation to commit great crimes than they are of finding tigers in their drawing-rooms. Pauline Felix was born vicious. No woman could fall as she did, who was not rotten to the core."
A sudden shrill laugh burst from the French woman, who had been looking at Mrs. Waldeaux with insolent, bold eyes. But as she laughed, her head fell forward and she swung from side to side.
"It is nothing," she cried, "I am only a little faint. I must go below."
The ship was now crossing short, choppy waves. The passengers scattered rapidly. George took his mother to her stateroom, and there she stayed until land was sighted on the Irish coast. Clara and her companions also were forced to keep to their berths.
During the speechless misery of the first days Mrs. Waldeaux was conscious that George was hanging over her, tender as a mother with a baby. She commanded him to stay on deck, for each day she saw that he, too, grew more haggard. "Let me fight it out alone," she would beg of him. "My worst trouble is that I cannot take care of you."
He obeyed her at last, and would come down but once during the day, and then for only a few hurried minutes. His mother was alarmed at the ghastliness of his face and the expression of anxious wretchedness new to it. "His eye avoids mine craftily, like that of an insane man," she told herself, and when the doctor came, she asked him whether sea-sickness affected the brain.
On the last day of the voyage the breeze was from land, and with the first breath of it Frances found her vigor suddenly return. She rose and dressed herself. George had not been near her that day. "He must be very ill," she thought, and hurried out. "Is Mr. Waldeaux in his stateroom?" she asked the steward.
"No, madam. He is on deck. All the passengers are on deck," the man added, smiling. "Land is in sight."
Land! And George had not come to tell her! He must be desperately ill!
She groped up the steps, holding by the brass rail. "I will give him a fine surprise!" she said to herself. "I can take care of him, now. To-night we shall be on shore and this misery all over. And then the great joy will begin!"
She came out on deck. The sunshine and cold pure wind met her. She looked along the crowded deck for her invalid. Every-body was in holiday clothes, every-body was smiling and talking at once. Ah! there he was!
He was leaning over Frances' steamer chair, on which a woman lay indolently. He was in rude health, laughing, his face flushed, his eyes sparkling.
Looking up, he saw his mother and came hastily to meet her. The laugh was gone. "So you came up?" he said impatiently. "I would have called you in time. I---- Mother!" He caught her by the arm. "Wait, I must see you alone for a minute." Urged by the amazed fright in her face, he went on desperately, "I have something to tell you. I intended to break it to you. I don't want to hurt you, God knows. But I have not been idle in these days. I have found your daughter. She is here."
He led her up to the chair. The girl's head was wrapped in a veil and turned from her.
Mrs. Waldeaux held out her hands. "Lucy! Lucy Dunbar!" she heard herself say.
"Mais non! Cest moi!" said a shrill voice, and Mlle. Arpent, turning her head lazily, looked at her, smiling.
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{
"id": "335"
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Clara Vance had her faults, but nobody could deny that, in this crisis, she acted with feeling and tact. She ignored mademoiselle and her lover, whose bliss was in evidence on deck all day, and took possession of Mrs. Waldeaux, caring for her as tenderly as if she had been some poor wretch sentenced to death. "She has no intellect left except her ideas about George," she told herself, "and if he turns his back on her for life in this way---- She never was too sane!" shaking her head ominously.
She thought it best to talk frankly of the matter to little Lucy Dunbar, and was relieved to find her ready to joke and laugh at it. "No bruise in that tender heart!" thought Clara, who was anxious as a mother for her girls.
"We all worshipped Mr. George," said Lucy saucily. "I, most of all. He is so cold, so exalted and ah--h, so good-looking! Like a Greek god. But he never gave a look to poor little me! The fraulein came on deck as soon as we all went down with sea-sickness, and bewitched him with her eyes. It must have been her eyes; they are yellow--witch's eyes. Or maybe that cheap smell about her is a love-philter! Or was it just soul calling to soul? I should have said the fraulein had the soul of a milliner. She put great ideas into the hat that she altered for me," Lucy added, with an unsteady laugh.
"I care nothing for them or their souls," said Miss Vance crossly. "It is his mother that I think of."
"But really," said Lucy, "mademoiselle is quite raw material. No ideas--no manners whatever. Mrs. Waldeaux may mould her into something good and fine."
"She will not try. She will never accept that creature as a daughter."
"She seems to me to be indifferent," said Lucy. "She does not see how terrible it is. She was leaning over the bulwark just now, laughing at the queer gossoons selling their shillalahs."
"Oh, she will laugh at Death himself when he comes to fetch her, and see something 'queer'in him," said Clara.
But her little confidence with Lucy had relieved her. The child cared nothing for George, that was plain.
Mademoiselle, watching Mrs. Waldeaux closely all day, was not deceived by her laugh. "The old lady, your mother," she said to George, "is what you men call 'game.' She has blood and breeding. More than you, monsieur. That keeps her up. I did not count on that," said the young woman thoughtfully.
George took off his glasses and rubbed them nervously as he talked. "I don't understand my mother at all! She has always been very considerate and kind. I never thought that she would receive my wife, when I brought her to her, with calm civility. Not a kiss nor a blessing!"
"A kiss? A blessing for me?" Lisa laughed and nodded meaningly to the sea and world at large. "She could hardly have blessed a woman lolling full length in her chair," she thought. "It IS her chair. And I have unseated her for life curling herself up in the rugs."
Yet she had a twinge of pity for the old lady. Even the wild boar has its affections and moments of gentleness. A week ago Lisa could have trampled the life out of this woman who had slandered her dead mother, with the fury of any wild beast. For she was Pauline Felix's daughter. It was her mother's name that Mrs. Waldeaux had said could not be spoken by any decent woman. Lisa had been but a child, but she had held her mother's head close to her stout little heart as she lay dying--that awful mysterious death of which the young man had tried to make a telling story. The girl crossed herself now and closed her tired eyes as she thought of it. She had been a wicked child and a wicked woman, but she knew certainly that the Virgin and her Son had come near to her that day, and had helped her.
George, who was poring fondly on her face, exclaimed: "Your eyes are wet. You are in trouble!"
"I was thinking of my mother," she said gently, holding out her hand to him.
He took it and said presently, "Will you not talk to me about her, Lisa? You have not told me any thing of your people, my darling. Nor of yourself. Why, I don't even know whether you are French or German."
"Oh, you shall hear the whole story when we are married," she replied softly, a wicked glitter in her eyes. "Some of the noblest blood in Europe is in my veins. I will give you my genealogical tree to hang up in that old homestead of yours. It will interest the people of Weir--and please your mother."
"It is good in you to think of her," he said, tenderly looking down at her.
He was not blind. He saw the muddy skin, the thick lips, the soiled, ragged lace. They would have disgusted him in another woman.
But this was--Lisa. There was no more to be said.
These outside trifles would fall off when she came into his life. Even with them she was the breath and soul of it.
She saw the difference between them more sharply than he did. She had been cast for a low part in the play, and knew it. Sometimes she had earned the food which kept her alive in ways of which this untempted young priest had never even heard. There was something in this clean past of his, in his cold patrician face and luxurious habits new to her, and she had a greedy relish for it all.
She had been loved before, caressed as men caress a dog, kicking it off when it becomes troublesome. George's boyish shyness, his reverent awe of her, startled her.
"He thinks Lisa Arpent a jeune fille--like these others. A little white rose!" she thought, and laughed. She would not tell him why she laughed, and muttered an oath when he stupidly insisted on knowing.
He was the first lover who had ever believed in her.
She had begun this affair simply to punish the "old woman"; the man in it had counted for nothing. But now, as they crossed the gangway, she looked up at him with eyes that for the moment were honest and true as a child's, and her firm hand suddenly trembled in his.
Three weeks later Mrs. Waldeaux came into Miss Vance's little parlor on Half Moon Street. Her face was red from the wind, her eyes sparkled, and she hummed some gay air which an organ ground outside. Clara laid down her pen.
"Where have you been, Frances? It is a week since I saw you."
"Oh, everywhere! George has been showing me London!" She sat down before the fire with a gurgle of comfort and dropped her bonnet and gloves on the floor beside her. "Yesterday we spent at the Museum. George explained the Elgin marbles to me. I don't suppose any body in London has studied their history so thoroughly. I did wish you could have heard him. And the day before I was at the House--in the ladies' gallery. I can't imagine how he got admission for me. He IS so clever!"
"We are going down to Canterbury for a couple of days," said Clara. "We start at noon. Will you go with us?"
"No, I think not. George does not seem to care for cathedrals. And he has plans for me, no doubt."
Miss Vance brushed the bonnet and carefully rolled up the strings. "Are you satisfied? Is London the London you have been thinking of these twenty years?" she asked.
"Oh, a thousand times more! And George has been with me every day--every day!"
Miss Vance picked up the gloves, looking impatiently at the poor lady's happy face. "Now she has gone off into one of her silly transports of delight, and for no earthly reason!"
"I noticed that George has seen very little of Lisa lately," she said tentatively. "If he really means to marry her----" "Marry her! Clara! You surely never feared THAT?"
"He certainly told us plainly enough that he would do it," said Miss Vance testily.
"Oh, you don't understand him! You have had so little to do with young men. They are all liable to attacks like that--as to measles and scarlet fever. But they pass off. Now, George is not as susceptible as most of them. But," lowering her voice, "he was madly in love with the butcher's Kate when he was ten, and five years afterward offered to marry the widow Potts. I thought he had outgrown the disease. There has been nothing of the kind since, until this fancy. It is passing off. Of course it is mortifying enough to think that such a poor creature as that could attract him for an hour."
"I was to blame," Miss Vance said, with an effort. "I brought her in his way. But how was I to know that she was such a cat, and he such---- If he should marry her----" Mrs. Waldeaux laughed angrily. "You are too absurd, Clara. A flirtation with such a woman was degrading enough, but George is not quite mad. He has not even spoken of her for days. Oh, here he comes! That is his step on the stairs." She ran to the door. "He found that I was out and has followed me. He is the most ridiculous mother's boy! Well, George, here I am! Have you thought of some thing new for me to see?" She glanced at Miss Vance, well pleased that she should see the lad's foolish fondness for her.
George forced a smile. He looked worn and jaded. Miss Vance noticed that his usually neat cravat was awry and his hands were gloveless. "Yes," he said. "It is a little church. The oldest in London. I want to show it to you."
Miss Vance tied on Mrs. Waldeaux's bonnet, smoothing her hair affectionately. "There are too many gray hairs here for your age, Frances," she said. "George, you should keep your mother from worry and work. Don't let her hair grow gray so soon."
George bowed. "I hope I shall do my duty," he said, with dignity. "Come, mother."
As they drove down Piccadilly Mrs. Waldeaux chattered eagerly to her son. She could not pour out her teeming fancies about this new world to any body else, but she could not talk fast enough to him. Had they not both been waiting for a lifetime to see this London?
"The thing," she said earnestly, as she settled herself beside him, "the thing that has impressed me most, I think, were those great Ninevite gods yesterday. I sat for hours before them while you were gone. There they sit, their hands on their knees, and stare out of their awful silence at the London fog, just as they stared at the desert before Christ was born. I felt so miserably young and sham!"
George adjusted his cravat impatiently. "I'm afraid I don't quite follow you, mother. These little flights of yours---- They belong to your generation, I suppose. It was a more sentimental one than mine. You are not very young. And you certainly are not a sham. The statues are interesting, but I fail to see why they should have had such an effect upon you."
"Oh!" said Frances. "But you did not stay alone with them as long as I did, or you would have felt it too. Now I am sure that the debates in Parliament impressed you just as they did me?"
George said nothing, but she went on eagerly. It never occurred to her that he could be bored by her impressions in these greatest days of her life. "To see a half-dozen well-groomed young men settle the affairs of India and Australia in a short, indifferent colloquy! How shy and awkward they were, too! They actually stuttered out their sentences in their fear of posing or seeming pretentious. So English! Don't you think it was very English, George?"
"I really did not think about it at all. I have had very different things to occupy me," said George, coldly superior to all mothers and Parliaments. "This is the church."
The cab stopped before an iron door between two shops in the most thronged part of Bishopsgate Street. He pushed it open, and they passed suddenly out of the hurrying crowd into the solemn silence of an ancient dingy building. A dim light fell through a noble window of the thirteenth century upon cheap wooden pews. The church was empty, and had that curious significance and half-spoken message of its own which belongs to a vacant house.
"I remember," whispered Frances, awestruck. "This was built by the first Christian convert, St. Ethelburga."
"You believe every thing, mother!" said George irritably. She wandered about, looking at the sombre walls and inscriptions, and then back uneasily, to his moody face.
Suddenly she came up to him as he stood leaning against a pillar. "Something has happened!" she said. "You did not bring me here to look at the church. You have something to tell me."
The young man looked at her and turned away. "Yes, I have. It isn't a death," he said, with a nervous laugh. "You need not look in that way. It is--something very different. I--I was married in this church yesterday to Lisa Arpent."
Frances did not at first comprehend the great disaster that bulked black across her whole life, but, woman-like, grasped at a fragment of it.
"You were married and I was not there! Yesterday! My boy was married and he forgot me!"
"Mother! Don't look like that! Here, sit down," grabbing her helplessly by the arms. "I didn't want to hurt you. I brought you here to tell you quietly. Cry! Why don't you cry if you're worried! Oh! I believe she's dying!" he shouted, staring around the empty church.
She spoke at last.
"You were married and I couldn't say God bless you! You forgot me! I never forgot you, George, for one minute since you were born."
"Mother, what fool talk is that? I only didn't want a scene. I kept away from Lisa for weeks so as not to vex you. Forget you! I think I have been very considerate of you under the circumstances. You have a dislike to Lisa, a most groundless dislike----" "Oh, what is Lisa?" said Frances haughtily. "It is that you have turned away from me. She has nothing to do with the relation between you and me. How can any woman come between me and my son?" She held up her hands. "Why, you are my boy, Georgy. You are all I have!"
He looked at the face, curiously pinched and drawn as if by death, that was turned up to his, and shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "Now this is exactly what I tried to escape yesterday. Am I never to be a man, nor have the rights of a man? You must accept the situation, mother. Lisa is my wife, and dearer to me than all the world beside."
He saw her lips move. "Dearer? Dearer than me!" She sat quite still after that, and did not seem to hear when he spoke. Something in her silence frightened him. She certainly had been a fond, indulgent mother, and he perhaps had been abrupt in cutting the tie between them. It must be cut. He had promised Lisa the whole matter should be settled to-day. But his mother certainly was a weak woman, and he must be patient with her. Secretly he approved the manliness of his patience.
"The cab is waiting, dear," he said. She rose and walked to the street, standing helpless there while the crowd jostled her. Was she blind and deaf? He put her into the cab and sat down opposite to her. "Half Moon Street," he called to the driver.
"Mother," touching her on the knee.
"Yes, George."
"I told him to drive to Half Moon Street. I will take you to Clara Vance. We may as well arrange things now, finally. You do not like my wife. That is clear. For the present, therefore, it is better that we should separate. I have consulted with Lisa, and she has suggested that you shall join Clara Vance's party while we go our own way."
She stared at him. "Do you mean that you and I are not to see London together? Not to travel through Europe together?"
He pitied her a little, and, leaning forward, kissed her clammy lips. "The thing will seem clearer to you to-morrow, no doubt. I must leave you now. Go to Clara and her girls. They all like to pet and make much of you. I will bring Lisa in the morning, to talk business a little. She has an uncommonly clear head for business. Good-by, dear!" He stopped the cab, jumped out, and walked briskly to the corner where his wife was waiting for him.
"You have told her?" she asked breathlessly.
"Yes. It's over."
"That we must separate?"
"Yes, yes. I told her you thought it best."
"And she was not willing?"
"Well, she did not approve very cordially," said George, evading her eye.
"But she shall approve!" hanging upon his arm, her burning eyes close to his face. "You are mine, George! I love you. I will share you with nobody!" She whistled shrilly, and a hansom stopped.
"What are you going to do, darling?"
"Follow her. I will tell her something that will make her willing to separate. Get in, get in!"
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{
"id": "335"
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3
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Frances, when in trouble, went out of doors among the trees as naturally as other women take to their beds. Lisa's sharp eyes saw her sitting in the Green Park as they passed. The mist, which was heavy as rain, hung in drops on the stretches of sward and filled the far aisles of trees with a soft gray vapor. The park was deserted but for an old man who asked Mrs. Waldeaux for the penny's hire for her chair. As he hobbled away, he looked back at her curiously.
"She gave him a shilling!" exclaimed Lisa, as he passed them. "I told you she was not fit to take care of money."
"But why not wait until to-morrow to talk of business? She is hurt and unnerved just now, and she--she does not like you, Lisa."
"I am not afraid. She will be civil. She is like Chesterfield. 'Even death cannot kill the courtesy in her.' You don't seem to know the woman, George. Come."
But George hung back and loitered among the trees. He was an honest fellow, though slow of wit; he loved his mother and was penetrated to the quick just now by a passionate fondness for his wife. Two such good, clever women! Why couldn't they hit it off together?
"George?" said Frances, hearing his steps.
Lisa came up to her. She rose, and smiled to her son's wife, and after a moment held out her hand.
But the courtesy which Lisa had expected suddenly enraged her. "No! There need be no pretence between us," she said. "You are not glad to see me. There is no pretence in me. I am honest. I did not come here to make compliments, but to talk business."
"George said to-morrow. Can it not wait until to-morrow?"
"No. What is to do--do it! That is my motto. George, come here! Tell your mother what we have decided. Oh, very well, if you prefer that I should speak. We go to Paris at once, Mrs. Waldeaux, and will take apartments there. You will remain with Miss Vance."
"Yes, I know. I am to remain----" Frances passed her hand once or twice over her mouth irresolutely. "But Oxford, George?" she said. "You forget your examinations?"
George took off his spectacles and wiped them.
"Speak! Have you no mind of your own?" his wife whispered. "I will tell you, then, madam. He has done with that silly whim! A priest, indeed! I am Catholic, and priests do not marry. He goes to Paris to study art. I see a great future for him, in art."
Frances stared at him, and then sat down, dully. What did it matter? Paris or Oxford? She would not be there. What did it matter?
Lisa waited a moment for some comment, and then began sharply, "Now, we come to affaires! Listen, if you please. I am a woman of business. Plain speaking is always best, to my idea."
Mrs. Waldeaux drew herself together and turned her eyes on her with sudden apprehension, as she would on a snapping dog. The woman's tones threatened attack.
"To live in Paris, to work effectively, your son must have money. I brought him no dot, alas! Except"--with a burlesque courtesy--"my beauty and my blood. I must know how much money we shall have before I design the menage."
"George has his income," said his mother hastily.
"Ah! You are alarmed, madam! You do not like plain words about the affaires? George tells me that although he is long ago of age, he has as yet received no portion of his father's estates."
"Lisa! You do not understand! Mother, I did not complain. You have always given me my share of the income from the property. I have no doubt it was a fair share--as much as if my father had left me my portion, according to custom."
"Yes, it was a fair share," said Frances.
"Ah! you smile, madam!" interrupted Lisa. "I am told it is a vast property, a grand chateau--many securities! M. Waldeaux pere made a will, on dit, incredibly foolish, with no mention of his son. But now that this son comes to marry, to become the head of the house, if you were a French mother, if you were just, you would---- You appear to be amused, madam?"
For Mrs. Waldeaux was laughing. She could not speak for a moment. The tears stood in her eyes.
"The matter has somewhat of droll to you?"
"It has its humorous side," said Frances. "I quite understand, George, that you will need more money to support a wife. I will double your allowance. It shall be paid quarterly."
"You would prefer to do that?" hesitated George. "Rather than to make over a son's share of the property to me absolutely? Some of the landed estate or securities? I have probably a shrewder business talent than yours, and if I had control could make my property more profitable."
"I should prefer to pay your income as before--yes," said Frances quietly.
"Well, as you choose. It is yours to give, of course." George coughed and shuffled to conquer his disappointment. Then he said, "Have it your own way." He put his hand affectionately on her shoulder. "And when you have had your little outing and go home to Weir, you will be glad to have us come to you, for a visit--won't you, mother? You haven't said so."
"Why should I say so? It is your home, George, yours and your wife's." She caught his hand and held it to her lips.
But Lisa had not so easily conquered her disappointment. This woman was coolly robbing George of his rights and was going instead to kill for him a miserable little fatted calf! Bah! This woman, who had maligned her dead mother!
She should have her punishment now. In one blow, straight from the shoulder.
"But you should know, madam," she said gently, "who it is your son has married before you take her home. I assure you that you can present me to the society in Weir with pride. I have royal blood----" "Lisa!" George caught her arm. "It is not necessary. You forget----" "Oh, I forget nothing! I said royal blood. My father, madam, was the brother of the Czar, and my mother was Pauline Felix. You don't seem to understand----" after a moment's pause. "It was my mother whose name you said should not cross any decent woman's lips--my mother----" She broke down into wild sobs.
"When I said it I did not know that you---- I am sorry." Frances suddenly walked away, pulling open her collar. It seemed to her that there was no breath in the world. George followed her. "Did you know this?" she said at last, in a hoarse whisper. "And you are--married to her? There is no way of being rid of her?"
"No, there is no way," said Waldeaux stoutly. "And if there were, I should not look for it. I am sorry that there is any smirch on Lisa's birth. But even her mother, I fancy, was not altogether a bad lot. Bygones must be bygones. I love my wife, mother. She's worth loving, as you'd find if you would take the trouble to know her. Her dead mother shall not come between her and me."
"She's like her, George!" said Mrs. Waldeaux, with white, trembling lips. "I ought to have seen it at first. Those luring, terrible eyes. It is Pauline Felix's heart that is in her. Rotten to the core--rotten----" "I don't care. I'll stand by her." But George's face, too, began to lose its color. He shook himself uncomfortably. "The thing's done now," he muttered.
"Certainly, certainly," Frances repeated mechanically. "Tell her that I am sorry I spoke of her mother before her. It was rude--brutal. I ask her pardon."
"Oh, she'll soon forget that! Lisa has a warm heart, if you take her right. There's lots of hearty fun in her too. You'll like that. Are you going now? Good-by, dear. We will come and see you in the morning. The thing will not seem half so bad when you have slept on it."
He paused uncertainly, as she still stood motionless. She was facing the grim walls of Stafford House, looming dimly through the mist, her eyes fixed as if she were studying the sky line.
"George," she said. "You don't understand. You will come to me always. But that woman never shall cross my threshold." "Mother! Do you mean what you say?"
It was a man, not a shuffling boy that spoke now. "Do you mean that we are not to go to you to-morrow? Not to go home in October? Never----" "Your home is open to you. But Pauline Felix's child is no more to me than a wild beast--or a snake in the grass, and never can be." She faced him steadily now.
"There she is," said Frances, looking at the little black figure under the trees, "and here am I. You can choose between us."
"Those whom God hath joined together," muttered George. "You know that."
"You have known her for three weeks," cried Frances vehemently. "I gave you life. I have been your slave every hour since you were born. I have lived but for you. Which of us has God joined together?"
"Mother, you're damnably unreasonable! It is the course of nature for a man to leave his parents and cleave to his wife."
"Yes, I know," she said slowly. "You can keep that foul thing in your life, but it never shall come into mine."
"Then neither will I. I will stand by my wife."
"That is the end, then?"
She waited, her eyes on his.
He did not speak.
She turned and left him, disappearing slowly in the rain and mist.
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{
"id": "335"
}
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Two days later Mr. Perry met Miss Vance in Canterbury and told her of the marriage. She hurried back to London. She could not hide her distress and dismay from the two girls.
"How did she force him into it? One is almost driven to believe in hypnotism," she cried.
Lucy Dunbar had no joke to make about it to-day. The merry little girl was silent, having, she said, a headache.
"You've had too much cathedral!" said Miss Hassard. "And the whole church is wretchedly out of drawing!"
Jean Hassard had studied art at Pond City in Dakota, and her soul's hope had been to follow Marie Bashkirtseff's career in Paris. But her father had morally handcuffed her and put her into Clara's custody for a year. It was hard! To be led about to old churches, respectable as her grandmother, when she might have been studying the nude in a mixed class! She rattled her chains disagreeably at every step.
"The mesalliance is on the other side," she told Lucy privately. "A woman of the world who knew life, to marry that bloodless, finical priest!"
"He was not bloodless. He loved her."
Mr. Perry came up with them from Canterbury, being secretly alarmed about Miss Dunbar's headache. Nobody took proper care of that lovely child! He had attached himself to Miss Vance's party in England; he dropped in every evening to tell of his interviews with Gladstone or Mrs. Oliphant or an artist or a duke. It was delightful to the girls to come so close to these unknown great folks. They felt quite like peris, just outside the court of heaven, with the gate a little bit ajar. This evening Mr. Perry promised it should open for them. He was going to bring a real prince, whom he familiarly dubbed "a jolly fellow," to call upon Miss Vance.
"Who is the man?" said Clara irritably. "Be careful, Mr. Perry. I have had enough of foreign adventurers."
"Oh, the Hof Kalender will post you as to Prince Wolfburgh. I looked him up in it. He is head of one of the great mediatized families. Would have been reigning now if old Kaiser Wilhelm had not played Aaron's serpent and gobbled up all the little kings. Wolfburgh has kept all his land and castles, however."
"Very well. Let us see what the man is like," Miss Vance said loftily.
Mrs. Waldeaux was not in the house when they arrived. Every day she went early in the morning to the Green Park, where she had seen George last, and wandered about until night fell. She thought that he had gone to Paris, and that she was alone in London. But somehow she came nearer to him there.
When she found that Clara had arrived, she knew that she would be full of pity for her. She came down to dinner in full dress, told some funny stories, and laughed incessantly.
No. She had not missed them. The days had gone merry as a marriage bell with her even after her son and his wife had run away to Paris.
Mr. Perry congratulated her warmly on the match. "The lady is very fetching, indeed," he said. "I remarked that the first day on ship-board. Oh, yes, I know a diamond when I see it. But your son picks it up. Lucky fellow! He picks it up!" He told Miss Vance that there was a curious attraction about her friend, "who, by the way, should always wear brown velvet and lace."
Miss Vance drew little Lucy aside after dinner. "Do you see," she said, "the tears in her eyes? It wrenches my heart. She has become an old woman in a day. I feel as if Frances were dead, and that was her ghost joking and laughing."
Lucy said nothing, but she went to Frances and sat beside her all evening. When the prince arrived and was presented, going on his triumphant way through the room, she nestled closer, whispering, "What do you think of him?"
"He looks very like our little fat Dutch baker in Weir--he has the same air of patronage," said Frances coldly. She was offended that Lucy should notice the man at all. Was it not she whom George should have married? How happy they would have been--her boy and this sweet, neat little girl! And already Lucy was curious about so-called princes!
When his Highness came back to them she rose hastily and went to her own room.
Late that night Miss Vance found her there in the dark, sitting bolt upright in her chair, still robed in velvet and lace. Clara regarded her sternly, feeling that it was time to take her in hand.
"You have not forgiven George?" she said abruptly.
Mrs. Waldeaux looked up, but said nothing.
"Is he coming back soon?"
"He never shall come back while that woman is with him."
Miss Vance put her lamp on the table and sat down. "Frances," she said deliberately, "I know what this is to you. It would have been better for you that George had died."
"Much better."
"But he didn't die. He married Lisa Arpent. Now it is your duty to accept it. Make the best of it."
"If a lizard crawls into my house will you tell me to accept it? Make the best of it? Oh, my God! The slimy vile creature!"
"She is not vile! I tell you there are lovable qualities in Lisa. And even if she were as wicked as her mother, what right have you---- You, too, are a sinner before God."
"No," said Mrs. Waldeaux gravely, "I am not. I have lived a good Christian life. I may have been tempted to commit sin, but I cannot remember that I ever did it."
Miss Vance looked at her aghast. "But surely your religion teaches you---- Why, you are sinning now, when you hate this girl!"
"I do not hate her. God made her as he made the lizard. I simply will not allow her to cross my path. What has religion to do with it? I am clean and she is vile. That is all there is to say."
Both women were silent. Mrs. Waldeaux got up at last and caught Clara by the arm. She was trembling violently. "No, I'm not ill. I'm well enough. But you don't understand! That woman has killed George. I spent twenty years in making him what he is. I worked--there was nothing but him for me in the world. I didn't spare myself. To make him a gentleman--a Christian. And in a month she turns him into a thing like herself. He is following her vulgar courses. I saw the difference after he had lived with her for one day. He is tainted." She stood staring into the dull lamp. "She may not live long, though," she said. "She doesn't look strong----" "Frances! For God's sake!"
"Well, what of it? Why shouldn't I wish her gone? The harm--the harm! Do you remember that Swedish maid I had--a great fair woman? One day she was stung by a green fly, and in a week she was dead, her whole body a mass of corruption! Oh, God lets such things be done! Nothing but a green fly----" She shook off Clara's hold, drawing her breath with difficulty. "That is Lisa. It is George that is being poisoned, body and soul. It's a pity to see my boy killed by a thing like that--it's a pity----" Miss Vance was too frightened to argue with her. She brought her wrapper, loosened her hair, soothing her in little womanish ways. But her burning curiosity drove her presently to ask one question.
"How can they live?"
"I have doubled his allowance."
"Frances! You will work harder to make money for Lisa Arpent?"
"Oh, what is money!" cried Frances, pushing her away impatiently.
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{
"id": "335"
}
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Miss Vance persuaded Mrs. Waldeaux to go with her to Scotland. During the weeks that followed Frances always found Lucy Dunbar at her side in the trains or on the coaches.
"She is a very companionable child," she told Clara. "I often forget that I am any older than she. She never tires of hearing stories of George's scrapes or his queer sayings when he was a child. Such stories, I think, are usually tedious, but George was a peculiar boy."
Mr. Perry's search for notorieties took him also to Scotland, and, oddly enough, Prince Wolfburgh's search for amusement led him in the same direction. They met him and his cousin, Captain Odo Wolfburgh, at Oban, and again on the ramparts of Stirling Castle, and the very day that they arrived in Edinburgh, there, in Holyrood, in Queen Mary's chamber, stood the pursy little man, curling his mustache before her mirror.
Mr. Perry fell into the background with Miss Hassard. "His Highness is becoming monotonous!" he grumbled. "These foreigners never know when they are superfluous in society."
"Is he superfluous?" Jean glanced to the corner where the prince and Lucy were eagerly searching for the blood of Rizzio upon the steps.
"Decidedly," said Perry. "I wished to show you and Miss Dunbar a live prince, and I did it. That is done and over with. He has been seen and heard. There is no reason why he should pop up here and there all over Great Britain like a Jack-in-the-box. He's becoming a bore."
"You suspect him to be an impostor?" said Jean quickly.
"No. He's genuine enough. But we don't want any foreigners in our caravan," stroking his red beard complacently.
"No. What do you suppose is his object?" asked Jean, with one of her quick, furtive glances.
Mr. Perry's jaws grew red as his beard. "How can I tell?" he said gruffly. He went on irritably, a moment later: "Of course you see it. The fellow has no delicacy. He makes no more secret of his plans than if he were going to run down a rabbit. Last night at Stirling, over his beer, he held forth upon the dimples on Miss Dunbar's pink elbows, and asked me if her hair were all her own. I said, at last, that American men did not value women like sheep by their flesh and fleece and the money they were rated at in the market. I hit him square that time, prince or no prince!"
"Yes, you did, indeed," said Jean vaguely. Her keen eyes followed Lucy and the prince, who were loitering through the gallery, pausing before the faded portraits. "You think it is only her money that draws him after us?"
"Why, of course! A fellow like that could not appreciate Miss Dunbar's beauty and wit."
"You think Lucy witty?" said Jean dryly. "And you think she would not marry for a title?"
"I don't believe any pure American girl would sell herself, like a sheep in the shambles! And she is pure! A lamb, a lily! cried Perry, growing incoherent in his heat.
"She would not if her heart were preoccupied," said Jean thoughtfully.
"And you think----" he said breathlessly.
But Jean only laughed, and said no more.
The guide had been paying profound deference to Prince Wolfburgh, keeping close to his heels. Now he swung open a door. "If your Highnesses will come this way?" he said, bowing profoundly to Lucy.
The little girl started and hurried back to Miss Vance. Her face was scarlet, and she laughed nervously. Prince Wolfburgh also laughed, loudly and meaningly. He swore at the old man and went out into the cloister where his cousin stood smoking.
"Had enough of the old barracks?" said the captain.
"I found I was making too fast running in there," said the prince uneasily; "I'll waken up and find that girl married to me some day."
"Not so bad a dream," puffed his cousin.
"I'll take a train somewhere," said the prince. "But no matter where I go, I'll find an American old woman with a girl to marry. They all carry the Hof Kalender in their pockets, and know every bachelor in Germany."
The captain watched him attentively. "I don't believe those women inside mean to drive any marriage bargain with you, Hugo," he said gruffly. "I doubt whether the little mees would marry you if you asked her. Her dot, I hear, is e-normous!" waving his hand upward as if to mountain heights. "And as for beauty, she is a wild rose!"
Now, there were reasons why the captain should rejoice when Hugo allied himself to the little mees. On the day when he would take these hills of gold and wild rose to himself, the captain would become the head of the house of Wolfburgh. It was, perhaps, a mean, ungilded throne, but by German law no nameless Yankee woman could sit upon it.
The prince looked at Captain Odo. "You cannot put me into a gallop when I choose to walk," he said. "She's a pretty girl, and a good girl, and some time I may marry her, but not now."
Odo laughed good-humoredly, and they sauntered down the path together.
The prince had offered to dine with Miss Vance that evening, but sent a note to say that he was summoned to the Highlands unexpectedly.
"It is adieu, not auf wiedersehen, I fear, with his Highness," Miss Vance said, folding the note pensively. She had not meant to drive a marriage bargain, and yet--to have placed a pupil upon even such a bric-a-brac throne as that of Wolfburgh! She looked thoughtfully at Lucy's chubby cheeks. A princess? The man was not objectionable in himself, either--a kindly, overgrown boy. "He told me," said Jean, "that he was going to a house party at Inverary Castle."
"Whose house is that, Jean?" asked Lucy.
"It is the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Argyll."
"Oh!" Lucy gave a little sigh. Prince Hugo was undeniably fat and very slow to catch a joke, but there was certainly a different flavor in this talk of dukes and ancestral seats to the gossip about the Whites and Greens at home.
Indeed, the whole party, including even Mr. Perry, experienced a sensation of sudden vacancy and flatness when his Highness left them. It was as though they had been sheltering a royal eagle that was used to dwelling in sunlit heights unknown to them, and now they were left on flat ground to consort with common poultry.
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{
"id": "335"
}
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Miss Vance led her party slowly through Scotland and down again to London. Mrs. Waldeaux went with them. The girls secretly laughed together at her fine indomitable politeness, and her violent passion for the Stuarts, and hate of the Roundheads. But Mr. Perry was bored by her.
"What is it to us," he said, "that Queen Mary paddled over this lake, or Cromwell's soldiers whitewashed that fresco? Give me a clean, new American church, anyhow, before all of your mouldy, tomby cathedrals. These things are so many cancelled cheques to me. I have nothing to pay on them. It is live issues that draw on my heart. You American girls ought to be at home looking into the negro problem, or Tammany, or the Sugar Trust, instead of nosing into Rembrandts, or miracles at Lourdes, or palaces. These are all back numbers. Write n. g. on them and bury them. So, by the way, is your Mrs. Waldeaux a back number. My own opinion is that all men and women at fifty ought to go willingly and be shut up in the room where the world keeps its second-hand lumber!"
"Yet nobody," said Lucy indignantly, "is more careful or tender with Mrs. Waldeaux than you!"
"That is because Mr. Perry has the genuine American awe of people of good birth," said Jean slyly. "It is the only trait which makes me suspect that he is a self-made man." Mr. Perry, for answer, only bowed gravely. He long ago had ceased to hide his opinion that Miss Hassard was insufferable.
Frances, for her part, was sure that the young people were glad to have her as a companion. One day she decided to stay with them, and the next to go to New York on the first steamer. She seemed to see life hazily, as one over whose mind a cataract was growing. What had she to do in Europe, she reasoned? George was gone. Her one actual hold on the world had slipped from her. That great mysterious thing called living was done and past for her.
And yet--there was Kenilworth, and Scott's house? Scott, who had been her friend and leader since she was eight years old! And in that anthem at York minster there was a message, which she had been waiting all of her life to hear! And here was Lucy beside her with her soft voice, and loving blue eyes--Lucy, who should have been George's wife! In all of these things something high and good called to the poor lady, which she heard and understood as a child would the voice of its mother.
One hour she resolved to leave her son with his wife, to go back to Weir at once and work with the poultry and Quigg's jokes for the rest of her life. She was dead. Let her give up and consent to be dead.
The next, she would stay where she could see George sometimes, and try to forgive the woman who had him in her keeping. Perhaps, after all, she was human, as Clara said. If she could forgive Lisa, she could be happy with these young people and live--live in this wonderful old world, where all that was best of past ages was kept waiting for her.
When they came to London, she went at once to Morgan's to make a deposit, for she had been hard at work on her jokes as she travelled, and had received her pay.
"Your son, madam," said the clerk, "drew on his account to-day. He said he expected remittances from you. Is this to be put to his credit?"
"My son was in London to-day?
"He has just left the house."
"Did he--he left a message for me? A letter, perhaps?"
"No, nothing, madam."
"Put the money to his credit, of course." She went out into the narrow street and wandered along to the Bank of England, staring up at the huge buildings.
He had been looking at them--he had walked on this very pavement a minute ago! That might be the smoke of his cigar, yonder!
She could easily find him. Just to look at him once; to hold his hand! He might be ill and need her; he never was well in foggy weather.
Then she remembered that Lisa was with him. She would nurse him.
She called a cab, and, as she drove home, looked out at the crowd with a hard, smiling face.
Henry Irving that night played "Shylock," and Mr. Perry secured a box for Miss Vance. Frances went with the others. Before the curtain rose there was a startled movement among them, a whisper, and then Clara turned to Mrs. Waldeaux.
"Frances, Lisa is coming into the opposite box," she said. "She is really a beautiful woman in that decollete gown, and her cheeks flushed, and her eyes---- I had no idea! She is superb!"
Two men in the dress of French officers entered the box with Lisa. They seated her, bending over her with an empressement which, to Mrs. Waldeaux's heated fancy, was insulting. George came last, carrying his wife's cloak, which he placed upon a chair. One of the men tossed his cape to him, with a familiar nod, and George laid it aside and sat down at the back of the box.
His mother leaned forward, watching. That woman had put her son in the place of an inferior--an attendant.
The great orchestra shook the house with a final crash, and the curtain rose upon the Venetian plaza. Every face in the audience was turned attentive toward it. But Mrs. Waldeaux saw only Lisa.
A strange change came upon her as she watched her son's wife. For months she had struggled feebly against her hate of Lisa. Now she welcomed it; she let herself go.
Is the old story true after all? Is there some brutal passion hiding in every human soul, waiting its chance, even in old age? It is certain that this woman, after her long harmless life, recognized the fury in her soul and freed it.
"Frances," whispered Clara, "when this act is over, go and speak to them. I will go with you. It is your chance to put an end to this horrible separation. They are your children."
"No. That woman is my enemy, Clara," said Mrs. Waldeaux quietly. "I will make no terms with her."
Miss Vance sighed and turned to the stage, but Frances still watched the opposite box. It seemed as if the passion within her had cleared her eyes. They never had seen George as they now saw him.
Was that her son? Was it that little priggish, insignificant fellow that she had made a god of? He was dull, commonplace! Satisfied to sit dumb in the background and take orders from those bourgeois French Jews!
The play went on, but she saw nothing but George and his wife.
There was the result of all her drudgery! The hot summers of work in the filthy poultry yards; the grinding out of poor jokes; the coarse, cheap underclothes (she used to cry when she put them on, she hated them so). Years and years of it all; and for that cold, selfish fop!
His mother saw him leave the box, and knew that he was coming.
"Oh, good-evening, George!" she said gayly, as he opened the door. "A wonderful scene, wasn't it? I have always wished to see Irving in 'Hamlet.'"
"This is 'Shylock,'" he said gravely, and turned to speak to the others. They welcomed him eagerly, and made room for him. He had lost something of the cold, blase air which had ennobled him in the eyes of the young women. He looked around presently, and said with a comfortable shrug: "It is so pleasant to talk English again! My wife detests it. We speak only French. I feel like an alien and outcast among you!" He laughed; his mother glanced at him curiously. But Lucy turned her face away, afraid that he should see it. As he talked, George noted the clear-cut American features of the girls, and their dainty gowns, with a keen pleasure; then he glanced quickly at the opposite box.
"Ah!" said Jean to Mr. Perry. "The soiled lace and musk are beginning to tell! He is tired of Lisa already!" "I never liked the fellow," said Mr. Perry coldly. "But he is hardly the cad that you suppose."
He fell into a gloomy silence. He had wasted two years' salary in following Lucy Dunbar about, in showering flowers on her, in posing before her in the last fashions of Conduit Street, and yet when this conceited fellow came into the box she was blind and deaf to all besides! Her eyes filled with tears just now when he talked of his loneliness. Lonely--with his wife! A married man!
George, when the curtain fell again, sat down by Frances.
"Mother," he said.
"Yes, George." Her eyes were bright and attentive, but her countenance had fallen into hard lines new to him.
"I went to Morgan's this afternoon. You have been very liberal to us."
"I will do what I can. You may depend upon that amount, regularly."
He rose and bade them good-night, and turned to her again.
"We--we are coming to-morrow to thank you. MOTHER?" There was a hoarse sob in his throat. He laid his hand on her arm. She moved so that it dropped. "We will come to-morrow," he said. "Did you understand? Lisa wishes to be friends with you. She is ready to forgive," he groped on, blundering, like a man.
"Oh, yes, I understand. You and Lisa are coming to forgive me to-morrow," she said, smiling.
He looked at her, perplexed and waiting. But she said no more.
"Well, I must go now. Good-night."
"Good-night, George!" Her bright, smiling eyes followed him steadily, as he went out.
Mrs. Waldeaux tapped at Clara's door that evening after they reached home.
"I came to tell you that I shall leave London early in the morning," she said.
"You will not wait to see George and his wife?"
"I hope I never shall see them again. No! Not a word! I will hear no arguments!" She came into the room and closed the door. There was a certain novel air of decision and youth in her figure and movements. "I am going to make a change, Clara," she said. "I have worked for others long enough. I am going away now, alone. I will be free. I will live my own life--at last." Her eyes shone with exultation.
"And---- Where are you going?" stammered Miss Vance, dismayed.
"I don't know. There is so much--it has all been waiting so long for me. There are the cathedrals--and the mountains. Or the Holy Land. Perhaps I may try to write again. There seems to be a dumb word or two in me. Don't be angry with me, Clara," throwing her arms about her cousin, the tears rushing to her eyes. "I may come back to you and little Lucy some time. But just now I want to be alone and fancy myself young. I never was young."
When Lucy stole into her old friend's chamber the next morning as usual to drink her cup of coffee with her, she found the door open and the room in disorder, and she was told that Mrs. Waldeaux had left London at daybreak.
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"id": "335"
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During the year which followed, Mr. Perry was forced to return to the States, but he made two flying trips across "the pond," as he called it, in the interests of his magazine, always running down his prey of notorieties in that quarter of Europe in which Miss Vance and her charges chanced to be.
When he came in July he found them in a humble little inn in Bozen. He looked with contempt at the stone floors, the clean cell-like chambers, each with its narrow bed, and blue stone ewer perched on a wooden stool; and he sniffed with disgust when breakfast was served on a table set out in the Platz.
"Don't know," he said, "whether I can digest food, eating out of doors. Myself, I never give in to these foreign ways. It's time they learned manners from us."
"I have no doubt," said Miss Vance placidly, "that you can find one of the usual hotels built for rich Americans in the town. We avoid them. We search out the inns du pays to see as far behind the scenes as we can. I don't care to go to those huge houses with mobs of Chicagoans and New Yorkers; and have the couriers and portiers turn the flashlights on Europe for me, as if it were a burlesque show."
"Now, that's just what I like!" said Perry. "I always go to the houses where the royalties put up. I like to order better dishes and give bigger tips than they do. They don't know Jem Perry from Adam, but it's my way of waving the American flag."
"I am afraid we have no such patriotic motive," said Clara. "My girls seem to care for nothing now but art. We have made this little inn our headquarters in the Tyrol chiefly out of love for the old church yonder."
Mr. Perry glanced contemptuously across the Platz at the frowning gray building, and sat down with his back to it.
"Art, eh? Well, I've no doubt I could soon catch on to Art, if I turned my mind that way. It pays, too,--Art. Not the fellows who paint, but the connoisseurs. There's Miller from our town. He was a drummer for a candy firm. Had an eye for color. Well, he buys pictures now for Americans who want galleries in their houses. He bought his whole collection for Stout--the great dealer in hams. Why, Miller can tell the money value within five dollars, at sight, of any picture in Europe. He's safe, too. Never invests in pictures that aren't sure to go up in price. Getting rich! And began as a candy drummer! No, ma'am! Art's no mystery. I've never taken it up myself. Europe is sheer pleasure to me. I get the best out of it. I know where to lodge well, and I can tell you where the famous plats are cooked, and I have my coats built by Toole. The house pays me a salary which justifies me in humoring my little follies," stroking his red beard complacently.
Lucy's chubby face and steady blue eyes were turned on him thoughtfully, and presently, when they sauntered down the windy street together, he talked and she still silently watched him.
"Miss Precision is weighing him in the balance," said Jean, laughing, as she poured out more black coffee. "With all of her soft ways Lucy is shrewd. She knows quite well why he races across the Atlantic, and why Prince Wolfburgh has backed away from us and charged on us again all summer. She is cool. She is measuring poor Perry's qualifications for a husband now just as she would materials for a cake. A neat little inventory. So much energy, so much honest kindness--so much vulgarity. I couldn't do that. If ever a man wants to marry me, I'll fly to him or away from him, as quick as the steel needle does when the magnet touches it." Miss Vance listened to her attentively. "Jean," she said, after a pause, "are you sure that it is Lucy whom the prince wishes to marry?"
"It is not I," said Miss Hassard promptly. "He has thought of me several times--he has weighed my qualifications. But the man is in love with Lucy as honestly as a ploughman could be. Don't you think I've tough luck?" she said, resting her elbow on the table and her chin on her palm, her keen gray eyes following Miss Dunbar and her lover as they loitered under the shadow of the church. "I am as young as Lucy. I have a better brain and as big a dot. But her lovers make her life a burden, and I never have had one. Just because our noses and chins are made up differently!"
"Oh, my dear!" said Clara anxiously. "I never thought you cared for that kind of success!"
"I'm only human," Jean laughed. "Of course I'm an artist. I'm going to paint a great picture some day that all the world shall go mad about. Of Eve. I'll put all the power of all women into her. But in the meantime I'd like to see one man turn pale and pant before me as the fat little prince does when Lucy snubs him."
"Lucy is very hard to please," complained Miss Vance. "She snubs Mr. Perry--naturally. But the prince--why should she not marry the prince?"
"Your generation," said Jean, smiling slyly, "used to think that an unreasonable whim called love was a good thing in marriage----" "But why should she not love the prince? He is honorable and kind, and quite passable as to looks---- Can there be any one else?" turning suddenly to Jean.
Miss Hassard looked at her a moment, hesitating. "Your cousin George used to be Lucy's type of a hero----" "Why! the man is married!" Miss Vance stood up, her lean face reddening. "Jean! You surprise me! That kind of talk--it's indecent! It is that loose American idea of marriage that ends in hideous divorce cases. But for one of my girls----" "It is a very old idea," said Jean calmly.
"David loved another man's wife. Mind you, I don't accuse Lucy of loving any body, but when the needle has once touched the magnet it answers to its call ever after."
Miss Vance vouchsafed no answer. She walked away across the Platz, jerking her bonnet strings into a knot. Jean was one of the New Women! Her opinions stuck out on every side like Briareus' hundred elbows! You could not come near her without being jabbed by them. Such women were all opinions; there was no softness, no feeling, no delicacy about them. Skeletons with no flesh! As for Lucy, she had no fear. If even the child had loved George, she would have cast out every thought of him on his wedding day, as a Christian girl should do!
She passed Lucy at that moment. She was leaning against one of the huge stone lions which crouch in front of the church, listening to Mr. Perry. If ever a pure soul looked into the world it was through those limpid eyes!
The Platz was nearly empty. One or two men in blouses clattered across the cobblestones and going into the dark church dropped on their knees. The wind was high, and now and then swept heavy clouds low across the sunlight space overhead.
Lucy, as Jean had guessed, knew why the man beside her had crossed the Atlantic, and she had decided last night to end the matter at once. The tears had stood in her eyes for pity at the thought of the pain she must give him. Yet she had put on her new close-fitting coat and a becoming fur cap, and pulled out the loose hair which she knew at this moment was blowing about her pink cheeks in curly wisps in a way that was perfectly maddening. Clara, seeing the mischief in her eyes as she listened shyly to Perry, went on satisfied. There was no abyss of black loss in that girl's life!
Lucy just now was concerned only for Perry. How the poor man loved her! Why not marry him after all, and put him out of his pain? She was twenty-four. Most women at twenty-four had gone through their little tragedy of love. But she had had no tragedy. She told herself firmly that there had been no story of love in her life. There never could be, now. She was too old.
She was tired, too, and very lonely. This man would seat her on a throne and worship her every day. That would be pleasant enough.
"I am ashamed of myself," he was saying, "to pursue you in this way. You have given me no encouragement, I know. But whenever I go to New York and bone down to work, something tells me to come back and try again."
Lucy did not answer, and there was a brief silence.
"Of course I'm a fool,"--prodding the ground with his stick. "But if a man were in a jail cell and knew that the sun was shining just outside, he'd keep on beating at the wall."
"Your life is not a jail cell. It's very comfortable, I think."
"It has been bare enough. I have had a hard fight to live at all. I told you that I began as a canal-boy."
She looked at him with quick sympathy. At once she fancied that she could read old marks of want on his face. His knuckles were knobbed like a laborer's. He had had a hard fight! It certainly would be pleasant to rain down comfort and luxury on the good, plucky fellow!
"Of course that was all long ago," said Perry. "I'm not ashamed of it. As Judge Baker remarked the other day, 'The acknowledged aristocrats of America, to-day, are its self-made men.' He ought to know. The Bakers are the top of the heap in New York. Very exclusive. I've been intimate there for years. No, Miss Dunbar, I may have begun as a mule-driver on a canal, but I am choice in my society. My wife will not find a man or woman in my circle who is half-cut."
Lucy drew a long breath. To live all day and every day with this man!
And yet--she was so tired! There was a good deal of money to manage, and he could do that. He would like a gay, hospitable house, and so would she, and they would be kind to the poor--and he was an Episcopalian, too. There would be no hitch there. Lucy was a zealous High Churchwoman.
Why should she not do it? The man was as good as gold at heart. Jean called him a cad, but the caddishness was only skin deep.
Mr. Perry watched her, reading her thoughts more keenly than she guessed.
"One thing I will say in justice to myself," he said. "You are a rich woman. If you marry me, YOU will know, if nobody else does, that I am no fortune-hunter. I shall always be independent of my wife. Every dollar she owns shall be settled on her before I go with her to the altar."
"Oh, I'm not thinking of the money," said Lucy impatiently.
"Then you are thinking of me!" He leaned over her. She felt as if she had been suddenly dragged too close to a big unpleasant fire. "I know you don't love me," he panted, "you cold little angel, you! But you do like me? Eh? just a little bit, Lucy? Marry me. Give me a chance. I'll bring you to me. If there is a single spark of love in your heart for me, I'll blow it into a flame! I can do it, I tell you!" He caught her fiercely by the shoulder.
Lucy drew back and threw out her hands. "Let me have time to think!"
"Time? You've had a year!"
"One more day. Come again this evening----" "This evening? I've come so often!" staring breathlessly into her face. "It will be no use, I can see that. Well, as you please. I'll come once more."
The young fellow in his jaunty new clothes shook as if he had the ague. He had touched her. For one minute she had been his!
He turned and walked quickly across the Platz.
Lucy, left alone, was full of remorse. She looked down into her heart; she had forgotten to do it before. No, not a spark for him to blow into a flame; not a single warm thought of him!
The girl was ashamed of herself. He might be a cad, but he was real; his honest love possessed him body and soul. It was a matter of expediency to her; a thing to debate with herself, to dally over, with paltry pros and cons.
Miss Vance came hurriedly up the street, an open letter in her hand. Lucy ran to meet her.
"What is it? You have heard bad news?"
"I suppose we ought not to call it that. It is from George Waldeaux. They have a son, two months old. He tells it as a matter for rejoicing."
"Oh, yes," said Lucy feebly.
"They are at Vannes--in Brittany. He has a cough. He seems to know nobody--to have no friends, and, I suspect, not much money. He is terribly depressed." Clara folded the letter thoughtfully. "He asks me to tell his mother that the baby has come."
"Where is his mother?"
"In Switzerland."
"Why is she not with him?" demanded Lucy angrily. "Wandering about gathering edelweiss, while he is alone and wretched!"
"He has his wife. You probably do not understand the case fully," said Clara coldly. "I am going to wire to his mother now." She turned away and Lucy stood irresolute, her hand clutching the shaggy head of the stone beast beside her.
"I can give him money. I'll go to him. He needs me!" she said aloud. Then her whole body burned with shame. She--Lucy Dunbar, good proper Lucy, whose conscience hurt her if she laid her handkerchiefs away awry in her drawer, nursing a criminal passion for a married man!
She went slowly back to the inn. "He has his wife," she told herself. "I am nothing to him. I doubt if he would know me if he met me on the street." She tried to go back to her easy-going mannerly little thoughts, but there was something strange and fierce behind them that would not down.
Jean came presently to the salle. "I have had a letter too," she said. "The girl who writes came from Pond City. She was in the same atelier in Paris with George. She says: 'Your friends the Waldeaux have come to grief by a short cut. They flung money about for a few months as if they were backed by the Barings. The Barings might have given their suppers. As for their studio--there was no untidier jumble of old armor and brasses and Spanish leather in Paris; and Mme. George posing in the middle in soiled tea-gowns! But the suppers suddenly stopped, and the leather and Persian hangings went to the Jews. I met Lisa one day coming out of the Vendome, where she had been trying to peddle a roll of George's sketches to the rich Americans. I asked her what was wrong, and she laughed and said, "We were trying to make thirty francs do the work of thirty thousand. And we have made up our minds that we know no more of art than house painters. We are in a blind alley!" Soon after that the baby was born. They went down to Brittany. I hear that Lisa, since the child came, has been ill. I tell all this dreary stuff to you thinking that you may pass it on to their folks. Somebody ought to go to their relief.'"
"Relief!" exclaimed Miss Vance. "And the money that they were flinging into the gutter was earned day by day by his old mother! Every dollar of it! I know that during the last year she has done without proper clothes and food to send their allowance to them." "You forget," said Lucy, "that George Waldeaux was doing noble work in the world. It was a small thing for his mother to help him."
"Noble work? His pictures or his sermons, Lucy?" demanded Miss Vance, with a contemptuous shrug.
Lucy without reply walked out to the inn garden and seated herself in a shady corner. There Mr. Perry found her just as the first stroke of the angelus sounded on the air. Her book lay unopened on her lap.
He walked slowly up to her and stopped, breathing hard, as if he had been running. "It is evening now. I have come for my answer, Miss Dunbar," he said, forcing a smile.
"Answer?" Lucy looked up bewildered.
"You have forgotten!"
The blood rushed to her face. She held out her hands. "Oh, forgive me! I heard bad news. I have been so troubled----" "You forgot that I had asked you to be my wife!"
"Mr. Perry----" "No, don't say another word, Miss Dunbar. I have had my answer. I knew you didn't love me, but I did not think I was so paltry that you would forget that I had offered to marry you."
Lucy pressed her hands together, looking up at him miserably without a word. He walked down the path and leaned on the wall with his back to her. His very back was indignant.
Presently he turned. "I will bid you goodby," he said, with an effort at lofty courtesy, "and I will leave my adieux for your friends with you."
"Are you going--back to the States?" stammered Lucy.
"Yes, I am going back to the States," he replied sternly. "A man of merit there has his place, regardless of rank. Jem Perry can hold his head there as high as any beggarly prince. Farewell, Miss Dunbar."
He strode down the path and disappeared. Lucy shook her head and cried from sheer wretchedness. She felt that she had been beaten to-day with many stripes.
Suddenly the bushes beside her rustled. "Forgive me," he said hoarsely. She looked up and saw his red honest eyes. "I behaved like a brute. Good-by, Lucy! I never loved any woman but you, and I never will."
"Stay, stay!" she cried.
He heard her, but he did not come back.
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Lucy was silent and dejected for a day or two, being filled with pity for Mr. Perry's ruined life. But when she saw his name in a list of outgoing passengers on the Paris her heart gave a bound of relief. Nothing more could now be done. That chapter was closed. There had been no other chapter of moment in her life, she told herself sternly. Now, all the clouds had cleared away. It was a new day. She would begin again.
So she put on new clothes, none of which she had ever worn before, and tied back her curly hair with a fresh white ribbon, and came down to breakfast singing gayly.
Miss Vance gave her her roll and milk in silence, and frowning importantly, drew out a letter.
"Lucy, I have just received a communication from Prince Wolfburgh. He is in Bozen."
"Here!" Lucy started up, glancing around like a chased hare.
Then she sat down again and waited. There was no other chapter, and the book was so blank!
"His coming is very opportune," she said presently, gently.
"Oh! do YOU think so, my dear? Really! Well, I always have liked the young man. So simple. So secure of his social position. The Wolfburghs, I find, go back to the eleventh century. Mr. Perry had noble traits, but one never felt quite safe as to his nails or his grammar."
"But the prince--the prince?" cried Jean.
"Oh, yes. Well, he writes--most deferentially. He begs for the honor of an interview with me this afternoon upon a subject of the most vital importance. He says, 'regarding you, as I do, in loco parentis to the hochgeboren Fraulein Dunbar.'" "Hochgeboren!" said Lucy. "My grandfather was a saddler. Tell him so, Miss Vance. Tell him the exact facts. I want no disclosures after----" "After marriage?" said Jean, rising suddenly. "Then you have decided?"
"I have not said that I had decided," replied Lucy calmly.
Jean laughed. "He will not be scared by the saddler. Europeans of his order take no account of our American class distinctions. They look upon us as low-born parvenues, all alike. They weigh and value us by other standards than birth."
"I have money, if you mean that, Jean," said Lucy cheerfully.
"I think you had better go away, girls, if you have finished your dejeuner. He may be here at any moment now," said Clara, looking anxiously at her watch.
Lucy went to her little chamber and sat down to work at a monstrous caricature which she was painting of the church. Jean paced up and down the stone corridor, looking out of the window into the Platz.
"He has come," she said excitedly, appearing at Lucy's door. "He went into the church first, to say an ave for help, poor little man! His fat face is quite pale and stern. It is a matter of life and death to him. And it's no more to you than the choosing of a new coat."
Lucy smiled and sketched in a priest on the church steps. Her hand shook, but Jean could not see that. She went to the window again with something like an inward oath at the dolts of commonplace women who had all the best chances, but was back in a moment, laughing nervously.
"Do you know he has on that old brown suit?" She leaned against the jamb of the door. "If I were a prince, and came a-wooing, I would have troops of my Jagers, and trumpets and banners with the arms of my House, and I'd wear all my decorations. Of course we Americans are bound to say that rank and royalty are dead things. But if I had them, I'd galvanize the corpses! If they are useful as shows, I'd make the show worth seeing. I'd cover myself with jewels like the old Romanoffs. You would never see Queen Jean in a slouchy alpaca and pork-pie hat like Victoria." While her tongue chattered, her eyes watched Lucy keenly. "You don't hear me! You are deciding what to do. Why on earth should you hesitate? He is a gentleman--he loves you!" and then to Lucy's relief she suddenly threw on her hat and rushed off for a walk.
Miss Dunbar painted the priest's robe yellow, in her agitation. But the agitation was not deep. There really seemed no reason why she should hesitate. He would be kind; he was well-bred and agreeable. A princess? She had a vague idea of a glorified region of ancestral castles and palaces in which dukes and royalties dwelt apart and discoursed of high matters. She would be one of them.
The other day there seemed to be no reason why she should not marry Mr. Perry. In marriage then one must only consider the suitability of the man? There was nothing else to consider---- With a queer, hunted look in her soft eyes she worked on, daubing on paint liberally.
Meanwhile, in the little salle below, Miss Vance sat stiffly erect, while the prince talked in his shrill falsetto. Although he set forth his affection for the engelreine Madchen as simply as the little German baker in Weir (whom he certainly did resemble) might have done, she could find, in her agitation, no fitting words in which to answer him. That she, Clara Vance, should be the arbiter in a princely alliance! At last she managed to ask whether Miss Dunbar had given him any encouragement on which to found his claim.
"Ah, Fraulein Vance!" he cried, laughing. "The hare does not call to the hounds! But I have no fear. She speaks to me in other ways than by words. " 'Mein Herz und seine Augen Verstehen sich gar so gut!'
You know the old song. Ah, ja! I understand what she would say--here!" touching his heart.
He paced up and down, smiling to himself. Suddenly he drew up before her, tossing his hands out as if to throw away some pleasant dream. "I have come to you, gracious lady, as I would to the mother of Miss Dunbar. I show to you the heart! But before I address her it is necessary that I shall consult her guardian with regard to business."
It was precisely, Clara said afterward, as if the baker from Weir had stopped singing, and presented his bill.
"Business?" she gasped. "Oh, I see! Settlements. We don't have such things in the States. But I quite understand all those European social traits. I have lived abroad for years. I----" "Who is Miss Dunbar's guardian?" the prince demanded alertly. He sat down by the table and took out a notebook and papers.
"But--settlements? Is not that a little premature?" she ventured. "She has not accepted you."
"HE may not accept my financial proposals. It is business, you see. The gentle ladies, even die Amerikaner, do not comprehend business. It is not, you perceive, dear lady, the same when the head of the House of Wolfburgh allies himself with a hochgeboren Fraulein as when the tailors marry----" "Nor bakers. I see," stammered Clara.
"Miss Dunbar's properties are valuable. Her estate in Del-aware," glancing at his notebook, "is larger than some of our German kingdoms. Her investments in railway and mining securities, if put on the market, should be worth a million of florins. These are solid matters, and must be dealt with carefully."
"But, good gracious, Prince Wolfburgh!" cried Miss Vance, "how did you find out about Lucy's investments?"
He looked at her in amazement. "Meine gnadigste Fraulein! It is not possible that you supposed that in such a matter as this men leap into the dark--the men of rank, princes, counts, English barons, who marry the American mees? That they do not know for what they exchange their--all that they give? I will tell you," with a condescending smile. "There are agents in the States--in New York--in Chicago--in--how do you name it? St. Sanata. They furnish exact information as to the dot of the lady who will, perhaps, marry here. Oh, no! We do not leap into the dark!"
"So I perceive," said Clara dryly. "And may I inquire, your Highness, what financial arrangement you propose, in case she becomes your wife?"
"Assuredly." He hastily unfolded a large paper. "This must be accepted by her guardian before the betrothal can take place. I will translate, in brief. The whole estate passes to me, and is secured to me in case of my wife's death without issue. I inserted that clause," he said, looking up, smiling, for approval, "because American Frauleins are so fragile--not like our women. I will, of course, if we have issue, try to preserve the real estate for my heir, and the remaining property for my other children."
"It seems to me that a good deal is taken for granted there," said Clara, whose cheeks were very hot. "And where does Miss Dunbar come into this arrangement? Is she not to have any money at all?"
"My widow, should I die first, will be paid an annuity from my estate. But while Mees Lucy is my wife, _I_ will buy all that she needs. I will delight to dress her, to feed her well. With discretion, of course. For there are many channels into which my income must flow. But I will not be a niggardly husband to her! No, no!" cried the little man in a glow.
"That is very kind of you. But she will not have any of her own money to spend? In her own purse? To fling into the gutter if she chooses?"
The prince laughed gayly. "How American you are, gracious lady! A German wife does not ask for her 'own purse.' My wife will cease to be American; she will be German," patting his soft hands ecstatically. "But you have not told me the name of her guardian?"
"Lucy," said Miss Vance reluctantly, "is of age. She has full control of her property. A Trust Company manages it for her, but they have no authority to stop her if she chooses to--throw it into the gutter."
The prince looked up sharply. Could this be a trick? But if it were, the agent would find out for him. He rose.
"To have the sole disposal of her own hand and of her fortune? That seems strange to us," he said, smiling. "But I have your consent, most dear lady, to win both, if I can?"
"Oh, yes, prince. If you can."
He took her hand and bowed profoundly over it, but no courtly grace nor words could bring back Clara's awe of him. She had a vague impression that the Weir baker had been wrangling with her about his bill.
"Your Highness has asked a good many questions," she said. "May I put one to you? Did you inquire concerning Miss Hassard's dot, also?" "Ah, certainly! Why not? It is very large. I have spoken of it to my cousin Count Odo. But the drawback--her father still lives. He may marry again. Her dot depends upon his good pleasure. Whereas Miss Dunbar is an orphan; and besides that, she is so dear to me!" clasping his hands, his face red with fervor. "So truly dear!"
And she knew that he honestly meant it.
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When Miss Vance came into the corridor after she had reported this interview to Lucy, Jean swept her into her room and dragged the whole story from her. In fact the poor anxious lady was glad to submit it to the girl's shrewd hard sense.
"You told him that she was the uncontrolled mistress of her money!"
"It is the truth. I had to tell him the truth, my dear."
"Yes, I suppose so, for he would have found it out anyhow."
"I do feel," panted Clara, "as if I had put a dove into the claws of a vulture."
"Not at all," said Jean promptly. "The little man has a heart, but an empty pocket. Was Lucy interested most in his love or his bargaining?"
"In neither, I think. She just went on painting, and said nothing."
"Oh, she will decide the matter in time! She will bring her little intellect to bear on it as if it were a picnic for her Sunday-school class!" Jean stood silent a while. "Miss Vance," she said suddenly, "let me engineer this affair for a few days. I can help you."
"What do you propose to do, Jean?"
"To leave Bozen to-morrow. For Munich."
"But the Wolfburghs have a palace or--something in Munich. Is it quite delicate for us----" "It is quite rational. Let us see what the something is. So far in our dealings with principalities and powers, we have had a stout little man--with no background." The prince was startled when he was told of this sudden journey, but declared that he would follow them to-morrow.
Lucy, as usual, asked no questions, but calmly packed her satchel.
As the little train, the next day, lumbered through the valley of the Eisach, she sat in her corner, reading a newspaper. Miss Vance dozed, or woke with a start to lecture on points of historic interest.
"Why don't you look, Lucy? That monastery was a Roman fortress in the third century. And you are missing the color effects of the vineyards."
"I can look now. I have finished my paper." Lucy folded it neatly and replaced it in her bag. "I have read the Delaware State Sun," she said triumphantly, "regularly, every week since we left home. When I go back I shall be only seven days behind with the Wilmington news."
Jean glanced at her contemptuously. "Look at that great castle on yonder mountain," she said. "You could lodge a village inside of the ramparts. Do you think Wolfburgh Schloss is like that? The prince told us last night," turning to Miss Vance, "the old legends about his castle. The first Wolfburgh was a Titan about the time of Noah, and married a human wife, and with his hands tore open the mountain for rocks to lay the foundation of his house. According to his story there were no end of giants and trolls and kings concerned in the building of it," she went on, furtively watching the deepening pink in Lucy's cheek. "The Wolfburgh of Charlemagne's day was besieged by him, and another entertained St. Louis and all his crusaders within the walls." Jean's voice rose shrilly and her eyes glowed. She leaned forward, looking eagerly across the fields. "The prince told us that the Schloss of his race had for centuries been one of the great fortresses of Christendom. And here it is! Now we shall see--we shall see!"
The car stopped. The guard opened the door and Miss Vance and Lucy suddenly found themselves swept by Jean on to the platform, while the little train rumbled on down the valley. Miss Vance cried out in dismay.
"Never mind. There will be another train in a half hour," said Jean. "Here is the Schloss," pointing to a pepper-box tower neatly whitewashed, which rose out of a huge mass of broken stone. "And here, I suppose, is the capital of the kingdom over which the Wolfburghs now reign feudal lords?"
Clara found herself against her will looking curiously at the forge, the dirty shop, the tiny bier-halle, and a half a dozen huts, out of which swarmed a few old women and children.
"Where are the men of this village?" Jean demanded of the station master, a stout old man with a pipe in his mouth.
"Gone to America, for the most part," he said, with a shrug.
Lucy came up hastily, an angry glitter in her soft eyes. "You have no right to make me play the spy in this way!" she said haughtily, and going into the little station sat down with her back to the door.
"You? It is I--I----" muttered Jean breathlessly. "And who lives in the tower, my good man? It is not big enough for a dozen hens." She slipped a florin into his hand.
"Four of the noble ladies live there. The princesses. The gracious sisters of Furst Hugo. There come two of them now."
A couple of lean, wrinkled women dressed in soiled merino gowns and huge black aprons, their hair bristling in curl papers, crossed the road, peering curiously at the strangers.
"They came to look at you, Fraulein," said the man, chuckling. "Strangers do not stop at Wolfburgh twice in the year."
"And what do the noble ladies do all the year?"
"Jean, Jean!" remonstrated Clara.
"Oh, Miss Vance! This is life and death to some of us! What do they do?"
"Do?" said the man, staring. "What shall any gracious lady do? They cook and brew, and crochet lace and----" "Are there any more princesses--sisters of Furst Hugo?"
"Two more. They live in Munich. No, none of them are married. Because," he added zealously, "there are no men as high-born as our gracious ladies, so they cannot marry."
"No doubt that accounts for it," said Jean. "Six. These are 'the channels into which the income will flow,' hey?" She gave him more money, and marching into the station caught Lucy by the shoulder, shaking her passionately. "Do you think any American girl could stand that? How would YOU like to be caged up in that ridiculous tower to cook and crochet and brew beer and watch the train go by for recreation? The year round--the year round?"
Lucy rose quietly. "The train is coming now," she said. "Calm yourself, Jean. YOU will not have to live in the tower."
Jean laughed. When they were seated in the car again, she looked wistfully out at the heaps of ruins.
"It must have been a mighty fortress once," she said. "Those stones were hewed before Charlemagne's time. And a great castle could easily be built with them now," she added thoughtfully.
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The travellers entered Munich at noon. The great generous city lay tranquil and smiling in the frosty sunlight.
"I have secured apartments," said Miss Vance, "used hitherto by royalties or American millionaires. My girl must be properly framed when a prince comes a-wooing."
Lucy smiled. But her usual warm color faded as they drove through the streets. Jean, however, was gay and eager.
"Ah, the dear splendid town!" she cried. "It always seems to give us a royal welcome. Nothing is changed! There is the music in the Kellers, and there go the same Bavarian officers with their swagger and saucy blue eyes. They are the handsomest men in Europe! And here is the Munchen-kindl laughing at us, and the same crowds are going to the Pinakothek! What do you want more? Beer and splendor and fun and art! What a home it will be for you, Lucy!"
Lucy's cold silence did not check Jean's affectionate zeal. She anxiously searched among the stately old buildings, which they passed, for the Wolfburgh palace. "It will not be in these commonplace Haussmannized streets," she said. "It is in some old corner; it has a vast, mysterious, feudal air, I fancy. You will hold a little court in it, and sometimes let a poor American artist from Pond City in to hang on the edge of the crowd and stare at the haute noblesse."
"Don't be absurd, Jean," said Miss Vance.
"I am quite serious. I think an American girl like Lucy, with her beauty and her money, will be welcomed by these German nobles as a white swan among ducks. She ought to take her place and hold it." Jean's black eyes snapped and the blood flamed up her cheeks. "If I were she I'd make my money tell! I'd buy poor King Ludwig's residence at Binderhof, with the cascades and jewelled peacocks and fairy grottos, for my country seat. The Bavarian nobility are a beggarly lot. If they knew that Lucy and her millions were coming to town in this cab, they'd blow their trumpets for joy. 'Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave!'" Lucy's impatient shrug silenced her, but she was preoccupied and excited throughout the day. Miss Vance watched her curiously. Could it be that she had heard of the prince's plan of marrying her to his cousin, and that she was building these air castles for herself?
A day or two sufficed to make Miss Vance's cheery apartments the rendezvous of troops of Americans of all kinds: from the rich lounger, bored by the sight of pictures, which he did not understand, and courts which he could not enter, to the half-starved, eager-eyed art students, who smoked, and drank beer, and chattered in gutturals, hoping to pass for Germans.
There were plenty of idle young New Yorkers and Bostonians too, hovering round Lucy and Jean, overweighted by their faultless London coats and trousers and fluent French. But they deceived nobody; they all had that nimble brain, and that unconscious swagger of importance and success which stamps the American in every country. Prince Hugo, in his old brown suit, came and went quietly among them.
"The genuine article!" Jean declared loudly. "There is something royal in his hospitality! He lays all Munich at Lucy's feet, as if it were his own estate, and the museums and palaces were the furniture of his house. That homely simplicity of his is tremendously fine, if she could understand it!"
The homely genuineness had its effect even upon Lucy. The carriage which he brought to drive them to Isar-anen was scaly with age, but the crest upon it was the noblest in Bavaria; in the cabinet of portraits of ancient beauties in the royal palace he showed her indifferently two or three of his aunts and grandmothers, and in the historical picture of the anointing of the great Charlemagne, one of his ancestors, stout and good-humored as Hugo himself, supported the emperor.
"The pudgy little man," said Jean one day, "somehow belongs to the old world of knights and crusaders--Sintram and his companions. He will make it all real to Lucy when she marries him. He is like Ali Baba, standing at the shut door of the cave full of jewels and treasures with the key in his hand."
"Those Arabian Night stories are simply silly," said Lucy severely. "I am astonished that any woman in this age of the world should read that kind of trash."
"But the prince's cave?" persisted Jean. "When are we to look into it? I want to be sure of the treasures inside. When are we to go to his palace? When will his sisters ask us to dinner?"
Miss Vance looked anxious. "That is a question of great importance," she said. "The princesses have invited me through their brother to call. It is of course etiquette here for the stranger to call first, but I don't wish to compromise Lucy by making advances."
There was a moment's silence, then Lucy said, blushing and faltering a little, "It would be better perhaps to call, and not prejudice them, by any discourtesy, against us. The prince is very kind."
"So! The wind is in that quarter?" Jean said, with a harsh laugh.
She jumped up and went to her own room. She was in a rage at herself. Why had she not run away to Paris months ago and begun her great picture of the World's mother, Eve? There was a career for her! And thinking--perhaps of Eve--she cried hot salt tears.
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A week passed, but the question of the first call was not yet settled. It required as much diplomacy as an international difficulty. Furst Hugo represented the princesses as "burning with impatience to behold the engelreine Madchen whom they hoped to embrace as a sister," but no visible sign of their ardor reached Miss Vance.
On Monday Jean went to spend the day with some of her artist friends, but at noon she dashed into the room where Clara and Lucy sat sewing, her dark face blotched red, and her voice stuttering with excitement.
"I have seen into the cave!" she shouted. "I have got at the truth! It's a rather stagy throne, the Wolfburghs! Plated, cheap!"
"What is the matter with you?" said Miss Vance.
"Nothing is the matter with ME. It is Lucy's tragedy. I've seen the magnificent ancient palace of the Wolfburghs. It is a flat! In the very house where I went to-day. The third story flat just under the attics where the poor Joneses daub portraits. I passed the open doors and I saw the shabby old tables and chairs and the princesses--two fat old women in frowzy wrappers, and their hair in papers, eating that soup of pork and cabbages and raisins--the air was thick with the smell! And that is not the worst!"
"Take breath, Jean," said Lucy calmly.
"The prince himself--the Joneses told me, there can be no doubt--the prince makes soap for a living! No wonder you turn pale, Miss Vance. Soap! He is the silent partner in the firm of Woertz und Zimmer, and it is not a paying business either."
Jean did not wait for an answer, but walked up and down the room, laughing angrily to herself. "Yes, soap! He cannot sneer at Lucy's ancestral saddles, now. Nor my father's saws! His rank is the only thing he has to give for Lucy's millions, and now she knows what it is worth!"
Lucy rose and, picking up her work basket, walked quietly out of the room. Jean flashed an indignant glance after her.
"She might have told me that he gave himself! Surely the man counts for something! Anyhow, rank like his is not smirched by poverty or trade. Bismarck himself brews beer."
"Your temper is contradictory to-day," said Clara coldly. "Did you know," she said presently, "that the princesses will be at the Countess von Amte's to-morrow?"
"Then we shall meet them!" cried Jean. "Then something will be settled."
Lucy locked the door of her chamber after her. She found much comfort in the tiny bare room with its white walls and blue stove, and the table where lay her worn Bible and a picture of her old home. The room seemed a warm home to her now. Above the wall she had hung photographs of the great Madonnas, and lately she had placed one of Frances Waldeaux among them. That was the face on which she looked last at night. When Clara had noticed it, Lucy had said, "I am as fond of the dear lady as if she were my own mother."
She sat down before it now, and taking out her sewing began to work, glancing up at it, half smiling as to a friend who talked to her. She thought of Furst Hugo boiling soap, with a gentle pity, and of Jean with hot disdain. What had Jean to do with it? The prince was her own lover, as her gloves were her own.
But indeed, the prince and love were but shadows on the far sky line to the little girl; the real things were her work and her Bible, and George's mother talking to her. She often traced remembered expressions on Mrs. Waldeaux's face; the gayety, the sympathy, a strange foreboding in the eyes. Finer meanings, surely, than any in the features of these immortal insipid Madonnas!
Sometimes Lucy could not decide whether she had seen these meanings on Frances Waldeaux's face, or on her son's.
She sewed until late in the afternoon. There came a tap at the door. She opened it, and there stood Mrs. Waldeaux, wrapped in a heavy cloak. Lucy jumped at her, trembling, and hugged her.
"Oh, come in! Come in!" she cried shrilly. "I have just been thinking of you and talking to you!"
Frances laughed, bewildered. "Oh, it is Miss Dunbar? The man sent me here by mistake to wait. Miss Vance is out, he said."
"Yes, I suppose so. But I--I am here." Lucy threw her arms around her again, laying her head down on her shoulder. She felt as if something that she had waited for a long time was coming to her. "Sit by the stove. Your hands are like ice," she said.
"Yes, I am usually cold now; I don't know why."
Lucy then saw a curious change in her face. The fine meanings were not in it now. It was fatter--coarser; the hair was dead, the eyes moved sluggishly, like the glass eyes of a doll.
"You are always cold? Your blood is thin, perhaps. You are overtired, dear. Have you travelled much?"
"Oh, yes! all of the time. I have seen whole tracts of pictures, and no end of palaces and hotels--hotels--hotels!" Frances said, awakening to the necessity of being talkative and vivacious with the young girl. She threw off her cloak. There was a rip in the fur, and the dirty lining hung out. Lucy shuddered. Mrs. Waldeaux's blood must have turned to water, or she would never have permitted that!
"You must rest now. I will take care of you," she said, with a little nod of authority. Frances looked at her perplexed. Why should this pretty creature mother her with such tenderness?
Oh! It was the girl that George should have married!
She glanced at the white room with its dainty bibelots, the Bible, the Madonnas, watching, benign. Poor little nun, waiting for the love that never could come to her!
"I am glad you are here, my child. You can tell me what I want to know. I have not an hour to spare. I am going to my son--to George. Do you know where he is?"
"At Vannes, in Brittany."
"Brittany--that is a long way." Frances rose uncertainly. "I hoped he was near. I was in a Russian village, and Clara's letter was long in finding me. When I got it, I travelled night and day. I somehow thought I should meet him on the way. I fancied he would come to meet me."
Lucy's blue eyes watched her keenly a moment. Then she rang the bell.
"You must eat, first of all," she said.
"No, I am not hungry. Vannes, you said? I must go now. I haven't an hour."
"You have two, exactly. You'll take the express at eight. Oh, I'm never mistaken about a train. Here is the coffee. Now, I'll make you a nice sandwich."
Frances was faint with hunger. As she ate, she watched the pretty matter-of-fact little girl, and laughed with delight. When had she found any thing so wholesome? It was a year, too, since she had seen any one who knew George. Naturally, she began to empty her heart, which was full of him, to Lucy.
"I have not spoken English for months," she said, smiling over her coffee. "It is a relief! And you are a friend of my son's, too?"
"No. A mere acquaintance," said Lucy, with reserve.
"No one could even see George and not understand how different he is from other men."
"Oh! altogether different!" said Lucy. "Yes, you understand. And there was that future before him--when his trouble came. Oh, I've thought of it, and thought of it, until my head is tired! He fell under that woman's influence, you see. It was like mesmerism, or the voodoo curse that the negroes talk of. It came on me too. Why, there was a time when I despised him. George!" Her eyes grew full of horror. "I left him, to live my own life. He has staggered under his burden alone, and I could have rid him of it. Now there are two of them."
"Two of them?" said Lucy curiously.
"There is a baby--Pauline Felix's grandson. I beg your pardon, my child, I ought not to have named her. She is not a person whom you should ever hear of. He has them both,--George. He has that weight to carry." She stood up. "That is why I am going to him. It must be taken from him."
"You mean--a divorce?"
"I don't know--I can't think clearly. But God does such queer things! There are millions of men in the world, and this curse falls on--George!"
Lucy put her hands on the older woman's arms and seated her. "Mrs. Waldeaux," she said, with decision, "you need sleep, or you would not talk in that way. Lisa is not a curse. Nor a voodoo witch. She came to your son instead of to any other man--because he chose her out from all other women. He had seen them." She held her curly head erect. "As he did choose her, he should make the best of her."
Frances looked at her as one awakened out of a dream. "You talk sensibly, child. Perhaps you are right. But I must go. Ring for a cab, please. No, I will wait in the station. Clara would argue and lecture. I could not stand that to-night," with her old comical shrug.
Lucy's entreaties were vain.
But as the train rushed through the valley of the Isar that night, Frances looked forward into the darkness with a nameless terror. "That child was so healthy and sane," she said, "I wish I had stayed with her longer."
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Prince Hugo had made no secret of his intentions with regard to Miss Dunbar, so that when it was known that his sisters and the rich American Mees would at last meet at the Countess von Amte's there was a flutter of curiosity in the exclusive circle of Munich. The countess herself called twice on Clara that day, so great was her triumph that this social event would occur at her house.
She asked boldly "Which of Miss Dunbar's marvellous Parisian confections will she wear? It is so important for her future happiness that the princesses should be favorably impressed! Aber, lieber Gott!" she shrieked, "don't let her speak French! Not a word! That would be ruin! They are all patriotism!" She hurried away, and ran back to say that the sun was shining as it had not done for days.
"She thinks nature itself is agog to see how the princesses receive Lucy," said Miss Vance indignantly. "One would suppose that the child was on trial."
"So she is. Me, too," said Jean, wistfully regarding the bebe waist of the gown which Doucet had just sent her. "I must go as an ingenue. I don't play the part well!"
"No, you do not," said Clara.
Miss Vance tapped at Lucy's door as she went down, and found her working at her embroidery. "You must lie down for an hour, my dear," she said, "and be fresh and rosy for this evening."
"I am not going. I must finish these pinks. I have just sent a note of apology to the countess."
"Not going!" Clara gasped, dismayed. Then she laughed with triumph. "The princesses and all the Herrschaft of Munich will be there to pass judgment on the bride, and the bride will be sitting at home finishing her pinks! Good!"
"I am no bride!" Lucy rose, stuck her needle carefully in its place, and came closer to Miss Vance. "I have made up my mind," she said earnestly. "I shall never marry. My life now is quiet and clean. I'm not at all sure that it would be either if I were the Princess Wolfburgh."
Clara stroked her hair fondly. "Your decision is sudden, my dear," she faltered, at last.
"Yes. There was something last night. It showed me what I was doing. To marry a man just because he is good and kind, that is--vile!" The tears rushed to her eyes. There was a short silence.
"Don't look so aghast, dear Miss Vance," said Lucy cheerfully. "Go now and dress to meet the Herrschaft."
"And what will you do, child?"
"I really must finish these pinks to-night." She took up her work. Her chin trembled a little. "We won't speak of this again, please," she said. "I never shall be a bride or a wife or mother. I will have a quiet, independent life--like yours."
The sunshine fell on the girl's grave, uplifted face, on the white walls, the blue stove, and the calm, watching Madonnas. Clara, as Mrs. Waldeaux had done, thought of a nun in her cell to whom love could only be a sacred dream.
She smiled back at Lucy, bade her goodnight, and closed the door.
"Like mine?" she said, as she went down the corridor. "Well, it is a comfortable, quiet life. But empty----" And she laid her hand suddenly across her thin breast.
Jean listened in silence when Clara told her briefly that Lucy was not going.
"She is very shrewd," she said presently. "She means to treat them de haut en bas from the outset. It is capital policy."
Jean, when she entered the countess's salon, with downcast eyes, draped in filmy lace without a jewel or flower, was shy innocence in person. Furst Hugo stood near the hostess, with two stout women in shabby gowns and magnificent jewels.
"The frocks they made themselves, and the emeralds are heirlooms," Jean muttered to Clara, without lifting her timid eyes.
"Miss Dunbar is not coming?" exclaimed the prince.
"No," said Miss Vance.
"The Fraulein is ill?" demanded one of his sisters.
"No," Clara said, again smiling. "WE expected to meet her," the younger princess said. "It is most singular----" "She has sent her apology to the countess," said Clara gently, and passed on.
But her little triumph was short lived.
A famous professional soprano appeared in a white-ribboned enclosure at the end of the salon, and the guests were rapidly arranged according to their rank to listen. Clara and Jean stood until every man and woman were comfortably seated, when they were placed in the back row.
When the music was over supper was announced, and the same ceremony was observed. The Highnessess, the hochwohlgeboren privy councillors, the hochgeboren secretaries, even the untitled Herren who held some petty office, were ushered with profound deference to their seats at the long table, while Clara stood waiting. Jean's eyes still drooped meekly, but even her lips were pale.
"How can you look so placid?" she whispered. "It is a deliberate insult to your gray hairs."
"No. It is the custom of the country. It does not hurt me."
They were led at the moment to the lowest seats. Jean shot one vindictive glance around the table.
"You have more wit and breeding than any of them!" she said. "And as for me, this lace I wear would buy any of their rickety old palaces."
"They have something which we cannot buy," said Miss Vance gravely. "I never understood before how actual a thing rank is here."
"Cannot it be bought? I am going to look into that when this huge feed is over," Miss Hassard said to herself.
Late in the evening she danced with Count Odo, and prattled to him in a childish, frank fashion which he found very charming.
"Your rules of precedence are very disagreeable!" she pouted. "Especially when one sits at the foot of the table and is served last."
"They must seem queer to you," he said, laughing, "but they are inflexible as iron."
"But they will bend for Miss Dunbar, if she makes up her mind to marry your cousin?" she asked, looking up into his face like an innocent child.
"No. Hugo makes a serious sacrifice in marrying a woman of no birth," he said. "He must give up his place and title as head of the family. She will not be received at court nor in certain houses; she must always remain outside of much of his social life."
He led her back to Miss Vance. She seemed to be struck dumb, and even forgot to smile when he bowed low and thanked her for the dance.
"Let us go home," she whispered to Clara. "The American girl is a fool who marries one of these men!"
When Miss Vance's carriage reached her hotel, she found Prince Hugo's coupe before the door.
"He has come to see Lucy, alone!" she said indignantly, as she hurried up the steps. "He has no right to annoy her!"
She met him coming out of the long salle. The little man walked nervously, fingering his sword hilt. He could not control his voice when he tried to speak naturally.
"Yes, gracious lady, I am guilty. It was unpardonable to come when I knew the chaperone was gone. But--ach! I could not wait!" throwing out both hands to her. "I have waited so long! I knew when she did not come to meet my sisters to-night she had resolved against me, but I could not sleep uncertain. So I break all the laws, and come!"
"You have seen her, then? She has told you?"
He nodded without speaking. His round face was red, and something like tears stood in his eyes.
He waited irresolute a moment, and then threw up his head.
"Soh! It is over! I shall not whine! You have been very good to me," he said earnestly, taking Clara's hand. "This is the first great trouble in my life. I have loved her very dearly. I decided to make great sacrifices for her. But I am not to have her--never."
"I am so sorry for you, prince." Clara squeezed his hand energetically. "Nor her dot. That would have been so comfortable for me," he said simply.
Clara hid a smile, and bade him an affectionate good-night.
As he passed into the outer salle a childish figure in creamy lace rose before him, and a soft hand was held out. "I know what has happened!" she whispered passionately. "She has treated you scandalously! She cannot appreciate YOU!"
Prince Hugo stuttered and coughed and almost kissed the little hand which lay so trustingly in his. He found himself safely outside at last, and drove away, wretched to the soul.
But below his wretchedness something whispered: "SHE appreciates me, and her dot is quite as large."
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{
"id": "335"
}
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13
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None
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George Waldeaux hummed a tune gayly as he climbed the winding maze of streets in Vannes, one cloudy afternoon, with Lisa.
"It is impertinent to be modern Americans in this old town," he said. "We might play that we were jongleurs, and that it was still mediaeval times. I am sure the gray walls yonder and the fortress houses in this street have not changed in ages."
"Neither have the smells, apparently," said Lisa grimly. "Wrap this scarf about your throat, George. You coughed last night."
George tied up his throat. "Coughed, did I?" he said anxiously. He had had a cold last winter, and his wife with her poultices and fright had convinced him that he was a confirmed invalid. The coming of her baby had given to the woman a motherly feeling toward all of the world, even to her husband.
"Look at these women," he said, going on with his fancy presently. "I am sure that they were here wearing these black gowns and huge red aprons in the twelfth century. What is this?" he said, stopping abruptly, to a boy of six who was digging mud at the foot of an ancient ivy-covered tower.
"C'est le tour du Connetable," the child lisped. "Et v'la, monsieur!" pointing to a filthy pen with a gate of black oak; "v'la le donjon de Clisson!" "Who was Clisson?" said Lisa impatiently.
"A live man to Froissart--and to this boy," said George, laughing. "I told you that we had gone back seven centuries. This fog comes in from the Morbihan sea where Arthur and his knights went sailing to find the Holy Greal. They have not come back. And south yonder is the country of the Druids. I will take you to-morrow and show you twenty thousand of their menhirs, and then we will sail away to an island where there is an altar that the serpent worshippers built ages before Christ."
Lisa laughed. He was not often in this playful mood. She panted as she toiled up the dark little street, a step behind him, but he did not think of giving her his arm. He had grown accustomed to regard himself as the invalid now, and the one who needed care.
"I am going for letters," he called back, diving into a dingy alley. The baby and its bonne were near Lisa. The child never was out of her sight for, a moment. She waited, standing a little apart from Colette to watch whether the passers-by would notice the baby. When one or two of the gloomy and stolid women who hurried past in their wooden sabots clicked their fingers to it, she could not help smiling gayly and bidding them good-day.
The fog was stifling. As she waited she gave a tired gasp. Colette ran to her. "Madame is going to be ill!"
"No, no! Don't frighten monsieur."
George came out of the gate at the moment.
"Going to faint again, Lisa?" he said, with an annoyed glance around the street. "Your attacks do choose the most malapropos times----" "Oh, dear no, George! I am quite well quite." She walked beside him with an airy step, laughing gayly now and then, but George's frown deepened.
"I don't understand these seizures at all," he said. "You seem to be in sound physical condition."
"Oh, all women have queer turns, George."
"Did you consult D'Abri, as I told you to do, in Paris?"
"Yes, yes! Now let us talk no more about it. I have had these--symptoms since I was a child."
"You never told me of them before we were married," he muttered.
Lisa scowled darkly at him, but she glanced at the baby and her mouth closed. Little Jacques should never hear her rage nor swear.
From an overhanging gable at the street corner looked down a roughly hewn stone Madonna. The arms of the Holy Child were outstretched to bless. Lisa paused before it, crossing herself. A strange joy filled her heart.
"I too am a mother! I too!" she said. She hurried after George and clung to his arm as they went home.
"Was there any letter?" she asked.
"Only one from Munich--Miss Vance. I haven't opened it."
"I thought your mother would write. She must have heard about the boy!"
George's face grew dark. "No, she'll not write. Nor come."
"You wish for her every day, George?" She looked at him wistfully.
"Yes, I do. She and I were comrades to a queer degree. I long for something hearty and homelike again. See here, Lisa. I'm going home before my boy begins to talk. I mean he shall grow up under wholesome American influences--not foreign."
"Not foreign," she repeated gravely. She was silent a while. "I have thought much of it all lately," she said at last. "It will be wholesome for Jacques on your farm. Horses--dogs---- Your mother will love him. She can't help it. She--I acted like a beast to that woman, George. I'll say that. She hit me hard. But she has good traits. She is not unlike my own mother."
George said nothing. God forbid that he should tell her, even by a look, that she and her mother were of a caste different from his own.
But he was bored to the soul by the difference; he was tired of her ignorances, which she showed every minute, of her ghastly, unclean knowledges--which she never showed.
They came into the courtyard of the Chateau de la Motte, the ancient castle of the Breton dukes, which is now an inn. The red sunset flamed up behind the sad little town and its gray old houses and spires massed on the hill, and the black river creeping by. George's eyes kindled at the sombre picture.
"In this very court," he said, "Constance stood when she summoned the States of Brittany to save her boy Arthur from King John."
"Oh, yes, you have read of it to me in your Shakespeare. It is one of his unpleasant stories. Come, Bebe. It grows damp."
As she climbed the stone stairway with the child, Colette lingered to gossip with the portier. "Poor lady! You will adore her! She is one of us. But she makes of that bete Anglais and the ugly child, saints and gods!"
When George presently came up to their bare little room, Lisa was singing softly, as she rocked Jacques to sleep.
"Can't you sing the boy something a bit more cheerful?" he said. "You used to know some jolly catches from the music halls."
"Catches for HIM?" with a frightened look at the child's shut eyes.
"The 'Adeste Fideles' is moral, but it is not a merry air. You sing it morning, noon, and night," he grumbled.
"Yes," she whispered, laying the child in its crib. "One never knows how much HE understands, and he may remember, I thought. Some day when he is a great boy, he may hear it and he'll think, 'My mother sang that hymn. She must have been a good woman!'"
"Nonsense, Lisa," said George kindly. "You'll teach him every day, while he is growing to be a great boy, that you are a good woman."
She said nothing, but stood on the other side of the crib looking at him.
"Well, what is it?" said George uneasily. "You look at me as if somebody were dragging you away from me."
She laughed. "What ridiculous fancies you have!" She came behind him and, drawing his head back, kissed him on the forehead. "Oh, you poor, foolish boy!" she said.
Lisa sat down to her work, which was the making of garments for Jacques out of her own gowns. She was an expert needlewoman, and had already a pile of fantastic kilts of cloth and velvet.
"Enough to last until he is ten years old," George said contemptuously. "And you will not leave a gown for yourself."
"There will be all I shall need," she said.
He turned up the lamp and opened Clara's letter.
Lisa's needle flew through the red and yellow silk. It was pleasant work; she was doing it skilfully. The fire warmed her thin blood. She could hear the baby's regular, soft breathing as it slept. A pleasure that was almost like health stole through her lean body. She leaned back in her chair looking at Jacques. In three years he could wear the velvet suit with the cap and pompon. His hair would be yellow and curly, like his father's. But his eyes would be like her mother's. She pressed her hands together, laughing, the hot tears rushing to her eyes. "Ah, maman!" she said. "Do you know that your little girl has a baby? Can you see him?"
What a superb "great boy" he would be! He should go to a military school. Yes! She lay back in her chair, watching him.
George suddenly started up with a cry of amazement.
"What is it?" she said indifferently.
He did not answer, but turned the letter and read it over again. Then he folded it with shaking fingers.
"I have news here. Miss Vance thinks it time that I was told, and I agree with her. It appears that I am a pauper, and always have been. My father died penniless."
"Then Jacques will be poor?"
"Jacques! You think of nothing but that mewling, senseless thing! It is mother--she always has supported me. We are living now on the money that she earns from week to week, while I play that I am an artist!"
Lisa listened attentively. "It does not seem strange that a mother should work for her son," she said slowly. "But she has never told us! That is fine! I like that! I told you she had very good traits."
George stared at her. "But--me! Don't you see what a cad I am?"
He paced up and down, muttering, and then throwing on his hat went out into the night to be alone.
Lisa sank back again and watched Jacques. At military school, yes; and after he had left school he would be a soldier, perhaps. Such a gallant young fellow!
She leaned over the cradle, holding out her hands. Ah, God! if she could but live to see it! Surely it might be? There was no pain now. Doctors were not infallible--even D'Abri might be mistaken, after all.
George, coming in an hour later, found her sitting with her hands covering her face.
"Are you asleep, Lisa?"
"No."
"There is a telegram from Clara. My mother has left Munich for Vannes. She will be here in two days."
She rose with an effort. "I am glad for you, George."
"You are ill, Lisa!"
"A little tired, only. Colette will give me my powder, and I shall be quite well in the morning. Will you send her to me now?"
After George was gone the rumbling of a diligence was heard in the courtyard, and presently a woman was brought up to the opposite chamber.
The hall was dark. Looking across it, Frances Waldeaux saw in the lighted room Lisa and her child.
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{
"id": "335"
}
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14
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None
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Before we come to the dark story of that night in the inn, it is but fair to Frances to say that she came there with no definite evil purpose. She had been cheerful on her journey from Munich. There was one clear fact in her brain: She was on her way to George.
The countless toy farms of southern France, trimmed neatly by the inch, swept past her. In Brittany came melancholy stretches of brown heath and rain-beaten hills; or great affluent estates, the Manor houses covered with thatch, stagnant pools close to the doors, the cattle breaking through the slovenly wattled walls.
Frances, being a farmer, felt a vague amusement at these things, but they were all dim to her as a faded landscape hanging on the wall.
She was going to George.
Sometimes she seemed to be in Lucy's room again, with the sweet, clean air of youth about her. All of that purity and love might have gone into George's life--before it fell into the slough.
But she was going now to take it out of the slough.
There was a merchant and his wife from Geneva in the carriage with their little boy, a pretty child of five. Frances played and joked with him.
"Has madam also a son?" his mother asked civilly.
She said yes, and presently added, "My son has now a great trouble, but I am going to relieve him of it."
The woman, startled, stared at her.
"Is it not right for me to rid him of it?" she demanded loudly.
"Mais oui, certainement," said the Swiss. She watched Frances after that furtively. Her eyes, she thought, were quite sane. But how eccentric all of these Americans were!
Mrs. Waldeaux reached Vannes at nightfall. At last! Here was the place in this great empty world where he was.
When the diligence entered the courtyard, George was so near to the gate that the smoke of his cigar was blown into her face, but he did not see her. He was lean and pale, and his eyes told his misery. When she saw them his mother grew sick from head to foot with a sudden nausea. This was his wife's doing. She was killing him! Frances hurried into the inn, her legs giving way under her. She could not speak to him. She must think what to do.
She was taken to her room. It was dark, and across the corridor she saw Lisa in her lighted chamber. This was good luck! God had put the creature at once into her hands to deal with!
She was conscious of a strange exaltation, as if from wine--as if she would never need to sleep nor eat again. Her thoughts came and went like flashes of fire. She watched Lisa as she would a vampire, a creeping deadly beast. Pauline Felix--all that was adulterous and vile in women--there it was!
Her mind too, as never before, was full of a haughty complacency in herself. She felt like the member of some petty sect who is sure that God communes with him inside of his altar rails, while the man is outside whom he believes that God made only to be damned.
Lisa began to undress. Frances quickly turned away, ashamed of peeping into her chamber. But the one fact burned on into her brain: The woman was killing George.
If God would rid the world of her! If a storm should rise now, and the lightning strike the house, and these stone walls should fall on her, now--now!
But the walls stood firm and the moonlight shone tranquilly on the world outside.
She told herself to be calm--to be just. But there was no justice while this woman went on with her work! God saw. He meant her to be stopped. Frances prayed to him frantically that Lisa might soon be put off of the earth. Just as the Catholic used to pray before he massacred the Huguenot, or the Protestant, when he tied his Catholic brother to the stake. If this woman was mad for blood, it was a madness that many sincere people have shared.
Colette was busy with her mistress for a long time. She was very gentle and tender, being fond of Lisa, as people of her class always were. She raised her voice as she made ready to leave the room.
"If the pain returns, here is the powder of morphia, mixed, within madame's reach," she said.
Frances came close to the door.
"And if it continues?" asked Lisa.
"Let monsieur call me. I would not trust him to measure a powder," Colette said, laughing. "It is too dangerous. He is not used to it--like me."
Mrs. Waldeaux saw her lay a paper package on a shelf.
"I will pray that the pain will not return," the girl said. "But if it does, let monsieur knock at my door. Here is the tisane when you are thirsty." She placed a goblet of milky liquid near the bed.
What more she said Frances did not hear.
It was to be! There was the morphia, and yonder the night drink within her reach. It was God's will.
Colette turned out the lamp, hesitated, and sat down by the fire. Presently she rose softly, bent over her mistress, and, finding her asleep, left the room noiselessly. Her door closed far down the corridor.
Mrs. Waldeaux was quite alone, now.
It was but a step across the hall. So easy to do--easy. It must be done at once.
But her feet were like lead, she could not move; her tongue lay icy cold in her mouth. Her soul was willing, but her body rebelled.
What folly was this? It was the work of a moment. George would be free. She would have freed him.
In God's name then---- She crossed the hall softly. Into the hell of her thoughts flashed a little womanish shame, that she, Frances Waldeaux, should be walking on tiptoe, like a thief.
She took down the package, and leaning over the table at the side of the bed, shook the white powder into the glass. Then she went back to her room and shut the door.
The casement was open and the moonlight was white outside. She was conscious that the glare hurt her eyes, and that there was a strange stricture about her jaws and the base of her brain, like an iron hand.
It seemed to her but a minute that she stood there, but the dawn was breaking when there was a sudden confusion in the opposite room. She heard Colette's voice, and then George's, calling Lisa.
There was no answer.
Frances stood up, to listen. "Will she not speak?" she cried. "Make her speak!"
But in reality she said nothing. Even her breath had stopped to listen.
There was no answer.
Frances was awake now, for the rest of her life. She knew what she had done.
"Why, George," she said, "she cannot speak. She is dead. I did it."
She stood in the room a minute, looking from side to side, and then went with measured steps out of it, down the corridor and into the street.
"I did it," she said to herself again and again, as she walked slowly on.
The old cathedral is opposite to the inn. Her eyes, as she passed, rested on the gargoyles, and she thought how fine they were. One was a ridiculous head with lolling tongue.
A priest's voice inside was chanting mass. A dozen Breton women in their huge white winged caps and wooden shoes hurried up to the door, through the gray fog. They met Mrs. Waldeaux and saw her face. They huddled to one side, crossing themselves, and when she passed, stood still, forgetting the mass and looking, frightened, up the steep street behind her to find what horror had pursued her.
"They know what I have done," she said aloud.
Once when she was a child she had accidentally seen a bloated wretch, a murderer, on his way to the gallows.
"I am he," she thought. "I--_I_, Frances."
Then the gargoyle came into her mind again. What a capital headpiece it would make for "Quigg's" next column! It was time this week's jokes were sent.
But at last these ghosts of yesterday's life faded out, and she saw the fact.
She had hated her son's wife and had killed her!
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{
"id": "335"
}
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15
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None
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When the sun was well up the women who had been at mass gathered down by the little river which runs through the old city, to wash their clothes. They knelt on the broad stones by the edge of the water, chattering and singing, tossing the soap from one to another.
There was a sudden silence. "Here she is again," they whispered, as a slight, delicate woman crossed the bridge with steady steps.
"She is blind and deaf," said old Barbe. "I met her an hour ago and asked her whom she sought. She did not see nor hear me, but walked straight on."
Oliver Bauzy was lounging near, as usual, watching his wife work.
"She is English. What does she know of your Breton talk? I speak English and French--I!" he bragged, and walking up to Mrs. Waldeaux, he flourished his ragged hat, smiling. "Is madame ill? She has walked far," he said kindly.
The English words seemed to waken her. "It is always the town," looking around bewildered. "The people--houses. I think I am not well. If I could find the woods----" Bauzy had but a hazy idea of her meaning, but he nodded gravely. "She is a tourist. She wants to go out of Vannes--to see the chateaux, the dolmens. I'm her man. I'll drive her to Larmor Baden," he said to his wife. "I have to go there to-day, and I may as well make a franc or two. Keep her until I bring the voiture."
But Frances stood motionless until the old wagon rattled up to the water's edge.
"She has a dear old face," Bauzy's wife whispered.
"She is blind and deaf, I tell you," old Barbe grumbled, peering up at her. "Make her pay, Oliver, before you go."
Bauzy nodded, and when Frances was seated held out his hand.
"Twenty francs," he said.
She opened her bag and gave them to him.
"She must be folle!" he said uneasily. "I feel like a thief. Away with you, Babette!" as a pretty baby ran up to him. "You want to ride? That is impossible. Unless, indeed, madame desires it?" lifting the child to place her on the seat. Babette laughed and held out her hands.
But Mrs. Waldeaux shrank back, shuddering. "Take her away," she whispered. "She must not touch me!"
The mother seized the child, and the women all talked vehemently at once. Oliver climbed into the voiture and drove off in silence. When he looked around presently he saw that the woman's face was bloodless, and a cold sweat stood on it. He considered a while. "You want food," he said, and brought out some hard bread and a jug of Normandy cider.
Frances shook her head. She only spoke once during the morning, and then told him something about a woman "whom no child could touch. No man or woman could touch her as long as she lived. Not even her son."
As Bauzy could make nothing of this, he could only nod and laugh civilly. But presently he, too, grew silent, glancing at her uncomfortably from time to time.
They drove through great red fields of sarasson, hedged by long banks of earth, which were masses of golden gorse and bronzed and crimson ferns. The sun shone, the clover-scented air was full of the joyous buzzing of bees and chirp of birds.
"It is a gay, blessed day!" Bauzy said, "thanks to the good God!" He waited anxiously for her reply, but she stared into the sunshine and said nothing.
Larmor Baden is a lonely little cluster of gray stone huts on the shore of the Morbihan sea. Some of Bauzy's friends lounged smiling up to welcome him, waving their wide black hats with velvet streamers, and bowing low to the lady. Oliver alighted with decision. One thing he knew: He would not drive back with her. Something was amiss. He would wash his hands of her.
"Here, madame, is Vincent Selo, paysageur," he said rapidly in French. "He has a good boat. He will take you where you desire. Sail with her to Gavr' Inis," he said to Selo, "and bring her back at her pleasure. Somebody can drive her back to Vannes, and don't overcharge her, you robbers!"
"Gavr' Inis?" Frances repeated.
"It is an island in the sea yonder, madame. A quiet place of trees. When there was not a man in the world, evil spirits built there an altar for the worship of the devil. No men could have built it. There are huge stones carried there from the mountains far inland, that no engine could lift. It is a great mystery."
"It is the one place in the world, people say," interrupted Selo, lowering his voice, "where God never has been. A dreadful place, madame!"
Frances laughed. "That is the place for me," she said to Selo. "Take me there."
The old man looked at her with shrewd, friendly eyes, and then beckoned Bauzy aside.
"Who is she? She has the bearing of a great lady, but her face hurts me. What harm has come to her?"
"How do I know?" said Bauzy. "Go for your boat. The sea is rising."
Late in the afternoon M. Selo landed his strange passenger upon the pebbly beach of the accursed island. He led her up on the rocks, talking, and pointing across the sea.
"Beyond is the Atlantic, and on yonder headland are the great menhirs of Carnac--thirty thousand of them, brought there before Christ was born. But the Evil One loves this island best of all places. It has in it the mystery of the world. Come," he said, in an awed voice. "It is here."
He crossed to the hill, stooped, and entered a dark cave about forty feet long, which was wholly lined with huge flat rocks carved with countless writhing serpents. As Frances passed they seemed to stir and breathe beside her, at her feet, overhead. The cave opened into a sacrificial chamber. The reptiles grew gigantic here, and crowded closer. Through some rift a beam of melancholy light crept in; a smell of death hung in the thick, unclean air.
Selo pointed to a stone altar. "It was there they killed their victims," he whispered, and began to pray anxiously, half-aloud. When he had finished, he hurried back, beckoning to her to come out.
"Go," she said. "I will stay here."
"Then I will wait outside. This is no place for Christian souls. But we must return soon, madame. My little girl will be watching now for me."
When he was gone she stood by the altar. This island of Gavr' Inis was one of the places to which she and George had long ago planned to come. She remembered the very day on which they had read the legend that on this altar men before the Flood had sacrificed to the god of Murder.
"I am the murderer now, and George knows it," she said quietly. But she was cold and faint, and presently began to tremble weakly.
She went out of the cave and stood on the beach. "I want to go home, George," she said aloud. "I want to be Frances Waldeaux again. I'm sure I didn't know it was in me to do that thing."
There was no answer. She was alone in the great space of sky and sea. The world was so big and empty, and she alone and degraded in it!
"I never shall see George again. He will think of me only as the woman who killed his wife," she thought.
She went on blindly toward the water, and stood there a long time.
Then, in the strait of her agony, there came to Frances Waldeaux, for the first time in her life, a perception that there was help for her in the world, outside of her own strength. Her poor tortured wits discerned One, more real than her crime, or George, or the woman that she had killed. It was an old, hackneyed story, that He knew every man and woman in the world, that He could help them. She had heard it often.
Was there any thing in it? Could He help her?
Slowly, the nervous twitching of her body quieted, her dulled eyes cleared as if a new power of sight were coming to them.
After a long time she heard steps, and Selo calling. She rose.
The murder was known. They were coming to arrest her.
What did it matter? She had found help.
Selo came up excitedly.
"It is another boat, English folk also, that comes to arrive."
She turned and waited.
And then, coming up the hill, she saw George, and with him--Lisa! Lisa, smiling as she talked.
They ran to meet her with cries of amazement. She staggered back on the rock.
"You are not dead? Lisa----" "Dead? Poor lady!" catching her in her arms. "Some water, George! It is her head. She has been too much alone."
When Frances opened her eyes she was lying on the grass, her children kneeling beside her. She caught Lisa's arm in both hands and felt it: then she sat up.
"I must tell you what I did--before you speak to me."
"Not now," said Lisa. "You are not well. I am going to be your nurse. The baby has made me a very good nurse," and she stooped again over Frances, with kind, smiling eyes.
Selo came to wile George up to the mysterious cave, but Lisa impatiently hurried them to the beach. "Caves and serpent worshippers truly!" she cried. "Why, she has not seen Jacques!" and when, in the boat, George, who was greatly alarmed, tried to rouse his mother from her silent stupor, Lisa said gayly, "She will be herself again as soon as she sees HIM."
When they reached Larmor Baden, she despatched George in search of Colette and the child, and she went into the church. It was late, and the village women sat on the steps gossipping in the slanting sunlight. There is nothing in their lives but work and the church; and when, each day, they have finished with one they go to the other.
Frances followed her. The sombre little church was vacant. She touched Lisa on the shoulder.
"There is something I must tell you," she said. "You would not let me touch the child, if you knew it."
She stooped and spoke a few sentences in a vehement whisper, and then leaned back, exhausted, against the wall.
Lisa drew back. Her lips were white with sudden fright, but she scanned Mrs. Waldeaux's face keenly.
"You were in Vannes last night? You tried---- My God, I remember! The tisane tasted queerly, and I threw it out." She walked away for a moment, and then turning, said, "You called my mother a vile woman once. But SHE would not have done that thing!
"No," said Frances, not raising her head. "No."
Lisa stood looking at her as she crouched against the wall. The fierce scorn slowly died out of her eyes. She was a coarse, but a good-natured, woman. An awful presence, too, walked with her always now, step by step, and in that dread shadow she saw the things of life more justly than we do. She took Frances by the hand at last. "You were not quite yourself, I think," she said quietly. "I have pushed you too hard. George has told me so much about you! If we could be together for a while, perhaps we should love each other a little. But there is no time now----" She turned hastily, and threw herself down before a crucifix.
After a long time she went out to the vestibule, where she found Frances, and said, with an effort to be cheerful and matter-of-fact, "Come, now, let us talk like reasonable people. A thing is coming to me which comes to every-body. I'm not one to whine. But it's the child--I don't think any baby ever was as much to a woman as Jacques is to me. I suppose God does not think I am fit to bring him up. Sit down and let me tell you all about it."
They sat on the steps, talking in a low tone. Frances cried, but Lisa's eyes were quite dry and bright. She rose at last.
"You see, there will be no woman to care for him, if you do not. There he is with Colette." She ran down, took the baby from the bonne, and laid him in Frances's arms.
Mrs. Waldeaux looked down at him. "George's son," she whispered, "George's boy!"
"He is very like George and you," Lisa answered. "He is a Waldeaux."
"Yes, I see."
She held him close to her breast as they drove back to Vannes. George whistled and sang on the box. He was very light of heart to have her with him again.
He looked impatiently at an ancient village through which they passed, with its towers, and peasants in strange garbs, like the pictures in some crusading tale.
"Now that we have mother, Lisa," he said, "we'll go straight back home. I am tired of mediaeval times. I must get to work for this youngster."
Lisa did not speak for a moment. "I should like to stay in Vannes a little longer," she said. "I did not tell you, but--my mother is buried there. That was why I came; I should like to be with her."
"Why, of course, dear. As long as you like," he said affectionately. "I will not detain you long. Perhaps only a week or two," she said.
He nodded, and began to whistle cheerfully again. Frances looked at Lisa, and her eyes filled with tears. It was a pitiful tragedy!
But the poor girl was quite right not to worry George until the last moment. She was blocking his way--ruining his life, and God was taking her away so that she could no longer harm him.
And yet--poor Lisa!
They drove on. The sun warmed the crimson fields, and the birds chirped, and this was George's child creeping close to her breast. It stirred there a keen pang of joy.
Surely He had forgiven her.
A month later a group of passengers in deep mourning stood apart on the deck of the Paris as she left the dock at Liverpool. It was George Waldeaux, his mother, and little Jacques with his nurse. Mrs. Waldeaux was looking at Clara and her girls, who were watching her from the dock. They had come to Vannes when Lisa died, and had taken care of her and the baby until now. Frances had cried at leaving them, but George stood with his back to them moodily, looking down into the black water.
"It seems but a few days since we sailed from New York on the Kaiser Wilhelm," he said, "and yet I have lived out all my life in that time."
"All? Is there nothing left, George?" his mother said gently.
"Oh, of course, you are always a good companion, and there is the child----" He paused. The fierce passions, the storms of delight and pain of his life with Lisa rushed back on him. "I will work for others, and wear out the days as I can," he said. "But life is over for me. The story is told. There are only blank pages now to the end."
He turned his dim eyes toward the French coast. She knew that they saw the little bare grave on the hill in Vannes. "I wish I could have seen something green growing on it before I left her there alone!" he muttered.
"Her mother's grave was covered with roses----" Frances answered quickly. "They will creep over to her. She is not alone, George. I am glad she was laid by her mother. She loved her dearly."
"Yes. Better than any thing on earth," he responded gloomily.
A few moments later the ship swung heavily around.
"We are going!" Mrs. Waldeaux cried, waving her hand. "Won't you look at Clara and Lucy, George? They have been so good to us. If Lucy had been my own child, she could not have been kinder to me."
Mr. Waldeaux turned and raised his crepe-bound hat, looking at Lucy in her soft gray gown vaguely, as he might at a white gull dropped on the shore.
"I suppose I never shall see her again," said his mother. "Clara tells me she is besieged by lovers. She is going to marry a German prince, probably."
"That would be a pity," George said, with a startled glance back at the girl.
"Good-by, my dear!" Mrs. Waldeaux leaned over the bulwark. "She is beautiful as an angel! Good-by, Lucy! God bless you!" she sobbed, kissing her hand.
Mr. Waldeaux looked steadily at Lucy. "How clean she is!" he said.
When the shore was gone he walked down the deck, conscious of a sudden change in himself. He was wakening out of an ugly dream. The sight of the healthy little girl, with her dewy freshness and blue eyes, full of affection and common sense, cheered and heartened him. He did not know what was doing it, but he threw up his head and walked vigorously. The sun shone and the cold wind swept him out into a dim future to begin a new life.
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George Waldeaux took his mother and boy back to the old homestead in Delaware. They arrived at night, and early the next morning he rowed away in his bateau to some of his old haunts in the woods on the bay, and was seen no more that day.
"He is inconsolable!" his mother told some of her old neighbors who crowded to welcome her. "His heart is in that grave in Vannes." The women listened in surprise, for Frances was not in the habit of exploiting her emotions in words.
"We understood," said one of them, with a sympathetic shake of the head, "that it was a pure love match. Mrs. George Waldeaux, we heard, was a French artist of remarkable beauty?"
Frances moved uneasily. "I never thought her--but I can't discuss Lisa!" She was silent a moment. "But as for her social position"--she drew herself up stiffly, fixing cold defiant eyes on her questioner--"as for her social position," she went on resolutely, "she was descended on one side from an excellent American family, and on the other from one of the noblest houses in Europe."
When they were gone she hugged little Jacques passionately as he lay on her lap. "That is settled for you!" she said.
When George came back in the evening, he found her walking with the boy in her arms on the broad piazzas.
"I really think he knows that he has come home, George!" she exclaimed. "See how he laughs! And he liked the dogs and horses just as Lisa thought he would. I am glad it is such a beautiful home for him. Look at that slope to the bay! There is no nobler park in England! And the house is as big as most of their palaces, and much more comfortable!"
"Give the child to Colette, mother, and listen to me. Now that I have settled you and him here, I must go and earn your living."
"Yes."
She followed him into the hall.
"I leave you to-morrow. There is no time to be lost."
"You are going back to art, George?"
"No! Never!"
Frances grew pale. She thought she had torn open his gaping wound.
"I did not mean to remind you of--of----" "No, it isn't that!"
He scowled at the fire. Art meant for him his own countless daubs, and the sickening smell of oily paints and musk, and soiled silk tea gowns, and the whole slovenly, disreputable scramble of Bohemian life in Paris.
"I loathe art!" he said, with a furious blow at the smouldering log in the fireplace, as if he struck these things all down into the ashes with it.
"Will you go back into the Church, dear?" his mother ventured timidly.
"Most certainly, no!" he said vehemently. "Of all mean frauds the perfunctory priest is the meanest. If I could be like one of the old holy gospellers--then indeed!"
He was silent a moment, and then began to stride up and down the long hall, his head thrown back, his chest inflated.
"I have a message for the world, mother."
"I am sure of it," she interrupted eagerly.
"But I must deliver it in my own way. I have lost two years. I am going to put in big strokes of work now. In the next two years I intend to take my proper place in my own country. I will find standing room for George Waldeaux," with a complacent smile. "And in the meantime, of course, I must make money enough to support you and the boy handsomely. So you see, mother," he ended, laughing, "I have no time to lose."
"No, George!" It was the proudest moment of her life. How heroic and generous he was!
She filled his pocket-book the next day, when he went to New York to take the world by the throat. It was really not George Waldeaux's fault that she filled it.
Nor was it his fault that during the next two years the world was in no hurry to run to his feet, either to learn of him, or to bring him its bags of gold. The little man did his best; he put his "message," as he called it, into poems, into essays, into a novel. Publishers thanked him effusively for the pleasure of reading them, and--sent them back. The only word of his which reached the public was a review of the work of a successful author. It was so personal, so malignant, that George, when he read it, writhed with shame and humiliation. He tore the paper into fragments.
"Am I so envious and small as that! Before God, no words of mine shall ever go into print again!" he said, and he kept his word.
He came down every month or two to his mother.
"Why not try teaching, George?" she said anxiously. "These great scholars and scientific men have places and reputations which even you need not despise."
He laughed bitterly. "I tried for a place as tutor in a third-class school, and could not pass the examinations. I know nothing accurately. Nothing."
It occurred to him to go into politics and help reform the world by routing a certain Irish boss. He made a speech at a ward meeting, and broke down in the middle of it before the storm of gibes and hootings.
"What was the matter?" he asked a friend, whose face was red with laughter.
"My dear fellow, you shouldn't lecture them! You're not the parson. They resent your air of enormous superiority. For Heaven's sake, don't speak again--in this campaign."
It is a wretched story. There is no need of going into the details. There was no room for him. He tried in desperation to get some foothold in business. The times were hard that winter, which of course was against him. Besides, his critical, haughty air naturally did not prepossess employers in his favor when he came to ask for a job.
At the end of the second year the man broke down.
"The work of the world," he told Frances, "belongs to specialists. Even a bootblack knows his trade. I know nothing. I can do nothing. I am a mass of flabby pretences."
Every month she filled his pocket-book. She found at last that he did not touch the money. He sold his clothes and his jewelry to keep himself alive while he tramped the streets of New York looking for work. He starved himself to make this money last. His flesh was lead-colored from want of proper food, and he staggered from weakness. " 'He that will not work neither let him eat,'" he said grimly.
It was about this time that Miss Vance came home. Mrs. Waldeaux in a moment of weakness gave her a hint of his defeat.
"Is the world blind," she cried, "to deny work to a man of George's capacity? What does it mean?"
Clara heard of George's sufferings with equanimity. "The truth is," she said, when she told the story to Miss Dunbar, "Frances brought that boy up to believe that he was a Grand Llama among men. There is no work for Grand Llamas in this country, and when he understands that he is made of very ordinary clay indeed, he will probably be of some use in the world."
Lucy was watering her roses. "It is a matter of indifference to me," she said, "what the people of New York think of Mr. Waldeaux."
Clara looked at her quickly. "I do not quite catch your meaning?" she said.
But Lucy filled her can, and forgot to answer.
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Clara had brought Miss Dunbar back and established her in her own house near Weir, under the care of a deaf widowed aunt. Dunbar Place was a stately colonial house, set in a large demesne, and all Kent County waited breathless to know what revelations the heiress would make to it, in the way of equi-pages, marqueterie furniture, or Paris gowns.
Mrs. Waldeaux found Lucy one day, a month after her arrival, seated at her sewing on the broad, rose-covered piazza, looking as if she never had left it.
"Have you come to stay now, my dear," she said, "or will Prince Wolfburgh----" "Oh, that is an old story," interrupted Clara. "Lucy handed the little prince over to Jean Hassard, who married him after he had a long fight with her father about her dot. He won the dot, but Count Odo is now the head of the house. Jean, I hear, is in Munich fighting her way up among the Herrschaft."
"Jean has good fighting qualities," Lucy said. "She will win."
"I had a letter from her to-day," said Miss Vance. "Here it is. She says, 'I mean to rebuild the Schloss, and I have put a stop to the soap-boiling business. I will have no fumes of scorching fat in our ancestral halls. Four of the princesses live with us here in the flat. Gussy Carson from Pond City is staying with me now. We have an American tea every Wednesday. Gus receives with me.'"
"Poor princesses!" said Lucy.
Miss Vance folded the letter with a complacent nod. "I am glad that Jean is settled so satisfactorily," she said. "As for Lucy----" No one answered. Lucy threaded her needle.
"I start next week to Chicago, did you know, Frances? The Bixbys--two orphan heiresses--wish me to take them to Australia, coming back by India. And I suppose," she said, rising impatiently, "if I were to stay away forty years I should find Lucy when I came back, with white hair maybe, but sitting calmly sewing, not caring whether there was a man in the world or not!"
Lucy laughed, but did not even blush.
Mrs. Waldeaux presently said good-by, and Clara went home with her to spend the night. Lucy was left alone upon the piazza. It was there that George Waldeaux saw her again.
This had been the hardest day of his life. He rose that morning telling himself with an oath that he would earn the money to buy his own food or never eat again. His mother had sent him a cheque by post. He tore it up and went out of his cheap lodging-house without breakfast. There was a queer change in him--a sudden lofty independence--a sudden loathing of himself. He knew now that it was not in him to do good work in the world, but at least he would pay his own way. He had been a mass of vanity and now he was so mean in his own eyes that he shrank from the passers-by. Perhaps the long strain had damaged the gray matter of the brain, or some nervous centre--I do not know what change a physician would have found in him, but the man was changed.
A clerk was needed in a provision shop on Green Street. George placed himself in the line of dirty, squalid applicants. The day was hot, the air of the shop was foul with the smells of rotting meat and vegetables. He felt himself stagger against a stall. He seemed to be asleep, but he heard the butchers laughing. They called him a drunken tramp, and then he was hurled out on the muddy pavement.
"Too much whiskey for this time o' day!" a policeman said, hauling him to his feet.
"Move along, young man!"
Whiskey? That was what he wanted. He turned into a shop and bought a dram with his last pennies. It made him comfortable for a few hours, then he began to cry and swear. George Waldeaux had never been drunk in his life. The ascetic, stainless priest in him stood off and looked at this dog of the gutter with his obscene talk, and then came defeat of soul and body.
"I give up!" he said quietly. "I'll never try again."
He wandered unconsciously to the ferry and, having his yearly book of tickets in his pocket, took the train for home from force of habit. He left the cars at a station several miles from Weir, and wandered across the country. Just at sundown, covered with mud and weak from hunger and drunkenness, he crossed the lawn before Lucy's house and, looking up, saw her.
He had stumbled into a world of peace and purity! A soft splendor filled the sky and the bay and the green slopes, with their clumps of mighty forest trees. The air was full of the scents of flowers and the good-night song of happy birds. And in the midst of it all, lady of the great domain, under her climbing rose vines, sat the young, fair woman, clad in some fleecy white garments, her head bent, her blue eyes fixed on the distance--waiting.
George stopped, sobered by a sudden wrench of his heart. There was the world to which he belonged--there! His keen eye noted every delicate detail of her beauty and of her dress. He was of her sort, her kind--he, kicked into the gutter from that foul shop as a tramp!
This is what I have lost! his soul cried to him.
He had not as yet recognized Lucy. But now she saw him, and with a little inarticulate cry like that of a bird, she flew down the steps. "Ah! It is you!" she said. "I thought you would come to welcome me some time!"
Her voice was like a soft breath; her airy draperies blew against him. It was as if a wonderful, beautiful dream were folding him in--and in.
He drew back. "I am not fit, Miss Dunbar. I did not know you were here. Why--look at me!"
"Oh! You are ill! You have had an accident!" she cried. She had laid her little white fingers on his hand and now, feeling it burn and tremble at her touch, she caught it in both of her own and drew him into the house.
"Mr. Waldeaux," she said to a servant who appeared, "has had a fall. Bring him water and towels. Take care of him, Stephen." She spoke quietly, but her voice trembled with fright.
The man led George to an inner room.
"Were you thrown, sir?" he asked sympathetically.
George hesitated. "Yes, I was thrown," he said grimly.
He made himself clean in angry haste, taking the whisk from the man and brushing off the dry mud with a vicious fury.
Lucy came to meet him, with a pale, anxious smile. "You must not go without a cup of hot coffee," she said, leading him to a lounge in the hall. It was very sweet to be treated like a sick man!
"And God knows I am sick, body and soul!" he thought, sinking down.
Beside the lounge was a little table with one cover. He noted with keen pleasure the delicate napery, the silver candlesticks, the bowl of roses, with which the substantial meal was set out. Lucy waited on him with the quick intelligence of a trained nurse. She scarcely spoke, yet her every motion, as she served him, seemed a caress. When he had finished he began to stammer out his thanks.
"No," she said, rising decisively. "You are too weak to talk to me to-night, Mr. Waldeaux. The coupe is at the door. John will drive you home. You need sleep now."
As he sank down into the luxurious cushions and drove away through the twilight, he saw the little white figure in the door, and the grave wistful face looking after him.
"Did she suspect!" he suddenly cried, starting up.
But George Waldeaux never knew how much Lucy suspected that night.
Meanwhile Mrs. Waldeaux's mare had jogged on leisurely, dragging her mistress and Miss Vance home through the shady country lanes.
"Phebe is old," apologized Frances. "She really is a retired car horse."
"You used to take pride in your horses, Frances?"
"Yes." Mrs. Waldeaux added after a pause. "My income is small. Of course George soon will be coining money, but just now---- The peach crop failed this year too. And I save every dollar for Jack's education."
"But what of the jokes for the New York paper? They were profitable."
"Oh, I gave them up long ago." She glanced around cautiously. "Never speak of that, Clara. I would not have George know for the world; I never would hold up my head if he knew that I was 'Quigg.'"
Miss Vance gave a contemptuous sniff, but Mrs. Waldeaux went on eagerly, "I have a plan! You know that swampy tract of ours near Lewes? When I have enough money I'll drain it and lay out a summer resort--hotels--cottages. I'll develop it as I sell the lots. Oh, Jack shall have his millions yet to do great work in the world!" her eyes sparkling. "Though perhaps he may choose to strip himself of everything to give to the poor, like Francis d'Assisi! That would be best of all. It's not unlikely. He is the most generous boy!"
"Stuff!" said Miss Vance. "St. Francis, indeed! I observe, by the way, that he crosses himself after his meals. Are you making a Romanist of the child? And you speak French to him, too?"
Mrs. Waldeaux's color rose. "His mother was French and Catholic," she said. "I will not have Lisa forgotten."
They went on in silence. Miss Vance was lost in thought. Was George Waldeaux equally eager to keep his wife's memory alive? Now that the conceit had been beaten out of him, he would not make a bad husband. And her child Lucy had always--esteemed him highly.
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The next day was Sunday. George jumped out of bed with the dawn. He whistled and sang scraps of songs as he took his bath. The sun shone. What a full, happy world it was, anyhow! And he had given up the game last night? Why, life was just beginning for him! He was nothing but a boy--not yet thirty. He would make a big success soon, and then try to win--to win---- He stopped, breathless, looking into the distance, and his eyes slowly grew wet with passion and longing.
He left the house and struck across the country through the woodland and farms. He did not know why he went--he had to go. When he reached the Dunbar woods, he stood in the thicket for hours, watching the house. She came out at last and sat down on the steps to play with the dog. Last night in her white, delicate beauty she had not seemed real--she was far off, like an angel coming down into his depths of misery.
But to-day she sat on the steps in her pretty blue gown, and laughed and rolled Tramp over, and sung snatches of songs, and was nothing but a foolish girl. For so many years he had been thinking of work and money-making and bosses. All of that mean drudgery fell out of sight now. He was a man, young, alone, on fire with hope and passion. His share of life had been mean and pinched; yonder was youth and gladness and tranquillity. The world was empty, save for themselves. He was here, and there was the one woman in it--the one woman.
He looked at his tanned, rough fingers. Last night she had folded them in her two soft little hands, and drawn him on--on into home!
He would go up to her now and tell her---- George pushed aside the bushes, but at that moment Lucy rose and went into the house. After a moment he crossed the lawn and sat down on the piazza, calling the dog to him. She would come back soon. Tramp's head rested on his knee as he stroked it. It was here her hand had touched it--and here---- The scent of roses was heavy in the sunshine, the bees hummed; he sat there in a hazy dream, waiting for the door to open and the joy of his life to begin.
He was dragged roughly enough out of his dream.
Miss Dunbar's landau drove to the door to take her to church. George looked up, carelessly noting how quiet and perfectly appointed it was, from the brown liveries of the negro coachman and footman to the trappings on the black ponies. There were no horses of such high breed in Delaware. He stood up suddenly, his jaws pale as if he had been struck. What money there was in it! He had forgotten. She was a great heiress.
She came out at the moment. He scanned her fiercely, the plain, costly gown, the ruby blazing on her ungloved hand. Then he glanced down at his own shabby Sunday suit. She was the richest woman in Delaware, and he had not a dollar in his pocket, and no way to earn one.
He went up to her, courteously took her hand when she held it out, blushing and dimpling, bowed to her aunt, saying that he had merely walked over to put her into her carriage, and, having shut the door, looked after them, hat in hand, smiling when she glanced shyly back at him.
Then he laughed loudly. If he had the salary that she paid her negro driver he would be lucky! And he had meant to marry her. He laughed again and took his way homeward.
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His mother was waiting to give George his breakfast. Whether he chose to lie in bed until noon or to walk twenty miles at dawn, she smiled a joyful approval. But neither the crisp toast, nor the fried chicken, nor any of her funny stories, would penetrate the blackness of his gloom.
"Oh, by the way!" she said; "here is a letter that came by last night's mail. I forgot to give it to you."
He glanced at the envelope. "Great Heavens! It is life and death to me, and you forget it to tell Jack's pert sayings!" He read the letter and threw it down.
"What is it, George?" she asked humbly.
"Burnett & Hoyle offer me a place in their house."
"Mr. Hoyle is an old friend of mine. I wrote to him. What is the salary, George?"
"Forty dollars a week. I could earn more as a coachman--for some rich heiress."
"But George dear---- It would be a beginning. They are brokers, and there are so many short cuts to fortune in that business! Do try it, my son."
"Of course I'll try it. Do you think I'm a fool? It will keep me from starving. But I want something else in life than to be kept from starving, mother."
He stretched out his arms with a groan, and walked to the window. She followed him with wretched, comprehending eyes. Why did not Lucy give him her fortune? Any woman would be honored who could give George her fortune.
"I always have heard that brokers know the short cuts to wealth," she said calmly. "You go on the Street some day, and come back a millionaire."
"That is a woman's idea of business. Instead, I will sit on a high stool and drudge all day, and on Saturday get my wages, and after three or four years I'll make a fight for ten dollars more a week, and thank God if I get it. 'A short cut to fortune!'"
Mrs. Waldeaux carefully averted her eyes from him. "You may marry," she said, "and it may happen that your wife also will have some little income----" "Mother! Look at me!" he interrupted her sternly. "I will never be dependent on my wife, so help me God!"
"No, George, no! Of course not. Don't speak so loud. Only, I thought if she had a small sum of her own, she would feel more comfortable, that's all."
In spite of his ill temper George threw himself into his work with zeal. After a couple of months he came home for a day. He was dressed with the quiet elegance which once had been so important in his eyes.
His mother noted it shrewdly. "A man has more courage to face life, decently clothed," she said to herself.
He did not come again until winter. Lucy happened to be spending the day with Mrs. Waldeaux. There were no liveried servants, no priceless rings, no Worth gown in sight. She was just the shy, foolish girl whom he had once for an hour looked upon as his wife. George talked about Wall Street to her, being now wise as to stocks; took her out sleighing, and when in the evening she took Jack in her arms and sang him to sleep, sat listening with his head buried in his hands. Mrs. Waldeaux carried the boy up to bed, and Lucy and George were left alone. They talked long and earnestly.
"She consulted me about her affairs," he said, after she was gone, his eyes shining.
"I am afraid she does not understand business!" Mrs. Waldeaux replied anxiously.
"Oh, like a woman! That is, not at all. Her whole property is in the hands of The Consolidated Good Faith Companies. I reminded her of the old adage, 'Never put all of your eggs into one basket.'"
"But that is so sound a basket, George!" "Yes. It is thought so," with a shrug.
"Poor child! She needs a guardian to advise her."
Waldeaux's countenance grew black. "She should employ an attorney. It certainly will never be my duty to advise Miss Dunbar," he retorted irritably.
George showed himself shrewd and able in his work. Mr. Hoyle was a powerful backer. Before spring his salary was doubled. But what was that? The gulf between him and the great heiress gaped, impassable.
Lucy spent much time with her old friend, and Frances at last broke the silence concerning him.
"The boy never before knew what love was. And it is you that he loves, child."
"He has not told me so," said Lucy coldly.
"No. And never will. It is your wealth that makes him dumb. I wish it was gone," said Frances earnestly. "Gone. You would be so happy. What is money compared to being----" "George's wife?" Lucy laughed.
"Yes. George's wife. I know what he is worth," his mother said boldly. "You might give it away?" looking eagerly in the girl's face. "In charity."
"I might do so," said Miss Dunbar tranquilly.
One morning in April Mrs. Waldeaux saw George coming up from the station. She ran to meet him.
He was pale and breathless with excitement. "What is it? What has happened?" she cried.
"Hush--h! Come in. Shut the door. No one must hear. The Consolidated Companies have failed. They have robbed their depositors."
"Well, George? What have we---- Oh, Lucy!"
"Yes, Lucy! She is ruined! She has nothing. It was all there." He paced up and down, hoarse with agitation and triumph. "She mustn't know it, mother, until she is safe in another home."
"Another home?" "Oh, surely you understand! Here--if she will come. Poor little girl! She has not a dollar! I am getting a big salary. I can work for you all. My God! I will have her at last! Unless---- Perhaps she won't come! Mother, do you think she will come?" He caught her arm, his jaws twitched, the tears stood in his eyes, as when he used to come to her with his boyish troubles.
"How can I tell?" said Frances. "Go and ask her."
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In July Miss Vance returned unexpectedly. Her charges had tired of travel, and turned their backs upon India. She dropped them in Chicago, and came to Weir for rest. The evening of her arrival she strolled with Frances through the park, listening to the story of George's sudden wooing, and the quiet, hurried wedding.
"It had to be quiet and hurried," said Mrs. Waldeaux, "in order to keep her ignorant of her change of fortune. He took her to the Virginia mountains, so that no newspapers could reach her. They are coming to-morrow. It won't trouble her to hear that her money is gone when she is here with us all, at home. As for me," she went on excitedly, "I am beginning to advertise the summer resort. I must put my hand to the plough. I don't mean that she shall miss any comfort or luxury as George's wife."
Miss Vance looked at her. "Frances, give up your planning and working. Let George work for you and his wife," she said curtly. "It is time for you to stop and rest."
"And why should I stop and rest, Clara?" said Frances, amazed.
"Surely you know, dear. You are not as young as you once were. Your eyes are weak, and your hearing is a little dulled, and----" Frances threw out her hand eagerly. "You think I am growing old! It is only my eyes and ears that are wearing out. _I_ am not deaf nor blind," she said earnestly. " _I_ am not old. I find more fun and flavor in life now than I did at sixteen. If I live to be seventy, or a hundred, I shall be the same Frances Waldeaux still."
Clara gave an annoyed shrug. "But really, _I_ make the thought of death my constant companion. And you are older than I." "'After the busy day Comes the calm sleep of night,'" she quoted, with a sententious sigh.
"Calm and sleep do not appear to me to be the highest conditions of life. No! I will not be set aside, even when I am dead, like a burned-out candle!" The indignant tears stood in her eyes. "Why, even in that other world I shall not be a barren stock, thank God! I have given a family to mankind. To watch a long line of your descendants at work, to see in them your own thoughts and your own soul reaching out, live powers through all eternity--I often think of it. That will be--not calm nor sleep."
Miss Vance touched Mrs. Waldeaux's arm affectionately. "What a queer idea, Frances. Well, I never argue, you know. Drop in the harness, if you choose. Let us go in now. It is chilly."
The older woman looked after her, and smiled good-humoredly. After a moment she raised her hand, examining it attentively. Her hand had been very beautiful in shape, white and dimpled, and she had been vain enough to wear fine rings. Now it was yellow and wrinkled. The great emerald looked like a bit of glass upon it.
"Yes, I see," she said, with a miserable little laugh, and then stood looking out into the far distance. "But _I_ am not growing old." She spoke aloud, as if to one who stood apart with her and could understand. "Even out in that other world I shall not be only a mother. I shall be me. ME!" touching her breast. "After a million of years--it will still be me."
There stirred within the lean body and rheumatic limbs depths of unused power, of thought, of love and passion, and, deeper than all, awful possibilities of change.
"I have it in me still to be worse than a murderer," she thought, with whitening face.
She stood a long time, alone. A strange content and light came slowly into her face. "Come what will, I shall never be left to myself again," she said at last, speaking to a Friend whom she had found long ago.
Then she went in search of the boy. "Come, Jack," she said cheerfully, "there are busy days before us."
George and Lucy that evening reached Dover, prettiest of American towns. They strolled down the shaded street out into a quiet country lane. Lucy sat down upon a fallen tree, and George threw himself upon the grass beside her.
"To-morrow we shall be at home," she said, pushing his hair back. "Do you know that your profile is absolutely Greek?" Her eyes half closed critically. "Yes, we shall be at home about eleven o'clock. I wrote to Stephen to order all the dishes that you like for luncheon. Your mother and Jack are coming. It will be such a gay, happy day!"
He took her hand. He would tell her now. It would not distress her. The money weighed for nothing in her life. He was her world; he knew that.
"Lucy!" he said.
She turned, startled at his grave tone. The color rose in her delicate little face, and there was a keen flash of intelligence in her blue eyes. It vanished, and they were only blue and innocent.
"Lucy, would you be willing to come to my house? To take it for home? To be a poor man's wife, there? God knows I'll try to make you happy in it."
"No," she said gently. "That is your mother's home. She has made it. It is not fair to bring young queen bees into the old queen's hive. We will live at your house, Dunbar Place, George."
"It is not mine nor yours!" George broke out. "Oh, my darling, I have hidden something from you. It is all gone. Your property, income, every thing! The Consolidated Consolidated Companies failed. Their depositors are ruined."
"Yes, I know," said Lucy, brushing a fallen leaf from her gown. "But they had no control over my affairs. I withdrew them from their management in February."
George started up. "Then you--you are a great heiress still?"
"No." She rose, holding out her hands, laughing. "My husband, I believe, is a rich man, and I shall have what he gives me."
But he did not hear her. He walked away down the road, shaken by a dumb fury. He had been tricked! Who had tricked him?
Then he heard a miserable sob and turned. Great God! Was any thing on earth so dear as that little woman standing there? She was crying! Had he struck her? He was a brute. What had he done?
He ran to her, and taking her outstretched hands, kissed them passionately.
"They are mine--mine!" he whispered, and knew nothing beyond.
They walked together like two happy children down the shady lane toward the golden sunset. The money was forgotten.
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{
"id": "335"
}
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1
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RIGOLETTE'S FIRST SORROW.
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Rigolette's apartment was still in all its extreme nicety; the large silver watch placed over the mantelpiece, in a small boxwood stand, denoted the hour of four. The severe cold weather having ceased, the thrifty little needlewoman had not lighted her stove.
From the window, a corner of blue sky was scarcely perceptible over the masses of irregularly built roofs, garrets, and tall chimneys, which bounded the horizon on the other side of the street. Suddenly a sunbeam, which, as it were, wandered for a moment between two high gables, came for an instant to purple with its bright rays the windows of the young girl's chamber.
Rigolette was at work, seated by her window; and the soft shadow of her charming profile stood out from the transparent light of the glass as a cameo of rosy whiteness on a silver ground. Brilliant hues played on her jet black hair, twisted in a knot at the back of her head, and shaded with a warm amber colour the ivory of her industrious little fingers, which plied the needle with incomparable activity. The long folds of her brown gown, confined at the waist by the bands of her green apron, half concealed her straw-seated chair, and her pretty feet rested on the edge of a stool before her.
Like a rich lord, who sometimes amuses himself in hiding the walls of a cottage beneath splendid hangings, the setting sun for a moment lighted up this little chamber with a thousand dazzling fires, throwing his golden tints on the curtains of gray and green stuff, and making the walnut-tree furniture glisten with brightness, and the dry-rubbed floor look like heated copper; whilst it encircled in a wire-work of gold the grisette's bird-cage. But, alas! in spite of the exciting splendour of this sun-ray, the two canaries (male and female) flitted about uneasily, and, contrary to their usual habit, did not sing a note. This was because, contrary to her usual habit, Rigolette did not sing. The three never warbled without one another; almost invariably the cheerful and matin song of the latter called forth that of the birds, who, more lazy, did not leave their nests as early as their mistress. Then there were rivalries,--contentions of clear, sonorous, pearly, silvery notes, in which the birds had not always the advantage.
Rigolette did not sing, because, for the first time in her life, she experienced a sorrow. Up to this time, the sight of the misery of the Morels had often affected her; but such sights are too familiar to the poorer classes to cause them any very lasting melancholy. After having, almost every day, succoured these unfortunates as far as was in her power, sincerely wept with and for them, the young girl felt herself at the same time moved and satisfied,--moved by their misfortunes, and satisfied at having shown herself pitiful. But this was not a sorrow. Rigolette's natural gaiety soon regained its empire; and then, without egotism, but by a simple fact of comparison, she found herself so happy in her little chamber, after leaving the horrible den of the Morels, that her momentary sadness speedily disappeared.
This lightness of impression was so little affected by personal feeling, that, by a mode of extremely delicate reasoning, the grisette considered it almost a duty to aid those more unhappy than herself, that she might thus unscrupulously enjoy an existence so very precarious and entirely dependent on her labour, but which, compared with the fearful distress of the lapidary's family, appeared to her almost luxurious.
"In order to sing without compunction, when we have near us persons so much to be pitied," she said, naïvely, "we must have been as charitable to them as possible."
Before we inform our reader the cause of Rigolette's first sorrow, we are desirous to assure him, or her, completely as to the virtue of this young girl. We are sorry to use the word virtue,--a serious, pompous, solemn word, which almost always brings with it ideas of painful sacrifice, of painful struggle against the passions, of austere meditations on the final close of all things here below. Such was not the virtue of Rigolette. She had neither deeply struggled nor meditated; she had worked, and laughed, and sung. Her prudence, as she called it, when speaking frankly and sincerely to Rodolph, was with her a question of time,--she had not the leisure to be in love. Particularly lively, industrious, and orderly, order, work, and gaiety had often, unknown to herself, defended, sustained, saved her.
It may be deemed, perchance, that this morality is light, frivolous, casual; but of what consequence is the cause, so that the effect endures? Of what consequence are the directions of the roots of a plant, provided the flower blooms pure, expanded, and full of perfume?
Apropos of our utopianisms, as to the encouragement, help, and recompenses which society ought to grant to artisans remarkable for their eminent social qualities, we have alluded to that protection of virtue (one of the projects of the Emperor, by the way). Let us suppose this admirable idea realised. One of the real philanthropists whom the Emperor proposed to employ in searching after worth has discovered Rigolette. Abandoned without advice, without aid, exposed to all the perils of poverty, to all the seductions with which youth and beauty are surrounded, this charming girl has remained pure; her honest, hard-working life might serve for a model and example. Would not this young creature deserve, not a mere recompense, not succour only, but some impressive words of approbation and encouragement, which would give her a consciousness of her own worth, exalt her in her own eyes, and lay on her obligations for the future? At least she would know that she was followed by eyes full of solicitude and protection in the difficult path in which she is progressing with so much courage and serenity; she would know that, if one day the want of work or sickness threatened to destroy the equilibrium of the poor and occupied life, which depends solely on work and health, a slight help, due to her former deserts, would be given to her.
People, no doubt, will exclaim against the impossibility of this tutelary surveillance, which would surround persons particularly worthy of interest through their previous excellent lives. It seems to us that society has already resolved this problem. Has it not already imagined the superintendence of the police, for life or for a period, for the most useful purpose of constantly controlling the conduct of dangerous persons, noted for the infamy of their former lives? Why does not society exercise also a superintendence of moral charity?
But let us leave the lofty stilts of our utopianisms, and return to the cause of Rigolette's first sorrow.
With the exception of Germain, a well-behaved, open-hearted young man, the grisette's neighbours had all, at first, begun on terms of familiarity, believing her offers of good neighbourship were little flirtations; but these gentlemen had been compelled to admit, with as much astonishment as annoyance, that they found in Rigolette an amiable and mirthful companion for their Sunday excursions, a pleasant neighbour, and a kind-hearted creature, but not a mistress. Their surprise and their annoyance, at first very great, gradually gave way before the frank and even temper of the grisette; and then, as she had sagaciously said to Rodolph, her neighbours were proud on Sundays to have on their arms a pretty girl, who was an honour to them in every way (Rigolette was quite regardless of appearances), and who only cost them the share of the moderate pleasures, whose value was doubled by her presence and nice appearance. Besides, the dear girl was so easily contented! In her days of penury she dined well and gaily off a morsel of warm cake, which she nibbled with all the might of her little white teeth; after which, she amused herself so much with a walk on the boulevards or in the arcades.
If our readers feel but little sympathy with Rigolette, they will at least confess that a person must be very absurd, or very cruel, to refuse once a week these simple amusements to so delightful a creature, who, besides having no right to be jealous, never prevented her cavaliers from consoling themselves for her cruelty by flirtations with other damsels.
François Germain alone never founded any vain hopes on the familiarity of the young girl, but, either from instinct of heart or delicacy of mind, he guessed from the first day how very agreeable the singular companionship of Rigolette might be made.
What might be imagined happened, and Germain fell passionately in love with his neighbour, without daring to say a word to her of his love.
Far from imitating his predecessors, who, convinced of the vanity of their pursuit, had consoled themselves with other loves, without being on that account the less on good terms with their neighbour, Germain had most supremely enjoyed his intimacy with the young girl, passing with her not only his Sunday but every evening when he was not engaged. During these long hours Rigolette was, as usual, merry and laughing; Germain tender, attentive, serious, and often somewhat sad. This sadness was his only drawback, for his manners, naturally good, were not to be compared with the foppery of M. Girandeau, the commercial traveller, alias bagman, or with the noisy eccentricities of Cabrion; but M. Girandeau by his unending loquacity, and the painter by his equally interminable fun, took the lead of Germain, whose quiet composure rather astonished his little neighbour, the grisette.
Rigolette then had not, as yet, testified any decided preference for any one of her beaux; but as she was by no means deficient in judgment, she soon discovered that Germain alone united all the qualities requisite for making a reasonable woman happy.
Having stated all these facts, we will inquire why Rigolette was sad, and why neither she nor her birds sang. Her oval and fresh-looking face was rather pale; her large black eyes, usually gay and brilliant, were slightly dulled and veiled; whilst her whole look bespoke unusual fatigue. She had been working nearly all the night; from time to time she looked sorrowfully at a letter which lay open on a table near her. This letter had been addressed to her by Germain, and contained as follows: "PRISON OF THE CONCIERGERIE.
"MADEMOISELLE:--The place from which I address you will sufficiently prove to you the extent of my misfortune,--I am locked up as a robber. I am guilty in the eyes of all the world, and yet I am bold enough to write to you! It is because it would, indeed, be dreadful to me to believe that you consider me as a degraded criminal. I beseech you not to condemn me until you have perused this letter. If you discard me, that will be the final blow, and will indeed overwhelm me. I will tell you all that has passed. For some time I had left the Rue du Temple, but I knew through poor Louise that the Morel family, in whom you and I took such deep interest, were daily more and more wretched. Alas, my pity for these poor people has been my destruction! I do not repent it, but my fate is very cruel. Last night I had stayed very late at M. Ferrand's, occupied with business of importance. In the room in which I was at work was a bureau, in which my employer shut up every day the work I had done. This evening he appeared much disturbed and troubled, and said to me, 'Do not leave until these accounts are finished, and then put them in the bureau, the key of which I will leave with you;' and then he left the room. When my work was done I opened the drawer to put it away, when, mechanically, my eyes were attracted by an open letter, on which I read the name of Jérome Morel, the lapidary. I confess that, seeing that it referred to this unfortunate man, I had the indiscretion to read this letter; and I learnt that the artisan was to be arrested next day on an overdue bill of thirteen hundred francs, at the suit of M. Ferrand, who, under an assumed name, had imprisoned him. This information was from an agent employed by M. Ferrand. I knew enough of the situation of the Morel family to be aware of the terrible blow which the imprisonment of their only support must inflict upon them, and I was equally distressed and indignant. Unfortunately I saw in the same drawer an open box, with two thousand francs in gold in it. At this moment I heard Louise coming up the stairs, and without reflecting on the seriousness of my offence, but profiting by the opportunity which chance offered, I took thirteen hundred francs, went to her in the passage, and put the money in her hand, saying, 'They are going to arrest your father to-morrow at daybreak, for thirteen hundred francs,--here they are. Save him, but do not say that the money comes from me. M. Ferrand is a bad man.' You see, mademoiselle, my intention was good, but my conduct culpable. I conceal nothing from you, but this is my excuse. By dint of saving for a long time I had realised, and placed with a banker, the sum of fifteen hundred francs, but the cashier of the banker never came to the office before noon. Morel was to be arrested at daybreak, and therefore it was necessary that she should have the money so as to pay it in good time; if not, even if I could have gone in the day to release him from prison, still he would be arrested and carried off in presence of his wife, whom such a blow must have killed. Besides, the heavy costs of the writ would have been added to the expenses of the lapidary. You will understand, I dare say, that all these new misfortunes would not have befallen me if I had been able to restore the thirteen hundred francs I had taken back again to the bureau before M. Ferrand discovered anything; unfortunately, I fell into that mistake. I left M. Ferrand's, and was no longer under the impression of indignation and pity which had impelled me to the step. I began to reflect upon all the dangers of my position. A thousand fears then came to assail me. I knew the notary's severity, and he might come after I left and search in his bureau and discover the theft; for in his eyes--in the eyes of the world--it is a theft. These thoughts overwhelmed me, and, late as it was, I ran to the banker's to supplicate him to give me my money instantly. I should have found an excuse for this urgent request, and then I should have returned to M. Ferrand and replaced the money I had taken. By an unlucky chance, the banker had gone to Belleville for two days, to his country-house, where he was engaged in some plantations. Everything seemed to conspire against me. I waited for daybreak with intense anxiety, and hastened to Belleville,--the banker had just left for Paris. I returned, saw him, obtained my money, hastened to M. Ferrand; everything was discovered. But this is only a portion of my misfortunes. The notary at once accused me of having robbed him of fifteen thousand francs in bank-notes, which, he declared, were in the drawer of the bureau, with the two thousand francs in gold. This was a base accusation,--an infamous lie! I confess myself guilty of the first abstraction, but, by all that is most sacred in the world, I swear to you, mademoiselle, that I am innocent of the second. I never saw a bank-note in the drawer. There were only two thousand francs in gold, from which I took the thirteen hundred francs I have mentioned. This is the truth, mademoiselle. I am under this terrible accusation, and yet I affirm that you ought to know me incapable of a lie. But will you,--do you believe me? Alas, as M. Ferrand said, 'he who has taken a small sum may equally have taken a large amount, and his word does not deserve belief.' I have always seen you so good and devoted to the unhappy, mademoiselle, and I know you are so frank and liberal-minded, that your heart will guide you in the just appreciation of the truth, I hope. I do not ask any more. Give credit to my words, and you will find in me as much to pity as to blame; for, I repeat to you, my intention was good, and circumstances impossible to foresee have destroyed me. Oh, Mlle. Rigolette, I am very unhappy! If you knew in the midst of what a set of persons I am doomed to exist until my trial is over! Yesterday they took me to a place which they call the dépôt of the prefecture of police. I cannot tell you what I felt when, after having gone up a dark staircase, I reached a door with an iron wicket, which was opened and soon closed upon me. I was so troubled in my mind that I could not, at first, distinguish anything. A hot and fetid air came upon me, and I heard a loud noise of voices mingled with sinister laughs, angry exclamations, and depraved songs. I remained motionless at the door for awhile, looking at the stone flooring of the apartment, and neither daring to advance nor lift up my eyes, thinking that everybody was looking at me. They were not, however, thinking of me; for a prisoner more or less does not at all disturb these men. At last I ventured to look up, and, oh, what horrid countenances! What ragged wretches! What dirty and bespattered garments! All the exterior marks of misery and vice! There were forty or fifty seated, standing, or lying on benches secured to the wall,--vagrants, robbers, assassins, and all who had been apprehended during the night and day. When they perceived me I found a sad consolation in seeing that they did not recognise me as belonging or known to them. Some of them looked at me with an insulting and derisive air, and then began to talk amongst themselves in a low tone, and in some horrible jargon, not one word of which did I understand. After a short time one of the most brutal amongst them came, and, slapping me on the shoulder, asked me for money to pay my footing. I gave them some silver, hoping thus to purchase repose; but it was not enough, and they demanded more, which I refused. Then several of them surrounded me and assailed me with threats and imprecations, and were proceeding to extremities, when, fortunately for me, a turnkey entered, who had been attracted by the noise. I complained to him, and he insisted on their restoring to me the money I had given them already, adding that, if I liked to pay a small fee, I should go to what is called the pistole; that is, be in a cell to myself. I accepted the offer gratefully, and left these ruffians in the midst of their loud menaces for the future; 'for,' said they, 'we are sure to meet again, when I could not get away from them.' The turnkey conducted me to a cell, where I passed the rest of the night. It is from here that I now write to you, Mlle. Rigolette. Directly after my examination I shall be taken to another prison, called La Force, where I expect to meet many of my companions in the station-house. The turnkey, interested by my grief and tears, has promised me to forward this letter to you, although such kindnesses are strictly forbidden. I ask, Mlle. Rigolette, a last service of your friendship, if, indeed, you do not blush now for such an intimacy. In case you will kindly grant my request, it is this: With this letter you will receive a small key, and a line for the porter of the house I live in, Boulevard St. Denis, No. 11. I inform him that you will act as if it were myself with respect to everything that belongs to me, and that he is to attend to your instructions. He will take you to my room, and you will have the goodness to open my _secrétaire_ with the key I send you herewith. In this you will find a large packet containing different papers, which I beg of you to take care of for me. One of them was intended for you, as you will see by the address; others have been written of you, in happier days. Do not be angry. I did not think they would ever come to your knowledge. I beg you, also, to take the small sum of money which is in this drawer, as well as a satin bag, which contains a small orange silk handkerchief, which you wore when we used to go out on Sundays, and which you gave me on the day I quitted the Rue du Temple. I should wish that, excepting a little linen which you will be so good as send to me at La Force, you would sell the furniture and things I possess; for, whether acquitted or found guilty, I must of necessity be obliged to quit Paris. Where shall I go? What are my resources? God only knows. Madame Bouvard, the saleswoman of the Temple, who has already sold and bought for me many things, will perhaps take all the furniture, etc., at once. She is a very fair-dealing woman, and this would save you a great deal of trouble, for I know how precious your time is. I have paid my rent in advance, and I have, therefore, only to ask you to give a small present to the porter. Excuse, mademoiselle, the trouble of these details; but you are the only person in the world to whom I dare and can address myself. I might, perhaps, have asked one of M. Ferrand's clerks to do this service for me, as we were on friendly terms, but I feared his curiosity as to certain papers. Several concern you, as I have said, and others relate to the sad events in my life. Ah, believe me, Mlle. Rigolette, if you grant me this last favour, this last proof of former regard, it will be my only consolation under the great affliction in which I am plunged; and, in spite of all, I hope you will not refuse me. I also beg of you to give me permission to write to you sometimes. It will be so consoling, so comforting to me, to be able to pour out my heavy sorrows into a kind heart. Alas, I am alone in the world,--no one takes the slightest interest in me! This isolation was before most painful to me. Think what it must be now! And yet I am honest, and have the consciousness of never having injured any one, and of always having, at the peril of my life, testified my aversion for what is wicked and wrong; as you will see by the papers, which I pray of you to take care of, and which you may read. But when I say this, who will believe me? M. Ferrand is respected by all the world; his reputation for probity is long established; he has a just cause of accusation against me, and he will crush me. I resign myself at once to my fate. Now, Mlle. Rigolette, if you do believe me, you will not, I hope, feel any contempt for me, but pity me; and you will, perhaps, carry your generosity so far as to come one day,--some Sunday (alas, what recollections that word brings up!) --some Sunday, to see me in the reception-room of my prison. But no, no; I never could dare to see you in such a place! Yet you are so good, so kind, that--if--I am compelled to break off this letter and send it to you at once, with the key, and a line for the porter, which I write in great haste. The turnkey has come to tell me that I am going directly before the magistrate. Adieu, adieu, Mlle. Rigolette! Do not discard me, for my hope is in you, and in you only!
"FRANÇOIS GERMAIN.
"P. S.--If you reply, address your letter to me at the prison of La Force."
We may now divine the cause of Rigolette's first sorrow.
Her excellent heart was deeply wounded at a misfortune of which she had no suspicion until that moment. She believed unhesitatingly in the entire veracity of the statement of Germain, the unfortunate son of the Schoolmaster.
Not very strait-laced, she thought her old neighbour exaggerated his fault immensely. To save the unhappy father of a family, he had momentarily appropriated a sum which he thought he could instantly refund. This action, in the grisette's eyes, was but generous.
By one of those contradictions common to women, and especially to women of her class, this young girl, who until then had not felt for Germain more than her other neighbours, but a kind and mirthful friendship, now experienced for him a decided preference. As soon as she knew that he was unfortunate, unjustly accused, and a prisoner, his remembrance effaced that of all his former rivals. Yet Rigolette did not all at once feel intense love, but a warm and sincere affection, full of pity and determined devotion,--a sentiment which was the more new with her in consequence of the better sensations it brought with it.
Such was the moral position of Rigolette when Rodolph entered her chamber, having first rapped very discreetly at the door.
"Good morning, neighbour," said Rodolph to Rigolette; "do not let me disturb you."
"Not at all, neighbour. On the contrary, I am delighted to see you, for I have had something to vex me dreadfully."
"Why, in truth, you look very pale, and appear as though you had been weeping."
"Indeed, I have been weeping, and for a good reason. Poor Germain! There--read!" And Rigolette handed the letter of the prisoner to Rodolph. "Is not that enough to break one's heart? You told me you took an interest in him,--now's the time to prove it!" she added, whilst Rodolph was attentively reading the letter. "Is that wicked old M. Ferrand at war with all the world? First he attacked that poor Louise, and now he assails Germain. Oh, I am not ill-natured; but if some great harm happened to this notary, I should really be glad! To accuse such an honest young man of having stolen fifteen thousand francs from him! Germain, too! He who was honesty itself! And such a steady, serious young man; and so sad, too! Oh, he is indeed to be pitied, in the midst of all these wretches in his prison! Ah, M. Rodolph, from to-day I begin to see that life is not all _couleur-de-rose_."
"And what do you propose to do, my little neighbour?"
"What do I mean to do? Why, of course, all that Germain asks of me, and as quickly as possible. I should have been gone before now, but for this work, which is required in great haste, and which I must take instantly to the Rue St. Honoré, on my way to Germain's room, where I am going to get the papers he speaks of. I have passed part of the night at work, that I might be forward. I shall have so many things to do besides my usual work that I must be excessively methodical. In the first place, Madame Morel is very anxious that I should see Louise in prison. That will be a hard task, but I shall try to do it. Unfortunately, I do not know to whom I should address myself."
"I had thought of that."
"You, neighbour?"
"Here is an order."
"How fortunate! Can't you procure me also an order for the prison of poor, unhappy Germain? He would be so delighted!"
"I will also find you the means of seeing Germain."
"Oh, thank you, M. Rodolph."
"You will not be afraid, then, of going to his prison?"
"Certainly not; although my heart will beat very violently the first time. But that's nothing. When Germain was free, was he not always ready to anticipate all my wishes, and take me to the theatre, for a walk, or read to me of an evening? Well, and now he is in trouble, it is my turn. A poor little mouse like me cannot do much, I know that well enough; but all I can do I will do, that he may rely upon. He shall find that I am a sincere friend. But, M. Rodolph, there is one thing which pains me, and that is that he should doubt me,--that he should suppose me capable of despising him! I! --and for what, I should like to know? That old notary accuses him of robbery. I know it is not true. Germain's letter has proved to me that he is innocent, even if I had thought him guilty. You have only to see him, and you would feel certain that he is incapable of a bad action. A person must be as wicked as M. Ferrand to assert such atrocious falsehoods."
"Bravo, neighbour; I like your indignation."
"Oh, how I wish I were a man, that I might go to this notary and say to him, 'Oh, you say that Germain has robbed you, do you? Well, then, that's for you! And that he cannot steal from you, at all events?' And thump--thump--thump, I would beat him till I couldn't stand over him."
"You administer justice very expeditiously," said Rodolph, smiling.
"Because it makes my blood boil. And, as Germain says in his letter, all the world will side with his employer, because he is rich and looked up to, whilst Germain is poor and unprotected, unless you will come to his assistance, M. Rodolph,--you who know such benevolent persons. Do not you think that something could be done?"
"He must await his sentence. Once acquitted, as I believe he will be, he will not want for proofs of the interest taken in him. But listen, neighbour; for I know I may rely on your discretion."
"Oh, yes, M. Rodolph, I never blab."
"Well, then, no one must know--not even Germain himself--that he has friends who are watching over him,--for he has friends."
"Really!"
"Very powerful and devoted."
"It would give him much courage to know that."
"Unquestionably; but perhaps he might not keep it to himself. Then M. Ferrand, alarmed, would be on his guard,--his suspicions would be aroused; and, as he is very cunning, it would become very difficult to catch him, which would be most annoying; for not only must Germain's innocence be made clear, but his denouncer must be unmasked."
"I understand, M. Rodolph."
"It is the same with Louise; and I bring you this order to see her, that you may beg of her not to tell any person what she disclosed to me. She will know what that means."
"I understand, M. Rodolph."
"In a word, let Louise beware of complaining in prison of her master's wickedness. This is most important. But she must conceal nothing from the barrister who will come from me to talk with her as to the grounds of her defence. Be sure you tell her all this."
"Make yourself easy, neighbour, I will forget nothing; I have an excellent memory. But, when we talk of goodness, it is you who are so good and kind. If any one is in trouble, then you come directly."
"I have told you, my good little neighbour, that I am but a poor clerk; but when I meet with good persons who deserve protection, I instantly tell a benevolent individual who has entire confidence in me, and they are helped at once. That's all I do in the matter."
"And where are you lodging, now you have given up your chamber to the Morels?"
"I live in a furnished lodging."
"Oh, how I should hate that! To be where all the world has been before you, it is as if everybody had been in your place."
"I am only there at nights, and then--" "I understand,--it is less disagreeable. Yet I shouldn't like it, M. Rodolph. My home made me so happy, I had got into such a quiet way of living, that I did not think it was possible I should ever know a sorrow. And yet, you see--But no, I cannot describe to you the blow which Germain's misfortune has brought upon me. I have seen the Morels, and others beside, who were very much to be pitied certainly. But, at best, misery is misery; and amongst poor folk, who look for it, it does not surprise them, and they help one another as well as they can. To-day it is one, to-morrow it is another. As for oneself, what with courage and good spirit, one extricates oneself. But to see a poor young man, honest and good, who has been your friend for a long time,--to see him accused of robbery, and imprisoned and huddled up with criminals! --ah, really, M. Rodolph, I cannot get over that; it is a misfortune I had never thought of, and it quite upsets me."
"Courage, courage! Your spirits will return when your friend is acquitted."
"Oh, yes, he must be acquitted. The judges have only to read his letter to me, and that would be enough,--would it not, M. Rodolph?"
"Really, this letter has all the appearance of truth. You must let me have a copy of it, for it will be necessary for Germain's defence."
"Certainly, M. Rodolph. If I did not write such a scrawl, in spite of the lessons which good Germain gave me, I would offer to copy it myself; but my writing is so large, so crooked, and has so many, many faults."
"I will only ask you to trust the letter with me until to-morrow morning."
"There it is; but you will take great care of it, I hope. I have burnt all the notes which M. Cabrion and M. Girandeau wrote me in the beginning of our acquaintance, with flaming hearts and doves at the top of the paper, when they thought I was to be caught by their tricks and cajoleries; but this poor letter of Germain's I will keep carefully, as well as the others, if he writes me any more; for they, you know, M. Rodolph, will show in my favour that he has asked these small services,--won't they, M. Rodolph?"
"Most assuredly; and they will prove that you are the best little friend any one can desire. But, now I think of it, instead of going alone to Germain's room, shall I accompany you?"
"With pleasure, neighbour. The night is coming on, and, in the evening, I do not like to be alone in the streets; besides that, I have my work to carry nearly as far as the Palais Royal. But perhaps it will fatigue and annoy you to go so far?"
"Not at all. We will have a coach."
"Really! Oh, how pleased I should be to go in a coach if I had not so much to make me melancholy! And I really must be melancholy, for this is the first day since I have been here that I have not sung during the day. My birds are really quite astonished. Poor little dears! They cannot make it out. Two or three times Papa Crétu has piped a little to try me; I endeavoured to answer him, but, after a minute or two, I began to cry. Ramonette then began; but I could not answer one any better than the other."
"What singular names you have given your birds: Papa Crétu and Ramonette!"
"Why, M. Rodolph, my birds are the joy of my solitude,--my best friends; and I have given them the names of the worthy couple who were the joy of my childhood, and were also my best friends, not forgetting that, to complete the resemblance, Papa Crétu and Ramonette were gay, and sang like birds."
"Ah, now, yes, I remember, your adopted parents were called so."
"Yes, neighbour, they are ridiculous names for birds, I know; but that concerns no one but myself. And besides, it was in this very point that Germain showed his good heart."
"In what way?"
"Why, M. Girandeau and M. Cabrion--especially M. Cabrion--were always making their jokes on the names of my birds. To call a canary Papa Crétu! There never was such nonsense as M. Cabrion made of it, and his jests were endless. If it was a cock bird, he said, 'Why, that would be well enough to call him Crétu. As to Ramonette, that's well enough for a hen canary, for it resembles Ramona.' In fact, he quite wore my patience out, and for two Sundays I would not go out with him in order to teach him a lesson; and I told him very seriously, that if he began his tricks, which annoyed me so much, we should never go out together again."
"What a bold resolve!"
"Yes, it was really a sacrifice on my part, M. Rodolph, for I was always looking forward with delight to my Sundays, and I was very much tried by being kept in all alone in such beautiful weather. But that's nothing. I preferred sacrificing my Sundays to hearing M. Cabrion continue to make ridicule of those whom I respected. Certainly, after that, but for the idea I attached to them, I should have preferred giving my birds other names; and, you must know, there is one name which I adore,--it is Colibri. [1] I did not change, because I never will call those birds by any other name than Crétu and Ramonette; if I did, I should seem to make a sacrifice, that I forgot my good, adopted parents,--don't you think so, M. Rodolph?"
[1] Colibri is a celebrated chanson of Béranger, the especial poet of grisettes. --_English Translator_.
"You are right a thousand times over. And Germain did not turn these names into a jest, eh?"
"On the contrary, the first time he heard them he thought them droll, like every one else, and that was natural enough. But when I explained to him my reasons, as I had many times explained them to M. Cabrion, tears started to his eyes. From that time I said to myself, M. Germain is very kind-hearted, and there is nothing to be said against him, but his weeping so. And so, you see, M. Rodolph, my reproaching him with his sadness has made me unhappy now. Then I could not understand why any one was melancholy, but now I understand it but too well. But now my packet is completed, and my work is ready for delivery. Will you hand me my shawl, neighbour? It is not cold enough to take a cloak, is it?"
"We shall go and return in a coach."
"True; we shall go and return very quickly, and that will be so much gained."
"But, now I think of it, what are you to do? Your work will suffer from your visits to the prison."
"Oh, no, no; I have made my calculations. In the first place, I have my Sundays to myself, so I shall go and see Louise and Germain on those days; that will serve me for a walk and a change. Then, in the week, I shall go again to the prison once or twice. Each time will occupy me three good hours, won't it? Well, to manage this comfortably, I shall work an hour more every day, and go to bed at twelve o'clock instead of eleven o'clock; that will be a clear gain of seven or eight hours a week, which I can employ in going to see Louise and Germain. You see I am richer than I appear," added Rigolette, with a smile.
"And you have no fear that you will be overfatigued?"
"Bah! Not at all; I shall manage it. And, besides, it can't last for ever."
"Here is your shawl, neighbour."
"Fasten it; and mind you don't prick me."
"Ah, the pin is bent."
"Well, then, clumsy, take another then,--from the pincushion. Ah, I forgot! Will you do me a great favour, neighbour?"
"Command me, neighbour."
"Mend me a good pen, with a broad nib, so that when I return I may write to poor Germain, and tell him I have executed all his commissions. He will have my letter to-morrow morning in the prison, and that will give him pleasure."
"Where are your pens?"
"There,--on the table; the knife is in the drawer. Wait until I light my taper, for it begins to grow dusk."
"Yes, I shall see better how to mend the pen."
"And I how to tie my cap."
Rigolette lighted a lucifer-match, and lighted a wax-end in a small bright candlestick.
"The deuce,--a wax-light! Why, neighbour, what extravagance!"
"Oh, what I burn costs but a very small trifle more than a candle, and it's so much cleaner!"
"Not much dearer?"
"Indeed, they are not! I buy these wax-ends by the pound, and a half a pound lasts nearly a year."
"But," said Rodolph, who was mending the pen very carefully, whilst the grisette was tying on her cap before the glass, "I do not see any preparations for your dinner."
"I have not the least appetite. I took a cup of milk this morning, and I shall take another this evening, with a small piece of bread, and that will be enough for me."
"Then you will not take a dinner with me quietly after we have been to Germain's?"
"Thank you, neighbour; but I am not in spirits,--my heart is too heavy,--another time with pleasure. But the evening when poor Germain leaves his prison, I invite myself, and afterwards you shall take me to the theatre. Is that a bargain?"
"It is, neighbour; and I assure you I will not forget the engagement. But you refuse me this to-day?"
"Yes, M. Rodolph. I should be a very dull companion, without saying a word about the time it would occupy me; for, you see, at this moment, I really cannot afford to be idle, or waste one single quarter of an hour."
"Then, for to-day I renounce the pleasure."
"There is my parcel, neighbour. Now go out first, and I will lock the door."
"Here's a capital pen for you; and now for the parcel."
"Mind you don't rumple it; it is _pout-de-soie_, and soon creases. Hold it in your hand,--carefully,--there, in that way; that's it. Now go, and I will show you a light."
And Rodolph descended the staircase, followed by Rigolette.
At the moment when the two neighbours were passing by the door of the porter's lodge they saw M. Pipelet, who, with his arms hanging down, was advancing towards them from the bottom of the passage, holding in one hand the sign which announced his Partnership of Friendship with Cabrion, and in the other the portrait of the confounded painter. Alfred's despair was so overwhelming that his chin touched his breast, so that the wide crown of his bell-shaped hat was easily seen. Seeing him thus, with his head lowered, coming towards Rodolph and Rigolette, he might have been compared to a ram, or a brave Breton, preparing for combat.
Anastasie soon appeared on the threshold of the lodge, and exclaimed, at her husband's appearance: "Well, dearest old boy, here you are! And what did the commissary say to you? Alfred, Alfred, mind what you're doing, or you'll poke your head against my king of lodgers. Excuse him, M. Rodolph. It is that vagabond of a Cabrion, who uses him worse and worse. He'll certainly turn my dear old darling into a donkey! Alfred, love, speak to me!"
At this voice, so dear to his heart, M. Pipelet raised his head. His features were impressed with a bitter agony.
"What did the commissary say to you?" inquired Anastasie.
"Anastasie, we must collect the few things we possess, embrace our friends, pack up our trunk, and expatriate ourselves from Paris,--from France,--from my beautiful France; for now, assured of impunity, the monster is capable of pursuing me everywhere, throughout the length and breadth of the departments of the kingdom."
"What, the commissary?"
"The commissary," exclaimed M. Pipelet, with fierce indignation,--"the commissary laughed in my teeth!"
"At you,--a man of mature age, with an air so respectable that you would appear as silly as a goose if one did not know your virtues?"
"Well, notwithstanding that, when I had respectfully deposed in his presence my mass of complaints and vexations against that infernal Cabrion, the magistrate, after having looked and laughed--yes, laughed, and, I may add, laughed indecorously--at the sign and the portrait which I brought with me as corroborative testimony,--the magistrate replied, 'My good fellow, this Cabrion is a wag,--a practical joker. But pay no attention to his pleasantries. I advise you to laugh at him, and heartily, too, for really there is ample cause to do so.' 'To laugh at it, sir-r-r!' I exclaimed,--'to laugh at it, when grief consumes me,--when this scamp poisons my very existence; he placards me, and will drive me out of my wits. I demand that they imprison, exile the monster,--at least from my street!' At these words the commissary smiled, and politely pointed to the door. I understood the magistrate, sighed, and--and--here I am!"
"Good-for-nothing magistrate!" exclaimed Madame Pipelet.
"It is all over, Anastasie,--all is ended,--hope ceases. There's no justice in France; I am really atrociously sacrificed."
And, by way of peroration, M. Pipelet dashed the sign and portrait to the farther end of the passage with all his force. Rodolph and Rigolette had in the shade smiled at M. Pipelet's despair. After having said a few words of consolation to Alfred, whom Anastasie was trying to calm as well as she could, the king of lodgers left the house in the Rue du Temple with Rigolette, and they both got into a coach to go to François Germain's.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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2
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THE WILL.
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François Germain resided No. 11 Boulevard St. Denis. It may not be amiss to recall to the reader, who has probably forgotten the circumstance, that Madame Mathieu, the diamond-matcher, whose name has been already mentioned as the person for whom Morel the lapidary worked, lodged in the same house as Germain. During the long ride from the Rue du Temple to the Rue St. Honoré, where dwelt the dressmaker for whom Rigolette worked, Rodolph had ample opportunities of more fully appreciating the fine natural disposition of his companion. Like all instinctively noble and devoted characters, she appeared utterly unconscious of the delicacy and generosity of her conduct, all she said and did seeming to her as the most simple and matter-of-course thing possible.
Nothing would have been more easy than for Rodolph to provide liberally both for Rigolette's present and future wants, and thus to have enabled her to carry her consoling attentions to Louise and Germain, without grieving over the loss of that time which was necessarily taken from her work,--her sole dependence; but the prince was unwilling to diminish the value of the grisette's devotion by removing all the difficulties, and, although firmly resolved to bestow a rich reward on the rare and beautiful qualities he hourly discovered in her, he determined to follow her to the termination of this new and interesting trial. It is scarcely necessary to say that, had the health of the young girl appeared to suffer in the smallest degree from the increase of labour she so courageously imposed on herself, in order to dedicate a portion of each week to the unhappy daughter of the lapidary and the son of the Schoolmaster, Rodolph would instantaneously have stepped forward to her aid; and he continued to study with equal pleasure and emotion the workings of a nature so naturally disposed to view everything on its sunny side, so full of internal happiness, and so little accustomed to sorrow that occasionally she would smile, and seem the mirthful creature nature had made her, spite of all the grief by which she was surrounded.
At the end of about an hour, the _fiacre_, returning from the Rue St. Honoré, stopped before a modest, unpretending sort of house, situated No. 11 Boulevard St. Denis. Rodolph assisted Rigolette to alight. The young sempstress then proceeded to the porter's lodge, where she communicated Germain's intentions, without forgetting the promised gratuity.
Owing to the extreme amenity of his disposition, the son of the Schoolmaster was unusually beloved, and the _confrère_ of M. Pipelet was deeply grieved to learn that so quiet and well-conducted a lodger was about to quit the house, and to that purpose the worthy porter warmly expressed himself. Having obtained a light, Rigolette proceeded to rejoin her companion, having first arranged with the porter that he should not follow her up-stairs till a time she indicated should have elapsed, and then merely to receive his final orders. The chamber occupied by Germain was situated on the fourth floor. When they reached the door, Rigolette handed the key to Rodolph, saying: "Here, will you open the door? My hand trembles so violently, I cannot do it. I fear you will laugh at me. But, when I think that poor Germain will never more enter this room, I seem as though I were about to pass the threshold of a chamber of death."
"Come, come, my good neighbour, try and exert yourself; you must not indulge such thoughts as these."
"I know it is wrong; but, indeed, I cannot help it." And here Rigolette tried to dry up the tears with which her eyes were filled.
Without being equally affected as his companion, Rodolph still experienced a deep and painful emotion as he penetrated into this humble abode. Well aware of the detestable pertinacity with which the accomplices of the Schoolmaster pursued, and were possibly still pursuing, Germain, he pictured to himself the many hours the unfortunate youth was constrained to pass in this cheerless solitude. Rigolette placed the light on the table. Nothing could possibly be more simple than the fittings-up of the apartment itself. Its sole furniture consisted of a small bed, a chest of drawers, a walnut-tree bureau, four rush-bottomed chairs, and a table; white calico curtains hung from the windows and around the bed. The only ornament the mantelpiece presented was a water-bottle and glass. The bed was made; but, by the impression left on it, it would seem that Germain had thrown himself on it without undressing on the night previous to his arrest.
"Poor fellow!" said Rigolette, sadly, as she examined each minute detail of the interior of the apartment; "it is very easy to see I was not near him. His room is tidy, to be sure, but not as neat as it ought to be. Everything is covered with dust. The curtains are smoke-dried, the windows want cleaning, and the floor is not kept as it should be. Oh, dear, what a difference! The Rue du Temple was not a better room, but it had a much more cheerful look, because everything was kept so bright and clean,--like in my apartment!"
"Because in the Rue du Temple he had the benefit of your advice and assistance."
"Oh, pray look here!" cried Rigolette, pointing to the bed. "Only see,--the poor fellow never went to bed at all the last night he was here! How uneasy he must have been! See, he has left his handkerchief on his pillow, quite wet with his tears! I can see that plainly enough." Then, taking up the handkerchief, she added, "Germain has kept a small, orange-coloured silk cravat I gave him once during our happy days. I have a great mind to keep this handkerchief in remembrance of his misfortune. Do you think he would be angry?"
"On the contrary, he would but be too much delighted with such a mark of your affection."
"Ah, but we must not indulge in such thoughts now; let us attend to more serious matters. I will make up a parcel of linen from the contents of those drawers, ready to take to the prison, and Mother Bouvard, whom I will send to-morrow, will see to the rest; but first of all I will open the bureau, in order to get out the papers and money Germain wished me to take charge of."
"But, now I think of it, Louise Morel gave me back yesterday the thirteen hundred francs in gold she received from Germain, to pay the lapidary's debt, which I had already discharged. I have this money about me; it justly belongs to Germain, since he repaid the notary what he withdrew from the cash-box. I will place it in your hands, in order that you may add it to the sum entrusted to your care."
"Just as you like, M. Rodolph, although really I should prefer not having so large a sum in my possession, really there are so many dishonest people nowadays! As for papers, that's quite another thing; I'll willingly take charge of as many papers as you please, but money is such a dangerous thing!"
"Perhaps you are right; then I tell you what we will do--eh, neighbour? I will be banker, and undertake the responsibility of guarding this money. Should Germain require anything, you can let me know; I will leave you my address, and whatever you send for shall be punctually and faithfully sent."
"Oh, dear, yes, that will be very much better! How good of you to offer, for I could not have ventured to propose such a thing to you! So that is settled; I will beg of you, also, to take whatever this furniture sells for. And now let us see about the papers," continued Rigolette, opening the bureau and pulling out several drawers. "Ah, I dare say this is it! See what a large packet! But, oh, good gracious, M. Rodolph, do pray look what mournful words these are written on the outside!"
And here Rigolette, in a faltering voice, read as follows: "'In the event of my dying by either a violent or natural death, I request whoever may open this bureau to carry these papers to Mlle. Rigolette, dressmaker, No. 17 Rue du Temple.' Do you think, M. Rodolph, that I may break the seals of the envelope?"
"Undoubtedly; does not Germain expressly say that among the papers you will find a letter particularly addressed to yourself?"
The agitated girl broke the seals which secured the outward cover, and from it fell a quantity of papers, one of which, bearing the superscription of Mlle. Rigolette, contained these words: "MADEMOISELLE:--When this letter reaches your hands, I shall be no more, if, as I fear, I should perish by a violent death, through falling into a snare similar to that from which I lately escaped. A few particulars herein enclosed, and entitled 'Notes on My Life,' may serve to discover my murderers."
"Ah, M. Rodolph," cried Rigolette, interrupting herself, "I am no longer astonished poor Germain was so melancholy! How very dreadful to be continually pursued by such ideas!"
"He must, indeed, have suffered deeply; but, trust me, his worst misfortunes are over."
"Alas, M. Rodolph, I trust it may prove so! Still, to be in prison, and accused of theft!"
"Make yourself quite easy about him; his innocence once proved, instead of returning to his former seclusion and loneliness, he will regain his friends. You, first and foremost, and then a dearly loved mother, from whom he has been separated from his childhood."
"His mother! Has he, then, still a mother?"
"He has, but she has long believed him lost to her for ever. Imagine her delight at seeing him again, cleared from the unworthy charge now brought against him. You see I was right in saying that his greatest troubles were over; do not mention his mother to him. I entrust you with the secret, because you take so generous an interest in the fate of Germain that it is but due to your devotedness that you should be tranquillised as to his future fate."
"Oh, thank you, M. Rodolph! I promise you to guard the secret as carefully as you could do."
Rigolette then proceeded with the perusal of Germain's letter; it continued thus: "'Should you deign, mademoiselle, to cast your eyes over these notes, you will find that I have been unfortunate all my life, always unhappy, except during the hours I have passed with you; you will find sentiments I should never have ventured to express by words fully revealed in a sort of memorandum, entitled "My Only Days of Happiness." Nearly every evening, after quitting you, I thus poured forth the cheering thoughts with which your affection inspired me, and which only sweetened the bitterness of a cup full even to overflowing. That which was but friendship in you, was, in my breast, the purest, the sincerest love; but of that love I have never spoken. No, I reserved its full disclosure till the moment should arrive when I could be but as an object of your sorrowing recollection. No, never would I have sought to involve you in a destiny as thoroughly miserable as my own. But, when your eye peruses these pages, there will be nothing to fear from the power of my ill-starred fate. I shall have been your faithful friend, your adoring lover, but I shall no longer be dangerous to your future happiness in either sense. I have but one last wish and desire, and I trust that you will kindly accomplish it. I have witnessed the noble courage with which you labour day by day, as well as the care and management requisite to make your hard-earned gain suffice for your moderate wants. Often have I shuddered at the bare idea of your being reduced by illness (brought on, probably, by overattention to your work) to a state too frightful to dwell upon. And it is no small consolation to me to believe it in my power to spare you, not only a considerable share of personal inconvenience, but also to preserve you from evils your unsuspicious nature dreams not of.'
"What does that last part mean, M. Rodolph?" asked Rigolette, much surprised.
"Proceed with the letter; we shall see by and by."
Rigolette thus resumed: "'I know upon how little you can live, and of what service even a small sum would be to you in any case of emergency. I am very poor myself, but still, by dint of rigid economy, I have managed to save fifteen hundred francs, which are placed in the hands of a banker; it is all I am worth in the world, but by my will, which you will find with this, I have ventured to bequeath it to you; and I trust you will not refuse to accept this last proof of the sincere affection of a friend and brother, from whom death will have separated you when this meets your eye.'
"Oh, M. Rodolph," cried Rigolette, bursting into tears, "this is too much! Kind, good Germain, thus to consider my future welfare! What an excellent heart he must have!"
"Worthy and noble-minded young man!" rejoined Rodolph, with deep emotion. "But calm yourself, my good girl. Thank God, Germain is still living! And, by anticipating the perusal of his last wishes, you will at least have learned how sincerely he loved you,--nay, still loves you!"
"And only to think," said Rigolette, drying up her tears, "that I should never once have suspected it! When first I knew M. Girandeau and M. Cabrion, they were always talking to me of their violent love, and flames, and darts, and such stuff; but finding I took no notice of them, they left off wearying me with such nonsense. Now, on the contrary, Germain never named love to me. When I proposed to him that we should be good friends, he accepted the offer as frankly as it was made, and ever after that we were always excellent companions and neighbours; but--now I don't mind telling you, M. Rodolph, that I was not sorry Germain never talked to me in the same silly strain."
"But still it astonished you, did it not?"
"Why, M. Rodolph, I ascribed it to his melancholy, and I fancied his low spirits prevented his joking like the others."
"And you felt angry with him, did you not, for always being so sad?"
"No," said the grisette, ingenuously; "no, I excused him, because it was the only fault he had. But now that I have read his kind and feeling letter, I cannot forgive myself for ever having blamed him even for that one thing."
"In the first place," said Rodolph, smiling, "you find that he had many and just causes for his sadness; and secondly, that, spite of his melancholy, he did love you deeply and sincerely."
"To be sure; and it seems a thing to be proud of, to be loved by so excellent a young man!"
"Whose love you will, no doubt, return one of these days?"
"I don't know about that, M. Rodolph, though it is very likely, for poor Germain is so much to be pitied. I can imagine myself in his place. Suppose, just when I fancied myself despised and forsaken by all the world, some one whom I loved very dearly should evince for me more regard than I had ventured to hope for, don't you think it would make me very happy?" Then, after a short silence, Rigolette continued, with a sigh, "On the other hand, we are both so poor that, perhaps, it would be very imprudent. Ah, well, M. Rodolph, I must not think of such things. Perhaps, too, I deceive myself. One thing, however, is quite sure, and that is, that so long as Germain remains in prison I will do all in my power for him. It will be time enough when he has regained his liberty for me to determine whether 'tis love or friendship I feel for him. Until then it would only torment me needlessly to try to make up my mind what I had better do. But it is getting late, M. Rodolph. Will you have the goodness to collect all those papers, while I make up a parcel of linen? Ah, I forgot the little bag containing the little orange-coloured cravat I gave him. No doubt it is here--in this drawer. Oh, yes, this is it. Oh, see, what a pretty bag! How nicely embroidered! Poor Germain! I declare he has kept such a trifle as this little handkerchief with as much care as though it had been some holy relic. I well remember the last time I had it around my throat; and when I gave it to him, poor fellow, how very pleased he was!"
At this moment some one knocked at the door.
"Who's there?" inquired Rodolph.
"Want to speak to Ma'am Mathieu," replied a harsh, hoarse voice, and in a tone which is peculiar to the lowest orders. (Madame Mathieu was the matcher of precious stones to whom we have before referred.)
This voice, whose accent was peculiar, awoke some vague recollections in Rodolph's breast; and, desirous of elucidating them, he took the light, and went himself to open the door. He found himself confronted by a man who was one of the frequenters of the _tapis-franc_ of the ogress, and recognised him instantly, so deeply was the print of vice stamped upon him, so completely marked on his beardless and youthful features. It was Barbillon.
Barbillon, the pretended hackney-coachman, who had driven the Schoolmaster and the Chouette to the hollow way of Bouqueval,--Barbillon, the assassin of the husband of the unhappy milkwoman, who had set the labourers of the farm at Arnouville on against La Goualeuse. Whether this wretch had forgotten Rodolph's face, which he had never seen but once at the _tapis-franc_ of the ogress, or that the change of dress prevented him from recognising the Chourineur's conqueror, he did not evince the slightest surprise at his appearance.
"What do you want?" inquired Rodolph.
"Here's a letter for Ma'am Mathieu, and I must give it to her myself," was Barbillon's reply.
"She does not live here,--it's opposite," said Rodolph.
"Thank ye, master. They told me the left-hand door; but I've mistook."
Rodolph did not recollect the name of the diamond-matcher, which Morel the lapidary had only mentioned once or twice, and thus had no motive for interesting himself in the female to whom Barbillon came with his message; but yet, although ignorant of the ruffian's crimes, his face was so decidedly repulsive that he remained at the threshold of the door, curious to see the person to whom Barbillon brought the letter.
Barbillon had scarcely knocked at the door opposite to Germain's, than it opened, and the jewel-matcher, a stout woman of about fifty, appeared with a candle in her hand.
"Ma'am Mathieu?" inquired Barbillon.
"That's me, my man."
"Here's a letter, and I waits for an answer."
And Barbillon made a step forward to enter the doorway, but the woman made him a sign to remain where he was, and unsealed the letter, which she read by the light of the candle she held, and then replied with an air of satisfaction: "Say it's all right, my man, and I will bring what is required. I will be there at the same hour as usual. My respects to the lady."
"Yes, missus. Please to remember the porter!"
"Oh, you must ask them as sent you; they are richer than I am." And she shut the door.
Rodolph returned to Germain's room, when he saw Barbillon run quickly down the staircase. The ruffian found on the boulevard a man of low-lived, brutal appearance, waiting for him in front of a shop. Although the passers-by could hear (it is true they could not comprehend), Barbillon appeared so delighted that he could not help saying to his companion: "Come and 'lush a drain of red tape,' Nicholas; the old mot swallows the bait, hook and all. She'll show at the Chouette's. Old Mother Martial will lend a hand to peel her of the swag, and a'terwards we can box the 'cold meat' in your 'barkey.'" [2] [2] "Come and let's have some brandy together, Nicholas. The old woman falls easily into the snare. She will come to the Chouette's; Mother Martial will help us to take her jewels from her forcibly, and then we can remove the dead body away in your boat."
"Let's mizzle,[3] then; for I must get back to Asnières early, or else my brother Martial will smell summut."
[3] "Let's be quick, then."
And the two robbers, after having exchanged these words in their own slang, went towards the Rue St. Denis.
* * * * * Some minutes afterwards Rigolette and Rodolph left Germain's, got into the hackney-coach, and reached the Rue du Temple.
The coach stopped.
At the moment when the door opened, Rodolph recognised by the light of the dram-shop lamps his faithful Murphy, who was waiting for him at the door of the entrance.
The squire's presence always announced some serious and sudden event, for it was he alone who knew at all times where to find the prince.
"What's the matter?" inquired Rodolph, quickly, whilst Rigolette was collecting several things out of the vehicle.
"A terrible circumstance, monseigneur!"
"Speak, in heaven's name!"
"M. the Marquis d'Harville--" "You alarm me!"
"Had several friends to breakfast with him this morning. He was in high spirits, had never been more joyous, when a fatal imprudence--" "Pray come to the point--pray!"
"And playing with a pistol, which he did not believe to be loaded--" "Wounded himself seriously."
"Monseigneur!"
"Well?"
"Something dreadful!"
"What do you mean?"
"He is dead!"
"D'Harville! Ah, how horrible!" exclaimed Rodolph, in a tone so agonised that Rigolette, who was at the moment quitting the coach with the parcels, said: "Alas! what ails you, M. Rodolph?"
"Some very distressing information I have just told my friend, mademoiselle," said Murphy to the young girl, for the prince was so overcome that he could not reply.
"Is it, then, some dreadful misfortune?" said Rigolette, trembling all over.
"Very dreadful, indeed!" replied the squire.
"Yes, most awful!" said Rodolph, after a few moment's silence; then recollecting Rigolette, he said to her, "Excuse me, my dear neighbour, if I do not go up to your room with you. To-morrow I will send you my address, and an order to go to see Germain in his prison. I will soon see you again."
"Ah, M. Rodolph, I assure you that I share in the grief you now experience! I thank you very much for having accompanied me; but I shall soon see you again, sha'n't I?"
"Yes, my child, very soon."
"Good evening, M. Rodolph," added Rigolette, and then disappeared down the passage with the various things she had brought away from Germain's room.
The prince and Murphy got into the hackney-coach, which took them to the Rue Plumet. Rodolph immediately wrote the following note to Clémence: "MADAME:--I have this instant learned the sudden blow which has struck you, and deprived me of one of my best friends. I forbear any attempt to portray my horror and my regret. Yet I must mention to you certain circumstances unconnected with this cruel event. I have just learned that your stepmother, who has been, no doubt, in Paris for several days, returns this evening to Normandy, taking with her Polidori. No doubt but this fact will convince you of the peril which threatens your father; and pray allow me to give you some advice, which I think requisite. After the appalling event of this morning, every one must but too easily conceive your anxiety to quit Paris for some time; go, therefore, go at once, to Aubiers, so that you may arrive there before your stepmother, or, at least, as soon as she. Make yourself easy, madame, for I shall watch at a distance, as well as close, the abominable projects of your stepmother. Adieu, madame; I write these few lines to you in great haste. My heart is lacerated when I remember yesterday evening, when I left him,--him,--more tranquil and more happy than he had been for a very long time.
"Believe, madame, in my deep and lasting devotion, "RODOLPH."
Following the prince's advice, three hours after she had received this letter, Madame d'Harville, accompanied by her daughter, was on the road to Normandy. A post-chaise, despatched from Rodolph's mansion, followed in the same route. Unfortunately, in the troubled state into which this complication of events and the hurry of her departure had driven her, Clémence had forgotten to inform the prince that she had met Fleur-de-Marie at St. Lazare.
Our readers may, perhaps, remember that, on the previous evening, the Chouette had been menacing Madame Séraphin, and threatening to unfold the whole history of La Goualeuse's existence, affirming that she knew (and she spoke truth) where the young girl then was. The reader may also recollect that, after this conversation, the notary, Jacques Ferrand, dreading the disclosure of his criminal course, believed that he had a strong motive for effecting the disappearance of La Goualeuse, whose existence, once known, would compromise him fatally. He had, in consequence, written to Bradamanti, one of his accomplices, to come to him that they might together arrange a fresh plot, of which Fleur-de-Marie was to be the victim. Bradamanti, occupied by the no less pressing interests of Madame d'Harville's stepmother, who had her own sinister motives for taking the charlatan with her to M. d'Orbigny, finding it, no doubt, more profitable to serve his ancient female ally, did not attend to the notary's appointment, but set out for Normandy without seeing Madame Séraphin.
The storm was gathering over the head of Jacques Ferrand. During the day the Chouette had returned to reiterate her threats; and to prove that they were not vain, she declared to the notary that the little girl, formerly abandoned by Madame Séraphin, was then a prisoner in St. Lazare, under the name of La Goualeuse; and that if he did not give ten thousand francs (400_l._) in three days, this young girl would receive the papers which belonged to her, and which would instruct her that she had been confided in her infancy to the care of Jacques Ferrand. According to his custom, the notary denied all boldly, and drove the Chouette away as an impudent liar, although he was perfectly convinced, and greatly alarmed at the dangerous drift of her threats. Thanks to his numerous connections, the notary found means to ascertain that very day (during the conversation of Fleur-de-Marie and Madame d'Harville) that La Goualeuse was actually a prisoner in St. Lazare, and so marked for her good conduct that they were expecting her discharge every moment. Thus informed, Jacques Ferrand, having determined on his deadly scheme, felt that, in order to carry it into execution, Bradamanti's help was more than ever indispensable; and thereon came Madame Séraphin's vain attempts to see the doctor. Having at length heard, in the evening, of the departure of the charlatan, the notary, driven to act by the imminence of his fears and danger, recalled to mind the Martial family, those freshwater pirates established near the bridge of Asnières, with whom Bradamanti had proposed to place Louise, in order to get rid of her undetected. Having absolutely need of an accomplice to carry out his deadly purposes against Fleur-de-Marie, the notary took every precaution not to be compromised in case a fresh crime should be committed; and, the day after Bradamanti's departure for Normandy, Madame Séraphin went with all speed to the Martials.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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3
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L'ILE DU RAVAGEUR.
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The following scenes took place during the evening of the day in which Madame Séraphin, in compliance with Jacques Ferrand the notary's orders, went to the Martials, the freshwater pirates established at the point of a small islet of the Seine, not far from the bridge of Asnières.
The Father Martial had died, like his own father, on the scaffold, leaving a widow, four sons, and two daughters. The second of these sons was already condemned to the galleys for life, and of the rest of this numerous family there remained in the Ile du Ravageur (a name which was popularly given to this place; why, we will hereafter explain) the Mother Martial; three sons, the eldest (La Louve's lover) twenty-five years of age, the next twenty, and the youngest twelve; two girls, one eighteen years of age, the second nine.
The examples of such families, in whom there is perpetuated a sort of fearful inheritance of crime, are but too frequent. And this must be so. Let us repeat, unceasingly, society thinks of punishing, but never of preventing, crime. A criminal is sentenced to the galleys for life; another is executed. These felons will leave young families; does society take any care or heed of these orphans,--these orphans, whom it has made so, by visiting their father with a civil death, or cutting off his head? Does it substitute any careful or preserving guardianship after the removal of him whom the law has declared to be unworthy, infamous,--after the removal of him whom the law has put to death? No; "the poison dies with the beast," says society. It is deceived; the poison of corruption is so subtle, so corrosive, so contagious, that it becomes almost invariably hereditary; but, if counteracted in time, it would never be incurable. Strange contradiction! Dissection proves that a man dies of a malady that may be transmitted, and then, by precautionary measures, his descendants are preserved from the affection of which he has been the victim. Let the same facts be produced in the moral order of things; let it be demonstrated that a criminal almost always bequeaths to his son the germ of a precocious depravity. Will society do for the safety of this young soul what the doctor does for the body, when it is a question of contending against hereditary vitiation? No; instead of curing this unhappy creature, we leave him to be gangrened, even to death; and then, in the same way as the people believe the son of the executioner to be an executioner, perforce, also, they will believe the son of a criminal also a criminal. And then we consider that the result of an inheritance inexorably fatal, which is really a corruption caused by the egotistical neglect of society. Thus, if, in spite of the evil mark on his name, the orphan, whom the law has made so, remains, by chance, industrious and honest, a barbarous prejudice will still reflect on him his father's offences; and thus subjected to undeserved reprobation, he will scarcely find employment. And, instead of coming to his aid, to save him from discouragement, despair, and, above all, the dangerous resentments of injustice, which sometimes drive the most generous disposition to revolt to ill, society will say: "Let him go wrong if he will,--we shall watch him. Have we not gaolers, turnkeys, and executioners?"
Thus for him who (and it is as rare as it is meritorious) preserves himself pure in spite of the worst examples, is there any support, any encouragement? Thus for him who, plunged from his birth in a focus of domestic depravity, is vitiated quite young, what hope is there of cure?
"Yes, yes, I will cure him, the orphan I have made," replies society; "but in my own way,--by and by. To extirpate the smallpox, to cut out the imposthume, it must come to a head."
A criminal desires to speak.
"Prisons and galleys, they are my hospitals. In incurable cases there is the executioner. As to the cure of my orphan," adds society, "I will reflect upon it. Let the germ of hereditary corruption ripen; let it increase; let it extend its ravages far and wide. When our man shall be rotten to the heart, when crime oozes out of him at every pore, when a robbery or desperate murder shall have placed him at the same bar of infamy at which his father stood, then we will cure this inheritor of crime,--as we cured his progenitor. At the galleys or on the scaffold the son will find his father's seat still warm."
Society thus reasons; and it is astonished, and indignant, and frightened, to see how robberies and murders are handed down so fatally from generation to generation.
The dark picture which is now to follow--The Freshwater Pirates--is intended to display what the inheritance of evil in a family may be when society does not come legally or officially to preserve the unfortunate victims of the law from the terrible consequences of the sentence executed against the father. [4] [4] In proportion as we advance in this work, its moral aim is attacked with so much bitterness, and, as we think, with so much injustice, that we ask permission to dwell a little on the serious and honourable idea which hitherto has sustained and guided us. Many serious, delicate, and lofty minds, being desirous of encouraging us in our endeavours, and having forwarded to us the flattering testimonials of their approval, it is due, perhaps, to these known and unknown friends to reply over again to the blind accusations which have reached, we may say, even to the bosom of the legislative assembly. To proclaim the odious immorality of our work is to proclaim decidedly, it appears to us, the odiously immoral tendencies of the persons who honour us with the deepest sympathies. It is in the name of these sympathies, as well as in our own, that we shall endeavour to prove, by an example selected from amongst others, that this work is not altogether destitute of generous and practical ideas. We gave, some time back, the sketch of a model farm founded by Rodolph, in order to encourage, teach, and remunerate poor, honest, and industrious labourers. We add to this: Honest men who are unfortunate deserve, at least, as much interest as criminals; yet there are numerous associations intended for the patronage of young prisoners, or those discharged, but there is no society founded for the purpose of giving succour to poor young persons whose conduct has been invariably exemplary. So that it is absolutely necessary to have committed an offence to become qualified for these institutions, which are, unquestionably, most meritorious and salutary. And we make a peasant of the Bouqueval farm to say: "It is humane and charitable not to make the wicked desperate, but it is also requisite that the good should not be without hope. If a stout, sturdy, honest fellow, desirous of doing well, and of learning all he can, were to present himself at the farm for young ex-thieves, they would say to him, 'My lad, haven't you stolen some trifle, or been somewhat dissolute?' 'No!' 'Well, then, this is no place for you.'"
This discordance of things had struck minds much superior to our own, and, thanks to them, what we considered as an utopianism was realised. Under the superintendence of one of the most distinguished and most honourable men of the age, M. le Comte Portalis, and under the able direction of a real philanthropist with a generous heart and an enlightened and practical mind, M. Allier, a society has been established for the purpose of succouring poor and honest persons of the Department of the Seine, and of employing them in agricultural colonies. This single and sole result is sufficient to affirm the moral idea of our work. We are very proud and very happy to have been met in the midst of our ideas, our wishes, and our hopes by the founders of this new work of charity; for we are one of the most obscure, but most convinced, propagators of these two great truths,--that it is the duty of society to prevent evil, and to encourage and recompense good, as much as in it lies.
Whilst we are speaking of this new work of charity, whose just and moral idea ought to have a salutary and fruitful result, let us hope that its founders will perchance think of supplying another vacancy, by extending hereafter their tutelary patronage, or, at least, their solicitude, over young children whose fathers have been executed, or condemned to an infamous sentence involving civil death, and who, we will repeat, are made orphans by the act and operation of the law. Such of these unfortunate children as shall be already worthy of interest from their wholesome tendencies and their misery will still more deserve particular notice, in consequence of their painful, difficult, and dangerous position. Let us add: The family of a condemned criminal, almost always victims of cruel repulses, apply in vain for labour, and are compelled, in order to escape universal reprobation, to fly from the spot where they have hitherto found work. Then, exasperated and enraged by injustice, already branded as criminals, for faults of which they are innocent, frequently at the end of all honourable resource, these unfortunates would sink and die of famine if they remained honest. If they have, on the other hand, already undergone an almost inevitable corruption, ought we not to try and rescue them whilst there is yet time? The presence of these orphans of the law in the midst of other children protected by the society of whom we have spoken, would be, moreover, a useful example to all. It would show that if the guilty is unfailingly punished, his family lose nothing, but rather gain in the esteem of the world, if by dint of courage and virtues they achieve the reëstablishing of a tarnished name. Shall we say that the legislature desires to render the chastisement still more terrible by virtually striking the criminal father in the fortune of his innocent son? That would be barbarous, immoral, irrational. Is it not, on the contrary, of the highest moral consequence to prove to the people that there is no hereditary succession of evil; that the original stain is not ineffaceable?
Let us venture to hope that these reflections will appear deserving of some attention from the new Society of Patronage. Unquestionably it is painful to think that the state never takes the initiative in these questions so vital and so deeply interesting to social organisation.
The ancestor of the Martial family who first established himself on this islet, on payment of a moderate rent, was a _ravageur_ (a river-scavenger). The ravageurs, as well as the _débardeurs_ and _déchireurs_ of boats, remain nearly the whole of the day plunged in water up to the waist in the exercise of their trade. The _débardeurs_ bring ashore the floating wood. The _déchireurs_ break up the rafts which have brought the wood. Equally aquatic as these other two occupations, the business of a _ravageur_ is different. Going into the water as far as possible, the _ravageur_, or mud-lark, draws up, by aid of a long drag, the river sand from beneath the mud; then, collecting it in large wooden bowls, he washes it like a person washing for gold dust, and extracts from it metallic particles of all kinds,--iron, copper, lead, tin, pewter, brass,--the results of the relics of all sorts of utensils. The _ravageurs_, indeed, often find in the sand fragments of gold and silver jewelry, brought into the Seine either by the sewers which are washed by the stream, or by the masses of snow or ice collected in the streets, and which are cast into the river. We do not know by what tradition or custom these persons, usually honest and industrious, are called by a name so formidable. Martial, the father, the first inhabitant of this islet, being a _ravageur_ (and a sad exception to his comrades), the inhabitants of the river's banks called it the Ile du Ravageur.
The dwelling of these freshwater pirates was placed at the southern end of the island. In daytime there was visible, on a sign-board over the door: "AU RENDEZVOUS DES RAVAGEURS. GOOD WINE, GOOD EELS, AND FRIED FISH. BOATS LET BY THE DAY OR HOUR."
We thus see that the head of this depraved family added to his visible or hidden pursuits those of a public-house keeper, fisherman, and letter of boats. The felon's widow continued to keep the house, and reprobates, vagrants, escaped convicts, wandering wild-beast showmen, and scamps of every description came there to pass Sundays and other days not marked with a red letter in the calendar, in parties of pleasure. Martial (La Louve's lover), the eldest son of the family, the least guilty of all the family, was a river poacher, and now and then, as a real champion, and for money paid, took the part of the weak against the strong. One of his brothers, Nicholas, the intended accomplice of Barbillon in the murder of the jewel-matcher, was in appearance a _ravageur_, but really a freshwater pirate in the Seine and its banks. François, the youngest son of the executed felon, rowed visitors who wished to go on the river in a boat. We have alluded to Ambroise Martial, condemned to the galleys for burglary at night with attempt to murder. The eldest daughter, nicknamed Calabash (_Calebasse_), helped her mother in the kitchen, and waited on the company. Her sister, Amandine, nine years of age, was also employed in the house according to her years and strength.
At the period in question it was a dull night out of doors; heavy, gray, opaque clouds, driven by the wind, showed here and there in the midst of their openings a few patches of dark blue spotted with stars. The outline of the islet, bordered by high and ragged poplars, was strongly and darkly defined in the clear haze of the sky and in the white transparency of the river. The house, with its irregular gables, was completely buried in the shade; two windows in the ground floor only were lighted, and these windows showed a deep red light, which was reflected like long trails of fire in the little ripples which washed the landing-place close to the house. The chains of the boats which were moored there made a continual clashing, that mingled unpleasantly with the gusts of the wind in the branches of the poplars, and the hoarse murmurs of the main stream.
A portion of the family was assembled in the kitchen of the house. This was a large low-roofed apartment. Facing the door were two windows, under which a long stove extended. To the left hand there was a high chimney; on the right a staircase leading to the upper story. At the side of this staircase was the entrance to a large room, containing several tables for the use of the guests at the cabaret. The light of a lamp, joined to the flame of the fire, was strongly reflected by a number of saucepans and other copper utensils suspended against the wall, or ranged on shelves with a quantity of earthenware; and a large table stood in the middle of the kitchen. The felon's widow, with three of her children, was seated in the corner near the fireplace.
This woman, tall and meagre, seemed about five and forty years of age. She was dressed in black, with a mourning handkerchief tied about her head, concealing her hair, and surrounding her flat, livid, and wrinkled brows; her nose was long and straight; her cheek-bones prominent; her cheeks furrowed; her complexion bilious and sallow; the corners of her mouth, always curved downwards, rendered still harsher the expression of her countenance, as chilling, sinister, and immovable as a marble mask. Her gray eyebrows surmounted her dull blue eyes.
The felon's widow was employed with needlework, as well as her two daughters. The eldest girl was tall and forbidding like her mother, with her features, calm, harsh, and repulsive, her thin nose, her ill-formed mouth, and her pale look. Her yellow complexion, which resembled a ripe quince, had procured for her the name of Calabash (_Calebasse_). She was not in mourning, but wore a brown gown, whilst a cap of black tulle did not conceal two bands of scanty hair of dull and dingy light brown.
François, the youngest of the Martial sons, was sitting on a low stool repairing an _aldrel_, a thin-meshed net forbidden to be used on the Seine. In spite of the tan of his features, this boy seemed in perfect health; a forest of red hair covered his head; his face was round, his lips thick, his forehead projecting, his eyes quick and piercing. He was not like his mother or his elder sister, but had a subdued and sly look, as from time to time, through the thick mass of hair that fell over his eyes, he threw a stealthy and fearful glance at his mother, or exchanged a look of intelligence and affection with his little sister, Amandine.
The latter was seated beside her brother, and was occupied, not in marking, but in unmarking, some linen stolen on the previous evening. She was nine years old, and was as like her brother as her sister was like her mother. Her features, without being more regular, were less coarse than those of François. Although covered with freckles, her complexion was remarkably clear, her lips thick and red, her hair also red, but silky, and her eyes, though small, were of a clear bright blue. When Amandine's look met that of her brother, she turned a glance towards the door, and then François replied by sigh; after which, calling his sister's attention by a slight gesture, he counted with the end of his needle ten loops of the net. This was meant to imply, in the symbolical language of children, that their brother Martial would not return until ten o'clock that evening.
Seeing these two women so silent and ill-looking, and the two poor little mute, frightened, uneasy children, we might suppose they were two executioners and two victims. Calabash, perceiving that Amandine had ceased from her occupation for a moment, said, in a harsh tone: "Come, haven't you done taking the mark out of that shirt?"
The little girl bowed her head without making any reply, and, by the aid of her fingers and scissors, hastily finished taking out the red cotton threads which marked the letters in the linen.
After a few minutes Amandine, addressing the widow timidly, showed her the shirt, and said: "Mother, I have done it."
Without making any reply, the widow threw her another piece of linen. The child did not catch it quickly enough, and it fell on the ground. Her tall sister gave her, with her hand as hard as wood, a sharp slap on the arm, saying: "You stupid brat!"
Amandine resumed her seat, and set to work actively, after having exchanged with her brother a glance of her eye, into which a tear had started.
The same silence continued to reign in the kitchen. Without, the wind still moaned and dashed about the sign in front of the house. This dismal creaking, and the dull boiling of a pot placed over the fire, were the only sounds that were heard. The two children observed, with secret fright, that their mother did not speak. Although she was habitually taciturn, this complete silence, and a certain drawing in of the lips, announced to them that the widow was in what they called her white passion, that is to say, was a prey to concentrated irritation.
The fire was going out for want of fuel.
"François, a log," said Calabash.
The young mender of forbidden nets looked into a nook beside the chimney, and replied: "There are no more there."
"Then go to the wood-pile," said Calabash.
François murmured some unintelligible words, but did not stir.
"Do you hear me, François?" inquired Calabash, harshly.
The felon's widow laid on her knees a towel she was also unmarking, and looked at her son. He had lowered his head, but he guessed he felt, if we may use the expression, the fierce look his mother cast upon him, and, fearful of encountering her dreaded countenance, the boy remained without stirring.
"I say, are you deaf, François?" said Calabash, in an irritated tone. "Mother, you see!"
The tall sister seemed to be happy in finding fault with the two children, and to seek for them the punishment which the widow pitilessly inflicted. Amandine, without being observed, gently touched her brother's elbow, to make him quietly do what Calabash desired. François did not stir. The elder sister still looked at her mother as demanding the punishment of the offender, and the widow understood her. With her long lean finger she pointed to a stick of stout and pliant willow placed in a recess near the chimney. Calabash stooped forward, took up this staff of chastisement, and handed it to her mother. François had seen his mother's gesture, and, rising suddenly, sprung out of the reach of the threatening stick.
"Do you want mother to break your back?" exclaimed Calabash.
The widow, still holding the willow stick in her hand, pinching her pale lips together more and more, looked at François with a fixed eye, but without uttering a syllable. By the slight tremor of Amandine's hands, with her head bent downwards, and the redness which suddenly overspread her neck, it was easy to see that the child, although habituated to such scenes, was alarmed at the fate that threatened her brother, who had taken refuge in a corner of the kitchen, and seemed frightened and irritated.
"Mind yourself, mother's going to begin, and then it will be too late!" said the tall sister.
"I don't care!" replied François, turning pale. "I'd rather be beaten as I was the day before yesterday, than--go to the wood-pile--and at night--again."
"And why?" asked Calabash, impatiently.
"I am--afraid of the wood-pile--I--" answered the boy, shuddering as he spoke.
"Afraid--you stupid! And of what?"
François shook his head, but did not reply.
"Will you answer? What are you afraid of?"
"I don't know. But I am frightened."
"Why, you've been there a hundred times, and last night, too."
"I won't go there any more."
"Mother's going to begin."
"So much the worse for me," exclaimed the lad. "But she may beat me, kill me, and I'll not go near the wood-pile--not at night."
"Once more--why not?" inquired Calabash.
"Why, because--" "Because--?"
"Because there's some one--" "There's some one--" "Buried there!" said François, with a shudder.
The felon's widow, in spite of her impassiveness, could not repress a sudden start; her daughter did the same. It seemed as though the two women were struck with an electric shock.
"Some one buried by the wood-pile?" said Calabash, shrugging her shoulders.
"I tell you that just now, whilst I was piling up some wood, I saw in a dark corner near the wood-pile a dead man's bone; it was sticking a little way out of the ground where it was damp, just by the corner," added François.
"Do you hear him, mother? Why, the boy's a fool!" said Calabash, making a signal to the widow. "They are mutton-bones I put there for washing-lye."
"It was not a mutton-bone," replied the boy, with alarm, "it was a dead person's bones,--a dead man's bones. I saw quite plainly a foot that stuck out of the ground."
"And, of course, you told your brother, your dear friend Martial, of your grand discovery, didn't you?" asked Calabash, with brutal irony.
François made no reply.
"Nasty little spy!" said Calabash, savagely; "because he is as cowardly as a cur, and would as soon see us scragged, as our father was scragged before us."
"If you call me a spy, I'll tell my brother Martial everything!" said François, much enraged. "I haven't told him yet, for I haven't seen him since; but, when he comes here this evening, I'll--" The child could not finish; his mother came up to him, calm and inexorable as ever. Although she habitually stooped a little, her figure was still tall for a woman. Holding the willow wand in one hand, with the other the widow took her son by the arm, and, in spite of alarm, resistance, prayers, and tears of the child, she dragged him after her, and made him ascend the staircase at the further end of the kitchen. After a moment's interval, there was heard heavy trampling, mingled with cries and sobs. Some minutes afterwards this noise ceased. A door shut violently; the felon's widow descended. Then, as impassive as ever, she put the stick in its usual place, seated herself close to the fireplace, and resumed her occupation, without saying a word.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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4
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THE FRESHWATER PIRATE.
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After a silence of several minutes, the criminal's widow said to her daughter: "Go and get some wood; we will set the wood-pile to rights when Nicholas and Martial return home this evening."
"Martial! Do you mean to tell him also that--" "The wood, I say!" repeated the widow, abruptly interrupting her daughter, who, accustomed to yield to the imperious and iron rule of her mother, lighted a lantern, and went out.
During the preceding scene, Amandine, deeply disquieted concerning the fate of François, whom she tenderly loved, had not ventured either to lift up her eyes, or dry her tears, which fell, drop by drop, on to her lap. Her sobs, which she dared not give utterance to, almost suffocated her, and she strove even to repress the fearful beatings of her heart. Blinded by her fast gathering tears, she sought to conceal her emotion by endeavouring to pick the mark from the chemise given to her, but, from the nervous trembling of her hand, she ran the scissors into her finger sufficiently deep to cause considerable effusion of blood; but the poor child thought much less of the pain she experienced than of the certain punishment which awaited her for staining the linen with her blood. Happily for her, the widow was too deeply absorbed in profound reflection to take any notice of what had occurred. Calabash now returned, bearing a basket filled with wood. To the inquiring look of her mother, she returned an affirmative nod of the head, which was intended to acquaint her with the fact of the dead man's foot being actually above the ground. The widow compressed her lips, and continued the work she was occupied upon; the only difference perceptible in her being that she plied her needle with increased rapidity. Calabash, meanwhile, renewed the fire, superintended the state of the cookery progressing in the saucepan beside the hearth, and then resumed her seat near her mother.
"Nicholas is not here yet," said she to her parent. "It is to be hoped that the old woman who this morning engaged him to meet a gentleman from Bradamanti has not led him into any scrape. She had such a very offhand way with her; she would neither give any explanation as to the nature of the business Nicholas was wanted for, nor tell her name, or where she came from."
The widow shrugged her shoulders.
"You do not consider Nicholas is in any danger, I see, mother. And, after all, I dare say you are quite right! The old woman desired him to be on the Quai de Billy, opposite the landing-place, about seven o'clock in the evening, and wait there for a person who wished to speak with him, and who would utter the word 'Bradamanti' as a sort of countersign. Certainly there is nothing very perilous in doing so much. No doubt Nicholas is late from having to-day found, as he did yesterday, something on the road. Look at this capital linen which he contrived to filch from a boat, in which a laundress had just left it!" So saying, she pointed to one of the pieces of linen Amandine was endeavouring to pick the mark out of. Then, addressing the child, she said, "What do folks mean when they talk of filching?"
"I believe," answered the frightened child, without venturing to look up, "it means taking things that are not ours."
"Oh, you little fool! It means stealing, not taking. Do you understand? --stealing!"
"Thank you, sister!"
"And when one can steal as cleverly as Nicholas, there is no need to want for anything. Look at that linen he filched yesterday; how comfortably it set us all up; and that, too, with no other trouble than just taking out the marks; isn't it true, mother?" added Calabash, with a burst of laughter, which displayed her decayed and irregular teeth, yellow and jaundiced as her complexion.
The widow received this pleasantry with cold indifference.
"Talking of fitting ourselves up without any expense," continued Calabash, "it strikes me we might possibly do so at another shop. You know quite well that an old man has come, within the last few days, to live in the country-house belonging to M. Griffon, the doctor of the hospital at Paris. I mean that lone house about a hundred steps from the river's side, just opposite the lime-kilns,--eh, mother? You understand me, don't you?"
The widow bowed her head, in token of assent.
"Well, Nicholas was saying yesterday that it was very likely a good job might be made out of it," pursued Calabash. "Now I have ascertained, this very morning, that there is good booty to be found there. The best way will be to send Amandine to watch the place a little; no one will take notice of a child like her; and she could pretend to be just playing about, and amusing herself; all the time she can take notice of everything, and will be able to tell us all she sees or hears. Do you hear what I say?" added Calabash, roughly addressing Amandine.
"Yes, sister," answered the trembling child; "I will be sure to do as you wish me."
"Yes, that is what you always say; but you never do more than promise, you little slink! That time that I desired you to take a five-franc piece out of the grocer's till at Asnières, while I managed to keep the man occupied at the other end of the shop, you did not choose to obey me; and yet you might have done it so easily; no one ever mistrusts a child. Pray what was your reason for not doing as you were bid?"
"Because, sister, my heart failed me, and I was afraid."
"And yet, the other day, you took a handkerchief out of the peddler's pack, when the man was selling his goods inside the public-house. Pray did he find it out, you silly thing?"
"Oh, but, sister, you know the handkerchief was for you, not me; and you made me do it. Besides, it was not money."
"What difference does that make?"
"Oh, why, taking a handkerchief is not half so wicked as stealing money!"
"Upon my word," said Calabash, contemptuously, "these are mighty fine notions! I suppose it is Martial stuffs your head with all this rubbish. I suppose you will run open-mouthed to tell him every word we have said,--eh, little spy? But Lord bless you! We are not afraid of you or Martial either; you can neither eat us nor drink us, that is one good thing." Then, addressing herself to the widow, Calabash continued, "I tell you what, mother, that fellow will get himself into no good by trying to rule, and domineer, and lay down the law here, as he does; both Nicholas and myself are determined not to submit to it. He sets both Amandine and François against everything either you or I order them to do. Do you think this can last much longer?"
"No!" said the mother, in a harsh, abrupt voice.
"Ever since his Louve has been sent to St. Lazare, Martial has gone on like a madman, savage as a bear with every one. Pray is it our fault? Can we help his sweetheart being put in prison? Only let her show her face here when she comes out, and I'll serve her in such a way she sha'n't forget one while! I'll match her! I'll--" Here the widow, who had been buried in profound reflection, suddenly interrupted her daughter by saying: "You think something profitable might be got out of the old fellow who lives in the doctor's house, do you not?"
"Yes, mother!"
"He looks poor and shabby as any common beggar!"
"And, for all that, he is a nobleman."
"A nobleman?"
"True as you're alive! And, what's more, he carries a purse full of gold, spite of his always going into Paris, and returning, on foot, leaning on an old stick, just for all the world like a poor wretch that had not a sou in the world."
"How do you know that he has gold?"
"A little while ago I was at the post-office at Asnières, to inquire whether there was any letter for us from Toulon--" At these words, which recalled the circumstance of her son's confinement in the galleys, the brows of the widow were contracted with a dark frown, while a half repressed sigh escaped her lips. Unheeding these signs of perturbation, Calabash proceeded: "I was waiting my turn, when the old man who lives at the doctor's house entered the office. I knew him again directly, by his white hair and beard, his dark complexion, and thick black eyebrows. He does not look like one that would be easily managed, I can tell you; and, spite of his age, he has the appearance of a determined old fool that would die sooner than yield. He walked straight up to the postmistress. 'Pray,' said he, 'have you any letters from Angers for M. le Comte de Remy?' 'Yes,' replied the woman, 'here is one.' 'Then it is for me,' said the old man; 'here is my passport.' While the postmistress was examining it, he drew out a green silk purse, to pay the postage; and, I promise you, one end was stuffed with gold till it looked as large as an egg. I know it was gold, for I saw the bright, yellow pieces shining through the meshes of the purse; and I am quite certain there must have been at least forty or fifty louis in it!" cried Calabash, her eyes glowing with a covetous eagerness to possess herself of such a treasure. "And only to think," continued she, "of a person, with all that money in his pocket, going about like an old beggar! No doubt he is some old miser, too rich to be able to count his hoards. One good thing, mother, we know his name; that may assist us in gaining admittance into the house. As soon as Amandine can find out for us whether he has any servants or not--" A loud barking of dogs here interrupted Calabash.
"Listen, mother," cried she; "no doubt the dogs hear the sound of a boat approaching; it must be either Martial or Nicholas."
At the mention of Martial's name, the features of Amandine expressed a sort of troubled joy. After waiting for some minutes, during which the anxious looks of the impatient child were fixed on the door, she saw, to her extreme regret, Nicholas, the future accomplice of Barbillon, make his appearance. The physiognomy of the youth was at once ignoble and ferocious; small in figure, short in stature, and mean in appearance, no one would have deemed him a likely person to pursue the dangerous and criminal path he trod. Unhappily, a sort of wild, savage energy supplied the place of that physical force in which the hardened youth was deficient. Over his blue loose frock he wore a kind of vest, without sleeves, made of goatskin, covered with long brown hair. As he entered, he threw on the ground a lump of copper, which he had with difficulty carried on his shoulder.
"A famous good night I have made of it, mother!" said he, in a hoarse and hollow voice, after he had freed himself from his burden. "Look there! There's a prize. Well, I've got three more lumps of copper, quite as big as that, in my boat, a bundle of clothes, and a case filled with something, I know not what, for I did not waste my time in opening it. Perhaps I have been robbed on my way home; we shall see."
"And the man you were to meet on the Quai de Billy?" inquired Calabash, while the widow regarded her son in silence.
The only reply made by the young man consisted in his plunging his hand into the pocket of his trousers, and jingling a quantity of silver.
"Did you take all that from him?" cried Calabash.
"No, I didn't; he shelled out two hundred francs of his own accord; and he will fork out eight hundred more as soon as I have--But that's enough; let's, first of all, unload my boat; we can jabber afterwards. Is not Martial here?"
"No," said his sister.
"So much the better; we will put away the swag before he sees it; leastways, if he can be kept from knowing about it."
"What! Are you afraid of him, you coward?" asked Calabash, provokingly.
Nicholas shrugged his shoulders significantly; then replied: "Afraid of him? No, I should rather think not! But I have a strong suspicion he means to sell us,--that is my only fear; as for any other sort of dread, my weazen-slicer (knife) has rather too keen an edge for that!"
"Ah, when he is not here, you are full of boast and brag; but only let him show his face, and you are quiet as a mouse!"
This reproach seemed quite thrown away upon Nicholas, who, affecting not to have heard it, exclaimed: "Come, come! Let's unload the boat at once. Where is François, mother? He could help us a good deal."
"Mother has locked him up, after having preciously flogged him; and, I can tell you, he will have to go to bed without any supper."
"Well and good as far as that goes; but still, he might lend a hand in unloading the boat,--eh, mother? Because, then myself and Calabash could fetch all in at once."
The widow raised her hand, and pointed with her finger towards the ceiling. Her daughter perfectly comprehended the signal, and departed at once to fetch François.
The countenance of the widow Martial had become less cloudy since the arrival of Nicholas, whom she greatly preferred to Calabash, but by no means entertaining for him the affection she felt for her Toulon son, as she designated him; for the maternal love of this ferocious woman appeared to increase in proportion to the criminality of her offspring. This perverse preference will serve to account for the widow's indifference towards her two younger children, neither of whom exhibited any disposition to evil, as well as her perfect hatred of Martial, her eldest son, who, although not leading an altogether irreproachable life, might still have passed for a perfectly honest and well-conducted person if placed in comparison with Nicholas, Calabash, or his brother, the felon at Toulon.
"Which road did you take to-night?" inquired the widow of her son.
"Why, as I returned from the Quai de Billy, where, you know, I had to go to meet the gentleman who appointed to see me there, I spied a barge moored alongside the quay; it was as dark as pitch. 'Halloa!' says I, 'no light in the cabin? No doubt,' says I, 'all hands are ashore. I'll just go on board, and have a look; if I meet any one, it's easy to ask for a bit of string, and make up a fudge about wanting to splice my oar.' So up the side I climbs, and ventures into the cabin. Not a soul was there; so I began collecting all I could find: clothes, a great box, and, on the deck, four quintals of copper. So, you may guess, I was obliged to make two journeys. The vessel was loaded with copper and iron; but here comes François and Calabash. Now, then, let's be off to the boat. Here, you young un, you Amandine! Look sharp, and make yourself useful; you can carry the clothes; we must get new things, you know, before we can throw aside our old ones."
Left alone, the widow busied herself in preparations for the family supper. She placed on the table bottles, glasses, earthenware, plates, with forks and spoons of silver; and, by the time this occupation was completed, her offspring returned heavily laden.
Little François staggered beneath the weight of copper which he carried on his shoulders, and Amandine was almost buried beneath the mass of stolen garments which she bore on her head, while Nicholas and Calabash brought in between them a wooden case, on the top of which lay the fourth lump of copper.
"The case,--the case!" cried Calabash, with savage eagerness. "Come, let's rip it open, and know what's in it."
The lumps of copper were flung on the ground. Nicholas took the heavy hatchet he carried in his belt, and introduced its strong iron head between the lid and the box which he had set down in the middle of the kitchen, and endeavoured with all his strength to force it open. The red and flickering light of the fire illumined this scene of pillage, while, from without, the loud gusts of the night wind increased in violence.
Nicholas, meanwhile, attired in his goatskin vest, stooped over the box, and essayed with all his might to wrench off the top, breaking out into the most horrible and blasphemous expressions, as he found the solidity of the fastenings resist all his endeavours to arrive at a knowledge of its contents; and Calabash, her eyes inflamed by covetousness, her cheeks flushed by the excitement of plunder, knelt down beside the case, on which she leaned her utmost weight, in order to give more power to the action of the lever employed by Nicholas. The widow, separated from the group by the table, on the other side of which she was standing, in her eagerness to behold the spoils, threw herself almost across the table, the better to gaze on the booty; her longing eyes sparkled with eagerness to learn the value of it. And finally--though unhappily, too true to human nature--the two children, whose naturally good inclinations had so often triumphed over the sea of vice and domestic corruption by which they were surrounded, even they, forgetting at once both their fears and their scruples, were alike infected by the same fatal curiosity.
Huddling close to each other, their eyes glittering with excitement, the breathing short and quick, François and Amandine seemed of all the party most impatient to ascertain the contents of the case, and the most irritated and out of patience with the slow progress made by Nicholas in his attempts to break it open. At length the lid yielded to the powerful and repeated blows dealt on it by the vigorous arm of the young man, and as its fragments fell on the ground a loud, exulting cry rose from the joyful and almost breathless group, who, joining in one wild mass, from the mother to the little girl, rushed forward, and with savage haste threw themselves on the opened box, which, forwarded, doubtless, by some house in Paris to a fashionable draper and mercer residing near the banks of the river, contained a large assortment of the different materials employed in female attire.
"Nicholas has not done amiss!" cried Calabash, unfolding a piece of mousseline-de-laine.
"No, faith!" returned the plunderer, opening, in his turn, a parcel of silk handkerchiefs; "I shall manage to pay myself for my trouble."
"Levantine, I declare!" cried the widow, dipping into the box, and drawing forth a rich silk. "Ah, that is a thing that fetches a price as readily as a loaf of bread."
"Oh, Bras Rouge's receiver, who lives in the Rue du Temple, will buy all the finery, and be glad of it. And Father Micou, the man who lets furnished lodgings in the Quartier St. Honoré, will take the rest of the swag."
"Amandine," whispered François to his little sister, "what a beautiful cravat one of those handsome silk handkerchiefs Nicholas is holding in his hand would make, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, yes; and what a sweet pretty _marmotte_ it would make for me!" replied the child, in rapture at the very idea.
"Well, it must be confessed, Nicholas," said Calabash, "that it was a lucky thought of yours to go on board that barge,--famous! Look, here are shawls, too! How many, I wonder? One, two, three. And just see here, mother! This one is real Bourre de Soie."
"Mother Burette would give at least five hundred francs for the lot," said the widow, after closely examining each article.
"Then, I'll be sworn," answered Nicholas, "if she'll give that, the things are worth at least fifteen hundred francs. But, as the old saying is, 'The receiver's as bad as the thief.' Never mind; so much the worse for us! I'm no hand at splitting differences; and I shall be quite flat enough this time to let Mother Burette have it all her own way, and Father Micou also, for the matter of that; but then, to be sure, he is a friend."
"I don't care for that, he'd cheat you as soon as another; I'm up to the old dealer in marine stores. But then these rascally receivers know we cannot do without them," continued Calabash, putting on one of the shawls, and folding it around her, "and so they take advantage of it."
"There is nothing else," said Nicholas, coming to the bottom of the box.
"Now, let us put everything away," said the widow.
"I shall keep this shawl for myself," exclaimed Calabash.
"Oh, you will, will you?" cried Nicholas, roughly; "that depends whether I choose to let you or not. You are always laying your clutches on something or other; you are Madame Free-and-Easy!"
"You are so mighty particular yourself--about taking whatever you have a fancy to, arn't you?"
"Ah, that's as different as different can be! I filch at the risk of my life; and if I had happened to have been nabbed on board the barge, you would not have been trounced for it."
"La! Well, don't make such a fuss,--take your shawl! I'm sure I don't want it; I was only joking about it," continued Calabash, flinging the shawl back into the box; "but you never can stand the least bit of fun."
"Oh, I don't speak because of the shawl; I am not stingy enough to squabble about a trumpery shawl. One more or less would make no difference in the price Mother Burette would give for the things; she buys in the lump, you know," continued Nicholas; "only I consider that, instead of calling out you should keep the shawl, it would have been more decent to have asked me to give it you. There--there it is--keep it--you may have it; keep it, I say, or else I'll just fling it into the fire to make the pot boil."
These words entirely appeased Calabash, who forthwith accepted the shawl without further scruple.
Nicholas appeared seized with a sudden fit of generosity, for, ripping off the fag end from one of the pieces of silk, he contrived to separate two silk handkerchiefs, which he threw to Amandine and François, who had been contemplating them with longing looks, saying: "There! that's for you brats; just a little taste to give you a relish for prigging; it's a thing you'll take to more kindly if it's made agreeable to you. And now, get off to bed. Come, look sharp, I've got a deal to say to mother. There--you shall have some supper brought up-stairs to you."
The delighted children clapped their hands with joy, and triumphantly waved the stolen handkerchiefs which had just been presented to them.
"What do you say now, you little stupids?" said Calabash to them; "will you ever go and be persuaded by Martial again? Did he ever give you beautiful silk handkerchiefs like those, I should be glad to know?"
François and Amandine looked at each other, then hung down their heads, and made no answer.
"Answer, can't you?" persisted Calabash, roughly. "I ask you whether you ever received such presents from Martial?"
"No," answered François, gazing with intense delight on his bright red silk handkerchief, "Brother Martial never gives us anything."
To which Amandine replied, in a low yet firm voice: "Ah, François, that is because Martial has nothing to give anybody."
"He might have as much as other people if he chose to steal it, mightn't he, François?" said Nicholas, brutally.
"Yes, brother," replied François. Then, as if glad to quit the subject, he resumed his ecstatic contemplation of his handkerchief, saying: "Oh, what a real beauty it is! What a fine cravat it will make for Sundays, won't it?"
"That it will," answered Amandine. "And just see, François, how charming I shall look with my sweet pretty handkerchief tied around my head,--so, brother."
"What a rage the little children at the lime-kilns will be in when they see you pass by!" said Calabash, fixing her malignant glances on the poor children to ascertain whether they comprehended the full and spiteful meaning of her words,--the hateful creature seeking, by the aid of vanity, to stifle the last breathings of virtue within their young minds. "The brats at the lime-kilns," continued she, "will look like beggar children beside you, and be ready to burst with envy and jealousy at seeing you two looking like a little lady and gentleman with your pretty silk handkerchiefs."
"So they will," cried François. "Ah, and I like my new cravat ever so much the better, Sister Calabash, now you have told me that the children at the kilns will be so mad with me for being smarter than they; don't you, Amandine?"
"No, François, I don't find that makes any difference. But I am quite glad I have got such a nice new pretty _marmotte_ as that will make, all the same."
"Go along with you, you little mean-spirited thing!" cried Calabash, disdainfully; "you have not a grain of proper pride in you." Then, snatching from the table a morsel of bread and cheese, she thrust them into the children's hands, saying, "Now, get off to bed,--there is a lanthorn; take care you don't set fire to anything, and be sure to put it out before you go to sleep."
"And hark ye," added Nicholas, "remember that if you dare to say one word to Martial of the box, the copper, or the clothes, I'll make you dance upon red-hot iron; and, besides that, your pretty silk handkerchiefs shall be taken from you."
After the departure of the children, Nicholas and his sister concealed the box, with its contents, the clothes, and lumps of copper, in a sort of cellar below the kitchen, the entrance to which was by a low flight of steps not far from the fireplace.
"That'll do!" cried the hardened youth. "And now, mother, give us a glass of your very best brandy; none of your poor, every-day stuff, but some of the real right sort, and plenty of it. Faith! I think I've earned a right to eat and to drink whatever you happen to have put by for grand occasions. Come, Calabash, look sharp, and let's have supper. Never mind Martial, he may amuse himself with picking the bones we may leave; they are good enough for him. Now, then, for a bit of gossip over the affair of the individual I went to meet on the Quai de Billy, because that little job must be settled at once if I mean to pouch the money he promised me. I'll tell you all about it, mother, from beginning to end. But first give me something to moisten my throat. Give me some drink, I say! Devilish hard to be obliged to ask so many times, considering what I have done for you all to-day! I tell you I can stand treat, if that's what you are waiting for."
And here Nicholas again jingled the five-franc pieces he had in his pocket; then flinging his goatskin waistcoat and black woollen cap into a distant part of the room, he seated himself at table before a huge dish of ragout made of mutton, a piece of cold veal, and a salad. As soon as Calabash had brought wine and brandy, the widow, still gloomy and imperturbable, took her place at one side of the table, having Nicholas on her right hand and her daughter on her left; the other side of the table had been destined for Martial and the two younger children. Nicholas then drew from his pocket a long and wide Spanish knife, with a horn handle and a trenchant blade. Contemplating this murderous weapon with a sort of savage pleasure, he said to the widow: "There's my bread-earner,--what an edge it has! Talking of bread, mother, just hand me some of that beside you."
"And talking of knives, too," replied Calabash, "François has found out--you know what--in the wood-pile!"
"What do you mean?" asked Nicholas, not understanding her.
"Why, he saw--one of the feet!"
"Phew!" whistled Nicholas; "what, of the man?"
"Yes," answered the widow, concisely, at the same time placing a large slice of meat on her son's plate.
"That's droll enough," returned the young ruffian; "I'm sure the hole was dug deep enough; but I suppose the ground has sunk in a good deal."
"It must all be thrown into the river to-night," said the widow.
"That is the surest way to get rid of further bother," said Nicholas.
"Yes," chimed in Calabash, "throw it in the river, with a heavy stone fastened to it, with part of an old boat-chain."
"We are not quite such fools as that either," returned Nicholas, pouring out for himself a brimming glass of wine. Then, holding the bottle up, he said, addressing the widow: "Come, mother, let's touch glasses, and drink to each other. You seem a cup too low, and it will cheer you up."
The widow drew back her glass, shook her head, and said to her son: "Tell me of the man you met on the Quai de Billy."
"Why, this is it," said Nicholas, without ceasing to eat and drink: "When I got to the landing-place, I fastened my boat, and went up the steps of the quay as the clock was striking seven at the military bakehouse at Chaillot. You could not see four yards before you, but I walked up and down by the parapet wall for a quarter of an hour, when I heard footsteps moving softly behind me. I stopped, and a man, completely wrapped up in a mantle, approached me, coughing as he advanced. As I paused, he paused; and all I could make out of him was that his cloak hid his nose, and his hat fell over his eyes."
We will inform our readers that this mysterious personage was Jacques Ferrand, the notary, who, anxious to get rid of Fleur-de-Marie, had, that same morning, despatched Madame Séraphin to the Martials, whom he hoped to find the ready instruments of his fresh crime. " 'Bradamanti,' said the man to me," continued Nicholas; "that was the password agreed upon by the old woman, that I might know my man. 'Ravageur,' says I, as was agreed. 'Is your name Martial?' he asked. 'Yes, master.' 'A woman was at your isle to-day: what did she say to you?' 'That you wished to speak to me on the part of M. Bradamanti.' 'You have a boat?' 'We have four, that's our number: boatmen and ravageurs, from father to son, at your service.' 'This is what I want you to do if you are not afraid--' 'Afraid of what, master?' 'Of seeing a person accidentally drowned. Only you must assist with the accident. Do you understand?' 'Perfectly, master; we must make some individual have a draught of the Seine, as if by accident? I'll do it; only, as the dish to be dressed is a dainty one, why, the seasoning will cost rather dear.' 'How much for two?' 'For two? What! are there two persons who are to have a mess of broth in the river?' 'Yes.' 'Five hundred francs a head, master; that's not too dear.' 'Agreed, for a thousand francs.' 'Money down, master?' 'Two hundred francs now, and the rest afterwards.' 'Then you doubt me, master?' 'No; you may pocket the two hundred francs, without completing the bargain.' 'And you may say, after it's done, "Don't you wish you may get it?"' 'That as may be; but does it suit you? yes or no. Two hundred francs down, and on the evening of the day after to-morrow, here, at nine o'clock, I will give you the eight hundred francs.' 'And who will inform you that I have done the trick with these two persons?' 'I shall know; that is my affair. Is it a bargain?' 'Yes, master.' 'Here are two hundred francs. Now listen to me; you will know again the old woman who was at your house this morning?' 'Yes, master.' 'To-morrow, or next day at latest, you will see her come, about four o'clock in the evening, on the bank in face of your island with a young fair girl. The old woman will make a signal to you by waving her handkerchief.' 'Yes, master.' 'What time does it take to go from the bank-side to your island?' 'Twenty minutes, quite.' 'Your boats are flat-bottomed?' 'Flat as your hand, master.' 'Then you must make, very skilfully, a sort of large hole in the bottom of one of these boats, so that, when you open it, the water may flow in rapidly. Do you understand?' 'Quite well, master; how clever you are! I have by me a worn-out old boat, half rotten, that I was going to break up, but it will just do for this one more voyage.' 'You will then leave the island with this boat, with the hole prepared; let a good boat follow you, conducted by some one of your family. Go to the shore, accost the old woman and the fair young girl, and take them on board the boat with the hole in it; then go back towards your island; but, when you are at some distance from the bank, pretend to stoop for some purpose, open the hole, and leap into the other boat, whilst the old woman and the fair young girl--' 'Drink out of the same cup,--that's it,--eh, master?' 'But are you sure you will not be interrupted? Suppose some customers should come to your house?' 'There is no fear, master. At this time, and especially in winter, no one comes, it is our dead time of year; and, if they come, that would not be troublesome; on the contrary, they are all good friends.' 'Very well. Besides, you in no way compromise yourselves; the boat will be supposed to have sunk from old age, and the old woman who brings the young girl will disappear with her. In order to be quite assured that they are drowned (by accident, mind! quite by accident), you can, if they rise to the surface, or if they cling to the boat, appear to do all in your power to assist them, and--' 'Help them--to sink again! Good, master!' 'It will be requisite that the passage be made after sunset, in order that it may be quite dark when they fall into the water.' 'No, master; for if one does not see clear, how shall we know if the two women swallow their doses at one gulp, or want a second?' 'True; and, therefore, the accident will take place before sunset.' 'All right, master; but the old woman has no suspicion, has she?' 'Not the slightest. When she arrives, she will whisper to you: "The young girl is to be drowned; a little while before you sink the boat, make me a signal, that I may be ready to escape with you." You will reply to the old woman in such a way as to avoid all suspicion.' 'So that she may suppose the young 'un only is going to swallow the dose?' 'But which she will drink as well as the fair girl.' 'It's "downily" arranged, master.' 'But mind the old woman has not the slightest suspicion.' 'Be easy on that score, master; she will be done as nicely as possible.' 'Well, then, good luck to you, my lad! If I am satisfied, perhaps I shall give you another job.' 'At your service, master.' Then," said the ruffian, in conclusion, "I left the man in the cloak, and 'prigged the swag' I've just brought in."
We may glean from Nicholas's recital that the notary was desirous, by a twofold crime, of getting rid at once of Fleur-de-Marie and Madame Séraphin, by causing the latter to fall into the snare which she thought was only spread for the Goualeuse. It is hardly necessary to repeat that, justly alarmed lest the Chouette should inform Fleur-de-Marie at any moment that she had been abandoned by Madame Séraphin, Jacques Ferrand believed he had a paramount interest in getting rid of this young girl, whose claims might mortally injure him both in his fortune and in his reputation. As to Madame Séraphin, the notary, by sacrificing her, got rid of one of his accomplices (Bradamanti was the other), who might ruin him, whilst they ruined themselves, it is true; but Jacques Ferrand believed that the grave would keep his secrets better than any personal interests.
The felon's widow and Calabash had listened attentively to Nicholas, who had not paused except to swallow large quantities of wine, and then he began to talk with considerable excitement.
"That is not all," he continued. "I have begun another affair with the Chouette and Barbillon of the Rue aux Fêves. It is a capital job, well planted; and if it does not miss fire, it will bring plenty of fish to net, and no mistake. It is to clean out a jewel-matcher, who has sometimes as much as fifty thousand francs in jewelry in her basket."
"Fifty thousand francs!" cried the mother and daughter, whose eyes sparkled with cupidity.
"Yes--quite. Bras Rouge is in it with us. He yesterday opened upon the woman with a letter which we carried to her--Barbillon and I--at her house, Boulevard St. Denis. He's an out-and-outer, Bras Rouge is! As he appears--and, I believe, is--well-to-do, nobody mistrusts him. To make the jewel-matcher bite he has already sold her a diamond worth four hundred francs. She'll not be afraid to come towards nightfall to his cabaret in the Champs Elysées. We shall be concealed there. Calabash may come with us, and take care of my boat along the side of the Seine. If we are obliged to carry her off, dead or alive, that will be a convenient conveyance, and one that leaves no traces. There's a plan for you! That beggar Bras Rouge is nothing but a good 'un!"
"I have always distrusted Bras Rouge," said the widow. "After that affair of the Rue Montmartre your brother Ambroise was sent to Toulon, and Bras Rouge was set at liberty."
"Because he's so downy there's no proofs against him. But betray others? --never!"
The widow shook her head, as if she were only half convinced of Bras Rouge's probity. After a few moments' reflection she said: "I like much better that affair of the Quai de Billy for to-morrow or next day evening,--the drowning the two women. But Martial will be in the way as usual."
"Will not the devil's thunder ever rid us of him?" exclaimed Nicholas, half drunk, and striking his long knife savagely on the table.
"I have told mother that we had enough of him, and that we could not go on in this way," said Calabash. "As long as he is here we can do nothing with the children."
"I tell you that he is capable of one day denouncing us,--the villain!" said Nicholas. "You see, mother, if you would have believed me," he added, with a savage and significant air, "all would have been settled!"
"There are other means--" "This is the best!" said the ruffian.
"Now? No!" replied the widow, with a tone so decided that Nicholas was silent, overcome by the influence of his mother, whom he knew to be as criminal, as wicked, but still more determined than himself.
The widow added, "To-morrow he will quit the island for ever."
"How?" inquired Nicholas and Calabash at the same time.
"When he comes in pick a quarrel with him,--but boldly, mind,--out to his face, as you have never yet dared to do. Come to blows, if necessary. He is powerful, but you will be two, for I will help you. Mind, no steel,--no blood! Let him be beaten, but not wounded."
"And what then, mother?" asked Nicholas.
"We shall then explain afterwards. We will tell him to leave the island next day; if not, that the scenes of the night before will occur over and over again. I know him; these perpetual squabbles disgust him; until now we have let him be too quiet."
"But he is as obstinate as a mule, and is likely enough to insist upon staying, because of the children," observed Calabash.
"He's a regular hound; but a row don't frighten him," said Nicholas.
"One? No!" said the widow. "But every day--day by day--it is hell in earth, and he will give way."
"Suppose he don't?"
"Then I have another sure means to make him go away,--this very night or to-morrow at farthest," replied the widow, with a singular smile.
"Really, mother!"
"Yes, but I prefer rather to annoy him with a row; and, if that don't do, why, then, it must be the other way."
"And if the other way does not succeed, either, mother?" said Nicholas.
"There is one which always succeeds," replied the widow.
Suddenly the door opened, and Martial entered. It blew so strong without that they had not heard the barkings of the dogs at the return of the first-born son of the felon's widow.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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5
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THE MOTHER AND SON.
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Unaware of the evil designs of his family, Martial entered the kitchen slowly.
Some few words let fall by La Louve in her conversation with Fleur-de-Marie have already acquainted the reader with the singular existence of this man. Endowed with excellent natural instincts, incapable of an action positively base or wicked, Martial did not, however, lead a regular life: he poached on the water; but his strength and his boldness inspired so much fear that the keepers of the river shut their eyes on this irregularity.
To this illegal occupation Martial joined another that was equally illicit. A redoubtable champion, he willingly undertook--and more from excess of courage, from love of the thing, than for gain--to avenge in pugilistic or single-stick encounters those victims who had been overcome by too powerful opponents.
We should add that Martial was very particular in the selection of those causes which he pleaded by strength of fist, and usually took the part of the weak against the strong.
La Louve's lover was very much like François and Amandine. He was of middle height, stout, and broad-shouldered; his thick red hair, cropped short, came in five points over his open brow; his close, harsh, short beard, his broad, bluff cheeks, his projecting nose, flattened at the extremity, his blue and bold eyes, gave to his masculine features a singularly resolute expression.
He was covered with an old glazed hat; and, despite the cold, he had only a worn-out blouse over his vest, and a pair of velveteen trousers, which had seen considerable service. He held in his hand a very thick, knotted stick, which he put down beside him near the dresser.
A large dog, half terrier, half hound, with crooked legs and a black hide, marked with bright red, came in with Martial, but he remained close to the door, not daring to approach the fire, nor the guests who were sitting at table, experience having proved to old Miraut (that was the name of Martial's poaching companion) that he, as well as his master, did not possess much of the sympathy of the family.
"Where are the children?" were Martial's first words, as he sat down to table.
"Where they ought to be," replied Calabash, surlily.
"Where are the children, mother?" said Martial again, without taking the slightest notice of his sister's reply.
"Gone to bed," replied the widow, in a harsh tone.
"Haven't they had their supper, mother?"
"What's that to you?" exclaimed Nicholas, brutally, after having swallowed a large glass of wine to increase his courage, for his brother's disposition and strength had a very strong effect on him.
Martial, as indifferent to the attacks of Nicholas as to those of Calabash, then said to his mother, "I'm sorry the children are gone to bed so soon."
"So much the worse," responded the widow.
"Yes, so much the worse; for I like to have them beside me when I am at supper."
"And we, because they were troublesome and annoyed us, have sent them off," cried Nicholas; "and if you don't like it, why, you can go after them."
Martial, astonished, looked steadfastly at his brother. Then, as if convinced of the futility of a quarrel, he shrugged his shoulders, cut off a slice of bread and a piece of meat.
The dog had come up towards Nicholas, although keeping at a very respectful distance; and the ruffian, irritated at the disdain with which his brother treated him, and hoping to wear out his patience by ill-using his dog, gave Miraut a savage kick, which made the poor brute howl fearfully. Martial turned red, clasped in his hand the knife he held, and struck violently on the table with the handle; but, again controlling himself, he called the dog to him, saying, quietly, "Here, Miraut!" The hound came, and crouched at his master's feet.
This composure quite upset Nicholas's plans, who was desirous of pushing his brother to extremities, in order to produce an explosion. So he added, "I hate dogs--I do; and I won't have this dog remain here." Martial's only reply was to pour out a glass of wine, and drink it off slowly. Exchanging a rapid glance with Nicholas, the widow encouraged him by a signal to continue his hostilities towards Martial, hoping, as we have said, that a violent quarrel would arise that would lead to a rupture and complete separation.
Nicholas, then, taking up the willow stick which the widow had used to beat François, went up to the dog, and, striking him sharply, said, "Get out, you brute, Miraut!"
Up to this time Nicholas had often shown himself sulkily offensive towards Martial, but he had never dared to provoke him with so much audacity and perseverance. La Louve's lover, thinking they were desirous of driving him to extremities for some secret motive, quelled every impulse of temper.
At the cry of the beaten dog, Martial rose, opened the door of the kitchen, made the dog go out, and then returned, and went on with his supper. This incredible patience, so little in harmony with Martial's usual demeanour, puzzled and nonplussed his aggressors, who looked at each other with amazement. He, affecting to appear wholly unconscious of what was passing around him, ate away with great appetite, keeping profound silence.
"Calabash, take the wine away," said the widow to her daughter.
She hastened to comply, when Martial said, "Stay, I haven't done my supper."
"So much the worse," said the widow, taking the bottle away herself.
"Oh, that's another thing!" answered La Louve's lover. And pouring out a large glass of water, he drank it, smacking his tongue, and exclaiming, "Capital water!"
This excessive calmness irritated the burning anger of Nicholas, already heated by copious libations; but still he hesitated at making a direct attack, well knowing the vast power of his brother. Suddenly he cried out, as if delighted at the idea, "Martial, you were quite right to turn the dog out. It is a good habit to begin to give way, for you have but to wait a bit, and you will see us kick your sweetheart out just as we have driven away your dog."
"Oh, yes; for if La Louve is impudent enough to come to the island when she leaves gaol," added Calabash, who quite understood Nicholas's motive, "I'll serve her out."
"And I'll give her a dip in the mud by the hovel at the end of the island," continued Nicholas; "and, if she gets out, I'll give her a few rattlers over the nob with my wooden shoe, the----" This insult addressed to La Louve, whom he loved with savage ardour, triumphed over the pacific resolutions of Martial; he frowned, and the blood mounted to his cheeks, whilst the veins in his brow swelled and distended like cords. Still, he had so much control over himself as to say to Nicholas, in a voice slightly altered by his repressed wrath: "Take care of yourself! You are trying to pick a quarrel, and you will find a bone to pick that will be too tough for you."
"A bone for me to pick?"
"Yes; and I'll thrash you more soundly than I did last time."
"What! Nicholas," said Calabash, with a sardonic grin, "did Martial thrash you? Did you hear that, mother? I'm not astonished that Nicholas is so afraid of him."
"He walloped me, because, like a coward, he took me off my guard," exclaimed Nicholas, turning pale with rage.
"You lie! You attacked me unexpectedly; I knocked you flat, and then showed you mercy. But if you talk of my mistress,--I say, mind you, of my mistress,--this time I look it over,--you shall carry my marks for many a long day."
"And suppose I choose to talk of La Louve?" inquired Calabash.
"Why, I'll pull your ears to put you on your guard; and if you begin again, why, so will I." "And suppose I speak of her?" said the widow, slowly.
"You?"
"Yes,--I!"
"You?" said Martial, making a violent effort over himself; "you?"
"You'll beat me, too, I suppose,--won't you?"
"No; but, if you speak to me unkindly of La Louve, I'll give Nicholas a hiding he shall long remember. So now, mind! It is his affair as well as yours."
"You?" exclaimed the ruffian, rising, and drawing his dangerous Spanish knife; "you give me a hiding?"
[Illustration: _The Brigand dashed at his brother. _ Original Etching by Adrian Marcel.]
"Nicholas, no steel!" cried the widow, quickly, leaving her seat, and trying to seize her son's arm; but he, drunk with wine and passion, repulsed his mother savagely, and rushed at his brother.
Martial receded rapidly, laid hold of the thick, knotted stick which he had put down by the dresser, as he entered, and betook himself to the defensive.
"Nicholas, no steel!" repeated the widow.
"Let him alone!" cried Calabash, taking up the ravageur's hatchet.
Nicholas, still brandishing his formidable knife, watched for a moment when he could spring on his brother.
"I tell you," he exclaimed, "you and your trollop, La Louve, that I'll slash your eyes out; and here goes to begin! Help, mother! Help, Calabash! Let's make cold meat of the scamp; he's been in our way too long already!" And, believing the moment favourable for his attack, the brigand dashed at his brother with his uplifted knife.
Martial, who was a dexterous cudgeller, retreated a pace rapidly, raising his stick, which, as quick as lightning, cut a figure of eight, and fell so heavily on the right forearm of Nicholas that he, seized with a sudden and overpowering pain, dropped his trenchant weapon.
"Villain, you have broken my arm!" he shouted, grasping with his left hand the right arm, which hung useless by his side.
"No; for I felt my stick rebound!" replied Martial, kicking, as he spoke, the knife underneath the dresser.
Then, taking advantage of the pain which Nicholas was suffering, he seized him by the collar, and thrust him violently backwards, until he had reached the door of the little cellar we have alluded to, which he opened with one hand, whilst, with the other, he thrust his brother into it, and locked him in, all stupefied as he was with this sudden attack.
Then, turning round upon the two women, he seized Calabash by the shoulders, and, in spite of her resistance, her shrieks, and a blow from the hatchet, which cut his head slightly, he shut her up in the lower room of the cabaret, which communicated with the kitchen.
Then addressing the widow, who was still stupefied with this manoeuvre, as skilful as it was sudden, Martial said to her, calmly, "Now, mother, you and I are alone."
"Yes, we are alone," replied the widow, and her usually immobile features became excited, her sallow skin grew red, a gloomy fire lighted up her dull eye, whilst anger and hate gave to her countenance a terrible expression. "Yes, we two are alone now!" she repeated, in a menacing voice. "I have waited for this moment; and at length you shall know all that I have on my mind."
"And I will tell you all I have on my mind."
"If you live to be a hundred years old, I tell you you shall remember this night."
"I shall remember it, unquestionably. My brother and sister have tried to murder me, and you have done nothing to prevent them. But come, let me hear what you have against me?"
"What have I?"
"Yes."
"Since your father's death you have acted nothing but a coward's part."
"I?"
"Yes, a coward's! Instead of remaining with us to support us, you went off to Rambouillet, to poach in the woods with that man who sells game whom you knew at Bercy."
"If I had remained here, I should have been at the galleys like Ambroise, or on the point of going there like Nicholas. I would not be a robber like the rest, and that is the cause of your hatred."
"And what track are you following now? You steal game, you steal fish,--thefts without danger,--a coward's thefts!"
"Fish, like game, is no man's property. To-day belongs to one, to-morrow to another. It is his who can take it. I don't steal. As to being a coward--" "Why, you fight--and for money--men who are weaker than yourself."
"Because they have beaten men weaker than themselves."
"A coward's trade,--a coward's trade!"
"Why, there are more honest pursuits, it is true. But it is not for you to tell me this!"
"Then why did you not take up with those honest trades, instead of coming here skulking and feeding out of my saucepans?"
"I give you the fish I catch, and what money I have. It isn't much, but it's enough; and I don't cost you anything. I have tried to be a locksmith to earn more; but when one has from one's infancy led a vagabond life on the river and in the woods, it is impossible to confine oneself to one spot. It is a settled thing, and one's life is decided. And then," added Martial, with a gloomy air, "I have always preferred living alone on the water or in the forest. There no one questions me; whilst elsewhere men twit me about my father, who was (can I deny it?) guillotined,--of my brother, a galley-slave,--of my sister, a thief!"
"And what do you say of your mother?"
"I say--" "What?"
"I say she is dead."
"You do right; it is as if I were, for I renounce you, dastard! Your brother is at the galleys; your grandfather and your father finished their lives daringly on the scaffold, mocking the priest and the executioner! Instead of avenging them you tremble!"
"Avenging them?"
"Yes, by showing yourself a real Martial, spitting at the headsman's knife and the red cassock, and ending like father, mother, brother, sister--" Accustomed as he was to the savage excitement of his mother, Martial could not forbear shuddering. The countenance of the widow as she uttered the last words was fearful. She continued, with increasing wrath: "Oh, coward! and even worse than coward! You wish to be honest! Honest? Why, won't you ever be despised, repulsed, as the son of an assassin or the brother of a felon? But you, instead of rousing your revenge and wrath, this makes you frightened! Instead of biting, you run away! When they guillotined your father, you left us,--coward! And you knew we could not leave the island to go into the city, because they call after us, and pelt us with stones, like mad dogs. Oh, they shall pay for it, I can tell you,--they shall pay for it!"
"A man? --ten men would not make me afraid! But to be called after by all the world as the son and brother of criminals! Well, I could not endure it. I preferred going into the woods and poaching with Pierre, who sells game."
"Why didn't you remain in the woods?"
"I returned because I got into trouble with a keeper, and besides on the children's account, because they are of an age to take to evil from example."
"And what is that to you?"
"To me? Why, I will not allow them to become depraved like Ambroise, Nicholas, and Calabash."
"Indeed!"
"And if they were left with you, then they would not fail to become so. I went apprentice to try and gain a livelihood, so that I might take them into my own care and leave the island with the children; but in Paris everything was known, and it was always, 'You son of the guillotined!' or, 'You brother of the felon!' I had battles daily, and I grew tired of it."
"But you didn't grow tired of being honest,--that answered so well! Instead of having the pluck to come to us, and do as we do,--as the children will do, in spite of you,--yes, in spite of you! You think to cajole them with your preaching! But we are always here. François is already one of us, or nearly. Let the occasion serve, and he'll be one of the band."
"I tell you, no!"
"You will see,--yes! I know what I say. He has vice in him; but you spoil him. As to Amandine, as soon as she is fifteen she will begin on her own account! Ah, they throw stones at us! Ah, they pursue us like mad dogs! They shall see what our family is made of! Except you, dastard; for here you are the only one who brings down shame upon us!" [5] [5] These frightful facts are, unfortunately, not exaggerated. The following is from the admirable report of M. de Bretignères on the Penitentiary Colony of Mettray (March 12, 1843): "The civil condition of our colonists it is important to state. Amongst them we count thirty-two natural children; thirty-four whose fathers and mothers are re-married; fifty-one whose parents are in prison; 124 whose parents have not been pursued by justice, but are in the utmost distress. These figures are eloquent, and full of instruction. They allow us to go from effects to causes, and give us the hope of arresting the progress of an evil whose origin is thus arrived at. The number of parents who are criminals enable us to appreciate the education which the children have received under the tutelage of such instructors. Taught evil by their fathers, the sons have become wicked by their orders, and have believed they were acting properly in following their example. Arrested by the hand of the law, they resign themselves to share the destiny of their family in prison, to which they only bring the emulation of vice; and it is absolutely necessary that a ray of divine light should still exist within these rude and coarse natures, in order that all the germs of honesty should not be utterly destroyed."
"That's a pity!"
"And as you may be spoiled amongst us, why, to-morrow you shall leave this place, and never return to it."
Martial looked at his mother with surprise, then, after a moment's silence, said, "Was it for this that you tried to get up a quarrel with me at supper?"
"Yes, to show you what you might expect if you would stay here in spite of us,--a hell upon earth,--I tell you, a hell! Every day a quarrel and blows--struggles. And we shall not be alone as we were this, evening; we shall have friends who will help us. And you will not hold out for a week."
"Do you think to frighten me?"
"I only tell you what will happen."
"I don't heed it. I shall stay!"
"You will stay?"
"Yes."
"In spite of us?"
"In spite of you, of Calabash, of Nicholas, and all blackguards like him."
"Really, you make me laugh."
From the lips of this woman, with her repulsive and ferocious look, these words were horrible.
"I tell you I will remain here until I find the means of gaining my livelihood elsewhere with the children. Alone, I should not long be unemployed, for I could return to the woods; but, on their account, I may be some time in finding what I am seeking for. In the meanwhile, here I remain."
"Oh, you remain until the moment when you can take away the children?"
"Exactly as you say."
"Take away the children?"
"When I say to them 'Come!' they will come; and quickly too, I promise you."
The widow shrugged her shoulders, and replied: "Listen! I told you a short time since that, even if you were to live for a hundred years, you should recollect this night. I will explain those words. But, before I do so, have you quite made up your mind?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes! A thousand times over, yes!"
"In a little while, however, you will say 'No! No! No! A thousand times, no!' Listen to me attentively! Do you know the trade your brother follows?"
"I have my suspicions; but I do not wish to know."
"You shall know. He steals!"
"So much the worse for him!"
"And for you!"
"For me?"
"He commits robberies at night, with forcible entry,--burglary; a case of the galleys. We receive what he plunders. If we are discovered, we shall be sentenced to the same punishment as he is, as receivers, and you too. They will sweep away the whole family, and the children will be turned out into the streets, where they will learn the trade of their father and grandfather as well as here."
"I apprehended as a receiver,--as your accomplice? Where's the proofs?"
"No one knows how you live. You are vagabondising on the water; you have the reputation of a bad fellow; you dwell with us, and who will believe that you are ignorant of our thefts and receivings?"
"I will prove the contrary."
"We will accuse you as our accomplice."
"Accuse me! And why?"
"To pay you off for staying amongst us against our will."
"Just now you tried to make me frightened in one way, now you are trying another tack. But it won't do. I will prove that I never robbed. I remain."
"Ah! You remain? Listen then, again! Do you remember last year a person who passed the Christmas night here?"
"Christmas night?" said Martial, trying to recall his memory.
"Try and remember,--try!"
"I do not recollect."
"Don't you recollect that Bras Rouge brought here in the evening a well-dressed man, who was desirous of concealing himself?"
"Yes, now I remember. I went up to bed and left him taking his supper with you. He passed the night here, and, before daybreak, Nicholas took him to St. Ouen."
"You are sure Nicholas took him to St. Ouen?"
"You told me so next morning."
"On Christmas night you were here?"
"Yes; and what of that?"
"Why, that night this man, who had a good deal of money about him, was murdered in this house."
"Mur--! He! Here?"
"And robbed and buried by the little wood-pile."
"It is not true!" cried Martial, becoming pale with horror, and unable to believe in this fresh crime of his family. "You mean to frighten me. Once more, it is not true?"
"Ask François what he saw this morning in the wood-pile."
"François! And what did he see?"
"A man's foot sticking out of the ground. Take a lantern; go and convince your eyes!"
"No," said Martial, wiping his brow, which had burst forth in a cold sweat. "No, I do not believe you. You say it to--" "To prove to you that, if you remain here in spite of us, you risk every moment being apprehended as an accomplice in robbery and murder. You were here on Christmas night, and we shall declare that you helped us to do this job. How will you prove the contrary?"
"Merciless wretch!" said Martial, hiding his face in his hands.
"Now will you go?" said the widow, with a devilish smile.
Martial was overwhelmed. He, unfortunately, could not doubt what his mother had said to him. The wandering life he led, his dwelling with so criminal a family, must induce the most horrible suspicions of him, and these suspicions would be converted into certainty in the eyes of justice, if his mother, brother, and sister declared him to be their accomplice. The widow was rejoiced at the depression of her son: "You have one means of getting out of the difficulty: denounce us!"
"I ought, but I will not; and you know that right well."
"That is why I have told you all this. Now, will you go?"
Martial, wishing to soften this hag, said to her, in a subdued voice: "Mother, I do not believe you are capable of this murder!"
"As you please; but go!"
"I will go on one condition."
"No condition at all!"
"You shall put the children apprentices somewhere in the country."
"They shall remain here!"
"But, mother, when you have made them like Nicholas, Calabash, Ambroise, my father,--what good will that be to you?"
"To make good 'jobs' by their assistance. We are not too many now. Calabash will remain here with me to keep the cabaret. Nicholas is alone. Once properly instructed, François and Amandine will help him. They have already been pelted with stones,--young as they are,--and they must revenge themselves!"
"Mother, you love Calabash and Nicholas, don't you?"
"Well, if I do, what then?"
"Suppose the children imitate them, and their crimes are detected?"
"Well, what then?"
"They will come to the scaffold, like my father."
"What then? What then?"
"And does not their probable fate make you tremble?"
"That fate will be mine, neither better nor worse. I rob, they rob; I kill, they kill. Whoever takes the mother will take the young ones; we will not leave each other. If our heads fall, theirs will fall in the same basket, and we shall all take leave at once! We will not retreat! You are the only coward in the family, and we drive you from us!"
"But the children,--the children!"
"The children will grow up, and, but for you, they would have been quite formed already. François is almost ready, and, when you are gone, Amandine will make up for lost time."
"Mother, I entreat of you, consent to having the children sent away from here, and put in apprenticeship at a distance."
"I tell you that they are in apprenticeship here!"
The felon's widow uttered these last words so immovably that Martial lost all hope of mollifying this soul of bronze.
"Since it is so," he replied, "hear me in my turn, mother,--I remain!"
"Ha! ha!"
"Not in this house. I shall be assassinated by Nicholas, or poisoned by Calabash. But, as I have no means of lodging elsewhere, I and the children will occupy the hovel at the end of the island; the door of that is strong, and I will make it still more secure. Once there, I will barricade myself, and, with my gun, my stick, and my dog, I am afraid of no one. To-morrow morning I will take the children with me. During the day they will be with me, either in my boat or elsewhere; and, at night, they shall sleep near me in the hovel. We can live on the fish I catch until I find some means of placing them, and find it I will."
"Oh! That's it, is it?"
"Neither you, nor my brother, nor Calabash can prevent this, can you? If your robberies and murders are discovered during my abode on the island, so much the worse; but I'll chance it. I will declare that I came back and remained here in consequence of the children, to prevent them from becoming infamous. They will decide. The children shall not remain another day in this abode; and I defy you and your gang to drive me from this island!"
The widow knew Martial's resolution, and the children, who loved their eldest brother as much as they feared her, would certainly follow him unhesitatingly whenever and wherever he called them. As to himself, well armed and most determined, always on his guard, in his boat during the day, and secure and barricaded in the hovel on the island at night, he had nothing to fear from the malevolence of his family.
Martial's project, then, might be realised in every particular; but the widow had many reasons for preventing its execution. In the first place, as honest work-people sometimes consider the number of their children as wealth, in consequence of the services which they derive from them, the widow relied on Amandine and François to assist her in her atrocities. Then, what she had said of her desire to avenge her husband and son was true. Certain beings, nurtured, matured, hardened in crime, enter into open revolt, into war of extermination, against society, and believe that, lay fresh crimes, they shall avenge themselves for the just penalties which have been exacted from them and those belonging to them. Then, too, the sinister designs of Nicholas against Fleur-de-Marie, and afterwards against the jewel-matcher, might be thwarted by Martial's presence.
The widow had hoped to effect an immediate separation between herself and Martial, either by keeping up and aiding Nicholas's quarrel, or by disclosing to him that, if he obstinately persisted in remaining in the island, he ran the risk of being suspected as an accomplice in many crimes.
As cunning as she was penetrating, the widow, perceiving that she had failed, saw that she must have recourse to treachery to entrap her son in her bloody snare, and she therefore replied, after a lengthened pause, with assumed bitterness: "I see your plan. You will not inform against us yourself, but you will contrive that the children shall do so."
"I?"
"They know now that there is a man buried here; they know that Nicholas has robbed. Once apprenticed they would talk, we should be apprehended, and we should all suffer,--you with us. That is what would happen if I listened to you, and allowed you to place the children elsewhere. Yet you say you do not wish us any harm? I do not ask you to love me; but do not hasten the hour of our apprehension!"
The milder tone of the widow made Martial believe that his threats had produced a salutary effect on her, and he fell into the fearful snare.
"I know the children," he replied; "and I am sure that, in desiring them to say nothing, not a word will they say. Besides, in one way or another, I shall be always with them, and I will answer for their silence."
"Can we answer for the chatter of children, especially in Paris, where people are so curious and so gossiping? It is as much that they should not betray us, as that they should assist us in our plans, that I desire to keep them here."
"Don't they go sometimes to the villages, and even to Paris? Who could prevent them from talking if they were inclined to talk? If they were a long way off, why, so much the better; for what they would then say would do us no harm."
"A long way off,--and where?" inquired the widow, looking steadfastly at her son.
"Let me take them away,--where is no consequence to you."
"How will you and they live?"
"My old master, the locksmith, is a worthy man, and I will tell him as much as he need know, and, perhaps, he will lend me something for the sake of the children; with that I will go and apprentice them a long way off. We will leave in two days, and you will hear no more of us."
"No, no! I prefer their remaining with me. I shall then be perfectly sure of them."
"Then I will take up my quarters in the hovel on the island until something turns up. I have a way and a will of my own, and you know it."
"Yes, I know it. Oh, how I wish you were a thousand miles away! Why didn't you remain in your woods?"
"I offer to rid you of myself and the children."
"What! Would you leave La Louve here, whom you love so much?" asked the widow, suddenly.
"That's my affair. I know what I shall do. I have my plans."
"If I let you take away Amandine and François, will you never again set foot in Paris?"
"Before three days have passed, we shall have departed, and be as dead to you."
"I prefer that to having you here, and always distrusting you and them. So, since I must give way, take them, and be off as quickly as possible, and never let me see you more!"
"Agreed!"
"Agreed! Give me the key of the cellar, that I may let Nicholas out!"
"No; let him sleep his liquor off, and I'll give you the key to-morrow morning."
"And Calabash?"
"Ah, that's another affair! Let her out when I have gone. I can't bear the sight of her."
"Go, and may hell confound you!"
"That's your farewell, mother?"
"Yes."
"Fortunately your last!" said Martial.
"My last!" responded the widow.
Her son lighted a candle, then opened the kitchen door, whistled to his dog, who ran in, quite delighted at being admitted, and followed his master to the upper story of the house.
"Go,--your business is settled!" muttered the widow, shaking her clenched hand at her son, as he went up the stairs; "but it is your own act."
Then, by Calabash's assistance, who brought her a bundle of false keys, the widow unlocked the cellar door where Nicholas was, and set him at liberty.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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6
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FRANÇOIS AND AMANDINE.
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François and Amandine slept in a room immediately over the kitchen, and at the end of a passage which communicated with several other apartments that were used as "company rooms" for the guests who frequented the cabaret. After having eaten their frugal supper, instead of putting out their lantern, as the widow had ordered them, the two children watched, leaving their door ajar, for their brother Martial's passing on his way to his own chamber.
Placed on a crippled stool, the lantern shed its dull beams through the transparent horn. Walls of plaster, with here and there brown deal boards, a flock-bed for François, a little old child's bed, much too short, for Amandine, a pile of broken chairs and dismembered benches, mementoes of the turbulent visitors to the cabaret of the Isle du Ravageur,--such was the interior of this dog-hole.
Amandine, seated at the edge of the bed, was trying how to dress her head _en marmotte_, with the stolen silk handkerchief, the gift of her brother Nicholas. François was on his knees, holding up a piece of broken glass to his sister, who, with her head half turned, was employed in spreading out the large rosette which she had made in tying the two ends of the kerchief together. Wonder-struck at this head-dress, François for an instant neglected to present the bit of glass in such a way that her face could be reflected in it.
"Lift the looking-glass higher," said Amandine; "I can't see myself at all now! There, that's it,--that'll do! Hold it so a minute! Now I've done it! Well, look! How have I done my head?"
"Oh, capitally,--excellently! What a handsome rosette! You'll make me just such a one for my cravat, won't you?"
"Yes, directly. But let me walk up and down a little. You can go before me--backwards--holding the glass up, just in that way. There--so! I can then see myself as I walk."
François then went through this difficult manoeuvre to the great satisfaction of Amandine, who strutted up and down in all her pride and dignity, under the large bow of her head attire.
Very simple and unsophisticated under any other circumstances, this coquetry became guilt when displayed in reference to the produce of a robbery of which François and Amandine were not ignorant. Another proof of the frightful facility with which children, however well disposed, become corrupted almost imperceptibly when they are continually immersed in a criminal atmosphere.
Then, the sole mentor of these unfortunate children, their brother Martial, was by no means irreproachable himself, as we have already said. Incapable, it is true, of a theft or a murder, still he led a vagabond and ill-regulated life. Undoubtedly his mind revolted at the crimes of his family. He loved these two children very fondly, and protected them from ill-treatment, endeavouring to withdraw them from the pernicious influences of the family; but not taking his stand on the foundations of rigorous and sound morality, his advice was but an ineffective safeguard to these children. They refused to commit certain bad actions, not from honest sentiments, but in order to obey Martial, whom they loved, and to disobey their mother, whom they dreaded and hated.
As to ideas of right and wrong, they had none, familiarised as they were with the infamous examples which they had every day under their eyes; for, as we have said, this country cabaret, haunted by the refuse of the lowest order, was the theatre of most disgraceful orgies and most disgusting debaucheries; and Martial, opposed as he was to thefts and murders, appeared perfectly indifferent to these infamous saturnalia.
It may be supposed, therefore, that the instincts of morality in these children were doubtful and precarious, especially those of François, who had reached that dangerous time of life when the mind pauses, and, oscillating between good and evil, might be in a moment lost or saved.
* * * * * "How well you look in that handkerchief, sister!" said François; "it is very pretty. When we go to play on the shore by the chalk-burner's lime-kiln you must dress yourself in this manner, to make the children jealous who pelt us with stones and call us little guillotines. And I shall put on my nice red cravat, and we will say to them, 'Never mind, you haven't such pretty silk handkerchiefs as we have!'"
"But, I say, François," said Amandine, after a moment's reflection, "if they knew that the handkerchiefs we wear were stolen, they would call us little thieves."
"Well, and what should we care if they did call us little thieves?"
"Why, not at all, if it were not true. But now--" "Since Nicholas gave us these handkerchiefs, we didn't steal them!"
"No; but he took them out of a barge; and Brother Martial says no one ought to steal."
"But, as Nicholas states, that is no affair of ours."
"Do you think so, François?"
"Of course I do."
"Still, it seems to me that I would rather the person who really owns them had given them to us. What do you say, François?"
"Oh, it's all one to me! They were given to us, and so they're ours."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Why, yes--yes; make yourself easy about that."
"So much the better, then, for we are not doing what Brother Martial forbids, and we have such nice handkerchiefs!"
"But, Amandine, if he had known the other day that Calabash had made you take the plaid handkerchief from the peddler's pack whilst his back was turned?"
"Oh, François, don't talk about it; I have been so very sorry. But I was really forced to do it, for my sister pinched me until the blood came, and looked at me so--oh, in such a way! And yet my heart failed me twice, and I thought I never could do it. The peddler didn't find it out; yet, if they had caught me, François, I should have been sent to prison."
"But you weren't caught; so it's just the same as if you had not stolen."
"Do you think so?"
"Yes."
"And in prison how unhappy we must be."
"On the contrary--" "How do you mean on the contrary?"
"Why, you know the fat cripple who lodges at Father Micou's, the man who buys all Nicholas's things, and keeps a lodging-house in the Passage de la Brasserie?"
"A fat cripple?"
"Why, yes, who came here the end of last autumn from Father Micou, with a man who had monkeys and two women."
"Ah, yes, a stout, lame man, who spent such a deal of money."
"I believe you; he paid for everybody. Don't you recollect the rows on the water when I pulled them, and the man with the monkeys brought his organ, that they might have music in the boat?"
"Yes; and in the evening the beautiful fireworks they let off, François?"
"And the fat cripple was not stingy, either. He gave me ten sous for myself. He drank nothing but our best wine, and they had chickens at every meal. He spent full eighty francs."
"So much as that, François?"
"Oh, yes!"
"How rich he must be!"
"Not at all. What he spent was money he had gained in prison, from which he had just come."
"Gained all that money in prison?"
"Yes; he said he had seven hundred francs beside, and that, when that was all gone, he should try another good 'job;' and if he were taken, he didn't care, because he should go back to his jolly 'pals in the Stone Jug,' as he said."
"Then he wasn't afraid of prison, François?"
"On the contrary; he told Calabash that they were a party of friends and merrymakers all together; and that he had never had a better bed and better food than when he was in prison. Good meat four times a week, fire all the winter, and a lump of money when he left it; whilst there are fools of honest workmen who are starving with cold and hunger, for want of work."
"Are you sure he said that, François,--the stout lame man?"
"I heard him, for I was rowing him in the punt whilst he told his story to Calabash and the two women, who said that it was the same thing in the female prisons they had just left."
"But then, François, it can't be so bad to steal, if people are so well off in prison."
"Oh, the deuce! I don't know. Here it is only Brother Martial who says it is wrong to steal; perhaps he is wrong."
"Never mind if he is, François. We ought to believe him, for he loves us so much!"
"Yes, he loves us; and, when he is by, there is no fear of our being beaten. If he had been here this evening, our mother would not have thrashed me so. An old beast! How savage she is! Oh, how I hate her--hate her! And how I wish I was grown up, that I might pay her back the thumps she gives us, especially to you, who can't bear them as well as I can."
"Oh, François, hold your tongue; it quite frightens me to hear you say that you would beat mother!" cried the poor little child, weeping, and throwing her arms around her brother's neck, and kissing him affectionately.
"It's quite true, though," answered François, extricating himself gently from Amandine. "Why are my mother and Calabash always so savage to us?"
"I do not know," replied Amandine, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "It is, perhaps, because they sent Brother Ambroise to the galleys, and guillotined our father, that they are unjust towards us."
"Is that our fault?"
"Oh, no! But what would you have?" " _Ma foi! _ If I am always to have beatings,--always, always, at last I should rather steal, as they do, I should. What do I gain by not being a thief?"
"Ah, what would Martial say to that?"
"Ah, but for him, I should have said yes a long time ago, for I am tired of being thumped for ever; why, this evening, my mother was more savage than ever; she was like a fury! It was pitch dark. She didn't say a word; and I felt nothing but her clammy hand holding me by the scruff of my neck, whilst with the other she beat me; and whilst she did so, her eyes seemed to glare in the dark."
"Poor François! for only having said you saw a dead man's bone by the wood-pile."
"Yes, a foot that was sticking out of the ground," said François, shuddering with fright; "I am quite sure of it."
"Perhaps there was a burying-ground there once."
"Perhaps; but then, why did mother say she'd be the death of me, if I said a word about the bone to our Brother Martial? I rather think it is some one who has been killed in a quarrel, and that they have buried him there, that no one might know anything about it."
"You are right; for don't you remember that such a thing did nearly happen once?"
"When?"
"Don't you remember once when M. Barbillon wounded with a knife that tall man, who is so very thin, that he showed himself for money?"
"Oh, the walking skeleton, as they call him? Yes; and mother came and separated them; if she hadn't, I think Barbillon would have killed the tall, thin man. Did you see how Barbillon foamed at the mouth? and his eyes seemed ready to start from his head. Oh, he does not mind who he cuts and slashes with his knife,--he's such a headstrong, passionate fellow!"
"So young and so wicked, François?"
"Tortillard is much younger, and he would be quite as wicked as he, if he were strong enough."
"Oh, yes, he's very, very wicked! The other day he beat me, because I would not play with him."
"He beat you, did he? Then, the first time he comes--" "No, no, François; it was only in jest."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, quite sure."
"Very well, then, for, if not--But I don't know how he manages, the scamp! But he always has so much money. He's so lucky! When he came here with the Chouette, he showed us pieces of gold of twenty francs; and didn't he look knowing as he said, 'Oh, you might have the same, if you were not such little muffs!'"
"Muffs?"
"Yes; in slang that means fools, simpletons."
"Yes, to be sure."
"Forty francs in gold! What a many fine things I could buy with that! Couldn't you, Amandine?"
"That I could."
"What should you buy?"
"Let's see," said the little girl, bending her head, and meditating. "I should first buy Brother Martial a good thick outside coat, that would keep him warm in his boat."
"But for yourself,--for yourself."
"I should like a crucifixion, like those image-sellers had on Sunday, you know, under the church porch at Asnières."
"Yes; and, now I think of it, we must not tell mother or Calabash that we went into a church."
"To be sure, for she has always forbidden us to go into a church. What a pity! For church is such a nice place inside, isn't it, François?"
"Yes; and what beautiful silver candlesticks!"
"And the picture of the holy Virgin, how kind she looks!"
"And did you look at the fine lamps, and the handsome cloth on the large table at the bottom, when the priest was saying mass with his two friends, dressed like himself, and who gave him water and wine?"
"Tell me, François, do you remember last year, at the Fête-Dieu, when we saw from here the little communicants, with their white veils, pass over the bridge?"
"What nice nosegays they had!"
"How they sang in a soft tone, holding the ribands of their banners!"
"And how the silver lace of their banners shone in the sunshine! What a deal of money it must have cost!"
"Oh, how beautiful it was! Wasn't it, François?"
"I believe you! And the communicants with their bows of white satin on the arm, and their wax candles, with red velvet and gold on the part by which they hold them."
"And the little boys had their banners, too, hadn't they, François? Ah, François, how I was thumped that day for asking our mother why we did not go in the procession, like the other children!"
"And it was then she forbade us from ever going into a church when we should go into the town, or to Paris; 'Unless it was to rob the poor-box, or the pockets of the people who were hearing mass,' Calabash said, grinning, and showing her nasty yellow teeth. Oh, what a bad thing she is!"
"Oh, and as for that, they should kill me before I would rob in a church; and you, too, François?"
"There, or anywhere; what difference does it make, when once one has made up one's mind?"
"Why, I don't know; but I should be so frightened, I could never do it."
"Because of the priests?"
"No; but because of the portrait of the holy Virgin, who seems so kind and good."
"What consequence is a portrait? It won't eat or drink, you silly child!"
"That's very true; but then I really couldn't. It is not my fault."
"Talking of priests, Amandine, do you remember that day when Nicholas gave me two such hard boxes on the ear, because he saw me make a bow to the curate, who passed on the bank? I had seen everybody salute him, and so I saluted him; I didn't think I was doing any wrong."
"Yes; but then, you know, Brother Martial said, as Nicholas did, that there was no occasion to salute the priests."
At this moment François and Amandine heard footsteps in the passage. Martial was going to his chamber, without any mistrust, after his conversation with his mother, believing that Nicholas was safely locked up until the next morning. Seeing a ray of light coming from out the closet in which the children slept, Martial came into the room. They both ran to him, and he embraced them affectionately.
"What! Not in bed yet, little gossips?"
"No, brother, we waited until you came, that we might see you, and wish you good night," said Amandine.
"And then we heard you speaking very loud below, as if there were a quarrel," added François.
"Yes," said Martial, "I had some dispute with Nicholas, but it was nothing. Besides, I am glad to see you awake, as I have some good news for you."
"For us, brother?"
"Should you like to go away from here, and come with me a long way off?"
"Oh, yes, brother!"
"Yes, brother!"
"Well, then, in two or three days we shall all three leave the island."
"Oh, how delightful!" exclaimed Amandine, clapping her hands with joy.
"And where shall we go to?" inquired François.
"You will see, Mr. Inquisitive; no matter; but where you will learn a good trade, which will enable you to earn your living, be sure of that."
"Then I sha'n't go fishing with you any more, brother?"
"No, my boy, you will be put apprentice to a carpenter or locksmith. You are strong and handy, and with a good heart; and working hard, at the end of a year you may already have earned something. But you don't seem to like it: why, what ails you now?"
"Why, brother,--I--" "Come, come! Speak out."
"Why, I'd rather not leave you, but stay with you, and fish, and mend your nets, than go and learn a trade."
"Really?"
"Why, to be shut up in a workshop all day is so very dull; and then it must be so tiresome to be an apprentice."
Martial shrugged his shoulders.
"So, then, you would rather be an idler, a scamp, a vagabond,--eh?" said he, in a stern voice; "and then, perhaps, a thief?"
"No, brother; but I should like to live with you elsewhere, as we live here, that's all."
"Yes, that's it; eat, drink, sleep, and amuse yourself with fishing, like an independent gentleman,--eh?"
"Yes, I should like it."
"Very likely; but you must prefer something else. You see, my poor dear lad, that it is quite time I took you away from here; for, without perceiving it, you have become as idle as the rest. My mother was right,--I fear you have vice in you. And you, Amandine, shouldn't you like to learn some business?"
"Oh, yes, brother; I should like very much to learn anything rather than stay here. I should dearly like to go with you and François."
"But what have you got on your head, my child?" inquired Martial, observing Amandine's very fine head-dress.
"A handkerchief that Nicholas gave me."
"And he gave me one, too," said François, with an air of pride.
"And where did these handkerchiefs come from? I should be very much surprised to learn that Nicholas bought them to make you a present of."
The two children lowered their eyes, and made no reply. After a second, François said, with a resolute air, "Nicholas gave them to us. We do not know where they came from, do we, Amandine?"
"No, no, brother," replied Amandine, stammering, and turning very red, not daring to look Martial in the face.
"Don't tell lies," said Martial, harshly.
"We don't tell lies," replied François, doggedly.
"Amandine, my child, tell the truth," said Martial, mildly.
"Well, then, to tell the whole truth," replied Amandine, timidly, "these fine handkerchiefs came out of a box of things that Nicholas brought in this evening in his boat."
"And which he had stolen?"
"I think so, brother,--out of a barge."
"So then, François, you lie?" said Martial.
The boy bent down his head, but made no reply.
"Give me this handkerchief, Amandine; and yours, too, François."
The little girl took off her head-dress, gave a last look at the large bow, which was not untied, and gave the handkerchief to Martial, repressing a sigh of regret. François drew his slowly out of his pocket, and then gave it to his brother, as his sister had done.
"To-morrow morning," he said, "I will return these handkerchiefs to Nicholas. You ought not to have taken them, children. To profit by a robbery is as if one robbed oneself."
"It is a pity those handkerchiefs were so pretty!" said François.
"When you have learned a trade, and earn money by your work, you will buy some as good. Go to bed, my dears,--it is very late."
"You are not angry, brother?" said Amandine, timidly.
"No, no, my love, it is not your fault. You live with ill-disposed persons, and you do as they do unconsciously. When you are with honest persons, you will do as they do; and you'll soon be with such, or the devil's in it. So now, good night!"
"Good night, brother!"
Martial kissed the children. They were now alone.
"What's the matter with you, François,--you seem very sorrowful!" said Amandine.
"Why, brother has taken my nice handkerchief; and besides, didn't you hear what he said?"
"What?"
"He means to take us with him, and put us apprentice."
"And ain't you glad?" " _Ma foi_, no!"
"Would you rather stay here and be beaten every day?"
"Why, if I am beaten I am not made to work. I am all day in the boat, fishing, or playing, or waiting on the customers, who sometimes give me something, as the stout lame man did. It is much more amusing than to be from morning till night shut up in a workshop working like a dog."
"But didn't you understand? Why, brother said that if we remained here longer we should become evil-disposed."
"Ah! bah! That's all one to me, since the other children call us already little thieves,--little guillotines! And then to work is too tiresome!"
"But here they are always beating us, brother!"
"They beat us because we listen to Martial more than to any one else."
"Oh, he is so kind to us!"
"Yes, he is kind,--very kind,--I don't say he ain't; and I am very fond of him. No one dares to be unkind to us when he is by. He takes us out with him,--that's true; but that's all; he never gives us anything."
"Why, he has nothing. What he gains he gives our mother to pay for his eating, drinking, and lodging."
"Nicholas has something. You may be sure if we attend to what he and mother say, they would not make our lives so uncomfortable, but give us pretty things, as they did to-day. They would not distrust us, and we should have money like Tortillard."
"But we must steal for that; and how that would grieve dear, good Martial!"
"Well, so much the worse!"
"Oh, François! And then we should be taken up and put into prison."
"To be in a prison or shut up in a workshop all day is the same thing. Besides, the Gros-Boiteux says they amuse themselves very much in prison."
"But how sorry Martial would be; only think of that! And then it is on our account that he returned here, and remains with us! For himself only he would not have any difficulty, but could go again and be a poacher in the woods which he is so very fond of."
"Oh, if he'll take us with him into the woods," said François, "that would be better than anything else. I should be with him I am so fond of, and should not work at any business that would tire me."
The conversation of François and Amandine was interrupted. Some one outside double-locked their door.
"They have fastened us in," said François.
"Oh, what can it be for, brother? What are they going to do to us?"
"It is Martial, perhaps."
"Listen, listen,--how his dog barks!" said Amandine, listening.
After a few minutes, François added: "It sounds as if some one were knocking at his door with a hammer. Perhaps they want to force it open!"
"Yes; but how the dog barks still!"
"Listen, François! It is as if they were nailing something. Oh, dear, oh, dear, how frightened I am! What are they doing to our brother? And how the dog howls still!"
"Amandine, I hear nothing now," said François, going towards the door.
The two children held their breath, and listened anxiously.
"They are coming from my brother's room," said François, in a low voice; "I hear them walking in the passage."
"Let us throw ourselves on our beds; mother would kill us if she found us out of bed," said Amandine, terrified.
"No," said François, still listening; "they have just passed by our door, and are running down the staircase."
"Oh, dear, oh, dear, what can it be?"
"Ah, now they are opening the kitchen door."
"Do you think so?"
"Yes, yes; I know the sound."
"Martial's dog is still howling," said Amandine, listening. Suddenly she exclaimed, "François, our brother calls us."
"Martial?"
"Yes; don't you hear him? Don't you hear him now?"
And at this moment, in spite of the thickness of the two closed doors, the powerful voice of Martial, who called to the children from his room, reached them.
"Indeed, we can't go to him; we are locked in," said Amandine. "They must be doing something wrong to him, as he calls us."
"Oh, as to that, if I could hinder them," exclaimed François, resolutely, "I would, even if they were to cut me to pieces!"
"But our brother does not know that they have double-locked our door, and he will believe that we would not go to his help. Call out to him that we are locked in, François."
The lad was just going to do as his sister bade him, when a violent blow was struck outside the shutter of the window of the room in which the two children were.
"They are coming in by the window to kill us!" cried Amandine, and, in her fright, she threw herself on her bed and hid her head between her hands.
François remained motionless, although he shared his sister's terror. However, after the violent blow we have mentioned, the shutter was not opened, and the most profound silence reigned throughout the house. Martial had ceased calling to the children.
A little assured, and excited by intense curiosity, François ventured to open the window a little way, and tried to look out through the leaves of the blind.
"Mind, brother!" said Amandine, in a low voice, and sitting up when she heard François open the shutter.
"Can you see anything?" she added.
"No, the night is too dark."
"Don't you hear anything?"
"No, the wind is too high."
"Come in, then; come in."
"Oh, now I see something!"
"What?"
"The light of a lantern, which moves backwards and forwards."
"Who's carrying it?"
"I can only see the light. Ah, she comes nearer,--she is speaking!"
"Who?"
"Listen,--listen! It is Calabash."
"What does she say?"
"She says the ladder must be fixed securely."
"Oh, it was then in taking away the high ladder that was placed against our shutter that they made that noise just now."
"I don't hear anything now."
"What have they done with the ladder?"
"I can't see it now."
"Can you hear anything?"
"No."
"François, perhaps they are going to use it to enter our Brother Martial's room by the window!"
"Very likely."
"If you could open our window a little more you might see."
"I am afraid."
"Only a little bit."
"Oh, no, no! If mother saw us!"
"It is so dark, there is no danger."
François, much against his will, did as his sister requested, and pushing the shutter back, looked out.
"Well, brother?" said Amandine, surmounting her fears, and approaching François on tiptoe.
"By the gleam of the lantern," said he, "I see Calabash, who is holding the foot of the ladder, which is resting against Martial's window."
"Well?"
"Nicholas is going up the ladder with his axe in his hand. I see it glitter."
"Ah, you are not in bed, then, but watching us!" exclaimed the widow, addressing François and his sister from outside. As she was returning to the kitchen she saw the light, which escaped through the open window.
The unfortunate children had neglected putting out the lantern.
"I am coming," added the widow, in a terrible voice; "I am coming to you, you little spies!"
Such were the events which passed in the Isle du Ravageur on the evening of the day before that on which Madame Séraphin was to take Fleur-de-Marie thither.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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7
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A LODGING-HOUSE.
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The Passage de la Brasserie, a dark street, narrow, and but little known, although situated in the centre of Paris, runs at one end into the Rue Traversière St. Honoré, and at the other into the Cour St. Guillaume.
Towards the middle of this damp thoroughfare, muddy, dark, and unwholesome, and where the sun but rarely penetrates, there was a furnished house (commonly called a _garni_, lodging-house, in consequence of the low price of the apartments). On a miserable piece of paper might be read, "Chambers and small rooms furnished." To the right hand, in a dark alley, was the door of a store, not less obscure, in which constantly resided the principal tenant of this _garni_.
Father Micou was ostensibly a dealer in old metal ("marine stores"), but secretly purchased and received stolen metal, iron, lead, brass, and tin. When we mention that Father Micou was connected in business and friendship with the Martial family, we give a tolerable idea of his morality. The tie that binds--the sort of affiliation, the mysterious communion, which connects--the malefactors of Paris, is at once curious and fearful. The common prisons are the great centres whence flow, and to which reflow, incessantly those waves of corruption which gradually gain on the capital, and leave there such pernicious waifs and strays.
Father Micou was a stout man, about fifty years of age, with a mean and cunning countenance, a mulberry nose, and wine-flushed cheeks. He wore a fur cap and an old green long-skirted coat. Over his small stove, near which he was standing, there was a board fastened to the wall, and bearing a row of figures, to which were affixed the keys of the chambers of the absent lodgers. The panes of glass in the door which opened on to the street were so painted that from the outside no one could see what was going on within.
The whole of this extensive store was very dark. From the damp walls there hung rusty chains of all sizes; and the floor was strewed with iron and other metals. Three blows struck at the door in a particular way attracted the attention of the landlord, huckster, receiver.
"Come in!" he cried.
It was Nicholas, the son of the felon's widow. He was very pale, his features looked even more evil than they did on the previous evening, and yet he feigned a kind of overgaiety during the following conversation. (This scene takes place on the day after his quarrel with. Martial.)
"Ah, is it you, my fine fellow?" said Micou, cordially.
"Yes, Father Micou, I have come to see you on a trifle of business."
"Then shut the door,--shut the door."
"My dog and cart are there outside with the stuff."
"What do you bring me, double tripe (sheet lead)?"
"No, Father Micou."
"What is it, scrapings? but no, you're too downy now, you've left off work. Perhaps it is a bit of hard (iron)?"
"No, Daddy Micou, it's some flap (sheet copper). There must be, at least, a hundred and fifty pounds weight, as much as my dog could stagger along with."
"Go and fetch the flap, and let's weigh it."
"You must lend a hand, daddy, for I've hurt my arm."
And, at the recollection of his contest with his brother Martial, the ruffian's features expressed, at once, the resentment of hatred and savage joy, as if his vengeance were already satisfied.
"What's the matter with your arm, my man?"
"Nothing,--only a sprain."
"You must heat an iron in the fire, and plunge it red-hot into the water, then put your arm in the water as hot as you can bear it. It is an iron-dealer's remedy, but none the worse for that."
"Thank ye, Father Micou."
"Go and fetch the flap, and I'll come and help you, idle-bones."
At twice the copper was brought out of the cart, drawn by an enormous dog, and conveyed into the shop.
"That cart of yours is a good idea," said the worthy Micou, as he adjusted the wooden frames of an enormous pair of scales that hung from a beam in the ceiling.
"Yes; when I've anything to bring, I put my dog and cart into the punt, and harness them as we come along. A hackney-coach might, perhaps, tell a tale, but my dog never chatters."
"And they're all pretty well at home,--eh?" inquired the receiver, weighing the copper; "mother and sister, both pretty bobbish?"
"Yes, Father Micou."
"And the little uns?"
"Yes, the little uns, too. And your nephew, André, where is he?"
"Don't mention him; he was out on a spree yesterday. Barbillon and Gros-Boiteux brought him back this morning. He is out for a walk now towards the General Post-office in the Rue St. Jacques Rousseau. And your brother, Martial, is he just such a rum un as ever?" " _Ma foi! _ I don't know."
"Don't know?"
"No," replied Nicholas, assuming an indifferent air; "we have seen nothing of him for the last two days. Perhaps he's gone poaching in the woods again; unless his boat, which was very, very old, has sunk in the river, with him in it."
"At which you would not be dreadfully affected, you bad lot, for you can't bear your brother, I know."
"True; we have strange likes and dislikes. How many pounds of metal d'ye make?"
"You're right to a hair, just a hundred and fifty pounds, my lad."
"And you owe me--" "Just thirty francs."
"Thirty francs! when copper is twenty sous a pound? Thirty francs!"
"Say thirty-five francs, and there's an end of the matter, or go to the devil with you! you, and your copper, and your dog, and your cart."
"But, Father Micou, you are really chiselling me down; that's not the right thing by no means."
"If you'll tell me how you came by your copper, I'll give you fifteen sous a pound for it."
"That's the old strain. You are all alike, a regular lot of cheats. How can you bear to 'do' your friends in this way? But that's not all; if I swap with you for some things, you ought to give me good measure."
"To a hair's turn. What do you want? Chains and hooks for your punts?"
"No, I want four or five sheets of stout iron, as if to line shutters with."
"I've just the thing, a quarter of an inch thick; a pistol-ball wouldn't go through it."
"Just what I want."
"What size?"
"Why, altogether about seven or eight feet square."
"Good, and what else?"
"Three bars of iron, from three to four feet long, and two inches square."
"I have just broken up an iron wicket; nothing can be better for you. What next?"
"Two strong hinges and a latch, so that I can open or shut an opening two feet square when I wish."
"A trap, you mean?"
"No, a valve."
"I don't understand what you can want with a valve."
"Never you mind; I know what I want."
"That's all right; you have only to choose; there's a heap of hinges. What's the next thing?"
"That's all."
"And not much, either."
"Get it all ready, Father Micou, and I'll take it as I come back; for I've got some other places to call at."
"With your cart? Why, you dog, I saw a bundle underneath. What, some little trifle you have taken from the world's wardrobe? Ah, you sly rogue!"
"Just as you say, Father Micou; but you don't deal in such things. Don't keep me waiting for the iron goods, for I must be back at the island before noon."
"I'll be ready. It is only eight, and, if you are not going far, come back in an hour, and you shall find everything prepared,--money and goods. Won't you take a drain?"
"Thank ye, I won't say no, for I think you owe it me."
Father Micou took from an old closet a bottle of brandy, a cracked glass, and a cup without a handle, and filled them.
"Here's to you, Daddy Micou!"
"And to you likewise, my boy, and the ladies at home!"
"Thank ye. And the lodging-house goes on well, eh?"
"Middling,--middling. I have always some lodgers for whom I am always fearing a visit from the commissary; but they pay in proportion."
"How d'ye mean?"
"Why, are you stupid? I sometimes lodge as I buy, and don't ask them for their passport, any more than I ask you for your bill of parcels."
"Good; but to them you let as dear as you have bought cheaply of me."
"I must look out. I have a cousin who has a handsome furnished house in the Rue St. Honoré. His wife is a milliner in a large way, and employs, perhaps, twenty needlewomen, either in the house, or having the work at home."
"I say, old boy, I dare say there's some pretty uns among 'em?"
"I believe you. There's two or three that I have seen bring home work sometimes,--my eyes, ain't they pretty, though? One little one in particular, who works at home, and is always a-laughing, and they calls her Rigolette, oh, my pippin, what a pity one ain't twenty years old all over again!"
"Halloa, daddy, how you are going it!"
"Oh, it's all right, my boy,--all right!" " 'Walker!' old boy. And you say your cousin--" "Does uncommon well with his house, and, as it is the same number as that of the little Rigolette--" "What, again?"
"Oh, it's all right and proper." " 'Walker!'"
"He won't have any lodgers but those who have passports and papers; but if any come who haven't got 'em, he sends me those customers."
"And they pays accordingly?"
"In course."
"But they are all in our line who haven't got their riglar papers?"
"By no manner of means! Why, very lately, my cousin sent me a customer,--devil burn me if I can make him out! Another drain?"
"Just one; the liquor's good. Here's t'ye again, Daddy Micou!"
"Here's to you again, my covey! I was saying that the other day my cousin sent me a customer whom I can't make out. Imagine a mother and daughter, who looked very queer and uncommon seedy; they had their whole kit in a pocket-handkerchief. Well, there warn't much to be expected out of this, for they had no papers, and they lodge by the fortnight; yet, since they've been here, they haven't moved any more than a dormouse. No men come to see them; and yet they're not bad-looking, if they weren't so thin and pale, particularly the daughter, about sixteen,--with such a pair of black eyes,--oh, such eyes!"
"Halloa, dad! You're off again. What do these women do?"
"I tell you I don't know; they must be respectable, and yet, as they receive letters without any address, it looks queer."
"What do you mean?"
"They sent, this morning, my nephew André to the _Poste-Restante_ to inquire for a letter addressed to 'Madame X. Z.' The letter was expected from Normandy, from a town called Aubiers. They wrote that down on paper, so that André might get the letter by giving these particulars. You see, it does not look quite the thing for women to take the name of 'X.' and 'Z.' And yet they never have any male visitors."
"They won't pay you."
"Oh, my fine fellow, they don't catch an old bird like me with chaff. They took a room without a fireplace, and I made them pay the twenty francs down for the fortnight. They are, perhaps, ill, for they have not been down for the last two days. It is not indigestion that ails them, for I don't think they have cooked anything since they came here."
"If you had all such customers, Father Micou--" "Oh, they go and come. If I lodge people without passports, why, I also have different people. I have now two travelling gents, a postman, the leader of the band at the Café des Aveugles, and a lady of fortune,--all most respectable persons, such as save the reputation of a house, if the commissary is inclined to look a little too closely into things; they are not night-lodgers, but tenants of the broad sunshine."
"When it comes into your alley, Father Micou."
"You're a wag. Another drain, yes, just one more."
"Well, it must be my last, for then I must cut. By the way, doesn't Robin, the Gros-Boiteux, lodge here still?"
"Yes, up-stairs, on the same landing as the mother and daughter. He's pretty nearly run through his money he earned in gaol."
"I say, mind your eye,--he's outlawed."
"I know it, but I can't get rid of him. I think he's got something in hand, for little Tortillard came here the other night along with Barbillon. I'm afraid he'll do something to my lodgers, so, when his fortnight is up, I shall bundle him, telling him his room is taken for an ambassador, or the husband of Madame Saint-Ildefonse, my independent lady."
"An independent lady?"
"I believe you! Three rooms and a cabinet in the front,--nothing less,--newly furnished, to say nothing of an attic for her servant. Eighty francs a month, and paid in advance by her uncle, to whom she gives one of her spare rooms when he comes up from the country. But I believe his country-house is about the Rue Vivienne, or the Rue St. Honoré."
"I twig! She's independent because the old fellow pays."
"Hush! Here's her maid."
A middle-aged woman, wearing a white apron of very doubtful cleanliness, entered the dealer's warehouse.
"What can I do for you, Madame Charles?"
"Father Micou, is your nephew within?"
"He has gone to the post-office; but I expect him in immediately."
"M. Badinot wishes him to take this letter to its address instantly. There's no answer, but it is in great haste."
"In a quarter of an hour he will be on his way thither, madame."
"He must make great haste."
"He shall, be assured."
The servant went away.
"Is she the maid of one of your lodgers, Father Micou?"
"She is the _bonne_ of my independent lady, Madame Saint-Ildefonse. But M. Badinot is her uncle; he came from the country yesterday," said the respectable Micou, who was looking at the letter, and then added, reading the address, "Look, now, what grand acquaintances! Why, I told you they were high folks; he writes to a viscount."
"Oh, bah!"
"See here, then, 'To Monsieur the Vicomte de Saint-Remy, Rue de Chaillot. In great haste. Private.' I hope, when we lodge independent persons who have uncles who write to viscounts, we may allow some few of our other lodgers higher up in the house to be without passports, eh?"
"I believe you. Well, then, Father Micou, we shall soon be back. I shall fasten my dog and cart to your door, and carry what I have; so be ready with the goods and the money, so that I may cut at once."
"I'll be ready. Four good iron plates, each two feet square, three bars of iron two feet long, and two hinges for your valve. This valve seems very odd to me; but it's no affair of mine. Is that all?"
"Yes, and my money?"
"Oh, you shall have your money. But now I look at you in the light--now I get a good view of you--" "Well?"
"I don't know--but you seem as if something was the matter."
"I do?"
"Yes."
"Oh, nonsense! If anything ails me it is that I'm hungry."
"You're hungry? Like enough; but it rather looks as if you wanted to appear very lively, whilst all the while there's something that worries you; and it must be _something_, for it ain't a trifle that puts you out."
"I tell you you're mistaken, Father Micou," said Nicholas, shuddering.
"Why, you quite tremble!"
"It's my arm that pains me."
"Well, don't forget my prescription, that will cure you."
"Thank ye, I'll soon be back." And the ruffian went on his way.
The receiver, after having concealed the lumps of copper behind his counter, occupied himself in collecting the various things which Nicholas had requested, when another individual entered his shop. It was a man about fifty years of age, with a keen, sagacious face, a thick pair of gray whiskers, and gold spectacles. He was extremely well dressed; the wide sleeves of his brown paletot, with black velvet cuffs, showing his hands covered with thin coloured kid gloves, and his boots bore evidence of having been on the previous evening highly polished.
It was M. Badinot, the independent lady's uncle, that Madame Saint-Ildefonse, whose social position formed the pride and security of Père Micou. The reader may, perchance, recollect that M. Badinot, the former attorney, struck off that respectable list, then a Chevalier d'Industrie, and agent in equivocal matters, was the spy of Baron de Graün, and had given that diplomatist many and very precise particulars as to many personages connected with this tale.
"Madame Charles has just given you a letter to send?" said M. Badinot, to the dealer in _et ceteras_.
"Yes, sir; my nephew I expect every moment, and he shall go directly."
"No, give me the letter again, I have changed my mind. I shall go myself to the Comte de Saint-Remy," said M. Badinot, pronouncing this aristocratic name very emphatically, and with much importance.
"Here's the letter, sir; have you any other commission?"
"No, Père Micou," said M. Badinot, with a protecting air, "but I have something to scold you about."
"Me, sir?"
"Very much, indeed."
"About what, sir?"
"Why, Madame de Saint-Ildefonse pays very expensively for your first floor. My niece is a lodger to whom the greatest respect ought to be paid; she came highly recommended to your house, and, having a great aversion to the noise of carriages, she hoped she should be here as if she were in the country."
"So she is; it is quite like a village here. You ought to know, sir,--you who live in the country,--this is a real village."
"A village! Very like, indeed! Why, there is always such an infernal din in the house."
"Still, it is impossible to find a quieter house. Above the lady, there is the leader of the band at the Café des Aveugles, and a gentleman traveller; over that, another traveller; over that--" "I am not alluding to those persons; they are very quiet, and appear very respectable. My niece has no fault to find with them; but in the fourth, there is a stout lame man, whom Madame de Saint-Ildefonse met yesterday tipsy on the stairs; he was shrieking like a savage, and she nearly had a fit, she was so much alarmed. If you think that, with such lodgers, your house resembles a village--" "Sir, I assure you I only wait the opportunity to turn this stout lame man out-of-doors; he has paid his last fortnight in advance, otherwise I should already have turned him out."
"You should not have taken in such a lodger."
"But, except him, I hope madame has nothing to complain of. There is a twopenny postman, who is the cream of honest fellows, and overhead, beside the chamber of the stout lame man, a lady and daughter, who do not move any more than dormice."
"I repeat, Madame de Saint-Ildefonse only complains of this stout lame man, who is the nightmare of the house; and I warn you that, if you keep such a fellow in your house, you will find all your respectable lodgers leave you."
"I will send him away, you may be assured. I have no wish to keep him."
"You will only do what's right, for else your house will be forsaken."
"Which will not answer my purpose at all; so, sir, consider the stout lame man as gone, for he has only four more days to stay here."
"Which is four days too many; but it is your affair. At the first outbreak, my niece leaves your house."
"Be assured, sir--" "It is all for your own interest,--and look to it, for I am not a man of many words," said M. Badinot, with a patronising air, and he went out.
Need we say that this female and her young daughter, who lived so lonely, were the two victims of the notary's cupidity? We will now conduct the reader to the miserable retreat in which they lived.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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8
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THE VICTIMS OF MISPLACED CONFIDENCE.[6]
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Let the reader picture to himself a small chamber on the fourth floor of the wretched house in the Passage de la Brasserie. Scarcely could the faint glimmers of early morn force their pale rays through the narrow casements forming the only window to this small apartment; the three panes of glass that apology for a window contained were cracked and almost the colour of horn, a dingy and torn yellow paper adhered in some places to the walls, while from each corner of the cracked ceiling hung long and thick cobwebs; and to complete the appearance of wretchedness so evident in this forlorn spot, the flooring was broken away, and, in many places, displayed the beams which supported it, as well as the lath and plaster forming the ceiling of the room beneath. A deal table, a chair, an old trunk, without hinges or lock, a truckle-bed, with a wooden headboard, covered by a thin mattress, coarse sheets of unbleached cloth, and an old rug,--such was the entire furniture of this wretched chamber.
[6] "The average punishment awarded to such as are convicted of breach of trust is two months' imprisonment and a fine of twenty-five francs." --_Art. 406 and 408 of the "Code Penal." _ On the chair sat the Baroness de Fermont, and in the bed reposed her daughter, Claire de Fermont. Such were the names of these two victims of the villainy of Jacques Ferrand. Possessing but one bed, the mother and child took it by turns to sleep. Too much uneasiness and too many bitter cares prevented Madame de Fermont from enjoying the blessing of repose; but her daughter's young and elastic nature easily yielded to the natural impulse which made her willingly seek in short slumbers a temporary respite from the misery by which she was surrounded during her waking hours. At the present moment she was sleeping peacefully.
Nothing could be imagined more touchingly affecting than the picture of misery imposed by the avarice of the notary on two females hitherto accustomed to every comfort, and surrounded in their native city by that respect which is ever felt for honourable and honoured families.
Madame de Fermont was about six and thirty years of age, with a countenance at once expressive of gentleness and intelligence, mingled with an indescribably noble and majestic air. Her features, which had once boasted extreme beauty, were now pale and careworn; her dark hair was separated on her forehead, and formed two thick, lustrous bandeaux, which, after shading her pallid countenance, were twisted in with her back hair, whose tresses the hand of sorrow had already mingled with gray. Dressed in an old shabby black dress, patched and pieced in various places, Madame de Fermont, her head supported by her hand, was surveying her child with looks of ineffable tenderness.
Claire was but sixteen years of age, and her gentle and innocent countenance, thin and sorrowful as that of her mother, looked still more pallid as contrasted with the coarse, unbleached linen which covered her bolster, filled only with sawdust. The once brilliant complexion of the poor girl had sickened beneath the privations she endured; and, as she slept, the long, dark lashes which fringed her large and lustrous eyes stood out almost unnaturally upon her sunken cheek; the once fresh and rosy lips were now dry, cracked, and colourless, yet, half opened as they were, they displayed the faultless regularity of her pearly teeth.
The harsh contact of the rough linen which covered her bed had caused a temporary redness about the neck, shoulders, and arms of the poor girl, whose fine and delicate skin was marbled and spotted by the friction both of the miserable sheets and rug. A sensation of uneasiness and discomfort seemed to pervade even her slumbers; for the clearly defined eyebrows, occasionally contracted, as though the sleeper were under the influence of an uneasy dream, and the pained expression observable on the features, foretold the deadly nature of the disease at work within.
Madame de Fermont had long ceased to find relief in tears, but, like her suffering daughter, she found that weakness, languor, and dejection, which is ever the precursor of severe illness, rapidly and daily increasing; but, unwilling to alarm Claire, and wishing, if possible, even to conceal the frightful truth from herself, the wretched mother struggled against the first approaches of her malady, while, from a similar feeling of devotion and affection, Claire sought to hide from her parent the extreme suffering she herself experienced.
To attempt to describe the tortures endured by the tender mother, as, during the greater part of the night, she watched her slumbering child, her thoughts alternately dwelling on the past, the present, and the future, would be to paint the sharpest, bitterest, wildest agony that ever crossed the brain of a loving and despairing mother; to give alternately her reminiscences of bygone happiness, her shuddering dread of impending evil, her fearful anticipations, her bitter regrets, and utter despondency, mingled with bursts of frenzied rage against the author of all her sorrows, vain supplications, eager, earnest prayers, ending at last fearfully and dreadfully in openly expressed mistrust of the omnipotence and justice of the Great Being who could thus remain insensible to the cry which arose from a mother's breaking heart, to that holy plea whose sound should reach the throne of grace,--"Pity, pity, for my child!"
"How cold she is!" cried the poor mother, lightly touching with her icy hand the equally chill arm of her child; "how very, very cold! and scarcely an hour ago just as hot! Alas, 'tis the cruel fever which has seized upon her! Happily the dear creature is as yet unconscious of her malady! Gracious heaven, she is becoming cold as death itself! What shall I do to bring warmth to her poor frame? The bed-coverings are so slight! A good thought! I will throw my old shawl over her. But no, no! I dare not remove it from the door over which I have hung it, lest those men so brutally intoxicated should endeavour, as they did yesterday, to look into the room through the disjointed panels or openings in the framework.
"What a horrible place we have got into! Oh, if I had but known by what description of persons it was inhabited before I paid the fortnight in advance! Certainly, we would not have remained here. But, alas, I knew it not; and when we have no vouchers for our respectability, it is so difficult to obtain furnished lodgings. Who could ever have thought I should have been at a loss,--I who quitted Angers in my own carriage, deeming it unfit my daughter should travel by any public conveyance? How could I have imagined that I should experience any difficulty in obtaining every requisite testimonial of my honour and honesty?"
Then bursting into a fit of anger, she exclaimed, "'Tis too, too hard, that because this unprincipled, hard-hearted notary chooses to strip us of all our possessions, I have no means of punishing him! Yes; had I money I might sue him legally for his misconduct. But would not that be to bring obloquy and contempt on the memory of my good, my noble-minded brother; to have it publicly proclaimed that he consummated his ruin by taking away his own life, after having squandered my fortune and that of my child; to hear him accused of reducing us to want and wretchedness? Oh, never,--never! Still, however dear and sacred is the memory of a brother, should not the welfare of my child be equally so?
"And wherefore, too, should I give rise to useless tales of family misery, unprovided as I am with any proofs against the notary? Oh, it is, indeed, a cruel,--a most cruel case. Sometimes, too, when irritated, goaded by my reflections almost to madness, I find myself indulging in bitter plaints against my brother, and think his conduct more culpable than even the notary's, as though it were any alleviation of my woes to have two names to execrate instead of one. But quickly do I blush at my own base and unworthy suspicions of one so good, so honourable, so noble-minded as my poor brother! This infamous notary knows not all the fearful consequences of his dishonesty. He fancies he has but taken from us our worldly goods, while he has plunged a dagger in the hearts of two innocent, unoffending victims, condemned by his villainy to die by inches. Alas, I dare not breathe into the ear of my poor child the full extent of my fears, lest her young mind should be unable to support the blow!
"But I am ill,--very, very ill; a burning fever is in my veins; and 'tis only with the greatest energy and resolution I contrive to resist its approaches. But too certainly do I feel aware that the germs of a possibly mortal disease are in me. I am aware of its gaining ground hourly. My throat is parched, my head burns and throbs with racking pains. These symptoms are even more dangerous than I am willing to own even to myself. Merciful God! If I were to be ill,--seriously, fatally ill,--if I should die! But no, no!" almost shrieked Madame Fermont, with wild excitement; "I cannot,--I will not die! To leave Claire at sixteen years of age, alone, and without resource, in the midst of Paris! Impossible! Oh, no, I am not ill; I have mistaken the effects of sorrow, cold, and want of rest, for the precursory symptoms of illness. Any person similarly placed would have experienced the same. It is nothing, nothing worth noticing. There must be no weakness on my part. 'Tis by yielding to such dismal anticipations that one becomes really attacked by the very malady we dread. And besides, I have not time to be ill. Oh, no! On the contrary, I must immediately exert myself to find employment for Claire and myself, since the wretch who gave us the prints to colour has dared to--" After a short silence, Madame de Fermont, leaving her last sentence unfinished, indignantly added: "Horrible idea! To ask the shame of my child in return for the work he doles out to us, and to harshly withdraw it because I will not suffer my poor Claire to go to his house unaccompanied, and work there during the evening alone with him! Possibly I may succeed in obtaining work elsewhere, either in plain or ornamental needlework. Yet it is so very difficult when we are known to no one; and very recently I tried in vain. Persons are afraid of entrusting their materials to those who live in such wretched lodgings as ours. And yet I dare not venture upon others more creditable; for what would become of us were the small sum we possess once exhausted? What could we do? We should be utterly penniless; as destitute as the veriest beggar that ever walked the earth.
"And then to think I once was among the richest and wealthiest! Oh, let me not think of what has been; such considerations serve but to increase the already excited state of my brain. It will madden me to recollect the past; and I am wrong--oh, very wrong--thus to dwell on ideas that sadden and depress instead of raising and invigorating my enfeebled mind. Had I gone on thus weakly indulging regrets, I might, indeed, have fallen ill,--for I am by no means so at present. No, no," continued the unfortunate parent, placing her fingers upon the wrist of her left hand, "my fever has left me,--my pulse beats tranquilly."
Alas! the quick, irregular, and hurried pulsation perceptible beneath the parched yet icy skin allowed not of such flattering hopes; and, after pausing in deep and heartfelt wretchedness for a short space, the unhappy Madame de Fermont thus continued: "Wherefore, O God of Mercies, thus visit with thine anger two wretched and helpless creatures, utterly unconscious of having merited thy displeasure? What has been the crime that has thus drawn down such heavy punishments upon our heads? Was not my child a model of innocent piety, as her father was of honour? Have I not ever scrupulously fulfilled my duties both as wife and mother? Why, then, permit us to become the victims of a vile, ignoble wretch,--my sweet, my innocent child more especially? Oh, when I remember that, but for the nefarious conduct of this notary, the rising dawn of my daughter's existence would have been clear and unclouded, I can scarcely restrain my tears. But for his base treachery we should now be in our own home, without further care or sorrow than such as arose from the painful and unhappy circumstances attending the death of my poor brother. In two or three years' time I should have begun to think of marrying my sweet Claire, that is, if I could have found any one worthy of so good, so pure-minded, and so lovely a creature as herself. Who would not have rejoiced in obtaining such a bride? And further, after having merely reserved to myself a trifling annuity, sufficient to have enabled me to live somewhere in the neighbourhood, I intended, on her marriage, to bestow on her the whole of my remaining possessions, amounting to at least one hundred thousand crowns; for I should have been enabled to lay by something. And, when a lovely and beautiful young creature, like my Claire, gifted with all the advantages of a superior education, can, in addition, boast of a dowry of more than one hundred thousand crowns--" Then, as she again returned to the realities of her present position, altogether overcome by the painful contrast, Madame de Fermont exclaimed, almost frantically: "Still, it is not to be supposed that, because the notary so wills it, I shall sit tamely by and see my only and beloved child reduced to the most abject misery, entitled as she is to a life of the most unalloyed felicity. If I can obtain no redress from the laws of my country, I will not permit the infamous conduct of this man to escape unpunished. For if I am driven to desperation, if I find no means of extricating my daughter and myself from the deplorable condition to which the villainy of this man has brought us, I cannot answer for myself, or what I may do. I may be driven by madness to retaliate on this man, even by taking his life. And what if I did, after all I have endured, after all the scalding tears he has caused me to shed, who could blame me? At least I should be secure of the pity and sympathy of all mothers who loved their children as I do my Claire. Yes; but, then, what would be her position,--left alone, friendless, unexperienced, and destitute? Oh, no, no, that is my principal dread; therefore do I fear to die.
"And for that same reason dare I not harm the traitor who has wrought our ruin. What would become of her at sixteen? --pure and spotless as an angel, 'tis true. But then she is so surpassingly lovely; and want, desolation, cold, and misery are fearful things to oppose alone and unaided. How fearful a conflict might be presented to one of her tender years, and into how terrible an abyss might she not fall? Oh, want,--fatal word! As I trace it, a crowd of sickening images rise before me, and distract my senses. Destitution, dreadful as it is to all, is still more formidable to those who have lived surrounded not only with every comfort, but even luxury. One thing I cannot pardon myself for, and that is that, in the face of all these overwhelming trials, I have not yet been able to subdue my unfortunate pride; and I feel persuaded that nothing but the sight of my child, actually perishing before my eyes for want of bread, could induce me to beg. How weak, how selfish and cowardly! Still--" Then, as her thoughts wandered to the source of all her present sufferings and anguish, she mournfully continued: "The notary has reduced me to a state of beggary; I must, therefore, yield to the stern necessity of my situation. There must be an end of all delicacy as well as scruples. They might have been well enough in bygone days; but my duty is now to stretch forth my hand to solicit charitable aid for both my daughter and myself. And if I fail in procuring work, I must make up my mind to implore the charity of my fellow creatures, since the roguery of the notary has left me no alternative. Doubtless in that, as in other trades, there is an art, an expertness to be acquired, and which experience alone can bestow. Never mind," continued she, with a sort of feverish wildness, "one must learn one's craft, and only practice can make perfect. Surely mine must be a tale to move even the most unfeeling. I have to tell of misfortunes alike severe and unmerited,--of an angelic child, but sixteen years of age, exposed to every evil of life. But then it requires a practised hand to set forth all these qualifications, so as best to excite sympathy and compassion. No matter; I shall manage it, I feel quite sure. And, after all," exclaimed the half distracted woman, with a gloomy smile, "what have I so much to complain of? Fortune is perishable and precarious; and the notary will, at least, if he has taken my money, have compelled me to adopt a trade."
For several minutes Madame de Fermont remained absorbed in her reflections, then resumed more calmly: "I have frequently thought of inquiring for some situation. What I seem to covet is just such a place as a female has here who is servant to a lady living on the first floor. Had I that situation I might probably receive wages sufficient to maintain Claire; and I might even, through the intervention of the mistress I served, be enabled to obtain occupation for my daughter, who then would remain here. Neither should I be obliged to quit her. Oh, what joy, could it be so arranged! But no, no, that would be happiness too great for me to expect; it would seem like a dream. And then, again, if I obtained the place, the poor woman now occupying it must be turned away. Possibly she is as poor and destitute as ourselves. Well, what if she be? No scruple has arisen to save us from being stripped of our all, and my child's preservation outweighs all fastidious notions of delicacy in my breast. The only difficulty consists in obtaining an introduction to the lady on the first floor, and contriving to dispossess the servant of a place which would be to me the very perfection of ease and comfort."
Several loud and hasty knocks at the door startled Madame de Fermont, and made her daughter spring up with a sudden cry.
"For heaven's sake, dear mother," asked poor Claire, trembling with fear, "what is the matter?" And then, without giving her agitated parent time to recover herself, the terrified girl threw her arms around her mother's neck, as if she sought for safety in that fond, maternal bosom, while Madame de Fermont, pressing her child almost convulsively to her breast, gazed with terror at the door.
"Mamma, mamma," again moaned Claire, "what was that noise that awoke me? And why do you seem so much alarmed?"
"I know not, my child, what it was. But calm yourself, there is nothing to fear; some one merely knocked at the door,--possibly to bring us a letter from the post-office."
At this moment the worm-eaten door shook and rattled beneath the blows dealt against it by some powerful fist.
"Who is there?" inquired Madame de Fermont, in a trembling tone.
A harsh, coarse, and vulgar voice replied, "Holloa, there! What, are you so deaf there's no making you hear? Holloa, I say, open your door; and let's have a look at you. Hip, hip, holloa! Come, sharp's the word; I'm in a hurry."
"I know you not," exclaimed Madame de Fermont, striving to command herself sufficiently to speak with a steady voice; "what is it you seek here?"
"Not know me? Why, I'm your opposite neighbour and fellow lodger, Robin. I want a light for my pipe. Come, cut about. Whoop, holloa! Don't go to sleep again, or I must come in and wake you."
"Merciful heavens!" whispered the mother to her daughter, "'tis that lame man, who is nearly always intoxicated."
"Now, then, are you going to give me a light? Because, I tell you fairly, one I will have if I knock your rickety old door to pieces."
"I have no light to give you."
"Oh, bother and nonsense! If you have no candle burning you must have the means of lighting one. Nobody is without a few lucifer matches, be they ever so poor. Do you or do you not choose to give me a light?"
"I beg of you to go away."
"You don't choose to open your door, then? Once,--twice,--mind, I will have it."
"I request you to quit my door immediately, or I will call for assistance."
"Once,--twice,--thrice,--you will not? Well, then, here goes! Now I'll smash your old timbers, into morsels too small for you to pick up. Hu! --hu! --hallo! Well done! Bravo!"
And suiting the action to the word, the ruffian assailed the door so furiously that he quickly drove it in, the miserable lock with which it was furnished having speedily broken to pieces.
The two women shrieked loudly; Madame de Fermont, in spite of her weakness, rushed forward to meet the ruffian at the moment when he was entering the room, and stopped him.
"Sir, this is most shameful; you must not enter here," exclaimed the unhappy mother, keeping the door closed as well as she could. "I will call for help." And she shuddered at the sight of this man, with his hideous and drunken countenance.
"What's all this? What's all this?" said he. "Oughtn't neighbours to be obliging? You ought to have opened; I shouldn't have broken anything."
Then with the stupid obstinacy of intoxication, he added, reeling on his tottering legs: "I wanted to come in, and I will come in; and I won't go out until I've lighted my pipe."
"I have neither fire nor matches. In heaven's name, sir, do go away."
"That's not true. You tell me that I may not see the little girl who's in bed. Yesterday you stopped up all the holes in the door. She's a pretty chick, and I should like to see her. So mind, or I shall hurt you if you don't let me enter quietly. I tell you I will see the little girl in her bed, and I will light my pipe, or I'll smash everything before me, and you into the bargain."
"Help, help, help!" exclaimed Madame de Fermont, who felt the door yielding before the broad shoulders of the Gros-Boiteux.
Alarmed by her cries, the man retreated a step; and clenching his fist at Madame de Fermont, he said: "You shall pay me for this, mind. I will come back to-night and wring your tongue out, and then you can't squall out."
And the Gros-Boiteux, as he was called at the Isle du Ravageur, went down the staircase, uttering horrible threats.
Madame de Fermont, fearing that he might return, and seeing that the lock was broken, dragged the table across the room, in order to barricade it. Claire had been so alarmed, so agitated, at this horrible scene, that she had fallen on her bed almost senseless, and overcome by a nervous attack. Her mother, forgetting her own fears, ran to her, embraced her, gave her a little water to drink, and by her caresses and attentions revived her. When she saw her gradually recovering she said to her: "Calm yourself; don't be alarmed, my dearest child, this wicked man has gone." Then the unfortunate mother exclaimed, in a tone of indescribable indignation and grief, "And it is that notary who is the first cause of all our sufferings."
Claire looked about her with as much astonishment as fear.
"Take courage, my child," said Madame de Fermont, embracing her tenderly; "the wretch has gone."
"Oh, mamma, if he should come back again! You see, though you cried so loud for help, no one came. Oh, pray let us leave this house, or I shall die with fear!"
"How you tremble; you are quite in a fever."
"No, no," said the young girl, to reassure her mother, "it is nothing--only fright,--and that will soon pass away. And you,--how do you feel? Give me your hands. Oh, how they burn! It is, indeed, you who are suffering; and you try to conceal it from me!"
"Don't think so; I feel better than I did. It is only the fright that man caused me which makes me so. I was sleeping soundly in my chair, and only awoke when you did."
"Yet, mamma, your poor eyes look so red and inflamed!"
"Why, you see, my dear, one does not sleep so refreshingly in a chair."
"And you really do not suffer?"
"No, no, I assure you. And you?"
"Nor I either. I only tremble with fear. Pray, mamma, let us leave this house!"
"And where shall we go to? You know what trouble we had to find this miserable chamber; for, unfortunately, we have no papers,--and, besides, we have paid a fortnight in advance. They will not return our money; and we have so very, very little left, that we must take all possible care of it."
"Perhaps M. de Saint-Remy will answer you in a day or two."
"I cannot hope for that. It is so long since I wrote to him."
"He cannot have received your letter. Why did not you write to him again? From here to Angers is not so far, and we should soon have his answer."
"My poor child, you know how much that has cost me already!"
"But there's no risk; and he is so good in spite of his roughness. Wasn't he one of the oldest friends of my father? And then he is a relation of ours."
"But he is poor himself,--his fortune is very small. Perhaps he does not reply to us that he may avoid the pain of a refusal."
"But he may not have received your letter, mamma!"
"And if he has received it, my dear,--one of two things, either he is himself in too painful a position to come to our aid, or he feels no interest in us. What, then, is the use of exposing ourselves to a refusal or humiliation?"
"Come, come, courage, mamma; we have still a hope left. Perhaps this very morning will bring us a kind answer."
"From M. d'Orbigny?"
"Yes; the letter of which you had made the rough copy was so simple and touching. It showed our miserable condition so naturally that he will have pity on us. Really, I don't know why, but something tells me you are wrong to despair of him."
"He has so little motive for taking any interest in us. It is true he formerly knew your father, and I have often heard my poor brother speak of M. d'Orbigny as a man with whom he was on good terms before the latter left Paris to retire into the country with his young wife."
"It is that which makes me hope. He has a young wife, and she will be compassionate. And then in the country one can do so much good. He will take you, I should think, as a housekeeper, and I could work in the needle-room. Then M. d'Orbigny is very rich, and in a great house there is always so much to do."
"Yes; but we have so little claim on his kind interest!"
"We are so unfortunate!"
"It is true that is a claim in the eyes of charitably disposed persons."
"Let us hope that M. d'Orbigny and his wife are so."
"Then if we do not have any or an unfavorable answer from him, I will overcome my false shame, and write to the Duchesse de Lucenay."
"The lady of whom M. de Saint-Remy has spoken so often, and whose kindness and generosity he so much, praised?"
"The same,--daughter of the Prince de Noirmont. He knew her when she was very young, and treated her almost always as if she were his own child, for he was on terms of the closest intimacy with the prince. Madame de Lucenay must have many acquaintances, and, no doubt, could easily find situations for us."
"No doubt, mamma. But I understand your delicacy; you do not know her, whilst, at least, my father and my uncle both knew a little of M. d'Orbigny."
"Well, but in case Madame de Lucenay cannot do anything for us, I have still another resource."
"What is that, mamma?"
"A very poor one,--a very weak hope, perhaps. But why should I not try it? M. de Saint-Remy's son is--" "Has M. de Saint-Remy a son?" exclaimed Claire, interrupting her mother with great astonishment.
"Yes, my dear, he has a son."
"Yet he never spoke of him when he used to come to Angers."
"True, and, for reasons which you cannot understand, M. de Saint-Remy, having quitted Paris fifteen years ago, has not seen his son since that period."
"Fifteen years without seeing his father! Is that possible?"
"Alas, yes! As you see, the son of M. de Saint-Remy, being very much sought after in society, and very rich--" "Very rich, whilst his father is poor?"
"All young M. de Saint-Remy's wealth came from his mother."
"What of that,--how could he leave his father?"
"His father would not accept anything from him."
"Why?"
"That is a question to which I cannot reply, my dear child; but I have heard it said by my poor brother that this young man was reputed vastly generous. Young and generous, he ought to be good. Learning from me that my husband had been his father's intimate friend, perhaps he will interest himself in trying to find us work or employment. He has such high and extensive connections, that this would be no trouble to him."
"And then, perhaps, too, we could learn from him if M. de Saint-Remy, his father, had not quitted Angers before you wrote to him: that would account for his silence."
"I think, my dear, that M. de Saint-Remy has not kept up any connection with--Still, we cannot but try."
"Unless M. d'Orbigny replies to you favourably, and I repeat, I don't know why, but I have hopes, in spite of myself."
"It is now many days, my dear, since I wrote to him, telling him all the causes of our misfortunes, and yet to this time we have no reply,--none. A letter put in the post before four o'clock in the evening reaches Aubiers next morning, and thus we might have had his answer five days ago."
"Perhaps, before he replies, he is considering in what way he can best be useful to us."
"May Heaven hear thee, my child!"
"It appears to me plain enough, mamma, if he could not do anything for us, he could have written at once, and said so."
"Unless he will do nothing."
"Oh, mamma, is that possible? to refuse to answer us, and leave us in hope for four days--eight days, perhaps; for when one is miserable we always hope."
"Alas, my child, there is sometimes so much indifference for the miseries persons have never known!"
"But your letter--" "My letter cannot give him any idea of our actual disquietude, our constant sufferings; my letter will not depict to him our unhappy life, our constant humiliations, our existence in this horrid house,--the fright we have but this instant experienced. My letter will not describe the horrible future which is in store for us, if--But, my love, do not let us talk of that. You tremble,--you are cold."
"No, mamma, don't mind me; but tell me, suppose all fails us, the little money we have in the box is spent,--is it possible that, in a city as rich as Paris, we shall both die of hunger and misery--for want of work, and because a wicked man has taken from you all you had in the world?"
"Oh, be silent, my unfortunate child!"
"But really, mamma, is it possible?"
"Alas!"
"But God, who knows all, who can do all, will he abandon us, who have never offended him?"
"I entreat you, my dearest girl, do not give way to these distressing ideas. I would prefer seeing you hope, without great reason, either. Come, come, comfort me rather with your consoling ideas; I am but too apt to be discouraged, as you well know."
"Yes, yes, let us hope, that is best. No doubt the porter's nephew will return to-day from the _Poste-Restante_ with a letter. Another errand to pay out of your little stock, and through my fault. If I had not been so weak yesterday and to-day we should have gone to the post-office ourselves, as we did the day before yesterday; but you will not leave me here alone and go yourself."
"How could I, my dear? Only think, just now, that horrid man who burst open the door! Suppose you had been alone?"
"Oh, mamma, pray don't talk of it; it quite frightens me only to think of it."
At this moment some one knocked suddenly at the door.
"Heaven, it is he again!" exclaimed Madame de Fermont, still under her first fears; and she pushed the table against the door with all her strength. Her fears ceased when she heard the voice of Father Micou: "Madame, my nephew, André, has come from the _Poste-Restante_. He has brought a letter with an 'X' and a 'Z.' It comes a long way; there are eight sous for postage, and commission makes twenty sous."
"Mamma, a letter from the country,--we are saved! It is from M. de Saint-Remy or M. d'Orbigny. Poor mother! You will not suffer any more; you will no longer be uneasy about me, you will be so happy! God is just! God is good!" exclaimed the young girl, and a ray of hope lighted up her mild and lovely face.
"Oh, sir, thank you; give it to me quickly!" said Madame de Fermont, moving the table as well as she could, and half opening the door.
"Twenty sous," said the man, giving her the anxiously desired letter.
"I will pay you, sir."
"Oh, madame, there's no hurry, I am going up higher; in ten minutes I shall be down again, and can call for the money as I pass."
"The letter is from Normandy, with the postmark of 'Les Aubiers.' It is from Madame d'Orbigny!" exclaimed Madame de Fermont, examining the address, "To Madame X. Z., _Poste-Restante_, à Paris."
"Well, mamma, am I right? Oh, how my heart beats!"
"Our good or bad fate is in it," said Madame de Fermont; and twice her trembling hand was extended to break the seal; she had not courage.
How can we describe the terrible agony to which they are a prey who, like Madame de Fermont, expect a letter which brings them either hope or despair? The burning, fevered excitement of the player whose last pieces of gold are hazarded on a card, and who, breathless, with inflamed eye, awaits for a decisive cast which brings his ruin or his fortune,--this emotion, violent as it is, may perhaps give some idea of the painful anguish of which we speak. In a second the soul is elevated to the most radiant hope or relapses into the most mortal discouragement. According as he hopes to be aided, or fears to be refused, the unhappy wretch suffers in turn emotions of a most contrary nature,--unutterable feelings of happiness and gratitude to the generous heart which pities his miserable condition--bitter and intense resentment against selfish indifference!
When it is a question of deserving sufferers, those who give often would perhaps give always, and those who always refuse would perhaps give frequently, if they knew or saw that the hope of benevolent aid or the fear of a haughty refusal--that their decision, indeed--can excite all that is distressing or encouraging in the hearts of their petitioners.
"What weakness!" said Madame de Fermont, with a deep sigh, seating herself by her daughter; "once again, my poor Claire, our destiny is in this envelope; I burn with anxiety to know its contents, and yet I dare not read it. If it be a refusal, alas, it will be soon enough!"
"And if it be a promise of assistance, then, mamma--If this poor little letter contain consoling words, which shall assure us for the future, by promising us a humble employment in the establishment of M. d'Orbigny, every moment lost is a moment of happiness lost,--is it not?"
"Yes, my love; but on the other hand--" "No, mamma, you are mistaken; I told you that M. d'Orbigny had only delayed so long that he might mention something certain to you. Let me see the letter, mamma. I am sure I can guess if it is good or bad by the writing. And I am sure," said Claire, looking at the letter, "that it is a kind and generous hand, accustomed to execute benevolence towards those who suffer."
"I entreat you, Claire, not to give way to vain hopes; for, if you do, I shall not have the courage to open the letter."
"My dear mother, without opening it, I can tell you almost word for word what it contains. Listen: 'Madame,--Your fate and that of your daughter are so worthy of interest, that I beg you will come to me, in case you should like to undertake the superintendence of my house.'"
"Pray, my dearest, I beseech you, do not give way to vain hopes; the disappointment would be terrible!" said Madame de Fermont, taking the letter.
"Come, dear mamma," said Claire, smiling, and excited by one of those feelings of certainty so natural to her age, "give me the letter; I have courage to read it!"
"No," said Madame de Fermont, "I will read it! It is from the Comtesse d'Orbigny."
"So much the better," replied Claire.
"We shall see." And Madame de Fermont read as follows in a trembling voice: "'MADAME:--M. the Comte d'Orbigny, who has been a great invalid for some time, could not reply to you during my absence--'" "You see, mamma, it was no one's fault."
"Listen, listen! " 'On arriving from Paris this morning, I hasten to write to you, madame, after having discussed your letter with M. d'Orbigny. He recollects but very indistinctly the intimacy you allude to as having subsisted between him and your brother. As to the name of your husband, madame, it is not unknown to M. d'Orbigny; but he cannot recall to mind under what circumstances he has heard it. The spoliation of which you so unhesitatingly accuse M. Jacques Ferrand, whom we have the happiness to call our solicitor, is, in the eyes of M. d'Orbigny, a cruel calumny, whose effects you have by no means calculated upon. My husband, as well as myself, madame, know and admire the extreme probity of the respectable and pious individual whom you so blindly assail; and I am compelled to tell you, madame, that M. d'Orbigny, whilst he regrets the painful situation in which you are placed, and the real cause of which it is not his business to find out, feels it impossible to afford you the assistance requested. Accept, madame, with the expression of M. d'Orbigny's regrets, my best compliments. " 'COMTESSE D'ORBIGNY.'"
The mother and daughter looked at each other perfectly stupefied, and incapable of uttering a word. Father Micou rapped at the door, and said: "Madame, may I come in for the postage and commission? It's twenty sous."
"Ah, true, such good news is worth a sum on which we exist for two days," said Madame de Fermont, with a bitter smile, laying the letter down on her daughter's bed, and going towards an old trunk without a lock, to which she stooped down and opened. "We are robbed!" exclaimed the unhappy woman, with alarm. "Nothing--not a sou left!" she added, in a mournful voice; and, overwhelmed, she supported herself on the trunk.
"What do you say, mamma,--the bag with the money in it?"
But Madame de Fermont, rising suddenly, opened the room door, and, addressing the receiver, who was on the landing-place: "Sir," she said, whilst her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks were flushed with indignation and alarm, "I had a bag of silver in this trunk; it was stolen from me, no doubt, the day before yesterday, when I went out for an hour with my daughter. The money must be restored, I tell you,--you are responsible for it!"
"You've been robbed! That's false, I know. My house is respectable," said the fellow, in an insolent and brutal tone; "you only say that in order not to pay me my postage and commission."
"I tell you, sir, that this money was all I possessed in the world; it has been stolen from me, and I must have it found and restored, or I will lodge an information. Oh, I will conceal nothing--I will respect nothing--I tell you!"
"Very fine, indeed! You who have got no papers. Go and lay your information,--go at once. Why don't you? I defy you, I do!"
The wretched woman was thunderstruck. She could not go out and leave her daughter alone, confined to her bed as she was by the fright the Gros-Boiteux had occasioned her in the morning, and particularly after the threats with which the receiver of stolen goods had menaced her. He added: "This is a fudge! You'd as much a bag of silver there as a bag of gold. Will you pay me for the letter,--will you or won't you? Well, it's just the same to me. When you go by my door, I'll snatch off your old black shawl from your shoulders. It's a precious shabby one; but I daresay I can make twenty sous out of it."
"Oh, sir," exclaimed Madame de Fermont, bursting into tears, "I beseech you have pity upon us! This small sum is all we possess, my daughter and I, and, that stolen, we have nothing left--nothing--I say nothing, but--to die of starvation!"
"What can I do? If it's true that you have been robbed, and of silver, too (which appears to me very unlikely), why, the silver has been melted long since, rely on it." " _Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! _" "The chap who did the trick was not so soft, rely on it, as to mark the pieces, and keep 'em here, to lead to his own detection. Supposing it's any one in the house, which I don't believe (for, as I was a-saying this morning to the uncle of the lady on the first floor, this is really a village), if any one has robbed you, it is a pity. You may lay a hundred informations, but you won't recover a centime. You won't do any good by that, I tell you, and you may believe me. Well, but I say--" exclaimed the receiver, stopping short, and seeing Madame de Fermont stagger. "What's the matter? How pale you are! Mademoiselle, your mother's taken ill!" added Micou, just advancing in time to catch the unhappy mother, who, overcome by this last shock, felt her senses forsake her,--the forced energy which had supported her so long failed before this fresh blow.
"Mother, dear, oh, what ails you?" exclaimed Claire, still in her bed.
The receiver, still vigorous in spite of his fifty years, seized with a momentary feeling of pity, took Madame de Fermont in his arms, pushed the door open with his knee, and, entering the chamber, said: "Your pardon, mademoiselle, for entering whilst you are in bed, but I was obliged to bring in your mother; she has fainted, but it won't last long."
On seeing the man enter, Claire shrieked loudly, and the unhappy girl hid herself as well as she could under the bedclothes. The huckster seated Madame de Fermont in a chair beside the bed, and then went out, leaving the door ajar, for the Gros-Boiteux had broken the lock.
* * * * * One hour after this last shock, the violent malady which had so long hung over and threatened Madame de Fermont had developed itself. A prey to a burning fever and to fearful delirium, the unhappy woman was placed beside her daughter, who, horror-struck, aghast, alone, and almost as ill as her mother, had neither money nor recourse, and was in an agony of fear every moment lest the ruffian who lodged on the same floor should enter the apartment.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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9
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THE RUE DE CHAILLOT.
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We will precede M. Badinot by some hours, as in haste he proceeded from the Passage de la Brasserie to the Vicomte de Saint-Remy. The latter, as we have said, lived in the Rue de Chaillot, and occupied a delightful small house, built between the court and the garden in this quarter, so solitary, although so close to the Champs Elysées, the most fashionable promenade in Paris.
It is useless to enumerate the advantages which M. de Saint-Remy, who was decidedly a man _à bonnes fortunes_, derived from the position of a residence so sagaciously selected. We will only say that a gentleman (or a lady) could enter very privately by a small door in the large garden which opened into a back lane absolutely deserted, communicating from the Rue Marboeuf to the Rue de Chaillot. By wonderful chance, one of the finest nursery-grounds in Paris having also in this quiet passage a way out that was little frequented, the mysterious visitors of M. de Saint-Remy, in case of a surprise or sudden rencounter, were armed with a most plausible and bucolical excuse for their visit to the lonely alley: they were there (they might say if they pleased) to choose some rare flowers from the celebrated gardener who was so renowned for the beauty of his conservatories. The visitors need only thus tell half falsehoods; for the vicomte, plentifully imbued with all the tastes of most costly luxuries, had a delightful greenhouse, which extended along the side of the alley we have alluded to. The small private door opened on this delightful winter garden, which terminated in a boudoir (forgive the superannuated expression), which was on the ground floor of the house.
We may say, therefore, without metaphor, that a female who passed this dangerous threshold, to enter M. de Saint-Remy's house, ran to her ruin through a flowery path; for, in the winter particularly, this lonely alley was bordered with real bushes of bright and perfumed flowers. Madame de Lucenay, jealous as a woman deeply in love always is, had demanded the key of this small door.
If we dwell somewhat on the general aspect of this dwelling, it is that it reflected (if we may be allowed the expression) one of those degrading existences which from day to day become happily more rare, but which it may be as well to note down as one of the peculiarities of the epoch.
The interior of M. de Saint-Remy's house presented (viewed in this light) a curious appearance, or rather the house was separated into two distinct zones,--the ground floor, where he received his female visitors; the first story, where he received his gambling companions or his dinner or hunting associates; in a word, what he called his friends. Thus on the ground floor was a bedchamber, which was nothing but gold, mirrors, flowers, satin, and lace; then a small music-room, in which was a harp and piano (M. de Saint-Remy was an excellent musician); a cabinet of pictures; and then the boudoir, which communicated with the conservatory; a dining-room for two persons, who were served and passed away the dishes and plates by a turning window; a bath-room, a model of luxury and Oriental refinement; and, close at hand, a small library, a portion of which was arranged after the catalogue of that which La Mettrie had collected for Frederic the Great. Such was this apartment.
It would be unavailing to say that all these rooms, furnished with exquisite taste, and with a Sardanapalian luxury, had as ornaments Watteaus little known; Bouchers never engraved; wanton subjects, formerly purchased at enormous prices. There were, besides, groups modelled in terra-cotta, by Clodien, and here and there, on plinths of jasper or antique breccia, some rare copies, in white marble, of the most jovial and lovely bacchanals of the Secret Museum of Naples.
Add to this, in summer there were in perspective the green recesses of a well-planted garden, lonely, replete with flowers and birds, watered by a small and sparkling fountain, which, before it spread itself on the verdant turf, fell from a black and shaggy rock, scintillated like a strip of silver gauze, and dashed into a clear basin like mother-of-pearl, where beautiful white swans wantoned with grace and freedom.
Then, when the mild and serene night came on, what shade, what perfume, what silence, was there in those odorous clumps, whose thick foliage served as a dais for the rustic seats formed of reeds and Indian mats.
During the winter, on the contrary, except the glass door which opened to the hothouse, all was kept close shut. The transparent silk of the blinds, the net lace of the curtains, made the daylight still more mysterious. On all the pieces of furniture large tufts of exotic plants seemed to put forth their large flowers, resplendent with gold and enamel.
In order to do the honours of this temple, which seemed raised to antique Love, or the denuded divinities of Greece, behold a man, young, handsome, elegant, and distinguished,--by turns witty and tender, romantic or libertine; now jesting and gay to folly, now full of charm and grace; an excellent musician, gifted with one of those impassioned, vibrating voices which women cannot hear without experiencing a deep impression, almost physical,--in fact, a man essentially made for love,--such was the vicomte. In Athens, no doubt, he would have been admired, exalted, deified, as was Alcibiades; in our days, and at the period of which we write, the vicomte was nothing more than a base forger, a contemptible swindler.
The first story of M. de Saint-Remy's house was exceedingly masculine in its whole appearance. It was there he received his many friends, all of whom were of the very highest society. There was nothing effeminate, nothing coquettish. The furniture was plain, but elegant, the ornaments being first-rate weapons of all sorts, pictures of race-horses, who had won for the vicomte a great number of magnificent gold and silver vases, which were placed on the tables and sideboards.
The smoking-room and play-room were closed by a cheerful dining-room, where eight persons (the number to which the guests were rigidly confined when there was a first-class dinner) had often appreciated the excellence of the cook, and the no less high merit of the wine of the vicomte, before they faced him at some high game of whist for five or six hundred louis, or shook the noisy dice-box at infernal hazard or roulette.
These two widely opposite shades of M. de Saint-Remy disclosed, the reader will follow us into the regions below, to the very comfortable apartment of Edwards Patterson, the master of the horse of M. de Saint-Remy, who had invited M. Boyer to breakfast. A very pretty English maid-servant having withdrawn after she had brought in the silver teapot, these two worthies remained alone.
Edwards was about forty years of age, and never did more skilful or stouter coachman make a seat groan under his most imposing rotundity; never did powdered wig enclose a more rubicund visage; and never did a more knowing and competent driver hold in his four fingers and thumb the reins of a four-in-hand. As good a judge of a horse as Tattersal (and in his youth he had been as good a trainer as the old and celebrated Chiffney), Edwards had been to the vicomte a most excellent coachman, and a man perfectly capable of superintending the training of race-horses on which he had betted heavily.
When he did not assume his sumptuous brown and silver livery on the emblazoned hammercloth of his box, Edwards very much resembled an honest English farmer; and it is under this aspect that we shall present him to the reader, adding, at the same time, that beneath this round and red visage there lurked all the pitiless and devilish cunning of the horse-dealer.
M. Boyer, his guest, the confidential servant of the vicomte, was a tall, thin man, with gray, smooth hair, bald forehead, cunning glance, with a countenance calm, discreet, and reserved. He expressed himself in somewhat choice phraseology, with polite, easy manners; he was tolerably well informed, his political opinions being legitimist, and he could take his part as first violin in an amateur quartette. From time to time, and with the best air in the world, he took a pinch of snuff from a gold snuff-box, set around with fine pearls, after which he negligently shook with the back of his hand (as white and carefully attended to as his master's) the particles of snuff from the frill of his fine Holland shirt.
"Do you know, my dear Edwards," said Boyer, "that your maid, Betty, really does your meals in a very fair manner! _Ma foi! _ now and then one gets tired of high living."
"The fact is that Betty is a very good girl," said Edwards, who spoke very good French. "I shall take her with me into my establishment, if I make up my mind to set up in housekeeping; and on this point, since we are alone, my dear Boyer, let us talk of business matters which you know as well as I do."
"Why, yes, tolerably," said Boyer, modestly taking a pinch of snuff, "one learns them so naturally, when they are the affairs of others that occupy us."
"I want your advice on a very important point, and that's the reason I have begged you to come and take a cup of tea with me."
"I'm at your service, my dear Edwards."
"You know that, besides the race-horses, I had an agreement with M. le Vicomte to the complete providing of his stable, horses, and men, that is to say, eight horses and five or six grooms and boys, for twenty-four thousand francs (nine thousand guineas) a year, including my wages."
"That was moderate enough."
"For four years M. le Vicomte paid me very regularly; but about the middle of last year he said to me, 'Edwards, I owe you about twenty-four thousand francs. What value, at the lowest, do you set on my horses and carriages?' 'Monsieur le Vicomte, the eight horses ought to fetch three thousand francs (120_l._) each, one with another, and that would make (and it's true, Boyer, for the pair of phaeton horses cost five hundred guineas) exactly twenty-four thousand francs for the horses. As to the carriages, there are four, let us say, for twelve thousand francs; that, added to the twenty-four thousand francs for the horses, makes thirty-six thousand francs.' 'Well,' replied the vicomte, 'buy the whole of me at that price, on condition that for the twelve thousand francs which you will owe me, paid as it were in advance, you shall keep and place at my disposal horses, servants, and carriages for six months.'"
"And you very wisely acceded to the proposal, Edwards? It was a golden gain to you."
"No doubt. In another fortnight the six months will have expired, and I become proprietor of the horses and carriages."
"Nothing plainer. The agreement was drawn up by M. Badinot, the vicomte's man of business, what do you want with my advice?"
"What should I do? To sell the horses and carriages in consequence of M. le Vicomte's departure? All would sell well, as he is known as one of the first judges in Paris; or ought I to set up as a horse-dealer with my stud, which would make a capital beginning? What is your opinion--your advice?"
"I advise you to do what I shall do myself."
"In what way?"
"I am in the same position as yourself."
"You?"
"M. le Vicomte detests details. When I entered in his service I had, by savings and inheritance, sixty thousand francs (2,400_l._). I paid the expenses of the house as you did of the stables; and every year M. le Vicomte paid me without examining my account. At nearly the same time as yourself I found myself out of pocket about twenty thousand francs on my own account, and, to the tradespeople, sixty thousand francs. Then M. le Vicomte made me the same proposition as to yourself, in order to reimburse me. I was to sell the furniture of the house, including the plate, which is very handsome, very fine paintings, etc., the whole estimated at a hundred and forty thousand francs (5,600_l._). There were eighty thousand francs to pay, and there remained sixty thousand francs which I was to disburse until they were quite exhausted, in the expenses of the table, the servants' wages, etc., and in nothing else. These were the terms of the agreement."
"Because on that outlay you have a profit."
"As a matter of course; for I made all the agreements with the tradespeople, whom I shall not pay until after the sale," said Boyer, taking a huge pinch of snuff; "so that at the end of this month--" "The furniture is yours, as the horses and carriages are mine."
"Precisely so. M. le Vicomte has gained by this, by living for the last few months as he likes to live, _en grand seigneur_,--and that in the very teeth of his creditors; for furniture, plate, horses, carriages, which had all been paid for ready money when he came of age, have now become the property of yourself and myself."
"And so M. le Vicomte is really ruined?"
"In five years."
"And M. le Vicomte inherited--" "Only a miserable million (40,000_l._), ready money," said M. Boyer, with a disdainful air, and taking a pinch of snuff. "Add to this two hundred thousand francs of debts (8,000_l._), about--that's pretty well! It was, therefore, to tell you, my dear Edwards, that I had an intention of letting this house, so admirably furnished as it is, to some English family, linen, glass, china, silver, conservatory. Some of your country-people would pay a good rent for it?"
"Unquestionably. Why don't you do so?"
"Why, there's considerable risk, and so I make up my mind to sell the whole at once. M. le Vicomte is also known as a connoisseur in first-class furniture and objects of art, so that anything that he has selected will always fetch double its value, and I am safe to realise a large sum. Do as I do, Edwards, and realise--realise. Don't risk your profits in speculation. You, first coachman of M. le Vicomte de Saint-Remy,--why, there'll be a competition for you. And yesterday I just heard of a minor who has recently been emancipated, a cousin of Madame la Duchesse de Lucenay, the young Duc de Montbrison, who has just arrived from Italy with his tutor, and is forming his establishment. Two hundred and fifty thousand livres of income (10,000_l._) from land, my dear Edwards, two hundred and fifty thousand livres a year,--just entering into life,--twenty years of age only,--with all the illusions of simple confidence, and all the desires of expenditure,--prodigal as a prince. I know the steward; and I tell you, in confidence, he has all but concluded with me as first _valet de chambre_. He patronises me,--the fool!" And M. Boyer shrugged his shoulders, whilst he inhaled another large pinch of snuff.
"You hope to get rid of him?" " _Parbleu_, he is a jackanapes,--an ass! He places me there as if he ought not to have any fears of me. Before two months I shall be in his place."
"Two hundred and fifty thousand livres a year in land!" replied Edwards, reflecting; "and a young man! It is a good house?"
"I tell you there is everything to make a man comfortable. I will speak to my protector for you," said M. Boyer, with irony. "Take the place; it is a fortune which has roots to it, and one may hold on by it for a long time. It is not like the unfortunate million of M. le Vicomte, a snowball, and nothing else,--a ray of a Parisian sun, and that's all. I soon saw that I should only be a bird of passage here. It's a pity, for the establishment did us credit; and, to the last moment, I will serve M. le Vicomte with the respect and esteem due to him." " _Ma foi_, my dear Boyer, I thank you, and accept your proposition. And, now I think of it, suppose I were to propose the stud of M. le Vicomte to this young duke! It is all ready, and known and admired all over Paris."
"True, you may make a profitable affair of it."
"And you, why don't you propose to him this house so admirably fitted up in every way? What could he find better?"
"Bravo! Edwards, you are a man of sense decidedly; you have suggested a most excellent idea. We must ask the vicomte; he is such a good master that he will not refuse to speak for us to the young duke. He may say that, as he is going on the legation of Gerolstein, to which he is attached, he wishes to get rid of his whole establishment. Let us see. One hundred and sixty thousand francs for the house furnished, twenty thousand francs for plate and pictures, fifty thousand francs for stable and carriages, that makes two hundred and thirty thousand francs; and it is a bargain for a young man who wishes to be set up at once in the first style."
"And the horses!"
"And the capital table! Gallefroi, his cook, will leave a hundred times better off than when he came here first. M. le Vicomte has given him capital instruction,--has regularly refined him!"
"They say, too, that M. le Vicomte is such a capital player?"
"Admirable! Gaining large sums with even more indifference than he loses them! And yet I never saw any one lose with better taste!"
"And the women, Boyer,--the women! Ah, you could tell a tale! You have the sole _entrée_ to the apartments of the ground floor--" "I have my secrets as you have yours, my dear fellow."
"Mine?"
"When M. le Vicomte ran his horses, had you not your confidences? I will not attack the honesty of the jockeys of your opponents; but there were reports--" "Hush, my dear Boyer, a gentleman never compromises the reputation of a jockey who is against him, and has the weakness to listen--" "Then a gallant never compromises the reputation of a woman who has been kind to him. So, I say, let's keep our secrets, or, rather, the secrets of M. le Vicomte, my dear Edwards."
"Ah, good! What will he do now?"
"He is going to Germany in a good travelling carriage, with seven or eight thousand francs, which he knows when to lay his hand upon. Oh, I have no fears for the vicomte! He is one of those personages who always fall on their feet, as they say."
"And he has no future expectancies?"
"None; for his father has nothing but just enough to live upon."
"His father?"
"Certainly."
"M. le Vicomte's father is not dead?"
"He was not dead five or six months ago when M. le Vicomte wrote to him for some family papers."
"But we never see him here?"
"For reasons good. For fifteen years he has resided in the country at Angers."
"But M. le Vicomte never visits him?"
"His father?"
"Yes."
"Never--never!"
"Have they quarrelled, then?"
"What I am going to tell you is no secret, for I have it from the old man of business of M. the Prince de Noirmont."
"Father of Madame de Lucenay?" said Edwards, with a knowing glance at Boyer, who, appearing not to understand him, replied coolly: "Madame la Duchesse de Lucenay is the daughter of M. the Prince de Noirmont. The father of M. le Vicomte was bosom friend of the prince. Madame la Duchesse was then very young, and M. de Saint-Remy, senior, who was very fond of her, treated her as if she were his own child. I learnt these details from Simon, the prince's man of business; and I may speak unhesitatingly, for the adventure I am about to narrate to you was, at the time, the talk of all Paris. In spite of his sixty years, the father of M. le Vicomte is a man of iron disposition, with the courage of a lion, of probity which I call almost fabulous. He had scarcely any property of his own, and had married the vicomte's mother for love. She was a young person of good fortune, possessing about a million of francs, at the melting of which we have had the honour to be present." And M. Boyer bowed. Edwards imitated him.
"The marriage was a very happy one, until the moment when the father of M. le Vicomte found--accidentally, as they say--some letters, which proved that, during one of his absences three or four years after his marriage, his wife had had an attachment for a certain Polish count."
"That often happens to these Poles. When I was at the Marquis de Senneval's, the marquise, a regular she-devil--" "My dear Edwards," interrupted M. Boyer, "you should learn the alliances of our great families before you speak, or you will sadly blunder."
"How?"
"Madame la Marquise de Senneval is sister of M. le Duc de Montbrison, into whose establishment you wish to enter."
"Ah, the devil!"
"Judge of the effect if you had spoken thus of her before tattling people! You would not have remained in the house twenty-four hours."
"True, Boyer; I must endeavour to 'get up' my peerage."
"I resume. The father of M. le Vicomte discovered, after twelve or fifteen years of a marriage very happy until then, that he had this Polish count to complain of. Fortunately, or unfortunately, M. le Vicomte was born nine months after his father, or rather M. le Comte de Saint-Remy, had returned from this unpropitious journey, so that he could not be certain, in spite of the greatest probabilities, whether or not M. le Vicomte could fairly charge him with paternity. However, the comte separated instantly from his wife, would not touch a stiver of the fortune she had brought him, and returned into the country with about eighty thousand francs which he possessed of his own. But you have yet to learn the rancour of this diabolical character. Although the outrage had been perpetrated fifteen years when he detected it, the father of M. le Vicomte, accompanied by M. de Fermont, one of his relatives, sought out this Polonese seducer, and found him at Venice, after having sought for him during eighteen months in every city in Europe."
"What determination!"
"A demon's rancour, I say, my dear Edwards! At Venice there was a ferocious duel, in which the Pole was killed. All passed off honourably; but they tell me that, when the father of M. le Vicomte saw the Pole fall at his feet mortally wounded, he exhibited such ferocious joy that his relative, M. de Fermont, was obliged to take him away from the place of combat; the comte wishing, as he declared, to see his enemy die before his eyes."
"What a man! What a man!"
"The comte returned to Paris, saw his wife, told her he had killed the Pole, and went back into the country. Since that time he never saw her or her son, and resided at Angers, where he lived, as they say, like a regular old wolf, with what was left of his eighty thousand francs, which had been sweated down not a little, as you may suppose, by his chase after the Pole. At Angers he saw no one, unless it were the wife and daughter of his relative, M. de Fermont, who has been dead some years now. Besides, it was an unfortunate family, for the brother of Madame de Fermont blew his brains out some months ago."
"And the mother of M. le Vicomte?"
"He lost her a long time ago; that's the reason that, when he attained his majority, M. le Vicomte came into his mother's fortune. So, you see, my dear Edwards, that, as to inheritance, the vicomte has nothing, or almost less than nothing, to expect from his father."
"Who, moreover, detests him."
[Illustration: _He exhibited such ferocious joy. _ Original Etching by Mercier.]
"He never would see him after the discovery in question, being fully persuaded, no doubt, that he is the son of the Pole."
The conversation of these two personages was interrupted by a gigantic footman, elaborately powdered, although it was scarcely eleven o'clock.
"M. Boyer, M. le Vicomte has rung his bell twice," said the giant.
Boyer appeared immensely distressed at having apparently been inattentive to his duty, rose hastily, and followed the footman with as much haste and respect as if he had not been himself, in his proper person, the proprietor of his master's house.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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10
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THE COMTE DE SAINT-REMY.
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It was about two hours after Boyer had left Edwards to go to M. de Saint-Remy, when the father of the latter knocked at the door of the house in the Rue de Chaillot.
M. de Saint-Remy, senior, was a tall man, still active and vigorous in spite of his age. The extreme darkness of his complexion contrasted singularly with the peculiar whiteness of his beard and hair; his thick eyebrows still remained black, and half covered his piercing eyes deeply sunk in his head. Although from a kind of misanthropic feeling he wore clothes which were extremely shabby, yet there was in his entire appearance something so calm and dignified as to inspire general respect.
The door of his son's house opened, and he went in.
A porter in dress livery of brown and silver, with his hair carefully powdered, and dressed in silk stockings, appeared on the threshold of an elegant lodge, which resembled the smoky cave of the Pipelets as much as does the tub of a stocking-darner the splendid shop of a fashionable dressmaker.
"M. de Saint-Remy?" said the comte, in an abrupt tone.
The porter, instead of replying, scrutinised with impertinent curiosity the white beard, the threadbare frock coat, and the napless hat of the unknown, who held a stout cane in his hand.
"M. de Saint-Remy?" again said the comte, impatiently, and much irritated at the insolent demeanour of the porter.
"M. le Vicomte is not at home."
So saying, the co-mate of M. Pipelet opened the door, and, with a significant gesture, invited the unknown to retire.
"I will wait for him," said the comte, and he moved forward.
"Holloa! Come, I say, my friend, that's not the way people enter other people's houses!" exclaimed the porter, running after the comte, and taking him by the arm.
"What, fellow!" replied the old man, with a threatening air, and lifting his cane, "dare you to lay your hands on me?"
"I dare do more than that if you do not be off quickly. I tell you the vicomte is not within; so now go away, will you?"
At this moment Boyer, attracted by the sound of contending voices, appeared on the steps which led to the house.
"What is the meaning of this noise?" he inquired.
"M. Boyer, it is this man, who will go into the house, although I have told him that M. le Vicomte is not within."
"Hold your tongue!" said the comte. And then addressing Boyer, who had come towards them, "I wish to see my son. He is out, and therefore I will wait for him."
We have already said that Boyer was neither ignorant of the existence nor the misanthropy of his master's father; and being, moreover, a physiognomist, he did not for a moment doubt the comte's identity, but, bowing respectfully, replied: "If M. le Comte will follow me, I will conduct him--" "Very well!" said M. de Saint-Remy, who followed Boyer, to the extreme amazement of the porter.
Preceded by the _valet de chambre_, the comte reached the first story, and followed his guide across the small sitting-room of Florestan de Saint-Remy (we shall in future call the viscount by his baptismal name to distinguish him more easily from his father) until they reached a small antechamber communicating with the sitting-room, and sitting immediately over the boudoir on the ground floor.
"M. le Vicomte was obliged to go out this morning," said Boyer. "If M. le Comte will be so kind as to wait a little for him, he will not be long before he comes in." And the _valet de chambre_ quitted the apartment.
Left alone, the count looked about him with entire indifference; but suddenly he started, his face became animated, his cheeks grew purple, and anger agitated his features. His eyes had lighted on the portrait of his wife, the mother of Florestan de Saint-Remy! He folded his arms across his breast, bowed his head, as if to escape this sight, and strode rapidly up and down the room.
"This is strange!" he said. "That woman is dead--I killed her lover--and yet my wound is as deep, as sensitive, as the first day I received it; my thirst of vengeance is not yet quenched; my savage misanthropy, which has all but entirely isolated me from the world, has left me alone, and in constant contemplation of the thought of my injury. Yes; for the death of the accomplice of this infamy has avenged the outrage, but not effaced its memory from my remembrance. Oh, yes! I feel that what renders my hatred inextinguishable is the thought that, for fifteen years, I was a dupe; that for fifteen years I treated with respect and esteem a wretched woman who had infamously betrayed me; that I have loved her son--the son of crime--as if he had indeed been my own child; for the aversion with which Florestan now inspires me proves but too clearly that he is the offspring of adultery! And yet I have not the absolute conviction of his illegitimacy: it is just possible that he is still my child! And sometimes that thought is agony to me! If he were indeed my son! Then my abandonment of him, the coldness I have always testified towards him, my constant refusals to see him, are unpardonable. But, after all, he is rich, young, happy; and of what use should I be to him? Yes; but then, perchance, his tenderness might have soothed the bitter anguish which his mother has caused me!"
After a moment of deep reflection the comte shrugged his shoulders and continued: "Still these foolish suppositions, weak as useless, which revive all my suffering! Let me be a man, and overcome the absurd and painful emotion which I experience when I think that I am again about to see him whom, for ten years, I have loved with the most mad idolatry,--whom I have loved as my son; he--he--the son of the man whose blood I saw flow with such intense joy! And they would not let me be present at his last agony,--at his death! Ah, they know not what it was to have been stricken as deeply as I was! Then, too, to think that my name--always honoured and respected--should have been so often mentioned with scoff and derision, as is always mentioned that of a wronged husband! To think that my name--a name of which I had always been so proud--should now belong to a man whose father's heart I could have plucked out! Ah, I only wonder I do not go mad when I think of it!"
M. de Saint-Remy continued walking up and down in great agitation, and mechanically lifted up the curtain which separated the apartment in which he was from Florestan's private sitting-room, and advanced several strides into that chamber.
He had disappeared for the moment, when a small door hidden in the hangings of the wall opened softly, and Madame de Lucenay, wrapped in a large green cashmere shawl, having a very plain black velvet bonnet on, entered the salon, which the comte had but that instant quitted.
It is necessary to offer some explanation of this unexpected visit.
Florestan de Saint-Remy on the previous evening made an appointment with the duchess for the next morning. She having, as we have said, a key of the little gate in the narrow lane, had, as usual, entered by the conservatory, relying on finding Florestan on the ground floor boudoir; but, not finding him there, she believed (as had before occurred) that the vicomte was engaged in his cabinet.
A secret staircase led from the boudoir to the story above. Madame de Lucenay went up without hesitation, supposing that M. de Saint-Remy had given orders, as usual, to be denied to everybody. Unluckily, a threatening call from M. Badinot had compelled Florestan to go out hastily, and he had forgotten his rendezvous with Madame de Lucenay. She, not seeing any person, was about to enter the cabinet, when the curtain was thrown on one side, and the duchess found herself confronted with Florestan's father.
She could not repress a shriek.
"Clotilde!" exclaimed the comte, greatly astonished.
Intimately acquainted with the Prince de Noirmont, father of Madame de Lucenay, M. de Saint-Remy had known her from her childhood, and, during her girlhood, calling her, as he now did, by her baptismal name. The duchess, motionless with surprise, continued gazing on the old man with his white beard and mean attire, whose features she could not recall to mind.
"You, Clotilde!" repeated the comte, in an accent of painful reproach; "you here, in my son's house!"
These last words confirmed the vague reminiscence of Madame de Lucenay, who then recognised Florestan's father, and said: "M. de Saint-Remy?"
The position was so plain and declaratory that the duchess, whose peculiar and resolute character is known to the reader, disdained to have recourse to falsehood, in order to account for her appearance there; and, relying on the really paternal affection which the comte had always testified for her, she said to him, with that air at once graceful, cordial, and decided, which was so peculiarly her own: "Come, now, do not scold; you are my old, very old friend. Recollect you called me your dear little Clotilde at least twenty years ago."
"Yes, I called you so then; but--" "I know beforehand all you would say: you know my motto, 'What is, is what will be.'"
"Oh, Clotilde!"
"Spare your reproaches, and let me rather express my extreme delight at seeing you again: your presence reminds me of so many things,--my poor dear father, in the first place, and then--heigho! my 'sweet fifteen!' Oh, how delightful it is to be fifteen!"
"It is because your father was my friend that--" "Oh, yes," said the duchess, interrupting M. de Saint-Remy, "he was so very fond of you! You remember he always called you the man with the green ribands, and you always told him, 'You spoil Clotilde; mind, I tell you so;' and he replied, whilst he kissed me, 'I really do believe I spoil her, and I must make all haste and double my spoiling, for very soon the world will deprive me of her to spoil her in their turn.' Dear father! What a friend I lost!" and a tear started to the lovely eyes of Madame de Lucenay; then, extending her hand to M. de Saint-Remy, she said, in a faltering voice, "But indeed, in truth, I am happy, very happy, to see you again, you call up such precious remembrances,--memories so dear to my heart!"
The comte, although he had long been acquainted with her original and decisive disposition, was really amazed at the ease with which Clotilde reconciled herself to her exceedingly delicate position, which was no other than to meet her lover's father in her lover's house.
"If you have been in Paris for any time," continued Madame de Lucenay, "it is very naughty of you not to have come and seen me before this; for we should have had such long talks over the past; for you must know that I have reached an age when there is an excessive pleasure in saying to old friends, 'Don't you remember!'"
Assuredly the duchess could not have discoursed with more confirmed tranquillity if she were receiving a morning visit at the Hôtel de Lucenay. M. de Saint-Remy could not prevent himself from saying with severity: "Instead of talking of the past, it would be more fitting to discourse of the present. My son is expected every instant, and--" "No," said Clotilde, interrupting him, "I have the key of the little door of the conservatory, and his arrival is always announced by a ring of the bell when he returns by the principal entrance; and at that sound I shall disappear as mysteriously as I arrived, and will leave you to all your pleasure, at again seeing Florestan. What a delightful surprise you will give him! For it is so long since you forsook him. Really, now I think of it, it is I who have to reproach you."
"Me? Reproach me?"
"Assuredly. What guide, what aid had he, when he entered on the world? whilst there are a thousand things for which a father's counsels are indispensable. So, really and truly, it is very wrong of you--" Here Madame de Lucenay, yielding to the whimsicality of her character, could not help laughing most heartily, and saying to the comte: "It must be owned that our position is at least an odd one, and that it is very funny that it should be I who am sermonising you."
"Why, it does seem very strange to me, I assure you; but I deserve neither your sermons nor your praises. I have come to my son's house, but not for my son's sake. At his age, he has not, or has no longer, any need of my advice."
"What do you mean?"
"You ought to know the reason for which I hold the world, and Paris, especially, in such horror," said the comte, with a painful and distressing expression; "and you may therefore believe that nothing but circumstances of the utmost importance could have induced me to leave Angers and have come hither--to this house. But I have been forced to overcome my repugnance, and have recourse to everybody who could aid or help me in a search which is most interesting to me."
"Oh, then," said Madame de Lucenay, with affectionate eagerness, "I beg you will make use of me; dispose of me in any way in which I can be useful to you. Do you want any interest? Because De Lucenay must have some degree of influence; for, the days when I go to dine with my great-aunt, De Montbrison, he entertains the deputies; and men don't do that without some motives; and the trouble ought to be recompensed by some contingent advantages, such as a certain amount of influence over persons, who, in their turn, have a great deal of interest. So, I repeat, if we can assist you, rely on us. Then there is my cousin, the young Duke de Montbrison, who, being a peer himself, is connected with all the young peers. If he can do anything, why, I am sure you have but to command him. In a word, dispose of me and mine. You know whether or not I deserve the title of a warm and devoted friend!"
"I know it well, and do not refuse your aid, although--" "Come, my dear Alcestis, we know how the world wags, and let us act as if we did. Whether we are here or elsewhere, it is of little consequence, I imagine, as to the affair which interests you, and which now interests me very much because it is yours. Let us then talk of it, and tell me all I request of you."
So saying, the duchess approached the fireplace, leaned on the mantelpiece, and placed on the fender one of the prettiest feet in the world, which were, at the moment, somewhat chilled. With perfect tact Madame de Lucenay seized the opportunity of saying no more about the vicomte, and of engaging M. de Saint-Remy to talk of a subject to which he attached such great importance. Clotilde's conduct would have been very different in the presence of his mother, and to her she would have avowed with pleasure and pride how long he had been so dear to, so beloved by, her.
* * * * * In spite of his strictness and surliness, M. de Saint-Remy yielded to the influence of the cavalier and cordial demeanour of this lady, whom he had seen and loved when a child, and he almost forgot that he was talking to the mistress of his son. Besides, how could he resist the contagion of example, while the subject of a position which was inexpressibly embarrassing did not seem disturbed, or even think she ought to be disturbed, by the difficulty of the situation in which she unexpectedly found herself?
"Perhaps you do not know, Clotilde," said the comte, "that I have been living at Angers for a very long time?"
"Yes, I know it."
"In spite of the solitude I sought, I had selected that city because one of my relations lived there,--M. de Fermont,--who, after the heavy blow that had smitten me, behaved to me like a brother. After having accompanied me to almost every city in Europe, where I hoped to meet with the man I desired to slay, he served me for second in the duel--" "Yes, that terrible duel; my father told me all concerning it!" answered the duchess, in a sad tone of voice. "But, fortunately, Florestan is ignorant of that duel, as well as the cause that led to it."
"I wished to let him still respect his mother," replied the comte, stifling a sigh. He then continued: "Some years afterwards, M. de Fermont died at Angers in my arms, leaving a daughter and a wife, whom, in spite of my misanthropy, I was obliged to love, because nothing in the world could be more pure, more noble, than these two excellent creatures. I lived alone in a remote quarter of the city; but when my fits of black melancholy gave me some respite, I went to Madame de Fermont to talk with her and her daughter of him we had both lost. As whilst he was alive, so still I came to soothe and calm myself in that gentle friendship in whose bosom I had henceforth concentrated all my affections. The brother of Madame de Fermont dwelt in Paris, and managed all his sister's affairs after her husband's decease. He had placed about a hundred thousand crowns (12,000_l._), which was all the widow's fortune, with a notary.
"After some time another and fearful shock affected Madame de Fermont. Her brother, M. de Renneville, killed himself about eight months ago. I did all in my power to comfort her. Her first sorrow somewhat abated, she went to Paris to arrange her affairs. After some time I learned that, by her orders, they were selling off the furniture she had in her small abode at Angers, and that the money was applied to the payment of a few little debts she had left there. This disturbed me, and, on inquiry, I learned that this unhappy lady and her daughter were in dire distress,--the victims, no doubt, of a bankruptcy. If Madame de Fermont could, in such straits, rely on any one, it was on me, and yet I never received any information or application from her. It was when I lost this acquaintance that was so delightful to me that I felt all its value. You cannot imagine my suffering and my uneasiness after the departure of Madame de Fermont and her daughter. Their father--husband--had been a brother to me, and I was resolved, therefore, to find them again, to learn how it was they had not addressed me in their ruin, poor as I was; and therefore I set out, leaving at Angers a person who, if anything was learned, would inform me instantly of the news."
"Well?"
"Yesterday a letter from Angers reached me,--they know nothing. When I reached Paris I began my researches. I went first to the old servant of Madame de Fermont's brother; then they told me she lived on the Quai of the Canal St. Martin."
"Well, that address--" "Had been theirs; but they had moved, and where to was not known. Unfortunately, up to the present time, my researches have been useless. After a thousand vain attempts before I utterly despaired, I resolved to come here. Perhaps Madame de Fermont, who, from some inexplicable motive, has not asked from me aid or assistance, may have had recourse to my son as to the son of her husband's best friend. No doubt this hope has but very slight foundation; but I will not neglect any chance that may enable me to discover the poor woman and her child."
The Duchess de Lucenay, who had been listening to the comte with the utmost attention, said, suddenly: "Really it would be very singular if these should be the same persons in whom Madame d'Harville takes so much interest."
"What persons?" inquired the comte.
"The widow of whom you speak is still young, is she not? --her face very striking?"
"Yes, but how do you know?"
"Her daughter, as lovely as an angel, and about sixteen at most?"
"Yes, yes."
"And her name is Claire?"
"Oh, for mercy's sake, say, where are they?"
"Alas! I know not."
"You know not?"
"I will tell you all I know. A lady of my acquaintance, Madame d'Harville, came to me to inquire whether or not I knew a widow lady whose daughter was named Claire, and whose brother had committed suicide. Madame d'Harville inquired of me because she had seen these words, 'Write to Madame de Lucenay,' written at the bottom of a rough sketch of a letter which this unfortunate lady was writing to some stranger of whom she was asking assistance."
"She wished to write to you; and wherefore to you?"
"I cannot solve your question."
"But she knew you, it would seem," said M. de Saint-Remy, struck with a sudden idea.
"What mean you?"
"She had heard me speak of your father a hundred times, as well as of you and your generous and excellent heart. In her misfortune, it occurred to her to address you."
"That really does explain this."
"And Madame d'Harville--tell me, how did she get this sketch of a letter into her possession?"
"That I do not know; all I can say is, that, without knowing whither this poor mother and child had gone for refuge, she was, I believe, on the trace of them."
"Then I rely on you, Clotilde, to introduce me to Madame d'Harville. I must see her this very day."
"Impossible! Her husband has just been the victim of a most afflicting accident: a pistol which he did not know to be loaded went off in his hands, and he was killed on the spot."
"How horrible!"
"The marquise went instantly to pass the first months of her mourning with her father in Normandy."
"Clotilde, I beseech you, write to her to-day; ask her for all the information in her power, and, as she takes an interest in these poor women, say she cannot find a warmer auxiliary than myself; that my only desire is to find the widow of my friend, and share with her and her daughter the little I possess. They are now all my family."
"Ever the same, always generous and devoted! Rely on me. I will write to-day to Madame d'Harville. Where shall I address my answer?"
"To Asnières _Poste-Restante_."
"How odd! Why do you live there, and not in Paris?"
"I detest Paris, because of the recollections it excites in me!" said M. de Saint-Remy, with a gloomy air. "My old physician, Doctor Griffon, with whom I have kept up a correspondence, has a small house on the banks of the Seine, near Asnières, which he does not occupy in the winter; he offered it to me; it is almost close to Paris, and there I could be undisturbed, and find the solitude I desire. So I accepted it."
"I will then write to you at Asnières, and I can give you some information which may be useful to you, and which I had from Madame d'Harville. Madame de Fermont's ruin has been occasioned by the roguery of the notary in whose hands all your deceased relative's fortune was deposited. The notary denied that the money was ever placed in his hands."
"The scoundrel! And his name?"
"M. Jacques Ferrand," replied the duchess, without being able to conceal her inclination to laugh.
"How strange you are, Clotilde!" said the comte, surprised and annoyed; "nothing can be more serious, more sad than this, and yet you laugh."
In fact, Madame de Lucenay, at the recollection of the amorous declaration of the notary, had been unable to repress her hilarity.
"Pardon me, my dear sir," she replied, "but this notary is such a singular being, and they tell such odd stories about him; but, in truth, if his reputation as an honest man is not more deserved than his reputation as a religious man (and I declare that is hypocrisy) he is a great wretch."
"And he lives--" "Rue du Sentier."
"I will call upon him. What you tell me confirms certain other suspicions."
"What suspicions?"
"From certain information as to the death of the brother of my poor friend, I should be almost tempted to believe that that unhappy man, instead of committing suicide, had been the victim of assassination."
"And what can make you suppose that?"
"Several reasons, which would be too long to detail to you now. I will leave you. Do not forget the promises of service which you have made me in your own and your husband's name."
"What, will you go without seeing Florestan?"
"You may suppose how painful this interview would be to me. I would brave it only in the hope of finding some information as to Madame de Fermont, being unwilling to neglect anything to discover her. Now, then, adieu!"
"Ah, you are pitiless!"
"Do you not know?"
"I know that your son was never in greater need of your advice."
"What, is he not rich--happy?"
"Yes, but he is ignorant of mankind. Blindly extravagant, because he is generous and confiding in everything, and everywhere and always free and noble, I fear people take advantage of his liberality. If you but knew the nobleness of his heart! I have never dared to preach to him on the subject of his expenditure and want of care: in the first place, because I am as inconsiderate as himself, and next, in the second place, for other reasons; whilst you, on the contrary--" Madame de Lucenay could not finish. The voice of Florestan de Saint-Remy was heard. He entered hastily into the cabinet next to the room in which they were, and, after having shut the door suddenly, he said, in a broken voice, to some one who accompanied him: "But it is impossible."
"I tell you again," replied the clear and sharp voice of M. Badinot, "I tell you again that, if not, why, in four hours you will be apprehended; for, if he has not the cash forthwith, our man will lodge his complaint with the king's attorney-general; and you know the result of a forgery like this,--the galleys, the galleys, my poor dear vicomte!"
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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11
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THE INTERVIEW.
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It is impossible to paint the look which Madame de Lucenay and the father of Florestan exchanged at these terrible words,--"The galleys, the galleys, my poor dear vicomte!" The comte became deadly pale, and leant on the back of an armchair, whilst his knees seemed to sink beneath him. His venerable and respected name,--his name dishonoured by the man whom he accused of being the fruit of adultery!
The first feeling over, the contracted features of the old man, a threatening gesture which he made as he advanced towards the adjoining apartment, betrayed a resolution so alarming that Madame de Lucenay seized his hand, and said, in an accent of the most perfect conviction: "He is innocent; I will swear it. Listen in silence."
The comte paused. He wished to believe what the duchess said to him, and she was entirely persuaded of Florestan's untarnished honour. To obtain fresh sacrifices from this woman, so blindly generous,--sacrifices which alone could save him from arrest,--and the prosecution of Jacques Ferrand, the vicomte had affirmed to Madame de Lucenay that, duped by a scoundrel from whom he had taken a forged bill in exchange, he ran the risk of being considered as the forger's accomplice, as having himself put this bill into circulation. Madame de Lucenay knew that the vicomte was imprudent, extravagant, reckless; but she never for an instant supposed him capable, not only of a base or an infamous action, but even of the slightest indiscretion. Twice lending him considerable sums under very trying circumstances, she had wished to render him a friendly service, the vicomte expressly accepting these loans under the condition that he should return them; for there were persons, he said, who owed him double that amount; and his style of living made it seem probable.
Besides, Madame de Lucenay, yielding to the impulse of her natural kindness, had only thought of how she could be useful to Florestan, without ever reflecting as to whether or not he would ever return the sums thus advanced. He said so, and she did not doubt him; for, otherwise, would he have accepted such large amounts? When, then, she thus answered for Florestan's honour, entreating the old comte to listen to his son's conversation, the duchess thought that it was a question of the breach of honour of which the vicomte had declared himself the victim, and that he must stand forth completely exonerated in the eyes of his father.
"Again I declare," continued Florestan, in a troubled voice, "this Petit-Jean is a scamp; he assured me that he had no other bills in his hands but those which I received from him yesterday and three days previously. I believed this one was still in circulation, and only due three months hence, in London, at the house of Adams and Company."
"Yes, yes," said the sarcastic voice of Badinot, "I know, my dear vicomte, that you had managed the affair very cleverly, so that your forgeries would not be detected until you were a long way off; but you tried to 'do' those who were more cunning than yourself."
"And you dare to say that to me, now, rogue as you are," exclaimed Florestan, furious with anger, "when was it not you yourself who brought me into contact with the person who negotiated these bills?"
"Now, my dear aristocrat," replied Badinot, coolly, "be cool! You very skilfully counterfeit commercial signatures; but, although they are so adroitly done, that is no reason why you should treat your friends with disagreeable familiarity; and, if you give way to unseemly fits of temper, I shall leave you, and then you may arrange this matter by yourself."
"And do you think it possible for a man to be calm in such a position as that in which I find myself? If what you say be true, if this charge be to-day preferred at the office of the attorney-general, I am lost!"
"It is really as I tell you, unless you have again recourse to your charming, blue-eyed Providence."
"Impossible!"
"Then make up your mind to the worst. It is a pity; it was the last bill; and for five and twenty thousand miserable francs (1,000_l._) to go and take the air at Toulon is awkward, absurd, foolish! How could a clever fellow like you allow yourself to be thus taken aback?"
"What can I do? What can I do? Nothing here is my own, and I have not twenty louis in the world left."
"Your friends?"
"Why, I am in debt to every one who could lend me. Do you think else that I am such a fool as to have waited until to-day before I applied to them?"
"True; but, come, let us discuss the matter quietly; that is the best way of arriving at a reasonable conclusion. Just now, I wish to explain to you how you had been met by a party more clever than yourself, but you did not attend to me."
"Well, tell me now, if that will do any good."
"Let us recapitulate. You said to me two months since, 'I have bills on different banking-houses, at long dates, for a hundred and thirteen thousand francs (4,520_l._), and, my dear Badinot, I wish you to find me the means of cashing them.'"
"Well, and then--" "Listen: I asked you to let me see these bills; a certain something made me suspect that they were forged, although so admirably done. I did not suspect, it is true, that you were so expert in calligraphy; but, employing myself in looking after your fortune when you had no longer any fortune to look after, I found you were completely done up! I had arranged the deed by which your horses, your carriages, and the furniture of this house became the property of Boyer and Edwards. Thus, then, there was no wonder at my astonishment when I found you in possession of commercial securities to such a considerable amount, eh?"
"Never mind your astonishment, but come to the point."
"I am close upon it. I have enough experience or timidity not to be very anxious to mix myself up with affairs of this nature; I therefore advised you to consult a third party, who, no less clear-sighted than myself, suspected the trick you desired to play him."
"Impossible! He would not have discounted the bills if he had believed them forged."
"How much money down did you get for these hundred and thirteen thousand francs?"
"Twenty-five thousand francs in ready money, and the rest in small debts to collect."
"And how much of these small debts did you collect?"
"Nothing, as you very well know; they were fictitious; but still he risked twenty-five thousand francs."
"How green you are, my dear vicomte! Having my commission of a hundred louis to receive of you if the affair came off, I took very good care not to say a word to No. 3 as to the real state of your affairs. Thus he believed you entirely at your ease, and he, moreover, knew how you were adored by a certain great lady, immensely rich, who would not allow you to be left in any difficulties, and thus he was quite sure of recovering at least as much as he advanced. He ran a risk, certainly, of losing something, but he also ran a chance of gaining very considerably; and his calculation was correct, for, the other day, you counted out to him a hundred thousand francs, good and sound, in order to retire the bill for fifty-eight thousand francs; and, yesterday, thirty thousand francs for the second; for that he contented himself, it is true, with the actual amount. How you raised these thirty thousand francs yesterday, devil fetch me, if I can guess! But you are a wonderful fellow! You see, now, that, to wind up the account, if Petit-Jean forces you to pay the last bill of twenty-five thousand francs, he will have received from you a hundred and fifty-five thousand francs for the twenty-five thousand which he originally handed to you. So I was quite right when I said that you had met with a person even more clever than yourself."
"But why did he say that this last bill which he presents to-day was negotiated?"
"That you might not take the alarm, he told you also that, except that of fifty-eight thousand francs, the others were in circulation; the first being paid, yesterday comes the second, and to-day the third."
"Scoundrel!"
"Listen: every one for himself; but let us talk coolly. This must prove to you that Petit-Jean (and, between ourselves, I should not be astonished to find out that, in spite of his sanctity, Jacques Ferrand went snacks in the speculation), this must prove, I say, that Petit-Jean, led on by your first payments, speculates on this last bill, as he has speculated on the others, quite certain that your friends will not allow you to be handed over to a court of assizes. It is for you to see whether or not these friendships are yet drained dry, or if there are yet a few more drops to be squeezed out; for if, in three hours, the twenty-five thousand francs are not forthcoming, noble vicomte, you will be in the 'Stone Jug.'"
"Which you keep saying to me--" "In order that you may thoroughly comprehend me, and agree, perhaps, to try and draw another feather from the wing of this generous duchess."
"I repeat, it is useless to think of such a thing. Any hope of finding twenty-five thousand francs in three hours, after the sacrifices she has already made, would be madness to expect."
"To please you, happy mortal, impossibilities would be attempted!"
"Oh, she has already tried impossibilities; for it was one to borrow a hundred thousand francs from her husband, and to succeed; but such phenomena are not expected twice in a lifetime. Now, my dear Badinot, up to this time you have had no cause to complain of me. I have always been generous. Try and obtain some delay from this wretch, Petit-Jean. You know very well I always find a way of recompensing those who serve me; and when once this last affair is got over I will try again, and you shall be satisfied."
"Petit-Jean is as inflexible as you are unreasonable."
"I!"
"Try once more to interest your generous friend in your sad fate. Devil take it! Why not tell her plump all about it; not, as you have already, that you have been the dupe of forgers, but that you are a forger yourself?"
"I will never make to her any such confession; it would be to shame myself for no advantage."
"Do you prefer, then, that she should learn the fact to-morrow by the _Gazette des Tribunaux_."
"I have three hours before me, and can fly."
"Where can you go without money? But look at the other side of the matter. This last forged bill retired, you will be again in a splendid position; you will only have a few debts. Come, promise me that you will again speak to your duchess. You are such a fellow for the women! You know how to make yourself interesting in spite of your errors; and, let the worst come to the worst, they will like you a little the worse, or not at all; but they will extricate you from your mess. Come, come, see your lovely and loving friend once more. I will run to Petit-Jean, and I feel sure I shall get a respite of an hour or two."
"Hell! Must I, then, drink the draught of shame to the very dregs?"
"Come, come, good luck; be tender, passionate, charming. I will run to Petit-Jean; you will find me there until three o'clock; later than that will be useless; the attorney-general's office closes at four o'clock." And M. Badinot left the apartment.
When the door was closed, they heard Florestan exclaim in accents of the deepest despair: "_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! _" During this conversation, which unveiled to the comte the infamy of his son, and to Madame de Lucenay the infamy of the man she had so blindly loved, both had remained motionless, scarcely breathing, beneath this fearful disclosure. It would be impossible to depict the mute eloquence of the agonising scene which took place between this young lady and the comte when he had no longer any possible doubt as to Florestan's crime. Extending his arms to the room in which his son was, the old man smiled with bitterest sarcasm, casting an overwhelming look on Madame de Lucenay, which seemed to say, "And this is the man for whom you have braved all shame,--made every sacrifice! This is he whom you have reproached me for abandoning?"
The duchess understood the reproach, and, bowing her head, she felt all the weight of her shame. The lesson was terrible. By degrees, however, a haughty indignation succeeded to the cruel anxiety which had contracted the features of Madame de Lucenay. The inexcusable faults of this lady were at least palliated by the sincerity and disinterestedness of her love, by the boldness of her devotion and the boundlessness of her generosity, by the frankness of her character, and by her inexorable aversion from all that was contemptible and base.
Still too young, too handsome, too _recherché_, to feel the humiliation of having been merely made a tool of, when once the feeling of love was suddenly crushed within her, this haughty and decided woman felt no longer hatred or anger, but instantaneously, and without any transition, a deadly disgust, an icy disdain, at once destroyed all that affection hitherto so strong. She was no longer the mistress, unworthily deceived by her lover, but the lady of high blood and rank detecting a man of her circle to be a swindler and a forger, and driving him forth. Supposing that there were even some extenuating circumstances for the ignominy of Florestan, Madame de Lucenay would not have admitted them; for, in her estimation, the man who crossed certain bounds of honour, whether from vice, weakness, or persuasion, no longer had an existence in her eyes, honourable demeanour being with her a question of existence or non-existence. The only painful feeling which the duchess experienced was excited by the terrible effect which this unexpected revelation produced on her old friend, the comte.
For some moments he seemed neither to see nor hear; his eyes were fixed, his head bowed, his arms hanging by his side, his face livid as death; whilst from time to time a convulsive sigh heaved his breast. With such a man, as resolute as energetic, such a condition was more alarming than the most violent transports of anger. Madame de Lucenay regarded him with great uneasiness.
"Courage, my dear friend," she said to him, in a low voice, "for you,--for me,--for this man,--I know what remains for me to do."
The old man looked steadfastly at her, and then, as if aroused from his stupor by a violent internal commotion, he raised his head, his features assumed a menacing appearance, and, forgetting that his son could hear him, he exclaimed: "And I, too, for you,--for me,--and for this man,--I know what remains for me to do."
"Who is there?" inquired Florestan, surprised.
Madame de Lucenay, fearing to find herself in the vicomte's presence, disappeared by the little door, and descended the secret staircase. Florestan having again asked who was there, and receiving no reply, entered the salon. He found the comte there alone. The old man's long beard had so greatly altered him, and he was so miserably clad, that his son, who had not seen him for several years, not recognising him at the moment, advanced towards him with a menacing air.
"What are you doing there? Who are you?"
"The husband of that woman!" replied the comte, pointing to the picture of Madame de Saint-Remy.
"My father!" exclaimed Florestan, recoiling in alarm, as he recalled the features of the comte, so long forgotten.
Standing erect, with threatening air, angry look, his forehead scarlet, the comte looked down upon his son, who, with his head bent down, dared not raise his eyes towards him. Still, M. de Saint-Remy, for some motive, made a violent effort to remain calm, and conceal his real feelings and resentment.
"My father!" said Florestan, half choked. "You were there?"
"I was there."
"You heard, then?"
"All!"
"Ah!" cried the vicomte, in agony, and hiding his face in his hands.
There was a minute's silence. Florestan, at first as much astonished as annoyed at the unexpected appearance of his father, began to reflect upon what advantage he could derive from this incident.
"All is not lost," he said to himself; "my father's presence is a stroke of fate. He knows all; he will not have his name dishonoured. He is not rich, but he must possess more than twenty-five thousand francs. A little skill, and I may leave my duchess at peace, and be saved!" Then, giving to his handsome features an expression of grief and dejection, moistening his eye with the tears of repentance, assuming his most touching tone of voice, he exclaimed, clasping his hands with a gesture of despair: "Ah, father, I am indeed wretched! After so many years,--to see you--at such a moment! I must appear to you most culpable; but deign to listen to me! I beseech you, allow me, not to justify myself, but to explain to you my conduct! Will you, my father?"
M. de Saint-Remy made no reply; his features remained rigid; but, seating himself, his chin leaning on the palm of his hand, he contemplated the vicomte in silence. Had Florestan known the motives which filled the mind of his father with fury and vengeance, alarmed by the apparent composure of the comte, he would not, doubtless, have tried to dupe him. But, ignorant of the suspicions respecting the legitimacy of his birth, and of his mother's lapse of virtue, he had no doubt of the success of his deceit, thinking his father, who was very proud of his name, was capable of making any sacrifice rather than allow it to be dishonoured.
"My father," resumed Florestan, timidly, "allow me to endeavour, not to exculpate myself, but to tell you by what a series of involuntary temptations I have done, in spite of myself,--such--an infamous action."
The vicomte took his father's silence for tacit consent, and continued: "When I had the misfortune to lose my mother--my poor mother! --I was alone, without advice or support. Master of a considerable fortune, used to luxury from my cradle, it became to me a necessity. Ignorant how difficult it is to earn money, I was immeasurably prodigal. Unfortunately, my expenses, foolish as they were, were remarkable for their elegance. By my taste, I eclipsed men ten times richer than myself. This first success intoxicated me, and I became a man of extravagance, as one becomes a man of arms, or a statesman. Yes, I liked luxury, not from vulgar ostentation, but I liked it as a painter loves his art. Like every artist, I was jealous of my work, and my work was to me luxury. I sacrificed everything to its perfection. I wished to have it beautiful and complete in everything, from my stable to my drawing-room, from my coat to my house. I wished my life to be the emblem of taste and elegance. In fact, as an artist, I sought the applause of the mob and the admiration of the élite. This success is rare, but I acquired it."
As he spake, Florestan's features gradually lost their hypocritical assumption, and his eyes kindled with enthusiasm. He looked in his father's face, and, thinking it was somewhat softened, continued: "Oracle and regulator of the world, my praise or blame were law: I was quoted, copied, boasted of, admired, and that by the best circle in Paris, which is to say in Europe--in the world. The women participated in the general enthusiasm, and the loveliest contended for the pleasure of being invited to certain fêtes which I gave, and everywhere wonder was expressed at the incomparable elegance and taste displayed at these fêtes, which millionaires could not equal. In fine, I was the monarch of fashion. This word will tell you all, my father, if you comprehend it."
"I do comprehend it, and I am sure that at the galleys you will invent some refined elegance in your fashion of wearing your chain that will become the mode in your gang, and will be called _à la_ Saint-Remy," said the old man, with cutting irony, adding, "and Saint-Remy,--that is my name!" And again he was silent.
Florestan had need of all his self-control to conceal the wound which this bitter sarcasm inflicted. He continued in a more humble tone: "Alas! Father, it is not from pride that I revive the recollection of my success, for, I repeat to you, it is that success which has undone me. Sought, envied, and flattered, not by interested parasites, but by persons much superior in position to myself, I no longer calculated my fortune must be expended in a few years; that I did not heed. Could I renounce this favourite, dazzling life, in which pleasures succeeded pleasures, every kind of intoxication to every kind of enchantment? Ah, if you knew, father, what it is to be hailed as the hero of the day, to hear the murmur which greets your entrance into the salon, to hear the women say, 'That is he! There he is!' --oh, if you knew--" "I know," said the old man, without moving from his attitude,--"I know. Yes, the other day, in a public place, there was a crowd; suddenly a murmur was heard, like that which greets you when you enter some place; then the women's eyes were all turned eagerly on a very handsome young man, just as they are turned towards you, and they pointed him out to one another, saying, 'That's he! There he is!' just as if they were directing attention to you."
"And this man, my father?"
"Was a forger they were conveying to gaol."
"Ah!" exclaimed Florestan, with concentrated rage. Then affecting the deepest affliction, he added, "My father, you are pitiless,--what shall I then say to you? I do not seek to deny my errors, I only desire to explain to you the fatal infatuation which has caused them. Well, then, even if you should overwhelm me still with your bitterest sarcasms, I will endeavour to go through with this confession,--I will endeavour to make you comprehend this feverish excitement which has destroyed me, because then, perchance, you may pity me,--yes, for there is pity for a madman, and I was mad! Shutting my eyes, I abandoned myself to the dazzling whirl into which I was drawn, and drew with me the most charming women, the most delightful men. How could I check myself? As easily say to the poet who exhausts himself, and whose genius preys upon his health, 'Pause in the midst of the inspiration which urges you!' No! He could not--I could not, abdicate the royalty which I exercised, and return shamed, ruined, and mocked at, into the unknown mob, giving this triumph to those who envied me, and whom, until then, I had defied, controlled, overpowered! No! No! I could not, voluntarily, at least.
"Then came the fatal day, when, for the first time, money failed me. I was surprised as much as if such a moment never could have arrived. Yet I had still my horses, my carriages, the furniture of this house. When my debts were paid there would, perhaps, still remain to me about sixty thousand francs. What could I do in such misery? It was then, father, that I made my first step in the path of disgrace; until this time I was honourable,--I had only spent what belonged to me, but then I began to incur debts which I had no chance of paying. I sold all I had to two of my domestics in order to pay my debt to them, and to be enabled to continue for six months longer, in spite of my creditors, to enjoy the luxury which intoxicated me.
"To supply my play debts and extravagant outlay I first borrowed of the Jews, then, to pay the Jews, of my friends, then, to pay my friends, of my mistresses. These resources exhausted, there was another period of my life; from an honest man I became a gambler, but, as yet, I was not criminal--I still hesitated--I desired to take a violent resolution. I had proved in several duels that I did not fear death. I determined to kill myself!"
"Ah! Bah! Really?" said the comte, with fierce irony.
"You do not believe me, father?"
"It was too soon or too late!" replied the old man, still unmoved, and in the same attitude.
Florestan, believing that he had moved his father by speaking to him of his project for committing suicide, thought it necessary to increase the effect by a _coup de théâtre_. He opened a drawer, took from it a small bottle of greenish glass, and said to the comte, depositing it on the table: "An Italian quack sold me this poison."
"And was this poison for yourself?" said the old man, still having his chin in the palm of his hand.
Florestan understood the force of the remark, his features expressed real indignation; for this time he spoke the truth. One day he took it into his head to kill himself,--an ephemeral fancy! Persons of his stamp are usually too cowardly to make up their minds calmly, and without witnesses, to the death which they face as a point of honour in a duel. He therefore exclaimed, with an accent of truth: "I have fallen very low, but not so low as that. It was for myself that I reserved this poison."
"And then were afraid of it?" asked the comte, without changing his posture.
"I confess I recoiled before this trying extremity,--nothing was yet desperate. The persons to whom I owed money were rich and could wait. At my age, and with my connections, I hoped for a moment, if not to repair my fortunes, at least to acquire for myself an honourable position, an independence which would have supplied my present situation. Many of my friends, perhaps less qualified than myself, had made rapid progress in diplomacy. I had ambition. I had but to make it known, and I was attached to the legation to Gerolstein. Unfortunately, a few days after this nomination, a gaming debt, contracted with a man who detested me, placed me in a cruel dilemma. I had exhausted my last resources. A fatal idea flashed across my mind. Believing that I was assured of impunity, I committed an infamous action. You see, my father, I conceal nothing from you. I avow the ignominy of my conduct,--I do not seek to extenuate anything. Two alternatives are now before me, and I am equally inclined to either. The one is to kill myself, and leave your name dishonoured; for if I do not pay this very day the twenty-five thousand francs, the accusation is made, and all is made public, and, dead or alive, I am disgraced. The second is to throw myself into your arms, father, to say to you, 'Save your son,--save your name from infamy;' and I swear to you to depart for Africa to-morrow, and die a soldier's death, or return to you completely restored in reputation. What I say to you, father, is true,--in face of the extremity which overwhelms me, I have no other resource. Decide: shall I die covered with shame, or, thanks to you, live to repair my fault? These are not the threats of a young man. I am twenty-five; I bear your name, and I have sufficient courage either to kill myself, or to become a soldier; for I will not go to the galleys."
[Illustration: _Was about to embrace his father. _ Etching by Marcel after the drawing by Frank T. Merrill.]
The comte rose from his seat, saying: "I do not desire to have my name dishonoured."
"Oh, my father!" exclaimed the vicomte, with warmth, and was about to embrace his father, when the old man, repressing his enthusiasm, said: "You are expected until three o'clock at the man's house who has the forged bill?"
"Yes, father, and it is now two o'clock."
"Let us go into your cabinet; give me writing materials."
"They are here, father."
The comte sat down and wrote, with a firm hand: "I undertake to pay this evening, at ten o'clock, the twenty-five thousand francs which my son owes.
"COMTE DE SAINT-REMY."
"Your creditor merely wants his money; my guarantee will obtain a further delay. Let him go to M. Dupont, the banker, at No. 7 in the Rue Richelieu, and he will assure him of the validity of this promise."
"Oh, my father! How can I ever--" "Expect me this evening; at ten o'clock I will bring the money. Let your creditor be here."
"Yes, father, and the day after I will set out for Africa. You shall see that I am not ungrateful! Then, perhaps, when I am again restored to honour you will accept my thanks?"
"You owe me nothing. I have said that my name shall not be dishonoured again; nor shall it be," said M. de Saint-Remy, in reply, taking up his cane, and moving towards the door.
"My father, at least shake hands with me!" said Florestan.
"Here this evening at ten o'clock," said the comte, refusing his hand.
"Saved!" exclaimed Florestan, joyously,--"saved!" Then he continued, after a moment's reflection: "Saved--almost--no matter--it is always so. Perhaps this evening I shall tell him of the other thing. He is in the vein, and will not allow a first sacrifice to become useless for lack of a second. Yet why should I tell him? Who will ever know it? Yet, if nothing should be discovered, I shall keep the money he will give me to pay this last debt. I had some work to move him. The bitterness of his sarcasms made me suspicious of his good resolution; but my threat of suicide, the fear of seeing his name dishonoured, decided him. That was the way to hit him. No doubt he is not so poor as he appears to be. But his arrival was indeed a godsend. Now, then, for the man of law!"
He rang the bell, and M. Boyer appeared.
"How was it that you did not inform me that my father was here? Really, this is most negligent."
"Twice I endeavoured to address your lordship when you came in by the garden gate with M. Badinot, but your lordship made me a sign with your hand not to interrupt you. I did not venture to insist. I should be very much grieved if your lordship should impute negligence to me."
"Very well. Desire Edwards to harness Orion or Ploughboy in the cabriolet immediately."
M. Boyer made a respectful bow. As he was about to quit the room, some one knocked. He looked at the vicomte with an inquiring air.
"Come in!" said Florestan.
A second _valet de chambre_ appeared, bearing in his hand a small silver-gilt waiter. M. Boyer took hold of the waiter with a kind of jealous haste, and presented it to the vicomte, who took from it a thick packet, sealed with black wax.
The two servants withdrew discreetly.
Florestan broke open the envelope. It contained twenty-five thousand francs in treasury bills, but not a word of writing.
"Decidedly," he exclaimed, in a joyful tone, "the day is propitious! Saved this time, and at this moment completely saved! I will run to the jeweller; and yet," he added, "perhaps--no--let us wait--he cannot have any suspicion of me. Twenty-five thousand francs is a pleasant sum to have by one! _Pardieu! _ I was a fool ever to doubt the luck of my star; at the moment when it seemed most obscure, has it not burst forth more brilliant than ever? But where does this money come from? The writing of the address is unknown to me. Let me examine the seal,--the cipher. Yes, yes, I cannot mistake; an N and an L,--it is Clotilde! How could she know? And not a word,--that's strange! How very opportune, though! Ah, _mon Dieu! _ now I remember. I had an appointment with her this morning. That Badinot's threats drove it out of my head. I forgot Clotilde. After having waited for me down-stairs, no doubt she went away; and this is, unquestionably, a delicate way of making me understand that she fears I may forget her through some pecuniary embarrassment. Yes, it is an indirect reproach that I have not applied to her as usual. Good Clotilde! Always the same,--generous as a queen! What a pity I was ever driven to ask her,--her still so handsome! I sometimes regret it, but I only did it in a direful extremity, and on sheer compulsion."
"Your lordship's cabriolet is at the door," said M. Boyer, on entering the room.
"Who brought this letter?" Florestan inquired.
"I do not know, my lord."
"Well, I will ask below. But tell me, was there no one in the ground floor?" asked the vicomte, looking significantly at Boyer.
"There is no one there now, my lord."
"I was not mistaken," thought Florestan; "Clotilde waited for me, and is now gone."
"If your lordship would have the goodness to grant me two minutes," said Boyer.
"Speak, but be quick!"
"Edwards and myself have learnt that the Duc de Montbrison is desirous of forming an establishment. If your lordship would but just be so kind to propose your own ready furnished, with the stable in first-rate order, it would be a most admirable opportunity for Edwards and myself to get the whole off our hands, and, perhaps, for your lordship a good reason for disposing of them." " _Pardieu! _ Boyer, you are right. As for me, I should prefer such an arrangement. I will see Montbrison, and speak to him. What are your terms?"
"Your lordship will easily understand that we are desirous of profiting as much as possible by your generosity."
"And turn your bargain to the best advantage? Nothing can be plainer! Let us see,--what's the price?"
"The whole, two hundred and sixty thousand francs (10,400_l._), my lord."
"And you and Edwards will thus clear--" "About forty thousand francs (1,600_l._), my lord."
"A very nice sum! But so much the better, for, after all, I am very much satisfied with you, and, if I had to make my will, I should have bequeathed that sum to you and Edwards."
And the vicomte went out, first to call on his creditor, then on Madame de Lucenay, whom he did not suspect of having been present at his conversation with Badinot.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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12
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THE SEARCH.
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The Hôtel de Lucenay was one of those royal residences of the Faubourg St. Germain, which the space employed, and, as it were, lost, make so vast. A modern house might, with ease, be contained in the limits devoted to the staircase of one of these palaces, and a whole quarter might be built in the extent they occupy.
About nine o'clock in the evening of this day the two vast folding-doors of this hôtel opened on the arrival of a magnificent chariot, which, after having taken a dashing turn in the spacious courtyard, stopped before the large covered flight of steps which led to the first antechamber. Whilst the hoofs of two powerful and high-couraged horses sounded on the echoing pavement, a gigantic footman opened the door, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and a young man alighted gracefully from this brilliant carriage, and no less gracefully walked up the five or six steps of the entrance. This young man was the Vicomte de Saint-Remy.
On leaving his creditor, who, satisfied with the undertaking of Florestan's father, had granted the required delay, and was to come and receive his money at ten o'clock in the Rue de Chaillot, M. de Saint-Remy had gone to Madame de Lucenay's, to thank her for the fresh service she had rendered him, and, not having seen the duchess during the morning, he came triumphant, certain of finding her in _prima sera_, the hour which she constantly reserved for him.
By the attention of the footmen in the antechamber, who hastened to open the glass door as soon as they saw Florestan's carriage, by the profoundly respectful air with which the rest of the livery all rose as the vicomte passed by, and by certain, yet almost imperceptible touches, it was evident that here was the second, or, rather, the real master of the house.
When the Duc de Lucenay returned home, with his umbrella in his hand and his feet protected by clumsy goloshes (he hated going out in a carriage in the daytime), the same domestic evolutions were gone through with similar respect; still, in the eyes of a keen observer, there was a vast difference between the reception accorded to the husband and that reserved for the lover.
A corresponding attention displayed itself in the footman's waiting-room when Florestan entered it, and one of the valets instantly arose to announce him to Madame de Lucenay.
The vicomte had never been more joyous, never felt himself more at his ease, more confident of himself, more assured of conquest. The victory he had obtained over his father in the morning, the fresh proof of attachment on the part of Madame de Lucenay, the joy at having escaped, as it were, by a miracle, from a terrible situation, his renewed confidence in his star, gave his handsome features an expression of boldness and good humour which rendered it still more captivating.
In fact, he had never felt himself more himself. And he was right. Never had his slender and graceful figure displayed a finer carriage, never had his look been more elevated, never had his pride been more deliciously tickled by the thought, "The great lady--the mistress of this palace is mine--is at my feet! This very morning she waited for me in my own house!"
Florestan had given way to these excessively vain-glorious reflections as he traversed three or four apartments, which led to a small room in which the duchess usually sat. A last look at himself in a glass which he passed completed the excellent opinion which Florestan had of himself. The _valet de chambre_ opened the folding-doors of the salon, and announced, "Monsieur the Vicomte de Saint-Remy!"
It is impossible to paint the astonishment and indignation of the duchess. She believed the comte had not concealed from his son that she also had overheard all.
We have already said that, on discovering Florestan's infamy, Madame de Lucenay's love, suddenly quenched, had changed into the most frigid disdain. We have also said that, in the midst of her errors, her frailties, Madame de Lucenay had preserved pure and intact her feelings of rectitude, honour, and chivalric frankness, whose strength and requirements were excessively strong. She possessed the better qualities of her faults, the virtues of her vices.
Treating love as cavalierly as a man treats it, she pushed as far, nay, further, than a man, devotion, generosity, courage, and, above all, intense horror of all baseness. Madame de Lucenay, being about to go to a party in the evening, was, although without her diamonds, dressed with her accustomed taste and magnificence; and her splendid costume, the rouge she wore without attempt at concealment, like a court lady, up to her eyelids, her beauty, which was especially brilliant at candle-light, her figure of a goddess walking in the clouds, rendered still more striking that noble air which no one displayed to greater advantage than she did, and which she carried, if requisite, to a height of insolence that was overwhelming.
We know the haughty and resolute disposition of the duchess, and we may imagine her physiognomy, her look, when the vicomte, advancing towards her, conceited, smiling, confident, said, in a tone of love: "Dearest Clotilde, how good you are! How you--" The vicomte could not finish. The duchess was seated, and had not risen; but her gesture, her glance, betokened contempt, at once so calm and crushing that Florestan stopped short. He could not utter another word, nor advance another step. He had never before seen Madame de Lucenay under this aspect. He could not believe that it was the same woman, whom he had always found gentle, tender, and passionately submissive; for nothing is more humble, more timid, than a determined woman in the presence of the man whom she loves and who controls her.
His first surprise past, Florestan was ashamed of his weakness; his habitual audacity resumed its ascendency, and, making a step towards Madame de Lucenay in order to take her hand, he said, in his most insinuating tone: "Clotilde, what ails you? I never saw you look so lovely, and yet--" "Really, this is too impudent!" exclaimed the duchess, recoiling with such disgust and hauteur that Florestan was again overcome with surprise.
Resuming some assurance, he said to her: "Will you, at least, Clotilde, tell me the cause of this change, sudden, singular as it is? What have I done? How have I offended?"
Without making any reply, Madame de Lucenay looked at him, as is vulgarly said, from head to foot, with so insulting an expression that Florestan felt red with the anger which displayed itself upon his brow, and exclaimed: "I am aware, madame, that it is thus you habitually break off. Is it a rupture that you now desire?"
"The question is singular!" said Madame de Lucenay, with a sarcastic laugh. "Learn, sir, that when a lackey robs me, I do not break with him, I turn him away."
"Madame!"
"Oh, a truce to this!" said the duchess, in a stern and peremptory tone. "Your presence disgusts me! Why are you here? Have you not had your money?"
"It is true, then, as I guessed, the twenty-five thousand francs--" "Your last forgery is withdrawn, is it not? The honour of your family's name is saved,--that is well,--go!"
"Ah! believe me--" "I very much regret that money, for it might have succoured so many honest families; but it was necessary to think of the shame to your father and to myself."
"So then, Clotilde, you know all? Ah, then, now nothing is left me but to die!" exclaimed Florestan, in a most pathetic and despairing tone.
A burst of derisive laughter from the duchess hailed this tragic exclamation, and she added, between two fits of fresh hilarity: "I could never have believed infamy could appear so ridiculous!"
"Madame!" cried Florestan, his features contracted with rage.
The two folding-doors opened with a loud noise, and M. le Duc de Montbrison was announced.
In spite of his self-command, Florestan could scarcely repress the violence of his resentment, which any man more observing than the duke must certainly have perceived.
M. de Montbrison was scarcely eighteen years of age. Let our readers imagine a most engaging countenance, like that of a young girl, white and red, whose vermilion lips and downy chin were slightly shaded by a nascent beard. Let them add to this large brown eyes, as yet timid, but which in time would gleam like a falcon's, a figure as graceful as that of the duchess herself, and then, perhaps, they may have some idea of this young duke, the Cherubino as complete in idea as ever countess or waiting-maid decked in a woman's cap, after having remarked the ivory whiteness of his neck.
The vicomte had the weakness or the audacity to remain.
"How kind of you, Conrad, to think of me this evening!" said Madame de Lucenay, in a most affectionate voice, and extending her hand to the young duke, who was about to shake hands with his cousin, but Clotilde raised her hand a little, and said to him gaily: "Kiss it, cousin,--you have your gloves on."
"Pardon me, my dear cousin," said the young man, as he applied his lips to the naked and charming hand that was offered to him.
"What are you going to do this evening, Conrad?" inquired Madame de Lucenay, without seeming to take the slightest notice in the world of Florestan.
"Nothing, cousin; when I leave you, I shall go to the club."
"Indeed you shall not; you shall accompany us, M. de Lucenay and me, to Madame de Senneval's; she gives a party, and has frequently asked me to introduce you to her."
"I shall be but too happy."
"Then, too, I must tell you frankly that I don't like to see you begin so early with your habits and tastes for clubs. You are possessed of everything necessary in order to be everywhere welcomed, and even sought after, in the world, and you ought, therefore, to mix with it as much as possible."
"Yes, you are right, cousin."
"And as I am on the footing of a grandmother with you, my dear Conrad, I am determined to exact a great deal from you. You are emancipated, it is true, but I believe you will want a guardian for a long time to come, and you must, therefore, consider me in that light."
"Most joyfully, happily, cousin!" said the young duke, emphatically.
It is impossible to describe the mute rage of Florestan, who was standing up, and leaning with his elbow on the mantelpiece. Neither the duke nor Clotilde paid the slightest attention to him. Knowing the rapidity with which Madame de Lucenay decided, he imagined she was pushing her boldness and contempt so far as to commence at once, and in his presence, a regular flirtation with the Duc de Montbrison.
It was not so. The duchess felt for her cousin nothing beyond a truly maternal affection, having almost seen him born. But the young duke was so handsome, and seemed so happy at the agreeable reception of his cousin, that the jealousy, or, rather, pride of Florestan was aroused. His heart writhed beneath the cruel wounds of envy, excited by Conrad de Montbrison, who, rich and handsome, was beginning so splendidly that life of pleasures, enjoyments, and fêtes, from which he, ruined, undone, despised, dishonoured, was expelled.
M. de Saint-Remy was brave with that bravery of the head, if we may so call it, which will urge a man, by anger or by vanity, to face a duel. But, vitiated and corrupted, he had not the courage of the heart which triumphs over bad inclinations, or which, at least, gives the energy which enables a man to escape infamy by a voluntary death. Furious at the bitter contempt of the duchess, believing he saw a successor in the young duke, M. de Saint-Remy resolved to confront Madame de Lucenay with all insolence, and, if need were, to seek a quarrel with Conrad.
The duchess, irritated at Florestan's audacity, did not look towards him, and M. de Montbrison, in his anxious attention to his cousin, forgetting something of his high breeding, had not saluted or spoken a word to the vicomte, with whom he was acquainted. The latter, advancing to Conrad, whose back was towards him, touched his arm lightly, and said, in a dry and ironical tone: "Good evening, sir; a thousand pardons for not having observed you before."
M. de Montbrison, perceiving that he had really failed in politeness, turned around instantly, and said cordially to the vicomte: "Really, sir, I am ashamed; but I hope that my cousin, who caused my forgetfulness, will be my excuse, and--" "Conrad," interposed the duchess, immeasurably annoyed at Florestan's impudence, persisting as he did in remaining, as it were, to brave her,--"Conrad, that will do; make no apologies; it is not worth while."
M. de Montbrison, believing that his cousin was reproaching him in joke for being somewhat too formal, said, in a gay tone, to the vicomte, who was livid with rage: "I will not say more, sir, since my cousin forbids me. You see her guardianship has begun."
"And will not stop when it begins, my dear sir, be assured of that. Thus, with this notice (which Madame la Duchesse will hasten to fulfil, I have no doubt)--with this notice, I say, I have it in my mind to make you a proposal."
"To me, sir?" said Conrad, beginning to take offence at the sardonic tone of Florestan.
"To you yourself. I leave in a few days for the legation to Gerolstein, to which I am attached. I wish, therefore, to get my house, completely furnished, and my stable, entirely arranged, off my hands; and you might find it a suitable arrangement;" and the vicomte insolently emphasised his last words, looking Madame de Lucenay full in the face. "It would be very piquant, would it not, Madame la Duchesse?"
"I do not understand you, sir," said M. de Montbrison, more and more astonished.
"I will tell you, Conrad, why you cannot accept the offer that is made you," said Clotilde.
"And why, Madame la Duchesse, cannot the duke accept my offer?"
"My dear Conrad, what is offered you for sale is already sold to others. So, you understand, you would have the inconvenience of being robbed just as if you were in a wood."
Florestan bit his lips with rage.
"Take care, madame!" he cried.
"What, threats! and here, sir?" exclaimed Conrad.
"Pooh, pooh! Conrad, pay no attention," said Madame de Lucenay, taking a lozenge from a sweetmeat box with the utmost composure; "a man of honour ought not and cannot have any future communication with that person. If he likes, I will tell you why."
A tremendous explosion would no doubt have occurred, when the two folding-doors again opened, and the Duc de Lucenay entered, noisily, violently, hurriedly, as was "his usual custom in the afternoon," as well as the forenoon.
"Ah, my dear! What, dressed already?" said he to his wife. "Why, how surprising! Quite astonishing! Good evening, Saint-Remy; good evening, Conrad. Ah, you see the most miserable of men; that is to say, I neither sleep nor eat, but am completely 'done up.' Can't reconcile myself to it. Poor D'Harville, what an event!" And M. de Lucenay threw himself back in a sort of small sofa with two backs, and, crossing his left knee over his right, took his foot in his hand, whilst he continued to utter the most distressing exclamations.
The excitement of Conrad and Florestan had time to calm down, without being perceived by M. de Lucenay, who was the least clear-sighted man in the world.
Madame de Lucenay, not from embarrassment, for she was never embarrassed, as we know, but because Florestan's presence was as disgusting as it was insupportable, said to the duke: "We are ready to go as soon as you please. I am going to introduce Conrad to Madame de Senneval."
"No, no, no!" cried the duke, letting go his foot to seize one of the cushions, on which he struck violently with his two fists, to the great alarm of Clotilde, who, at the sudden cries of her husband, started from her chair.
"Monsieur, what ails you?" she inquired; "you frighten me exceedingly."
"No," replied the duke, thrusting the cushion from him, rising suddenly, and walking up and down with rapid strides and gesticulations, "I cannot get over the idea of the death of poor dear D'Harville; can you, Saint-Remy?"
"Indeed, it was a frightful event!" said the vicomte, who, with hatred and rage in his heart, kept his eye on M. de Montbrison; but this latter, after the last words of his cousin, turned away from a man so deeply degraded, not from want of feeling, but from pride.
"For goodness' sake, my lord," said the duchess to her husband, "do not regret the loss of M. d'Harville in so noisy and really so singular a manner. Ring, if you please for my carriage."
"Yes, it is really true," said M. de Lucenay, seizing the bell-rope, "really true that, three days ago, he was full of life and health, and, to-day, what remains of him? Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!"
These three last exclamations were accompanied by three such violent pulls that the bell-rope, which the duke held in his hand whilst he was gesticulating, broke away from the upper spring, fell on a candelabra filled with lighted wax candles, knocked two of them out of the sconces, one of which, falling on the mantelpiece, broke a lovely little cup of old Sèvres china; whilst the other, falling on the ground, rolled on a fur hearth rug, which took flame, but was soon extinguished under Conrad's foot.
At the same moment, two _valets de chambre_, summoned by the furious ringing, entered hastily, and found M. de Lucenay with the bell-rope in his hand, the duchess laughing heartily at this ridiculous fall of the wax lights, and M. de Montbrison sharing her mirth. M. de Saint-Remy alone did not laugh. M. de Lucenay, quite accustomed to such accidents, preserved his usual seriousness, and, throwing the bell-rope to one of the men, said: "The duchess's carriage."
Clotilde, having somewhat recovered her composure, said: "Really, my lord, there is no man in the world but yourself capable of exciting laughter at so lamentable an event."
"Lamentable! Say fearful. Why, now, only yesterday, I was recollecting how many persons in my own family I would rather should have died than poor D'Harville. First, there's my nephew, D'Emberval, who stutters so annoyingly; then there's your Aunt Mérinville, who is always talking about her nerves and her headache, and who always gobbles up every day, whilst she is waiting for dinner, a mess of broth like a porter's wife. Are you very fond of your Aunt Mérinville?"
"Really, my lord, have you lost your wits?" said the duchess, shrugging her shoulders.
"It's true enough, though," continued the duke; "one would give twenty indifferent persons for one friend; eh, Saint-Remy?"
"Unquestionably."
"It is the old story of the tailor over again. Do you know it, Conrad,--the story of the tailor?"
"No, cousin."
"You will understand the allegory at once. A tailor was going to be hanged; he was the only tailor in the village. What were the inhabitants to do? They said to the judge, 'Please your judgeship, we have only one tailor, and we have three shoemakers; if it is all the same to you, please to hang one of the three shoemakers in the place of the tailor, for two shoemakers are enough.' Do you understand the allegory, Conrad?"
"Yes, cousin."
"And you, Saint-Remy?"
"Quite."
"Her grace's carriage!" said one of the servants.
"But, I say, why haven't you put on your diamonds?" asked M. de Lucenay, abruptly; "with that dress they would look remarkably well."
Saint-Remy shuddered.
"For the one poor time we are going out together," continued the duke, "you might have done us the honour to wear your diamonds. The duchess's diamonds are particularly fine. Did you ever see them, Saint-Remy?"
"Yes, he knows them well enough!" said Clotilde; and then she added, "Your arm, Conrad."
M. de Lucenay followed the duchess with Saint-Remy, who could scarcely repress his anger.
"Aren't you coming with us to the Sennevals, Saint-Remy?" inquired M. de Lucenay.
"No, impossible," he replied, briefly.
"By the way, Saint-Remy, there's Madame de Senneval, too,--what, do I say one? There's two--whom I would willingly sacrifice, for her husband is also on my list."
"What list?"
"That of the people whom I should not have cared to see die, provided D'Harville had been left to us."
At the moment when they were in the anteroom, and M. de Montbrison was helping the duchess on with her mantle, M. de Lucenay, addressing his cousin, said to him: "Since you are coming with us, Conrad, desire your carriage to follow ours; unless you will decide on coming, Saint-Remy, and then you shall take me, and I will tell you another story quite as good as that of the tailor."
"Thank you," said Saint-Remy, dryly, "I cannot accompany you."
"Well, then, good night, my dear fellow. Have you and my wife quarrelled, for she is getting into her carriage without saying a word to you?"
And at this moment, the duchess's berline having drawn up at the steps, she entered it.
"Now, cousin," said Conrad, waiting for M. de Lucenay with an air of deference.
"Get in! Get in!" said the duke, who had stopped a moment, and, from the door, was contemplating the elegant equipage of the vicomte. "Are those your grays, Saint-Remy?"
"Yes."
"And your jolly-looking Edwards! He's what I call a right sort of coachman. How well he has his horses in hand! To do justice, there is no one who, like Saint-Remy, does things in such devilish high style!"
"My dear fellow, Madame de Lucenay and your cousin are waiting for you," said M. de Saint-Remy, with bitterness. " _Pardieu! _ and that's true. What a forgetful rascal I am! _Au revoir_, Saint-Remy. Ah, I forgot," said the duke, stopping half way down the steps, "if you have nothing better to do, come and dine with us to-morrow. Lord Dudley has sent us some grouse from Scotland, and they are out-of-the-way things, you know. You'll come, won't you?" And the duke sprang into the carriage which contained his wife and Conrad.
Saint-Remy remained alone on the steps, and saw the carriage drive away. His own then drove up. He got into it, casting on that house which he had so often entered as master, and which now he so ignominiously quitted, a look of anger, hatred, and despair.
"Home!" he said, abruptly.
"To the hôtel!" said the footman to Edwards, as he closed the door.
We may imagine how bitter and desolating were Saint-Remy's thoughts as he returned to his house. At the moment when he reached it, Boyer, who awaited him at the portico, said to him: "M. le Comte is above, and waits for M. le Vicomte."
"Very well."
"And there is also a man whom your lordship appointed at ten o'clock,--a M. Petit-Jean."
"Very well. Oh, what an evening party!" said Florestan, as he went up-stairs to see his father, whom he found in the salon on the first floor, the same room in which their meeting of the morning had taken place. "A thousand pardons, my father, that I was not awaiting you when you arrived; but I--" "Is the man here who holds the forged bill?" inquired the comte, interrupting his son.
"Yes, father, he is below."
"Desire him to come up."
Florestan rang, and Boyer appeared.
"Desire M. Petit-Jean to come up."
"Yes, my lord," and Boyer withdrew.
"How good you are, father, to remember your kind promise!"
"I always remember what I promise."
"What gratitude do I owe you! How can I ever prove to you--" "I will not have my name dishonoured! It shall not be!"
"It shall not be! No, it shall never be, I swear to you, my father!"
The comte looked strangely at his son, and repeated: "No, it shall never be!" Then he added, with a sarcastic air, "You are a prophet."
"I read my resolution in my heart."
Florestan's father made no rejoinder. He walked up and down the room with his two hands thrust into the pockets of his long coat. He was very pale.
"M. Petit-Jean," said Boyer, introducing a man of a mean, sordid, and crafty look.
"Where is the bill?" inquired the comte.
"Here it is, sir," said Petit-Jean (Jacques Ferrand the notary's man of straw), handing the bill to the comte.
"Is this it?" said the latter, showing the bill to his son.
"Yes, father."
The comte took from his waistcoat pocket twenty-five notes of a thousand francs each, handed them to his son, and said: "Pay!"
Florestan paid, and took the bill with a deep sigh of the utmost satisfaction. M. Petit-Jean put the notes carefully in an old pocket-book, made his bow, and retired. M. de Saint-Remy left the salon with him, whilst Florestan was very carefully tearing up the bill.
"At least Clotilde's twenty-five thousand francs are still in my pocket, and if nothing is revealed, that is a comfort. But how she treated me! But what can my father have to say to the man Petit-Jean?"
The noise of a door being double-locked made the vicomte start. His father returned to the room. His pallor had even increased.
"I fancied, father, I heard you lock the door of my cabinet?"
"Yes, I did."
"And why, my dear father?" asked Florestan, greatly amazed.
"I will tell you."
And the comte placed himself so that his son could not pass out by the secret staircase which led to the ground floor.
Florestan, greatly disquieted, now observed the sinister look of his father, and followed all his movements with mistrust. Without being able to account for it, he felt a vague alarm.
"What ails you, father?"
"This morning when you saw me, your only thought was, 'My father will not allow his name to be dishonoured; he will pay if I can but contrive to wheedle him by some feigned words of repentance.'"
"Can you indeed think--" "Do not interrupt me. I have not been your dupe; you have neither shame, regret, nor remorse. You are vicious to the very core, you have never felt one honest aspiration, you have not robbed as long as you have been in possession of wherewithal to gratify your caprices,--that is what is called the probity of rich persons of your stamp. Then came the want of delicate feeling, then meannesses, then crime, then forgery. This is but the first period of your life,--it is bright and pure in comparison with that which would be yet to come."
"If I did not change my conduct, assuredly; but I shall change it, father, I have sworn to you."
"You will not change it."
"But--" "You will not change it! Expelled from society in which you have hitherto lived, you would become very quickly criminal, like the wretches amongst whom you would be cast, a thief inevitably, and, if your need were, an assassin. That would be your future life."
"I an assassin? --I?"
"Yes, because you are a coward!"
"I have had duels, and have evinced--" "I tell you, you are a coward! You have already preferred infamy to death. A day would come in which you would prefer the impunity for fresh crimes to the life of another. This must not be,--I will not allow it. I have come in time, at least, to save my name from public dishonour hereafter. There must be an end to this."
"What do you mean, dearest father? How an end to this? What would you imply?" exclaimed Florestan, still more alarmed at the fearful expression and the increased pallor of his father's countenance.
Suddenly there was a violent blow struck on the cabinet door. Florestan made a motion to go and open it, in order to put an end to a scene which terrified him; but the comte seized him with a hand of iron, and held him fast.
"Who knocks?" inquired the comte.
"In the name of the law, open! Open!" said a voice.
"That forgery, then, was not the last," exclaimed the comte, in a low voice, and looking at his son with a terrible air.
"Yes, my father, I swear it!" exclaimed Florestan, endeavouring, but vainly, to extricate himself from the vigorous grasp of his father.
"In the name of the law, open!" repeated the voice.
"What is it you seek?" demanded the comte.
"I am a commissary of police, and I have come to make a search after a robbery of diamonds, of which M. de Saint-Remy is accused. M. Baudoin, a jeweller, has proofs. If you do not open, sir, I shall be compelled to force open the door."
"Already a thief! I was not then deceived," said the comte, in a low voice. "I came to kill you,--I have delayed too long."
"Kill me?"
"There is already too much dishonour on my name,--it must end. I have here two pistols; you must blow out your brains, or I will blow them out, and I will say that you killed yourself in despair in order to escape from shame."
And, with a fearful _sang-froid_, the comte drew a pistol from his pocket, and, with the hand that was free, presented it to his son, saying: "Now an end to this, if, indeed, you are not a coward!"
After repeated and ineffectual attempts to free himself from the comte's hand, his son fell back aghast and livid with fear. He saw by the fearful look, the inexorable demeanour of his father, that he had no pity to expect from him.
"My father!" he exclaimed.
"You must die!"
"I repent!"
"It is too late. Hark! They are forcing in the door!"
"I will expiate my faults!"
"They are entering! Must I then kill you with my own hand?"
"Pardon!"
"The door gives way! You will then have it so!"
And the comte placed the muzzle of the weapon against Florestan's breast.
The noise without announced that the door of the cabinet could not long resist. The vicomte saw he was lost. A sudden and desperate resolution lighted up his countenance. He no longer struggled with his father, and he said to him, with equal firmness and resignation: "You are right, my father! Give me the pistol! There is infamy enough on my name! The life in store for me is frightful, and is not worth the trouble of a struggle. Give me the pistol! You shall see if I am a coward!" and he put forth his hand to take the pistol. "But, at least, one word,--one single word of consolation,--pity,--farewell!" said Florestan; and his trembling lips, his paleness, his agitated features, all betokened the terrible emotion of this frightful moment.
"But what if he were, indeed, my son!" thought the comte, with terror, and hesitating to hand him the deadly instrument. "If he were my son I ought to hesitate before such a sacrifice."
A loud cracking of the cabinet door announced that it was being forced.
"My father, they are coming! Oh, now I feel that death is indeed a benefit. Yes, now I thank you! But, at least, your hand,--and forgive me!"
In spite of his sternness, the comte could not repress a shudder, as he said, in a voice of emotion: "I forgive you."
"My father, the door opens; go to them, that, at least, they may not even suspect you. Besides, if they enter here, they will prevent me from completing,--adieu!"
The steps of several persons were heard in the next room. Florestan placed the muzzle of the pistol to his heart. It went off at the instant when the comte, to avoid the horrid sight, turned away his head, and rushed out of the salon, whose curtains closed upon him.
At the sound of this explosion, at the sight of the comte, pale and haggard, the commissary stopped short at the threshold of the door, making a sign to his agents to pause also.
Informed by Boyer that the vicomte was shut up with his father, the magistrate understood all, and respected his deep grief.
"Dead!" exclaimed the comte, hiding his face in his hands. "Dead!" he repeated in a tone of agony. "It was just,--better death than infamy! But it is horrible!"
"Sir," said the magistrate, sorrowfully, after a few minutes' silence, "spare yourself a painful spectacle,--leave the house. And now I have another duty to fulfil, even more painful than that which summoned me hither."
"You are quite right, sir," said M. de Saint-Remy; "as to the sufferer by this robbery, you will request him to call on M. Dupont, the banker."
"In the Rue Richelieu? He is very well known," replied the magistrate.
"What is the estimated value of the stolen diamonds?"
"About thirty thousand francs. The person who bought them, and by whom the fraud was detected, gave that amount for them to your son."
"I can still pay it, sir. Let the jeweller go to my banker the day after to-morrow, and I will have it all arranged."
The commissary bowed. The comte left the room.
After the departure of the latter, the magistrate, deeply affected by this unlooked-for scene, went slowly towards the salon, the curtains of which were closed. He moved them on one side with agitation.
"Nobody!" he exclaimed, amazed beyond measure, and looking around him, unable to see the least trace of the tragic event which he believed had just occurred.
Then, seeing a small door in the panel of the apartment, he went towards it. It was fastened in the side of the secret staircase.
"It was a trick, and he has escaped by this door!" he exclaimed, with vexation.
And in fact, the vicomte, having in his father's presence placed the pistol on his heart, had very dexterously fired it under his arm, and rapidly made off.
In spite of the most careful search throughout the house, they could not discover Florestan.
During the conversation with his father and the commissary, he had quickly gained the boudoir, then the conservatory, then the lone alley, and so to the Champs Elysées.
* * * * * The picture of this ignoble degradation in opulence is a sad thing.
We are aware of it. But for want of warnings, the richer classes have also fatally their miseries, vices, crimes. Nothing is more frequent and more afflicting than those insensate, barren prodigalities which we have now described, and which always entail ruin, loss of consideration, baseness, or infamy. It is a deplorable, sad spectacle, just like contemplating a flourishing field of wheat destroyed by a herd of wild beasts. No doubt that inheritance, property, are, and ought to be, inviolable, sacred. Wealth acquired or transmitted ought to be able to shine with impunity and magnificently in the eyes of the poor and suffering masses. We must, too, see those frightful disproportions which exist between the millionaire Saint-Remy, and the artisan Morel. But, inasmuch as these inevitable disproportions are consecrated, protected by the law, so those who possess such wealth ought morally to be accountable to those who have only probity, resignation, courage, and desire to labour.
In the eyes of reason, human right, and even of a well-understood social interest, a great fortune should be a hereditary deposit, confided to prudent, firm, skilful, generous hands, which, entrusted at the same time to fructify and expend this fortune, know how to fertilise, vivify, and ameliorate all that should have the felicity to find themselves within the scope of its splendid and salutary rays.
And sometimes it is so, but the instances are very rare. How many young men, like Saint-Remy, masters at twenty of a large patrimony, spend it foolishly in idleness, in waste, in vice, for want of knowing how to employ their wealth more advantageously either for themselves or for the public. Others, alarmed at the instability of human affairs, save in the meanest manner. Thus there are those who, knowing that a fixed fortune always diminishes, give themselves up, fools or rogues, to that hazardous, immoral gaming, which the powers that be encourage and patronise.
How can it be otherwise? Who imparts to inexperienced youth that knowledge, that instruction, those rudiments of individual and social economy? No one.
The rich man is thrown into the heart of society with his riches, as the poor man with his poverty. No one takes any more care of the superfluities of the one than of the wants of the other. No one thinks any more of making the one moralise than the other. Ought not power to fulfil this great and noble task?
If, taking to its pity the miseries, the continually increasing troubles, of the still resigned workmen, repressing a rivalry injurious to all, and, addressing itself finally to the imminent question of the organisation of labour, it gave itself the salutary lesson of the association of capital and labour; and if there were an honourable, intelligent, equitable association, which should assure the well-doing of the artisan, without injuring the fortune of the rich, and which, establishing between the two classes the bonds of affection and gratitude, would for ever keep safeguard over the tranquillity of the state,--how powerful, then, would be the consequences of such a practical instruction!
Amongst the rich, who then would hesitate as to the dishonourable, disastrous chances of stock-jobbing, the gross pleasures of avarice, the foolish vanities of a ruinous dissipation; or, a means at once remunerative and beneficial, which would shed ease, morality, happiness, and joy, over scores of families?
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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13
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THE ADIEUX.
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The day after that on which the Comte de Saint-Remy had been so shamefully tricked by his son, a touching scene took place at St. Lazare at the hour of recreation amongst the prisoners.
On this day, during the walk of the other prisoners, Fleur-de-Marie was seated on a bench close to the fountain of the courtyard, which was already named "La Goualeuse's Bench." By a kind of taciturn agreement, the prisoners had entirely given up this seat to her, as she had evinced a marked preference for it,--for the young girl's influence had decidedly increased. La Goualeuse had selected this bench, situated close to the basin, because the small quantity of moss which velveted the margin of the reservoir reminded her of the verdure of the fields, as the clear water with which it was filled reminded her of the small river of Bouqueval. To the saddened gaze of a prisoner a tuft of grass is a meadow, a flower is a garden.
Relying on the kind promises of Madame d'Harville, Fleur-de-Marie had for two days expected her release from St. Lazare. Although she had no reason for being anxious about the delay in her discharge, the young girl, from her experience in misfortune, scarcely ventured to hope for a speedy liberation. Since her return amongst creatures whose appearance revived at each moment in her mind the incurable memory of her early disgrace, Fleur-de-Marie's sadness had become more and more overwhelming. This was not all. A new subject of trouble, distress, and almost alarm to her, had arisen from the impassioned excitement of her gratitude towards Rodolph.
It was strange, but she only fathomed the depth of the abyss into which she had been plunged, in order to measure the distance which separated her from him whose perfection appeared to her more than human, from this man whose goodness was so extreme, and his power so terrible to the wicked. In spite of the respect with which her adoration for him was imbued, sometimes, alas! Fleur-de-Marie feared to detect in this adoration the symptoms of love, but of a love as secret as it was deep, as chaste as it was secret, and as hopeless as it was chaste. The unhappy girl had not thought of reading this withering revelation in her heart until after her interview with Madame d'Harville, who was herself smitten with a love for Rodolph, of which he himself was ignorant.
After the departure and the promises of the marquise, Fleur-de-Marie should have been transported with joy on thinking of her friends at Bouqueval, of Rodolph whom she was again about to see. But she was not. Her heart was painfully distressed, and to her memory occurred incessantly the severe language, the haughty scrutiny, the angry looks, of Madame d'Harville, as the poor prisoner had been excited to enthusiasm when alluding to her benefactor. By singular intuition La Goualeuse had thus detected a portion of Madame d'Harville's secret.
"The excess of my gratitude to M. Rodolph offended this young lady, so handsome and of such high rank," thought Fleur-de-Marie; "now I comprehend the severity of her words, they expressed a jealous disdain. She jealous of me! Then she must love him, and I must love, too--him? Yes, and my love must have betrayed itself in spite of me! Love him,--I--I--a creature fallen for ever, ungrateful and wretched as I am! Oh, if it were so, death were a hundred times preferable!"
Let us hasten to say that the unhappy girl, thus a martyr to her feelings, greatly exaggerated what she called her love.
To her profound gratitude towards Rodolph was united involuntary admiration of the gracefulness, strength, and manly beauty which distinguished him from other men. Nothing could be less gross, more pure, than this admiration; but it existed in full and active force, because physical beauty is always attractive. And then the voice of blood, so often denied, mute, unknown, or misinterpreted, is sometimes in full force, and these throbs of passionate tenderness which attracted Fleur-de-Marie towards Rodolph, and which so greatly startled her, because in her ignorance she misinterpreted their tendency, these feelings resulted from mysterious sympathies, as palpable, but as inexplicable, as the resemblance of features. In a word, Fleur-de-Marie, on learning that she was Rodolph's daughter, could have accounted to herself for the strong affection she had for him, and thus, completely enlightened on the point, she would have admired without a scruple her father's manly beauty.
Thus do we explain Fleur-de-Marie's dejection. Although she was every instant awaiting, according to Madame d'Harville's promise, her release from St. Lazare, Fleur-de-Marie, melancholy and pensive, was seated on her bench near the basin, looking with a kind of mechanical interest at the sports of some bold little birds who came to play on the margin of the stone-work. She had ceased for an instant to work at a baby's nightgown, which she had just finished hemming. Need we say that this nightgown belonged to the lying-in clothes so generously offered to Mont Saint-Jean by the prisoners, through the kind intervention of Fleur-de-Marie? The poor misshapen protégée of La Goualeuse was sitting at her feet, working at a small cap, and, from time to time, casting at her benefactress a look at once grateful, timid, and confiding, such a look as a dog throws at his master. The beauty, attraction, and delicious sweetness of Fleur-de-Marie had inspired this fallen creature with sentiments of the most profound respect.
There is always something holy and great in the aspirations of a heart, which, although degraded, yet feels for the first time sensations of gratitude; and, up to this time, no one had ever given Mont Saint-Jean the opportunity of even testifying whether or not she could comprehend the religious ardour of a sentiment so wholly unknown to her. After some moments Fleur-de-Marie shuddered slightly, wiped a tear from her eyes, and resumed her sewing with much activity.
"You will not then leave off your work even during the time for rest, my good angel?" said Mont Saint-Jean to La Goualeuse.
"I have not given you any money towards buying your lying-in clothes, and I must therefore furnish my part with my own work," replied the young girl.
"Your part! Why, but for you, instead of this good white linen, this nice warm wrapper for my child, I should have nothing but the rags they dragged in the mud of the yard. I am very grateful to my companions who have been so very kind to me; that's quite true! But you! --ah, you! --how can I tell you all I feel?" added the poor creature, hesitating, and greatly embarrassed how to express her thought. "There," she said, "there is the sun, is it not? That is the sun?"
"Yes, Mont Saint-Jean; I am attending to you," replied Fleur-de-Marie, stooping her lovely face towards the hideous countenance of her companion.
"Ah, you'll laugh at me," she replied, sorrowfully. "I want to say something, and I do not know how."
"Oh, yes, say it, Mont Saint-Jean!"
"How kind you look always," said the prisoner, looking at Fleur-de-Marie in a sort of ecstasy; "your eyes encourage me,--those kind eyes! Well, then, I will try and say what I wish: There is the sun, is it not? It is so warm, it lights up the prison, it is very pleasant to see and feel, isn't it?"
"Certainly."
"But I have an idea,--the sun didn't make itself, and if we are grateful to it, why, there is greater reason still why--" "Why we should be grateful to him who created it; that is what you mean, Mont Saint-Jean? You are right; and we ought to pray to, adore him,--he is God!"
"Yes, that is my idea!" exclaimed the prisoner, joyously. "That is it! I ought to be grateful to my companions, but I ought to pray to, adore you, Goualeuse, for it is you who made them so good to me, instead of being so unkind as they had been."
"It is God you should thank, Mont Saint-Jean, and not me."
"Yes, yes, yes, it is you, I see you; and it is you who did me such kindness, by yourself and others."
"But if I am as good as you say, Mont Saint-Jean, it is God who has made me so, and it is he, therefore, whom we ought to thank."
"Ah, indeed, it may be so since you say it!" replied the prisoner, whose mind was by no means decided; "and if you desire it, let it be so; as you please."
"Yes, my poor Mont Saint-Jean, pray to him constantly, that is the best way of proving to me that you love me a little."
"If I love you, Goualeuse? Don't you remember, then, what you said to those other prisoners to prevent them from beating me? --'It is not only her whom you beat, it is her child also!' Well, it is all the same as the way I love you; it is not only for myself that I love you, but also for my child."
"Thanks, thanks, Mont Saint-Jean, you please me exceedingly when you say that." And Fleur-de-Marie, much moved, extended her hand to her companion.
"What a pretty, little, fairy-like hand! How white and small!" said Mont Saint-Jean, receding as though she were afraid to touch it with her coarse and clumsy hands.
Yet, after a moment's hesitation, she respectfully applied her lips to the end of the slender fingers which Fleur-de-Marie extended to her, then, kneeling suddenly, she fixed on her an attentive, concentrated look.
"Come and sit here by me," said La Goualeuse.
"Oh, no, indeed; never, never!"
"Why not?"
"Respect discipline, as my brave Mont Saint-Jean used to say; soldiers together, officers together, each with his equals."
"You are crazy; there is no difference between us two."
"No difference! And you say that when I see you, as I do now, as handsome as a queen. Oh, what do you mean now? Leave me alone, on my knees, that I may look at you as I do now. Who knows, although I am a real monster, my child may perhaps resemble you? They say that sometimes happens from a look."
Then by a scruple of incredible delicacy in a creature of her position, fearing, perhaps, that she had humiliated or wounded Fleur-de-Marie by her strange desire, Mont Saint-Jean added, sorrowfully: "No, no, I was only joking, Goualeuse; I never could allow myself to look at you with such an idea,--unless with your free consent. If my child is as ugly as I am, what shall I care? I sha'n't love it any the less, poor little, unhappy thing; it never asked to be born, as they say. And if it lives what will become of it?" she added, with a mournful and reflective air. "Alas, yes, what will become of us?"
La Goualeuse shuddered at these words. In fact, what was to become of the child of this miserable, degraded, abased, poor, despised creature?
"What a fate! What a future!"
"Do not think of that, Mont Saint-Jean," said Fleur-de-Marie; "let us hope that your child will find benevolent friends in its way."
"That chance never occurs twice, Goualeuse," replied Mont Saint-Jean, bitterly, and shaking her head. "I have met with you, that is a great chance; and then--no offence--I should much rather my child had had that good luck than myself, and that wish is all I can do for it!"
"Pray, pray, and God will hear you."
"Well, I will pray, if that is any pleasure to you, Goualeuse, for it may perhaps bring me good luck. Indeed, who could have thought, when La Louve beat me, and I was the butt of all the world, that I should meet with my little guardian angel, who with her pretty soft voice would be even stronger than all the rest, and that La Louve who is so strong and so wicked--" "Yes, but La Louve became very good to you as soon as she reflected that you were doubly to be pitied."
"Yes, that is very true, thanks to you; I shall never forget it. But, tell me, Goualeuse, why did she the other day request to have her quarters changed,--La Louve, she, who, in spite of her passionate temper, seemed unable to do without you?"
"She is rather wilful."
"How odd! A woman, who came this morning from the quarter of the prison where La Louve now is, says that she is wholly changed."
"How?"
"Instead of quarrelling and contending with everybody, she is sad, quite sad, and sits by herself, and if they speak to her she turns her back and makes no answer. It is really wonderful to see her quite still, who used always to be making such a riot; and then the woman says another thing, which I really cannot believe."
"And what is that?"
"Why, that she had seen La Louve crying; La Louve crying,--that's impossible!"
"Poor Louve! It was on my account she changed her quarters; I vexed her without intending it," said La Goualeuse, with a sigh.
"You vex any one, my good angel?"
At this moment, the inspectress, Madame Armand, entered the yard. After having looked for Fleur-de-Marie, she came towards her with a smiling and satisfied air.
"Good news, my child."
"What do you mean, madame?" said La Goualeuse, rising.
"Your friends have not forgotten you, they have obtained your discharge; the governor has just received the information."
"Can it be possible, madame? Ah, what happiness!"
Fleur-de-Marie's emotion was so violent that she turned pale, placed her hand on her heart, which throbbed violently, and fell back on the seat.
"Don't agitate yourself, my poor girl," said Madame Armand, kindly. "Fortunately these shocks are not dangerous."
"Ah, madame, what gratitude!"
"No doubt it is Madame d'Harville who has obtained your liberty. There is an elderly female charged to conduct you to the persons who are interested in you. Wait for me, I will return for you; I have some directions to give in the work-room."
It would be difficult to paint the expression of extreme desolation which overcast the features of Mont Saint-Jean, when she learned that her good angel, as she called La Goualeuse, was about to quit St. Lazare. This woman's grief was less caused by the fear of becoming again the ill-used butt of the prison, than by her anguish at seeing herself separated from the only being who had ever testified any interest in her.
Still seated at the foot of the bench, Mont Saint-Jean lifted both her hands to the sides of her matted and coarse hair, which projected in disorder from the sides of her old black cap, as if to tear them out; then this deep affliction gave way to dejection, and she drooped her head and remained mute and motionless, with her face hidden in her hands, and her elbows resting on her knees.
In spite of her joy at leaving the prison, Fleur-de-Marie could not help shuddering when she thought for an instant of the Chouette and the Schoolmaster, recollecting that these two monsters had made her swear never to inform her benefactors of her wretched fate. But these dispiriting thoughts were soon effaced from Fleur-de-Marie's mind before the hope of seeing Bouqueval once more, with Madame Georges and Rodolph, to whom she meant to intercede for La Louve and Martial. It even seemed to her that the warm feeling which she reproached herself for having of her benefactor, being no longer nourished by sadness and solitude, would be calmed down as soon as she resumed her rustic occupations, which she so much delighted in sharing with the good and simple inhabitants of the farm.
Astonished at the silence of her companion, a silence whose source she did not suspect, La Goualeuse touched her gently on the shoulder, saying to her: "Mont Saint-Jean, as I am now free, can I be in any way useful to you?"
The prisoner trembled as she felt La Goualeuse's hand upon her, let her hands drop on her knees, and turned towards the young girl, her face streaming with tears. So bitter a grief overspread the features of Mont Saint-Jean that their ugliness had disappeared.
"What is the matter?" said La Goualeuse. "You are weeping!"
"You are going away!" murmured the poor prisoner, with a voice broken by sobs. "And I had never thought that you would go away, and that I should never see you more,--never, no, never!"
"I assure you that I shall always think of your good feeling towards me, Mont Saint-Jean."
"Oh, and to think how I loved you, when I was sitting there at your feet on the ground! It seemed as if I was saved,--that I had nothing more to fear! It was not for the blows which the other women may, perhaps, begin again to give me that I said that I have led a hard life; but it seemed to me that you were my good fortune, and would bring good luck to my child, just because you had pity on me. But, then, when one is used to be ill-treated, one is then more sensible than others to kindness." Then, interrupting herself, to burst again into a loud fit of sobs,--"Well, well, it's done,--it's finished,--all over! And so it must be some day or other. I was wrong to think any otherwise. It's done--done--done!"
"Courage! Courage! I will think of you, as you will remember me."
"Oh, as to that, they may tear me to pieces before they shall ever make me forget you! I may grow old,--as old as the streets,--but I shall always have your angel face before me. The first word I will teach my child shall be your name, Goualeuse; for but for you it would have perished with cold."
"Listen to me, Mont Saint-Jean!" said Fleur-de-Marie, deeply affected by the attachment of this unhappy woman. "I cannot promise to do anything for you, although I know some very charitable persons; but, for your child, it is a different thing; it is wholly innocent; and the persons of whom I speak will, perhaps, take charge of it, and bring it up, when you can resolve on parting from it."
"Part from it! Never, oh, never!" exclaimed Mont Saint-Jean, with excitement. "What would become of me now, when I have so built upon it?"
"But how will you bring it up? Boy or girl, it ought to be made honest; and for that--" "It must eat honest bread. I know that, Goualeuse,--I believe it. It is my ambition; and I say so to myself every day. So, in leaving here, I will never put my foot under a bridge again. I will turn rag-picker, street-sweeper,--something honest; for I owe that, if not to myself, at least to my child, when I have the honour of having one," she added, with a sort of pride.
"And who will take care of your child whilst you are at work?" inquired the Goualeuse. "Will it not be better, if possible, as I hope it will be, to put it in the country with some worthy people, who will make a good country girl or a stout farmer's boy of it? You can come and see it from time to time; and one day you may, perhaps, find the means to live near it constantly. In the country, one lives on so little!"
"Yes, but to separate myself from it,--to separate myself from it! It would be my only joy,--I, who have nothing else in the world to love,--nothing that loves me!"
"You must think more of it than of yourself, my poor Mont Saint-Jean. In two or three days I will write to Madame Armand, and if the application I mean to make in favour of your child should succeed, you will have no occasion to say to it, as you said so painfully just now, 'Alas! What will become of it?'"
Madame Armand interrupted this conversation, and came to seek Fleur-de-Marie. After having again burst into sobs, and bathed with her despairing tears the young girl's hands, Mont Saint-Jean fell on the seat perfectly overcome, not even thinking of the promise which Fleur-de-Marie had just made with respect to her child.
"Poor creature!" said Madame Armand, as she quitted the yard, accompanied by Fleur-de-Marie, "her gratitude towards you gives me a better opinion of her."
Learning that La Goualeuse was discharged, the other prisoners, far from envying her this favour, displayed their delight. Some of them surrounded Fleur-de-Marie, and took leave of her with adieux full of cordiality, frankly congratulating her on her speedy release from prison.
"Well, I must say," said one, "this little fair girl has made us pass an agreeable moment, when we agreed to make up the basket of clothes for Mont Saint-Jean. That will be remembered at St. Lazare."
When Fleur-de-Marie had quitted the prison buildings, the inspectress said to her: "Now, my dear child, go to the clothing-room, and leave your prison clothes. Put on your peasant girl's clothes, whose rustic simplicity suits you so well. Adieu! You will be happy, for you are going to be under the protection of good people, and leave these walls, never again to return to them. But I am really hardly reasonable," said Madame Armand, whose eyes were moistened with tears. "I really cannot conceal from you how much I am attached to you, my poor girl!" Then, seeing the tears in Fleur-de-Marie's eyes, the inspectress added, "But we must not sadden your departure thus."
"Ah, madame, is it not through your recommendation that this young lady to whom I owe my liberty has become interested in me?"
"Yes, and I am happy that I did so; my presentiments had not deceived me."
At this moment a clock struck.
"That is the hour of work; I must return to the rooms. Adieu! Once more adieu, my dear child!"
Madame Armand, as much affected as Fleur-de-Marie, embraced her tenderly, and then said to one of the women employed in the establishment: "Take mademoiselle to the vestiary."
A quarter of an hour afterwards, Fleur-de-Marie, dressed like a peasant girl, as we have seen her at the farm at Bouqueval, entered the waiting-room, where Madame Séraphin was expecting her. The housekeeper of the notary, Jacques Ferrand, had come to seek the unhappy girl, and conduct her to the Isle du Ravageur.
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{
"id": "33803"
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14
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RECOLLECTIONS.
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Jacques Ferrand had quickly and readily obtained the liberty of Fleur-de-Marie, which, indeed, only required a simple official order. Instructed by the Chouette of La Goualeuse being at St. Lazare, he had immediately applied to one of his clients, an honourable and influential man, saying that a young female who had once erred, but afterwards sincerely repented, being now confined in St. Lazare, was in danger of forgetting her good resolutions, in consequence of her association with the other prisoners. This young girl having been (added the notary) strongly recommended to him by persons of high respectability, who wanted to take care of her when she quitted the prison, he besought his client, in the name of religion, virtue, and the future return to goodness of the poor girl, to interest himself in obtaining her liberation. And, further to screen himself from all chance of future consequences, the notary most earnestly charged his client not to allow his name to transpire in the business on any account, as he was desirous of avoiding any mention of having been employed in the furtherance of so good and charitable a work.
This request, which was attributed to the unassuming modesty and benevolence of Jacques Ferrand, a man equally esteemed for his piety as for honour and probity, was strictly complied with, the liberation of Fleur-de-Marie being asked and obtained in the client's name alone; and by way of evincing a still greater regard for the shrinking delicacy of the notary's nature, the order for quitting the prison was sent under cover to Jacques Ferrand, that he might send it on to the parties interesting themselves for the young girl. And when Madame Séraphin presented the order to the directors of the prison, she stated herself to have been sent by the parties feeling a desire to save the young person it referred to.
From the favourable manner in which the matron of the prison had spoken to Madame d'Harville of Fleur-de-Marie, not a doubt existed as to its being to that lady La Goualeuse was indebted for her return to freedom. There was, therefore, no chance of the appearance of Madame Séraphin exciting any mistrust in the mind of her victim. Madame Séraphin could so well assume the look and manner of what is commonly styled "a nice motherly kind of person," that it required a more than ordinary share of penetration to discover a strong proportion of falsehood, deceit, and cunning behind the smooth glance or the hypocritical smile; but, spite of the hardened villainy with which she had shared so long and deeply in the nefarious practices of her employer, Madame Séraphin, old and hackneyed as she was, could not view without emotion the exquisite loveliness of the being her own hand had surrendered, even as a child, to the cruel care of the Chouette, and whom she was now leading to an inevitable death.
"Well, my dear," cried Madame Séraphin, speaking in a tone of honeyed sweetness, as Fleur-de-Marie drew near, "I suppose you are very glad to get away from prison."
"Oh, yes, indeed, ma'am. I presume it is Madame d'Harville who has had the goodness to obtain my liberty for me?"
"You are not mistaken in your guess. But, come, we are already a little behindhand, and we have still some distance to go."
"We are going to Madame Georges at the farm at Bouqueval, are we not, madame?" cried La Goualeuse.
"Oh, yes, certainly, by all means!" answered the _femme de charge_, in order to avert all suspicion from the mind of her victim. "Yes, my dear, we are going into the country, as you say;" and then added, with a sort of good-humoured teasing, "But that is not all; before you see Madame Georges, a little surprise awaits you--Come, come, our coach is waiting below! Ah, how you will be astonished by and by! Come, then, let us go. Your most obedient servant, gentlemen!"
And, with a multitude of bows and salutations from Madame Séraphin to the registrar, his clerk, and all the various members of the establishment then and there assembled, she descended the stairs with La Goualeuse, followed by an officer, to command the opening of the gates through which they had to pass. The last had just closed behind them, and the two females found themselves beneath the vast porch which looks out upon the street of the Faubourg St. Denis, when they nearly ran against a young female, who appeared hurrying towards the prison, as though full of anxiety to visit one of its inmates. It was Rigolette, as pretty and light-footed as ever, her charming face set off by a simple yet becoming cap, tastefully ornamented with cherry-coloured riband; while her dark brown hair was laid in bright glossy bands down each clear and finely rounded cheek. She was wrapped in a plaid shawl, over which fell a snowy muslin collar, secured by a small knot of riband. On her arm she carried a straw basket; while, thanks to her light, careful way of picking her steps, her thick-soled boots were scarcely soiled; and yet the poor girl had walked far that day.
"Rigolette!" exclaimed Fleur-de-Marie, as she recognised her old prison companion, and the sharer in her rural excursions. [7] [7] The reader will, perhaps, recollect that in the recital made by La Goualeuse to Rodolph, at their first meeting at the ogress's, of the early events of her life, she spoke to him of Rigolette, who, a friendless child like herself, had been (with her) confined in a _maison de detention_ until she had reached the age of sixteen.
"La Goualeuse!" returned the grisette, and with one accord the two girls threw themselves into each other's arms.
Nothing more touchingly beautiful could be imagined than the contrast between these two young creatures, both so lovely, though differing so entirely from one another in appearance: the one exquisitely fair, with large, melancholy blue eyes, and an outline of feature of faultless purity, the pale, pensive, intellectual cast of the whole countenance reminding the observer of one of those sweet designs of a village maid by Greuze,--the same clear delicacy of complexion, the same ineffable mixture of graceful pensiveness and candid innocence; the other a sparkling brunette, with round rosy cheek and bright black eyes, set off by a laughing, dimpled face and mirthful air,--the very impersonation of youthful gaiety and light-heartedness, the rare and touching specimen of happy poverty, of contented labour, and honest industry!
After the first burst of their affectionate greetings had passed away, the two girls regarded each other with close and tender scrutiny. The features of Rigolette were radiant with the joy she experienced at this unexpected meeting; Fleur-de-Marie, on the contrary, felt humbled and confused at the sight of her early friend, which recalled but too vividly to her mind the few days of peaceful calm she had known previous to her first degradation.
"Dear, dear Goualeuse!" exclaimed the grisette, fixing her bright eyes with intense delight on her companion. "To think of meeting you at last, after so long an absence!"
"It is, indeed, a delightful surprise!" replied Fleur-de-Marie. "It is so very long since we have seen each other."
"Ah, but now," said Rigolette, for the first time remarking the rustic habiliments of La Goualeuse, "I can account for seeing nothing of you during the last six months,--you live in the country, I see?"
"Yes," answered Fleur-de-Marie, casting down her eyes, "I have done so for some time past."
"And I suppose that, like me, you have come to see some friend in this prison?"
"Yes," stammered poor Fleur-de-Marie, blushing up to her eyes with shame and confusion; "I was going--I mean I have just been seeing some one, and, of course, am now returning home."
"You live a good way out of Paris, I dare say? Ah, you dear, kind girl! It is just like you to come all this distance to perform a good action. Do you remember the poor lying-in woman to whom you gave, not only your mattress, with the necessary baby-clothes, but even what money you had left, and which we meant to have spent in a country excursion; for you were then crazy for the country, my pretty village maid?"
"And you, who cared nothing about it, how very good-natured and obliging of you to go thither, merely for the sake of pleasing me!"
"Well, but I pleased myself at the same time. Why, you, who were always inclined to be grave and serious, when once you got among the fields, or found yourself in the thick shade of a wood, oh, then, what a wild, overjoyed little madcap you became! Nobody would have fancied it the same person,--flying after the butterflies,--crowding your hands and apron with more flowers than either could hold. It made me quite delighted to see you! It was quite treat enough for a week to recollect all your happiness and enjoyment. But do let me have another look at you: how sweetly pretty you look in that nice little round cap! Yes, decidedly, you were cut out to be a country girl,--just as much as I was to be a Paris grisette. Well, I hope you are happy, since you have got the sort of line you prefer; and, certainly, after all, I cannot say I was so very much astonished at your never coming near me. 'Oh,' said I, 'that dear Goualeuse is not suited for Paris; she is a true wild flower, as the song says; and the air of great cities is not for them. So,' said I, 'my pretty, dear Goualeuse has found a place in some good honest family who live in the country.' And I was right, was I not, dear?"
"Yes," said Fleur-de-Marie, nearly sinking with confusion, "quite right."
"There is only one thing I have to reproach you for."
"Reproach me?" inquired Fleur-de-Marie, looking tearfully at her companion.
"Yes, you ought to have let me know before you went. You should have said 'good-bye,' if you were only leaving me at night to return in the morning; or, at any rate, you should have sent me word how you were going on."
"I--I--quitted Paris so suddenly," stammered out Fleur-de-Marie, becoming momentarily more and more embarrassed, "that, indeed--I--was not able--" "Oh, I'm not at all angry! I don't speak of it to scold you! I am far too happy in meeting you unexpectedly; and, besides, I commend you for getting out of such a dangerous place as Paris, where it is so difficult to earn a quiet livelihood; for, you know, two poor friendless girls like you and me might be led into mischief, without thinking of, or intending, any harm. When there is no person to advise, it leaves one so very defenceless; and then come a parcel of deceitful, flattering men, with their false promises, when, perhaps, want and misery are staring you in the face. There, for instance, do you recollect that pretty girl called Julie? --and Rosine, who had such a beautiful fair skin, and such coal black eyes?"
"Oh, yes, I recollect them very well!"
"Then, my dear Goualeuse, you will be extremely sorry to hear that they were both led astray, seduced, and deserted, till at last, from one unfortunate step to another, they have become like the miserable creatures confined in this prison!"
"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Fleur-de-Marie, hanging down her head, and blushing the deep blush of shame.
Rigolette, misinterpreting the real cause of her friend's exclamation, continued: "I admit that their conduct is wrong, nay wicked; but then, you know, my dear Goualeuse, because you and I have been so fortunate as to preserve ourselves from harm,--you, because you have been living with good and virtuous people in the country, out of the reach of temptation; and I, because I had no time to waste in listening to a set of make-believe lovers; and also because I found greater pleasure in having a few birds, and in trying to get things a little comfortable and snug around me,--I say, it is not for you and me to be too severe with others; and God alone knows whether opportunity, deceit, and destitution may not have had much to do in causing the misery and disgrace of Julie and Rosine! And who can say whether, in their place, we might not have acted as they have done?"
"Alas!" cried Fleur-de-Marie, "I accuse them not; on the contrary, I pity them from my heart!"
"Come, come, my dear child!" interrupted Madame Séraphin, impatiently offering her arm to her victim, "you forget that I said we were already behind our time."
"Pray, madame, grant us a little more time," said Rigolette. "It is so very long since I saw my dear Goualeuse!"
"I should be glad to do so," replied Madame Séraphin, much annoyed at this meeting between the two friends; "but it is now three o'clock, and we have a long way to go. However, I will manage to allow you ten minutes longer gossip. So pray make the best of your time."
"And tell me, I pray, of yourself," said Fleur-de-Marie, affectionately pressing the hands of Rigolette between her own. "Are you still the same merry, light-hearted, and happy creature I always knew you?"
"I was happy and gay enough a few days ago; but now--" "You sorrowful? I can hardly believe it."
"Ah, but indeed I am! Not that I am at all changed from what you always found me,--a regular Roger Bontemps,--one to whom nothing was a trouble. But then, you see, everybody is not like me; so that, when I see those I love unhappy, why, naturally, that makes me unhappy, too."
"Still the same kind, warm-hearted girl!"
"Why, who could help being grieved as I am? Just imagine my having come hither to visit a poor young creature,--a sort of neighbouring lodger in the house where I live,--as meek and mild as a lamb she was, poor thing! Well, she has been most shamefully and unjustly accused,--that she has; never mind of what just now! Her name is Louise Morel. She is the daughter of an honest and deserving man, a lapidary, who has gone mad in consequence of her being put in prison."
At the name of Louise Morel, one of the victims of the notary's villainy, Madame Séraphin started, and gazed earnestly at Rigolette. The features of the grisette were, however, perfectly unknown to her; nevertheless, from that instant, the _femme de charge_ listened with an attentive ear to the conversation of the two girls.
"Poor thing," continued the Goualeuse; "how happy it must make her to find that you have not forgotten her in her misfortunes!"
"And that is not all; it really seems as though some spell hung over me! But, truly and positively, this is the second poor prisoner I have left my home to-day to visit! I have come a long way, and also from a prison,--but that was a place of confinement for men."
"You, Rigolette,--in a prison for men?"
"Yes, I have, indeed. I have a very dejected customer there, I can assure you. There,--you see my basket; it is divided in two parts, and each of my poor friends has an equal share in its contents. I have got some clean things here for poor Louise, and I have left a similar packet with Germain,--that is the name of my other poor captive. I cannot help feeling ready to cry when I think of our last interview. I know it will do no good, but still, for all that, the tears will come into my eyes."
"But what is it that distresses you so much?"
"Why, because, you see, poor Germain frets so much at being mixed up in his prison with the many bad characters that are there, that it has quite broken his spirits; he seems to have no taste, no relish for anything, has quite lost his appetite, and is wasting away daily. So, when I perceived the change, I said to myself: 'Oh, poor fellow, I see he eats nothing. I must make him something nice and delicate to tempt his appetite a little; he shall have one of those little dainties he used to be so fond of when he and I were next-room neighbours.' When I say dainties, of course I don't mean such as rich people expect by that name. No, no, my dish was merely some beautiful mealy potatoes, mashed with a little milk and sugar. Well, my dear Goualeuse, I prepared this for him, put it in a nice little china basin and took it to him in his prison, telling him I had brought him a little titbit he used once to be fond of, and which I hoped he would like as well as in former days. I told him I had prepared it entirely myself, hoping to make him relish it. But alas, no! What do you think?"
"Oh, what?"
"Why, instead of increasing his appetite, I only set him crying; for, when I displayed my poor attempts at cookery, he seemed to take no notice of anything but the basin, out of which he had been accustomed to see me take my milk when we supped together; and then he burst into tears, and, by way of making matters still better, I began to cry, too, although I tried all I could to restrain myself. You see how everything went against me. I had gone with the intention of enlivening his spirits, and, instead of that, there I was making him more melancholy than ever."
"Still, the tears he shed were, no doubt, sweet and consoling tears!"
"Oh, never mind what sort of tears they were, that was not the way I meant to have consoled him. But la! All this while I am talking to you of Germain as if you knew him. He is an old acquaintance of mine, one of the best young men in the world, as timid and gentle as any young girl could be, and whom I loved as a friend and a brother."
"Oh, then, of course, his troubles became yours also."
"To be sure. But just let me show you what a good heart he must have. When I was coming away, I asked him as usual what orders he had for me, saying jokingly, by way of making him smile, that I was his little housekeeper, and that I should be very punctual and exact in fulfilling whatever commissions he gave me, in order to remain in his employ. So then he, trying to smile in his turn, asked me to bring him one of Walter Scott's romances, which he had formerly read to me while I worked,--that romance was called 'Ivan--' 'Ivanhoe,' that's it. I was so much amused with this book that Germain read it twice over to me. Poor Germain! How very, very kind and attentive he was!"
"I suppose he wished to keep it as a reminiscence of bygone days?"
"No doubt of it; for he bade me go to the library from whence we had had it, and to purchase the very same volumes that had so much entertained us, and which we had read together,--not merely to hire them,--yes, positively to buy them out and out; and you may imagine that was something of a sacrifice for him, for he is no richer than you or I." "He must have a noble and excellent heart to have thought of it," said the Goualeuse, deeply touched.
"I declare you are as much affected by it as I was, my dear, kind Goualeuse! But then, you see, the more I felt ready to cry, the more I tried to laugh; for, to shed tears twice during a visit, intended to be so very cheering and enlivening as mine was, was rather too bad. So, to drive all those thoughts out of my head, I began to remind him of the amusing story of a Jew,--a person we read about in the romance I was telling you of. But the more I rattled away, and the greater nonsense I tried to talk, the faster the large round tears gathered in his eyes, and he kept looking at me with such an expression of misery as quite broke my heart. And so--and so--at last my voice quite failed me, and I could do nothing but mingle my sobs with his. He had not regained his composure when I left him, and I felt quite provoked with myself for my folly. 'If that is the way,' said I,'that I comfort and cheer up poor Germain, I think I had better stay away!' Really, when I remember all the fine things I intended to have said and done, by way of keeping up his spirits, I feel quite spiteful towards myself for having so completely failed."
At the name of Germain, another victim of the notary's unprincipled persecution, Madame Séraphin redoubled her before close attention.
"And what has this poor young man done to deserve being put in prison?" inquired Fleur-de-Marie.
"What has he done?" exclaimed Rigolette, whose grief became swallowed up in indignation; "why, he has had the misfortune to fall into the hands of a wicked old notary,--the same as persecutes poor Louise."
"Of her whom you have come to see?"
"To be sure; she lived as servant with this notary, and Germain was also with him as cashier. It is too long a story to tell you now, how or of what he unjustly accuses the poor fellow; but one thing is quite certain, and that is, that the wretch of a notary pursues these two unfortunate beings, who have never done him the least harm, with the most determined malice and hatred. However, never mind,--a little patience, 'every one in their turn,'--that's all." Rigolette uttered these last words with a peculiarity of manner and expression that created considerable uneasiness in the mind of Madame Séraphin. Instead, therefore, of preserving the distance she had hitherto observed, she at once joined in the conversation, saying to Fleur-de-Marie, with a kind and maternal air: "My dear girl, it is really growing too late for us to wait any longer,--we must go; we are waited for, I assure you, with much anxiety. I am sorry to hurry you away, because I can well imagine how much you must be interested in what your friend is relating; for even I, who know nothing of the two young persons she refers to, cannot help feeling my very heart ache for their undeserved sufferings. Is it possible there can be people in the world as wicked as the notary you were mentioning? Pray, my dear mademoiselle, what may be the name of this bad man,--if I may make so bold as to ask?"
Although Rigolette entertained not the slightest suspicion of the sincerity of Madame Séraphin's affected sympathy, yet, recollecting how strictly Rodolph had enjoined her to observe the utmost secrecy respecting the protection he bestowed on both Germain and Louise, she regretted having been led away by her affectionate zeal for her friends to use such words,--"Patience; every one has his turn!"
"His name, madame, is Ferrand,--M. Jacques Ferrand, Notary," replied Rigolette, skilfully adding, by way of compensation for her indiscreet warmth, "and it is the more wicked and shameful of him to torment Louise and Germain as he does, because the poor things have not a friend upon earth but myself, and, God knows, it is little I can do besides wishing them well out of their troubles!"
"Dear me,--poor things!" observed Madame Séraphin. "Well, I'm sure I hoped it was otherwise when I heard you say, 'Patience; every one has their turn!' I supposed you reckoned for certain upon some powerful protector to defend these people against that dreadful notary."
"Alas, no, madame!" answered Rigolette, hoping to destroy any suspicion Madame Séraphin might still harbour; "such, I am sorry to say, is not the case. For who would be generous and disinterested enough to take the part of two poor creatures like my unfortunate friends against a rich and powerful man like M. Ferrand?"
"Oh, there are many good and noble-minded persons capable of performing so good an action," pursued Fleur-de-Marie, after a moment's consideration, and with ill-restrained excitement; "I myself know one to whom it is equally a duty and a pleasure to succour and assist all who are in need or difficulty,--one who is beloved and valued by all good persons, as he is dreaded and hated by the bad."
Rigolette gazed on the Goualeuse with deep astonishment, and was just on the point of asserting that she, too (alluding to Rodolph), knew some one capable of courageously espousing the cause of the weak against the strong; but, faithful to the injunctions of her neighbour (as she styled the prince), she contented herself with merely saying, "Really, do you indeed know anybody capable of generously coming forward in defence of poor oppressed individuals, such as we have been talking of?"
"Indeed, I do. And, although I have already to solicit his goodness in favour of others also in severe trouble, yet, I am quite sure that, did he but know of the undeserved misfortunes of Louise and Germain, he would both rescue them from misery and punish their wicked persecutor; for his goodness and justice are inexhaustible."
Madame Séraphin surveyed her victim with surprise. "This girl," said she, mentally, "might be even more dangerous than we thought for. And, even if I had been weak enough to feel inclined to pity her, what I have just heard would have rendered the little 'accident,' which is to rid us of her, quite inevitable."
"Then, dear Goualeuse, since you have so valuable an acquaintance, I beseech of you to recommend poor Louise and Germain to his notice," said Rigolette, wisely considering that her two protégées would be all the better for obtaining two protectors instead of one. "And pray say that they do not in the least deserve their present wretched fate."
"Make yourself perfectly easy," returned Fleur-de-Marie; "I promise to try to interest M. Rodolph in favour of your poor friends."
"Who did you say?" exclaimed Rigolette, "M. Rodolph?"
"Yes," replied La Goualeuse; "do you know him?"
"M. Rodolph?" again repeated Rigolette, perfectly bewildered; "is he a travelling clerk?"
"I really don't know what he is. But why are you so much astonished?"
"Because I know a M. Rodolph!"
"Perhaps it is not the same."
"Well, describe yours. What is he like?"
"In the first place, he is young."
"So is mine."
"With a countenance full of nobleness and goodness."
"Precisely," exclaimed Rigolette, whose amazement increased. "Oh, it must be the very man! Is your M. Rodolph rather dark-complexioned, with a small moustache?"
"Yes, yes."
"Is he tall and thin, with a beautiful figure, and quite a fashionable, gentlemanly sort of air,--wonderfully so, considering he is but a clerk? Now, then, does your M. Rodolph answer to that description?"
"Perfectly," answered Fleur-de-Marie; "and I feel quite sure that we both mean the same. The only thing that puzzles me is your fancying he is a clerk."
"Oh, but I know he is. He told me so himself."
"And you know him intimately?"
"Why, he is my next-door neighbour."
"M. Rodolph is?"
"I mean next-room neighbour; because he occupies an apartment on the fourth floor, next to mine."
"He--M. Rodolph--lodges in the next room to you?"
"Why, yes. But what do you find so astonishing in a thing as simple as that? He only earns about fifteen or eighteen hundred francs a year, and, of course, he could not afford a more expensive lodging,--though, certainly, he does not strike me as being a very careful or economical person; for, bless his dear heart, he actually does not know the price of the clothes he wears."
"No, no, it cannot be the same M. Rodolph I am acquainted with," said Fleur-de-Marie, reflecting seriously; "oh, no, quite impossible!"
"I suppose yours is a pattern of order and exactness?"
"He of whom I spoke, I must tell you, Rigolette," said Fleur-de-Marie, with enthusiasm, "is all-powerful; his name is never pronounced but with love and veneration; there is something awe-inspiring in his very aspect, giving one the desire to kneel in his presence and offer humble respect to his goodness and greatness."
"Ah, then, it is no use trying the comparison any further, my dear Goualeuse; for my M. Rodolph is neither powerful, great, nor imposing. He is very good-natured and merry, and all that; but oh, bless you, as for being a person one would be likely to go on one's knees to, why, he is quite the reverse. He cares no more for ceremony than I do, and even promised me to come and help me clean my apartment and polish the floor. And then, instead of being awe-inspiring, he settled with me to take me out of a Sunday anywhere I liked to go. So that, you see, he can't be a very great person. But, bless you, what am I thinking of? It seems as if my heart were wholly engrossed by my Sunday pleasures, instead of recollecting these poor creatures shut up and deprived of their liberty in a prison. Ah, poor dear Louise--and poor Germain, too! Until they are restored to freedom there is no happiness for me!"
For several minutes Fleur-de-Marie remained plunged in a deep reverie; she all at once recalled to her remembrance that, at her first interview with Rodolph, at the house of the ogress, his language and manners resembled those of the usual frequenters of the _tapis-franc_. Was it not, then, possible that he might be playing the part of the travelling clerk, for the sake of some scheme he had in view? The difficulty consisted in finding any probable cause for such a transformation. The grisette, who quickly perceived the thoughtful meditation in which Fleur-de-Marie was lost, said, kindly: "Never mind puzzling your poor brains on the subject, my dear Goualeuse; we shall soon find out whether we both know the same M. Rodolph. When you see yours, speak of me to him; when I see mine, I will mention you; by these means we shall easily discover what conclusion to come to."
"Where do you live, Rigolette?"
"No. 17 Rue du Temple."
"Come!" said Madame Séraphin (who had attentively listened to all this conversation) to herself, "that is not a bad thing to know. This all-powerful and mysterious personage, M. Rodolph, who is, no doubt, passing himself off for a travelling clerk, occupies an apartment adjoining that of this young mantua-maker, who appears to me to know much more than she chooses to own to; and this defender of the oppressed, it seems, is lodging in the same house with Morel and Bradamanti. Well, well, if the grisette and the travelling clerk continue to meddle with what does not concern them, I shall know where to lay my hand upon them."
"As soon as ever I have spoken with M. Rodolph," said the Goualeuse, "I will write to you, and give you my address where to send your answer; but tell me yours over again, I am afraid of forgetting it."
"Oh, dear, how fortunate! I declare I have got one of my cards with me! I remember a person I work for asked me to leave her one, to give a friend who wished to employ me. So I brought it out for that purpose; but I will give it to you, and carry her one another time." And here Rigolette handed to Fleur-de-Marie a small card, on which was written, in beautiful text-hand, "Mademoiselle Rigolette, Dressmaker, 17 Rue du Temple." "There's a beauty!" continued the grisette. "Oh, isn't it nicely done? Better, a good deal, than printing! Ah, poor dear Germain wrote me a number of cards long ago! Oh, he was so kind, so attentive! I don't know how it could have happened that I never found out half his good qualities till he became unfortunate; and now I continually reproach myself with having learned to love him so late."
"You love Germain, then?"
"Oh, yes, that I do! Why, you know, I must have some pretext for visiting him in prison. Am I not an odd sort of girl?" said Rigolette, choking a rising sigh, and smiling, like an April shower, amid the tears which glittered in her large dark eyes.
"You are good and generous-hearted, as you ever were!" said Fleur-de-Marie, tenderly pressing her friend's hands within her own.
Madame Séraphin had evidently learned all she cared to know, and feeling very little interest in any further disclosure of Rigolette's love for young Germain, hastily approaching Fleur-de-Marie, she abruptly said: "Come, my dear child, do not keep me waiting another minute, I beg; it is very late, and I shall be scolded, as it is, for being so much behind my time; we have trifled away a good quarter of an hour, and must endeavour to make up for it."
"What a nasty cross old body that is!" said Rigolette, in a whisper, to Fleur-de-Marie. "I don't like the looks of her at all!" Then, speaking in a louder voice, she added, "Whenever you come to Paris, my dear Goualeuse, be sure to come and see me. I should be so delighted to have you all to myself for a whole day, to show you my little home and my birds; for I have got some, such sweet pretty ones! Oh, that is my chief indulgence and expense!"
"I will try to come and see you, but certainly I will write you. So good-bye, my dear, dear Rigolette! Adieu! Oh, if you only knew how happy I feel at having met with you again!"
"And, I am sure, so do I; but I trust we shall soon see each other again; and, besides, I am so impatient to know whether your M. Rodolph is the same as mine. Pray write to me very soon upon this subject, will you? Promise you will!"
"Indeed I will! Adieu, dear Rigolette!"
"Farewell, my very dear Goualeuse!"
And again the two poor girls, each striving to conceal their distress at parting, indulged in a long and affectionate embrace. Rigolette then turned away, to enter the prison for the purpose of visiting Louise, according to the kind permission obtained for her by Rodolph, while Fleur-de-Marie, with Madame Séraphin, got into the coach which was waiting for them. The coachman was instructed to proceed to Batignolles, and to stop at the barrier. A cross-road of inconsiderable length conducted from this spot almost directly to the borders of the Seine, not far from the Isle du Ravageur. Wholly unacquainted with the locality of Paris, Fleur-de-Marie was unable to detect that the vehicle did not take the road to the Barrier St. Denis; it was only when the coach stopped at Batignolles, and she was requested by Madame Séraphin to alight, that she said: "It seems to me, madame, that we are not in the road to Bouqueval; and how shall we be able to walk from hence to the farm?"
"All that I can tell you, my dear child," answered the _femme de charge_, kindly, "is, that I am obeying their orders given me by your benefactors, and that you will pain them greatly if you keep your friends waiting."
"Oh, not for worlds would I be so presuming and ungrateful as to oppose their slightest wish!" exclaimed poor Fleur-de-Marie, with kindling warmth, "and I beseech you, madame, to pardon my seeming hesitation; but, since you plead the commands of my revered protectors, depend upon my following you blindly and silently whithersoever you are pleased to take me. Only tell me, is Madame Georges quite well?"
"Oh, in most excellent health and spirits!"
"And M. Rodolph?"
"Perfectly well, also."
"Then you know him? But, madame, when I was speaking to Rigolette concerning him just now, you did not seem to be acquainted with him; at least, you did not say so."
"Because, in pursuance with the directions given me, I affected to be ignorant of the person you alluded to."
"And did M. Rodolph, himself, give you those orders?"
"Why, what a dear, curious little thing this is!" said the _femme de charge_, smilingly; "I must mind what I am about, or, with her innocent ways of putting questions, she will find out all my secrets!"
"Indeed, madame, I am ashamed of seeming so inquisitive, but if you could only imagine how my heart beats with joy at the bare thoughts of seeing my beloved friends again, you would pardon me; but, as we have only to walk on to the place whither you are taking me, I shall soon be able to gratify my wishes, without tormenting you by further inquiries."
"To be sure you will, my dear, for I promise you that in a quarter of an hour we shall have reached the end of our journey."
The _femme de charge_, having now left behind the last houses in the village of Batignolles, conducted Fleur-de-Marie across a grassy road, bordered on each side by lofty walnut-trees. The day was warm and fine, the sky half covered by the rich purple clouds of the setting sun, which now cast its declining rays on the heights of the _colombes_, situated on the other side of the Seine. As Fleur-de-Marie approached the banks of the river, a delicate bloom tinged her pale cheeks, and she seemed to breathe with delight the pure fresh air that blew from the country. Indeed, so strongly was the look of happiness imprinted on her countenance, that even Madame Séraphin could not avoid noticing it.
"You seem full of joy, my dear child; I declare it is quite a pleasure to see you."
"Oh, yes, indeed, I am overflowing with gratitude and eagerness at the thoughts of seeing my dear Madame Georges so soon, and perhaps, too, M. Rodolph! I trust I may, for, besides my own happiness at beholding him, I want to speak to him in favour of several poor unfortunate persons I should be so glad to recommend to his kindness and protection. How, then, can I be sad when I have so many delightful things to look forward to? Oh, who could be unhappy, with such a prospect as mine? And see, too, how gay and beautiful the sky is, all covered with bright, golden clouds! And the dear soft green grass,--I think it seems greener than ever, spite of the season. And look--look out there! See, where the river flows behind those willow-trees! Oh, how wide and sparkling it seems; and, when the sun shines on it, it almost dazzles my eyes to gaze on it! It seems like a sheet of gold. Ah, I saw it shining in the same way in the basin of the prison a little while ago! God does not forget even the poor prisoners, but allows them to have a sight of his wondrous works. Though they are separated by high stone walls from their fellow creatures, the glorious sun shows them his golden face, and sparkles and glitters upon the water there, the same as in the gardens of a king!" added Fleur-de-Marie, with pious gratitude. Then, incited by a reference to her captivity still more to appreciate the charms of liberty, she exclaimed, with a burst of innocent delight: "Oh, pray, madame, do look there, just in the middle of the river, at that pretty little island, bordered with willows and poplars, and that sweet little white house, almost close to the water's edge! How delicious it must be to live there in the summer, when all the leaves are on the trees and the birds sing so sweetly among the branches! Oh, how quiet and cool it must be in that nice place!"
"Well, really, now, my dear," said Madame Séraphin, with a grim smile, "it is singular enough your being so much struck with that little isle!"
"Why, madame?"
"Because it is there we are actually going to."
"Going to that island?"
"Yes; does that astonish you?"
"Rather so, madame."
"But suppose you found your friends there?"
"Oh, what do you mean?"
"Suppose, I say, you found all your friends had assembled there, to welcome you on your release from prison, should you not then be greatly surprised?"
"Oh, if it were but possible! My dear Madame Georges? --M. Rodolph?"
"Upon my word, my dear, I am just like a baby in your hands, and you turn and twist me just as you please; it is useless for me to try to conceal anything, for, with your little winning ways, you find out all secrets."
"Then I shall soon see them again? Dear madame, how can I ever thank you sufficiently for your goodness to a poor girl like me? Feel how my heart beats! It is all with joy and happiness!"
"Well, well, my love, be as wild with delight as you please, but pray do not hurry on so very fast. You forget, you little mad thing, that my old bones cannot run as fast as your nimble young feet."
"I beg your pardon, madame; but I cannot help being quite impatient to arrive where we are going."
"To be sure you cannot; don't fancy I mean to blame you for it; quite the contrary."
"The road slopes a little now, madame, and it is rather rough, too; will you accept of my arm to assist you down?"
"I never refuse a good offer, my dear; for I am somewhat infirm, as well as old, while you are young and active."
"Then pray lean all your weight on me, madame; don't be afraid of tiring me."
"Many thanks, my child! Your help was really very serviceable, for the descent is so extremely rapid just here. Now, then, we are once more on smooth, level ground."
"Oh, madame, can it, indeed, be true that I am about to meet my dear Madame Georges? I can scarcely persuade myself it is reality."
"A little patience,--another quarter of an hour, and then you will see whether it is true or false."
"But what puzzles me," said Fleur-de-Marie, after a moment's reflection, "is, why Madame Georges should have thought proper to meet me here, instead of at the farm."
"Still curious, my dear child, still wanting to know everybody's reasons."
"How very foolish and unreasonable I am, am I not, madame?" said Fleur-de-Marie, smiling.
"And, by way of punishing you, I have a great mind to tell you what the surprise is that your friends have prepared for you."
"For me, madame, a surprise?"
"Be quiet, you little chatterbox! You will make me reveal the secret, in spite of myself."
We shall now leave Madame Séraphin and her victim proceeding along the road which led to the river's side, while we precede them, by a few minutes, to the Isle du Ravageur.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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15
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THE BOATS.
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During the night the appearance of the isle inhabited by the Martial family was very gloomy, but by the bright light of day nothing could be more smiling than this accursed spot. Bordered by willows and poplars, almost entirely covered with thick grass, in which wound several paths of yellow sand, the islet included a kitchen-garden and a good number of fruit-trees. In the midst of the orchard was to be seen the hovel, with the thatched roof, into which Martial had expressed his intention to retire with François and Amandine. On this side, the isle terminated at its point by a kind of stockade, formed of large piles, driven in to prevent the soil from wearing away.
In front of the house, and almost touching the landing-place, was a small arbour of green trellis-work, intended to support in summer-time the creeping shoots of the young vines and hops,--a cradle of verdure, beneath which were arranged tables for the visitors. At one end of the house, painted white and covered with tiles, a wood-house, with a loft over it, formed at the angle a small wing, much lower than the main body of the building. Almost precisely over this wing there appeared a window, with the shutters covered with iron plates, and strengthened without by two transverse iron bars attached to the wall by strong clamps.
Three boats were undulating in the water, fastened to posts at the landing-place. Seated in one of these boats, Nicholas was making sure that the valve he had introduced performed its part properly. Standing on a bench at the mouth of the arbour, Calabash, with her hands placed over her eyes so as to shade away the sun, was looking out in the direction in which Madame Séraphin and Fleur-de-Marie were to come to reach the isle.
"I don't see any one yet, old or young," said Calabash, getting off the bench and speaking to Nicholas. "It will be just as it was yesterday; we may as well wait for the King of Prussia. If these women do not come in half an hour, we can't wait any longer; Bras-Rouge's 'dodge' is much better, and he'll be waiting for us. The diamond-matcher is to be at his place in the Champs Elysées at five o'clock. We ought to be there before her; the Chouette said so this morning."
"You are right," replied Nicholas, leaving the boat. "May thunder smite the old devil's kin, who has given us all the trouble for nothing! The valve works capitally. It appears we shall only have one instead of two jobs."
"Besides, Bras-Rouge and Barbillon will want us; they can do nothing by their two selves."
"True, again; for, whilst the job is doing, Bras-Rouge must keep watch outside the cabaret, and Barbillon is not strong enough to drag the matcher into the cellar, for the old ---- will fight for it, I know!"
"Didn't the Chouette say that, for a joke, she had got the Schoolmaster at 'school' in the cellar?"
"Not in this one; in another much deeper, and which is filled with water at spring-tides."
"How the Schoolmaster must rage and foam there in the cellar! There all alone, and blind, too!"
"That is no matter, for, if he saw as clear as ever, he could see nothing there; the cellar is as dark as an oven."
"Still, when he has done singing all the songs he knows, to pass away the time, his days must hang precious heavy on his hands."
"The Chouette says that he amuses himself with rat-hunting, and that the cellar is full of game."
"I say, Nicholas, talking of certain persons who must be tired, and fume, and fret," remarked Calabash, with a savage smile, and pointing to the window fastened up with the iron plates, "there is one there who must be ready to devour his own flesh and blood."
"Bah! He's asleep. Since the morning he hasn't stirred, and his dog is silent."
"Perhaps he has strangled him for food. For two days, they must both be desperate hungry and thirsty up there together."
"That is their affair. Martial may still last a long time in this way, if it amuses him. When it is done, why, we shall say he died of his complaint, and there'll be an end of that affair."
"Do you think so?"
"Of course I do. As mother went to Asnières this morning, she met Père Férot, the fisherman, and, as he was very much astonished at not having seen his friend Martial for the last two days, mother told him that Martial was confined to his bed, and was so ill that his life was despaired of. Daddy Férot swallowed all, like so much honey; he'll tell everybody else, and when the thing's done and over, why, it'll all seem nat'ral enough."
"Yes, but he won't die directly; this way is a tedious one."
"What else is to be done? There was no way of doing otherwise. That devil of a Martial, when he's put up, is as full of mischief as the old one himself, and as strong as a bull; particularly when he suspects anything, it is dangerous to approach him; but, now his door is well nailed up on the outside, what can he do? His window is strongly fastened with iron, too."
"Why, he might have driven out the bars by cutting away the plaster with his knife, and he would have done it, only I got up the ladder, and chopped at his fingers with the bill-hook every time he tried to go to work."
"What a pleasant watch!" said the ruffian, with a chuckle; "it must have been vastly amusing!"
"Why, it was to give you time to come with the iron plates you went to get from Père Micou."
"What a rage the dear brother must have been in!"
"He ground his teeth like a lunatic. Two or three times he tried to drive me away from the iron bars with his stick, but then, as he had only one hand at liberty, he could not work and release the iron bars, which was what he was trying at."
"Fortunately, there's no fireplace in his room, and the door is solid, and his hands finely cut; if not, he would work his way through the floor."
"What! Through those heavy beams? No, no, there's no chance of his escaping; the shutters are covered with iron plates and strengthened with two bars of iron, the door is nailed up outside with large boat-nails three inches long. His coffin is more solid than if it were made of oak and lead."
"I say, though, when La Louve comes out of prison, and makes her way here, to see her man, as she calls him?"
"Well, we shall say, 'Look for him.'"
"By the way, do you know that, if mother had not shut up those young 'rips' of children, they would have gnawed their ways through the door, like young rats, to free Martial? That little vagabond François is quite furious since he suspects we have packed away his tall brother."
"But, you know, they mustn't be left in the room up-stairs whilst we leave the island; the window is not barred, and they have only to drop down outside."
At this moment the attention of Nicholas and Calabash was attracted by the sound of cries and sobs which came from the house. They saw the door of the ground floor, which had been open until then, close violently, and a minute afterwards the pale and sinister countenance of Mère Martial appeared through the bars of the kitchen window. With her long lean arm the culprit's widow made a sign to her children to come to her.
"There's a row, I know; I'll bet that it is François, who's giving himself some airs again," said Nicholas. "That beggar Martial! But for him, this young scamp would be by himself. You keep a good look-out, and, if you see the two women coming, give me a call."
Whilst Calabash again mounted the bench, and looked out for the arrival of Séraphin and the Goualeuse, Nicholas entered the house. Little Amandine was on her knees in the centre of the kitchen, sobbing and asking pardon for her Brother François. Enraged and threatened, the lad, ensconced in one of the angles of the apartment, had Nicholas's hatchet in his hand, and appeared determined this time to offer the most desperate resistance to his mother's wishes. Impassive as usual, showing Nicholas the cellar, the widow made a sign to her son to shut François up there.
"I will never be shut up there!" cried the boy, in a determined tone. "You want to make us die of hunger, like Brother Martial."
The widow looked at Nicholas with an impatient air, as if to reproach him for not instantly executing her commands, as, with another imperious gesture, she pointed to François. Seeing his brother advance towards him, the young boy brandished the axe with a desperate air and cried: "If you try to shut me up there, whether it is mother, brother, or Calabash, so much the worse. I shall strike, and the hatchet cuts."
Nicholas felt as the widow did the pressing necessity there was to prevent the two children from going to Martial's succour whilst the house was left to itself, as well as to put them out of the way of seeing the scenes which were about to pass, for their window looked onto the river in which they were about to drown Fleur-de-Marie. But Nicholas was as cowardly as he was ferocious, and, afraid of receiving a blow from the dangerous hatchet with which his young brother was armed, hesitated to approach him. The widow, angry at his hesitation, pushed him towards François; but Nicholas, again retreating, exclaimed: "But, mother, if he cuts me? You know I want all my arms and fingers at this time, and I feel still the thump that brute Martial gave me."
The widow shrugged her shoulders, and advanced towards François.
"Don't come near me, mother," shrieked the boy in a fury, "or you'll pay dear for all the beatings you have given me and Amandine!"
"Let 'em shut us up; don't strike mother!" cried Amandine, in fear.
At this moment Nicholas saw upon a chair a large blanket which he used to wrap his booty in at times, and, taking hold of and partly unfolding it, he threw it completely over François's head, who, in spite of his efforts, finding himself entangled under its folds, could not make use of his weapon. Nicholas then seized hold of him, and, with his mother's help, carried him into the cellar. Amandine had continued kneeling in the centre of the kitchen, and, as soon as she saw her brother overcome, she sprang up and, in spite of her fright, went to join him in the dark hole. The door was then double-locked on the brother and sister.
"It will still be that infernal Martial's fault, if these children behave in this outrageous manner to us," said Nicholas.
"Nothing has been heard in his room since this morning," said the widow, with a pensive air, and she shuddered, "nothing!"
"That's a sign, mother, that you were right to say to Père Férot, the fisherman at Asnières, that Martial had been so dangerously ill as to be confined to his bed for the last two days; for now, when all is known, it will not astonish anybody."
After a moment's silence, as and if she wished to escape a painful thought, the widow replied, suddenly: "Didn't the Chouette come here whilst I was at Asnières?"
"Yes, mother."
"Why didn't she stay and accompany us to Bras-Rouge's? I mistrust her."
"Bah! You mistrust everybody, mother; you are always fancying they are going to play you some trick. To-day it is the Chouette, yesterday it was Bras-Rouge."
"Bras-Rouge is at liberty,--my son is at Toulon, yet they committed the same robbery."
"You are always saying this. Bras-Rouge escaped because he is as cunning as a fox--that's it; the Chouette did not stay, because she had an appointment at two o'clock, near the Observatory, with the tall man in black, at whose desire she has carried off this young country girl, by the help of the Schoolmaster and Tortillard; and Barbillon drove the hackney-coach which the tall man in black had hired for the job. So how, mother, do you suppose the Chouette would inform against us, when she tells us the 'jobs' she has in hand, and we do not tell her ours? for she knows nothing of this drowning job that is to come off directly. Be easy, mother; wolves don't eat each other, and this will be a good day's work; and when I recollect, too, that the jewel-matcher has often about her twenty to thirty thousand francs' worth of diamonds in her bag, and that, in less than two hours, we shall have her in Bras-Rouge's cellar! Thirty thousand francs' worth of diamonds, mother! Think of that!"
"And, whilst we lay hands on this woman, Bras-Rouge is to remain outside the cabaret?" inquired the widow, with an air of suspicion.
"Well, and where would you have him, I should like to know? If any one comes to his house, mustn't he be outside the door to answer them, and prevent them from entering the place whilst we are doing our 'job?'"
"Nicholas! Nicholas!" cried Calabash, at this moment from outside, "here come the two women!"
"Quick, quick, mother! Your shawl! I will land you on the other side, and that will be so much done," said Nicholas.
The widow had replaced her mourning head-dress with a high black cap, in which she now made her appearance. At the instigation of Nicholas, she wrapped herself in a large plaid shawl, with gray and white checks; and, after having carefully closed and secured the kitchen door, she placed the key behind one of the window-shutters on the ground-floor, and followed her son, who was hastily pursuing his way to the landing-place. Almost involuntarily, as she quitted the island, she cast a long and meditative look at Martial's window; and the train of thought to which its firmly nailed and iron-bound exterior gave rise seemed, to judge by their effect, to be of a very mingled and complicated character, for she knitted her brows, pursed her lips, and then, after a sudden convulsive shudder, she murmured, in a low hesitating voice: "It is his own fault--it is his own fault!"
"Nicholas, do you see them? Just down there, along the path,--a country girl and an old woman!" exclaimed Calabash, pointing to the other side of the river, where Madame Séraphin and Fleur-de-Marie were descending a narrow, winding path which passed by a high bank, on the top of which were the lime-kilns.
"Let us wait for the signal; don't let us spoil the job by too much haste," said Nicholas.
"What! Are you blind? Don't you recognise the stout woman who came the day before yesterday? Look at her orange shawl; and the little country girl, what a hurry she seems in! She's a good little thing, I know; and it's plain she has no idea of what is going to happen to her, or she wouldn't hasten on at that pace, I'm thinking."
"Yes, I recollect the stout woman now. It's all right, then--all right! Although they are so much behind the time I had almost given up the job as bad. But let us quite understand the thing, Calabash. I shall take the old woman and the young girl in the boat with a valve to it; you will follow me close on, stern to stern; and mind and row steadily, so that, with one spring, I may jump from one boat to the other, as soon as I have opened the pipe and the water begins to sink the boat."
"Don't be afraid about me, it is not the first time I've pulled a boat, is it?"
"I am not afraid of being drowned, you know I can swim; but, if I did not jump well into the other boat, why, the women, in their struggles against drowning, might catch hold of me and--much obliged to you, but I have no fancy for a bath with the two ladies."
"The old woman waves her handkerchief," said Calabash; "there they are on the bank."
"Come, come along, mother, let's push off," said Nicholas, unmooring. "Come you into the boat with the valve, then the two women will not have any fear; and you, Calabash, jump into t'other, and use your arms, my girl, and pull a good one. Ah, by the way, take the boat-hook and put it beside you, it is as sharp as a lance, and it may be useful," added the ruffian, as he placed beside Calabash in the boat a long hook with a sharp iron point.
A few moments, and the two boats, one rowed by Nicholas and the other by Calabash, reached the shore where, for some moments, Madame Séraphin and Fleur-de-Marie had been waiting. Whilst Nicholas was fastening his boat to a post on the bank, Madame Séraphin approached him, and said, in a low and rapid tone: "Say that Madame Georges is waiting for us at the island,--you understand?" And then, in a louder voice, she added, "We are rather late, my lad."
"Yes, my good lady, Madame Georges has been asking for you several times."
"You see, my dear young lady, Madame Georges is waiting for us," said Madame Séraphin, turning to Fleur-de-Marie, who, in spite of her confidence, had felt considerable repugnance at the sight of the sinister countenances of Calabash, Nicholas, and the widow; but the mention of Madame Georges reassured her, and she replied: "I am just as impatient to see Madame Georges; fortunately, it is not a long way across."
"How delighted the dear lady will be!" said Madame Séraphin. Then, addressing Nicholas, "Now, then, my lad, bring your boat a little closer that we may get in." Adding, in an undertone, "The girl must be drowned, mind; if she comes up thrust her back again into the water."
"All right, ma'am; and don't be alarmed yourself, but, when I make you the signal, give me your hand, she'll then pass under all alone, for everything's ready, and you have nothing to fear," replied Nicholas, in a similar tone; and then, with savage brutality, unmoved by Fleur-de-Marie's youth and beauty, he put his hand out to her. The young girl leaned lightly on him and entered the boat.
"Now you, my good lady," said Nicholas to Madame Séraphin, offering her his hand in turn.
Was it presentiment, or mistrust, or only fear that she could not spring quickly enough out of the little bark in which Nicholas and the Goualeuse were, that made Jacques Ferrand's housekeeper say to Nicholas, shrinking back, "No, I'll go in the boat with mademoiselle?" And she took her seat by Calabash.
"Just as you please," said Nicholas, exchanging an expressive look with his sister as, with a vigorous thrust with his oar, he drove his boat from the bank.
His sister did the same directly Madame Séraphin was seated beside her. Standing, looking fixedly on the bank, indifferent to the scene, the widow, pensive and absorbed, fixed her look obstinately on Martial's window, which was discernible from the landing-place through the poplars. During this time the two boats, in the first of which were Nicholas and Fleur-de-Marie and in the other Calabash and Madame Séraphin, left the bank slowly.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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16
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THE HAPPINESS OF MEETING.
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Before the reader is made acquainted with the _dénouement_ of the drama then passing in Nicholas's boat, we shall beg leave to retrace our steps.
Shortly after Fleur-de-Marie had quitted St. Lazare in company of Madame Séraphin, La Louve also left that prison. Thanks to the recommendations of Madame Armand and the governor, who were desirous of recompensing her for her kindness towards Mont Saint-Jean, the few remaining days the beloved of Martial had still to remain in confinement were remitted her. A complete change had come over this hitherto depraved, degraded, and intractable being. Forever brooding over the description of the peaceful, wild, and retired life, so beautifully depictured by Fleur-de-Marie, La Louve entertained the utmost horror and disgust of her past life. To bury herself with Martial in the deep shades of some vast forest, such was her waking and dreaming thought,--the one fixed idea of her existence, against which all her former evil inclinations had in vain struggled when, separating herself from La Goualeuse, whose growing influence she feared, this singular creature had retired to another part of St. Lazare.
To complete this sincere though rapid conversion, still more assured by the ineffectual resistance attempted by the perverse and froward habits of her companion, Fleur-de-Marie, following the dictates of her own natural good sense, had thus reasoned: "La Louve, a violent and determined creature, is passionately fond of Martial. She would, then, hail with delight the means of quitting the disgraceful life she now, for the first time, views with shame and disgust, for the purpose of entirely devoting herself to the rude, unpolished man whose taste she so entirely partakes of, and who seeks to hide himself from the world, as much from inclination as from a desire of escaping from the universal reprobation in which his family is viewed."
Assisted by these small materials, gleaned during her conversation with La Louve, Fleur-de-Marie, in giving a right direction to the unbridled passion and restraining the daring hardihood of the reckless creature, had positively converted a lost, wretched being into an honest woman; for what could the most virtuous of her sex have desired more than to bestow her undivided affections on the man of her choice, to dwell with him in the silence and solitude of woods, where hard labour, privations and poverty, would all be cheerfully borne and shared for his dear sake, to whom her heart was given?
And such was the constant, ardent prayer of La Louve. Relying on the assistance which Fleur-de-Marie had assured her of in the name of an unknown benefactor, La Louve determined to make her praiseworthy proposal to her lover, not, indeed, without the keen and bitter apprehension of being rejected by him, for La Goualeuse, while she brought her to blush for her past life, awakened her to a just sense also of her position as regarded Martial.
Once at liberty, La Louve thought only of seeing "her man," as she called him. He took exclusive possession of her mind; she had heard nothing of him for several days. In the hopes of meeting with him in the Isle du Ravageur, and with the determination of waiting there until he came, should she fail to find him at first, she paid the driver of a cabriolet liberally to conduct her with all speed to the bridge of Asnières, which she crossed about a quarter of an hour before Madame Séraphin and Fleur-de-Marie (they having walked from the barrier) had reached the banks of the river near the lime-kilns. As Martial did not present himself to ferry La Louve across to the Isle du Ravageur, she applied to an old fisherman, named Father Férot, who lived close by the bridge.
It was about four o'clock in the day when a cabriolet stopped at the entrance of a small street in the village of Asnières. La Louve leaped from it at one bound, threw a five-franc piece to the driver, and proceeded with all haste to the dwelling of old Férot, the ferryman. La Louve, no longer dressed in her prison garb, wore a gown of dark green merino, a red imitation of cashmere shawl with large, flaming pattern, and a net cap trimmed with riband; her thick, curly hair was scarcely smoothed out, her impatient longing to see Martial having rendered an ordinary attention to her toilet quite impossible. Any other female would, after so long a separation, have exerted her very utmost to appear becomingly adorned at her first interview with her lover; but La Louve knew little and cared less for all these coquettish arts, which ill accorded with her excitable nature. Her first, her predominating desire was to see "her man" as quickly as possible, and this impetuous wish was caused, not alone by the fervour of a love which, in minds as wild and unregulated as hers, sometimes leads on to madness, but also from a yearning to pour into the ear of Martial the virtuous resolutions she had formed, and to reveal to him the bright vista of happiness opened to both by her conversation with Fleur-de-Marie.
The flying steps of La Louve soon conducted her to the fisherman's cottage, and there, seated tranquilly before the door, she found Father Férot, an old, white-headed man, busily employed mending his nets. Even before she came close up to him, La Louve cried out: "Quick, quick, Father Férot! Your boat! Your boat!"
"What! Is it you, my girl? Well, how are you? I have not seen you this long while."
"I know, I know; but where is your boat? and take me across to the isle as fast as you can row."
"My boat? Well to be sure! Now, how very unlucky! As if it was to be so. Bless you, my girl, it is quite out of my power to ferry you across to-day."
"But why? Why is it?"
"Why, you see, my son has taken my boat to go up to the boat-races held at St. Ouen. Bless your heart, I don't think there's a boat left all along the river's side."
"Distraction!" exclaimed La Louve, stamping her foot and clenching her hand. "Then all is lost; I shall not be able to see him!" " 'Pon my honour and word, it's true, though," said old Férot. "I am extremely sorry I am unable to ferry you over, because, no doubt, by your going on so, he is very much worse."
"Who is much worse? Who?"
"Why, Martial!"
"Martial!" exclaimed La Louve, snatching the sleeve of old Férot's jacket, "My man ill?"
"Bless me! Did you not know it?"
"Martial? Do you mean Martial?"
"To be sure I do; but don't hold me so tight, you'll tear my blouse. Now be quiet, there's a good girl. I declare you frighten me, you stare about so wildly."
"Ill! Martial ill? And how long has he been so?"
"Oh, two or three days." " 'Tis false! He would have written and told me of it, had it been so."
"Ah, but then, don't you see? He's been too bad to handle a pen."
"Too ill to write! And he is on the isle! Are you sure--quite sure he is there?"
"Why, I'll tell you. You must know, this morning, I meets the widow Martial. Now you are aware, my girl, that most, in general, when I notice her coming one way, I make it my business to go the other, for I am not particular fond of her,--I can't say I am. So then--" "But my man--my man! Tell me of him!"
"Wait a bit,--I'm coming to him. So when I found I couldn't get away from the mother, and, to speak the honest truth, that woman makes me afraid to seem to slight her. She has a sort of an evil look about her, like one as could do you any manner of harm for only wishing for; I can't account for it, I don't know what it is, for I am not timorous by nature, but somehow the widow Martial does downright scare me. Well, says I, thinking just to say a few words and pass on, 'I haven't seen anything of your son Martial these last two or three days,' says I, 'I suppose he's not with you just now?' upon which she fixed her eyes upon me with such a look! 'Tis well they were not pistols, or they would have shot me, as folks say."
"You drive me wild! And then--and what said she?"
Father Férot was silent for a minute or two, and then added: "Come, now, you are a right sort of a girl; if you will only promise me to be secret, I will tell you all I know."
"Concerning my man?"
"Ay, to be sure, for Martial is a good fellow, though somewhat thoughtless; and it would be a sore pity should any mischance befall him through that old wretch of a mother or his rascally brother!"
"But what is going on? What have his mother or brother done? And where is he, eh? Speak, I tell you! Speak!"
"Well, well, have a little patience! And, I say, do just let my blouse alone! Come, take your hands off, there's a good girl; if you keep interrupting me, and tear my clothes in this way, I shall never be able to finish my story, and you will know nothing at last."
"Oh, how you try my patience!" exclaimed La Louve, stamping her foot with intense passion.
"And you promise never to repeat a word of what I am about to tell you?"
"No, no, I never will!"
"Upon your word of honour?"
"Father Férot, you will drive me mad!"
"Oh, what a hot-headed girl it is! Well, now, then, this is what I have got to say; but, first and foremost, I must tell you that Martial is more than ever at variance with his family; and, if he were to get some foul play at their hands, I should not be at all surprised; and that makes me the more sorry my boat is not at hand to help you across the water, for, if you reckon upon either Nicholas or Calabash taking you over to the isle, why, you'll just find yourself disappointed, that's all."
"I know that as well as you do; but what did my man's mother tell you? He was in the isle, then, when he fell ill, was he not?"
"Don't you put me out so with your questions; let me tell my story my own way. This morning I says to the widow,'Why,' says I,'I have seen nothing of Martial these last two or three days. I mark his boat is still moored,--he don't seem to use it as usual; I suppose he's gone away a bit? Maybe he's in Paris upon his business?' Upon which the widow gave me, oh, such a devil's look! So says she,'He's bad a-bed in the isle, and we don't look for him to get better!' 'Oh, oh!' says I to myself,'that's it, is it? It's three days since--' Holla! stop, I say!" cried old Férot, interrupting himself; "where the deuce are you going? What is the girl after now?"
Believing the life of Martial in danger from the inhabitants of the isle, and unable longer to endure the twaddle of the old fisherman, La Louve rushed, half frantic with rage and fear, towards the banks of the Seine. Some topographical descriptions will be requisite for the perfect understanding of the ensuing scene.
The Isle du Ravageur was nearer to the left bank of the river than it was to the right, from which Fleur-de-Marie and Madame Séraphin had embarked. La Louve stood on the left bank. Without being extremely high, the surface of the isle completely prevented those on one side the river from seeing what was passing on the opposite bank; thus La Louve had been unable to witness the embarkation of La Goualeuse, while the Martial family had been equally prevented from seeing La Louve, who, at that very instant, was rushing in wild desperation along the banks of the other side of the river.
Let us also recall to the reader, that the country-house belonging to Doctor Griffon, and temporarily occupied by the Count Saint-Remy was midway between the land and that part of the shore where La Louve arrived half wild with apprehension and impatience. Unconsciously she rushed past two individuals, who, struck with her excited manner and haggard looks, turned back to watch her proceedings. These two personages were the Count Saint-Remy and Doctor Griffon.
The first impulse of La Louve, upon learning the danger which threatened her lover, was to hurry towards the spot from whence the peril proceeded; but, as she reached the water's edge, she became painfully sensible of the difficulties that stood in the way of her reaching the opposite land. As the old fisherman had assured her, she well knew the folly of expecting any strangers to pass by, and none of the Martial family would take the trouble of rowing over to fetch her to the isle.
Heated and breathless, her eyes sparkling with eager excitement, she stopped opposite that point of the isle which, taking a sudden bend in this direction, was the nearest approach from the shore. Through the leafless branches of the willows and poplars, La Louve could see the roof of the very house where Martial perhaps lay dying.
At this distracting idea La Louve uttered a wild cry of desperation, then, snatching off her shawl and cap, she slipped out of her gown; and, undressed as she was to her petticoat, she threw herself intrepidly into the river, waded until she got out of her depth, and then, fearlessly striking out, she swam determinedly towards the isle, affording a strange spectacle of wild and desperate energy. At each fresh impulsion of the arms the long, thick hair of La Louve, unfastened by the violent exercise she was using, shook and waved about her head like the rich mane of a war-horse. But for the fixedness of her gaze, constantly riveted on the house which contained Martial, and the contraction of her features, drawn together by almost the convulsive agonies of fear and dreadful anticipation of arriving too late, the poacher's mistress might have been supposed to have been merely enjoying the cool refreshment of the water for her own sport and diversion, so boldly and freely did she swim.
Tattooed in remembrance of her lover, her white but sinewy arms, strong as those of a man, divided the waters with a stroke which sent the sparkling element in rushing streams of liquid pearls over her broad shoulders and strong, expansive chest, resembling a block of half-submerged marble. All at once, from the other side of the isle, rose a cry of distress,--a cry of agony at once fearful and despairing. La Louve started, and suddenly stopped in her rapid course; then supporting herself with one hand, with the other she pushed back her thick, dripping hair, and listened. Again the cry was repeated, but more feebly, supplicatory, convulsive, and expiring; and then the most profound silence reigned around. " 'Tis Martial--'tis his cry! He calls me to his aid!" exclaimed La Louve, swimming with renewed vigour, for, in her excited state of mind, the voice which had rent the air, and sent a pang through her whole frame, seemed to her to be that of her lover.
The count and the doctor, whom La Louve had rushed so quickly by, were quite unable to overtake her in time to prevent her daring attempt; but both arrived immediately opposite the isle at the moment when those frightful cries were heard. Both stopped, as perfectly shocked and startled as La Louve had been. Observing the desperate energy with which she battled with the water, they exclaimed: "The unfortunate creature means to drown herself!"
But their fears were vain. Martial's mistress swam like an otter, and, with a few more vigorous strokes, the intrepid creature had reached the land. She gained her feet, and, to assist her in climbing up the bank, she took hold of one of the stakes used as a sort of protecting stockade at the extremity of the isle, when at that instant, as partially in the water and holding on by one hand, she saw drifting along the form of a young female, dressed after the fashion of the country girls who come to Paris with their wares. The body floated slowly on with the current, which drove it against the piles, while the garments served to render it buoyant. To cling to one of the strongest stakes, and with the hand left free to snatch at the clothes of the female as it was passing, was the instantaneous impulse of La Louve,--an impulse executed as rapidly as conceived. In her extreme eagerness, however, she drew the unfortunate being she sought to save so suddenly and violently towards herself and within the small enclosure formed by the piles, that the body sunk completely under water, though here it was shallow enough to walk to land. Gifted with skill and strength far from common, La Louve raised La Goualeuse (for she it was, although not as yet recognised by her late friend), took her up in her powerful arms as though she had been a child, and laid her on the grassy banks of the isle.
"Courage! Courage!" shouted M. de Saint-Remy, from the opposite side, having, as well as Doctor Griffon, witnessed this bold deliverance. "We will make all haste to cross the bridge of Asnières, and bring a boat to your assistance."
After thus speaking, both the count and his companion proceeded as quickly as they were able in the direction of the bridge; but La Louve heard not the words addressed to her.
Let us again repeat, that, from the right bank of the Seine, on which Nicholas, Calabash, and their mother assembled after the commission of their atrocious crime, it was impossible, owing to its steepness, to observe what was passing on the opposite shore. Fleur-de-Marie, abruptly drawn by La Louve within the piles, having first sunk completely from the eyes of her murderers, was thus in safety from any further pursuit on their part, they believing that she had effectually perished.
A few instants after, the current, as it swept by, carried with it a second body, floating near to the surface of the water; but La Louve perceived it not. It was the corpse of Madame Séraphin, the notary's _femme de charge_. She, however, was perfectly dead.
It was as much the interest of Nicholas and Calabash as it was of Jacques Ferrand to remove so formidable a witness as well as sharer of their crime; seizing the opportunity, therefore, when the boat sunk with Fleur-de-Marie, to spring into that rowed by his sister, and in which was Madame Séraphin, he contrived to give the small vessel so great a shock as almost threw the _femme de charge_ into the water, and, while struggling to recover herself, he managed to thrust her overboard, and then to finish her with his boat-hook.
* * * * * Breathless and exhausted, La Louve, kneeling on the grass beside Fleur-de-Marie, tried to recover her strength, and, at the same time, to make out the features of her she had saved from certain death. Who can describe her surprise, her utter astonishment, as she recognised her late prison companion,--she who had exercised so beneficial an influence on her mind, and produced so complete a change in her conduct and ideas? In the first bewilderment of her feelings even Martial was forgotten.
"La Goualeuse!" exclaimed she, as, with head bent down, her hair dishevelled, her garments streaming with wet, she, kneeling, contemplated the unhappy girl stretched almost dying before her on the grass.
Pale, motionless, her half closed eyes vacant and senseless, her beautiful hair glued to her pallid brows, her lips blue and livid, her small, delicate hands stiff and cold, La Goualeuse might well have passed for dead to any but the watchful eye of affection.
"La Goualeuse!" again cried La Louve. "What a singular chance that I should have come hither to relate to my man all the good and harm she has done me with her words and promises, as well as the resolution I have taken, and to find the poor thing thus to give me the meeting! Poor girl! She is cold and dead. But, no, no!" exclaimed La Louve, stooping still more closely over Fleur-de-Marie, and, as she did so, finding a faint--indeed, almost imperceptible--breath escape her lips; "no, she lives! Merciful Father, she breathes! And 'tis I have snatched her from death! I, who never yet saved any one! Oh, how happy the thought makes me! My heart glows with a new delight. How thankful I feel that none but I saved her! Ha! but my man,--I must save him also. Perhaps he is even now in his death-throes--his mother and brother are even wretches enough to murder him! What shall I do? I cannot leave this poor creature here,--I will carry her to the widow's house. She must and she shall succour the poor Goualeuse and let me see Martial, or I will smash everything in my way. No mother, brother, or sister shall hinder me from going wherever my man is!"
And, springing up as she spoke, La Louve raised Fleur-de-Marie in her strong arms. Charged with this slender burthen, she hurried towards the house, never for a moment doubting that, spite of their hard and wicked natures, the widow and her daughter would bestow on Fleur-de-Marie every requisite care.
When Martial's mistress had reached that point of the isle from which both sides of the Seine were distinguishable, Nicholas, his mother, and Calabash had quitted the place, certain of the accomplishment of their double crime; they then repaired, in all haste, to the house of Bras-Rouge.
At this moment a man who, hidden in one of the recesses of the river concealed by the lime-kiln, had, without being seen himself, witnessed the whole progress of this horrible scene, also disappeared; believing, as well as the guilty perpetrators, that the fell deed had been fully achieved. This man was Jacques Ferrand.
One of Nicholas's boats was rocking to and fro, moored to a stake on the river's bank, just by where Madame Séraphin and La Goualeuse had embarked.
Scarcely had Jacques Ferrand quitted the lime-kiln to return to Paris than M. de Saint-Remy and Doctor Griffon hastily crossed the bridge of Asnières, for the purpose of reaching the isle; which they contemplated doing by means of Nicholas's boat, which they had discerned from afar.
To the extreme astonishment of La Louve, when she arrived at the house in the Isle du Ravageur, she found the door shut and fastened. Placing the still inanimate form of Fleur-de-Marie beneath the porch, she more closely examined the dwelling. The window of Martial's chamber was well known to her; what was her surprise to find the shutters belonging to it closed, and sheets of tin nailed over them, strongly secured from without by two bars of iron!
Suspecting a part of the cause of this, La Louve, in a loud, hoarse voice of mingled fury and deep tenderness, screamed out as loudly as she could: "Martial! My man!"
No answer was returned.
Terrified at this silence, La Louve began pacing round and round the house like a wild beast who scents the spot whither her mate has been entrapped, and with deep roars and savage growls demands admittance to him.
Still pursuing her agitated search, La Louve kept shouting from time to time, "My man! Are you there, my man?" And in her desperate fury she shook and rattled the bars of the kitchen windows, beat against the walls, and knocked long and loudly at the door. All at once a dull, indistinct noise was heard from withinside the house. Eagerly and attentively La Louve listened; the noise, however, ceased.
"My man heard me! I must and will get in somehow, if I gnaw the door away with my teeth."
And again she reiterated her frantic cries and adjurations to Martial. Several faint blows struck inside the closed shutters of Martial's chamber replied to the yells and screams of La Louve.
"He is there!" cried she, suddenly stopping beneath the window of her lover. "He is there! I am sure of it; and if all other means fail I will strip off that tin with my nails, but I will wrench those shutters open!"
So saying, she glanced frantically around in search of something to aid her efforts to free her lover, when her eye caught sight of a ladder partly hanging against one of the outside shutters of the sitting-room. Hastily pulling the shutter, the more quickly to disengage the ladder, the key of the outer door, left by the widow on the sill of the window, fell to the ground.
"Oh, if this be only the right key!" cried La Louve, trying it in the lock of the entrance door; "I can go straight up stairs to his chamber. Oh, it turns! It opens!" exclaimed La Louve, with delight; "and my man is saved!"
Once in the kitchen she was struck by the cries of the two children, who, shut up in the cellar, and hearing an unusual noise, called loudly for help. The widow, persuaded that no person would visit the isle or her dwelling, had contented herself with double-locking the door upon François and Amandine, leaving the key in the lock.
Released by La Louve, the two children hurried from the cellar to the kitchen.
"Oh, La Louve!" exclaimed François, "save our dear Brother Martial; they want him to die! For two days he has been shut up in his room!"
"They have not wounded him, have they?"
"No, no, I think not!"
"I have arrived just in time, it seems," cried La Louve, rushing towards the staircase, and hastily mounting the stairs. Then, suddenly stopping, she exclaimed, "Ah, but La Goualeuse! I quite forgot her. Amandine, my child, light a fire directly; and then do you and your brother fetch a poor, half-drowned girl you will find lying outside the door under the porch, and place her before the fire. She would have been quite dead, if I had not saved her. François, quick! Bring me a crowbar, a hatchet, an axe, anything, that I may break in the door that confines my man!"
"There is the cleaver we split wood with, but it is too heavy for you," said the lad, dragging forward an enormous chopper.
"Too heavy! I don't even feel it!" cried La Louve, swinging the ponderous weapon, which, at another time, she would have had much difficulty in lifting, as though it had been a feather.
Then, proceeding with hurried steps up-stairs, she called out to the children: "Go and fetch the young girl I told you of, and place her by the fire."
And, with two bounds, La Louve reached the corridor, at the end of which was situated the apartment of Martial.
"Courage! Courage, my man! Your Louve is here!" cried she, and, lifting the cleaver with both hands, she dashed it furiously against the door.
"It is fastened on the outside," moaned Martial, in a feeble voice; "draw out the nails,--you cannot open it otherwise."
Throwing herself upon her knees in the passage, by the help of the edge of the cleaver, her nails, which she almost tore bleeding from their roots, and her fingers, which were lacerated and torn, La Louve contrived to extract the huge nails which fastened the door all around. At length her heroic exertions were crowned with success,--the door yielded to her efforts, and Martial, pale, bleeding, and almost exhausted, fell into the arms of his mistress.
"At last--I have you--I hold you--I press you to my heart!" exclaimed La Louve, as she received and tenderly pressed Martial in her arms, with a joy of possession that partook almost of savage energy. She supported, or, rather, carried him to a bench placed in the corridor. For several minutes Martial remained weak and haggard, endeavouring to recover from the violent surprise which had proved nearly too much for his exhausted strength. La Louve had come to the succour of her lover at the very instant when, worn-out and despairing, he felt himself dying,--less from want of food than air, which it was impossible to obtain in so small an apartment, unprovided with a chimney or any other outlet, and hermetically closed, thanks to the fiendish contrivance of Calabash, who had stopped even the most trifling crevices in the door and window with pieces of old rag.
Trembling with joy and apprehension, her eyes streaming with tears, La Louve, kneeling beside Martial, watched his slightest movements, and intently gazed on his features. The unfortunate youth seemed gradually to recover as his lungs inhaled a freer and more healthful atmosphere. After a few convulsive shudderings he raised his languid head, heaved a deep sigh, and, opening his eyes, looked eagerly around him.
"Martial! 'Tis I! --your Louve! How are you now?"
"Better!" replied he, in a feeble voice.
"Thank God! Will you have a little water or some vinegar?"
"No, no," replied Martial, speaking more naturally; "air, air! Oh, I want only air!"
At the risk of gashing the backs of her hands, La Louve drove them through the four panes of a window she could not have opened without first removing a large and heavy table.
"Now I breathe! I breathe freely! And my head seems quite relieved!" said Martial, entirely recovering his senses and voice.
Then, as if recalling for the first time the service his mistress had rendered him, he exclaimed, with a burst of ineffable gratitude: "But for you, my brave Louve, I should soon have been dead!"
"Oh, never mind thinking of that! But tell me, how do you find yourself now?"
"Better--much better!"
"You are hungry, I doubt not?"
"No; I feel myself too weak for that. What I have suffered most cruelly from has been want of air. At last I felt suffocating, strangling, choking. Oh, it was dreadful!"
"But now?"
"I live again. I come forth from the very tomb itself; and that, too, thanks to you!"
"And these cuts upon your poor bleeding hands! For God's sake, what have they done to you?"
"Nicholas and Calabash, not daring to attack me openly a second time, fastened me up in my chamber to allow me to perish of hunger in it. I tried to prevent their nailing up my shutters, and my sister chopped my fingers with a hatchet."
"The monsters! They wished to make it appear that you had died of sickness. Your mother had spread the report of your being in a hopeless state. Your mother, my man,--your own mother!"
"Hold!" cried Martial, with bitterness; "mention her not." Then for the first time remarking the wet garments and singular state of La Louve's attire, he added, "But what has happened to you? Your hair is dripping wet; you have only your underclothes on; and they are drenched through."
"No matter, no matter what has happened to me, since you are saved. Oh, yes,--saved!"
"But explain to me how you became thus wet through."
"I knew you were in danger, and finding no boat--" "You swam to my rescue?"
"I did. But your hands? Give them to me that I may heal them with my kisses! You are in pain, I fear? Oh, the monsters! And I not here to help you!"
"Oh, my brave Louve!" exclaimed Martial, enthusiastically; "bravest and best of all brave creatures!"
"Did not your hand trace on my arm 'Death to the cowardly?' See!" cried La Louve, showing her tattooed arm, on which these very words were indelibly engraved.
"Yes, you are bold and intrepid; but the cold has seized you,--you tremble!"
"Indeed, it is not with cold."
"Never mind,--go in there. You will find Calabash's cloak; wrap yourself well in it."
"But--" "I insist!"
In an instant La Louve, who had quickly flown at her lover's second command, returned wrapped in a plaid mantle.
"To think you ran the risk of drowning yourself,--and all for me!" resumed Martial, gazing on her with enthusiastic delight.
"Oh, no, not altogether for you. A poor girl was nearly perishing in the river, and I saved her as I landed."
"Saved her also. And where is she?"
"Below with the children, who are taking care of her."
"And who is she?"
"Oh, dear, you can scarcely credit what a singular and lucky chance brought me to her rescue! She was one of my companions at St. Lazare,--a most extraordinary sort of girl. Oh, you don't half know--" "How so?"
"Only conceive my both hating and loving her; for she had introduced happiness and death into my heart and thoughts."
"Who? This girl?"
"Yes; and all on your account."
"On mine?"
"Hark ye, Martial!" Then interrupting her proposed speech, La Louve continued, "No, no; I never, never can--" "What?"
"I had a request to make to you, and for that purpose I came hither; because when I quitted Paris I knew nothing of your danger."
"Then speak,--pray do!"
"I dare not."
"Dare not,--after all you have done for me?"
"No; for then it would appear as though I claimed a right to be rewarded."
"A right to be rewarded? And have you not already earned that right? Do I not already owe you much? And did you not tend my sick bed with unfailing watchfulness, both night and day during my illness of the past year?"
"Are you not 'my man,--my own dear man?'"
"And for the reason that I am and ever shall be 'your man,' are you not bound to speak openly and candidly to me?"
"For ever, Martial?"
"Yes, for ever; as true as my name is Martial. I shall never care for any other woman in the world but you, my brave Louve. Never mind what you may have been, or what you may have done; that is nobody's affair but mine. I love you, and you love me; and, moreover, I owe you my life. But somehow, do you know, since you have been in prison I have not been like the same person. All sorts of fresh thoughts have come into my mind. I have thought it well over, and I have resolved that you shall no more be what you have been."
"What can you mean?"
"That I will never more quit you; neither will I part from François and Amandine."
"Your young sister and brother?"
"Yes; from this day forward I must be as a second father to these poor children. Don't you see, by imposing on myself fresh duties, I am compelled to alter and amend what is amiss in my way of conducting myself? But I consider it my positive task to take charge of these young things, or they will be made artful thieves. And the only way to save them is to take them from here."
"Where to?"
"That I know not; but certainly far from Paris."
"And me?"
"You? Why, of course, you go with me!"
"With you?" exclaimed La Louve, with joyful surprise,--she could not credit the reality of such happiness. "And shall I never again be parted from you?"
"No, my brave girl--never! You will help me to bring up my little sister and young brother. I know your heart. When I say to you, 'I greatly wish my poor little Amandine to grow up a virtuous and industrious woman. Just talk to her about it, and show her what to do,' I am quite sure and certain that you will be to her all the best mother could be to her own child."
"Oh, thanks, Martial,--thanks, thanks!"
"We shall live like honest workpeople. Never fear but we shall find work; for we will toil like slaves to content our employers; but, at least, these children will not be depraved and degraded beings like their parents. I shall not continually hear myself taunted with my father and brother's disgraceful end, neither shall I go through streets where you are known. But what is the matter,--what ails you?"
"Oh, Martial, I feel as though I should go mad."
"Mad! --for what?"
"For joy."
"And why should you go mad with joy?"
"Because--because,--it is too much--" "What?"
"I mean that what you propose is too great happiness for one like me to hope for. Oh, indeed, indeed, it is more than I can bear! But who knows? Perhaps saving La Goualeuse has brought me good luck,--that's it, I am sure and certain."
"Still, I ask you, what is the matter, and why are you thus agitated?" exclaimed Martial.
"Oh, Martial, Martial, the very thing you have been proposing--" "Well?"
"I was going to ask you."
"To quit Paris?"
"Yes," replied she, in a hurried tone; "and to try your consent to accompany you to the forests, where we should have a nice, neat little house, and children whom I should love as La Louve would the children of her man--or, if you would permit me," continued La Louve, in a faltering voice, "instead of calling you 'my man,' to say 'my husband?' For," added she, confusedly and rapidly, "for without that change, we should not obtain the place."
Martial, in his turn, regarded La Louve with deep astonishment, unable to comprehend her meaning.
"What place are you speaking of?" said he, at length.
"Of that of gamekeeper."
"That I should have?"
"Yes."
"And who would give it to me?"
"The protector of the young girl I saved."
"They do not know me."
"But I have told her all about you, and she will recommend us to her protector."
"And what have you told her about me?"
"Oh, Martial, can you not guess? Of what could I speak but of your goodness--and my love for you?"
"My excellent Louve!"
"And then, you know, being in prison together makes folks talk to each other, and open their hearts in the way of confidence. Besides which, there was something so gentle and engaging about this young creature, that I could not help feeling drawn towards her, even in spite of myself; for I very quickly discovered she was a very different person to such as you and I have been used to."
"And who is she?"
"I know not, neither can I guess; but certainly I never met with any one like her. Bless you, she can read the very thoughts of your heart, the same as if she were a fairy. I merely told her of my love for you, and she immediately interested herself in us. She made me feel ashamed of my past life; not by saying harsh and severe things,--you know very well that would not have done much good with me,--but by talking of the pleasures of a life passed in hard but peaceful labour, tranquilly within the quiet shades of deep forests, where you might be occupied according to your tastes and inclinations; only, instead of your being a poacher, she made you a gamekeeper, and in place of my being only your mistress, she pictured me as your true and lawful wife. And then we were to have fine, healthy children who ran joyfully to meet you when you returned at night, followed by your faithful dogs, and carrying your gun on your shoulder. Then we all sat down so gay and happy, to eat our supper beneath the cool shade of the large trees that overhung our cottage door, while the fresh wind blew, and the moon peeped at us from amongst the thick branches, and the little ones prattled and you related to us all you had seen and done during the day, while wandering in the forests; until, at last, cheerful and contented, we retired to rest, to rise the following day, and with light hearts to recommence our labours. I cannot tell you how it was, but I listened and listened to these delightful pictures till I quite believed in their reality. I seemed bound by a spell when she spoke of happiness like this, though I tried ever so much against it. I always found it impossible to disbelieve that it would surely come to pass. Oh, but you have no idea how beautifully she described it all! I fancied I saw it--you--our children--our forest home. I rubbed my eyes, but it was ever before them, although a waking dream."
"Ah, yes!" said Martial, sighing; "that would, indeed, be a sweet and pleasant life! Without being bad at heart, poor François has been quite enough in the society of Calabash and Nicholas to make it far better he should dwell in the solitude of woods and forests, rather than be exposed to the further contamination of great towns. Amandine would help you in your household duties, and I should make a capital gamekeeper, from the very fact of my having been a poacher of some notoriety. I should have you for my housekeeper and companion, my good Louve; and then, as you know, we should have our children also. Bless their little hearts, I doubt not our having a fine flock about us! And what more could we wish for or desire? When once we got used to a forest life, it would seem as though we had always lived there; and fifty or a hundred years would glide away like a single day. But you must not talk to me of such happiness; it makes one so full of sadness and regrets that it cannot be realised. No, no, don't let us ever mention it again; because, don't you see, La Louve, it comes over one like--I should soon work myself up to madness if I allowed my thoughts to dwell on it."
"Ah, Martial, I let you go on because I thought I was quite as bad myself. I said just those very words to La Goualeuse."
"Did you, really?"
"I did, indeed. For, after listening to all these tales of enchantment, I said to her, 'What a pity, La Goualeuse, that these castles in the air, as you call them, are not true!' And what do you think, Martial," asked La Louve, her eyes flashing with joy, "what do you think she answered me?"
"I don't know." " 'Why,' said she, 'only let Martial marry you, and give me your promise to live honestly and virtuously henceforward, and directly I quit the prison I will exert myself to get the place I have been speaking of for him.'"
"Get me a gamekeeper's place?"
"Yes; I declare to you, Martial, she said so."
"Oh, but as you say, that can be but a dream--a mere fancy. If, indeed, nothing were requisite for our obtaining the place but our being married, my good girl, that should be done to-morrow, if I had the means; though, from this very day and hour, I consider you as my true and lawful wife."
"Oh, Martial! I your lawful wife?"
"The only woman who shall ever bear that title. And, for the future, I wish you to call me 'husband;' for such I am in word and heart, as firmly and lastingly as though we had been before the _maire_."
"Oh, La Goualeuse was right. A woman feels so proud and happy to say 'My husband!' Oh, Martial, you shall see what a good, faithful, devoted wife I will be to you; how hard I will work! Oh, I shall be so delighted to labour for you!"
"And do you really think there is any chance of our getting this place?"
"If the poor dear Goualeuse deceives herself about it, it is that others deceive her; for she seemed quite sure of being able to fulfil her promises. And besides, when I was quitting the prison a little while ago, the inspectress told me that the protectors of La Goualeuse, who were people of rank and consequence, had removed her from confinement that very day. Now that proved her having powerful friends; so that she can keep her word to us if she likes."
"But," cried Martial, suddenly rising, "I don't know what we have been thinking of all this time!"
"Thinking about--what do you mean, Martial?"
"Why, the poor girl you saved from drowning is down-stairs--perhaps dying; and, instead of rendering her any assistance, we are attending to our own affairs up-stairs."
"Make yourself perfectly easy; François and Amandine are there watching her, and they would have come to call us had there been any danger or necessity. Still you are right; let us go to her. You must see her to whom we shall, perhaps, owe all our future happiness."
And Martial, supported by La Louve, descended to the lower part of the house. Before they have reached the kitchen, let us in a few words describe what had occurred there from the time when Fleur-de-Marie had been confided to the charge of the two children.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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17
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DOCTOR GRIFFON.
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François and Amandine had contrived to convey Fleur-de-Marie near the fire, when M. de Saint-Remy and Doctor Griffon, who had crossed the river in Nicholas's boat, entered the house. Whilst the children were making the fire burn up, Doctor Griffon bestowed on the young girl his utmost care.
"The poor girl cannot be more than seventeen at most!" exclaimed the count, who was looking on. "What do you think of her, doctor?"
"Her pulse is scarcely perceptible; but, strange to say, the skin of the face is not livid in the subject, as is usually the case in asphyxia from submersion," replied the doctor, with professional calmness, and contemplating Fleur-de-Marie with a deeply meditative air.
Doctor Griffon was a tall, thin man, pallid and completely bald, except two tufts of thin black hair, carefully brushed back on the poll, and flattened on the temples. His countenance, wrinkled and furrowed by the fatigues of study, was calm, intelligent, and reflective. Profoundly learned, of great experience, and a skilful practitioner, first surgeon at a civil hospital, where we shall again encounter him, Doctor Griffon had but one defect, that of completely abstracting himself from the patient, and only considering the disease. Young or old, rich or poor, was no matter,--he only thought of medical fact, more or less remarkable, which the subject presented. For him there was nothing but subjects.
"What a lovely face! How beautiful she is in spite of this frightful paleness!" said M. de Saint-Remy. "Did you ever see milder or more expressive features, my dear doctor? And so young--so young!"
"Age is no consequence," said the doctor, abruptly, "no more than the presence of water in the lungs, which was formerly thought fatal. It was a gross error, which the admirable experiments of Goodwin--the famous Goodwin--incontestably detected and exposed."
"But doctor--" "But it is a fact," replied M. Griffon, absorbed by the love of his art. "To detect the presence of any foreign liquid in the lungs, Goodwin plunged some cats and dogs several times into tubs filled with ink for some seconds, taking them out alive, and then, after a time, dissected the animals. Well, he was convinced from the dissection that the ink had penetrated the lungs, and that the presence of this liquid in the respiratory organs had not caused the death of the subject."
The count knew the doctor was a worthy creature at heart, but that his mad passion for science made him often appear harsh and cruel.
"Have you any hope?" inquired M. de Saint-Remy, impatiently.
"The extremities of the subject are very cold," said the doctor; "there is but very slight hope."
"Ah, poor child! To die at that age is indeed terrible!"
"Pupil fixed--dilated!" observed the doctor, impassive, and pushing up the frigid eyelid of Fleur-de-Marie with his forefinger.
"What a singular man!" exclaimed the comte, almost with indignation. "One would suppose you pitiless, and yet I have seen you watch by my bedside for nights together. Had I been your brother, you could not have been more generously devoted to me."
Doctor Griffon, still occupied in doing all that was requisite and possible for Fleur-de-Marie, replied to the comte without looking at him, and with imperturbable phlegm: "_Parbleu! _ Do you think one meets with an intermittent fever so wonderfully complicated as that you had! It was wonderful, my dear friend--astonishing! Stupor, delirium, muscular action of the tendons, syncopes,--that important fever combined the most varied symptoms. You were, indeed, affected by a partial and momentary attack of paralysis; and, if it had presented nothing else, why, your attack was entitled to all the attention in my power. You presented a magnificent study; and, truth to say, my dear friend, what I desire most in the world is to meet with such another glorious fever. But that is a piece of good fortune that never occurs twice!"
At this moment Martial descended, leaning on the arm of La Louve, who still retained over her wet clothes the plaid cloak which belonged to Calabash. Struck with the paleness of Martial, and remarking his hands covered with dried blood, the comte exclaimed, "Who is this man?"
"My husband!" replied La Louve, looking at Martial with an expression of happiness and noble pride impossible to describe.
"You have a good and intrepid wife, sir," said the comte to him. "I saw her save this unfortunate young girl with singular courage."
"Yes, sir, my wife is good and intrepid," replied Martial, with emphasis, and regarding La Louve with an air at once full of love and tenderness. "Yes, intrepid; for she has also come in time to save my life."
"Your life?" exclaimed the comte.
"Look at his hands--his poor hands!" said La Louve, wiping away the tears which softened the wild brightness of her eyes.
"Horrible!" cried the comte. "See, doctor, how his hands are hacked!"
Doctor Griffon, turning his head slightly, and looking over his shoulder at Martial's hands, said to him, "Open and shut your hand."
Martial did so with considerable pain. The doctor shrugged his shoulders, and continued his attentions to Fleur-de-Marie, saying merely, and as if with regret: "There's nothing serious in those cuts,--there's no tendon injured. In a week the subject will be able to use his hands again."
"Then, sir, my husband will not be crippled?" said La Louve, with gratitude.
The doctor shook his head affirmatively.
"And La Goualeuse will recover--won't she, sir?" inquired La Louve. "Oh, she must live, for I and my husband owe her so much!" Then turning towards Martial, "Poor dear girl! There she is, as I told you,--she who will, perhaps, be the cause of our happiness; for it was she who gave me the idea of coming and saying to you all I have said. What a chance that I should save her--and here, too!"
"She is a providence," said Martial, struck by the beauty of La Goualeuse. "What an angel's face! Oh, she will recover, will she not, doctor?"
"I cannot say," replied the doctor. "But, in the first place, can she remain here? Will she have all necessary attention?"
"Here?" cried La Louve; "why, they commit murder here!"
"Silence--silence!" said Martial.
The comte and the doctor looked at La Louve with surprise.
"This house in the isle has a bad reputation hereabouts, and I am not astonished at it," observed the doctor, in a low tone, to M. de Saint-Remy.
"You have, then, been the victim of some violence?" observed the comte to Martial. "How did you come by those wounds?"
"They are nothing--nothing, sir. I had a quarrel--a struggle ensued, and I was wounded. But this young peasant girl cannot remain in this house," he added, with a gloomy air. "I cannot remain here myself--nor my wife, nor my brother, nor my sister, whom you see. We are going to leave the isle, never to return to it."
"Oh, how nice!" exclaimed the two children.
"Then what are we to do?" said the doctor, looking at Fleur-de-Marie. "It is impossible to think of conveying the subject to Paris in her present state of prostration. But then my house is quite close at hand, my gardener's wife and her daughter are capital nurses; and since this asphyxia by submersion interests you, my dear Saint-Remy, why, you can watch over the necessary attentions, and I will come and see her every day."
"And you assume the harsh and pitiless man," exclaimed the comte, "when, as your proposal proves, you have one of the noblest hearts in the world!"
"If the subject sinks under it, as is possible, there will be an opportunity for a most interesting dissection, which will allow me to confirm once again Goodwin's assertions."
"How horridly you talk!" cried the comte.
"For those who know how to read, the dead body is a book in which they learn to save the lives of the diseased!" replied Dr. Griffon, stoically.
"At last, then, you do good?" said M. de Saint-Remy, with bitterness; "and that is important. What consequence is the cause provided that benefit results? Poor child! The more I look at her the more she interests me."
"And well does she deserve it, I can tell you, sir," observed La Louve, with excitement, and approaching him.
"Do you know her?" inquired the comte.
"Do I know her, sir? Why, it is to her I owe the happiness of my life; and I have not done for her half what she has done for me." And La Louve looked passionately towards her husband,--she no longer called him her man!
"And who is she?" asked M. de Saint-Remy.
"An angel, sir,--all that is good in this world. Yes; and although she is dressed as a country girl, there is no merchant's wife, no great lady, who can discourse as well as she can, with her sweet little voice just like music. She is a noble girl, I say,--full of courage and goodness."
"By what accident did she fall into the water?"
"I do not know, sir."
"Then she is not a peasant girl?" asked the comte.
"A peasant girl,--look at her small white hands, sir!"
"True," observed M. de Saint-Remy; "what a strange mystery! But her name--her family?"
"Come along," said the doctor, breaking into the conversation; "we must convey the subject into the boat."
Half an hour after this, Fleur-de-Marie, who had not yet recovered her senses, was in the doctor's abode, lying in a good bed, and maternally watched by M. Griffon's gardener's wife, to whom was added La Louve. The doctor promised M. de Saint-Remy, who was more and more interested in La Goualeuse, to return to see her again in the evening. Martial went to Paris with François and Amandine, La Louve being unwilling to quit Fleur-de-Marie before she had been pronounced out of danger.
The Isle du Ravageur remained deserted. We shall presently find its sinister inhabitants at Bras-Rouge's, where they were to be joined by the Chouette for the murder of the diamond-matcher. In the meantime we will conduct the reader to the rendezvous which Tom, Sarah's brother, had with the horrible hag, the Schoolmaster's accomplice.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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18
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THE PORTRAIT.
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Thomas Seyton, the brother of the Countess Sarah Macgregor, was walking impatiently on the boulevards near the Observatory, when he saw the Chouette arrive. The horrible beldame had on a white cap and her usual plaid shawl. The point of a stiletto, as round as a thick swan's quill, and very sharp, having perforated a hole at the bottom of her large straw basket which she carried on her arm, the extremity of this murderous weapon, which had belonged to the Schoolmaster, might be seen projecting. Thomas Seyton did not perceive that the Chouette was armed.
"It has just struck three by the Luxembourg," said the old woman. "Here I am, like the hand of the clock."
"Come," replied Thomas Seyton. And, preceding her, he crossed some open fields; and turning down a deserted alley near the Rue Cassini, he stopped half way down the lane, which was barred by a turnstile, opened a small door, motioned to the Chouette to follow him; and, after having advanced with her a few steps down a path overgrown by thick trees, he said, "Wait here," and disappeared.
"That is, if you don't keep me on the 'waiting lay' too long," responded the Chouette; "for I must be at Bras Rouge's at five o'clock to meet the Martials, and help silence the diamond-matcher. It's very well I have my 'gulley' (poniard). Oh, the vagabond, he has got his nose out of window!" added the hag, as she saw the point of the stiletto coming through the seam in the basket. And taking the weapon, which had a wooden handle, from the basket, she replaced it so that it was completely concealed. "This is _fourline's_ tool," she continued, "and he has asked me for it so many times to kill the rats who came skipping about him in his cellar. Poor things! They have no one but the old blind man to divert them and keep them company. They ought not to be hurt if they play about a bit; and so I will not let him hurt the dears, and I keep his tool to myself. Besides, I shall soon want it for this woman, perhaps. Thirty thousand francs' worth of diamonds,--what a 'haul' for each of us! It'll be a good day's work, and not like that of the other day with that old notary whom I thought to squeeze. It was no use to threaten him if he would not 'stand some blunt' that I would lay information that it was his housekeeper who had sent La Goualeuse to me by Tournemine when she was a little brat. Nothing frightened the old brute, he called me an old hag, and shoved me out-of-doors. Well, well, I'll send an anonymous letter to these people at the farm where Pegriotte was, to inform them that it was the notary who formerly abandoned her to me. Perhaps they know her family; and when she gets out of St. Lazare, why, the matter will get too hot for that old brute, Jacques Ferrand. Some one comes,--ah, it is the pale lady who was dressed in men's clothes at the _tapis-franc_ of the ogress, and with the tall fellow who just left me, the same that the _fourline_ and I robbed by the excavations near Notre-Dame," added the Chouette, as she saw Sarah appear at the extremity of the walk. "Here's another job for me, I see; and this little lady must have something to do with our having carried off La Goualeuse from the farm. If she pays well for another job of work, why, that will be 'the ticket.'"
As Sarah approached the Chouette, whom she saw again for the first time since their rencontre at the _tapis-franc_, her countenance expressed the disdain, the disgust, which persons of a certain rank feel when they come in contact with low wretches whom they take as tools or accomplices.
Thomas Seyton, who, until now, had actively served the criminal machinations of his sister, although he considered them as all but futile, had refused any longer to continue this contemptible part, consenting, nevertheless, for the first and last time to put his sister in communication with the Chouette, without himself interfering in the fresh projects they might plan. The countess, unable to win back Rodolph to her by breaking the bonds or the affections which she believed so dear to him, hoped, as we have seen, to render him the dupe of a base deceit, the success of which might realise the vision of this obstinate, ambitious, and cruel woman. Her design was to persuade Rodolph that their daughter was not dead, and to substitute an orphan for the child.
We know that Jacques Ferrand--having formally refused to participate in this plot in spite of Sarah's menaces--had resolved to make away with Fleur-de-Marie, as much from the fear of the Chouette's disclosure, as from fear of the obstinate persistence of the countess. But the latter had by no means abandoned her design, feeling persuaded that she should corrupt or intimidate the notary when she should be assured of having obtained a young girl capable of filling the character which she desired her to assume.
After a moment's silence Sarah said to the Chouette, "You are adroit, discreet, and resolute?"
"Adroit as a monkey, resolute as a bulldog, and mute as a fish; such is the Chouette, and such the devil made her; at your service if you want her,--and you do," replied the old wretch, quickly. "I hope we have managed well with the young country wench who is now in St. Lazare for two good months."
"We are not talking of her, but of something else."
"Anything you please, my handsome lady, provided there's money at the end of what you mean to propose, and then we shall be as right as my fingers."
Sarah could not control a movement of disgust. "You must know," she resumed, "many people in the lower ranks of life,--persons who are in misfortune?"
"There are more of them than there are of millionaires; you may pick and choose. We have plentiful wretchedness in Paris."
"I want to meet with a poor orphan girl, and particularly if she lost her parents young. She must be good-looking, of gentle disposition, and not more than seventeen years of age."
The Chouette gazed at Sarah with amazement.
"Such an orphan girl must be by no means difficult to meet with," continued the countess; "there are so many foundling children!"
"Why, my good lady, you forget La Goualeuse. She is the very thing."
"Who is La Goualeuse?"
"The young thing we carried off from Bouqueval."
"We are not talking of her now, I tell you."
"But hear me, and be sure you pay me well for my advice. You want an orphan girl, as quiet as a lamb, as handsome as daylight, and who is only seventeen, you say?"
"Certainly."
"Well, then, take La Goualeuse when she leaves St. Lazare; she is the very thing for you, as if we had made her on purpose. For she was about six years of age when that scamp, Jacques Ferrand (and it's now ten years ago), gave her to me with a thousand francs, in order to get rid of her,--that is to say, it was Tournemine, who is now at the galleys at Rochefort, who brought her to me, saying there was no doubt she was some child they wanted to get rid of or pass off for dead."
"Jacques Ferrand, do you say?" exclaimed Sarah, in a voice so choked that the Chouette receded several paces. "The notary, Jacques Ferrand, gave you this child--and--?" She could not finish, her emotion was too violent; and with her two clasped hands extended towards the Chouette, she trembled convulsively, surprise and joy agitating her features.
"I don't know what it is that makes you so much in earnest, my good lady," replied the old hag; "but it is a very simple story. Ten years ago Tournemine, an old pal of mine, said to me: 'Have you a mind to take charge of a little girl that they want to get out of the way? No matter whether she slips her wind or not. There's a thousand francs for the job, and do what you like with the 'kinchin.'"
"Ten years ago?" cried Sarah.
"Ten years."
"A little fair girl?"
"A little fair girl."
"With blue eyes?"
"Blue eyes--as blue as blue bells."
"And it was she who was at the farm?"
"And we packed her up and carted her off to St. Lazare. I must say, though, that I didn't expect to find her--Pegriotte--in the country as I did, though."
"Oh, _mon Dieu! _ _mon Dieu! _" exclaimed Sarah, falling on her knees, and elevating her hands and eyes to heaven, "Thy ways are inscrutable, and I bow down before thy providence! Oh, if such happiness be possible! But, no, I cannot yet believe it; it would be too fortunate! No!" Then rising suddenly she said to the Chouette, who was gazing at her with the utmost astonishment, "Follow me!" And Sarah walked before her with hasty steps.
At the end of the alley she ascended several steps that led by a glass door to a small room sumptuously furnished. At the moment when the Chouette was about to enter, Sarah made a sign to her to remain outside, and then rang the bell violently. A servant appeared.
"I am not at home to anybody, and let no one enter here,--no one, do you hear?"
The servant bowed and retired. Sarah, for the sake of greater security, pushed to the bolt. The Chouette heard the order given to the servant, and saw Sarah fasten the bolt. The countess then turning towards her, said: "Come in quickly, and shut the door."
The Chouette did as she was bidden.
Hastily opening a _secrétaire_, Sarah took from it an ebony coffer, which she placed on a writing-table in the centre of the room, and beckoned the Chouette towards her. The coffer was filled with small caskets lying one upon the other, and containing splendid jewelry. Sarah was in so much haste to arrive at the bottom of the coffer, that she hastily scattered over the table these jewel-cases, splendidly filled with necklaces, bracelets, tiaras of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, which sparkled with a thousand fires.
The Chouette was dazzled. She was armed, was alone with the countess; escape was easy--certain. An infernal idea shot through the brain of this monster. But to put this new crime into execution it was necessary to extricate her stiletto from her basket, and approach Sarah without exciting her suspicions.
With the craft of the tiger-cat, who grovels along treacherously towards its prey, the beldame profited by the countess's preoccupation to move imperceptibly around the table which separated her from her victim. The Chouette had already begun her perfidious movement, when she was compelled suddenly to stop short. Sarah took a locket from the bottom of the box, leaned over the table, and, handing it to the Chouette with a trembling hand, said: "Look at this portrait."
"It is Pegriotte!" exclaimed the Chouette, struck with the strong resemblance; "it is the little girl who was handed to me! I think I see her just as she was when Tournemine brought her to me. That's just like her long curling hair, which I cut off and sold directly, _ma foi! _" "You recognise her; it is really she? Oh, I conjure you, do not deceive me--do not deceive me!"
"I tell you, my good lady, it is Pegriotte, as if I saw herself there," said the Chouette, trying to draw nearer to Sarah without being remarked. "And even now she is very like this portrait; if you saw her you would be struck by the likeness."
Sarah had not uttered one cry of pain or alarm when she learned that her daughter had been for ten years leading a wretched existence, forsaken as she was. Not one feeling of remorse was there when she reflected that she herself had snatched her away disastrously from the peaceful retreat in which Rodolph had placed her. This unnatural mother did not eagerly question the Chouette with terrible anxiety as to the past life of the child. No! In her heart ambition had long since stifled every sentiment of maternal tenderness. It was not joy at again being restored to a lost daughter that transported her,--it was the hope of seeing at length realised the vain dream of her whole existence. Rodolph had felt deeply interested in this unfortunate girl, had protected her without knowing her; what would then be his feelings when he discovered that she was--his daughter? He was free--the countess was a widow! Sarah already saw the sovereign crown sparkling on her brow.
The Chouette, still stealing on with slow steps, had at length reached one end of the table, and had her stiletto perpendicularly in her basket, its handle on a level with the opening, and within her clutch. She was but a step or two from the countess.
"Do you know how to write?" inquired Sarah of her; and, pushing from her the casket and gems, she opened a blotting-book, which was by an inkstand.
"No, madame; I do not!" replied the Chouette, at all risks.
"I will write, then, at your dictation. Tell me all the circumstances of the abandonment of this little girl."
And Sarah, sitting in an armchair before the writing-table, took up a pen, and made a sign to the Chouette to come close to her. The old wretch's one eye sparkled. At last she was standing up, close to the seat on which Sarah was sitting, and, stooping over a table, was preparing to write.
"I will read aloud, and then," said the countess, "you can correct any mistakes."
"Yes, madame," replied the Chouette, narrowly watching every motion of Sarah; and she furtively introduced her hand into her basket, that she might be able to grasp the poniard without being observed.
The countess commenced writing.
"I declare that--" Then interrupting herself, and turning towards the Chouette, who was at the moment touching the handle of her poniard, Sarah added: "At what period was the child brought to you?"
"In the month of February, 1827."
"And by whom?" continued Sarah, turning towards the Chouette.
"By Pierre Tournemine, now at the galleys at Rochefort. It was Madame Séraphin, the notary's housekeeper, who brought the young girl to him."
The countess continued writing, and then read aloud: "I declare that, in the month of February, 1827, a person named--" The Chouette had drawn the poniard; already had she raised her arm to strike her victim between the shoulders; Sarah turned again. The Chouette, that she might not be off her guard, leaned her right hand, armed as it was, on the back of Sarah's armchair, and then stooped towards her, as if in attitude to reply to her question.
"Tell me again the name of the man who handed the child to you?" said the countess.
"Pierre Tournemine," repeated Sarah, as she wrote it down, "at this time at the galleys of Rochefort, brought me a child, which had been confided to him by the housekeeper of--" The countess could not finish. The Chouette having got rid of her basket by allowing it to slide from her arm onto the floor, threw herself on the countess with equal fury and rapidity; and having grasped the back of her neck with her left hand, forced her face down on the table, and then with her right hand drove the stiletto in between her two shoulders.
This atrocious assassination was so promptly effected that the countess did not utter a cry--a moan. Still sitting, she remained with her head and the front of her body on the table. Her pen fell from her fingers.
"Just the very blow which _fourline_ gave the little old man in the Rue du Roule!" said the monster. "One more who will never wag tongue again! Her account is settled!" And the Chouette, gathering up the jewels together, huddled them into her basket, not perceiving that her victim still breathed.
The murder and robbery effected, the horrid old devil opened the glass door, ran swiftly along the tree-covered path, went out by the small side door, and reached the lone tract of ground. Near the Observatory she took a hackney-coach, which drove her to Bras-Rouge's in the Champs Elysées.
The widow Martial, Nicholas, Calabash, and Barbillon had, as we know, an appointment with the Chouette in this den of infamy, in order to rob and murder the diamond-matcher.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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19
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THE AGENT OF SAFETY.
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The reader already knows the Bleeding Heart in the Champs Elysées, near the Court de la Reine, in one of the deep ditches which, a few years since, were close to this promenade. The inhabitants of the Isle du Ravageur had not yet arrived.
After the departure of Bradamanti, who had, as we know, accompanied Madame d'Harville's stepmother into Normandy, Tortillard had returned to his father. Placed as a sentinel at the top of the staircase, the little cripple was to announce the arrival of the Martials by a certain cry, Bras-Rouge being at this moment in secret conference with an _agent-de-sûreté_ named Narcisse Borel, whom the reader may perchance remember to have seen at the _tapis-franc_ of the ogress, when he came there to arrest two miscreants accused of murder.
This agent, a man about forty years of age, was thickset and powerful, with a high colour, a keen, quick eye, his face entirely shaven, in order that he might better assume the various disguises necessary for his dangerous expeditions; for it was frequently necessary for him to unite the transformations of the actor to the courage and energy of the soldier, in order to seize on certain ruffians with whom he had to contend in cunning and determination. Narcisse Borel was, in a word, one of the most useful and most active instruments of that providence on a small scale which is modestly and commonly termed the police.
* * * * * We will return to the conversation between Narcisse Borel and Bras-Rouge, which appeared to be very animated.
"Yes," said the agent of safety; "you are accused of profiting by your double-faced position, and of taking with impunity a share in the booty of a band of most dangerous malefactors, and then giving false information respecting them to the protective police. Take care, Bras-Rouge; for if you are detected no mercy will be shown you!"
"Alas! I know I am accused of this; and it is very distressing for me, my good M. Narcisse," replied Bras-Rouge, whilst his weasel's face assumed a hypocritical air of vexation. "But I hope that this day will at last do me justice, and my good faith will be recognised."
"That remains to be proved."
"How can I be distrusted--have I not given proofs? Was it I or was it not who, at the time, enabled you to apprehend Ambroise Martial, one of the most dangerous malefactors in Paris, in the very fact?"
"All this is very fine and good; but Ambroise was warned they were going to arrest him, and if I had not been earlier than the hour you told me of, he would have escaped."
"Do you think me capable, M. Narcisse, of having secretly told him of your coming?"
"I only know that I received from the scoundrel a pistol-shot aimed full at me, but which, fortunately, only grazed my arm."
"Why, to be sure, M. Narcisse, in your profession you must be occasionally exposed to such mistakes!"
"Ah, you call these mistakes, eh?"
"Certainly; for, no doubt, the wicked fellow intended to lodge the ball in your body."
"In the arm, body, or head, no matter, I don't complain of that; every profession has its disagreeables."
"And its pleasures, too, M. Narcisse, and its pleasures. For instance, when a man as cunning, as skilful, and as courageous as you, has been for a long time on the track of a gang of villains, whom he follows from quarter to quarter, from lurking-place to lurking-place, with a good bloodhound like your poor servant to command, Bras-Rouge, and, finally, marks them down and comes upon them in a trap from which not one of them can escape, why, then, you must say, M. Narcisse, that there is great pleasure in it,--the joy of a sportsman,--not including the service he renders to justice!" added the host of the Bleeding Heart, with a grave air.
"I should fully agree with you if the bloodhound were faithful, but I fear it is not."
"Ah, M. Narcisse, you think--" "I think that, instead of putting us on the track, you amuse yourself with setting us on a false scent, and abuse the confidence placed in you. Every day you promise to aid us to lay hands on the gang, and that day never arrives."
"What if the day arrives to-day, M. Narcisse, as I am sure it will? What if I bring together in a parcel Barbillon, Nicholas Martial, the widow, her daughter, and the Chouette? Will that or will it not be a good sweep of the net? Will you then mistrust me any longer?"
"No; and you will have rendered a real service; for there are very strong presumptive facts against this gang,--suspicions almost assured, but, unfortunately, no proofs."
"So, then, a small fag-end of actual crime, which would allow of their being apprehended, would help amazingly to unravel the difficult skein,--eh, M. Narcisse?"
"Most decidedly. And you assure me that there has not been the slightest incitement on your part towards the _coup_ which they are now going to attempt?"
"No, on my honour! It is the Chouette, who came to me to propose inveigling the diamond-matcher here when that infernal hag learned from my son that Morel, the lapidary, who lives in the Rue du Temple, was a workman in real stones, and not in false, and that Mother Mathieu had frequently considerable value about her person, I acceded to the proposition, and suggested to the Chouette that the Martials and Barbillon should join her, so that I might be able to put the whole party into your hands."
"And the Schoolmaster,--that fellow who is so dangerous, so powerful, and so ferocious, and who was always with the Chouette,--one of the frequenters of the _tapis-franc_?"
"The Schoolmaster?" said Bras-Rouge, feigning astonishment.
"Yes, a convict escaped from the galleys at Rochefort, Anselm Duresnel by name, sentenced for life. We know now that he disfigured himself on purpose, that he might not be recognised. Have you no trace of him?"
"None," replied Bras-Rouge, boldly, for he had his reasons for the lie, the Schoolmaster being at this very moment shut up in one of the cellars of the cabaret.
"There is every reason to believe that the Schoolmaster is the author of fresh murders. He would be an important capture."
"No one knows what has become of him for the last six weeks."
"And that's the reason you are reproached with having lost all trace of him."
"Always reproaches, M. Narcisse, always!"
"Not for want of ample cause! And how goes on the smuggling?"
"Is it not necessary that I should know something of all kinds of persons--smugglers as well as others--in order to put you on the scent? I disclosed to you that pipe to introduce liquids, established outside the Barrière du Trône, and coming into a house in the street."
"I know that," said Narcisse, interrupting Bras-Rouge; "but for one that you denounce, you allow ten to escape, and continue your traffic with impunity. I am sure you eat at two mangers, as the saying is."
"Oh, M. Narcisse, I am incapable of an appetite so dishonest!"
"That is not all: in the Rue du Temple, No. 17, there lives a woman named Burette, who lends money on deposit, who, they say, is a private receiver of stolen goods on your account."
"What would you have me do, M. Narcisse? The world is so slanderous,--says so many wicked things! Once again, I say, it is necessary for me to mix with as many rogues as possible, that I even seem one of themselves--so much the worse for them--in order that they may not have any suspicions; but it cuts me to the heart to imitate them,--cuts me to the heart. I must, indeed, be devoted to the service, to give myself up to such a thing as that."
"Poor, dear man! I pity you with all my soul!"
"You are laughing at me, M. Narcisse; but, if that was believed, why has there not been a search made at Mother Burette's and in my house?"
"You know well enough,--that we might not alarm the ruffians, whom, for so long a time, you have promised to deliver into our hands."
"And I am now about to deliver them, M. Narcisse; before an hour you will have them all handcuffed, and that without much trouble, for there are three women. As to Barbillon and Nicholas Martial, they are as savage as tigers, but as cowardly as pullets."
"Tigers or pullets," said Narcisse, half opening his long frock coat, and showing the butts of two pistols in the pockets of his trousers, "I have wherewithal here for them."
"You will do well to have two of your men with you, M. Narcisse. When they see themselves caught, the most cowardly sometimes show fight."
"I shall station two of my men in the small parlour at the entrance, by the side of the room into which you are to introduce the jewel-matcher. At the first cry, I shall appear at one door, and my two men at the other."
"You must be speedy, then, for I expect the gang here every moment, M. Narcisse."
"Very well, I will go at once and place my men, provided that all this is not another humbug."
The conversation was cut short by the peculiar whistle intended as a signal. Bras-Rouge looked out of a window to see whom it was that Tortillard announced.
"Ah, ha! It is the Chouette already. Well, do you believe me now, M. Narcisse?"
"Why, this looks something like; but it is not all. But we shall see. And now to station my men."
And the agent of safety disappeared at a side door.
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{
"id": "33803"
}
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20
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THE CHOUETTE.
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The precipitation of the Chouette's step, the fierce throbbings of a fever of rapine and murder which still animated her, had suffused her hideous features with a deep purple, whilst her green eye sparkled with savage joy. Tortillard followed her, hopping and skipping. At the moment when she descended the last steps of the stairs, Bras-Rouge's son, from pure mischief, put his foot on the long and dragging skirts of the Chouette's gown. This sudden stoppage made the old woman stumble, and, unable to catch hold of the baluster, she fell on her knees, her two hands extended, and dropping her precious basket, whence escaped a gold bracelet set with emeralds and pearls. The Chouette having, in her fall, somewhat excoriated her fingers, picked up the bracelet, which had not escaped the keen sight of Tortillard, and, recovering her feet, turned furiously to the little cripple, who approached her with a hypocritical air, saying to her: "Oh, dear me! Did your foot slip?"
Without making any reply, the Chouette seized Tortillard by the hair, and, stooping to a level with his cheek, she bit it with such fury that the blood spurted out beneath her teeth. Strange, however, Tortillard, in spite of his usual vindictiveness, in spite of feeling such intense pain, did not utter a murmur or a cry. He only wiped his bleeding cheek, and said, with a forced laugh: "I hope next time you will not kiss me so hard,--eh, La Chouette?"
"Wicked little brat! Why did you tread on my gown on purpose to make me fall?"
"Me? Oh! How could you think so? I swear I didn't do it on purpose, my dear Chouette! Don't think your little Tortillard would do you any harm; he loves you too well for that. You should never beat him, or scold him, or bite him, for he is as fond of you as if he were a poor little dog, and you were his mistress!" said the boy, in a gentle and insinuating tone.
Deceived by Tortillard's hypocrisy, the Chouette believed him, and replied: "Well, well, if I was wrong to bite you, why, let it go for all the other times you have deserved it, you little villain! But, _vive la joie_! To-day I bear no malice. Where is your old rogue of a father?"
"In the house. Shall I go and find him for you?"
"No; are the Martials here?"
"Not yet."
"Then I have time to go down and visit _fourline_. I want to speak to old No-Eyes."
"Will you go into the Schoolmaster's cellar?" inquired Tortillard, scarcely concealing his diabolical delight.
"What's that to you?"
"To me?"
"Yes, you ask me the question with such an odd air."
"Because I was thinking of something odd."
"What?"
"Why, that you ought, at least, to have brought him a pack of cards to pass away his time," replied Tortillard, with a cunning look; "that would divert him a little; now he has nothing to play at but not to be bitten by the rats; and he always wins at that game, and after awhile it becomes tiresome."
The Chouette laughed heartily at Tortillard's wit, and said to the cripple: "Love of a baby boy to his mammy! I do not know any chap who has more vice than this scamp. Go and get me a candle, that you may light me down to see _fourline_, and you can help me to open his door. You know that I can hardly push it by myself."
"Well, no, it is so very dark in the cellar," said Tortillard, shaking his head.
"What! What! You who are as wicked as devil to be a coward? I like to see that, indeed! Go directly, and tell your father that I shall be with him almost immediately; that I am with _fourline_; and that we are talking of putting up the banns for our marriage. He, he, he!" added the disgusting wretch, grinning. "So make haste, and you shall be bridesman, and, if you are a good boy, you shall have my garter."
Tortillard went, with a sulky air, to fetch a light. Whilst she was waiting for him, the Chouette, perfectly intoxicated with the success of her robbery, put her hand into her basket to feel the precious jewels it enclosed. It was for the purpose of temporarily concealing this treasure that she desired to descend into the Schoolmaster's cellar, and not, according to her habit, to enjoy the torments of her new victim.
We will presently explain why, with Bras-Rouge's connivance, the Chouette had immured the Schoolmaster in the very subterranean cave into which this miscreant had formerly precipitated Rodolph.
Tortillard, holding a light, now appeared at the door of the cabaret. The Chouette followed him into the lower room, in which opened the trap with the folding-doors, with which we are already acquainted. Bras-Rouge's son, sheltering the light in the hollow of his hand, and preceding the old woman, slowly descended a stone staircase, which led to a sharp declivity, at the end of which was the thick door of the cellar which had so nearly proved Rodolph's grave. When he reached the bottom of the staircase, Tortillard pretended to hesitate in following the Chouette.
"Well, now, you little vagabond, go on!" she said.
"Why, it is so dark; and you go so fast, Chouette! And, indeed, I'd rather go back again, and leave you the light."
"And then, foolish imp, how am I to open the cellar door by myself? Will you come on?"
"No, I am so frightened!"
"If I begin with you! Mind--" "If you threaten me, I'll go back again!" and Tortillard retreated several paces.
"Well, listen to me, now,--be a good boy," said the Chouette, repressing her anger, "and I'll give you something."
"Well, what?" said Tortillard, coming up to her. "Speak to me so always, and I'll do anything you wish me, Mother Chouette."
"Come, come, I'm in a hurry!"
"Yes; but promise me that I may have some fun with the Schoolmaster."
"Another time; I haven't time to-day."
"Only a little bit,--just let me tease him for five minutes?"
"Another time; I tell you that I want to return up-stairs as quickly as possible."
"Why, then, do you want to open the door of his apartment?"
"That's no affair of yours. Come, now, have done with this. Perhaps the Martials are come by this time, and I must have some talk with them. So be a good boy, and you sha'n't be sorry for it. Come along."
"I must love you very much, Chouette, for you make me do just what you like," said Tortillard, slowly advancing.
The dim, wavering light of the candle, which but imperfectly lighted this gloomy way, reflected the black profile of this hideous brat on the slimy walls, which were full of crevices and reeking with damp. At the end of this passage, through the half obscurity, might be seen the low and crumbling arch of the entrance to the cellar, the thick door strengthened with iron bars, and, standing out in the shade, the red shawl and white cap of the Chouette.
By the united exertions of the two, the door opened harshly on its rusty hinges; a puff of humid vapour escaped from this den, as dark as midnight. The light, placed on the ground, threw its faint beams on the first steps of the stone staircase, the bottom of which was completely lost in the darkness. A cry, or, rather, a savage roar, came from the depths of the cave.
"Ah, there's _fourline_ wishing his mamma good-morning!" said the Chouette, with a sneer.
And she descended several steps, in order to conceal her basket in some hole.
"I'm hungry!" exclaimed the Schoolmaster, in a voice that shook with rage; "do you wish to kill me like a mad dog?"
"What's the deary lovey hungry?" said the Chouette, with a laugh of mockery; "then smell its thumb."
There was a sound like that of a chain twisted violently; then a groan of mute, repressed passion.
"Take care! Take care, or you'll have a bump in your leg, as you had at Bouqueval farm, poor dear pa!" said Tortillard.
"He's right, the boy is,--keep yourself quiet, _fourline_," continued the hag; "the ring and chain are solid, old No-Eyes, for they came from Father Micou's, and he sells nothing but the best goods. It is your fault, too; why did you allow yourself to be bound whilst you were asleep? We only had then to put the ring and chain in this place, and bring you down here in the cool to preserve you, old darling."
"That's a pity! He'll grow mouldy," said Tortillard.
Again the clank of the chain was heard.
"He, he, _fourline_! Why, he's dancing like a cockchafer tied by the claw," said the beldame, "I think I see him!"
"Cockchafer, cockchafer, fly away home! Fly, fly, fly! Your husband is the Schoolmaster!" sung Tortillard.
This increased the Chouette's hilarity. Having deposited her basket in a hole formed by the lowering of the wall of the staircase, she stood erect, and said: "You see, _fourline_--" "He don't see," said Tortillard.
"The brat's right. Will you hear, _fourline_? There was no occasion, when we came away from the farm, to be such a booby as to turn compassionate, and prevent me from marking Pegriotte's face with my vitriol; and then, too, you talked of your conscience, which was getting troubled. I saw you were growing lily-livered, and meant to come the 'honest dodge;' and so, some of these odd-come-shortlies, you would have turned 'nose' (informer), and have 'made a meal' of us, old No-Eyes; and then--" "Then old No-Eyes will make a meal of you, for he is hungry, Chouette," said Tortillard, suddenly, and with all his strength pushing the old woman by her back.
The Chouette fell forward with a horrible imprecation. She might have been distinctly heard as she rolled from the top to the bottom of the staircase.
"Bump, bump, bump, bump! There's the Chouette for you--there she is! Why don't you jump upon her, old buffer?" added Tortillard.
Then, seizing the basket from under the stone where he had seen the old woman place it, he scampered up the stairs, exclaiming, with a shout of savage joy: "Here's a pull worth more than that you had before,--eh, Chouette? This time you won't bite me till the blood comes,--eh? Ah, you thought I bore no spite--much obliged--my cheek bleeds still!"
"Oh, I have her! I have her!" cried the Schoolmaster, from the depth of the cave.
"If you have her, old lad, I cry snacks," said Tortillard, with a laugh.
And he stopped on the top step of the stairs.
"Help!" shrieked the Chouette, in a strangling voice.
"Thanks, Tortillard!" said the Schoolmaster, "thanks. And, to reward you, you shall hear the night-bird (Chouette) shriek! Listen, boy,--listen to the bird of death!"
"Bravo! Here I am in the dress-boxes!" said Tortillard, seating himself on the top of the stairs.
As he said this, he raised the light to endeavour to see the fearful scene which was going on in the depths of the cavern; but the darkness was too thick, so faint a light could not disperse it: Bras-Rouge's son could not see anything. The struggle with the Schoolmaster and the Chouette was mute, deadly, without a word, without a cry; only from time to time was heard the hard breathing, or the stifled groan, which always accompanies violent and desperate efforts. Tortillard, seated on the step, began to stamp his feet with that cadence peculiar to an audience impatient to see the beginning of a play; then he uttered the cry so familiar to the frequenters of the gallery of the minor theatres: "Music! Music! Play up! Up with the curtain!"
"Oh, now I have hold of you, as I desired," murmured the Schoolmaster, from the recess of the cellar; "and you were going--" A desperate movement of the Chouette interrupted him; she struggled with all the energy which the fear of death inspires.
"Louder! Can't hear!" bawled Tortillard.
"It is in vain you try to gnaw my hand, I will hold you as I like," said the Schoolmaster. Then, having, no doubt, succeeded in keeping the Chouette down, he added, "That's it! Now listen--" "Tortillard, call your father!" shrieked the Chouette, with a faltering, exhausted voice. "Help! Help!"
"Turn her out, the old thing! She won't let us hear," said the little cripple, with a shout of laughter; "put her out!"
The Chouette's cries were not audible from this cavern, low as it was. The wretched creature, seeing that there was no chance of help from Bras-Rouge's son, resolved to try a last effort.
"Tortillard, go and fetch help, and I will give you my basket; it is full of jewels. There it is, under a stone."
"How generous! Thank ye, madame. Why, haven't I got it already? Hark! Don't you hear how it rattles?" said Tortillard, shaking it. "But now, if you'll give us half a pound of gingerbread nuts, I'll go and fetch pa."
"Have pity on me, and I will--" The Chouette was unable to conclude. Again there was a profound silence. The little cripple again began to beat time on the stone staircase on which he was seated, accompanying the noise of his feet with the repeated cry: "Why don't you begin? Up with the curtain! Music! Music!"
"In this way, Chouette, you can no longer disturb me with your cries," said the Schoolmaster, after a few minutes, during which he had, no doubt, gagged the old woman. "You know very well," he continued, in a slow, hollow voice, "that I do not wish to end this all at once; torture for torture! You have made me suffer enough, and I must speak at length to you before I kill you,--yes, at length. It will be very terrible for you, agonising!"
"Come, no stuff and nonsense, old parson," said Tortillard, raising himself half up from his seat; "punish her, but don't do her any harm. You say you'll kill her,--that's only a hum; I am very fond of my Chouette; I have only lent her to you, and you must give her back again. Don't spoil her,--I won't have my Chouette spoiled,--if you do, I'll go and fetch pa!"
"Be quiet, and she shall only have what she deserves, a profitable lesson," said the Schoolmaster, in order to assure Tortillard, and for fear the cripple should go and fetch assistance.
"All right! Bravo! Now the play's going to begin!" said Bras-Rouge's son, who did not seriously believe that the Schoolmaster intended to kill the Chouette.
"Let us discourse a little, Chouette," continued the Schoolmaster, in a calm voice. "In the first place, you see, since that dream at the Bouqueval farm, which brought all my crimes before my eyes, since that dream, which did all but drive me mad,--which will drive me mad, for, in my solitude, in the deep isolation in which I live, all my thoughts dwell on this dream, in spite of myself,--a strange change has come over me; yes, I have a horror of my past ferocity. In the first place, I would not allow you to make a martyr of La Goualeuse, though that was nothing. Chaining me here in the cellar, making me suffer from cold and hunger, and detaining me for your wicked suggestions, you have left me to all the fear of my own reflections. Oh, you do not know what it is to be left alone,--always alone,--with a dark veil over your eyes, as the pitiless man said who punished me. Oh, it is horrid! It was in this very cavern that I flung him, in order to kill him; and this cavern is the place of my punishment, it may be my grave. I repeat that this is horrid! All that that man predicted to me has come to pass; he said to me, 'You have abused your strength,--you will be the plaything, the sport of the most weak.' And it has been so. He said to me, 'Henceforward separated from the exterior world, face to face with the eternal remembrance of your crimes, one day you will repent those crimes.' And that day has come; the loneliness has purified me; I could not have believed it possible. Another proof that I am perhaps less wicked than formerly, is that I feel inexpressible joy in holding you here, monster! Not to avenge myself, but to avenge your victims,--yes, I shall have accomplished a duty when, with my own hands, I shall have punished my accomplice. A voice says to me, that, if you had fallen into my power earlier, much blood, much blood would have been spared. I have now a horror of my past murders; and yet, is it not strange? It is without fear, it is even with security, that I am now about to perpetrate on you a fearful murder, with most fearful refinements. Say, say! Do you understand that?"
"Bravo! Well played, old No-Eyes! He gets on," exclaimed Tortillard, applauding. "It is really something to laugh at."
"To laugh at?" continued the Schoolmaster, in a hollow voice. "Keep still, Chouette; I must complete my explanation as to how I gradually came to repentance. This revelation will be hateful to you, heart of stone, and will prove to you also how remorseless I ought to be in the vengeance which I should wreak on you in the name of our victims. I must be quick. My delight at grasping you thus makes my blood throb in my veins,--my temples beat with violence, just as when, by thinking of my dream, my reason wanders. Perhaps one of my crises will come on; but I shall have time to make the approaches of death frightful to you by compelling you to hear me."
"At him, Chouette!" cried Tortillard. "At him! And reply boldly! Why, you don't know your part. Tell the 'old one' to prompt you, my worthy elderly damsel."
"It is useless for you to struggle and bite me," said the Schoolmaster, after another pause. "You shall not escape me,--you have bitten my fingers to the bone; but I will pull your tongue out, if you stir. Let us continue our discourse. When I have been alone--alone in the night and silence--I have begun to experience fits of furious, impotent rage; and, for the first time, my senses wandered. Oh! though I was awake, I again dreamed the dream--you know--the dream. The little old man in the Rue du Roule, the drowned woman, the cattle-dealer, and you--soaring over these phantoms! I tell you it was horrible! I am blind, and my thoughts assume a form, a body, in order to represent to me incessantly, and in a visible, palpable manner, the features of my victims. I should not have dreamed this fearful vision, had not my mind, continually absorbed by the remembrance of my past crimes, been troubled with the same fantasies. Unquestionably, when one is deprived of sight, the ideas that beset us form themselves into images in the brain. Yet sometimes, by dint of viewing them with resigned terror, it would appear that these menacing spectres have pity on me,--they grow dim--fade away--vanish. Then I feel myself awakened from my horrid dream, but so weak--cast down--prostrated--that--would you believe it? ah, how you will laugh, Chouette! --that I weep! Do you hear? I weep! You don't laugh? Laugh! Laugh! Laugh, I say!"
The Chouette gave a dull and stifled groan.
"Louder," said Tortillard; "can't hear."
"Yes," continued the Schoolmaster, "I weep, for I suffer and rage in vain. I say to myself, 'To-morrow, next day, for ever, I shall be a prey to the same attacks of delirium and gloomy desolation. 'What a life! Oh, what a life! And I would not choose death rather than be buried alive in this abyss which incessantly pervades my thoughts! Blind, alone, and a prisoner,--what can relieve me from my remorse? Nothing, nothing! When the fantasies disappear for a moment, and do not pass and repass the black veil constantly before my eyes, there are other tortures,--other overwhelming reflections. I say to myself, 'If I had remained an honest man, I should be at this moment free, tranquil, happy, beloved, and honoured by my connections, instead of being blind and chained in this dungeon at the mercy of my accomplices.' Alas! the regret of happiness lost from crime is the first step towards repentance; and when to repentance is joined an expiation of fearful severity,--an expiation which changes life into a long, sleepless night, filled with avenging hallucinations or despairing reflections,--perhaps then man's pardon succeeds to remorse and expiation."
"I say, old chap," exclaimed Tortillard, "you are borrowing a bit from M. Moissard's part! Come, no cribbing--gammon!"
The Schoolmaster did not hear Bras-Rouge's son.
"You are astonished to hear me speak thus, Chouette? If I had continued to imbrue myself either in bloody crimes or the fierce drunkenness of the life of the galleys, this salutary change would never have come over me I know full well. But alone, blind, stung with remorse, which eats into me, of what else could I think? Of new crimes,--how to commit them? Escape,--how to escape? And, if I escaped, whither should I go? What should I do with my liberty? No; I must henceforth live in eternal night, between the anguish of repentance and the fear of formidable apparitions which pursue me. Sometimes, however, a faint ray of hope comes to lighten the depth of my darkness, a moment of calm succeeds to my torments,--yes, for sometimes I am able to drive away the spectres which beset me by opposing to them the recollections of an honest and peaceable past, by ascending in thought to my youthful days, to my hours of infancy. Happily, the greatest wretches have, at least, some years of peace and innocence to oppose to their criminal and blood-stained years. None are born wicked; the most infamous have had the lovely candour of infancy,--have tasted the sweet joys of that delightful age. And thus, I again say, I sometimes find a bitter consolation in saying to myself, 'I am, at this hour, doomed to universal execration, but there was a time when I was beloved, protected, because I was inoffensive and good. Alas! I must, indeed, take refuge in the past, when I can, for it is there only that I can find calm.'"
As he uttered these last words, the tones of the Schoolmaster lost their harshness; this man of iron appeared deeply moved, and he added: "But now the salutary influence of these thoughts is such that my fury is appeased; courage, power will fail me to punish you. No, it is not I who will shed your blood."
"Well said, old buck! So, you see, Chouette, it was only a lark," cried Tortillard, applauding.
"No, it is not I who will shed your blood," continued the Schoolmaster; "it would be a murder, excusable perhaps, but still a murder; and I have enough with three spectres; and then--who knows? --perhaps one day you will repent also?"
And, as he spake thus, the Schoolmaster had mechanically given the Chouette some liberty of movement. She took advantage of it to seize the stiletto which she had thrust into her stays after Sarah's murder, and aimed a violent blow with this weapon at the ruffian, in order to disengage herself from him. He uttered a cry of extreme pain.
The ferocity of his hatred, his vengeance, his rage, his bloody instincts, suddenly aroused and exasperated by this attack, now all burst forth suddenly, terribly, and carried with it his reason, already so strongly shaken by so many shocks.
"Ah, viper, I feel your teeth!" he exclaimed in a voice that shook with passion, and seizing, with all his might, the Chouette, who had thought thus to escape him. "You are in this dungeon, then?" he added, with an air of madness. "But I will crush the viper or screech-owl. No doubt you were waiting for the coming of the phantoms. Yes; for the blood beats in my temples,--? my ears ring,--my head turns--as when they are about to appear! Yes; I was not deceived; here they are,--they advance from the depths of darkness,--they advance! How pale they are; and their blood, how it flows,--red and smoking! It frightens you,--you struggle. Well, be still, you shall not see the phantoms,--no, you shall not see them. I have pity on you; I will make you blind. You shall be, like me,--eyeless!"
Here the Schoolmaster paused. The Chouette uttered a cry so horrible that Tortillard, alarmed, bounded off the step, and stood up. The horrid shrieks of the Chouette served to place the copestone on the fury of the Schoolmaster.
"Sing," he said, in a low voice, "sing, Chouette,--night-bird! Sing your song of death! You are happy; you do not see three phantoms of those we have assassinated,--the little old man in the Rue du Roule, the drowned woman, the cattle-dealer. I see them; they approach; they touch me. Ah, so cold,--so cold! Ah!"
The last gleam of sense of this unhappy wretch was lost in this cry of condemnation. He could no longer reason, but acted and roared like a wild beast, and only obeyed the savage instinct of destruction for destruction. A hurried trampling was now heard, interrupted frequently at intervals with a heavy sound, which appeared like a box of bones bounding against a stone, upon which it was intended to be broken. Sharp, convulsive shrieks, and a burst of hellish laughter accompanied each of these blows. Then there was a gasp of agony. Then--nothing.
Suddenly a distant noise of steps and voices reached the depths of the subterranean vault. Tortillard, frozen with terror by the fearful scene at which he had been present without seeing it, perceived several persons holding lights, who descended the staircase rapidly. In a moment the cave was full of agents of safety, led by Narcisse Borel. The Municipal Guards followed. Tortillard was seized on the first steps of the cellar, with the Chouette's basket still in his hand.
Narcisse Borel, with some of his men, descended into the Schoolmaster's cavern. They all paused, struck by the appalling sight. Chained by the leg to an enormous stone placed in the middle of the cave, the Schoolmaster, with his hair on end, his long beard, foaming mouth, was moving like a wild beast about his den, drawing after him by the two legs the dead carcase of the Chouette, whose head was horribly fractured. It required desperate exertions to snatch her from his grasp and manacle him. After a determined resistance they at length conveyed him into the low parlour of the cabaret, a large dark room, lighted by a solitary window. There, handcuffed and guarded, were Barbillon, Nicholas Martial, his mother and sister. They had been apprehended at the very moment when laying violent hands on the jewel-matcher to cut her throat. She was recovering herself in another room. Stretched on the ground, and hardly restrained by two men, the Schoolmaster, slightly wounded, but quite deranged, was roaring like a wild bull.
Barbillon, with his head hanging down, his face ghastly, lead-coloured, his lips colourless, eye fixed and savage, his long and straight hair falling on the collar of his blouse, torn in the struggle, was seated on a bench, his wrists, enclosed in handcuffs, resting on his knees. The juvenile appearance of this fellow (he was scarcely eighteen years of age), the regularity of his beardless features, already emaciated and withered, were rendered still more deplorable by the hideous stamp which debauchery and crime had imprinted on his physiognomy. Impassive, he did not say a word. It could not be determined whether this apparent insensibility was owing to stupor or to a calm energy; his breathing was rapid, and, at times, he wiped away the perspiration from his pale brow with his fettered hands.
By his side was Calabash, whose cap had been torn off, and her yellowish hair, tied behind with a piece of tape, hung down in several scanty and tangled meshes. More savage than subdued, her thin and bilious cheeks were somewhat suffused, as she looked disdainfully at her brother, Nicholas, who was in a chair in front of her. Anticipating the fate that awaited him, this scoundrel was dejected. With drooping head and trembling knees he was overcome with fright; his teeth chattered convulsively, and he heaved heavy groans.
The Mother Martial, the only one unmoved, exhibited every proof that she had lost nothing of her accustomed audacity. With head erect, she looked unshrinkingly around her. However, at the sight of Bras-Rouge,--whom they brought into the low room, after having made him accompany the commissary and his clerk in the minute search they had made all over the place,--the widow's features contracted, in spite of herself, and her small and usually dull eyes lighted up like those of an infuriated viper; her pinched-up lips became livid, and she twisted her manacled arms. Then, as if sorry she had made this mute display of impotent rage, she subdued her emotion, and became cold and calm again.
Whilst the commissary and his clerk were writing their depositions, Narcisse Borel, rubbing his hands, cast a satisfied look on the important capture he had made, and which freed Paris from a band of dangerous criminals; but, confessing to himself how useful Bras-Rouge had really been in the affair, he could not help casting on him an expressive and grateful look.
Tortillard's father was to share until after trial the confinement and lot of those he had informed against, and, like them, he was handcuffed; and even more than them did he assume a trembling air of consternation, twisting his weasel's features with all his might, in order to give them a despairing expression, and heaving tremendous sighs. He embraced Tortillard, as if he should find some consolation in his paternal caresses.
The little cripple did not seem much moved by these marks of tenderness; he had just learned that, for a time, he would be moved off to the prison for young offenders.
"What a misery to have a dear child!" cried Bras-Rouge, pretending to be greatly affected. "It is we two who are most unfortunate, madame, for we shall be separated from our children."
The widow could no longer preserve her calmness; and having no doubt of Bras-Rouge's treachery, which she had foretold, she exclaimed: "I was sure it was you who had sold my son at Toulon. There, Judas!" and she spat in his face. "You sell our heads! Well, they shall see the right sort of deaths,--deaths of true Martials!"
"Yes; we shan't shrink before the carline (guillotine)," added Calabash, with savage excitement.
The widow, glancing towards Nicholas, said to her daughter, with an air of unutterable contempt: "That coward there will dishonour us on the scaffold!"
Some minutes afterwards the widow and Calabash, accompanied by two policemen, got into a hackney-coach to go to St. Lazare; Barbillon, Nicholas, and Bras Rouge were conveyed to La Force, whilst the Schoolmaster was conveyed to the Conciergerie, where there are cells for the reception of lunatics.
END OF VOLUME IV.
* * * * * Transcriber's Notes: This e-text was prepared from numbered edition 505 of the 1000 printed.
Minor punctuation and capitalization corrections have been made without comment.
Minor typographical errors of single words, otherwise spelled correctly throughout the text have been made without comment.
p. 87, "that'll" to "that" (that I'll slash your eyes out;) p. 188, "caligraphy" to "calligraphy" (expert in calligraphy) Word Variations appearing in the original text which have been retained: "Bras Rouge" (10) and "Bras-Rouge" (49) "Halloa" (3) and "Holloa" (3) and "Holla" (1) "Ile du Ravageur" (2) and "Isle du Ravageur" (13) "rencontre" (1) and "rencounter" (1) "work-people" (1) and "workpeople" (1) Words using the [oe] ligature, which have been here represented as "oe": "manoeuvre".
Throughout the text, illustrations and their captions were placed on facing pages. For the purpose of this e-text these pages have been combined into one entry.
Footnotes, originally at the bottom of a printed page, have been placed directly below the paragraph in which their anchor symbol appears.
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1
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THE PRISON DOOR
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A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.
The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house somewhere in the Vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of King's Chapel. Certain it is that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the New World. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-pern, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilised society, a prison. But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.
This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it, or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson as she entered the prison-door, we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.
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2
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THE MARKET-PLACE
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The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston, all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle or vagrant Indian, whom the white man's firewater had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators, as befitted a people among whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself.
It was a circumstance to be noted on the summer morning when our story begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue. The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding than in their fair descendants, separated from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not character of less force and solidity than her own. The women who were now standing about the prison-door stood within less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex. They were her countrywomen: and the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England. There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone.
"Goodwives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I'll tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not."
"People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation."
"The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch--that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she--the naughty baggage--little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!"
"Ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, "let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart."
"What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray."
"Mercy on us, goodwife!" exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush now, gossips for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself."
The door of the jail being flung open from within there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison.
When the young woman--the mother of this child--stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.
The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true that, to a sensitive observer, there was some thing exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which indeed, she had wrought for the occasion in prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer--so that both men and women who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time--was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
"She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarked one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it? Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment?"
"It were well," muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, "if we stripped Madame Hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter which she hath stitched so curiously, I'll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel to make a fitter one!"
"Oh, peace, neighbours--peace!" whispered their youngest companion; "do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter but she has felt it in her heart."
The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff. "Make way, good people--make way, in the King's name!" cried he. "Open a passage; and I promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparel from this time till an hour past meridian. A blessing on the righteous colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madame Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!"
A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length; for haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there.
In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature--whatever be the delinquencies of the individual--no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. In Hester Prynne's instance, however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man's shoulders above the street.
Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne.
The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers of the town, all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty, or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude--each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts--Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once.
Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the western wilderness: other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play. Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit to relieve itself by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality.
Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw again her native village, in Old England, and her paternal home: a decayed house of grey stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility. She saw her father's face, with its bold brow, and reverend white beard that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother's, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter's pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light that had served them to pore over many ponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner's purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as Hester Prynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. Next rose before her in memory's picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, grey houses, the huge cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a continental city; where new life had awaited her, still in connexion with the misshapen scholar: a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled, and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne--yes, at herself--who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom.
Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes these were her realities--all else had vanished!
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"id": "33"
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THE RECOGNITION
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From this intense consciousness of being the object of severe and universal observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter was at length relieved, by discerning, on the outskirts of the crowd, a figure which irresistibly took possession of her thoughts. An Indian in his native garb was standing there; but the red men were not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements that one of them would have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne at such a time; much less would he have excluded all other objects and ideas from her mind. By the Indian's side, and evidently sustaining a companionship with him, stood a white man, clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume.
He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which as yet could hardly be termed aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a seemingly careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavoured to conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was sufficiently evident to Hester Prynne that one of this man's shoulders rose higher than the other. Again, at the first instant of perceiving that thin visage, and the slight deformity of the figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom with so convulsive a force that the poor babe uttered another cry of pain. But the mother did not seem to hear it.
At his arrival in the market-place, and some time before she saw him, the stranger had bent his eyes on Hester Prynne. It was carelessly at first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind. Very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. His face darkened with some powerful emotion, which, nevertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that, save at a single moment, its expression might have passed for calmness. After a brief space, the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of his nature. When he found the eyes of Hester Prynne fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, and laid it on his lips.
Then touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood near to him, he addressed him in a formal and courteous manner: "I pray you, good Sir," said he, "who is this woman? --and wherefore is she here set up to public shame?"
"You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend," answered the townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savage companion, "else you would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne and her evil doings. She hath raised a great scandal, I promise you, in godly Master Dimmesdale's church."
"You say truly," replied the other; "I am a stranger, and have been a wanderer, sorely against my will. I have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and have been long held in bonds among the heathen-folk to the southward; and am now brought hither by this Indian to be redeemed out of my captivity. Will it please you, therefore, to tell me of Hester Prynne's--have I her name rightly? --of this woman's offences, and what has brought her to yonder scaffold?"
"Truly, friend; and methinks it must gladden your heart, after your troubles and sojourn in the wilderness," said the townsman, "to find yourself at length in a land where iniquity is searched out and punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here in our godly New England. Yonder woman, Sir, you must know, was the wife of a certain learned man, English by birth, but who had long ago dwelt in Amsterdam, whence some good time agone he was minded to cross over and cast in his lot with us of the Massachusetts. To this purpose he sent his wife before him, remaining himself to look after some necessary affairs. Marry, good Sir, in some two years, or less, that the woman has been a dweller here in Boston, no tidings have come of this learned gentleman, Master Prynne; and his young wife, look you, being left to her own misguidance--" "Ah! --aha! --I conceive you," said the stranger with a bitter smile. "So learned a man as you speak of should have learned this too in his books. And who, by your favour, Sir, may be the father of yonder babe--it is some three or four months old, I should judge--which Mistress Prynne is holding in her arms?"
"Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; and the Daniel who shall expound it is yet a-wanting," answered the townsman. "Madame Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their heads together in vain. Peradventure the guilty one stands looking on at this sad spectacle, unknown of man, and forgetting that God sees him."
"The learned man," observed the stranger with another smile, "should come himself to look into the mystery."
"It behoves him well if he be still in life," responded the townsman. "Now, good Sir, our Massachusetts magistracy, bethinking themselves that this woman is youthful and fair, and doubtless was strongly tempted to her fall, and that, moreover, as is most likely, her husband may be at the bottom of the sea, they have not been bold to put in force the extremity of our righteous law against her. The penalty thereof is death. But in their great mercy and tenderness of heart they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then and thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom."
"A wise sentence," remarked the stranger, gravely, bowing his head. "Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not at least, stand on the scaffold by her side. But he will be known--he will be known! --he will be known!"
He bowed courteously to the communicative townsman, and whispering a few words to his Indian attendant, they both made their way through the crowd.
While this passed, Hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger--so fixed a gaze that, at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her. Such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot mid-day sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil at church. Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him face to face--they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her. Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude.
"Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne!" said the voice.
It has already been noticed that directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to the meeting-house. It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days. Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honour. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath--a gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. He was not ill-fitted to be the head and representative of a community which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little. The other eminent characters by whom the chief ruler was surrounded were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of Divine institutions. They were, doubtless, good men, just and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale, and trembled.
The voice which had called her attention was that of the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than self-congratulation with him. There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap, while his grey eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons, and had no more right than one of those portraits would have to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish.
"Hester Prynne," said the clergyman, "I have striven with my young brother here, under whose preaching of the Word you have been privileged to sit"--here Mr. Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him--"I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth, that he should deal with you, here in the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy, insomuch that you should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. But he opposes to me--with a young man's over-softness, albeit wise beyond his years--that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth. What say you to it, once again, brother Dimmesdale? Must it be thou, or I, that shall deal with this poor sinner's soul?"
There was a murmur among the dignified and reverend occupants of the balcony; and Governor Bellingham gave expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed: "Good Master Dimmesdale," said he, "the responsibility of this woman's soul lies greatly with you. It behoves you; therefore, to exhort her to repentance and to confession, as a proof and consequence thereof."
The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale--young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest land. His eloquence and religious fervour had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow; large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister--an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look--as of a being who felt himself quite astray, and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel.
Such was the young man whom the Reverend Mr. Wilson and the Governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding him speak, in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a woman's soul, so sacred even in its pollution. The trying nature of his position drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lips tremulous.
"Speak to the woman, my brother," said Mr. Wilson. "It is of moment to her soul, and, therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. Exhort her to confess the truth!"
The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head, in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came forward.
"Hester Prynne," said he, leaning over the balcony and looking down steadfastly into her eyes, "thou hearest what this good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labour. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him--who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself--the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!"
The young pastor's voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken. The feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather than the direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby at Hester's bosom was affected by the same influence, for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the minister's appeal that the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty name, or else that the guilty one himself in whatever high or lowly place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold.
Hester shook her head.
"Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven's mercy!" cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. "That little babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard. Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast."
"Never," replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. "It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony as well as mine!"
"Speak, woman!" said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold, "Speak; and give your child a father!"
"I will not speak!" answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognised. "And my child must seek a heavenly father; she shall never know an earthly one!"
"She will not speak!" murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew back with a long respiration. "Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman's heart! She will not speak!"
Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. She had borne that morning all that nature could endure; and as her temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life remained entire. In this state, the voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon her ears. The infant, during the latter portion of her ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams; she strove to hush it mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathise with its trouble. With the same hard demeanour, she was led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal. It was whispered by those who peered after her that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage-way of the interior.
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{
"id": "33"
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4
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THE INTERVIEW
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After her return to the prison, Hester Prynne was found to be in a state of nervous excitement, that demanded constant watchfulness, lest she should perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe. As night approached, it proving impossible to quell her insubordination by rebuke or threats of punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit to introduce a physician. He described him as a man of skill in all Christian modes of physical science, and likewise familiar with whatever the savage people could teach in respect to medicinal herbs and roots that grew in the forest. To say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance, not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for the child--who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother's system. It now writhed in convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day.
Closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment, appeared that individual, of singular aspect whose presence in the crowd had been of such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet letter. He was lodged in the prison, not as suspected of any offence, but as the most convenient and suitable mode of disposing of him, until the magistrates should have conferred with the Indian sagamores respecting his ransom. His name was announced as Roger Chillingworth. The jailer, after ushering him into the room, remained a moment, marvelling at the comparative quiet that followed his entrance; for Hester Prynne had immediately become as still as death, although the child continued to moan.
"Prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient," said the practitioner. "Trust me, good jailer, you shall briefly have peace in your house; and, I promise you, Mistress Prynne shall hereafter be more amenable to just authority than you may have found her heretofore."
"Nay, if your worship can accomplish that," answered Master Brackett, "I shall own you for a man of skill, indeed! Verily, the woman hath been like a possessed one; and there lacks little that I should take in hand, to drive Satan out of her with stripes."
The stranger had entered the room with the characteristic quietude of the profession to which he announced himself as belonging. Nor did his demeanour change when the withdrawal of the prison keeper left him face to face with the woman, whose absorbed notice of him, in the crowd, had intimated so close a relation between himself and her. His first care was given to the child, whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the trundle-bed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other business to the task of soothing her. He examined the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case, which he took from beneath his dress. It appeared to contain medical preparations, one of which he mingled with a cup of water.
"My old studies in alchemy," observed he, "and my sojourn, for above a year past, among a people well versed in the kindly properties of simples, have made a better physician of me than many that claim the medical degree. Here, woman! The child is yours--she is none of mine--neither will she recognise my voice or aspect as a father's. Administer this draught, therefore, with thine own hand."
Hester repelled the offered medicine, at the same time gazing with strongly marked apprehension into his face. "Wouldst thou avenge thyself on the innocent babe?" whispered she.
"Foolish woman!" responded the physician, half coldly, half soothingly. "What should ail me to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good, and were it my child--yea, mine own, as well as thine! I could do no better for it."
As she still hesitated, being, in fact, in no reasonable state of mind, he took the infant in his arms, and himself administered the draught. It soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech's pledge. The moans of the little patient subsided; its convulsive tossings gradually ceased; and in a few moments, as is the custom of young children after relief from pain, it sank into a profound and dewy slumber. The physician, as he had a fair right to be termed, next bestowed his attention on the mother. With calm and intent scrutiny, he felt her pulse, looked into her eyes--a gaze that made her heart shrink and shudder, because so familiar, and yet so strange and cold--and, finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to mingle another draught.
"I know not Lethe nor Nepenthe," remarked he; "but I have learned many new secrets in the wilderness, and here is one of them--a recipe that an Indian taught me, in requital of some lessons of my own, that were as old as Paracelsus. Drink it! It may be less soothing than a sinless conscience. That I cannot give thee. But it will calm the swell and heaving of thy passion, like oil thrown on the waves of a tempestuous sea."
He presented the cup to Hester, who received it with a slow, earnest look into his face; not precisely a look of fear, yet full of doubt and questioning as to what his purposes might be. She looked also at her slumbering child.
"I have thought of death," said she--"have wished for it--would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as I should pray for anything. Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me quaff it. See! it is even now at my lips."
"Drink, then," replied he, still with the same cold composure. "Dost thou know me so little, Hester Prynne? Are my purposes wont to be so shallow? Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could I do better for my object than to let thee live--than to give thee medicines against all harm and peril of life--so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?" As he spoke, he laid his long fore-finger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester's breast, as if it had been red hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. "Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women--in the eyes of him whom thou didst call thy husband--in the eyes of yonder child! And, that thou mayest live, take off this draught."
Without further expostulation or delay, Hester Prynne drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on the bed, where the child was sleeping; while he drew the only chair which the room afforded, and took his own seat beside her. She could not but tremble at these preparations; for she felt that--having now done all that humanity, or principle, or, if so it were, a refined cruelty, impelled him to do for the relief of physical suffering--he was next to treat with her as the man whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured.
"Hester," said he, "I ask not wherefore, nor how thou hast fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the pedestal of infamy on which I found thee. The reason is not far to seek. It was my folly, and thy weakness. I--a man of thought--the book-worm of great libraries--a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge--what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own? Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl's fantasy? Men call me wise. If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all this. I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people. Nay, from the moment when we came down the old church-steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!"
"Thou knowest," said Hester--for, depressed as she was, she could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame--"thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any."
"True," replied he. "It was my folly! I have said it. But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! It seemed not so wild a dream--old as I was, and sombre as I was, and misshapen as I was--that the simple bliss, which is scattered far and wide, for all mankind to gather up, might yet be mine. And so, Hester, I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy presence made there!"
"I have greatly wronged thee," murmured Hester.
"We have wronged each other," answered he. "Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophised in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced. But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! Who is he?"
"Ask me not!" replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. "That thou shalt never know!"
"Never, sayest thou?" rejoined he, with a smile of dark and self-relying intelligence. "Never know him! Believe me, Hester, there are few things whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphere of thought--few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery. Thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude. Thou mayest conceal it, too, from the ministers and magistrates, even as thou didst this day, when they sought to wrench the name out of thy heart, and give thee a partner on thy pedestal. But, as for me, I come to the inquest with other senses than they possess. I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books: as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine."
The eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed so intensely upon her, that Hester Prynne clasped her hand over her heart, dreading lest he should read the secret there at once.
"Thou wilt not reveal his name? Not the less he is mine," resumed he, with a look of confidence, as if destiny were at one with him. "He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost, but I shall read it on his heart. Yet fear not for him! Think not that I shall interfere with Heaven's own method of retribution, or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither do thou imagine that I shall contrive aught against his life; no, nor against his fame, if as I judge, he be a man of fair repute. Let him live! Let him hide himself in outward honour, if he may! Not the less he shall be mine!"
"Thy acts are like mercy," said Hester, bewildered and appalled; "but thy words interpret thee as a terror!"
"One thing, thou that wast my wife, I would enjoin upon thee," continued the scholar. "Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine! There are none in this land that know me. Breathe not to any human soul that thou didst ever call me husband! Here, on this wild outskirt of the earth, I shall pitch my tent; for, elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. No matter whether of love or hate: no matter whether of right or wrong! Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. My home is where thou art and where he is. But betray me not!"
"Wherefore dost thou desire it?" inquired Hester, shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond. "Why not announce thyself openly, and cast me off at once?"
"It may be," he replied, "because I will not encounter the dishonour that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. It may be for other reasons. Enough, it is my purpose to live and die unknown. Let, therefore, thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and of whom no tidings shall ever come. Recognise me not, by word, by sign, by look! Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of. Shouldst thou fail me in this, beware! His fame, his position, his life will be in my hands. Beware!"
"I will keep thy secret, as I have his," said Hester.
"Swear it!" rejoined he.
And she took the oath.
"And now, Mistress Prynne," said old Roger Chillingworth, as he was hereafter to be named, "I leave thee alone: alone with thy infant and the scarlet letter! How is it, Hester? Doth thy sentence bind thee to wear the token in thy sleep? Art thou not afraid of nightmares and hideous dreams?"
"Why dost thou smile so at me?" inquired Hester, troubled at the expression of his eyes. "Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?"
"Not thy soul," he answered, with another smile. "No, not thine!"
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{
"id": "33"
}
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5
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HESTER AT HER NEEDLE
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Hester Prynne's term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph. It was, moreover, a separate and insulated event, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, reckless of economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many quiet years. The very law that condemned her--a giant of stern features but with vigour to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm--had held her up through the terrible ordeal of her ignominy. But now, with this unattended walk from her prison door, began the daily custom; and she must either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink beneath it. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief. Tomorrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next: each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne. The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days and added years would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame. Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast--at her, the child of honourable parents--at her, the mother of a babe that would hereafter be a woman--at her, who had once been innocent--as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument.
It may seem marvellous that, with the world before her--kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure--free to return to her birth-place, or to any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being--and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her--it may seem marvellous that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame. But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne's wild and dreary, but life-long home. All other scenes of earth--even that village of rural England, where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her mother's keeping, like garments put off long ago--were foreign to her, in comparison. The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken.
It might be, too--doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret from herself, and grew pale whenever it struggled out of her heart, like a serpent from its hole--it might be that another feeling kept her within the scene and pathway that had been so fatal. There dwelt, there trode, the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union that, unrecognised on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage-altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution. Over and over again, the tempter of souls had thrust this idea upon Hester's contemplation, and laughed at the passionate and desperate joy with which she seized, and then strove to cast it from her. She barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dungeon. What she compelled herself to believe--what, finally, she reasoned upon as her motive for continuing a resident of New England--was half a truth, and half a self-delusion. Here, she said to herself had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost: more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom.
Hester Prynne, therefore, did not flee. On the outskirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinity to any other habitation, there was a small thatched cottage. It had been built by an earlier settler, and abandoned, because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants. It stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west. A clump of scrubby trees, such as alone grew on the peninsula, did not so much conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote that here was some object which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed. In this little lonesome dwelling, with some slender means that she possessed, and by the licence of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established herself, with her infant child. A mystic shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself to the spot. Children, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman should be shut out from the sphere of human charities, would creep nigh enough to behold her plying her needle at the cottage-window, or standing in the doorway, or labouring in her little garden, or coming forth along the pathway that led townward, and, discerning the scarlet letter on her breast, would scamper off with a strange contagious fear.
Lonely as was Hester's situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred no risk of want. She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infant and herself. It was the art, then, as now, almost the only one within a woman's grasp--of needle-work. She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly have availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. Here, indeed, in the sable simplicity that generally characterised the Puritanic modes of dress, there might be an infrequent call for the finer productions of her handiwork. Yet the taste of the age, demanding whatever was elaborate in compositions of this kind, did not fail to extend its influence over our stern progenitors, who had cast behind them so many fashions which it might seem harder to dispense with.
Public ceremonies, such as ordinations, the installation of magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms in which a new government manifested itself to the people, were, as a matter of policy, marked by a stately and well-conducted ceremonial, and a sombre, but yet a studied magnificence. Deep ruffs, painfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of power, and were readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuary laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian order. In the array of funerals, too--whether for the apparel of the dead body, or to typify, by manifold emblematic devices of sable cloth and snowy lawn, the sorrow of the survivors--there was a frequent and characteristic demand for such labour as Hester Prynne could supply. Baby-linen--for babies then wore robes of state--afforded still another possibility of toil and emolument.
By degrees, not very slowly, her handiwork became what would now be termed the fashion. Whether from commiseration for a woman of so miserable a destiny; or from the morbid curiosity that gives a fictitious value even to common or worthless things; or by whatever other intangible circumstance was then, as now, sufficient to bestow, on some persons, what others might seek in vain; or because Hester really filled a gap which must otherwise have remained vacant; it is certain that she had ready and fairly requited employment for as many hours as she saw fit to occupy with her needle. Vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for ceremonials of pomp and state, the garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands. Her needle-work was seen on the ruff of the Governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his band; it decked the baby's little cap; it was shut up, to be mildewed and moulder away, in the coffins of the dead. But it is not recorded that, in a single instance, her skill was called in to embroider the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride. The exception indicated the ever relentless vigour with which society frowned upon her sin.
Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence, of the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple abundance for her child. Her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre hue, with only that one ornament--the scarlet letter--which it was her doom to wear. The child's attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we may rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten the airy charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared to have also a deeper meaning. We may speak further of it hereafter. Except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them. Much of the time, which she might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed in making coarse garments for the poor. It is probable that there was an idea of penance in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. She had in her nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental characteristic--a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, which, save in the exquisite productions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon. Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle. To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong beneath.
In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform in the world. With her native energy of character and rare capacity, it could not entirely cast her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more intolerable to a woman's heart than that which branded the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance. These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart. It was not an age of delicacy; and her position, although she understood it well, and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot. The poor, as we have already said, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succour them. Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound. Hester had schooled herself long and well; and she never responded to these attacks, save by a flush of crimson that rose irrepressibly over her pale cheek, and again subsided into the depths of her bosom. She was patient--a martyr, indeed--but she forebore to pray for enemies, lest, in spite of her forgiving aspirations, the words of the blessing should stubbornly twist themselves into a curse.
Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of the Puritan tribunal. Clergymen paused in the streets, to address words of exhortation, that brought a crowd, with its mingled grin and frown, around the poor, sinful woman. If she entered a church, trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse. She grew to have a dread of children; for they had imbibed from their parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary woman gliding silently through the town, with never any companion but one only child. Therefore, first allowing her to pass, they pursued her at a distance with shrill cries, and the utterances of a word that had no distinct purport to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her, as proceeding from lips that babbled it unconsciously. It seemed to argue so wide a diffusion of her shame, that all nature knew of it; it could have caused her no deeper pang had the leaves of the trees whispered the dark story among themselves--had the summer breeze murmured about it--had the wintry blast shrieked it aloud! Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter--and none ever failed to do so--they branded it afresh in Hester's soul; so that, oftentimes, she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand. But then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to inflict. Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable. From first to last, in short, Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture.
But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye--a human eye--upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony were shared. The next instant, back it all rushed again, with still a deeper throb of pain; for, in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. (Had Hester sinned alone?)
Her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre would have been still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish of her life. Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps, in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to Hester--if altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resisted--she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts. She was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. What were they? Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's? Or, must she receive those intimations--so obscure, yet so distinct--as truth? In all her miserable experience, there was nothing else so awful and so loathsome as this sense. It perplexed, as well as shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the occasions that brought it into vivid action. Sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels. "What evil thing is at hand?" would Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant eyes, there would be nothing human within the scope of view, save the form of this earthly saint! Again a mystic sisterhood would contumaciously assert itself, as she met the sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to the rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her bosom throughout life. That unsunned snow in the matron's bosom, and the burning shame on Hester Prynne's--what had the two in common? Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning--"Behold Hester, here is a companion!" and, looking up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance. O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere? --such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin. Be it accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of her own frailty, and man's hard law, that Hester Prynne yet struggled to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself.
The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say it seared Hester's bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumour than our modern incredulity may be inclined to admit.
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{
"id": "33"
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6
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PEARL
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We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child! Her Pearl--for so had Hester called her; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by the comparison. But she named the infant "Pearl," as being of great price--purchased with all she had--her mother's only treasure! How strange, indeed! Man had marked this woman's sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself. God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven! Yet these thoughts affected Hester Prynne less with hope than apprehension. She knew that her deed had been evil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be good. Day after day she looked fearfully into the child's expanding nature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity that should correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being.
Certainly there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape, its vigour, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden: worthy to have been left there to be the plaything of the angels after the world's first parents were driven out. The child had a native grace which does not invariably co-exist with faultless beauty; its attire, however simple, always impressed the beholder as if it were the very garb that precisely became it best. But little Pearl was not clad in rustic weeds. Her mother, with a morbid purpose that may be better understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and decoration of the dresses which the child wore before the public eye. So magnificent was the small figure when thus arrayed, and such was the splendour of Pearl's own proper beauty, shining through the gorgeous robes which might have extinguished a paler loveliness, that there was an absolute circle of radiance around her on the darksome cottage floor. And yet a russet gown, torn and soiled with the child's rude play, made a picture of her just as perfect. Pearl's aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite variety; in this one child there were many children, comprehending the full scope between the wild-flower prettiness of a peasant-baby, and the pomp, in little, of an infant princess. Throughout all, however, there was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost; and if in any of her changes, she had grown fainter or paler, she would have ceased to be herself--it would have been no longer Pearl!
This outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fairly express, the various properties of her inner life. Her nature appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety; but--or else Hester's fears deceived her--it lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. The child could not be made amenable to rules. In giving her existence a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder, or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered. Hester could only account for the child's character--and even then most vaguely and imperfectly--by recalling what she herself had been during that momentous period while Pearl was imbibing her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its material of earth. The mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit at that epoch was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but, later in the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind.
The discipline of the family in those days was of a far more rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all childish virtues. Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the loving mother of this one child, ran little risk of erring on the side of undue severity. Mindful, however, of her own errors and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender but strict control over the infant immortality that was committed to her charge. But the task was beyond her skill. After testing both smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any calculable influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside and permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little Pearl might or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment. Her mother, while Pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiar look, that warned her when it would be labour thrown away to insist, persuade or plead.
It was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable, perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help questioning at such moments whether Pearl was a human child. She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness and intangibility: it was as if she were hovering in the air, and might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know not whence and goes we know not whither. Beholding it, Hester was constrained to rush towards the child--to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began--to snatch her to her bosom with a close pressure and earnest kisses--not so much from overflowing love as to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood, and not utterly delusive. But Pearl's laugh, when she was caught, though full of merriment and music, made her mother more doubtful than before.
Heart-smitten at this bewildering and baffling spell, that so often came between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought so dear, and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. Then, perhaps--for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her--Pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathising look of discontent. Not seldom she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or--but this more rarely happened--she would be convulsed with rage of grief and sob out her love for her mother in broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had a heart by breaking it. Yet Hester was hardly safe in confiding herself to that gusty tenderness: it passed as suddenly as it came. Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some irregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to win the master-word that should control this new and incomprehensible intelligence. Her only real comfort was when the child lay in the placidity of sleep. Then she was sure of her, and tasted hours of quiet, sad, delicious happiness; until--perhaps with that perverse expression glimmering from beneath her opening lids--little Pearl awoke!
How soon--with what strange rapidity, indeed--did Pearl arrive at an age that was capable of social intercourse beyond the mother's ever-ready smile and nonsense-words! And then what a happiness would it have been could Hester Prynne have heard her clear, bird-like voice mingling with the uproar of other childish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children. But this could never be. Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants. Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child comprehended her loneliness: the destiny that had drawn an inviolable circle round about her: the whole peculiarity, in short, of her position in respect to other children. Never since her release from prison had Hester met the public gaze without her. In all her walks about the town, Pearl, too, was there: first as the babe in arms, and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of her mother, holding a forefinger with her whole grasp, and tripping along at the rate of three or four footsteps to one of Hester's. She saw the children of the settlement on the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim fashions as the Puritanic nurture would permit; playing at going to church, perchance, or at scourging Quakers; or taking scalps in a sham fight with the Indians, or scaring one another with freaks of imitative witchcraft. Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance. If spoken to, she would not speak again. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue.
The truth was, that the little Puritans, being of the most intolerant brood that ever lived, had got a vague idea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions, in the mother and child, and therefore scorned them in their hearts, and not unfrequently reviled them with their tongues. Pearl felt the sentiment, and requited it with the bitterest hatred that can be supposed to rankle in a childish bosom. These outbreaks of a fierce temper had a kind of value, and even comfort for the mother; because there was at least an intelligible earnestness in the mood, instead of the fitful caprice that so often thwarted her in the child's manifestations. It appalled her, nevertheless, to discern here, again, a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself. All this enmity and passion had Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of Hester's heart. Mother and daughter stood together in the same circle of seclusion from human society; and in the nature of the child seemed to be perpetuated those unquiet elements that had distracted Hester Prynne before Pearl's birth, but had since begun to be soothed away by the softening influences of maternity.
At home, within and around her mother's cottage, Pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of acquaintance. The spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied. The unlikeliest materials--a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower--were the puppets of Pearl's witchcraft, and, without undergoing any outward change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied the stage of her inner world. Her one baby-voice served a multitude of imaginary personages, old and young, to talk withal. The pine-trees, aged, black, and solemn, and flinging groans and other melancholy utterances on the breeze, needed little transformation to figure as Puritan elders; the ugliest weeds of the garden were their children, whom Pearl smote down and uprooted most unmercifully. It was wonderful, the vast variety of forms into which she threw her intellect, with no continuity, indeed, but darting up and dancing, always in a state of preternatural activity--soon sinking down, as if exhausted by so rapid and feverish a tide of life--and succeeded by other shapes of a similar wild energy. It was like nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of the northern lights. In the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, there might be a little more than was observable in other children of bright faculties; except as Pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, was thrown more upon the visionary throng which she created. The singularity lay in the hostile feelings with which the child regarded all these offsprings of her own heart and mind. She never created a friend, but seemed always to be sowing broadcast the dragon's teeth, whence sprung a harvest of armed enemies, against whom she rushed to battle. It was inexpressibly sad--then what depth of sorrow to a mother, who felt in her own heart the cause--to observe, in one so young, this constant recognition of an adverse world, and so fierce a training of the energies that were to make good her cause in the contest that must ensue.
Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden, but which made utterance for itself betwixt speech and a groan--"O Father in Heaven--if Thou art still my Father--what is this being which I have brought into the world?" And Pearl, overhearing the ejaculation, or aware through some more subtile channel, of those throbs of anguish, would turn her vivid and beautiful little face upon her mother, smile with sprite-like intelligence, and resume her play.
One peculiarity of the child's deportment remains yet to be told. The very first thing which she had noticed in her life, was--what? --not the mother's smile, responding to it, as other babies do, by that faint, embryo smile of the little mouth, remembered so doubtfully afterwards, and with such fond discussion whether it were indeed a smile. By no means! But that first object of which Pearl seemed to become aware was--shall we say it? --the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom! One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and putting up her little hand she grasped at it, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of a much older child. Then, gasping for breath, did Hester Prynne clutch the fatal token, instinctively endeavouring to tear it away, so infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch of Pearl's baby-hand. Again, as if her mother's agonised gesture were meant only to make sport for her, did little Pearl look into her eyes, and smile. From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had never felt a moment's safety: not a moment's calm enjoyment of her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile and odd expression of the eyes.
Once this freakish, elvish cast came into the child's eyes while Hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond of doing; and suddenly--for women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions--she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face in the small black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had known full well, though seldom with a smile, and never with malice in them. It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had just then peeped forth in mockery. Many a time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion.
In the afternoon of a certain summer's day, after Pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls of wild flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother's bosom; dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet letter. Hester's first motion had been to cover her bosom with her clasped hands. But whether from pride or resignation, or a feeling that her penance might best be wrought out by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse, and sat erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little Pearl's wild eyes. Still came the battery of flowers, almost invariably hitting the mark, and covering the mother's breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world, nor knew how to seek it in another. At last, her shot being all expended, the child stood still and gazed at Hester, with that little laughing image of a fiend peeping out--or, whether it peeped or no, her mother so imagined it--from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes.
"Child, what art thou?" cried the mother.
"Oh, I am your little Pearl!" answered the child.
But while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down with the humoursome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up the chimney.
"Art thou my child, in very truth?" asked Hester.
Nor did she put the question altogether idly, but, for the moment, with a portion of genuine earnestness; for, such was Pearl's wonderful intelligence, that her mother half doubted whether she were not acquainted with the secret spell of her existence, and might not now reveal herself.
"Yes; I am little Pearl!" repeated the child, continuing her antics.
"Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!" said the mother half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportive impulse came over her in the midst of her deepest suffering. "Tell me, then, what thou art, and who sent thee hither?"
"Tell me, mother!" said the child, seriously, coming up to Hester, and pressing herself close to her knees. "Do thou tell me!"
"Thy Heavenly Father sent thee!" answered Hester Prynne.
But she said it with a hesitation that did not escape the acuteness of the child. Whether moved only by her ordinary freakishness, or because an evil spirit prompted her, she put up her small forefinger and touched the scarlet letter.
"He did not send me!" cried she, positively. "I have no Heavenly Father!"
"Hush, Pearl, hush! Thou must not talk so!" answered the mother, suppressing a groan. "He sent us all into the world. He sent even me, thy mother. Then, much more thee! Or, if not, thou strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come?"
"Tell me! Tell me!" repeated Pearl, no longer seriously, but laughing and capering about the floor. "It is thou that must tell me!"
But Hester could not resolve the query, being herself in a dismal labyrinth of doubt. She remembered--betwixt a smile and a shudder--the talk of the neighbouring townspeople, who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the child's paternity, and observing some of her odd attributes, had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring: such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother's sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose. Luther, according to the scandal of his monkish enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed; nor was Pearl the only child to whom this inauspicious origin was assigned among the New England Puritans.
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{
"id": "33"
}
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7
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THE GOVERNOR'S HALL
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Hester Prynne went one day to the mansion of Governor Bellingham, with a pair of gloves which she had fringed and embroidered to his order, and which were to be worn on some great occasion of state; for, though the chances of a popular election had caused this former ruler to descend a step or two from the highest rank, he still held an honourable and influential place among the colonial magistracy.
Another and far more important reason than the delivery of a pair of embroidered gloves, impelled Hester, at this time, to seek an interview with a personage of so much power and activity in the affairs of the settlement. It had reached her ears that there was a design on the part of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the more rigid order of principles in religion and government, to deprive her of her child. On the supposition that Pearl, as already hinted, was of demon origin, these good people not unreasonably argued that a Christian interest in the mother's soul required them to remove such a stumbling-block from her path. If the child, on the other hand, were really capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements of ultimate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect of these advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship than Hester Prynne's. Among those who promoted the design, Governor Bellingham was said to be one of the most busy. It may appear singular, and, indeed, not a little ludicrous, that an affair of this kind, which in later days would have been referred to no higher jurisdiction than that of the select men of the town, should then have been a question publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence took sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, matters of even slighter public interest, and of far less intrinsic weight than the welfare of Hester and her child, were strangely mixed up with the deliberations of legislators and acts of state. The period was hardly, if at all, earlier than that of our story, when a dispute concerning the right of property in a pig not only caused a fierce and bitter contest in the legislative body of the colony, but resulted in an important modification of the framework itself of the legislature.
Full of concern, therefore--but so conscious of her own right that it seemed scarcely an unequal match between the public on the one side, and a lonely woman, backed by the sympathies of nature, on the other--Hester Prynne set forth from her solitary cottage. Little Pearl, of course, was her companion. She was now of an age to run lightly along by her mother's side, and, constantly in motion from morn till sunset, could have accomplished a much longer journey than that before her. Often, nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity, she demanded to be taken up in arms; but was soon as imperious to be let down again, and frisked onward before Hester on the grassy pathway, with many a harmless trip and tumble. We have spoken of Pearl's rich and luxuriant beauty--a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints, a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown, and which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black. There was fire in her and throughout her: she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment. Her mother, in contriving the child's garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play, arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered in fantasies and flourishes of gold thread. So much strength of colouring, which must have given a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was admirably adapted to Pearl's beauty, and made her the very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon the earth.
But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and indeed, of the child's whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form: the scarlet letter endowed with life! The mother herself--as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain that all her conceptions assumed its form--had carefully wrought out the similitude, lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity to create an analogy between the object of her affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture. But, in truth, Pearl was the one as well as the other; and only in consequence of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly to represent the scarlet letter in her appearance.
As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town, the children of the Puritans looked up from their play,--or what passed for play with those sombre little urchins--and spoke gravely one to another.
"Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter: and of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!"
But Pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frowning, stamping her foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies, and put them all to flight. She resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant pestilence--the scarlet fever, or some such half-fledged angel of judgment--whose mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation. She screamed and shouted, too, with a terrific volume of sound, which, doubtless, caused the hearts of the fugitives to quake within them. The victory accomplished, Pearl returned quietly to her mother, and looked up, smiling, into her face.
Without further adventure, they reached the dwelling of Governor Bellingham. This was a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens still extant in the streets of our older towns now moss-grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, remembered or forgotten, that have happened and passed away within their dusky chambers. Then, however, there was the freshness of the passing year on its exterior, and the cheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny windows, of a human habitation, into which death had never entered. It had, indeed, a very cheery aspect, the walls being overspread with a kind of stucco, in which fragments of broken glass were plentifully intermixed; so that, when the sunshine fell aslant-wise over the front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung against it by the double handful. The brilliancy might have be fitted Aladdin's palace rather than the mansion of a grave old Puritan ruler. It was further decorated with strange and seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable to the quaint taste of the age which had been drawn in the stucco, when newly laid on, and had now grown hard and durable, for the admiration of after times.
Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given her to play with.
"No, my little Pearl!" said her mother; "thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee!"
They approached the door, which was of an arched form, and flanked on each side by a narrow tower or projection of the edifice, in both of which were lattice-windows, the wooden shutters to close over them at need. Lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal, Hester Prynne gave a summons, which was answered by one of the Governor's bond servant--a free-born Englishman, but now a seven years' slave. During that term he was to be the property of his master, and as much a commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or a joint-stool. The serf wore the customary garb of serving-men at that period, and long before, in the old hereditary halls of England.
"Is the worshipful Governor Bellingham within?" inquired Hester.
"Yea, forsooth," replied the bond-servant, staring with wide-open eyes at the scarlet letter, which, being a new-comer in the country, he had never before seen. "Yea, his honourable worship is within. But he hath a godly minister or two with him, and likewise a leech. Ye may not see his worship now."
"Nevertheless, I will enter," answered Hester Prynne; and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air, and the glittering symbol in her bosom, that she was a great lady in the land, offered no opposition.
So the mother and little Pearl were admitted into the hall of entrance. With many variations, suggested by the nature of his building materials, diversity of climate, and a different mode of social life, Governor Bellingham had planned his new habitation after the residences of gentlemen of fair estate in his native land. Here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty hall, extending through the whole depth of the house, and forming a medium of general communication, more or less directly, with all the other apartments. At one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat. Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles of England, or other such substantial literature; even as, in our own days, we scatter gilded volumes on the centre table, to be turned over by the casual guest. The furniture of the hall consisted of some ponderous chairs, the backs of which were elaborately carved with wreaths of oaken flowers; and likewise a table in the same taste, the whole being of the Elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier, and heirlooms, transferred hither from the Governor's paternal home. On the table--in token that the sentiment of old English hospitality had not been left behind--stood a large pewter tankard, at the bottom of which, had Hester or Pearl peeped into it, they might have seen the frothy remnant of a recent draught of ale.
On the wall hung a row of portraits, representing the forefathers of the Bellingham lineage, some with armour on their breasts, and others with stately ruffs and robes of peace. All were characterised by the sternness and severity which old portraits so invariably put on, as if they were the ghosts, rather than the pictures, of departed worthies, and were gazing with harsh and intolerant criticism at the pursuits and enjoyments of living men.
At about the centre of the oaken panels that lined the hall was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modern date; for it had been manufactured by a skilful armourer in London, the same year in which Governor Bellingham came over to New England. There was a steel head-piece, a cuirass, a gorget and greaves, with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath; all, and especially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow with white radiance, and scatter an illumination everywhere about upon the floor. This bright panoply was not meant for mere idle show, but had been worn by the Governor on many a solemn muster and training field, and had glittered, moreover, at the head of a regiment in the Pequod war. For, though bred a lawyer, and accustomed to speak of Bacon, Coke, Noye, and Finch, as his professional associates, the exigencies of this new country had transformed Governor Bellingham into a soldier, as well as a statesman and ruler.
Little Pearl, who was as greatly pleased with the gleaming armour as she had been with the glittering frontispiece of the house, spent some time looking into the polished mirror of the breastplate.
"Mother," cried she, "I see you here. Look! Look!"
Hester looked by way of humouring the child; and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it. Pearl pointed upwards also, at a similar picture in the head-piece; smiling at her mother, with the elfish intelligence that was so familiar an expression on her small physiognomy. That look of naughty merriment was likewise reflected in the mirror, with so much breadth and intensity of effect, that it made Hester Prynne feel as if it could not be the image of her own child, but of an imp who was seeking to mould itself into Pearl's shape.
"Come along, Pearl," said she, drawing her away, "Come and look into this fair garden. It may be we shall see flowers there; more beautiful ones than we find in the woods."
Pearl accordingly ran to the bow-window, at the further end of the hall, and looked along the vista of a garden walk, carpeted with closely-shaven grass, and bordered with some rude and immature attempt at shrubbery. But the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil, and amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental gardening. Cabbages grew in plain sight; and a pumpkin-vine, rooted at some distance, had run across the intervening space, and deposited one of its gigantic products directly beneath the hall window, as if to warn the Governor that this great lump of vegetable gold was as rich an ornament as New England earth would offer him. There were a few rose-bushes, however, and a number of apple-trees, probably the descendants of those planted by the Reverend Mr. Blackstone, the first settler of the peninsula; that half mythological personage who rides through our early annals, seated on the back of a bull.
Pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified.
"Hush, child--hush!" said her mother, earnestly. "Do not cry, dear little Pearl! I hear voices in the garden. The Governor is coming, and gentlemen along with him."
In fact, adown the vista of the garden avenue, a number of persons were seen approaching towards the house. Pearl, in utter scorn of her mother's attempt to quiet her, gave an eldritch scream, and then became silent, not from any notion of obedience, but because the quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition was excited by the appearance of those new personages.
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{
"id": "33"
}
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