I must now ask of my reader to clear at a bound both time and space, and
stand beside me some years later, and in a foreign land.
The scene is at the foot of the Splugen Alps, in a little village begirt
with mountains, every crag and eminence of which is surmounted by a
ruined castle. There is a grandeur and solemnity in the whole landscape,
not alone from its vast proportions, but from the character of
impregnability suggested by those fastnesses and the gray, sad-colored
tint of hill and verdure around.
There is barely space for the# village in the narrow glen, which is
traversed by two streams,--the one, yellow, turbid, and sluggish; the
other, sparkling, bright, and impetuous. These are the Rhines, which,
uniting below the village of Reichenau, form that noble river whose
vine-clad cliffs and castled crags are lyrical in every land of Europe.
I scarcely know a spot throughout the whole Continent more typical of
isolation and retirement than this. There is no entrance to it from the
north, save by a wooden bridge over the torrent; towards the south it
is only accessible by the winding zig-zag of the “Via Mala;” east and
westward rise gigantic mountains untraversed by even the chamois-hunter;
and yet there is no appearance of that poverty and destitution so
usually observable in remote and unvisited tracts. Many of the houses
are large and substantially built, some evince a little architectural
pretension in the way of ornament, and one, which occupies a little
terrace above the river, has somewhat the air of a chateau, and in its
windowed roof and moated gardens shows that it aspired to the proud
distinction of a seignorial residence.
It might be difficult to ascertain how an edifice of this size and
pretension came to be built in such a place; at the time I speak of, it
was a school, and a modest-looking little board affixed to a pear-tree
at the gate announced, “The Academy of Monsieur Jost.” In my boyish
eyes, this château, its esplanade above the stream, the views it
embraced, and the wild, luxuriant orchard by which it was begirt,
comprised an amount of magnificence and beauty such as no stretch of
imagination could surpass. In respect to its picturesque site, my error
was probably not great: the mountain scene, in all its varied tints of
season and sunlight, is still before me, nor can I remember one whose
impression is more pleasing.
The château, for so it was called, lost nothing in my estimation by any
familiarity with its details. I only knew of the large school-room with
its three windows that opened on the terrace, the smaller chamber where
the classical teacher held his more select audience, and a little den,
fitted up with cases of minerals, insects, and stuffed birds, which
was denominated Monsieur Jost's cabinet, and where that worthy man sat,
weeks, mouths, I believe years long, microscope in eye, examining the
intricate anatomy of beetles, or poring over some singular provisions in
the eyelids of moths. Save when “brought up” for punishment, we rarely
saw him. Entirely engrossed with his own pursuits, he seldom bestowed
a thought upon us; and when, by any untoward incident such as I
have alluded to, we were thrust into his notice, the presence of a
strange-looking butterfly, a brilliant dragon-moth, a spider even, would
be certain to divert his thoughts into a new channel, and ourselves and
our derelictions be utterly forgotten. Need I say that no culprit ever
appeared in the dock without some such recommendation to mercy, nor was
there one of us ever unprepared with some specimen of the insect tribe,
ready to be produced at any moment of emergency?
It is but fair to say that the other masters--there were but two--were
singularly forbearing and indulgent. Monsieur Gervois, who “taught”
the little boys, was a quaint-looking, venerable old gentleman, with a
queue, and who wore on fête-days a ribbon in his button-hole. He was, it
was said, originally a French noble of large fortune, but who had lost
everything by the extravagance of an only son, and had sought out, in
voluntary exile, this remote spot to end his days in. His manners were
always marked with a tinge of proud reserve which none ever infringed
upon, nor, out of school-hours, did any one ever presume to obtrude upon
his retirement.
The classical teacher was a foreigner, we knew not of what nation; we
called him sometimes a Pole, now a Spaniard, now an Irishman,--for all
these nationalities only to us expressed distant and unknown lands. He
was small almost to dwarfishness, and uniformly dressed in a suit of
peculiarly colored brown cloth; his age might have been fifty, sixty, or
even more, for there was little means of deciphering the work of time in
a face sad and careworn, but yet un wrinkled, and where sorrow had set
its seal in early life, but without having worn the impress any deeper
by time. Large spectacles of blue glass concealed his eyes, of which,
the story ran, one was sightless; and his manner was uniformly quiet and
patient,--extending to every one the utmost limit of forbearance,
and accepting the slightest efforts to learn, as evidences of a noble
ambition. To myself he was more than generous,--he was truly and deeply
affectionate. I was too young to be one of his class, but he came for
me each morning to fetch me to the school; for I did not live at the
château, but at a small two-storied house abutting against the base of
the mountain. There we lived; and now let me explain who we were.
But a peep within our humble sitting-room will save both of us much
time. I have called it humble,--I might have used a stronger word; for
it was poor almost to destitution. The wooden chairs and tables; the
tiled floor; the hearth, on which some soaked branches of larch are
smoking; the curtainless window; as well as the utter absence of even
the very cheapest appliances of comfort,--all show indigence; while a
glance at the worn form and hollow cheek of her who now bends over
the embroidery-frame attests that actual want of sustenance is there
written. Haggard and thin as the features are, it needs no effort to
believe that they once constituted beauty of a high order. The eye, now
sunken and almost colorless, was once flashing in its brilliancy; and
that lip, indrawn and bloodless, was full and rounded like that of
a Grecian statue. Even yet, amidst all the disfigurement of a coarse
dress, the form is graceful, and every motion and gesture indicate a
culture that must have been imbibed in a very different sphere.
How I have her before me at this instant, as, hearing my childish
footstep at the door, she pulls the string to admit me, and then,
turning from her frame, kneels down to kiss me! Monsieur Joseph, for
so is the Latin master called, stands just within the doorway, as if
waiting to be invited to come further.
“And how has he been to-day,--a good boy?” asks she.
Monsieur Joseph smiles, and nods his head.
“I'm glad of it; Jasper will always behave well. He will know that to do
right is a duty, and a duty fulfilled is a blessing. What says Monsieur
Gervois,--is he content too?”
“Quite so,” I reply. “He said I knew my hymn perfectly, and that if I
learned the two pages that he showed me, off by heart, I should be made
'elite' of my class.”
“And what will that be?”
“I shall be above them all, and they must salute me when we meet out of
school and in play-hours.”
“Let them do so in affection, but not for coercion, Jasper; he who is
cleverer than his fellows ought to be humbler, if he would be as happy.”
“Quite true, Polly, quite true; you never said anything more just. The
conscious power of intellect tells its possessor of his weakness as well
as of his strength. Jasper, my child, be humble.”
“But when I said humble,” broke in she again, “I meant in self-esteem;
for there is a kind of pride that sustains and elevates us.”
Monsieur Joseph only sighed gently, but never spoke.
After a few words like these, I was usually dismissed to my play-room,
a little corner eked out of an old tower which had been accidentally
joined to the house after it was built, but which to me was a boon
unspeakable, for it was all my own; but can I revel in the delight of
that isolation which each afternoon saw me enjoy? I would briefly tell
my reader, if so be that he need the information, that she who in that
worn attire bends over her task is Polly Fagan, and that Monsieur Joseph
is no other than our old acquaintance Joe Raper!
De Gabriac had married Polly secretly, Joe Raper alone being admitted
to their confidence. For months long they had watched for some favorable
opportunity of breaking the event to the old man; and at last, worn out
by care and anxiety, Polly could refrain no longer, but made the avowal
herself, and, in a few brief words, told her fault and her sorrow.
The Grinder heard her with the stern impassiveness that he ever could
summon in any dread emergency. He had that species of courage that can
surmount every peril, only let its full extent be known; and although
it was true that the announcement of the loss of all he was worth in the
world would have been lighter tidings than those he now listened to, he
heard her to the end without interruption. There was that in his calm,
cold face which smote her to the very heart; the very way he drew back
his hand, as she tried to grasp it in her own, was a shock to her;
and ere she finished her sad story, her voice was broken, and her lips
tremulous.
Terrible conflict was it between father and child! between two natures
each proud as the other,--each bold, stern, and unforgiving!
“The date of this event?” asked he, as she concluded.
“The ninth of October.”
“Where?”
“At a chapel in Cullenswood Avenue.”
“Who witnessed it?”
“Raper.”
“Any other?”
“No other.”
“The ninth of October fell on a Tuesday; it was then, or the day after,
that I gave you a diamond clasp, a present?”
“It was.”
“Who performed this ceremony?”
“A priest, but I am not at liberty to tell his name,--at least, without
the assurance of your forgiveness.”
“Then do not tell it! The man is still living?”
“I believe so.”
“And your husband,--where is he?”
“In the city. He is waiting but to be received by you ere he return to
France to arrange his affairs in that country.”
“He need not long delay his departure, then: tell him so.”
“You forgive us, then?” cried she, almost bursting with gratitude.
“No!--never!”
“Not forgive us!--not acknowledge us!”
“Never! never!” reiterated he, with a thick utterance that sounded like
the very concentration of passion. The words seemed to have a spell in
them to conjure up a feeling in her who heard, as deeply powerful as in
him who spoke them.
“Am I no longer your daughter, sir?” asked she, rising and drawing
herself to her full height before him.
“You are a Countess, madam,” said he, with a scornful irony; “I am but
an humble man, of obscure station and low habits. I know nothing of
nobility, nor of its ways.”
“I ask again, do you disown me?” said she, with a voice as calm and
collected as his own.
“For ever and ever,” said he, waving his hand, as though the gesture was
to be one of adieu. “You are mine no longer,--you had ceased to be so
ere I knew it. Go to your home, if you have one; here, you are but an
intruder,--unasked, unwished for!”
“Bitter words to part with! but hear me, sir. He who has joined his lot
to mine should not pay the penalty of my fault. Against him you can bear
no malice; he at least does not merit the reproach you have cast on me.
Will you see him,--may he speak with you?”
“Whenever he pleases,--provided it be but once. I will not be
importuned.”
“You will bear in mind, sir, that he is a man of birth and station, and
that to his ears words of insult are a stranger.”
“I will treat him with all the deference I owe to his rank, and to the
part he has performed towards myself,” said Fagan, slowly.
“It were, perhaps, better, then, that you should not meet?”
“It were, perhaps, better so!”
“Good-bye, sir. I have no more to say.”
“Good-bye, madam. Tell Raper I want to speak to him, as you pass out.”
With Raper the interview was briefer still. Fagan dryly informed his old
follower that he no longer needed his services. And although Joe
heard the words as a criminal might have listened to those of his last
sentence, he never uttered a syllable. Fagan was brief, though bitter.
He reproached him with the long years he had sheltered him beneath his
roof, and reviled him for ingratitude! He spoke of him as one who
had eaten the bread of idleness, and repaid an existence of ease by
treachery. Once, and only once, did the insulting language he lavished
on him seem to sting him beyond further endurance. It was when Fagan
said:
“You think me in your power, sir; you fancy that amid that mass of
rubbish and confusion my affairs have been involved in, that you alone
can be the guide. But I tell you here now that were it even so, I 'd
rather heap them on the fire, and stand forth a beggar to the world,
than harbor within my doors a man like you!”
The struggle that it cost poor Joe to hear this, without reply, was
great; but a sense of the deference that throughout a long life he had
ever rendered to his master, overpowered all considerations of self. He
indeed felt that he had been wronged; he knew all the injustice of the
reproach; but he also bethought him of the many years in which that
house had been his home, and that hearth his own. He was not one to
remember what he had rendered in return, nor think of the long existence
of toil by which he had earned his livelihood. The settled humility
which was the basis of his whole character made him esteem himself as
one whose station excluded all thought of those relations that exist
between members of the same community; and that his conduct should be
arraigned, argued that his acts possessed a degree of importance he had
never attributed to them.
He heard Fagan, therefore, throughout, without any effort at reply; and,
heaving a faint sigh, withdrew.
I have no means of knowing how Gabriac behaved in this trying emergency.
All that I have heard came from Raper; and poor Joe was neither shrewd
in his observation of character, nor quick to appreciate motives. The
Count decided at once on a return to the Continent: perhaps he thought
there might arise some chance of reconciliation with the father if
Polly, for a time, at least, were withdrawn from his sight; perhaps,
too, some hope there might be of arrangement of his own affairs. Raper
was also to accompany them, in the prospect of finding some clerkship
in an office, or some employment in a mercantile house abroad, where his
knowledge of languages might be available. At all events, his protection
and companionship would be useful to Polly, whenever the Count would be
compelled to absent himself from home; and, lastly, the funds for the
enterprise were all supplied by Joe, who contributed something under
four hundred pounds,--the savings of a whole life of labor!
As for Polly, to the humblest ornament she had ever worn, to the meanest
gift she had received in childhood,--she left all behind her. Her jewels
were worth some thousands,--her wardrobe was even splendid; but she went
forth without a gem, and with barely what sufficed her in dress.
“And what is this?” said the Count, half disdainfully touching with his
foot what seemed to be an oblong basket of colored straw.
“Poor Josephine's baby!” said Polly, with eyes swimming in tears.
“And is he, is she,--whichever it be,--to form one of the party?” asked
he, angrily.
“Can you ask it, Emile? You remember the last words she ever spoke to us
on the morning we left the Killeries.”
“That unlucky journey!” muttered he; but fortunately not loud enough for
her to catch the words.
“The little fellow will soon be able to walk, and to mutter some words;
he will be company for me when you are away!” said she, sorrowfully.
“L'Ami Joseph ought to fill up that void,” said De Gabriac, laughing. “I
think myself the very paragon of husbands to accede to the arrangement!”
Strange words were these for her to hear,--nor, indeed, could she
penetrate their meaning; but Polly's cares at that moment gave little
time for thought, for every detail of preparation was left to her.
Raper, it is true, did his utmost to aid her; but already De Gabriac had
assumed a manner of superiority and command towards Joe which greatly
embarrassed Polly, and compelled her to use every means of keeping them
apart.
Thus were they started on the sea of life: does it need much foresight
to predict the voyage?