A NORMAN CURE.
"Mesdames!"
The priest's massive frame filled the narrow door; the tones of his
mellow voice seemed also suddenly to fill the air, drowning all other
sounds. The grace of his manner, a grace that invested the simple act
of his uncovering and the holding of his _calotte_ in hand, with an air
of homage, made also our own errand the more difficult.
I had already begun to murmur the nature of our errand: we were
passing, we had seen the manoir opposite, we had heard it was to rent,
also that he, Monsieur le Curé, had the keys.
Yes, the keys were here. Then the velvet in Monsieur le Curé's eyes
turned to bronze, as they looked out at us from beneath the fine dome
of brow.
"I have the keys of the garden only, mesdames," he replied, with
perfect but somewhat distant courtesy; "the gardener, down the road
yonder, has the keys of the house. Do you really wish to rent the
house?"
He had seen through our ruse with quick Norman penetration. He had not,
from the first, been in the least deceived.
It became the more difficult to smooth the situation into shape. "We
had thought perhaps to rent a villa, we were in one now at Villerville.
If Monsieur le curé would let us look at the garden. Monsieur Renard,
whom perhaps he remembered--
"M. Renard! Oh ho! Oh ho! I see it all now," and a deep, mellow laugh
smote the air. The keenness in the fine eyes melted into mirth, a mirth
that laid the fine head back on the broad shoulders, that the laugh
that shook the powerful frame might have the fuller play.
"Ah, _mes enfants_, I see it all now--it is that scoundrel of a boy.
I'll warrant he's there, over yonder, already. He was here yesterday,
he was here the day before, and he is afraid, he is ashamed to ask
again for the keys. But come, _mes enfants_, come, let us go in search
of him." And the little door was closed with a slam. Down the broad
roadway the next instant fluttered the old curé's soutane. We followed,
but could scarcely keep pace with the brisk, vigorous strides. The
sabots ploughed into the dust. The cane stamped along in company with
the sabots, all three in a fury of impatience. The curé's step and his
manner might have been those of a boy, burning with haste to discover a
playmate in hiding. All the keenness and shrewdness on the fine, ruddy
face had melted into sweetness; an exuberance of mirth seemed to be the
sap that fed his rich nature. It was easy to see he had passed the
meridian of his existence in a realm of high spirits; an irrepressible
fountain within, the fountain of an unquenchable good-humor, bathed the
whole man with the hues of health. Ripe red lips curved generously over
superb teeth; the cheeks were glowing, as were the eyes, the crimson
below them deepening to splendor the velvet in the iris. The one severe
line in the face, the thin, straight nose, ended in wide nostrils in
the quivering, mobile nostrils of the humorist. The swell of the
gourmand's paunch beneath the soutane was proof that the curé was a
true Norman he had not passed a lifetime in these fertile gardens
forgetful of the fact that the fine art of good living is the one
indulgence the Church has left to its celibate sons.
Meanwhile, our guide was peering with quick, excited gaze, through the
thick foliage of the park; his fine black eyes were sweeping the
parterre and terrace.
"Ah-h!" his rich voice cried out, mockingly; and he stopped, suddenly,
to plant his cane in the ground with mock fierceness.
"_Tiens_, Monsieur le Curé!" cried Renard, from behind a tree, in a
beautiful voice. It was a voice that matched with his well-acted
surprise, when he appeared, confronting us, on the other side of the
tree-trunk.
The curé opened his arms.
"_Ah, mon enfant, viens, viens!_ how good it is to see thee once again!"
They were in each other's arms. The curé was pressing his lips to
Renard's cheek, in hearty French fashion. The priest, however,
administered his reproof before he released him. Renard's broad
shoulders received a series of pats, which turned to blows, dealt by
the curé's herculean hand.
"Why didn't you let me know you were here, yesterday, _Hein_? Answer me
that. How goes the picture? Is it set up yet? You see, mesdames,"
turning with a reddened cheek and gleaming eyes, "it is thus I punish
him--for he has no heart, no sensibilities--he only understands
severities! And he defrauded me yesterday, he cheated me. I didn't even
know of his being here till he had gone. And the picture, where is it?"
It was on an easel, sunning itself beneath the park trees. The old
priest clattered along the gravelly walk, to take a look at it.
"_Tiens_--it grows--the figures begin to move--they are almost alive.
There should be a trifle more shadow under the chin, what do you think?"
Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone the process of
transformation in our absence. He was now M. le Marquis de
Pompadour--under the heart-shaped arch of the great trees, he was
standing, resplendent in laces, in glistening satins, leaning on a
rusty, dull-jewelled sword. Renard had mounted his palette; he was
dipping already into the mounds of color that dotted the palette-board,
with his long brushes. On the canvas, in colors laid on by the touch of
genius, this archway beneath which we were standing reared itself
aloft; the park trees were as tall and noble, transfixed in their image
of immutable calm, on that strip of linen, as they towered now above
us; even the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made the sunshine of
the shaded grass, as it did here, where else no spot of sun might
enter, so dense was the night of shade. The life of another day and
time lived, however, beneath that shade; Charm and the curé, as they
drooped over the canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier,
sickening in a languor of adoration, and a sprightly coquette, whose
porcelain beauty was as finished as the feathery edges of her lacy
sleeves.
"_Très bien très bien_" said the curé, nodding his head in critical
commendation. "It will be a little masterpiece. And now," waving his
hand toward us, "what do you propose to do with these ladies while you
are painting?"
"Oh, they can wander about," Renard replied, abstractedly. He had
already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw
only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was painting in.
"I knew it, I could have told you--a painter hasn't the manners of a
peasant when he's painting," cried the priest, lifting cane and hands
high in air, in mock horror. "But all the better, all the better, I
shall have you all to myself. Come, come with me. You can see the house
later. I'll send for the gardener. It's too fine a day to be indoors.
What a day, _hein_? _Le bon Dieu_ sends us such days now and then, to
make us ache for paradise. This way, this way--we'll go through the
little door--my little door; it was made for me, you know, when the
manoir was last inhabited. I and the children were too impatient--we
suffered from that malady--all of us--we never could wait for the great
gates yonder to be opened. So Monsieur de H---- built us this one." The
little door opened directly on the road, and on the curé's house. There
was a tangle of underbrush barring the way; but the curé pushed the
briars apart with his strong hands, beating them down with his cane.
When the door opened, we passed directly beyond the roadway, to the
steep steps leading to the church. The curé, before mounting the steps,
swept the road, upward and downward, with his keen glance. It was the
instinctive action of the provincial, scenting the chance of novelty.
Some distant object, in the meeting of two distant roadways, arrested
the darting eyes; this time, at least, he was to be rewarded for his
prudence in looking about him. The object slowly resolved itself into
two crutches between which hung the limp figure of a one-legged man.
"_Bonjour, Monsieur le curé_." The crutches came to a standstill; the
cripple's hand went up to doff a ragged worsted cap.
"Good-day, good-day, my friend; how goes it? Not quite so stiff,
_hein_--in such a bath of sunlight as this? Good-day, good-day."
The crutches and their burden passed on, kicking a little cloud of dust
about the lean figure.
"_Un peu cassé, le bonhomme_" he said, as he nodded to the cripple in a
tone of reflection, as if the breakage that bad befallen his humble
friend were a fresh incident in his experience. "Yes, he's a little
broken, the poor old man; but then," he added, quickly renewing his
tone of unquenchable high spirits--"one doesn't die of it. No, one
doesn't die, fortunately. Why, we're all more or less cracked, or
broken up here."
He shook another laugh out, as he preceded us up the stone steps. Then
he turned to stop for a moment to point his cane toward the small house
with whose chimneys we were now on a level. "There, mesdames, there is
the proof that more breaking doesn't signify in this matter of life and
death, _Tenez_, madame--" and with a charming gesture he laid his
richly-veined, strong old hand on my arm--a hand that ended in
beautiful fingers, each with its rim of moon-shaped dirt;
"_tenez_--figure to yourself, madame, that I myself have been here
twenty years, and I came for two! I bought out the _bonhomme_ who lived
over yonder.
"I bought him and his furniture out. I said to myself, 'I'll buy it for
eight hundred, and I'll sell it for four hundred, in a year.'" Here he
laid his finger on his nose--lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting
the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty
years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us
creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, _elles se cassent les
reins_--they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I
cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor old
things, they are of the Empire, no wonder they groan. You should see
us, when our brethren come to take a cup of soup with me. Such a
collection of antiquities as we are! I catch them, my brothers, looking
about, slyly peering into the secrets of my little ménage. 'From his
ancestors, doubtless, these old chairs and tables, say these good
frères, under their breath. And then I wink slyly at the chairs, and
they never let on."
Again the mellow laugh broke forth. He stopped again to puff and blow a
little, from his toil up the steep steps. Then all at once, as the
rough music of his clicking sabots and the playful taps of his cane
ceased, the laugh on his mobile lips melted into seriousness. He lifted
his cane, pointing to the cemetery just above us, and to the
gravestones looking down over the hillsides between a network of roses.
"We are old, madame--we are old, but, alas! we never die! It is
difficult to people, that cemetery. There are only sixty of us in the
parish, and we die--we die hard. For example, here is my old
servant"--and he covered a grave with a sweep of his cane--for we were
leisurely sauntering through the little cemetery now. The grave to
which he pointed was a garden; heliotrope, myosotis, hare-bells and
mignonette had made of the mound a bed of perfume--"see how quietly she
lies--and yet what a restless soul the flowers cover! She, too, died
hard. It took her years to make up her mind; finally _le bon Dieu_ had
to decide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She complained to the
last--she was poor, she was in my way, she was blind. '_Eh bien, tu
n'as pas besoin de me faire les beaux yeux, toi_'--I used to say to
her. Ah, the good soul that she was!" and the dark eye glistened with
moisture. A moment later the curé was blowing vigorously the note of
his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that only a Frenchman
can render an effective adjunct to moments of emotion.
"You see, _mes enfants_, I am like that--I weep over my friends--when
they are gone! But see," he added quickly, recovering himself--"see,
over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He lies well,
_hein?_--comfortable, too--looking his old church in the face and the
sun on his old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will
have company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous
smile was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were
beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a
little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed
to lie there with us, 'but we shall be crunching each other's bones!'
'No,' he replied, 'only falling into each other's arms!' So it was
settled. He comes over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our
tombstones over; we drink a glass of wine together, and take a pipe and
talk about our future--in eternity! Ah, how gay we are! It is so good
to be friends with God!"
The voice deepened into seriousness. He went on in a quieter key:
"But why am I always preaching and talking about death and eternity to
two such ladies--two such children? Ah--I know, I am really old--I only
deceive myself into pretending I'm young. You will do the same, both of
you, some day. But come and see my good works. You know everyone has
his little corner of conceit--I have mine. I like to do good, and then
to boast of it. You shall see--you shall see."
He was hurrying us along the narrow paths now, past the little company
of grave-stones, graves that were bearing their barbaric burdens of
mortuary wreaths, of beaded crosses, and the motley assemblage, common
to all French graveyards, of hideous shrines encasing tin saints and
madonnas in plaster.
Above the sunken graves and the tin effigies of the martyrs behind the
church, arose a fair and glittering marble tomb. It was strangely out
of keeping with the meagre and paltry surroundings of the peasant
grave-stones. As we approached the tomb it grew in imposingness. It was
a circular mortuary chapel, with carved pediment and iron-wrought
gateway.
"It's fine, _hein_, and beautiful, _hein?_ It is the Duke's!" The curé,
it was easy to see, considered the chapel in the light of a personal
possession. He stood before it, bare-headed, with a new earnestness on
his mobile face. "It is the Duke's. Yes, the Duke's. I saved his soul,
blessed be God! and he--he rebuilds my cellars for me: See"--and he
pointed to the fine new base of stone, freshly cemented, on which the
church rested--"see, I save his soul, and he preserves my buildings for
me. It's a fair deal, isn't it? How does it come about, that he is
converted? Ah, you see, although I am a man without science, without
knowledge, devoid of pretensions and learning, the good God sometimes
makes use of such humble instruments to work His will. It came about in
the usual way. The Duke came here carrying his religion lightly, as one
may say, not thinking of his soul. I--I dine with him. We talk, we
argue; he does, that is--I only preach from my Bible. And behold! one
day he is converted. He is devout. And from gratitude, he repairs my
crumbling old stones. And now see how solid, how strong is my church
cellar!"
Again the fountain of his irrepressible merriment bubbled forth. For
all the gayety, however, the severe line deepened as one grew to know
the face better; the line in profile running from the nose into the
firm upper lip and into the still more resolute chin, matched the
impress of authority marked on the noble brow. It was the face of one
who might have infinite charity and indulgence for a sin, and yet would
make no compromise with it.
We had resumed our walk. It led us at last into the interior of the
little church. The gloom and silence within, after the dazzling
brilliancy of the noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested the
narrow nave and dim altar with an added charm. The old priest knelt for
the briefest instant in reverence to the altar. When he turned there
was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in the changeable eyes.
"And you, mesdames! How is this? You are not Catholics? And I was so
sure of it! Quite sure of it, you were so sympathetic, so full of
reverence. And you, my child"--turning to Charm--"you speak our tongue
so well, with the very accent of a good Catholic. What! you are
Protestant? La! La! What do I hear?" He shook his cane over the backs
of the straw-bottomed chairs; the sweet, mellow accents of his voice
melted into loving protest--a protest in which the fervor was not
quenched in spite of the merry key in which it was pitched.
"Protestants? Pouffe! pouffe! What is that? What is it to be a
Protestant? Heretics, heretics, that is what you are. So you are _deux
affreuses hérétiques_? Ah, la! la! Horrible! horrible! I must cure you
of all that. I must cure you!" He dropped his cane in the enthusiasm of
his attack; it fell with a clanging sound on the stone pavement. He let
it lie. He had assumed, unconsciously, the orator's, the preacher's
attitude. He crowded past the chairs, throwing back his head as he
advanced, striking into argumentative gesture:
"_Tenez_, listen, there is so little difference, after all. As I was
saying to M. le comte de Chermont the other day, no later than
Thursday--he has married an English wife, you know--can't understand
that either, how they can marry English wives. However, that's none of
my business--we have nothing to do with marrying, we priests, except as
a sacrament for others. I said to M. le comte, who, you know, shows
tendencies toward anglicism--astonishing the influence of women--I
said: 'But, my dear M. le comte, why change? You will only exchange
certainty for uncertainty, facts for doubts, truth for lies.' 'Yes,
yes,' the comte replied, 'but there are so many new truths introduced
now into our blessed religion--the infallibility of the pope--the--'
'_Ah, mon cher comte--ne m'en parlez pas_. If that is all that stands
in your way--_faites comme le bon Dieu! Lui--il ferme les yeux et tend
les bras._ That is all we ask--we his servants--to have you close your
eyes and open your arms.'"
The good curé was out of breath; he was panting. After a moment, in a
deeper tone, he went on:
"You, too, my children, that is what I say to you--you need only to
open your arms and to close your eyes. God is waiting for you."
For a long instant there was a great stillness--a silence during which
the narrow spaces of the dim aisles were vibrating with the echoes of
the rich voice.
The rustle of a light skirt sweeping the stone flooring broke the
moment's silence. Charm was crossing the aisles. She paused before a
little wooden box, nailed to the wall. There came suddenly on the ear
the sound of coin rattling down into the empty box; she had emptied
into it the contents of her purse.
"For your poor, monsieur le curé," she smiled up, a little tremulously,
into the burning, glowing eyes. The priest bent over the fair head,
laying his hand, as if in benediction, upon it.
"My poor need it sadly, my child, and I thank you for them. God will
bless you."
It was a touching little scene, and I preferred, for one, to look out
just then at Henri's figure advancing toward us, up the stone steps.
When the priest spoke again, it was in a husky tone, the gold in his
voice dusted with moisture; but the bantering spirits in him had
reappeared.
"What a pity, that you must burn! For you must, dreadful heretics that
you are! And this dear child, she seems to belong to us--I can never
sit by, now, in Paradise, happy and secure, and see her burn!" The
laugh that followed was a mingled caress and a blessing. Henri came in
for a part of the indulgence of the good curé's smile as he came up the
steps.
"Ah, Henri, you have come for these ladies?"
"_Oui_, monsieur le curé, luncheon is served."
Our friend followed us to the topmost step, and to the very edge of the
step. He stood there, talking down to us, as we continued to press him
to return with us.
"No, my children--no--no, I can't join you; don't urge me; I can't, I
must not. I must say my prayers instead; besides the children come
soon, for their catechism. No, don't beg me, I don't need to be
importuned; I know what that dear Renard's wine is. _Au revoir et a
bientôt_--and remember," and here he lifted his arms--cane and all,
high in the air--"all you need do is to close your eyes and to open
your arms. God himself is doing the same."
High up he stood, with uplifted hands, the smile irradiating a face
that glowed with a saint's simplicity. Behind the black lines of his
robe, the sunlight lay streaming in noon glory; it aureoled him as
never saint was aureoled by mortal brush. A moment only he lingered
there, to raise his cap in parting salute. Then he turned, the trail of
his gown sweeping the gravel paths, and presently the low church door
swallowed him up. Through the door, as we crossed the road, there came
out to us the click of sabots striking the rude flagging; and a moment
after, the murmuring echo of a deep, rich voice, saying the office of
the hour.