MARIE
BY
LAURA E. RICHARDS
AUTHOR OF "CAPTAIN JANUARY," "MELODY," "QUEEN
HILDEGARDE," "NARCISSA," ETC.
1894
TO
E. T. T.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. MARIE
II. "D'ARTHENAY, TENEZ FOI!"
III. ABBY ROCK
IV. POSSESSION
V. COURTSHIP
VI. WEDLOCK
VII. LOOKING BACK
VIII. A FLOWER IN THE SNOW
IX. MADAME
X. DE ARTHENAY'S VIGIL
XI. VITA NUOVA
MARIE.
CHAPTER I.
MARIE.
Marie was tired. She had been walking nearly the whole day, and now
the sun was low in the west, and long level rays of yellow light were
spreading over the country, striking the windows of a farmhouse here
and there into sudden flame, or resting more softly on tree-tops and
hanging slopes. They were like fiddle-bows, Marie thought; and at the
thought she held closer something that she carried in her arms, and
murmured over it a little, as a mother coos over her baby. It seemed a
long time since she had run away from the _troupe_: she would forget
all about them soon, she thought, and their ugly faces. She shivered
slightly as she recalled the face of "Le Boss" as it was last bent upon
her, frowning and dark, and as ugly as a hundred devils, she was quite
sure. Ah, he would take away her violin--Le Boss! he would give it to
his own girl, whom she, Marie, had taught till she could play a very
little, enough to keep the birds from flying away when they saw her, as
they otherwise might; she was to have the violin, the Lady, one's own
heart and life, and Marie was to have a fiddle that he had picked up
anywhere, found on an ash-heap, most likely! Ah, and now he had lost
the Lady and Marie too, and who would play for him this evening, and
draw the children out of the houses? _he_! let some one tell Marie
that! It had not been hard, the running away, for no one would ever
have thought of Marie's daring to do such a thing. She belonged to Le
Boss, as much as the tent or the ponies, or his own ugly girl: so they
all thought in the _troupe_, and so Marie herself had thought till that
day; that is, she had not thought at all. While she could play all the
time, and had often quite enough to eat, and always something, a piece
of bread in the hand if no more,--and La Patronne, Le Boss's wife,
never too unkind, and sometimes even giving her a bit of ribbon for the
Lady's neck when there was to be a special performance,--why, who would
have thought of running away? she had been with them so long, those
others, and that time in France was so long ago,--hundreds of years ago!
So no one had thought of noticing when she dropped behind to tune her
violin and practise by herself; it was a thing she did every day, they
all knew, for she could not practise when the children pulled her gown
all the time, and wanted to dance. She had chosen the place well,
having been on the lookout for it all day, ever since Le Boss told her
what he meant to do,--that infamy which the good God would never have
allowed, if He had not been perhaps tired with the many infamies of Le
Boss, and forgotten to notice this one. She had chosen the place well!
A little wood dipped down to the right, with a brook running beyond,
and across the brook a sudden sharp rise, crowned with a thick growth
of birches. She had played steadily as she passed through the wood and
over the stream, and only ceased when she gained the brow of the hill
and sprang like a deer down the opposite slope. No one had seen her
go, she was sure of that; and now they could never tell which way she
had turned, and would be far more likely to run back along the road.
How they would shout and scream, and how Le Boss would swear! Ah, no
more would he swear at Marie because people did not always give money,
being perhaps poor themselves, or unwilling to give to so ugly a face
as his girl's, who carried round the dish. No more! And La Patronne
would be sorry perhaps a little,--she had the good heart, La Patronne,
under all the fat,--and Old Billy, he would be too sorry, she was sure.
Poor Old Billy! it was cruel to leave him, when he had such joy of her
playing, the good old man, and a hard life taking care of the beasts,
and bearing all the blame if any of them died through hunger. But it
would have been sadder for Old Billy to see her die, Marie, and she
would have died, of course she would! To live without the Lady, a
pretty life that would be! far sooner would one go at once to the good
God, where the angels played all day, even if one were not allowed to
play oneself just at first. Afterward, of course, when they found out
how she had played down here, it would be otherwise.
Meanwhile, all these thoughts did not keep Marie from being tired, and
hungry too; and she was glad enough to see some brown roofs clustered
together at a little distance, as she turned a corner of the road. A
village! good! Here would be children, without doubt; and where there
were children, Marie was among friends. She stopped for a moment, to
push back her hair, which had fallen down in the course of her night,
and to tie the blue handkerchief neatly over it, and shake the dust
from her bare feet. They were pretty feet, so brown and slender! She
had shoes, but they were in the wagon; La Patronne took care of all the
Sunday clothes, and there had been no chance to get at anything, even
if she could have been hampered by such things as shoes, with the Lady
to carry. It did not in the least matter about shoes, when it was
summer: when the road was hot, one walked in the cool grass at the
side; when there was no grass--eh, one waited till one came to some.
They were only for state, these shoes. They were stiff and hard, and
the heel-places hurt: it was different for La Patronne, who wore
stockings under hers. But here were the houses, and it was time to
play. They were pleasant-looking houses, Marie thought, they looked as
if persons lived in them who stayed at home and spun, as the women did
in Brittany. Ah, that it was far away, Brittany! she had almost
forgotten it, and now it all seemed to come back to her, as she gazed
about her at the houses, some white, some brown, all with an air of
thrift and comfort, as becomes a New England village. That white house
there, with the bright green blinds! That pleased her eye. And see!
there was a child's toy lying on the step, a child's face peeping out
of the window. Decidedly, she had arrived.
Marie took out her violin, and tuned it softly, with little rustling,
whispering notes, speaking of perfect accord between owner and
instrument; then she looked up at the child and smiled, and began to
play "En revenant d'Auvergne." It was a tune that the little people
always loved, and when one heard it, the feet began to dance before the
head. Sure enough, the door opened in another moment, and the child
came slipping out: not with flying steps, as a city child would come,
to whom wandering musicians were a thing of every day; but shyly, with
sidelong movements, clinging to the wall as it advanced, and only
daring by stealth to lift its eyes to the strange woman with the
fiddle, a sight never seen before in its little life. But Marie knew
all about the things that children think. What was she but a child
herself? she had little knowledge of grown persons, and regarded them
all as ogres, more or less, except Old Billy, and La Patronne, who
really meant to be kind.
"Come, lit' girl!" she said in her clear soft voice. "Come and dance!
for you I play, for you I sing too, if you will. Ah, the pretty song,
'En revenant d'Auvergne!'" And she began to sing as she played:
"Eh, gai, Coco!
Eh, gai, Coco!
Eh, venez voir la danse
Du petit marmot!
Eh, venez voir la danse
Du petit marmot!"
The little girl pressed closer against the wall, her eyes wide open,
her finger in her mouth, yet came nearer and nearer, drawn by the smile
as well as the music. Presently another came running up, and another;
then the boys, who had just brought their cows home and were playing
marbles on the sly, behind the brown barn, heard the sound of the
fiddle and came running, stuffing their gains into their pockets as
they ran. Then Mrs. Piper, who was always foolish about music, her
neighbors said, came to her door, and Mrs. Post opposite, who was as
deaf as her namesake, came to see what Susan Piper was after, loitering
round the door when the men-folks were coming in to their supper: and
so with one thing and another, Marie had quite a little crowd around
her, and was feeling happy and pleased, and sure that when she stopped
playing and carried round her handkerchief knotted at the four corners
so as to form a bag, the pennies would drop into it as fast, yes, and
maybe a good deal faster, than if Le Boss's ugly daughter was carrying
it, with her nose turned up and one eye looking round the corner to see
where her hair was gone to. Ah, Le Boss, what was he doing this
evening for his music, with no Marie and no Lady!
And it was just at this triumphant moment that Jacques De Arthenay came
round the corner and into the village street.