COURTSHIP.
Marie could hardly be persuaded to come back into the sitting-room; and
when she did at length come, it was only to sit silent in the corner,
with one hand held behind her, and her eyes fixed steadfastly on the
floor. In vain Abby Rock tried to draw her into the conversation,
telling her how she, Abby, and Mr. De Arthenay had been talking about
her, and how they thought she'd better stay right on where she was for
a spell, till she was all rested up, and knew what she wanted to do.
Mr. De Arthenay would be a friend to her, and no one could be a better
one, as she'd find. But Marie only said that Monsieur was very kind,
and never raised her eyes to his. De Arthenay, on his part, was no
more at ease. He could not take his eyes from the slender figure, so
shrinking and modest, or the lovely downcast face. He had no words to
tell her all that was in his heart, nor would he have told it if he
could. It was still a thing of horror to him,--a thing that would
surely be cast out as soon as he came to himself; and how better could
he bring himself to his senses than by facing this dream, this
possession of the night, and crushing it down, putting it out of
existence? So he sat still, and gazed at the dream, and felt its
reality in every fibre of his being; and poor good Abby sat and talked
for all three, and wondered what to goodness was coming of all this.
She wondered more and more as the days went on. It became evident to
her that De Arthenay, her stern, silent neighbour, who had never so
much as looked at a woman before, was "possessed" about her little
guest. Marie, on the other hand, continued to regard him with terror,
and never failed to make the horns secretly when he appeared; yet day
after day he came, and sat silent in the sitting-room, and gazed at
Marie, and wrestled with the devil within him. He never doubted that
it was the devil. There was no awkwardness to him in sitting thus
silent; it was the habit of his life: he spoke when he had occasion to
say anything; for the rest, he considered over-much speech as one of
the curses of our fallen state. But Abby "felt as if she should fly,"
as she expressed it to herself, while he sat there. A pall of silence
seemed to descend upon the room, generally so cheerful: the French girl
cowered under it, and seemed to shrink visibly, like a dumb creature in
fright. And when he was gone, she would spring up and run like a deer
to her own little room, and seize her violin, and play passionately,
the instrument crying under her hands, like a living creature,
protesting against grief, against silence and darkness, and the fear of
something unknown, which seemed to be growing out of the silence.
Sometimes Abby thought the best thing to do would be to open the door
of the cage, and let the little stray bird flutter out, as she had
fluttered in those few days ago, by chance--was it by chance?
But the bird was so willing to stay; was so happy, except when that
silent shadow fell upon the cheerful house; so sweet, so grateful for
little kindnesses (and who would not be kind to her, Abby thought!);
such a singing, light, pretty creature to look at and listen to! and
the house had been so quiet since mother died; and after all, it was
pleasant to have some one to do for and "putter round." The neighbours
said, There! now Abby Rock was safe to live, for she had got another
baby to take care of; she'd ha' withered up and blown away if she had
gone on living alone, with no one to make of.
And what talks they had, Abby and Marie! The latter told all about her
early childhood with the good old woman whom she called Mere Jeanne,
and explained how she came to have the Lady, and to play as she did.
The Countess, it appeared, lived up at the castle; a great lady, oh,
but very great, and beautiful as the angels. She was alone there, for
the Count was away on a foreign mission, and she had no child, the
Countess. So one day she saw Marie, when the latter was bringing
flowers to the gardener's wife, who was good to her; and the Countess
called the child to her, and took her on her knee, and talked with her.
Ah, she was good, the Countess, and lovely! After that Marie was
brought to the castle every day, and the Countess played to her of the
violin, and Marie knew all at once that this was the best thing in the
world, and the dearest, and the one to die for, you understand. (But
Abby did not understand in the least.) So when Madame the Countess saw
how it was, she taught Marie, and got her the Lady, the violin which
was Marie's life and soul; and she let come down from Paris a great
teacher, and they all played together, the Countess his friend, for
many years his pupil, and the great violinist, and Marie, the little
peasant girl in her blue gown and cap. He said she was a born
musician, Marie: of course, he was able to see things, being of the
same nature; but Mere Jeanne was unhappy, and said no good would come
of it. Yes, well, what is to be, you know, that will be, and nossing
else. The great teacher died, and there was an end of him. And after
a while Monsieur the Count came home, and carried away the Countess to
live in Paris, and so--and--so--that was all!
"But not all!" cried the child, springing from her seat, and raising
her head, which had drooped for a moment. "Not all! for I have the
music, see, Abiroc! All days of my life I can make music, make happy,
make joy of myself and ozerbodies. When I take her; Madame, so, in my
hand, I can do what I will, no? People have glad thinks, sorry thinks;
what Marie tells them to have, that have they. _Ah! la tonne aventure,
oh gai_!" and she would throw her head back and begin to play, and play
till the chairs almost danced on their four legs.
De Arthenay never heard the fiddle. Abby managed it somehow, she
hardly knew how or why. He had never spoken about the Evil Thing, as
he would have called it, since that first day; perhaps he thought that
Abby had taken it away, as a pious church member should, and destroyed
it from the face of the earth. At all events there was no mention of
it, and the only sound he heard when he approached the house was the
whir of Abby's wheel (for women still spun then, in that part of the
country), or the one voice he cared to hear in the world, uplifted in
some light godless song.
So things went on for a while; and then came a change. One day Marie
came into the sitting-room, hearing Abby call her. It was the hour of
De Arthenay's daily visit, and he sat silent in the corner, as usual;
but Abby had an open letter in her hand, and was crying softly, with
her apron hiding her good homely face. "Maree," said the good woman,
"I've got bad news. My sister Lizzie that I've told you so much about,
she's dreadful sick, and I've got to go right out and take care of her.
Thank you, dear!" (as she felt Marie's arms round her on the instant,
and the soft voice murmured little French sympathies in her ear),
"you're real good, I'm sure, and I know you feel for me. I've got to
go right off to-morrow or next day, soon as I can get things to rights
and see to the stock and things. But what is troubling me is you,
Maree. I don't see what is to become of you, poor child, unless--Well,
now, you come here and sit down by me, and listen to what Mr. De
Arthenay has to say to you. You know he's ben your friend, Maree, ever
sence you come; so you listen to him, like a good girl."
Abby was in great trouble: indeed, she was the most agitated of the
three, for it was with outward calm, at least, that De Arthenay spoke;
and Marie listened quietly, too, plaiting her apron, between her
fingers, and forgetting for the moment to make the horns with her left
hand. Briefly, he asked her to be his wife; to come home with him, and
keep his house, and share good and evil with him. He would take care
of her, he said, and--and--he trusted the Lord would bless the union.
If his voice shook now and then, if he kept his eyes lowered, that
neither woman should see the light and the struggle in them, that was
his own affair; he spoke quietly to the end, and then drew a long
breath, feeling that he had come through better than he had expected.
Abby looked for an outburst of some kind from Marie, whether of tears
or of sudden childish fear or anger; but neither came. Marie thanked
Monsieur, and said he was very kind, very kind indeed. She would like
to think about it a little, if they pleased; she would do all she could
to please them, but she was very young, and she would like to take
time, if Monsieur thought it not wrong: and so rising from her seat,
she made a little courtesy, with her eyes still on the ground, and
slipped away out of the room, and was gone.
The others sat looking at each other, neither ready to speak first.
Finally Abby reflected that Jacques would not speak, at all unless she
began, so she said, with a sigh between the words; "I guess it'll be
all right, Jacques. It's only proper that she should have time to
think it over, and she such a child. Not but what it's a great chance
for her," she added hastily. "My! to get a good home, and a good
provider, as I make no doubt you would be, after the life she's led,
traipsin' here and there, and livin' with darkened heathens, or as bad.
But--but--you'll be kind to her, won't you, Jacques? She--she's not a
woman yet, in her feelin's, as you might say. She ain't nothin' but a
baby to our girls about here, that's brought up to see with their eyes
and talk with their mouths. You'll have patience with her, if her ways
are a good deal different from what you were used to; along back in
your mother's time?"
But here good Abby paused, for she saw that De Arthenay heard not a
word of her well-meant discourse. He sat brooding in the corner, as
was his wont, but with a light in his eyes and a color in his cheek
that Abby had never seen before.
"Jacques De Arthenay, you are fairly possessed!" she said, in rather an
awestruck voice, as he rose abruptly to bid her good-day. "I don't
believe you can think of anything except that child."
"So more I can!" said the man, looking at her with bright, hard eyes.
"Nothing else! She is my life!" and with that he turned hastily to the
door and was gone.
"His life!" repeated Abby, gazing after him as he strode away down the
street. "Much like his life she is, the pretty creetur! And she
saying that fiddle was her life, only yesterday! How are all these
lives going to work together? that's what I want to know!" And she
shook her head, and went back to her spinning. There was no doubt in
Abby's mind about Marie's answer, when she grew a little used to the
new idea. Her silent suitor was many years older than she, it was
true, but as she said to him, what a chance for the friendless
wanderer! And if he loved her now, how much more he would love her
when he came to know her well, and see all her pretty ways about the
house, like a kitten or a bird. And she would respect and admire him,
that was certain, Abby thought. He was a pictur' of a man, when he got
his store clothes on, and nobody had ever had a word to say against
him. He was no talker, but some thought that was no drawback in the
married state. Abby remembered how Sister Lizzie's young husband had
tormented her with foolish questions during the week he bad spent with
them at the time of the marriage: a spruce young clerk from a city
store, not knowing one end of a hoe from the other, and asking
questions all the time, and not remembering anything you told him long
enough for it to get inside his head; though there was room enough
inside for consid'able many ideas, Abby thought. Yes, certainly, if so
be one had to be portioned with a husband, the one that said least
would be the least vexation in the end. So she was content, on the
whole, and glad that Marie took it all so quietly and sensibly, and
made no doubt the girl was turning it over in her mind, and making
ready a real pretty answer for Jacques when he called the next day.
Yes, Marie was turning it over in her mind, but not just in the way her
good hostess supposed. Only one thought came to her, but that thought
filled her whole mind; she must get away,--away at once from this
place, from the stern man with the evil eye, who wanted to take her and
kill her slowly, that he might have the pleasure of seeing her die.
Ah, she knew, Marie! had she not seen wicked people before? But she
would not tell Abiroc, for it would only grieve her, and she would
talk, talk, and Marie wanted no talking. She only wanted to get away,
out into the open fields once more, where nobody would look at her or
want to marry her, and where roads might be found leading away to
golden cities, full of children who liked to hear play the violin, and
who danced when one played it well.
Early next morning, while Abby was out milking the cows, Marie stole
away. She put on her little blue gown again; ah! how old and faded it
looked beside the fresh, pretty-prints that Abby would always have her
wear! But it was her own, and when she had it on, and the old
handkerchief tied under her chin once more, and Madame in her box,
ready to go with her the world over, why, then she felt that she was
Marie once more; that this had all been a mistake, this sojourn among
the strange, kind people who spoke so loud and through such long noses;
that now her life was to begin, as she had really meant it to begin
when she ran away from Le Boss and his hateful tyranny.
Out she slipped, in the sweet, fresh morning. No-one saw her go, for
the village was a busy place at all times, and at this early hour every
man and woman was busy in barn or kitchen. At one house a child
knocked at the window, a child for whom she had played and sung many
times. He stood there in his little red nightgown, and nodded and
laughed; and Marie nodded back, smiling, and wondered if he would ever
run away, and ever know how good, how good it was, to be alone, with no
one else in the world to say, "Do this!" or "Do that!" Just as she
came out, the sun rose over the hill, and looking at the fiery ball
Marie perceived that it danced in the sky. Yes, assuredly, so it was!
There was the same wavering motion that she had seen on every fair
Easter Day that she could remember. She thought how Mere Jeanne had
first called her attention, to it, when she was little, little, just
able to toddle, and had told her that the sun danced so on Easter
Morning, for joy that the Good Lord had risen from the dead; and so it
was a lesson for us all, and we must dance on Easter Day, if we never
danced all the rest of the year. Ah, how they danced at home there in
the village! But now, it was not Easter at all, and yet the sun
danced; what should it mean? And it came to Marie's mind that perhaps
the Good Lord had told it to dance, for a sign to her that all would go
well, and that she was doing quite right to run away from persons with
the evil eye. When you came to think of it, what was more probable?
They always said, those girls in the village, that the saints did the
things they asked them to do. When Barbe lost her gold earring, did
not Saint Joseph find it for her, and tell her to look among the
potato-parings that had been thrown out the day before? and there, sure
enough, it was, and the pigs never touching it, because they had been
told not to touch! Well, and if the saints could do that, it would be
a pity indeed if the Good Lord could not make the sun dance when he
felt like doing a kind thing for a poor girl.
With the dazzle of that dancing sun still in her eyes, with happy
thoughts filling her mind, Marie turned the corner of the straggling
road that was called a street by the people who lived along it,--turned
the corner, and almost fell into the arms of a man, who was coming in
the opposite direction. Both uttered a cry at the same moment: Marie
first giving a little startled shriek, but her voice dying away in
terrified silence as she saw the man's face; the latter uttering a
shout of delight, of fierce and cruel triumph, that rang out strangely
in the quiet morning air. For this was Le Boss!
A man with a bloated, cruel face, sodden with drink and inflamed with
all fierce and inhuman passions; a strong man, who held the trembling
girl by the shoulder as if she were a reed, and gazed into her face
with eyes of fiendish triumph; an angry man, who poured out a torrent
of furious words, reproaching, threatening, by turns, as he found his
victim once more within his grasp, just when he had given up all hope
of finding her again. Ah, but he had her now, though! let her try it
again, to run away! she would find even this time that she had enough,
but another time--and on and on, as a coarse and brutal man can go on
to a helpless creature that is wholly in his power.
Marie was silent, cowering in his grasp, looking about with hunted,
despairing eyes. There was nothing to do, no word to say that would
help. It had all been a mistake,--the sun dancing, the heavens bending
down to aid and cheer her,--all had been a mistake, a lie. There was
nothing now for the rest of her life but this,--this brutality that
clutched and shook her slender figure, this hatred that hissed venomous
words in her ear. This was the end, forever, till death should come to
set her free.
But what was this? what was happening? For the hateful voice faltered,
the grasp on her shoulder weakened, the blaze of the fierce eyes turned
from her. A cry was heard, a wild, inarticulate cry of rage, of
defiance; the next moment something rushed past her like a flash; there
was a brief struggle, a shout, an oath, then a heavy fall. When the
bewildered child could clear her eyes from the mist of fright that
clouded them, Le Boss was lying on the ground; and towering over him
like an avenging spirit, his blue eyes aflame, his strong hands
clenched for another blow, stood Jacques De Arthenay.
Just what happened next, Marie never quite knew. Words were said as in
a dream. Was it a real voice that was saying: "This is my wife, you
dog! take yourself out of my sight, before worse comes to you!" Was it
real? and did Le Boss, gathering himself up from the grass with foul
curses, too horrible to think of--did he make reply that she was his
property, that he had bought her, paid for her, and would have his own!
And then the other voice again, saying, "I tell you she is my wife, the
wife of a free man. Speak, Mary, and tell him you are my wife!" And
did she--with those blue eyes on her, which she had never met before,
but which now caught and chained her gaze, so that she could not look
away, try as she might--did she of her own free will answer, "Yes,
Monsieur, I am your wife, if you say it; if you will keep me from him,
Monsieur!" Then--Marie did not know what came then. There were more
words between the two men, loud and fierce on one side, low and fierce
on the other; and then Le Boss was gone, and she was walking back to
the house with the man who had saved her, the man to whom she belonged
now; the strong man, whose hand, holding hers as they walked, trembled
far more than her own. But Marie did not feel as if she should ever
tremble again. For that one must be alive, must have strength in one's
limbs; and was she dead, she wondered, or only asleep? and would she
wake up some happy moment, and find herself in the little white bed at
Abiroc's house, or better still, out in the blessed fields, alone with
the birds under the free sky?