THE APPLE-TREE OF STÉFANOS.
"And age recounts the feats of youth."
THOMSON.
"I was the only daughter among nine children," began old Marie, when the
girls and Ralph had made her sit down in their own parlour, and they had
all drunk her "good health and many happy returns" in raspberry vinegar
and water, and then teased her till she consented to tell them her story.
"That is to say, my little young ladies and young Monsieur, I had eight
brothers. Not all my own brothers: my father had married twice, you see.
And always when the babies came they wanted a little girl, for in the
family of my grandfather too, there were but three boys, my father and
his two brothers, and never a sister. And so one can imagine how I was
fêted when I came, and of all none was so pleased as the old 'bon papa,'
my father's father. He was already very old: in our family we have been
prudent and not married boy and girl, as so many do now, and wish often
they could undo it again. Before he had married he had saved and laid by,
and for his sons there was something for each when they too started in
life. For my father there was the cottage and the little farm at
Stéfanos."
"Where is Stéfanos, Marie?" interrupted Ralph.
"Not so far, my little Monsieur; nine kilometers perhaps from Châlet."
"Nine kilomètres; between five and six miles? We must have passed it when
we were driving," said Ralph.
"Without doubt," replied Marie. "Well, as I was saying, my father had the
paternal house at Stéfanos for his when he married, and my uncles went to
the towns and did for themselves with their portions. And the bon papa
came, of course, to live with us. He was a kind old man--I remember him
well--and he must have had need of patience in a household of eight noisy
boys. They were the talk of the country, such fine men, and I, when I
came, was such a tiny little thing, you would hardly believe there could
be a child so small! And yet there was great joy. 'We have a girl at
last,' they all cried, and as for the bon papa he knew not what to do for
pleasure.
"I shall have a little grand-daughter to lead me about when my sight is
gone, I shall live the longer for this gift of thine,' he said to my
mother, whom he was very fond of. She was a good daughter-in-law to him.
She shall be called 'Marie, shall she not? The first girl, and so long
looked for. And, Eulalie,' he told my mother, 'this day, the day of her
birth, I shall plant an apple-tree, a seedling of the best stock, a
'reinette,' in the best corner of the orchard, and it shall be her tree.
They shall grow together, and to both we will give the best care, and
as the one prospers the other will prosper, and when trouble comes to the
one, the other will droop and fade till again the storms have passed
away. The tree shall be called 'le pommier de la petite.'"
"My mother smiled; she thought it the fancy of the old man, but she was
pleased he should so occupy himself with the little baby girl. And he did
as he said: that very day he planted the apple-tree in the sunniest
corner of the orchard. And he gave it the best of his care; it was
watered in dry weather, the earth about its roots was kept loose, and
enriched with careful manuring; no grass or weeds were allowed to cling
about it, never was an apple-tree better tended."
Marie paused. "It is not always those that get the most care that do the
best in this world," she said, with a sigh. "There was my Louis, our
eldest, I thought nothing of the others compared with him! and he ran
away to sea and nearly broke my heart."
"Did he ever come back again?" asked the children. Old Marie shook her
head.
"Never," she said. "But I got a letter that he had got the curé somewhere
in the Amérique du sud--I know not where, I have not learnt all about the
geography like these little young ladies--to write for him, before he
died of the yellow fever. And he asked me to forgive him all the sorrows
he had caused me: it was a good letter, and it consoled me much. That was
a long time ago; my Louis would have been in the fifties by now, and my
other children were obedient. The good God sends us comfort."
"And about the apple-tree, tell us more, Marie," said Molly. "Did it do
well?"
"Indeed yes. Mademoiselle can judge, are not the apples good? Ah, yes, it
did well, it grew and it grew, and the first walk I could take with the
hand of the bon papa was to the apple-tree. And the first words I could
say were 'Mi pommier à Malie.' Before many years there were apples, not
so fine at the first, of course, but every year they grew finer and
finer, and always they were for me. What we did not eat were sold, and
the money given to me to keep for the Carnival, when the bon papa would
take me to the town to see the sights."
"And did you grow finer and finer too, Marie?" said Sylvia.
Marie smiled.
"I grew strong and tall, Mademoiselle," she said. "As for more than that
it is not for me to say. But _they_ all thought so, the father and mother
and the eight brothers, and the bon papa, of course, most of all. And so
you see, Mademoiselle, the end was I got spoilt."
"But the apple-tree didn't?"
"No, the apple-tree did its work well. Only I was forgetting to tell you
there came a bad year. Everything was bad--the cows died, the harvest was
poor, the fruit failed. To the last, the bon papa hoped that 'le pommier
de la petite' would do well, though nothing else did, but it was not so.
There was a good show of blossom, but when it came to the apples, _every
one_ was blighted. And the strange thing was, my little young ladies and
little Monsieur, that that was the year the small-pox came--ah, it was a
dreadful year!--and we all caught it."
"_All?_" exclaimed Sylvia.
"Yes, indeed, Mademoiselle--all the seven, that is to say, that were at
home. I cannot remember it well--I was myself too ill, but we all had it.
I was the worst, and they thought I would die. It was not the disease
itself, but the weakness after that nearly killed me. And the poor bon
papa would shake his head and say he might have known what was coming,
by the apple-tree. And my mother would console him--she, poor thing, who
so much needed consoling herself--by saying, 'Come, now, bon papa, the
apple-tree lives still, and doubtless by next year it will again be
covered with beautiful fruit. Let us hope well that our little one will
also recover.' And little by little I began to mend--the mother's words
came true--by the spring time I was as well as ever again, and the six
brothers too. All of us recovered; we were strong, you see, very strong.
And after that I grew so fast--soon I seemed quite a young woman."
"And did the small-pox not spoil your beauty, Marie?" inquired Sylvia
with some little hesitation. It was impossible to tell from the old
woman's face now whether the terrible visitor had left its traces or not;
she was so brown and weather worn--her skin so dried and wrinkled--only
the eyes were still fine, dark, bright and keen, yet with the soft
far-away look too, so beautiful in an old face.
"No, Mademoiselle," Marie replied naïvely, "that was the curious part of
it. There were some, my neighbour Didier for one, the son of the farmer
Larreya----"
"Why, Marie, that's _your_ name," interrupted Molly. "'Marie Larreya,'--I
wrote it down the other day because I thought it such a funny name when
grandmother told it me."
"Well, well, Molly," said Sylvia, "there are often many people of the
same name in a neighbourhood. Do let Marie tell her own story."
"As I was saying," continued Marie, "many people said I had got prettier
with being ill. I can't tell if it was true, but I was thankful not to be
marked: you see the illness itself was not so bad with me as the weakness
after. But I got quite well again, and that was the summer I was sixteen.
My eldest brother was married that summer,--he was one of the two sons of
my father's first marriage and he had been away for already some time
from the paternal house. He married a young girl from Châlet; and ah, but
we danced well at the marriage! I danced most of all the girls--there was
my old friend Didier who wanted every dance, and glad enough I would have
been to dance with him--so tall and straight he was--but for some new
friends I made that day. They were the cousins of my brother's young
wife--two of them from Châlet, one a maid in a family from Paris, and
with them there came a young man who was a servant in the same family.
They were pleasant, good-natured girls, and for the young man, there was
no harm in him; but their talk quite turned my silly head. They talked of
Châlet and how grandly the ladies there were dressed, and still more of
Paris--the two who knew it--till I felt quite ashamed of being only a
country girl, and the fête-day costume I had put on in the morning so
proudly, I wished I could tear off and dress like my new friends. And
when Didier came again to ask me to dance, I pushed him away and told him
he tired me asking me so often. Poor Didier! I remember so well how he
looked--as if he could not understand me--like our great sheep-dog, that
would stare up with his soft sad eyes if ever I spoke roughly to him!
"That day was the beginning of much trouble for me. I got in the way of
going to Châlet whenever I could get leave, to see my new friends, who
were always full of some plan to amuse themselves and me, and my home
where I had been so happy I seemed no longer to care for. I must have
grieved them all, but I thought not of it--my head was quite turned.
"One day I was setting off for Châlet to spend the afternoon, when, just
as I was leaving, the bon papa stopped me.
"'Here, my child,' he said, holding out to me an apple; 'this is the
first of this season's on thy pommier. I gathered it this morning--see,
it is quite ripe--it was on the sunny side. Take it; thou mayest,
perhaps, feel tired on the way.'
"I took it carelessly.
"'Thanks, bon papa,' I said, as I put it in my pocket. Bon papa looked at
me sadly.
"'It is never now as it used to be,' he said. 'My little girl has never
a moment now to spare for the poor old man. And she would even wish to
leave him for ever; for thou knowest well, my child, I could not live
with the thought of thee so far away. When my little girl returned she
would find no old grandfather, he would be lying in the cold church-yard.'
"The poor old man held out his arms to me, but I turned away. I saw that
his eyes were filled with tears--he was growing so feeble now--and I saw,
too, that my mother, who was ironing at the table--work in which I could
have helped her--stooped to wipe away a tear with the corner of her
apron. But I did not care--my heart was hard, my little young ladies and
young Monsieur--my heart was hard, and I would not listen to the voices
that were speaking in my conscience.
"'It is too bad,' I said, 'that the chances of one's life should be
spoilt for such fancies;' and I went quickly out of the cottage and shut
the door. But as I went I saw my poor bon papa lift his head, which he
had bent down on his hands, and say to my mother,
"'There will be no more apples this year on the pommier de la petite.
Thou wilt see, my daughter, the fortune of the tree will leave it.'
"I heard my mother say something meant to comfort him, but I only hurried
away the faster.
"What my grandfather meant about my wishing to leave him was this,--my
new friends had put it in my head to ask my parents to consent to my
going to Paris with the family in which the two that I told you of were
maid and valet. They had spoken of me to their lady; she knew I had not
much experience, and had never left home. She did not care for that, she
said. She wanted a nice pretty girl to amuse her little boy, and walk out
with him. And of course the young man, the valet, told me he knew she
could not find a girl so pretty as I anywhere! I would find when I got to
Paris, he said, how I would be admired, and then I would rejoice that I
had not stayed in my stupid little village, where it mattered not if one
had a pretty face or not. I had come home quite full of the idea--quite
confident that, as I had always done exactly what I wished, I would meet
with no difficulty. But to my astonishment, at the paternal house, one
would not hear of such a thing!
"'To leave us--thou, our only girl--to go away to that great Paris, where
one is so wicked--where none would guard thee or care for thee? No, it is
not to be thought of,' said my father with decision; and though he was a
quiet man who seldom interfered in the affairs of the house, I knew well
that once that he had said a thing with decision, it was done with--it
would be so.
"And my mother said gently,
"'How could'st thou ask such a thing, Marie?'
"And the bon papa looked at me with sad reproach; that was worse than
all.
"So this day--the day that bon papa had given me the first apple of the
season--I was to go to Châlet to tell my friends it could not be, I felt
very cross and angry all the way there.
"'What have I done,' I said to myself, 'to be looked at as if I were
wicked and ungrateful? Why should my life be given up to the fancies of
a foolish old man like bon papa?'
"And when I got to Châlet and told my friends it was not to be, their
regret and their disappointment made me still more displeased.
"'It is too much,' they all said, 'that you should be treated still like
a bébé--you so tall and womanly that one might think you twenty.'
"'And if I were thee, Marie,' said one, 'I would go all the same. They
would soon forgive thee when they found how well things would go with
thee at Paris. How much money thou wouldst gain!'
"'But how could I go?' I asked.
"Then they all talked together and made a plan. The family was to leave
Châlet the beginning of the week following, sooner than they had
expected. I should ask leave from my mother to come again to say good-bye
the same morning that they were to start, and instead of returning to
Stéfanos I should start with them for Paris. I had already seen the lady,
a young creature who, pleased with my appearance, concerned herself
little about anything else, and my friends would tell her I had accepted
her offer. And for my clothes, I was to pack them up the evening before,
and carry the parcel to a point on the road where the young man would
meet me. They would not be many, for my pretty fête costumes, the dress
of the country, which were my best possessions, would be of no use in
Paris.
"'And once there,' said my friend, 'we will dress thee as thou should'st
be dressed. For the journey I can lend thee a hat. Thou could'st not
travel with that ridiculous foulard on thy head, hiding all thy pretty
hair.'
"I remember there was a looking-glass in the room, and as Odette--that
was the girl's name--said this, I glanced at myself. My poor foulard, I
had thought it so pretty. It had been the 'nouvel an' of the bon papa!
But I would not listen to the voice of my heart. I set out on my return
home quite determined to carry out my own way.
"It was such a hot walk that day. How well I remember it! my little young
ladies and little Monsieur, you would hardly believe how one can remember
things of fifty years ago and more, as if they were yesterday when one is
old as I am! The weather had been very hot, and now the clouds looked
black and threatening.
"'We shall have thunder,' I said to myself, and I tried to walk faster,
but I was tired, and oh, so hot and thirsty. I put my hand in my pocket
and drew out the apple, which I had forgotten. How refreshing it was!
"'Poor bon papa,' I said to myself. 'I wish he would not be so exacting.
I do not wish to make him unhappy, but what can I do? One cannot be all
one's life a little child.'
"Still, softer thoughts were coming into my mind, I began to wish I had
not given my decision, that I had said I would think it over. Paris was
so far away; at home they might all be dead before I could hear, the poor
bon papa above all; it was true he was getting very old.
"Just then, at a turn in the road, I found myself in face of Didier,
Didier Larreya. He was walking fast, his face looked stern and troubled.
He stopped suddenly on seeing me; it was not often of late that we had
spoken to each other. He had not looked with favour on my new friends,
who on their side had made fun of him (though I had noticed the day of
the wedding that Odette had been very ready to dance with him whenever he
had asked her), and I had said to my silly self that he was jealous. So
just now I would have passed him, but he stopped me.
"'It is going to thunder, Marie,' he said. 'We shall have a terrible
storm. I came to meet thee, to tell thee to shelter at our house; I told
thy mother I would do so. I have just been to thy house.'
"I felt angry for no reason. I did not like his watching me, and going to
the house to be told of all my doings. I resented his saying 'thou' to
me.
"'I thank you, Monsieur Didier,' I said stiffly. 'I can take care of
myself. I have no wish to rest at your house. I prefer to go home,' and I
turned to walk on.
"Didier looked at me, and the look in his eyes was very sad.
"'Then it is true,' he said.
"'What is true?'
"'That you are so changed'--he did not say 'thou'--'that you wish to go
away and leave us all. The poor bon papa is right.'
"'What has bon papa been saying?' I cried, more and more angry, 'What is
it to you what I do? Attend to your own affairs, I beg you, Monsieur
Didier Larreya, and leave me mine.'
"Didier stopped, and before I knew what he was doing, took both my hands
in his.
"'Listen, Marie,' he said. 'You _must_. You are scarcely more than a
child, and I was glad for you to be so. It would not be me that would
wish to see you all wise, all settled down like an old woman at your age.
But you force me to say what I had not wished to say yet for a long time.
I am older than you, eight years older, and I know my own mind. Marie,
you know how I care for you, how I have always cared for you, you know
what I hope may be some day? Has my voice no weight with you? I do not
ask you now to say you care for me, you are too young, but I thought you
would perhaps learn, but to think of you going away to Paris? Oh, my
little Marie, you would never return to us the same!"
"He stopped, and for a moment I stood still without speaking. In spite of
myself he made me listen. He seemed to have guessed that though my
parents had forbidden it, I had not yet given up the thoughts of going
away, and in spite of my silly pride and my temper I was much touched by
what he said, and the thought that if I went away he would leave off
caring for me came to me like a great shock. I had never thought of it
like that; I had always fancied that whatever I did I could keep Didier
devoted to me; I had amused myself with picturing my return from Paris
quite a grand lady, and how I would pretend to be changed to Didier, just
to tease him. But now something in his manner showed me this would not
do; if I defied him and my friends now, he would no longer care for me.
Yet--would you believe it, my little young ladies and young Monsieur?--my
naughty pride still kept me back. I turned from Didier in a rage, and
pulled away my hands.
"'I wish none of your advice or interference,' I said. 'I shall please
myself in my affairs.'
"I hurried away; he did not attempt to stop me, but stood there for a
moment watching me.
"'Good-bye, Marie,' he said, and then he called after me, 'Beware of the
storm.'
"I had still two miles to go. I hurried on, passing the Larreyas' farm,
and just a minute or two after that the storm began. I heard it come
grumbling up, as if out of the heart of the mountains at first, and then
it seemed to rise higher and higher. I was not frightened, but yet I saw
it was going to be a great storm--you do not know, my young ladies, what
storms we have here sometimes--and I was so hot and so tired, and when
the anger began to pass away I felt so miserable. I could not bear to go
home and see them all with the knowledge in my heart of what I intended
to do. When I got near to the orchard, which was about a quarter of a
mile from the house, I felt, with all my feelings together, as if I could
go no farther. The storm seemed to be passing over--for some minutes
there had been no lightning or thunder.
"'Perhaps after all it will only skirt round about us,' I said. And as I
thought this I entered the orchard and sat down on my own seat, a little
bench that--now many years ago--the bon papa had placed for me with his
own hands beside my pommier.
"I was so tired and so hot and so unhappy, I sat and cried.
"'I wish I had not said I would go,' I thought. 'Now if I change one will
mock so at me.'
"I leaned my head against the trunk of my tree. I had forgotten about the
storm. Suddenly, more suddenly than I can tell, there came a fearful
flash of lightning--all about me seemed for a moment on fire--then the
dreadful boom of the thunder as if it would shake the earth itself to
pieces, and a tearing crashing sound like none I had ever heard before.
I screamed and threw myself on the ground, covering my eyes. For a moment
I thought I was killed--that a punishment had come to me for my
disobedience. 'Oh! I will not go away. I will do what you all wish,' I
called out, as if my parents could hear me. 'Bon papa, forgive me. Thy
little girl wishes no longer to leave thee;' but no one answered, and I
lay there in terror. Gradually I grew calmer--after that fearful crash
the thunder claps seemed to grow less violent. I looked up at last. What
did I see? The tree next to my pommier--the one but a yard or two from my
bench--stood black and charred as if the burning hand of a great giant
had grasped it; already some of its branches strewed the ground. And my
pommier had not altogether escaped; one branch had been struck--the very
branch on the sunny side from which bon papa had picked the apple, as he
afterwards showed me! That my life had been spared was little less than a
miracle." Marie paused....
[Illustration: UNDER THE APPLE-TREE.]
"I left the orchard, my little young ladies and young Monsieur," she went
on after a moment or two, "a very different girl from the one that had
entered it. I went straight to the house, and confessed all--my naughty
intention of leaving them all, my discontent and pride, and all my bad
feelings. And they forgave me--the good people--they forgave me all, and
bon papa took me in his arms and blessed me, and I promised him not to
leave him while he lived. Nor did I--it was not so long--he died the next
year, the dear old man! What would my feelings have been had I been away
in Paris?"
Old as she was, Marie stopped to wipe away a tear. "It is nearly sixty
years ago, yet still the tears come when I think of it," she said. "He
would not know me now if he saw me, the dear bon papa," she added. "I am
as old as he was then! How it will be in heaven I wonder often--for
friends so changed to meet again? But that we must leave to the good God;
without doubt He will arrange it all."
"And Didier, Marie?" said Sylvia, after a little pause. "Did you also
make friends with him?"
Marie smiled, and underneath her funny old brown wrinkled skin I almost
think she blushed a little.
"Ah yes, Mademoiselle," she said. "That goes without saying. Ah
yes--Didier was not slow to make friends again--and though we said
nothing about it for a long time, not till I was in the twenties, it
came all as he wished in the end. And a good husband he made me."
"Oh!" cried Molly, "I see--then _that's_ how your name is 'Larreya' too,
Marie."
They all laughed at her.
"But grandmother said you had many more troubles, Marie," said Sylvia.
"Long after, when first she knew you. She said you would tell us."
"Ah yes, that is because the dear lady wishes not herself to tell how
good she was to me!" said Marie. "I had many troubles after my husband
died. I told you my son Louis was a great grief, and we were poor--very
poor--I had a little fruit-stall at the market--"
"Like my old woman in Paris," said Molly, nodding her head.
"And there it was the dear lady first saw me," said Marie. "It was all
through the apples--bon papa did well for me the day he planted that
tree! They were so fine--Madame bought them for the poor gentleman who
was ill--and then I came to tell her my history; and when she took this
house she asked me to be her concierge. Since then I have no troubles--my
daughter married, long ago of course, but she died, and her husband died,
and the friends were not good for her children, and it was these I had to
provide for--my grand-daughters. But now they are very well off--each
settled, and so good to me! The married one comes with her bébé every
Sunday, and the other, in a good place, sends me always a part of her
wages. And my son too--he that went to Paris--he writes often. Ah yes, I
am well satisfied! And always my great-nephews send me the apples--every
year--their father and their grandfather made the promise, and it has
never been broken. And still, my little young ladies and little
Monsieur--still, the old apple-tree at the paternal house at Stéfanos, is
called 'le pommier de la petite.'"
"How nice!" said the children all together. "Thank you, Marie, thank you
so much for telling us the story."