A Summer with Jeanne-Marie.
At the back of Jeanne-Marie's house lay the garden, sheltered
by the steep rocky hill that rose just beyond. All through the
long summer evenings the voices of the men, as they sat
smoking and drinking in its vine-covered arbours, might be
heard; but during the day it was comparatively deserted, and
Jeanne-Marie had no difficulty in finding a quiet, shady
corner where Madelon might sit as long as she pleased without
being disturbed. An outside wooden staircase led from her room
to the garden below, so that she could come and go without
passing through the lower rooms of the house; and we may be
sure that it was considered a golden day by both her and
Jeanne-Marie, when she first made this little expedition. The
child, still almost too weak to stand or walk, was carried by
her strong, kind hostess down the flight of steps, and once
more found herself under the blue heavens, with a world of
sweet summer sights and sounds around her, as she lay on her
little improvised couch amongst the flowers and sweet-smelling
herbs.
"There," said Jeanne-Marie, contemplating her with much
satisfaction, "now you have nothing to do but to get well
again as fast as you can."
"Ah, I shall soon be well now!" cried Madelon, joyfully. The
colour came into her pale cheeks, her eyes shone with a new
light. Mists, and rain, and darkness seemed to have fled from
her life, and in their place a full tide of summer sunshine,
in which the birds sang gladly, and the flowers seemed to
spring up and open unconsciously, was crowning and glorifying
the day.
That she had nothing to do but to get well, was not at all
Madelon's idea, however. A few evenings later, as she lay
awake in her bed, watching Jeanne-Marie moving about in the
twilight, arranging things for the night, she said,--
"Jeanne-Marie, I want to earn some money."
"Some money, little one! What is that for?"
"Ah, that I cannot tell you; but I want some, very much--thirty
francs at least. See here, I have been thinking--I can
embroider--Soeur Lucie said I could do it almost as well as she
could; do you think you could get me some to do? Ah, please
help me. I should like to earn some money."
Two days afterwards, Jeanne-Marie produced two strips of
cloth, such as are used for purposes of church decoration,
with patterns and materials for embroidery.
"Is that the sort of thing?" she said. "If you could do these,
you would get thirty francs for them, I daresay; I will see
that they are disposed of."
"I will try," said Madelon. "Jeanne-Marie, how good you are to
me!--whatever I want, you do for me!"
"That is nothing," said the woman, and went abruptly away to
attend to her customers.
So, all the long summer days, Madelon sat through hot
noontides in the shady garden below, through golden sunsets at
the open window of her room above, stitching with silks and
gold and silver thread, till her weak little fingers ached,
and the task seemed as if it would never be done. Down in the
homely neglected little garden, all a sweet tangle of flowers
and weeds, she would seat herself; the birds would twitter
overhead, the bees would come humming round her amongst the
unpruned vines and roses that clambered everywhere, while the
embroidery pattern slowly grew beneath her fingers. She worked
steadily and well, but she could not work very fast; and she
wearied, oh! how she wearied of it sometimes; but she never
wavered in her purpose. "It is for Monsieur Horace," she would
say, and begin again with fresh zeal. Through the open window
of the little kitchen, which looked upon the garden, she could
see Jeanne-Marie coming and going, chopping herbs, shelling
peas and beans; and sometimes, when Madelon was too tired of
her work, she would gladly throw it down, that she might help
in these employments. "May I make an omelette, Jeanne-Marie?"
she would say; "I know how to do it, if you will let me try."
And the sight of Madelon flitting about the kitchen, busy
among the pots and pans, seemed to stir some long-forgotten
emotion in Jeanne-Marie's sad heart--too long-forgotten to be
learnt anew without pain, for her eyes would fill with tears
as she watched her. The child never went into the village, or,
indeed, stirred beyond the garden; that was all the world to
her just now, peopled by Jeanne-Marie, her hopes, and her
embroidery.
Is it most strange or most natural, one wonders, that there
are times when one small nook of earth shuts out, as it were,
the whole universe from our eyes, when one personal interest
occupies us to the exclusion of the whole world of action, and
progress, and speculation, and thought? Thrones may topple
over, nationalities be effaced, revolutions in politics, in
religion, in science be effected, and all pass unheeded while
we sit counting our own private loss and gain in love or
friendship, in grief or joy. Whilst Madelon has been wearying
out her little heart and brain in the pursuit of her self-
imposed task, the world has not been, and is not, standing
still, we may be sure, and her small wheel of life is somehow
kept in motion by the great revolving circle of events,
however little she may think of, or heed them. Sebastopol has
fallen in these last months, the Crimean war is at an end, and
all the world that was discussing battles and sieges when
Horace Graham last parted with Madelon one September
afternoon, is talking of treaties and peace now, as the allied
armies move homewards from the East. And--which indeed would
have had more interest for Madelon could she have known it--
Graham himself, after more than two years' hard work, had been
wounded in one of the last skirmishes; and with this wound,
and the accompanying fever, had lain for weeks very near to
death in the Scutari hospital, to be sent home at last,
invalided to England. While Madelon had been slowly recovering
from her fever in her little out-of-the-world refuge at Le
Trooz, Graham had been gaining health and strength in a
pleasant English home, with a sister to nurse and pet him,
nephews and nieces to make much of him, and the rosiest cheeks
and bluest eyes in the world to fall in love with, as he lay
idly on the lawn through the summer days. It was at the house
of his sister, who was married to a country doctor in Kent,
that this double process of love-making and convalescence went
on, with the greatest success and satisfaction to all parties;
and it was Miss Maria Leslie, the ward of his brother-in-law,
Dr. Vavasour, who was the owner of those bluest eyes and
rosiest cheeks.
Meanwhile Madelon, stitching, stitching away at her work,
thought vaguely of Monsieur Horace as being still in that far-
off country from which he had last written to her, and
wondered a little how soon a letter written to the English
address he had given her would reach him. What would he say
and think when he received it? And when, ah! when would she be
able to write it? She worked on steadily, and yet it was
already September when the last stitch was put in, and she
could give the work to Jeanne-Marie. A few days afterwards the
woman put thirty francs into her hands.
"There is your money," she said; "now what are you going to do
with it?"
"I am going away," answered Madelon.
"Yes?" said Jeanne-Marie, without any apparent emotion, "and
where are you going?"
"I am going to Spa. Ah! Jeanne-Marie, do not ask me what I am
going to do; it is my secret, I cannot tell any one, but you
shall know some day."
Jeanne-Marie was silent for a moment, then, "Look here, _ma
petite_," she said; "I don't want to know what you are going to
do; it is no concern of mine, and I cannot keep you if you
want to go away; but who are you going to in Spa? I cannot let
you go off without knowing where you are, and whether you are
safe. You might have the fever again, or some one might try to
take you back to the convent, and I should know nothing about
it. Where are you going? Have you any friends at Spa?"
"There is only Madame Bertrand at the Hôtel de Madrid,"
replied Madelon, rather disconsolately; "I would not mind
going to her again, she is so kind; she wanted me to stay with
her the last time I was there--but then there is Mademoiselle
Henriette--it was she who wished to send me back to the
convent; if she were not there, I should not be afraid."
"And is there no other hotel you could go to?"
"I should not like to go to another," said Madelon, "they
would be all strange; I would rather go to Madame Bertrand,
and I should not have to stay there long."
"And then what are you going to do?"
"I don't know--I am not sure," answered Madelon, rather
embarrassed. "I shall write to a friend I have--Monsieur
Horace, you know--and he will tell me what to do."
"And why do you not write to him at once, _mon enfant?_"
"I cannot," was all Madelon's answer, nor could Jeanne-Marie
ever extract any further explanation on that point. The next
day Jeanne-Marie was missing from the restaurant for some
hours; but she reappeared in the afternoon, and presently came
out into the garden, where Madelon, seated in her favourite
corner, was nursing a big cat, and sorting out herbs for
drying.
"What a long time you have been away!" she said, as Jeanne-
Marie came up to her. "See, I have done all these; I think
there are enough to last you all the winter."
"Not quite," answered the woman; "bur never mind them now. Do
you want to know where I have been? I have been to Spa, and
seen Madame Bertrand."
"Have you?" cried Madelon; "did you tell her about me? Was
Mademoiselle Henriette there?"
"Mademoiselle Henriette is gone; she and her aunt had a grand
quarrel, and she left, and so Madame Bertrand is alone again.
I told her all about you: she said she was glad you had not
gone back to the convent, and that you could go to her
whenever you wished, for she would take care of you. So as
your work is done," Jeanne-Marie added with a sigh, "there is
nothing to keep you, and you may go as soon as you like."
"May I" cried Madelon; "to-morrow, next day? Ah! Jeanne-Marie,
how happy you have made me; you will know why, you will
understand some day--tell me when I shall go."
"We will say the day after to-morrow. I will get your things
ready," answered Jeanne-Marie. She stood gazing at the child
for a moment, as if she would have said something more, then
turned away quickly and entered the house.
Madelon never thought of connecting Jeanne-Marie's sad looks
and ways with her own departure; and indeed, hardly noticed
them, in her joy at having accomplished her task, and earned
the longed-for thirty francs. She did not understand nor
suspect the woman's passionate longing for her affection; no
child can comprehend that strange, pathetic yearning that
older people have for a child's love--a love so pure, and
fresh, and ingenuous, that when it is freely and frankly
given, it is surely the most flattering and precious in the
world. Madelon gave Jeanne-Marie all the love she had to
bestow, but the first place in her heart was already taken;
and perhaps the woman had discovered that it was so, and was
half jealous of this unknown Monsieur Horace, whom she divined
to be at the bottom of all Madelon's plans and ideas. But if
it were so, she never spoke of it, nor of any of the half-
formed hopes and projects she may have had; and Madelon never
could have guessed them, as her kind, sad hostess silently
made up her small wardrobe into a bundle, and patched the old
black silk frock once more, sighing over it the while. And had
Madelon then no regrets at leaving the little cottage, where
she had been tended with such motherly care? Some, perhaps;
for as she sat that last evening watching Jeanne-Marie at her
work, she, too, sighed a little; and at last, clasping her
arms round the woman's neck, she cried, "Jeanne-Marie, I will
love you always--always!--I will never forget you!"
"That is as may be," says melancholy Jeanne-Marie, disengaging
herself.
"Ah! you will not believe me," said Madelon; "but I tell you I
never forget, and you have been so good, so kind to me!
Sometimes I think I should like to stay with you always--would
you let me?"
"Would I let you?" said Jeanne-Marie, dropping her work
suddenly, and looking at the child. "No, I would not let you,"
she said, after a moment's pause, "unless you had nowhere else
to go; but you have other friends, it appears, and it is well
for you. No, I would not let you, for it would be as bad a
thing for you as could be. Ask any of the neighbours what they
would think of it--ask them if they think you would get good or
bad from me, and see what they would say!" She gave a little
scornful laugh.
"I don't know what you mean," said Madelon, fixing her great
eyes on her with a puzzled look--"I don't care what they would
say. You are one of the best people I ever knew, and I love
you with all my heart; but I _must_ go away."
"Why must you?" asks Jeanne-Marie, stitching away at the black
frock.
"That is what I cannot tell you," said Madelon. "No, I will
not tell any one, though I should like to tell you, too,"
added the poor child, gazing wistfully at almost the only
friend she had in the world.
"Well, well," said Jeanne-Marie, "I do not want to hear your
secrets, as you know, unless you like to tell them; but I am
not going to lose sight of you altogether till I hear you are
safe with your friends. You must write me a letter from Spa,
and if I do not hear or see anything of you in a week's time,
I shall come and look after you."
"Yes, I will write," said Madelon; "and I wish--I wish I was
not going away; I have been so happy here." And then she hid
her face on Jeanne-Marie's shoulder, while the sky was all
rosy with the sunset of the last of these peaceful summer days
that our Madelon was to spend at Le Trooz.
Jeanne-Marie could not spare time to go again to Spa the next
day, but she went with Madelon to the station, and waited till
the train that bore her away was out of sight, and then, all
lonely, she walked back to her empty house.