The Great Class fermented in irrepressible excitement. Subsequently
to the arrival of a foreign mail, Juliette Bayard had been summoned
by an attendant lay-sister to the presence of Mère M. Catherine-Rose.
She had remained nearly half an hour in the Parlor of Cold Feet--so
called in recognition of the fact that the apartment contained no
fireplace, and that even in the hottest weather cool draughts played
hide-and-seek across the polished parquet from circular brazen
gratings inserted in the wainscot, which ancient legend connected
with the presence of a French _calorifère_.
When the door opened and Juliette emerged, somewhere about the middle
of the noon recreation, an advance-patrol in the shape of a pupil of
the Little Class, by name Laura Foljambe--happened to be buttoning a
shoe-strap at the end of the corridor. The apoplectic attitude
inseparable from this particular employment would have rendered
observation impossible--in the case of an adult. But Laura, under
the cover of a luxuriant head of yellow ringlets, unconfined by any
comb or ribbon, observed, firstly, that Juliette had been crying, and
secondly, that Mère M. Catherine-Rose had tears in her own eyes.
More, she had called Juliette back, embraced her affectionately, and
said: "We shall miss you, my dear!" "You will be brave, I know!" and
"Remember to write!" Packed with news, Laura rushed into the Lesser
Hall, where the seniors were gathered round the stove, the raw chill
of the January weather rendering the garden a place of penitence, and
emptied her budget of intelligence upon the spot.
Juliette must be going away! The forty girls of the Great Class had
unanimously arrived at this conclusion when Juliette herself arrived
upon the scene. It needed but a glance to assure her of the
treachery of Laura; it needed but a moment, and the spy, blubbering
and protesting, was seized, shaken, and forced upon her knees.
You are to understand that when Juliette Bayard was angry, she was so
with a vengeance. Heroic by temperament, her wrath smacked of the
superhuman. A demi-goddess enraged might have manifested as
semi-divine a frenzy. Ordinary prose seemed too poor a vehicle to
convey such indignation. You expected hexameters or Alexandrines....
"That you listened I would stake my honor!--I would pledge my
life!--I would put the hand in the fire! Mean! Base! Despicable!
Ah, you look simple, little thing, but you are cunning as a
mouse--fine as amber! No! I do not pinch, I would scorn it--you
know that perfectly! Yes! I will permit you to go when you confess
who set you on!"
Laura, unwilling to incur the resentment of forty grown-ups,
undesirous of forfeiting the saccharine reward of treachery, boohooed
in a whisper, for class-hour was approaching. The wrathful goddess
towered over her, eyed with blue lightning, crowned with dusky clouds
of thunder, flushed like the sunset that comes after the day of storm.
Had Arthur Hughes or Fred Walker been privileged to peep--one painter
at least would have armed her uplifted hand with a bulrush-spear,
helmeted her with a curled water-lily leaf, and given the smiling
world Titania in the character of Pallas Athene, or Queen Mab as an
Amazon. And Juliette would never have pardoned the painter.
For--despite the testimony of her tale of inches--she would have it
that she was tall, even above the average height of woman.
"I shall not be beautiful, no! but I shall be commanding!" she had
assured those favored girls on whom she deigned to bestow her
imperial confidence. This select number in turn possessing a circle
of confidantes, the drop of a secret meant a series of widening
rings, extending to the circle of the day scholars, reaching the
Orphanage by-and-by, and trickling at length into the basement, where
the Poor School assembled on Wednesdays and Fridays, to gather up the
crumbs of knowledge that fell from the tables of the daughters of the
great and rich.
You may imagine the scene in Lesser Hall upon this chilly day in
January. Excitement was much more warming than crowding round the
smoky stoves. Of the semi-circle of great girls in their black
school-dresses, enlivened only by the red or white class-rosettes, or
the pale blue ribbons of the Children of Mary, all the heads, adorned
with every shade of feminine tresses,--all the eyes of all colors,
set in faces plain or pretty--were turned toward the tragic figure of
Juliette.
Once kindled, such violet fires of wrath blazed in those implacable
eyes, one would have supposed nothing could ever quench them. But
when she was sorrowful, they were bottomless lakes of misery.
Despair lay drowned and wan amid the long black sedges drooping at
their borders. Under the dark, hollowed precipices that shadowed
them it seemed as though no sun could ever shine. But when the laugh
was born, it leaped to the surface with a quiver that caught the
light and flashed it back pure sapphire or loveliest Persian
turquoise. No face ever framed of earthly clay had more of the mirth
of Heaven in it, then. Her long upper lip, the elastic, mobile
feature that could draw out to so portentous a length, would be
haunted by flying smiles, and the deep-cut corners of her short
scarlet under lip would quiver. To inventory the beauties of a young
lady and omit the nose would suggest cause for reticence on the
writer's part. Juliette's nose was not of Greek or Roman type, but
neither was it snubbed or tip-tilted. It had a rounded end, and
deep, curved, passionate nostrils. It pertained to no known order of
nasal architecture. It was Juliette's nose, and could never have
belonged to anybody else.
If you would more of her,--and after the first encounter you either
sought or shunned--loved or loathed--as she would have had you do who
was in all things sincere and candid, you are to understand that her
cloud of dusky hair framed a small oval face that made no show of
carnation or vaunt of rose. Her clear fine skin was almost always
pale. She would have laughed you to scorn had you likened those
colorless cheeks of hers to lilies. She prided herself upon a frame
of mind eminently commonplace, antipodean to the romantic. "I am
sensible, me!" you often heard her say.
In form--though as you know she believed herself to be a
giantess--she was small and slight, and not at all remarkable. A
framework of slender bones, frugally covered with tender, healthful
flesh. Her shoulders sloped so much that in her loose-bodied,
full-sleeved, black merino school uniform she seemed about to vanish.
Her hips were narrow, without the voluptuous curves that belong to
heroines. But a Divine jest had added to her little high-arched head
a tiny pair of rosy shells for hearing, and the palms and nails and
finger-tips of her narrow hands,--and feet I have heard it said by
some who loved her--were roseate also. The younger children liked to
pretend that this was a judgment on Juliette for stealing
strawberries in the early June season, but she only joined in that
one raid on the Sisters' kitchen-garden "To be a good comrade!" ...
and as it happened, all the strawberries were slug-eaten. And where
are there strawberries worth the stealing, unless it be in France?
For next to God and Our Lady, and her father M. le Colonel, Juliette
Bayard loved her country. Paradise was but an improvement on France,
to hear her describe it to the little ones. Further, though she had
a perfect taste in dress, when released from the school uniform;
though an ordinary hat under her deft transforming fingers would
become a miracle of exquisite millinery; her groups of flowers, and
landscapes, in water-color, her crayon dog's heads, were mercifully
hidden from the drawing-master's eye. She sang out of tune, but in
time; played correctly, but hated the piano; danced like an
air-wafted tuft of dandelion-down or a gnat upon a summer
evening,--and had a Heaven-born gift for housekeeping and cookery.
Of this last gift more anon. Meanwhile Laura writhed, or seemed to
writhe, under the torrent of passionate reproaches, culminating in
another shake, and a slap which might have damaged a kitten
newly-born. Laura fell prone, moaning and gurgling. And Juliette,
pierced by remorse at her own ruthlessness, sank, pale as ashes,
beside the victim's corse.
"Darling Laura! sweetest Laura!--tell me I have not hurt you! Just
Heaven! how could I strike you?--I, who am so strong! Indeed, I
might have killed you! ... Pray for me, my little angel! It will
need a miracle to cure my temper, as Mother Veronica constantly says.
Cannot you get up? Do try, to please me! Tell me where you feel
most injured? Quick, or I know I shall be angry again! ... Show me
the bruise! Pouf! that is a mere nothing! I will kiss it and make
it well, and you shall have the blue bead Rosary."
The mention of the blue beads palpably restored vitality. The
sufferer was understood to intimate that a chocolate elephant would
absolutely complete the cure.
"The elephant to-morrow when the Great Class return from the
promenade. The Rosary before Benediction. Away with you!"
Laura scuttled. Juliette blew her a parting kiss, and said, with a
comprehensive glance of scorn at the faces of her classmates:
"It was not she who deserved the---- I have not the expression! ...
It is one of your English words that mean many things together ... a
kiss ... a blow ... the boat of a sailor who catches fishes and
crabs.... I have seen such boats at Havre and Weymouth, and they are
very pretty.... Ah! Now I remember. You call them fishing-spanks!"
The Class shrieked. Juliette stood calmly while the tumult of
laughter and exclamations raged about her. Her long upper lip shut
down upon its scarlet neighbor, her brows frowned a little; her
slender arms, lost in their loose sleeves, hung straightly by her
narrow sides. Millais would, seeing her, have painted a maiden
martyr. Watts might have limned her as Persephone new-loosed from
the dark embrace of Dis, her wooer, taking her first timid steps upon
the glowing floor of Hell.
"When you have finished making so much noise--_peu importe_--but I
have a piece of news to tell you. You are none of you
inquisitive--that goes without saying!--or you would not have
dispatched that poor infant to play the spy outside the parlor door.
Bridget-Mary and Alethea Bawne, I do not mean you--you are souls of
honor--incapable of curiosity! ... Also, Monica Breagh, _c'est là son
moindre defaut_! But there are others--yet my friends--who are not
so delicate,--and to these I address myself. You do not deserve to
hear--and yet I cannot be unkind to you; I, who have such joy of the
heart in the knowledge that I am to return to my dear father!--such
grief--ah! but such grief of the soul in bidding adieu to the School!"
"Not for good?"
"You are going to leave the School?"
"Dear, darling Juliette, say you're only joking!"
"She is in earnest. Look at her upper lip!"
"_Vous moquez-vous du monde de parler ainsi!_"
Throbbed out a Spanish voice, husky and passionate:
"_Qué vergüenza! No, no, es imposible!_"
"Sure, dear, you'd not be so cruel as to make game of us?"
She stood her ground, firm, but no longer frowning. Her heart
swelled, her eyes were heavy with the promise of rain. Her slender
arms went out as though she would have embraced them all.
"My dears, it is true! I go to Versailles to rejoin my father. He
says to me also--I have his letter here!" ...
Silence fell upon the turbulent crowd as she laid a slender hand on
the place where her heart could be seen throbbing. The paper
rustled, but she did not draw it forth.
"He says, in this--I am to be married ... soon,--very quickly!"
A Babel of cries, ejaculations, and exclamations broke out about her.
A girl's voice, more strident than the rest, shrieked:
"I hate your father! Beast!" and broke down in hysterical sobbing.
Juliette replied, those about her hushed to hear; and in the oasis of
silence her tender, silvery voice rose like a fountain springing from
the heart of purity.
"My father is not what you say, but the Emperor's brave soldier and a
noble gentleman. I am proud to obey when he commands! He has said
to me that I am to be married, and does he not know what is best for
me? Would he wish to bring unhappiness upon his Juliette?"
She was not so much loyal as Loyalty personified, standing there
defending him; with her little hand keeping down her bursting heart
of anguish, and salt lakes of unshed tears pent up behind her
sorrowful sapphire eyes.... Her voice broke as she said "his
Juliette," and one of the Bawnes, a stately, black-browed girl,
answered, speaking in French:
"He would not if he is--what you have described him! ... But--unless
you knew of this before--it is so sudden.... It would seem to argue
that M. le Colonel was thinking more--you will not be offended!--of
the happiness of his future son-in-law than of his daughter's----"
"_Non, non, non!_" She made an emphatic gesture with her little
hand, and shook her head so that a tear fell from her lashes on the
bosom of her black school-dress, "Dear Lady Biddy--you are mistaken.
For--comprehend you?--my happiness is in obeying that beloved father,
always. For me, there is no greater joy.... And his letter bears
date of the New Year--three days since--behold the postmark. It is
the custom to give young people étrennes at that season--my father
bestows on me a husband, and I am--content! See you well?"
It was faulty English, yet Juliette's "See you well?" haunted the
music-loving ear.
And now even the reserved began to question, while the frankly
curious waxed importunate concerning the date of Mademoiselle
Bayard's impending departure, the name, rank and personal appearance
of the mysterious husband-elect, the number and uniform of his
regiment. For, of course, he was certain to be an officer of
Cavalry, Dragoons, Lancers, or Cuirassiers. That he must be handsome
went without saying; but were his eyes dark or light, and did he wear
a moustache only, or sport the hirsute ornament in conjunction with
an imperial? Beset from all quarters, Juliette was beginning to lose
command of herself, when the hour of two struck from the great clock
in the corridor.
The clang-clang of an iron bell succeeded, the double doors at the
upper end of the Hall rolled backward, uniting the Great and the
Middle Classes in the religious exercise that opened afternoon
School. The hymn sung, the brief litany chanted to an accompaniment
played on the harmonium by a mistress in the purple habit and creamy
veil of the choir-sisters, another nun approached Juliette and
whispered in her ear.
She was to go to the dormitory and pack her trunk, which would
presently be brought her by one of the lay-sisters. And this done,
she was free to spend the half-hour previous to Benediction in the
parlor with----
The name was lost in Juliette's embrace and kiss of gratitude. She
was usually chary of caresses, perhaps she wished to hide her eyes.
They were fairly overflowing, poor eyes! when their owner gained the
solitude of her white-draped cubicle in the Greats' dormitory. Once
the curtains fell behind her she was free to fall upon her knees
beside the bed and sob there, to call upon Our Lady for succor and
pity, to rock herself and hug her bleeding heart. And all these
things Juliette did, until the dull thump of felt shoes upon the
shining boards betokened the arrival of the lay-sister, bearing the
oilskin-covered dress-basket, disinterred from some below-stairs
repository, which had to be filled from the locker, dress-hooks, and
drawers.
Ten minutes had been devoured in grief, forty yet remained for
packing. A lover of method in all things, frugal and prudent in the
expenditure of resources ("_I am sensible, me!_"), Juliette was
economical of time. Ten minutes might be spared to re-perusal of the
letter that had set her faith in that dearest father rocking like a
palm in tempest, and wrung such tears of anguish from the heart that
worshiped him.
She drew the bulky envelope from its pure hiding-place, kissed it,
and moaned a little. There were three sheets of thin foreign note,
flourished over in a big, bold, soldierly hand. The date bore
evidence that the letter had been penned on the Eve of Saint
Sylvestre, answering to our New Year's Eve. The address was:
"_Barracks of the 777th Regiment,_
"_Mounted Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard,_
"_Versailles._
"_My Daughter,_
"_Of news thy father has not much to tell thee that thou wouldst find
of the most interesting, save that of the fashions prevailing in
Paris at the moment, the most daring and eccentric is the little hat
or miniature bonnet, tilted forward upon the forehead by the chignon,
and spangled with beetles, dragon-flies, and other brilliant insects.
Jeweled birds, yachts in full sail, or baskets of flowers, dangle
from the ears of all the feminine world!_
"_The Empress is as beautiful as even she could wish to be. I saw
her driving a pair of little thoroughbred mares in the low
park-phœton yesterday in the Bois, near the Rond des Cascades.
She was so gracious as to recognize me--though I was in civilian
riding-dress--and beckoned me with her parasol-whip from the line of
equestrians respectfully mustered on the left side of the road. She
patted the gray Mustapha--thou wilt be glad thy horse was so
honored!--and asked if I was quite recovered of the wound I received
at Solferino,--proving that an Imperial memory can be conferred with
the hand that raises to Imperial rank. Later on I met Dumas, and--at
the corner of the Rue Laffitte--Baron Rothschild and Cham, the
caricaturist--and there thou hast a résumé of the encounters of the
day._
"_Do political matters really interest thee? Learn, then, a new
Ministry is in formation by M. Emile Ollivier--a 'homogeneous
cabinet,' is to be drawn chiefly from the Left Center in the Corps
Législatif. My father's friend, M. le Général Lebœuf, Minister of
War, retains the post he held in the expired Administration. M. le
Maréchal Vaillant continues as Minister of the Emperor's Household.
Haussmann has fallen! his ten thousand hands will no longer scatter
gold from the Imperial Treasury. The last announcement emanating
from the Prefecture of the Seine gave notice that the cemeteries of
Mont-Parnasse, Montmartre, Ivry, and others are to be seized by the
municipality in 1871. All the private monuments are to be withdrawn
before the first of April.... With what sorrow of heart these tragic
removals will be effected thou wilt realize, who hast so often
accompanied thy father, bearing wreaths to lay upon thy grandmother's
tomb at Père Lachaise. Pray that the necessity to find a home for
those sacred, beloved ashes may not devolve upon us._
"_Thou must know that in October, during the maneuvers at the camp of
Châlons, a new and terrible weapon was placed in the hands of the
Imperial army of France. It is the _Mitrailleuse_, conceived by the
brain of De Reffye--an invention worthy to rank with that of the
Chassepôt rifle, which fulfilled such great expectations the first
time the weapon was used in action, at Mentana, against the
Garibaldians. How shall I describe it? I will say, briefly, that it
is a rifled, breech-loading gun of from fourteen to twenty-nine
barrels; that it has as many locks as barrels; that it can be
transported from place to place by two men, and fired by one, who
manipulates a lever, sitting upon a saddle attached to the
gun-carriage. And that it is a mill that grinds--a machine that
hails--death upon an enemy. Armed with batteries of these invincible
weapons, the march of an invading army would be irresistible!_
"_Two of these marvelous guns have been by the Imperial favor
bestowed upon our regiment. The men baptized them in wine by the
names of Didi and Bibi. They are treated as regimental infants, and
thrive exceedingly well._
"_My child, whether this news will make thee sad or joyful it must be
that Juliette joins her father here at Versailles not later than on
the twentieth of the month of January. Madame la Supérieure will
supply thee with funds in exchange for the enclosed note of credit
furnished me by my bankers. Purchase thyself--on arriving in
Paris--for certainly the modes of London will never content a taste
so fastidious--some fresh and charming toilettes of the evening,
costumes for the house, theater or promenade, and suitable lingerie.
Last, but not least, bring a marriage-robe, crown and veil. I am not
joking, I assure thee! For my daughter I have found a husband. A
young man, sincere, upright, honorable, and a good Catholic, whom I
have known from boyhood, whom my child will love as a wife should;
and by whom she will be adored and cherished. Thou knowest Charles
Tessier, the son of my mother's widowed friend, the estimable Madame
Tessier, whom we have visited in the Rue de Provence, Versailles!
Charles has succeeded to his father's large businesses at Paris,
Lyons, and in Belgium, as a manufacturer of woolen dress-materials,
the pattern Écossais, so much in favor with S.M. the Empress and the
belles of the Imperial Court, having been imported, woven and
supplied by this wise, enterprising and energetic young man.
Who--but it will be for his wife to perceive and praise his many
excellencies. I leave thee to the pleasant task of discovering them._
"_My Juliette, if so much of thy father mingles in thy nature that of
all careers this of a soldier seems to thee the noblest--if the
pursuit and attainment of military glory--distinctions won upon the
field of War, appeal to thee--as Heaven knows they have to me!--since
my blood first learned to thrill at the roll of the drum--and leap at
the sound of the trumpet--if thou hast pictured in thy innocent
mind--loved in thy spotless dreams--some brave and noble officer
chosen for thee by him who now writes--tear the picture!--forget the
dream! For when such dreams become realities they are--how often
rudely shattered by the rush and shock of armies meeting in the
blood-stained field of War!_
"_My dear, War is a monster composed of flesh, and iron, and steel,
that like the dragon or chimera of classical mythology--devours the
hopes of virgins and the happiness of matrons, and leaves children
orphans and homes heaps of dust. Thou rememberest thy grandmother?
She had been married just five years when my father reddened with his
heart's blood the soil of Algeria. Yet when I wished to follow the
profession of arms she did not endeavor to dissuade me. She hid her
anguish as only mothers can, but her beloved life was shortened by
anxiety undergone during the terrible war of the Crimea; that war so
protracted, so disastrous to our brave ally of England--so fraught
with loss and suffering to the more fortunate army of France. And
that was not the only blow Fate dealt me while I served as
_aide-de-camp_ upon the staff of M. le Maréchal Grandguerrier. Thou
dost not know as yet!--one day I may find courage to tell thee....
Even a soldier may shrink from baring wounds that are of the soul._
"_My daughter, I have never spoken to thee of thy mother.... The
time has arrived when----_"
The sixteen words were lined out by a heavy stroke of the quill. The
closing sentences were----
"_In the event of War abroad--taking thy father from thee--perhaps to
lay his bones in a trench hastily dug by peasants in some foreign
province!--or in the event of War at home,--sudden,
unexpected--sweeping as a cataclysm over thy native soil, thou wilt
believe me, my Juliette, when I tell thee this marriage would be
absolutely for the best! Living or dead, for me to know thee safe
and cherished, here at Versailles with thy husband Charles and his
estimable mother, would be happiness.... Wilt thou consent to the
union? Wilt thou obey thy father, who loves thee as his soul? One
finds this a scrawl which will prove difficult to decipher. As thou
knowest, I am a better artist with the sword than with the pen._
"_Written here at my new quarters, which comprise a sleeping chamber
and boudoir elegantly furnished, suitable for a young lady of
refinement; and a little kitchen, full of pots and bright pans._
"_Thy father,_
"_HENRI-ANTOINE-ALBERT DE BAYARD,_
"_Colonel Commandant._"