Will it not be admitted that a letter such as this was calculated to
cause a flutter of agitation in the meekest feminine bosom? To be
recalled from School before the completion of the tiresome process
technically known as "finishing," that was matter for rejoicing. The
little bedroom-boudoir in the Colonel's quarters at the Cavalry
Barracks, "elegantly furnished, suitable for a young lady of
refinement," presented an alluring picture, the tiny kitchen, "full
of pots and bright pans," charmed....
For Mademoiselle de Bayard, going back to her Colonel after two
years' absence, laden as the working-bee with the honey of
accomplishments and the well-kneaded wax of useful knowledge,
promised herself that it should not be long before her idol should be
convinced by practical demonstration that his Juliette had not
forgotten how to cook. Irish stew, saddle-of-mutton with
onion-sauce, pancakes, Scotch collops, English plum-pudding and
mince-pies had been added to her lengthy list of recipes, by grace of
the Convent cook, Sister Boniface, who had permitted the ardent
amateur to experiment in a second kitchen, used in hot weather,
abutting on the garden, and not regarded as a portion of the nuns'
enclosure.
To return, and resume the old dear life of companionship, how sweetly
welcome had been the summons. But nothing could disguise the taste
of the powder that came after the jam.
You are to conceive the struggle in Juliette's faithful heart between
obedience and anger. Marry, my faith! yes! Every sensible young
girl naturally expected to be married; but a husband approved of by
oneself, if selected by one's father--that was what one had had
reason to expect.
And this Charles, eulogized as wise, sensible, far-seeing, and
business-like. Were these qualities, though naturally desirable in
the estimation of a father-in-law, attributes that weighed down the
scale in the opinion of a bride? Had one ever beheld him? She shut
her eyes and summoned up all the masculine faces in her gallery of
mental portraits, dismissing one after the other with no's, and no's,
and no's! ... Was it not horrible to have to admit even to oneself
that one had not the faintest recollection of ever having seen or
spoken to him? Madame Tessier she remembered well as a little,
stout, very _gentille_ and amiable, elderly lady, whom she had
visited with M. le Colonel, who had embraced one cordially, and
insisted on one's partaking--immediately and at great length--of a
collation of sandwiches, fruit, cakes, and syrups; excellent--and to
a hungry school-girl, welcome at any hour of the day. What more? ...
Ah, yes! Madame had much deplored Charles's absence, possibly at
Lyons or in Belgium. Further, Madame had remarked to M. le Colonel:
"My friend, your Juliette is the image of her beloved grandmother!"
"Will nobody ever say that I am like my mother?" Juliette had gaily
cried. And with a strange stiff smile, the Colonel had answered for
Madame Tessier,--who at that juncture had opportunely upset a dish of
little sugar-cakes.
"There have been moments, my child, when I have"--he coughed rather
awkwardly for M. le Colonel--"anticipated that a resemblance might
exist."
Could he have been on the verge of saying "feared," and substituted
the other word at the last moment? Such an idea was ridiculous, yet
it had occurred to Juliette.
To questions on the subject of the faintly remembered mother the
grandmother had been impervious. The Colonel had always
answered--yet with palpable reticence....
"You have no mother, my little Juliette; she was taken from us, my
child, while I was absent with the Army in the Crimea," or "She left
us, while yet I was detained in Eastern Russia, serving as aide upon
the staff of M. le Maréchal Grandguerrier.... It is true, she was
both good and beautiful when I married her! Now run and play!" Or,
in later years: "Now come and read to me!" or "Walk with me," or
"Ride with me," or "Now tell me how and where thou didst learn to
turn out such savory dishes with those tiny _pattes de mouche_ of
thine? Nowhere is there a _chef_ whose choicest efforts can com-pare
with my Juliette's. And I have dined with the Emperor--and with
Milord Hertford at Bagatelle--and with Consul-General Baron
Rothschild--and--_parole d'honneur!_--I have told them so!"
And all the time M. le Colonel had been keeping back something....
Was it not strange, thought Juliette, that, while upon the
anniversary of the _Jour des Mort_ Mass had invariably been offered
for all deceased relatives of the De Bayard family, the actual date
of the death of one so young and beautiful had never been marked with
special solemnity.
Could it be that the lost mother was not dead, but living! Oh, but
impossible! ... And yet--once awakened, the doubt would never sleep
again....
Did ever a girl receive such a letter? It was fuller of darts than
even the fabled porcupine. It awakened stinging doubts of the
kindness of the gentlest and tenderest of fathers. "_Tear the
picture!--forget the dream!_" he had said. Ah, my Heaven! what young
girl cherishes not such images--such visions! ... Juliette wondered
sorrowfully. Sitting on her school locker, lost in thought, her
elbows on her knees, her little pointed chin cupped in the slender
hands, you saw her as a haggard, weary little creature. For while
joy made of Juliette a living rainbow, grief transformed her to the
wan and rigid nymph that droops above a classic urn upon a mourning
cameo; and anxiety or suspense or remorse of soul set a changeling in
her place, wizened her, pinched her, struck her prematurely old.
She might--to employ hyperbole--have been sitting on her locker until
the present hour, had not her sad eyes lighted upon a colored
photograph of M. le Colonel in full military harness and equipment,
contained in a little ivory frame fastened by a safety-pin to one of
the starched white dimity curtains that imparted an air of select
privacy to the little white-covered dormitory bed.
You are to behold Juliette's father--_per_ medium of this
pen-portrait--and would that you might have heard his cordial voice,
and pressed his living hand.... Conceive him as a little man; and
somewhat stout and paunchy; you would never have dared to term him so
in the presence of Juliette. And yet so manly, soldierlike and
ingratiating was the boldly-featured face, with its brave eyes,
curled moustache and imperial; the fur talpack with the green and
scarlet plume and the red Hussar bag, was worn with such an air; the
dolman of fine green cloth, laced and corded with heavy _galons_ of
silver and faced with the brilliant red of his silver-striped
pantaloons, fitted his compact round person with such creaseless
tightness; his silver-striped _ceinture_, belts and buckles were so
_point-device_; his spurred Hessian boots graced such neat small
feet; his right hand rested on his hip, his left upon the hilt of his
long saber, with so pleasant a grace, that you could not but warm to
this picture of a cavalry commander.
His daughter melted even as she gazed. The generous soul, once
wrought to the pitch of heroism, piles sacrifice on sacrifice. She
had meant to temporize, but she would not do so now. She began to
comprehend, as stray sentences of the father's letter floated back,
that his mood had been sorrowful when he wrote it; and that those
wounds of the soul he spoke of had been bleeding, though hidden from
his daughter, many a year.... He was never sentimental; that
sentence about laying his bones in a trench hastily dug by peasants
in a foreign province had been struck from the steel of his nature by
some flint hurled from the sling of Fate. The words that followed,
picturing War,--sudden, unexpected, sweeping as a cataclysm over the
country,--had the solemnity of deep organ-notes. And the rushing
tenderness in the words, "_Living or dead, to know thee safe and
cherished!_" thrilled, and the dignity of the entreaty touched and
conquered: "_Wilt thou obey thy father, who loves thee as his soul?
..._"
You saw light and warmth and youth and loveliness visibly flowing
back into her as she looked at the picture. The witches' changeling
fled, a christened maiden remained in her place. Words came to the
lips that had been dumb, dews of tenderness bathed the eyes that had
been dry as those of a sandstone statue in the Theban desert....
"Dearest--beloved--best! ... Oh! shame that I should have dreamed of
doubting you! ... There is some great reason for this
decision--something terrible behind this haste of yours. What, I may
not know now!--one day all will be explained to me! ... Until
then"--she rose and kissed the portrait--"until then I will trust
you--who have never deceived me.... I will write to you as you would
wish me to this very night. Now I must pack, and then go down to
Monica.... How to answer if she should question! ... but no, she
never will!"
Dismissing the phantom of Charles, faceless and bodiless, but none
the less terrible, she flew at the locker--pulled out the three
drawers--stripped the row of regulation dress-pegs. Brushing,
smoothing, and folding, she even sang as she worked.... Presently a
bell rang twice. It was yet vibrating where it hung, on the
passage-landing at the dormitory stair-head, when Juliette passed on
her way to the guest-parlor. Monica was waiting there.