Five minutes afterward an exciting game of shuttlecock was going on
between Frederick and his mother.
It was a charming picture upon which the few rays of sunshine that
succeeded in making their way through the dense canopy of green shone,
for every movement and attitude of the participants was instinct with
agility and grace.
Marie, her eyes gleaming with mischief, her red lips wreathed with a
charming smile, the rose tint in her cheeks deepening, one shapely foot
extended, but with her supple form thrown well back from her slim waist
upward, met the shuttlecock with her racket, then sent it flying off in
an entirely different direction from what Frederick had anticipated; but
not in the least discomfited, the youth, throwing back the curling locks
of brown hair from his brow by a sudden toss of the head, with a quick,
lithe bound skilfully intercepted the winged messenger as it was about
to touch the earth, and sent it flying back to his mother, who
intercepted it in her turn, and with a no less adroit blow despatched it
swiftly through space again. When, after describing its parabola, it
made straight for Frederick's nose, whereupon the youth, in a violent
effort to interpose his racket between the rapidly descending
shuttlecock and his upturned face, lost his balance and fell headlong on
the thick turf, after which the laughter and oft repeated bursts of
hilarity on the part of the two players necessarily put an end to the
game.
After their mirth had partially subsided, the mother and son, with
crimson cheeks, and eyes still swimming with the tears their merriment
had evoked, walked to a rustic bench in front of the waterfall to rest.
"Goodness, how absurd it is to laugh in this fashion!" exclaimed
Frederick.
"You must admit that it does one good, though. It may be absurd to laugh
so, as you say, but it consoles one to feel that only happy people like
ourselves can ever give way to such mad fits of merriment."
"Yes, mother, you are right," said Frederick, resting his head on his
mother's shoulder, "we are happy. As I sit here in the shade, this
beautiful summer evening, with my head on your shoulder, gazing with
half-closed eyes through the golden sunlight at our pretty home, while
the soft murmur of the cascade fills the air, it seems to me it would be
delightful to remain here just as we are for a hundred years."
And Frederick settled his head still more comfortably on his mother's
shoulder, as if he would indeed like to spend an eternity there. The
young mother, taking care not to disturb Frederick, bent her head a
little to one side in order to lay her cheek upon his, and taking one of
his hands in hers, replied:
"It is true that this corner of the earth has always been a sort of
paradise for us, and but for the recollection of the month that you were
so ill, I think we should find it difficult to recollect a single
unhappy moment. Is that not so, Frederick?"
"You have always spoiled me so."
"M. Frederick doesn't know what he is talking about, evidently,"
responded Madame Bastien, with an affectation of grave displeasure.
"There is nothing more disagreeable, and above all more unhappy, than a
spoiled child. I should like to know what idle fancies and caprices I
have ever encouraged in you, monsieur. Mention one if you can."
"I should think I could. In the first place you never give me the time
to be bored, but take quite as much interest in my diversions and
pleasures as I do. I really don't know how you manage it, but time
passes so quickly in your company that I cannot believe that this is the
last of June, and when the first of January comes, I know I shall say
the same thing."
"Oh, you needn't try to get out of answering my question by flattering
me, monsieur. Just tell me when I ever spoiled you unduly, and if I am
not, on the contrary, very severe and exacting, especially in relation
to your hours of study?"
"Ah, you do well to boast of being exacting in that particular. Don't
you share my studies as well as my play, so study has always been as
amusing as recreation to me? Consequently, I maintain that if I am
happy, it is due to you. If I know anything, if I am of account, in
short, it is all due to you and solely to you. Have I ever left you?
Everything that is good in me, I owe to you; all that is bad, my
obstinacy, for example--"
"Yes, it is true that this dear little head has a will of its own," said
Madame Bastien, interrupting him and kissing him on the forehead. "I
don't know any one who has a stronger will than yours, but so long as
you will to be the tenderest and best of sons, as you have up to the
present time, why, I am not disposed to complain. Each day brings some
fresh proof of the kindness and generosity of your heart, and if I
needed any auxiliary to convince you, I should invoke the testimony of
the friend I see coming over there," she added, pointing out some one to
Frederick. "He knows you almost as well as I do, and you must admit that
his sincerity is beyond all question."
The newcomer to whom Madame Bastien had alluded, and who was now
advancing through the grove, was about forty years of age, a small,
delicate-looking man, very carelessly dressed. He was singularly ugly,
too, but his ugliness was of the clever, good-humoured type. His name
was Dufour; he practised medicine at Pont Brillant, and, by dint of
skill and unremitting attention, he had cured Frederick of a serious
illness the year before.
"How do you do, my dear Madame Bastien?" he said, cheerfully, as he
approached the pair. "How do you do, my boy?" he added, pressing
Frederick's hand cordially.
"Ah, doctor, you came just in time to get scolded," exclaimed Madame
Bastien, with affectionate gaiety.
"Scolded?"
"Certainly. Isn't it more than a fortnight since you came to see us?"
"Fie! fie!" cried M. Dufour, "you must be egotistical to demand a
doctor's visits with health as flourishing as yours."
"Fie!" retorted Madame Bastien, no less gaily, "and what right have you,
pray, to so disdain the gratitude of those you have saved as to deprive
them of the pleasure of saying to him often, very often,'Thank you, my
preserver, thank you'?"
"Yes, my mother is right, M. Dufour," added Frederick. "You think
because you have restored me to life that all is over between us. How
ungrateful you are!"
"If mother and son have both declared war upon me, there is nothing left
for me but to beat a retreat," exclaimed the doctor, drawing back a step
or two.
"Oh, well, we will not take an unfair advantage; but only upon one
condition, doctor. That is that you will dine with us."
"I left home with that very laudable intention," replied the doctor,
quite seriously this time, "but just as I was leaving Pont Brillant, a
woman stopped me and begged me to come at once to her son. I did so, but
unfortunately his malady is of such a serious character that I shall not
feel easy in mind if I do not see my patient again before seven
o'clock."
"Of course I can make no protest under circumstances like these, my dear
doctor," replied Madame Bastien, "and I am doubly grateful to you for
granting us a few moments."
"And I have been looking forward to such a delightful evening," remarked
the doctor. "It would have rounded out my day so well, for this morning
I had a most delightful surprise."
"So some unexpected piece of good fortune has befallen you, my dear
doctor. How glad I am!"
"Yes," replied the doctor; "for some time past I have been extremely
uneasy about my best friend, an inveterate traveller, who had undertaken
a dangerous journey through some of the least known portions of South
America. Having heard nothing from him for more than eight months, I was
beginning to feel very much alarmed, when this morning I received a
letter from him written in London, where he had stopped for a few days
on his return from Lima. He promises to come and spend some time with
me, so you can judge how delighted I am, my dear Madame Bastien. He is
like a brother to me, and not only has the best heart in the world, but
is one of the most interesting as well as the most gifted men I know.
What a pleasure it will be to have him all to myself!"
Here the doctor was interrupted by an elderly servant woman, who was
leading a poorly clad child of seven or eight years by the hand, and
who, from the threshold of the door where she was standing, called to
the youth:
"It is six o'clock, M. Frederick."
"I'll see you again presently, mother," said the lad, kissing his young
mother on the forehead.
Then, turning to the doctor, he added:
"I shall see you, too, doctor, before you go, shall I not?"
After which he hastily joined the child and old servant, and entered the
house in company with them.
"Where is he going?" asked the doctor.
"To give his lesson. Didn't you see his scholar?"
"What scholar?"
"That child is the son of a day labourer who lives too far from Pont
Brillant to be able to send his child to the village school, so
Frederick is teaching the little fellow to read. He gives him two
lessons a day, and I assure you that I am as well pleased with the
teacher as with the pupil, doctor, for Frederick displays in his
teaching a zeal, patience, and sweetness of disposition that delights
me."
"It is certainly a very nice thing for him to do."
"We are obliged to do good in these small ways, you see, doctor," said
Madame Bastien, with a rather sad smile. "You know with what rigid
parsimony my son and I are treated in regard to money matters. Still, I
should not complain. Thanks to this parsimony, Frederick devises all
sorts of expedients. Some of them are, I assure you, very touching, and
if I were not afraid of showing too much pride, I would tell you
something that occurred last week."
"Go on, my dear Madame Bastien; surely you are not going to try to play
the mock modest mother with me."
"No, I am not, so listen. Last Thursday Frederick and I walked over to
Brevan heath--"
"Where they are clearing up some land. I noticed that fact as I passed
there this morning."
"Yes, and you know that is pretty hard work, doctor."
"I should say that it was. Digging up roots and stumps that have been
there three or four centuries."
"Well, while I was walking about with Frederick, we saw a poor,
hungry-looking woman, with a little girl about ten years old, as pale
and emaciated-looking as her mother, working there on the heath."
"A woman and a child of that age! Why, such work was entirely beyond
their strength."
"You are right, doctor, and in spite of their courage, the poor
creatures were making little or no headway. It was almost as much as the
poor mother could do to lift the heavy spade, much less to force it into
the hard earth, and when the root of a sapling at which she must have
been digging a long time became partially uncovered, the woman and
child, now using the spade as a lever, now digging in the ground with
their hands, endeavoured to loosen the root, but in vain. Seeing how
utterly futile their efforts were, the poor woman made an almost
despairing movement, then threw herself down on the ground as if
overcome with grief and fatigue, and covering her head with her tattered
apron, she began to sob bitterly, while the child, kneeling beside her,
also wept pitifully."
"Ah! such poverty as that!"
"I looked at my son. There were tears in his eyes as well as my own. I
approached the poor woman and asked her how it happened that she was
trying to do work so much beyond her strength, and she told me that her
husband had contracted to clear up one quarter of the land, that he had
become ill from overwork a couple of days before, that some of the work
was still to be done, but that if the job was not finished by Saturday
night, he would lose the fruit of nearly a fortnight's labour, for it
was on these terms that her husband had undertaken the job, the work
being urgent."
"Such contracts are frequently made, and unless the conditions are
scrupulously complied with, the poor delinquents have to suffer, I am
sorry to say. So the poor woman was trying to take her husband's place,
I suppose."
"Yes, for it was a question of making or losing thirty-five francs upon
which they were counting to pay the yearly rental of their miserable
hovel, and purchase a little rye to live upon until the next harvest.
After a few minutes' reflection Frederick said to the poor woman: 'I
should think a good worker could finish the job in a couple of days, my
good woman.' 'Yes, monsieur, but my husband is too ill to do it,' she
replied. 'These poor people mustn't lose their thirty-five francs,
mother,' Frederick said to me. 'They must have the money and we cannot
afford to give it to them, so let me off from my studies on Friday and
Saturday and I will finish the work for them. The poor woman won't run
the risk of making herself ill. She can stay at home and nurse her
husband, and Sunday she will get her money.'"
"Frederick is a noble boy!" exclaimed M. Dufour.
"Saturday evening just at dusk the task was completed," Madame Bastien
continued. "Frederick performed the work with an ardour and cheerfulness
which showed that it was a real pleasure to him. I stayed with him all
during the two days. There was a big juniper-tree only a little way off,
and I sat in the shade of that and read or embroidered while my son
worked; and how he worked! such vigorous blows of the spade as he
struck, the very earth trembled under my feet."
"I can well believe it; though he is rather slim, he is remarkably
strong for one of his years."
"I took him water now and then, and to save time when lunch-time came,
our old Marguerite brought us out something to eat. How happy we were
eating out there on the heath under the shade of the juniper. Frederick
enjoyed it immensely. Of course there was nothing so very wonderful
about what he did, but what touched and pleased me was the promptness
with which he made the resolution, and the perseverance and tenacity of
will with which he carried it out."
"You are, indeed, the happiest of mothers," said the doctor with genuine
emotion, pressing Marie's hands warmly, "and you have reason to be
doubly happy, as this happiness is your own work."
"What else could you expect, doctor?" replied Madame Bastien, artlessly.
"One lives for one's son you know."
"You most assuredly do," said the doctor, warmly, "and it is well for
you that you do, as but for him--" but M. Dufour checked himself
suddenly as if he had been about to say something that would be better
left unsaid.
"You are right, my dear doctor, but now I think of it, didn't you say
something about a proposition you were going to make to Frederick and
me?"
"True, it is this: you know, or rather you do not know--for you hear
very little of the neighbourhood gossip--that the Chateau de Pont
Brillant has recently undergone a thorough renovation."
"I am so little _au courant_ with the gossip of the neighbourhood, as
you say, that this is the first intimation I have had of the fact. I
even thought that the chateau was closed."
"It will not be much longer, for the young marquis is coming down to
occupy it with his grandmother."
"This is the son of the M. de Pont Brillant who died about three years
ago, I suppose. He must be very young."
"About Frederick's age. His father and mother are both dead, but his
grandmother idolises him and she has gone to fabulous expense to
refurnish the chateau, where she will hereafter spend eight or nine
months of the year with her grandson. I was called to the castle a few
days ago to attend M. le chef of the conservatories--for these great
people do not say gardener; that would be entirely too common--and I was
dazzled by the luxury and splendour that pervaded the immense
establishment. There is a magnificent picture gallery, a palm house
through which one could drive in a carriage, and superb statues in the
gardens. Above all--but I want to have the pleasure of surprising you,
so I will only say that the place rivals any of the magnificent palaces
described in the Arabian Nights. I feel sure that you and Frederick
would enjoy seeing all the wonders of this fairy-land, and thanks to the
consideration which M. le chef of the gardens and conservatories accords
me, I can take you through the chateau to-morrow or the day after, but
no later, as the young marquis is expected the day following that. What
do you say to the proposition?"
"I accept it with pleasure, doctor. It will be a great treat to
Frederick, whose wonder will be the greater as he has no idea that any
such splendour exists in the world. So I thank you most heartily. We
shall have a delightful day."
"Very well. When shall we go?"
"To-morrow, if it suits you."
"Perfectly; I will make my round very early in the morning, so I can get
here by nine o'clock. It will take us only about half an hour to reach
the chateau, as there is a short cut through the forest."
"And after we leave the chateau we can breakfast in the woods upon some
fruit we will take with us," said Madame Bastien, gaily. "I will tell
Marguerite to make one of those cakes you like so much, my dear doctor."
"I consent on condition that the cake is a big one," replied the doctor,
laughing, "for however large it may be, Frederick and I are sure to make
a big hole in it."
"You need have no fears on that score. You shall both have plenty of
cake. But here comes Frederick; the lesson must be over. I will leave
you the pleasure of surprising him."
"Oh, mother, how delightful!" exclaimed the lad, when M. Dufour had
informed him of his project. "Thank you, thank you, my dear doctor, for
having planned this charming journey into fairy-land."
* * * * *
The doctor was punctual the next day, and he and Madame Bastien and her
son started through the forest for the Chateau de Pont Brillant in all
the fresh glory of a superb summer morning.