CÉCILE.
“Where are you going so early?” asked Dr. Hirsch, indolently, as he saw
Charlotte, gayly dressed, prayer-book in hand, come slowly down the
stairs, followed by Jack, who was once more clad in the pet costume of
Lord Pembroke.
“To church, my dear sir. Has not D’Argenton told you that I have an
especial duty to perform there this morning? Come with us, will you
not?”
It was Assumption Day, and Charlotte had been much flattered by being
asked to distribute the bread. She, with her child, took the seats
reserved for them on a bench close to the choir. The church was adorned
with flowers. The choir-boys were in surplices freshly ironed, and on a
rustic table the loaves of bread were piled high. To complete the
picture, all the foresters, in their green costumes, with their knives
in their belts and their carbines in their hands, had come to join in
the Te Deum of this official fête.
Ida de Barancy would have been certainly much astonished had some one
told her a year before, that she would one day assist at a religious
festival in a village church, under the name of the Vicomtesse
D’Argenton, and that she would have all the consideration and prestige
of a married woman. This new rôle amused and interested her. She
corrected Jack, turned the pages of her prayer-book, and shook out her
rustling silk skirts in the most edifying fashion.
When it was time for the offertory, the tall Swiss, armed with a
halberd, came for Jack, and bending low whispered in his mother’s ear a
question as to what little girl should be chosen to assist him;
Charlotte hesitated, for “she knew so few persons in the church. Then
the Swiss suggested Dr. Rivals’ grandchild—a little girl on the
opposite side sitting next an old lady in black. The two children
walked slowly behind the majestic official, Cécile carrying a velvet
bag much too large for her little fingers, and Jack bearing an enormous
wax candle ornamented with floating ribbons and artificial flowers.
They were both charming: he in his Scotch costume, and she simply
dressed, with waves of soft brown hair parted on her childish brow, and
her face illuminated by large gray eyes. The breath of fresh flowers
mingled with the fumes of incense that hung in clouds throughout the
church. Cécile presented her bag with a gentle, imploring smile. Jack
was very grave. The little fluttering hand in its thread glove, which
he held in his own, reminded him of a bird that he had once taken from
its nest in the forest. Did he dream that the little girl would be his
best friend, and that, later, all that was most precious in life for
him would come from her?
“They would make a pretty pair,” said an old woman, as the children
passed her, and in a lower voice added, “Poor little soul, I hope she
will be more fortunate than her mother!”
Their duties over, Jack returned to his place, still under the
influence of the hand he had so lightly held. But additional pleasure
was in store for him. As they left the church, Madame Rivals approached
Madame D’Argenton and asked permission to take Jack home with her to
breakfast. Charlotte colored high with gratification, straightened the
boy’s necktie, and, kissing him, whispered, “Be a good child!”
From this day forth, when Jack was not at home he was at the old
doctor’s, who lived in a house in no degree better than that of his
neighbors, and only distinguished from them by the words Night-Bell on
a brass plate above a small button at the side of the door. The walls
were black with age. Here and there, however, an observant eye could
see that some attempts had been made to rejuvenate the mansion; but
everything of that nature had been interrupted on the day of their
great sorrow, and the old people had never had the heart to go on with
their improvements since; an unfinished summer-house seemed to say,
with a discouraged air, “What is the use?” The garden was in a complete
state of neglect. Grass grew over the walks, and weeds choked the
fountain. The human beings in the house had much the same air. From
Madame Rivals, who, eight years after her daughter’s death, still wore
the deepest of black, down to little Cécile, whose childish face had a
precocious expression of sorrow, and the old servant who for a quarter
of a century had shared the griefs and sorrows of the family,—all
seemed to live in an atmosphere of eternal regret. The doctor, who kept
up a certain intercourse with the outer world, was the only one who was
ever cheerful.
To Madame Rivals, Cécile was at once a blessing and a sorrow, for the
child was a perpetual reminder of the daughter she had lost. To the
doctor, on the contrary, it seemed that the little girl had taken her
mother’s place, and sometimes, when he was with her alone, he would
give way to a loud and merry laugh, which would be quickly silenced on
meeting his wife’s sad eyes, full of astonished reproach.
Little Cécile’s life was by no means a gay one. She lived in the
garden, or in a large room where a door, that was always closed, led to
the apartment that had once been her mother’s, and which was full of
the souvenirs of that short life. Madame Rivals alone ever entered this
room, but little Cécile often stood on the threshold, awed and silent.
The child had never been sent to school, and this isolation was very
bad for her; she needed the association of other children. “Let us ask
little D’Argenton here,” said her grandfather: “the boy is charming!”
“Yes; but who knows anything about these people? Whence do they come?”
answered his wife. “Who knows them?”
“Everybody, my dear. The husband is very eccentric, certainly, but he
is an artist, or a journalist rather, and they are privileged. The
woman is not quite a lady, I admit, but she is well enough. I will
answer for their respectability.”
Madame Rivals shook her head. She had but slight confidence in her
husband’s insight into character, and sighed in an ostentatious way.
Old Rivals colored guiltily, but returned in a moment to his original
idea.
“The child will be ill if she has not some change. Besides, what harm
could possibly happen?”
The grandmother then consented, and Jack and Cécile became close
companions. The old lady grew very fond of the little fellow. She saw
that he was neglected at home, that the buttons were off his coat, and
that he had no lesson-hours.
“Do you not go to school, my dear?”
“No, madame,” was the answer; and then quickly added,—for a child’s
instinct is very delicate,—“Mamma teaches me.”
“I cannot understand,” said Madame Rivals to her husband, “how they can
let this child grow up in this way, idling his time from morning till
night.”
“The child is not very clever,” answered the doctor, anxious to excuse
his friends.
“No, it is not that; it is that his stepfather does not like him.”
Jack’s best friends were in the doctor’s house. Cécile adored him. They
played together in the garden if the weather was fair, in the pharmacy
if it was stormy. Madame Rivals was always there, and as there was no
apothecary’s store in Etiolles, put up simple prescriptions herself.
She had done this for so many years, that she had attained considerable
experience, and was often consulted in her husband’s absence. The
children found vast amusement in deciphering the labels on the bottles,
and pasting on new ones. Jack did this with all a boy’s awkwardness,
while little Cécile used her hands as gravely and deftly as a woman
grown.
The old physician delighted in taking the children with him when he
went about the country to visit his patients. The carriage was large,
the children small, so that the three were stowed in very comfortably,
and merrily jogged over the rough roads. Wherever they went they were
warmly welcomed, and while the doctor climbed the narrow stairs, the
children roamed at will through the farm-yard and fields.
Illness among these peasant homes assumes a very singular aspect. It is
never allowed to interfere with the routine and labors of daily life.
The animals must be fed and housed for the night, and driven out to
pasture in the morning, whether the farmer be well or ill. If ill, the
wife has no time to nurse him, or even to be anxious. After a hard
day’s toil she throws herself on her pallet and sleeps soundly until
dawn, while her good man tosses feverishly at her side, longing for
morning. Every one worshipped the doctor, who they affirmed would have
been very rich, had he not been so generous.
His professional visits over, the old man and the children started for
home. The Seine, misty and dark with the approach of evening, had yet
occasional bars of golden light crossing its surface. Slender trees,
with their foliage heavily massed at the top, like palms, and the low
white houses along the brink, gave a vague suggestion of an Eastern
scene. “It is like Nazareth,” said little Cécile; and the two children
told each other stories while the carriage rolled slowly homeward.
Doctor Rivals soon discovered that Jack was by no means wanting in
intelligence, and determined, with his natural kindness of heart, to
himself supply the great deficiencies in education by giving him an
hour’s instruction daily. Those of my readers who are in the habit of
enjoying a siesta after dinner, will appreciate the sacrifice made by
the old man, when I add that it was this precise time that he now
freely gave to the little boy, who, in his turn, gratefully applied
himself with his whole heart to his lessons. Cécile was almost always
present, and was as pleased as Jack himself when her grandfather,
examining the copy-book, said, “Well done!” To his mother, Jack said
nothing of his labors; he determined to prove to her at some future day
that the diagnosis of the poet had been incorrect. This concealment was
rendered very easy, as the mother grew hourly more and more indifferent
to her child, and more completely absorbed in D’Argenton. The boy’s
comings and goings were almost unnoticed. His seat at the table was
often vacant, but no one asked where he had been. New guests filled the
board, for D’Argenton kept open house; yet the poet was by no means
generous in his hospitality, and when Charlotte would say to him,
timidly, “I am out of money, my friend,” he would reply by a wry face
and the word, “Already?” But vanity was stronger than avarice, and the
pleasure of patronizing his old friends, the Bohemians, with whom he
had formerly lived, carried the day. They all knew that he had a
pleasant home, that the air was good and the table better;
consequently, one would say to another, “Who wants to go to Etiolles
to-night?” They came in droves.
Poor Charlotte was in despair. “Madame Archambauld, are there eggs?—is
there any game? Company has come, and what shall we give them?”
“Anything will suit, madame, I fancy, for they look half starved,” said
the old woman, astonished at the unkempt, unshorn, and hungry aspect of
her master’s friends.
D’Argenton delighted in showing them over the house; and then they
dispersed to the fields, to the river-side, and into the forest, as
happy and frolicsome as old horses turned out to grass. In the fresh
country, in the full sunlight, those rusty coats and worn faces seemed
more rusty and more worn than when seen in Paris; but they were happy,
and D’Argenton radiant. No one ventured to dispute his eternal “I
think,” and “I know.” Was he not the master of the house, and had he
not the key of the wine cellar?
Charlotte, too, was well pleased. It was to her inconsequent nature and
Bohemian instincts a renewal of the excitement of her old life. She was
flattered and admired, and, while remaining true to her poet, was
pleased to show him that she had not lost her power of charming.
Months passed on. The little house was enveloped in the melancholy
mists of autumn; then winter snows whitened the roof, followed by the
fierce winds of March; and finally a new spring, with its lilacs and
violets, gladdened the hearts of the inmates of the cottage. Nothing
was changed there. D’Argenton, perhaps, had two or three new symptoms,
dignified by Doctor Hirsch with singular names. Charlotte was as
totally without salient characteristics, as pretty and sentimental, as
she had always been. Jack had grown and developed amazingly, and having
studied industriously, knew quite as much as other boys of his age.
“Send him to school now,” said Doctor Rivals to his mother, “and I
answer for his making a figure.”
“Ah, doctor, how good you are!” cried Charlotte, a little ashamed, and
feeling the indirect reproach conveyed in the interest expressed by a
stranger, as contrasted with her own indifference.
D’Argenton answered coldly that he would reflect upon the matter, that
he had grave objections to a school, &c., and when alone with
Charlotte, expressed his indignation at the doctor’s interference, but
from that time took more interest in the movements of the boy.
“Come here, sir,” said Labassandre, one day, to Jack. The child obeyed
somewhat anxiously. “Who made that net in the chestnut-tree at the foot
of the garden?”
“It was I, sir.”
Cécile had expressed a wish for a living squirrel, and Jack had
manufactured a most ingenious snare of steel wire.
“Did you make it yourself, without any aid?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the child.
“It is wonderful, very wonderful,” continued the singer, turning to the
others. “The child has a positive genius for mechanics.”
In the evening there was a grand discussion. “Yes, madame/,” said
Labassandre, addressing Charlotte; “the man of the future, the coming
man, is the mechanic. Rank has had its day, the middle classes theirs,
and now it is the workman’s turn. You may to-day despise his horny
hands, in twenty years he will lead the world.”
“He is right,” interrupted D’Argenton, and Doctor Hirsch nodded
approvingly. Singularly enough, Jack, who generally heard the
conversation going on about him without heeding it, on this occasion
felt a keen interest, as if he had a presentiment of the future.
Labassandre described his former life as a blacksmith at the village
forge. “You know, my friends,” he said, “whether I have been
successful. You know that I have had plenty of applause, and of medals.
You may believe me or not, as you please, but I assure you I would part
with all sooner than with this;” and the man rolled up his shirt-sleeve
and displayed an enormous arm tattooed in red and blue. Two
blacksmith’s hammers were crossed within a circle of oak-leaves; an
inscription was above these emblems in small letters: _Work and
Liberty_. Labassandre proceeded to deplore the unhappy hour when the
manager of the opera at Nantes had heard him sing. Had he been let
alone, he would by this time have been the proprietor of a large
machine shop, with a provision laid up for his old age.
“Yes,” said Charlotte, “but you were very strong, and I have heard you
say that the life was a hard one.”
“Precisely; but I am inclined to believe that the individual in
question is sufficiently robust.”
“I will answer for that,” said Dr. Hirsch.
Charlotte made other objections. She hinted that some natures were more
refined than others—“that certain aristocratic instincts—”
Here D’Argenton interrupted her in a rage. “What nonsense! My friends
occupy themselves in your behalf, and then you find fault, and utter
absurdities.”
Charlotte burst into tears. Jack ran away, for he felt a strong desire
to fly at the throat of the tyrant who had spoken so roughly to his
pretty mother.
Nothing more was said for some days; but the child noticed a change in
his mother’s manner toward him: she kissed him often, and kissed him
with that lingering tenderness we show to those we love and from whom
we are about to part. Jack was the more troubled as he heard D’Argenton
say to Dr. Rivals, with a satirical smile, “We are all busy, sir, in
your pupil’s interest. You will hear some news in a few days that will
astonish you.”
The old man was delighted, and said to his wife, “You see, my dear,
that I did well to make them open their eyes.”
“Who knows? I distrust that man, and do not believe he intends any good
to the child. It is better sometimes that your enemy should sit with
folded arms than trouble himself about you.”