CÉCILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.
For a long time Jack had faith that his mother would return. In the
morning, in the evening, in the silence of midday, he fancied that he
heard the rustling of her dress, her light step on the threshold. When
he went to the Rondics he glanced at the little house, hoping to see
the windows opened and Ida installed in the refuge, the address of
which, with the key, he had sent to her: “The house is ready. Come when
you will.” Not a word in reply. The desertion was final and absolute.
Jack was in great grief. When our mothers do us harm, it wounds and
grieves us, and seems like a direct cruelty from the hand of God. But
Cécile was the magician to cure him; she knew just the words to use,
and her delicate tenderness defied the rough trials of destiny. A great
resource to him at this time was hard work, which is one’s best defence
against sorrow and regrets. While his mother had been with him, she,
without knowing it, had often prevented him from working. Her
indecision had been at times very harassing. She sometimes was all
ready to go out, with hat and shawl on, when she would suddenly decide
to remain at home. Now that she was gone, he took rapid strides and
regained his lost time. Each Sunday he went to Etiolles; he was at once
more in love, and wiser. The doctor was delighted with the progress of
his pupil; before a year was over, he said, if he went on in this way,
he could take his degree.
These words thrilled Jack with joy, and when he repeated them to
Bélisaire, the little attic positively glowed and palpitated with
happiness. Madame Bélisaire was suddenly filled with a desire to learn,
and her husband must teach her to read. But while M. Rivals was pleased
at Jack’s progress with his books, he was discontented with the state
of his health; the old cough had come back, his eyes were feverish and
his hands hot.
“I do not like this,” said the good man; “you work too hard; you must
stop; you have plenty of time: Cécile does not mean to run away.”
Never had the girl been more loving and tender; she seemed to feel that
she must take his mother’s place as well as her own; and it was
precisely this sweetness that induced Jack to make greater exertions
each day. His bodily frame was in the same condition as that of the
Fakirs of India—urged to such a point of feverish excitement that pain
becomes a pleasure. He was grateful to the cold of his little attic,
and to the hard dry cough that kept him from sleeping. Sometimes at his
writing-table he suddenly felt lightness throughout all his being—a
strange clearness of perception and an extraordinary excitement of all
his intellectual faculties; but this was accompanied with great
physical exhaustion.
His work went like lightning, and all the difficulties of his task
disappeared. He would have gone on thus to the end of his labor, had he
not received a painful shock. A telegram arrived:
“Do not come to-morrow; we are going away for a week.
Rivals.”
Jack received that despatch just as Madame Bélisaire had ironed his
fine linen for the next day. The suddenness of this departure, the
brevity of the despatch, and even the printed characters instead of his
friend’s well-known writing, affected him most painfully. He expected a
letter from Cécile or the doctor to explain the mystery, but nothing
came, and for a week he was a prey to suspense and anxiety. The truth
was: neither Cécile nor the doctor had left home, but that M. Rivals
wished for time to prepare the youth for an unexpected blow—for a
decision of Cécile’s so extraordinary that he hoped his granddaughter
would be induced to reconsider it. One evening, on coming into the
house, he had found Cécile in a state of singular agitation; her lips
were pale but firmly closed. He tried to make her smile at the
dinner-table, but in vain; and suddenly, in reply to some remark of his
in regard to Jack’s coming, she said, “I do not wish him to come.”
He looked at her in amazement. She was as pale as death, but in a firm
voice she repeated, “I do not wish him to come on Sunday, or ever
again.”
“What is the matter, my child?”
“Nothing, dear grandfather, save that I can never marry Jack.”
“You frighten me, Cécile! Tell me what you mean.”
“I am simply beginning to understand myself. I do not love him; I was
mistaken.”
“Good heavens, child, are you quite mad? You have had some childish
misunderstanding.”
“No, grandpapa, I assure you that I have for Jack a sister’s
friendship, nothing more. I cannot be his wife.”
The doctor was startled. “Cécile,” he said, gravely, “do you love any
other person?”
She colored. “No; but I do not wish to marry;” and to all that M.
Rivals said she would make no other reply.
He asked her what would be said, what would be thought by their little
world. “Remember,” he said, “that to Jack this will be a frightful
blow; his whole future will be sacrificed.”
Cécile’s pale features quivered nervously. Her grandfather took her
hand.
“My child,” he said, “think well before you decide a question of such
importance.”
“No,” she answered; “the sooner he knows my decision the better for us
both. I know that I am going to pain him deeply, but the longer we
delay the worse it will be, and I cannot see him again until he knows
the truth; I am incapable of such treachery.”
“Then you mean to give the boy his dismissal,” said the doctor, in a
rage. “Good heavens! what strange creatures women are!”
She looked at him with such an expression of despair that he stopped
short.
“No, no, little girl, I am not angry with you. It is my fault more than
yours. You were too young to know your own mind. I am an old fool, and
shall always be one until the bitter end.”
Then came the painful duty of writing to Jack. He began a dozen
letters, destroyed them all, and finally sent the telegram, hoping that
Cécile would have come to her senses before the week was over.
The next Saturday, when Dr. Rivals said to his granddaughter, “He will
come to-morrow; is your decision irrevocable?”
“Irrevocable,” she said, slowly.
Jack arrived early on Sunday. When he reached the door the servant
said, “My master is waiting for you in the garden.”
Jack felt chilled to the heart, and the doctor’s face increased his
fears, for he, though for forty years accustomed to the sight of human
suffering, was as troubled as Jack.
“Cécile is here—is she not?” were the youth’s first words.
“No, my friend, I left her—at—where we have been, you know; and she
will remain some time.”
“Dr. Rivals, tell me what is wrong. She does not wish to see me again?
Is that it?”
The doctor could not answer. Jack seated himself for fear he should
fall. They were at the foot of the garden. It was a fresh, bright
November morning; hoar-frost lay on the lawn, a faint haze hung over
the distant hills and reminded him of that day at Coudray, the vintage,
and their first whisper of love. The doctor laid a paternal hand on his
shoulder. “Jack,” he whispered, “do not be unhappy. She is very young
and will perhaps change her mind. It is a mere caprice.”
“No, doctor, Cécile never has caprices. That would be horrible—to drive
a knife into a man’s heart merely from caprice! I am sure she has
reflected for a long time before she came to this decision. She knew
that her love was my life, and that in tearing it up my life would also
perish. If she has done this, then it is because she knew well that it
was her duty so to do. I ought to have expected it; I should have known
that so great a happiness could not be for me.”
He staggered to his feet. His friend took his hand. “Forgive me, my
brave boy; I hoped to make you both happy.”
“Do not reproach yourself. Tell her that I accept her decision. Last
year,” he continued, “I began the only happy season of my life. I was
born on that day, and to-day I die. But these few happy months I owe to
you and to Cécile;” and the youth hurried away.
“But you will breakfast with me,” said the doctor.
“No; I should be too sad a guest.”
He crossed the garden with a firm step, and went away without once
looking back. Had he turned he would have seen, half hidden by the
curtain of a window in the second story, a face as pale and agitated as
his own. The girl extended her slender arms, and tears rained down her
cheeks. The following days were sad enough. The little house that had
for months been bright and gay, resumed its ancient mournful aspect.
The doctor, much troubled, noticed that his granddaughter spent much of
her time in her mother’s former room. Where Madeleine had formerly
wept, her child now shed in turn her tears. “Would she die as did her
mother?”
The doctor asked himself, day after day, If she did not love Jack, why
was she so sad? If she did love him, why had she refused him? The old
man was sure that there was some mystery, something that he ought to
know; but at the least question, Cécile ran away as if in fear.
One night the bell rang a summons from a dying man. It was the husband
of old Salé, who had met with an accident. These people lived near
Aulnettes, in a miserable little hole, and on a straw bed in the corner
lay the sick man. When Dr. Rivals entered the place he was nearly
suffocated by the odor of burning herbs.
“What have you been doing here, Mother Salé?” he said. The old woman
hesitated, and wished to tell a falsehood; he gave her no time,
however. “So Hirsch is here again, is he?” he continued. “Open the
doors and windows, you will be suffocated.”
While M. Rivals bent over the sick man, he half opened his eyes. “Tell
him, wife, tell him,” he muttered.
The old woman paid no attention, and the man began again: “Tell him, I
say, tell him.”
The doctor looked at Mother Salé, who turned a deep scarlet. “I am sure
I am very sorry if I said anything to hurt the feelings of such a good
young lady,” she muttered.
“What young lady? Of whom do you speak?” asked the doctor, turning
hastily around.
“Well, sir, I will tell you the truth. The mad doctor gave me twenty
francs to tell Mamselle Cécile the story of her father and mother.”
M. Rivals seized the old peasant woman and shook her violently.
“And you dared to do that?” he cried, in a furious rage.
“It was for twenty francs. I could never have opened my lips but for
the twenty francs, sir. In the first place, I knew nothing about it
until he told me, so that I could repeat it.”
“The wretch! But who could have told him?”
A groan from the sick-bed recalled the physician to his duty. All the
long night he watched there, and when all was over he returned in haste
to Etiolles and went directly in search of Cécile. Her room was empty,
and the bed had not been slept in. His heart stood still. He ran to the
office, still he found no one. But the door of Madeleine’s old room
stood open, and there among the relics of the dear dead, prostrate on
the _Prie-Dieu_, was Cécile asleep, in an attitude that told of a night
of prayer and tears. She opened her eyes as her grandfather touched
her.
“And the wretches told you the secret that we have taken so much pains
to hide from you! And strangers and enemies told you, my poor little
darling, the sad tale we concealed.”
She hid her face on his shoulder. “I am so ashamed,” she whispered.
“And this is the reason that you did not wish to marry? Tell me why?”
“Because I did not wish to acknowledge my mother’s dishonor, and my
conscience compelled me to have no secrets from my husband. There was
but one thing to do, and I did it.”
“But you love him?”
“With my whole heart; and I believe he loves me so well that he would
marry me in spite of my shameful history; but I would never consent to
such a sacrifice. A man does not marry a girl who has no father—who has
no name, or, if she had one, it would be that of a robber and forger.”
“But you are mistaken, my child; Jack was proud and happy to marry you
with a thorough knowledge of your history. I told it all to him, and if
you had had more confidence in me, you would have avoided this trial to
us all.”
“And he was willing to marry me!”
“Child! he loves you. Besides, your destinies are similar. He has no
father, and his mother has never been married. The only difference
between you is that your mother was a saint, and his is a sinner.”
Then the doctor, who had told Jack Cécile’s history, now related to her
the long martyrdom of the youth she loved. He told her of his exile
from his mother’s arms—of all that he had endured. “I understand it all
now,” he cried; “it is she who has told Hirsch of your mother’s
marriage.”
While the doctor was talking, Cécile was overwhelmed with despair to
think that she had caused Jack, already so unhappy, so much needless
sorrow. “O, how he has suffered!” she sobbed. “Have you heard anything
from him?”
“No; but he can come and tell you himself all that you wish to know,”
answered her grandfather, with a smile.
“But he may not wish to come.”
“Well, then, we will go to him. It is Sunday; let us find him and bring
him home with us.”
An hour or two later, M. Rivals and his granddaughter were on their way
to Paris. Just after they left, a man stopped before the house. He
looked at the little door. “This is the place,” he said, and he rang.
The servant opened the door, but seeing before her one of those
dangerous pedlers that wander through the country, she attempted to
close it again.
“What do you want?”
“The gentleman of the house.”
“He is not at home.”
“And the young lady?”
“She is not at home, either.”
“When will they be back?”
“I have no idea!” And she closed the door.
“Good heavens!” said Bélisaire, in a choked voice; “and must he be
permitted to die without any help?”