ST. PUCELLE.
But notwithstanding his youth, I found Master Fred Stephenson not only
entertaining, but useful, for he took all trouble off my hands, and
before long I found myself sitting by his side in a _coupé_, and
travelling fast towards Rille and Artois. He rattled on, in his boyish
manner, of his school-life and pursuits, mingling his discourse with
more than one tale of scandal concerning the English abroad.
‘You should not repeat such stories young man,’ I said reprovingly,
‘whether they are true or not.’
‘Oh! they deserve everything one can say of them, Miss Marsh. You never
saw such a lot—greedy, grasping, ill-natured, and tale-bearing. They
seem to live only to cheat each other and pick holes in their
neighbours’ characters. I am generally ashamed to meet any of my
countrymen on the Continent. And the way they dress, too! I wonder, for
my part, that any of the tradesmen trust them. Now there’s an old card
who’s a great chum of Felton’s—to see him and hear him talk, you’d think
he was a perfect saint; but just listen to the tales that are told of
his being in debt all over the place, and fleecing young men out of
their money! Oh! criminy!’
‘Perhaps they are not all true,’ I suggested mildly, for as we neared my
destination I began to feel rather nervous at the prospect of meeting my
unknown friends, and less well disposed to listen to the social scandal
Master Stephenson amused himself by retailing to me. ‘Were we not rather
late in starting? It is nearly half-past ten now, and we are several
stations yet from Rille. I wonder if Mr. Lovett has received my letter
to say I should start yesterday.’
‘Mr.—_who_?’ exclaimed Fred Stephenson.
‘Mr. Lovett, the Protestant minister of St. Pucelle. He is my trustee,
and a sort of guardian. It is at his house that I am going to stay.’
‘Well, I _am_ blowed!’ ejaculated my elegant young friend.
‘Do you know him, then?’
‘_Know him!_ Of course I do! Everybody knows him within fifty miles of
Artois. He was tutor, or guardian, or something of the kind, to the
young German Prince Francius von Rudelstein de Ritzburg, and spends half
his time at court. He is considered quite a swell in his way, and is
often over at Rille. And so you’re going to St. Pucelle! What a lark!’
I could not exactly see in what the ‘lark’ consisted; but I thought it a
singular coincidence that my young travelling companion should be
acquainted with Mr. Lovett.
‘Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that I have never seen him yet.
What is he like?’
‘Oh, a very fine-looking old fellow, with snow-white hair and the most
benevolent of countenances. He’s got two jolly daughters, too.’
‘I am glad to hear that, because I am likely to see much more of them
than of their father. What are their ages?’
‘I can’t tell you that, because I’m not sure; but I should think the
eldest must be about your age, and her sister a few years younger.
They’re both pretty; Tessie has fair hair and a nice tall figure, but
the little one’s darker.’
‘Have you seen much of them?’
‘No; very little; only when they came to Rille with their father, to be
confirmed. But, by Jove! here’s the old shop itself. I’m so awfully
sorry I can’t see you safe to Artois, Miss Marsh, but it’s only three
stations farther on, and the diligence will be in waiting to take you on
to St. Pucelle. Good-bye! I’m so glad I met you! Hope we shall soon meet
again! Shouldn’t wonder if old Felton lets me run over to Piron for a
day’s shooting this autumn. No; no thanks. I’m so glad I was able to do
anything for you!’ And, with a wave of his hat and many smiles, the
nice, frank-hearted boy ran away to greet a group of his schoolfellows,
who were assembled on the platform. The last I saw of his happy face, as
the train moved slowly out of the station, was a succession of nods; the
last I heard of his joyous voice, a hearty ‘_Au revoir._’
Well, he had been much comfort to me on my first essay at traversing the
world alone, and I was thankful I had encountered him. Now he was gone,
and I turned my thoughts entirely to the meeting which lay so short a
way ahead of me.
When I arrived at Artois, I found, as he had told me, a diligence in
waiting to take all passengers and luggage on to St. Pucelle. This
conveyance, so fast becoming extinct upon the Continent, excited much of
my interest. It is true that it had no springs, and jolted along the
rough country-road to such an extent as nearly to jolt me into pieces;
true, that the four little mules that drew it, decorated with scarlet
woollen tassels and jingling with bells, required a constant succession
of oaths and cracks of the whip to make them move out of a walk, and
often stopped dead of their own accord, notwithstanding their driver’s
energy. I was wedged in tightly, also, on a broiling August morning,
between some fat market-women, who regarded my foreign appearance with
curious wonder, and, opposite, a set of men who puffed smoke in my face
with the utmost nonchalance. But the diligence was making its slow,
uneven way on a road cut in the side of a hill. On one hand lay the
lovely fertile valley of Artois, through the green bosom of which a
river was winding its way like a silver snake, glistening in the
sunlight. On the other was a high hill, which looked almost like a
mountain in my inexperienced eyes, and was covered to the top with
purple heather, precisely similar to that we find in England and
Scotland, intermingled with wild flowers of every form and colour. I was
wrapt in admiration of the view. I gazed from right to left in silent
wonder, thinking I had never seen anything in my life before so
beautiful and bright, and forgetful alike of the uncomfortable pressure
I was enduring from my stout neighbours, and the vile tobacco-smoke
which came puffing in my face from over the way. Subsequent experience
made me aware that the journey from Artois to St. Pucelle, when
performed in the diligence, occupied an hour and a quarter; but it did
not seem to have been half that time to me when the vehicle suddenly
came to a standstill, and I heard a voice in parley with the driver.
The fat women looked at each other and murmured something about the
‘_Curé Anglais_;’ and my curiosity was just being awakened by a few
words of French which I had caught from outside, when an old gentleman
came round to the diligence-door and looked in upon us.
‘_Bonjour, monsieur!_’ cried all its occupants, save one,
simultaneously; and the new-comer raised his hat in reply to the general
salutation. I thought I had never seen such a perfect picture of an old
man before. His snow-white hair covered his finely-formed head in loose,
wavy curls; his high forehead bore the impress of intellect and
benevolence; and his bright blue eyes beamed forth from a face the
complexion of which was soft and fair as that of a child. He had a tall,
upright figure, rather stout than otherwise, and must have been, in his
youth, an unusually handsome man. His long cloth coat and broad-brimmed
hat told me his profession before he spoke, and I was delighted when I
heard him demand, in English, if I were Miss Marsh.
‘Am I speaking to Mr. Lovett?’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes, my dear, yes; no other. Your letter reached us safely this
morning, so I thought I would walk a little way down the road to meet
the diligence. I hope you have travelled here comfortably?’
‘Very comfortably, thank you. But are we so short a distance, then, from
St. Pucelle?’
‘We are within a stone’s throw of the town. There it stands, on the brow
of the hill.’
‘I should very much like then, if I may, Mr. Lovett, to walk back with
you instead of driving.’
‘By all means, my dear,’ he replied, as he opened the door and helped me
out of the vehicle.
A few words in French explained matters to the driver, and in another
minute the diligence was lost to view in a cloud of white dust, and the
Rev. Horace Lovett and I were left standing alone on the road to St.
Pucelle. The first thing he did was to take my hand, and regard me
steadfastly in the face.
‘You are _very_ like your poor father,’ he said, ‘both in feature and
expression, and you will be all the dearer to me for the resemblance.
Perhaps you have heard—you may have been told—what firm, fast friends we
were in the olden days.’
‘Oh yes, Mr. Lovett; my mother has often told me so.’
‘I did not know your poor mother,’ he replied; ‘I was settled here
before your father’s marriage. But report has told me how good and
amiable a wife he had gained in her.’
‘She was indeed good,’ I said falteringly. ‘I seem to have lost
everything I possessed in losing her.’
‘Come, come, my child,’ he said soothingly, ‘I should not have mentioned
the subject to you so soon. Do not let us speak of it today. You have
come to the house of your father’s earliest and closest friend. You must
try and think that it is a second father himself who welcomes you
there.’
‘Indeed you are very good to me,’ I replied; ‘and I felt the kindness of
your offer from the first, though I have scarcely thanked you for it.’
‘You have thanked me in the best way possible, my dear, by accepting it.
I have had two daughters hitherto; now I shall have three. My little
girls are all impatience to form your acquaintance; but you must make
allowances for them. You will find them rough little Wallons, who know
nothing of England or English customs.’
‘What is a Wallon, Mr. Lovett? I am afraid you will find me as ignorant
of Continental ways and fashions as your girls are of English.’
‘Then you must teach each other. We are in what they call here the
Wallon country, my dear, which they would term in Scotland, I think,
“neither fish, flesh, nor good red herrin’.” The people hereabout speak
a _patois_ of French and German, rather difficult of comprehension at
first, and which has considerably spoilt my little girls’ accent.
We were now approaching the entrance of the town, which consisted
principally of one long street built on a steep hill, so that to mount
it almost seemed like climbing up stairs, especially as it was paved
irregularly with grey rough stone. At the very summit of it stood an
imposing-looking edifice built of granite, with a spire and cross lifted
to the skies, which I concluded to be the church of which Mr. Lovett had
charge. But he soon undeceived me.
‘Oh no, my dear; you must not expect to see our faith honoured after
that fashion in this country. That is the Catholic church, under the
superintendence of my very good friend, the Abbé Morteville. I have
offered to exchange with him more than once, but he has not taken the
hint.’
‘I should hardly have thought there had been sufficient Protestants in a
town like this to render it worth while to keep up a church and minister
for them.’
‘No more there are. But my excellent friend and patron, the Grand Duke
Francius von Rudelstein, interested himself on my behalf, and placed me
here in order to attend to the spiritual wants of the summer visitors.
We have a great many visitors to St. Pucelle in the summer season.’
‘I don’t wonder at it. It seems to me the loveliest place I have ever
seen.’
At this juncture, a man dressed in a blue blouse, buckled round his
waist, and a cap with a peak to it, ran out of a shop and button-holed
Mr. Lovett, whilst he apparently pleaded for something, very volubly and
earnestly, in his own language.
‘Some parochial confidence,’ I thought, as I saw my old friend move
farther from my side, so as to take the man out of earshot. They spoke
together for some minutes; the tradesman still pleading, and Mr. Lovett
seeming to try and soothe him down to a quieter frame of mind. At last
he prevailed. The man in the blouse smiled and raised his peaked cap,
and Mr. Lovett, calling out cheerily, ‘_À demain_,’ returned his smile
in the most benevolent manner, and hastened to my side again.
‘You will excuse me, my dear,’ he said, ‘but a minister is at the beck
and call of all his parishioners.’
‘Is that man a Protestant, then?’ I asked with surprise.
I do not know why I should have been surprised, but he had looked so
thoroughly unlike it.
‘We have a regular mixture here,’ replied Mr. Lovett, without answering
my question. ‘Do you see that house on the right hand, my dear child,
with steps leading up either side to the porch? that is my humble abode,
and that is where I hope you will make yourself very happy for a long
time to come.’
I followed the direction of his silver-headed cane with a quick
curiosity that the appearance of the house was well calculated to
increase. It was built of wood, and looked to me more like the
representations I had seen of Swiss châlets than any other sort of
private dwelling. The principal door was reached, as Mr. Lovett had
pointed out to me, by a double flight of wooden steps, with rails on the
outer side of them. The windows were lattices, with diamond-shaped panes
of glass. The house looked large and commodious, but it was so much
built on a slope that the garden to one side of it was level with the
windows of the first story; so that the lower rooms must consequently
have been, in part at least, under ground. The front was covered with a
luxuriant union of vine, fig and pear tree, and the little garden to the
side, which was visible above the top of the wall, was a mass of
fragrant bloom. But what attracted me most was the figure of a girl,
leaning over the rails which guarded the porch.
Her features did not strike me at first sight as being pretty, but there
was a grace about her figure, and a sweet, fair womanliness in her face,
that made me feel at once we should be friends.
‘Papa!’ she called out, with a decidedly French pronunciation, as we
drew near the porch.
Mr. Lovett looked up and shook his stick gaily at her.
‘There is my Tessie,’ he said proudly, ‘the elder of the two; and as
good a child as ever walked alone! And where is my little maid?’ he
continued to his daughter; ‘has she run away to hide herself, in fear of
this formidable stranger?’
‘No, no, papa!’ replied Tessie, laughing. ‘Ange has gone up the hill to
fetch some eggs from Mère Fromard. For we did not expect Miss Marsh
would arrive so soon.’
I thought she was a daughter for any man to be proud of, as she came
gracefully down the steps to meet me, and extended her hand in greeting.
She was tall and slight, and clothed in a black stuff dress, with a
broad white muslin apron on, fashioned with a bib that was pinned on
either shoulder. Her fair, soft hair was taken loosely off her face and
coiled in a knot behind her head, and her grey eyes—too small and too
grey to be like her father’s—beamed forth mildly from a complexion that
was unusually delicate for a country-bred girl. But what struck me most
in Teresa Lovett’s face was the unmistakable look which betrayed that
she had suffered—and seen others suffer—as I had. It was a bond of union
between us that was cemented the first day we met, and will last until
time is no more.
‘Come, girls! kiss each other!’ cried Mr. Lovett, as he watched the
commonplace greeting with which we timidly touched each other’s hand.
‘That’s right,’ he continued, as we obeyed his directions; ‘you must
never forget that your fathers were more like brothers than friends in
the olden time. God bless my soul! it’s many a scrape I got in with Dick
Marsh in our college days; and many a time we’ve hoped we should live to
meet again, and have a crack over the past. But that wish has been
overruled, so we must make the best of what remains to us. But if you
girls don’t get on together, I shall never forgive you. You are both
motherless, and you’ve only got one father left between the lot of you;
so it will be very hard if you can’t cling together and make the rest of
your lives as pleasant as may be.’
‘We mean to try to do so, dear papa,’ said Tessie in her soft voice, as
she gave me a second embrace, preparatory to leading me into the house.
‘I am sure you must be tired,’ she continued; ‘do come in and rest.’
All this had taken place in front of the house, and in the very centre
of the street; but then the street of St. Pucelle must not be judged by
the rules of any other. It was just past noon. The inhabitants of the
town were unanimously partaking of their mid-day meal.
Not a passenger was to be seen from one end of the long thoroughfare to
the other, and doubtless my new friends and I might have embraced for
the next half-hour without observation. But I was beginning to feel very
weary, and was glad to accept Tessie’s invitation to enter and rest
myself. My slumbers on board the boat had been but broken ones, and the
fatigue of the excitement consequent on my journey was beginning to make
itself apparent. So that I felt thankful when I had mounted the wooden
steps which led to the hall-door, and realised that, for the time being,
I had reached the end of my travels.
The door opened immediately upon a large room, the floor of which was
but half covered by a threadbare carpet, in which it was impossible to
trace even the remains of colour; in the centre stood a deal table with
a faded green cloth, round which were placed some half-dozen or more
rush-bottomed chairs. A large oil painting of the Crucifixion hung over
the narrow, wooden mantelpiece, and was the only visible ornament. And a
buffet covered with wine-glasses and tumblers stood to one side of the
apartment, which I concluded to be the dining-room. I confess, though,
that I was hardly prepared for the meagre appearance of its furniture,
and I suppose Tessie guessed my surprise from the expression of my face.
‘You must not expect to find all the customs of this country similar to
those of England,’ she said, with a touch of pride. ‘Papa tells me you
think a great deal of your furniture and rooms there, but no one does so
in St. Pucelle. In the first place, there are so few people here to see
and admire it; and in the second, the servants would not know how to
keep it in order. Not that we have always been so shabby as we are now,’
she added, in a lower voice; ‘but Ange and I were only babies when poor
mamma died, and there has been no one to look after such things since.
We don’t care for ourselves—Ange and I—we would as soon sit on
rush-bottomed chairs as on velvet; but it is sad for poor papa, who has
been used to such a different life from this.’
[Illustration]