Kitabı oku: «The Little Old Portrait», sayfa 4
”‘Not so very little, mamma. Ten past.’
“The Countess smiled.
”‘Certainly, compared with the Edmée up there,’ she replied, ‘you are beginning to look a very big girl. But I am going to be busy now, dear. I have a long letter to write. This evening I will tell you all about it. You are going now to Madame Germain for your embroidery lesson, are you not?’
”‘Yes, mamma. Nanette is waiting to take me. Mamma,’ she said, then stopped and hesitated.
”‘What is it, Edmée?’
”‘Does mamma Germain know about what is troubling you?’
”‘Yes, dear; she does.’
”‘Might I – would you mind her telling me?’
“The Countess considered a moment.
”‘You may ask her to tell you. I know she will say nothing that is not wise and sensible.’
”‘Thank you, mamma,’ said Edmée, well pleased. ‘You see, dear mamma, if it is anything that troubles you, it will save you the pain of telling me,’ she added, with a little womanly protecting air she sometimes used to her mother; ‘and then this evening we can talk it over, and I will do my best to console you. Good-bye; and good-bye, little Edmée,’ she said, waving her hand to her own portrait, as she ran off; ‘take care of little mother till I come back.’
“Big Edmée, as she now considered herself, was very silent on her way to the village that afternoon. She went down the long, red-paved passages and crossed the large tiled hall, so cool and pleasant in summer, but so cold in winter, with the two great flights of stairs one at each side, meeting up above on a marble landing, and again branching off till they ended in an immensely wide and long corridor, running the whole length of the house, with doors on each side leading into rooms which of late years had been but seldom used. Edmée stopped a moment when she had half crossed the hall and looked up – then out through the open doorway on to the terrace.
”‘How I love the château!’ she said to herself. ‘I daresay it isn’t so grand as Sarinet, but I don’t care; I should never be so happy anywhere else. I do hope I shall never, never have to go away from Valmont,’ and Nanette wondered what had come over her usually talkative little mistress, for all the way through the park and along the village street she hardly said a word.
“The Germains’ cottage was at the further end. To reach it Edmée had to pass the old church, a large and imposing building for so small a village, and the neat little parsonage, or presbytère, as it is called, where lived the good old curé, who had baptised and married and seen die more than one generation since he had first come to Valmont. He was standing at his garden gate as the little girl passed, and, though he smiled and waved his hand to her, he did not speak or entice her to come in to see his flowers and bees as usual, which rather surprised her.
”‘I think Monsieur the Curé looks sad this morning,’ thought Edmée; ‘perhaps he too knows the news that is making little mother sad.’
“And unconsciously her own face looked graver than usual as she nodded back in greeting to all her friends, who came to their cottage doors to see their little lady pass.
“The Germains’ cottage was a little better than most of the others in the village, yet it was extremely plain and simple. It was perhaps the neatness and cleanliness that made it seem so much more comfortable than its neighbours, though compared with such villages as Sarinet, every cottage in Valmont was a picture of prosperity. There were few but what possessed one or two good beds – sometimes, it is true, only recesses in the wall, but with good mattresses and blankets; but in several there were substantial four posters, which had been handed down for generations. And in almost all, the large family cupboards, which are to be seen, I believe, nearly all over France, and which those learned in such subjects can recognise by their carving as belonging to the various parts of the country.
“The walls of Madame Germain’s kitchen were somewhat smoke-stained, for in cold or stormy weather it is, of course, impossible to keep the smoke of the great open chimneys altogether in its proper channel. But once a year it was whitewashed, and just at this season, the end of the summer, when the weather had been better for several months, it looked fresh and clean.
“Madame Germain was sitting by a table near the window, arranging Edmée’s tapestry frame, which the little girl had left behind her the last time to have a mistake which she had made put right. She had already cleared up all remains of their dinner, though the big pot was simmering slowly by the fire, reminding one that supper and soup were to come.
”‘So there you are, my child,’ said the good woman; ‘I was just expecting you. See, here is where you made the wrong stitch – I have put it all right. You must get on with it, my child, if it is to be ready for my lady’s birthday.’
”‘Yes, I know,’ said Edmée, sitting down with a rather disconsolate air. ‘Nanette,’ she added, rather less courteously than she usually spoke, ‘you may go; I don’t want you; Pierre will bring me home.’
”‘Very well, Mademoiselle,’ said Nanette; ‘of course I was only waiting for Mademoiselle’s pleasure.’
“Madame Germain looked rather anxiously at Edmée when the maid had left her.
”‘I don’t mean to be cross,’ said the little girl, ‘but she troubles me, Mother Germain. She would chatter all the way, and I didn’t want to talk. Mamma Germain, there is something very much the matter; you must tell me what it is, for you know. I saw it in Monsieur the Curé’s face, and even, it seemed to me, in the look of the villagers, as I passed. I am so unhappy; tell me what it is. Mamma said I might ask you,’ and the child pushed aside her embroidery frame and knelt down beside her old friend, leaning her elbows on Madame Germain’s knees.”
Chapter Six
“Mother Germain stroked back the fair hair from Edmée’s forehead.
”‘My lady said I might tell you?’ she said slowly, ‘my dear, do not look so unhappy. It is no such very news. It is only what we have always known would have to be, sooner or later. You are growing a big girl, Edmée – indeed, I should no longer call you thus by your name.’
”‘Ah yes, yes, mamma Germain,’ interrupted the child; ‘to you I must always be Edmée.’
“Madame Germain smiled.
”‘You will always be as dear to me as my own child, whatever name you are called by,’ she said. ‘But as I was saying, Edmée, you are growing a big girl; there are many things young ladies of your station need to learn that cannot be taught in a village like Valmont. And your dear mother has never wished to be separated from you, so she would not send you away to a convent to be educated, as so many young girls are sent. That is why she now feels there is truth in what her brother, my lord the Marquis, is always saying – that she must go to live in Paris for awhile, taking you with her. There you can have lessons of every kind, in all the accomplishments right for you to know. And my lady too – she has lived here so many years, seldom seeing any friends of her own rank – perhaps for her, too, it may be well – this change. It is only natural, sadly as we shall all miss her.’
“Edmée’s face had grown more and more melancholy as Madame Germain went on speaking, till at last she dropped it in her hands, and, leaning her head on her friend’s knees, burst into a fit of sobbing. She did not cry loudly or wildly, but Madame Germain, laying her hand on her shoulders, felt how the child shook all through, and was startled at the effect of her words.
”‘My child, my precious little lady,’ she said, ‘do not take it so to heart. Be brave, my Edmée. Think how it will trouble your dear mamma if she sees you so unhappy. For it is for your sake my lady is doing this – for your good – that you may grow up all that she and the good Count hoped you would.’
“Edmée raised her tear-stained face.
”‘I don’t mean to be naughty,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want to go to Paris. I want to stay here, among my own people. In Paris no one will love us; it will all be full of strangers, who care for us no more than we care for them. Here in my own Valmont I know every face. I never walk down the village street without every one smiling at me. Oh! mamma Germain, I shall feel starved and cold among strangers, and I shall choke to be in a town among houses and walls – no longer my dear gardens and park, and trees and fields, and all the lovely country.’
”‘But that is selfish, Edmée, my child,’ said her kind friend. ‘If your dear mother can make up her mind to do it – for to her it is perhaps even more painful than to you – for your sake, you at least should be grateful to her, and do your best to show her you are so. In after years, if you never saw anything of the world but your little Valmont, you might regret your ignorance – might even reproach your friends for having shut you up in this corner. And you will come back again. It is not for always you are going away.’
”‘No, indeed, that is my only comfort,’ said Edmée. ‘I will try to learn all my lessons as fast and well as ever I can, so that little mother will soon see there is no need to stay longer in Paris, and we will come back, never again to leave our dear Valmont. Will not that be a good plan, mother Germain?’
”‘Excellent!’ said the good woman, delighted to see that the child had taken up this idea; ‘that will certainly be much better than crying.’
”‘Though,’ continued Edmée, ‘I shall not like Paris – I have a sort of fear of it. I think there must be many cruel people there. That Victorine – do you remember her, mamma Germain? – she told me things I hardly understood, about the way people live there – how the rich despise the poor, and the poor hate the rich. And sometimes she would shake her head and say, “Ah, one would live to see many things changed – she herself might be a great lady yet; but if she were a great lady she could know how to enjoy herself —she would not choose for her friends common peasants.” That she said to vex me, you know.’
”‘Ah yes, she was not a nice girl,’ said Madame Germain.
”‘And she is still with my aunt, the Marquise,’ went on Edmée. ‘I do not want to see her again. I hope mamma will take Nanette. I should not like Victorine to have anything to do for me.’ She remained silent for a moment, then looking up suddenly, ‘Mother Germain,’ she said, ‘does Pierre, my poor Pierrot, does he know about our going away?’
“Madame Germain nodded her head. For herself she could bear her share of the sorrow, but her heart failed her when she thought of how her boy would feel it, and for the first time the tears came into her eyes.
”‘Ah, he does,’ said Edmée. ‘He has not been to the Château for two days, and I wondered why.’
”‘He dared not go, till we knew that you knew it,’ said Pierre’s mother. ‘We felt sure your quick eyes would see there was something the matter.’
”‘I think I have known it was coming,’ said the little girl with a sigh. ‘I have felt sad sometimes of late without knowing why, and never has my uncle been here without my seeing that his words troubled my mother, even though she did not tell me why. Mother Germain, I cannot do any embroidery to-day; just let me sit still here beside you for awhile, and then I will go home. Pierre will be in soon, will he not?’
“And, tired with the excitement and the crying, Edmée again laid her head on her old friend’s knee, and Madame Germain went on quietly knitting, and did not at first notice that the little girl had fallen asleep, till, hearing a step approaching, she looked up and saw Pierre entering the cottage. She was going to speak, but the boy held up his hand.
”‘She is asleep, mother,’ he whispered as he came near, ‘and she has been crying. Does she know? Has my lady told her?’
”‘I have told her, the poor lamb!’ said Madame Germain. ‘Her mother wished it so. Yes, she has been crying bitterly. She seems to think it will break her little heart to leave Valmont and go away to Paris.’
“Pierre looked very sorrowfully at the innocent face, which seemed scarcely older than the fair baby-face of the portrait at the Château.
”‘Mother,’ he said gently, ‘I think I would give my life for our little lady.’
”‘I believe you would, my boy,’ said his mother.
”‘I cannot bear their going away,’ he continued. ‘It is not only that we shall miss them so sorely, but I have a sort of fear for them – our lady and this tender little creature; who would protect them and take care of them in any danger as we – their own people of Valmont – would?’
”‘But what danger could come to them?’ said Madame Germain. ‘You must not be fanciful, my boy. They will be in the Marquis’s grand house in Paris, surrounded by his servants. And though I have no love for him, still I have no doubt he will take good care of his sister and her child. Indeed, the Countess has told me that that is one of the arguments he uses with her – he says it is not safe for two ladies alone as they are in the country in these unsettled times. For it appears there is a great deal of discontent and bad feeling about; that was a terrible business your father was telling me of the other day – a château burnt to the ground in the dead of night, and several of the inmates burnt to death, and no one can say who did it.’
”‘But then it is no mystery as to why it was done,’ said Pierre. ‘The lord of that country is noted for his cruelty. Father said he would not wish you ever to hear the horrors that he has committed among his people; what wonder that at last some one should try to avenge them? And, mother, the Marquis is both feared and hated. I hear strange things and see strange looks when he comes over here. I cannot think that he is a good protector for our ladies. They are far safer here at Valmont, where every one loves them.’
”‘It might be so were they going to Sarinet,’ said Madame Germain, who was of a cheerful and hopeful disposition; ‘but in Paris! In Paris, where are the king and queen, and all the great lords and ladies, and the king’s regiments of guards! – ah no, it is not there that there could ever be any revolt.’
”‘But dark days have been known there before now, mother, and dreadful things have been done in Paris,’ persisted Pierre, who had read all the books of history he could get hold of, and had thought over what he had read. ‘I could tell you – ’
”‘Hush!’ said Madame Germain, speaking still, as they had been doing all the time, in a whisper; ‘the child is waking.’
“And as she spoke Edmée opened her blue eyes and looked about her in surprise. As she saw where she was she gradually remembered all, and how it was that she had fallen asleep there, and a look of distress crept over her face as she held out her hands to her friend Pierre.
”‘I did not know I had fallen asleep,’ she said. ‘My eyes were sore with crying. Oh, Pierrot, are you not sorry for your poor little Edmée?’
“Pierre did not speak, but his lip quivered, and he turned away his face. He was too big now to cry, he thought, but it was very difficult to keep back the tears.
”‘Come now, my children,’ said Madame Germain; ‘you must not look so sad, or my lady will think I have very badly fulfilled her commission. You must cheer Edmée, Pierre; talk to her of the happy time when she will come home again to her own people – two, three years soon pass! Ah, when you are my age you will see how true that is, and not wish the time over.’
“Edmée drew the kind face down to hers and kissed it.
”‘I will promise you to try to be cheerful with mamma,’ she said. ‘It is only here I will allow myself to cry. Now I must go home; Pierrot will come with me to the little gate.’
“But all the way home to the Château through the village the children scarcely spoke, though usually their tongues ran fast enough. Their hearts were too full; and when they got to the little gate through which a footpath led directly to the side door by which Edmée usually entered, she did not urge Pierre to come in to see her mother.
”‘Come to-morrow,’ she said; ‘by that time I shall be a little more accustomed to it. To-night it will be all I can do not to cry when mamma speaks to me, and to see you looking so sorry makes me still more unhappy, my poor Pierrot!’
“So they said good-night at the gate. I would not undertake to say that on his way home Pierre’s resolution not to cry now that he was so big a boy held good. There was no one to see him except the little birds and a rabbit or two that scudded across the path through the park – and it was his first real trouble.
“His tears would have been still more bitter, poor boy, had he known how few ‘to-morrows’ he and Edmée would have to spend together; for when the little girl entered the Château she was met by unexpected news, and Nanette, who had been on the point of going to fetch her, told her to go at once to her mother’s room, as the Countess wished to speak to her.
“Feeling still bewildered by all she had heard, Edmée obeyed half-tremblingly. A glance at her mother told her there was further trouble in store for her. The Countess was in tears, and her room, usually so neat and orderly, was all in confusion: cupboards and drawers open, and great travelling cases, which Edmée did not remember ever to have seen before, standing about, and the Countess’s maid, Franchise, an old woman who had been in the Valmont family since the time of the last Count’s mother, was fussing about with trembling hands, her red eyes telling their own tale.
”‘Oh, Edmée, my darling, I am glad you have come back!’ exclaimed her mother, but without giving her time to say more the little girl flew into her arms.
”‘She has told me, mamma – mother Germain has told me. But why are you crying? You were not so unhappy when I went out this morning – and poor Françoise too!’
”‘It is only, my darling,’ said the Countess, taking her little daughter upon her knee, ‘it is only that the summons has come rather sooner than I expected. A courier has arrived from Sarinet with letters from your uncle, desiring us to arrange for going there almost at once. He requires me to be there a few days before going on with him and the Marquise to Paris, for there is much to arrange. So, Edmée, my sweet, we must say good-bye to our dear home.’
“It was hard, very hard, for Edmée to keep her resolution of doing nothing to add to her mother’s distress. But she bravely drove back her tears, and throwing her arms round the Countess’s neck, kissed her tenderly.
”‘Don’t cry, dear little mother,’ she said; ‘Madame Germain has been speaking to me, and I am going to be very good. I am going to learn my lessons in Paris so well, so very well, that you will be quite surprised how clever I shall become, and then we shall all the sooner be able to return to our dear Valmont. When are we to start, dear mamma? You see, I am going to be very good. You need not be afraid to tell me all, and she sat up, valiantly blinking away the tears that would, keep coming.’
“The Countess was greatly relieved.
”‘My good Marie,’ she said – ‘Marie’ was Madame Germain’s first name – ‘it is very kind of her to have spoken so wisely to my little girl, and it will make all easier for me. Yes, dear, it will be soon, very soon – the day after to-morrow we have to leave for Sarinet.’
”‘The day after to-morrow!’ exclaimed Edmée. ‘Ah, yes, that is very soon.’
“But no other words of complaint or distress escaped her.
“And two days later saw the Countess and her daughter in the great big travelling carriage, which had made but few journeys since the good Count’s death, on their way to the Château de Sarinet. They were accompanied by Nanette and her uncle Ludovic, who had long been a sort of steward in the house, and could not make up his mind to see his lady go to Paris without him. Poor old Françoise would gladly have gone too, but at her age it was out of the question, so she remained, with many tears, at Valmont, where she kept all in the most perfect order, so that, as she used to say, ‘if my lady comes back at any moment, there will be nothing to do but light the fire.’ And on the box, between the rather fat coachman and Ludovic, Pierre Germain managed to squeeze himself in. He had begged hard to accompany them all the way to Sarinet, but the Countess had judged it better not. Her regard for the boy and his parents was very sincere, and it would have pained her for him to have been treated at her brother’s house like a common servant-boy, as, indeed, no servant-boy was ever treated at Valmont. So Pierre bade his dear ladies farewell at Machard, a little village where they stopped for the first night, whence he returned by himself to his home, for twenty or thirty miles on foot were nothing to the sturdy boy.
“It was a sad farewell – sadder my mother has often told me, than the actual circumstances really warranted, and many times, on looking back to it, she has thought that some foreboding of the terrible events to come must have been on their spirits.
”‘Good-bye, my faithful little friend,’ were the Countess’s last words to poor Pierre, as he reverently kissed her hand; ‘you are the true son of your good father and mother – I can wish no better thing for you, my boy, than that you may grow up to resemble them.’
”‘My lady,’ said Pierre, the tears coursing down his face, ‘I can never, never thank you for all your goodness to me, but my life – everything I possess – is yours and my little lady’s. I would give my life for you if it would do you good.’
“And the future showed that his words said no more than the truth. As for Edmée, she was sobbing too much to say farewell to her childhood’s friend at all. But the last view he had of her face was drowned in tears – the dear little face that had so seldom been aught but radiant and sunny.
“She brightened up a little when they started again. It was the first time in her remembrance that she had been so far from home, and novelty has always great charm for a child. Travelling was not in those days as it is now, when the public conveyances go to Paris at least twice a week, and one does not require to be a great lord to be able to visit distant places. And Edmée felt as if she had got quite to the other side of the world when, on the evening of the second day, the heavy travelling carriage turned in the gates of Sarinet and drew up before the great door, where her uncle, the Marquise, a small delicate-looking lady, with a peevish expression, and a boy, whom, though he had grown taller, she knew again in an instant to be her cousin Edmond, were all waiting to receive them with proper ceremony.
“Edmée turned as quickly as she could, with politeness, from the smiles of her uncle, which she somehow always fancied to be half-mocking, and the careless greeting of her aunt, to the boy cousin, of whom she had often thought with pity. She wondered if he had become better-tempered and less selfish. But the first glance was not reassuring. Except that he had grown taller he was very much the same as the cross, haughty little boy of two or three years ago.
”‘What do you look at me so for, my cousin?’ he said; ‘I have grown tall, have I not? You are taller too, though of course much smaller than I. But you are very pretty. I find you even prettier than before, only your hair is arranged in a very old-fashioned way. However, I am delighted you have come to live with us. I shall now have some one to amuse me, and for you too – you will find Paris, and even Sarinet much livelier than Valmont.’
“Edmée had grown redder and redder during this speech, but Edmond did not seem to observe it.
”‘And how is that stable-boy you used to be so fond of?’ continued Edmond. The children were a little apart from the elders of the group by this time, so, fortunately perhaps for future harmony, no one overheard when the girl flashed round upon her cousin.
”‘Edmond de Sarinet,’ she said with a dignity that was comical and yet touching, ‘I warn you now, once for all, that I will only be your friend – I will only play with you and be kind to you – on condition of your never daring to say one word against my dear home or my dear friends. And this, sir, it is just as well you should understand from the beginning,’ and then, overcome by all she had gone through in the last few days, she flew to her mother, and hiding her face in her arms burst into tears.
”‘What a little savage!’ said the Marquise in a low voice to her husband. But the boy Edmond looked sorry.”
