Kitabı oku: «The Little Old Portrait», sayfa 5
Chapter Seven
“On a fine summer evening about two years after the sad day that had seen the departure of Edmée and her mother from their beloved home, Madame Germain, with her husband and son, was sitting on the bench in front of their cottage – the cottage which is at present, at the time I am writing, inhabited by Mathurine Le Blanc and her sons, standing, as I think I have already said, some short way out of the village – enjoying a little rest after the labour of the day. Not that they were altogether idle. The mother was of course knitting, the father smoking his pipe, if that can be considered an occupation, and the son was holding an open letter in his hand, from which he had just been reading aloud.
”‘Yes,’ he said, ‘in a few days from now we may certainly expect her. She was to leave the next week, my lady says, and that is a fortnight ago.’
”‘Old Ludovic was to bring her a part of the way, was he not?’ said Germain, taking his pipe out of his mouth; ‘I wish he had been coming all the way. I should have liked a talk about many things with the good old man.’
”‘Ah yes,’ agreed his wife, ‘and so should I. But think of the long journey, Germain, and he is getting very old.’
”‘Besides, he would never have agreed to leave my lady and her daughter for so long,’ said Pierre. ‘Think – now that Nanette has left them, old Ludovic is the only one of their own people about them! Oh, how I wish my lady would make up her mind to come home!’
”‘Perhaps she cannot – she hints as much,’ said Madame Germain. ‘You know the Marquis is the dear child’s guardian bylaw, and he is an obstinate man once he takes a thing in his head. But we shall hear more from Nanette – more, perhaps, than the Countess likes to write; letters are risky things, to my way of thinking.’
”‘And these are ticklish times,’ said father Germain. He was a man of few words, and therefore what he did say carried the more weight.
”‘Yes, father, you are right,’ said Pierre, and unconsciously he dropped his voice and spoke in a lower key. ‘Our good curé was telling me some strange things to-day. The bad feeling is spreading fast. There was a château fired last week not very far from Sarinet. To be sure it was put out and no lives lost; but there was a good deal of destruction done, and it shows that it is coming nearer.’
”‘But here at Valmont,’ said his mother, always slow to believe ill, ‘I could never be afraid. Think how steady and industrious a set our people are – how loyal and faithful they have always shown themselves; and with good reason, for have they not ever been treated most generously and kindly by our masters?’
”‘Ah yes,’ said Germain, ‘but it is not always the majority that carries the day. Here, as everywhere, there are some idle and discontented and turbulent spirits – enough to give trouble if they united with others. And I am assured that in no case is it the country people themselves that start the thing. Poor creatures! they are mostly too ground-down and wretched to start anything. But they are ready to follow, though not to lead, and the fire of revolt once lighted by the secret emissaries sent for the purpose from Paris, soon spreads. Alas, I see not what is before us all – here even in our quiet, happy Valmont!’
“Pierre, who had listened eagerly to his father’s words, was on the point of replying when he suddenly started. They had been talking so earnestly that they had not heard footsteps coming up the few yards of lane which led from the village main street, till the new-comer was close to them, and Pierre, recovering from his first surprise, touched his mother on the shoulder.
”‘Some one is here, mother,’ he said, as Madame Germain looked up from her knitting. ‘Can it be – yes, I think it must be – Nanette?’
”‘Yes, indeed,’ said the young woman, holding out her hand with a smile. ‘I am not surely so changed as you, Monsieur Pierre. Had I seen you anywhere else I would not have known you, so tall as you have grown. And you, Monsieur and Madame, of course you are not changed at all; you do not look a day older.’
”‘Life passes quietly here, my good Nanette,’ said the forester. ‘We do not wear ourselves out with wishing to be everything that we are not, as some do.’
”‘Ah no – you are wise,’ said the girl. ‘And I – I cannot tell you how happy I am to be at home again. Even,’ she added with a slight blush, ‘even if I were not going to be married’ – for it was to fulfil an engagement made before she had gone to Paris that Nanette had returned – ‘it is so good to feel safe in one’s own country.’
”‘Safe,’ repeated Madame Germain; ‘but surely you were not afraid in Paris?’
”‘I don’t know,’ said Nanette evasively, and yet with a half glance round as if she feared her words might be overheard; ‘I don’t like Paris. It is not a place for good, simple people. All these new ideas! – ah, don’t let us talk of all that. I have so much to tell you of our dear ladies; Paris or no Paris, it has been a terrible grief to me to leave them,’ and her pretty bright eyes filled with tears.
”‘We were just talking of them when you came up,’ said Madame Germain, ‘and wondering when we should see you. Sit down, my child; in our surprise at seeing you we are forgetting politeness, and you must be tired with your long journey.’
”‘When did you arrive?’
”‘Only last night,’ said Nanette. ‘But I am not tired now. Yesterday was very pleasant; father drove the light cart over to Machard to meet me. The two days before in the diligence – ah, that was tiring. My great-uncle Ludovic came the first day’s journey with me, by my lady’s wish; you see what care she takes of me – of every one about her.’
”‘As ever – our dear lady!’ said Madame Germain.
”‘Ah, if there were more like her!’ said Nanette. ‘Things and feelings would not be what they are coming to, if there had been more like her. The Marquise now – for all she looks so tiny and delicate – ah! she has a hard and cruel heart – or no heart at all. She is a fit wife for her husband. And how they are hated! Worse than ever, I believe.’
”‘By those about them in Paris, do you mean?’ said the father Germain. ‘At Sarinet he is now almost a stranger. All these years, I think, he has never been back again.’
”‘And do you not know why?’ said Nanette. ‘’Tis said he dare not – and yet at worst he is a brave man. Perhaps after all he has some conscience left, and shrinks from seeing the utter wretchedness he has caused. We passed through many villages on our way, but in none did I see more hideous misery than at Sarinet. My lord is always short of money now – he spends so much in every way – and they do say that he and the Marquise too lose great sums at play. And when the money runs dry it is always the same thing. “Get it out of those lazy hounds of mine at Sarinet,” writes my lord to his bailiff, and then the screw is put on again, ever tighter and tighter. Ah, it is horrible!’ and Nanette shuddered.
“Germain looked up at her in surprise. She had changed. It was not like the simple, light-hearted girl of three years ago to speak so forcibly, or to feel things so deeply.
”‘How have you heard so much, my girl?’ he said.
”‘In Paris one learns much,’ said Nanette. ‘Much ill I might have learnt had my lady not taken care of me almost as if I had been her own sister. But the servants all talk, and chatter, and complain, and threaten – and my lady, she too told me a great deal. She has almost no one to talk to there – no one who sees things as she does. And she told me to tell you – her good friends she always calls you – all I could. She wants you to understand how she is placed. There is nothing she longs for so much as to return to Valmont, and from month to month she is hoping to see her way to doing so. But the Marquis opposes it, and you know he is Mademoiselle’s guardian by law, and my lady does not like to anger him; his temper, too, grows worse and worse, though he is gentler to her than to any one else. But you can fancy it is not a home such as our dear ladies can be happy in. And at times I can see that the Countess is really afraid. There is talk of dark and wild things. There have been meetings of the people where dreadful threats have been uttered against the king and queen, the clergy and the nobles – against every one in high position, and sometimes the police and the soldiers even, could scarce disperse them. Many think the people once roused will not be quieted again. And of all the great rich nobles who have oppressed the poor and made themselves hated, none, or few at least, are more hated than the Marquis.’
”‘And our dear Countess is his sister!’ exclaimed Madame Germain, over whose cheerful face had crept a cloud of foreboding.
”‘I wonder you could bear to leave them,’ said Pierre, almost indignantly; but Nanette did not resent his tone. She turned to him, her eyes full of tears.
”‘I did my utmost to stay,’ she replied, ‘but my lady would not hear of it. Albert had waited so long, she said; it was not right to put him off still, though for my part I could have found it in my heart to put him off altogether. I saw that the idea worried her. Then, too, I think she was glad for me to come home to talk to you – to explain things a little. She dare not write very much – letters are never very safe. And she is so lonely – in the midst of all that racket – she and Mademoiselle Edmée.’
”‘Have they no friends they care for?’ asked Pierre.
”‘Few – very few. And already of those some have left the country. Yes, indeed,’ said Nanette, ‘it is not yet much known, but several of the wiser and far-seeing among the nobility have gone to Switzerland – some to Holland, and to England, on pretence of travelling, but it is known they do not intend to return till they see how things turn out.’
”‘It seems almost cowardly,’ said Pierre.
”‘Yes,’ said Nanette, ‘so my lady said. But I do not know that it is so. What can the few do in such a state of things? And they have their children to think of.’
”‘It is true. But our lady need not go so far. In no foreign country could she be so safe as here in her own Valmont.’
”‘It seems so at present,’ said the girl with a sigh. ‘But all the talk I have heard frightens and confuses me. Once the fire is lighted, who can say? Still I wish with all my heart, and so does my old uncle Ludovic, that the ladies were here, and not in Paris. And you may be sure the Countess will seize the first chance of returning. I was to tell you this – and to say that she will count on you, father Germain, and on Pierre, to help them if occasion arises.’
”‘She will not be disappointed,’ said Germain, and Pierre eagerly agreed with him.
”‘But all the same,’ continued his father, ‘I confess I do not see the great difficulty about their getting away; the Marquis would never force his sister to stay?’
”‘No,’ said Nanette, ‘but there are difficulties. I think my lord has power over Mademoiselle Edmée’s money, and if the Countess broke off with him she might not know what he did with it. It is something like that, but my lady never fully explained to me. I only hope – ’ But then Nanette hesitated.
”‘What, my girl?’ said Madame Germain.
”‘Perhaps it is wrong of me to think so, but I have sometimes wondered if my dear little lady’s money is safe. The Marquis is always short of money now, and for my part I think some of these fine gentlemen have strange notions of honesty.’
”‘Not among themselves,’ said Germain. ‘They may rob the poor, but they would think it dishonour to rob each other. However, I can understand how you mean, Nanette,’ and he too gave a deep sigh. Ruin to their young mistress would not be prosperity for Valmont.
”‘And who is taking your place now, my good Nanette,’ asked mother Germain. ‘Is that girl whom Edmée disliked so – that Victorine, still with the Marquise?’
”‘Yes,’ said Nanette. ‘I cannot bear her. She is clever and cunning, and no one can please the Marquise as she does. She flatters her lady to her face, but behind her back she speaks worse than any of the servants. She is as false as she can be, and would be the first to turn on her masters – she wanted to attend to Mademoiselle when she heard I was leaving, but our ladies do not like her. They live so simply – never going to parties or anything of that kind, for which indeed, Mademoiselle is too young, and my lady too sad she says – that they need but little attendance. And there is a poor girl there – a Sarinet girl – whom my ladies have taken a fancy to. Marguerite Ribou is her name. She is a pretty, gentle girl, about my own age. I taught her what I could; perhaps with such kind mistresses she may get on,’ said Nanette, with a slightly patronising tone.
”‘A Sarinet girl! I wonder to hear they have any one from Sarinet in the household,’ said mother Germain.
”‘This girl is an orphan. Her only brother died some years ago. I think there was some ugly story about his death, though she never speaks of it,’ said Nanette. ‘I fancy he was cruelly treated, and that even the Marquis was somewhat ashamed, and the girl was offered a place at the château to save appearances.’
”‘I wonder she took it,’ said mother Germain.
”‘She was starving probably,’ said Nanette. ‘Hunger is a hard master. But I doubt if her feelings to the family are much better than those of Victorine, only Marguerite says nothing.’
“Suddenly Pierre broke in.
”‘Marguerite Ribou – I remember her!’ he exclaimed. ‘Mother, you have not forgotten my telling you of what I saw at Sarinet? – a young man all fainting and bleeding, and they were driving him – the brutes! And his sister was called Marguerite. Yes, indeed! how could she go to serve them?’
”‘It must have been, as I say – she had no choice,’ answered Nanette. ‘And now I think she will stay out of affection for our ladies, who have been kind to her from the first. But for them, in that bad Paris, what would have become of her, heaven only knows. I must be going, my good friends. I promised mother not to be long – my first day at home! But I shall see you often, for I shall not be more quickly tired of talking of our ladies than you will be of hearing. The Countess has such trust in you; she even told me to say to you – ’ But here again poor Nanette stopped, and the tears filled her eyes. ‘There is no hurry,’ she said; ‘I will tell you another time.’
”‘Nay, my dear,’ said Mother Germain, ‘I would like to hear it now, while her words are fresh in your mind.’
”‘It was the day I left. She was very sad; I think she was sorry for me to go, and perhaps there were other causes. “Tell my dear Germains,” she said, “that if anything happens to me – one knows not what it might be in these times that are threatening us – there is no one – I have no friends I trust as I do them, no one to whom I could better confide my child. Even little Pierre” – my lady does not know how tall you are now, Monsieur Pierre,’ said Nanette, with a smile – ‘“Pierre, I believe, would give his life for Edmée,” she said.’
”‘And she said true,’ said Pierre, his face glowing.
”‘Thank you, Mademoiselle Nanette, for telling me her very words.’
“Then at last the girl left them, after reminding them all, Pierre included, that she counted upon them as guests at her wedding the following week.
”‘She is a good girl,’ said Madame Germain, when Nanette had gone; ‘but that she always was. She comes of a good stock. Old Ludovic is as faithful a servant as any one could possibly desire. Nanette has improved wonderfully. I used not to think her so intelligent and quick of perception.’
”‘It is the society of the Countess that has improved and educated her,’ said father Germain, between the puffs of smoke from his pipe, which he was again enjoying – with, however, a grave, almost uneasy, expression on his face.
“He said nothing, however, till that evening, when alone with his wife, for he was a man who well considered not only his words, but the best time at which to utter them.
”‘I like not the look of things – over there,’ he said, with a jerk of his thumb in the direction where Paris was supposed to lie. ‘I think the girl Nanette is right in her fears. I wish my lady were back among us.’
”‘So indeed do I,’ said Madame Germain.
”‘There is no use saying much about it before the boy,’ resumed her husband. ‘He thinks enough of it already. Much more and he would be setting off to Paris to rescue them before one clearly sees the danger.’
”‘But we would not stop him,’ said his wife.
”‘Not if it were to render them real service. I would go myself. Thou knowest that, wife! But we must wait awhile till we see. No use getting ourselves into trouble without doing them any good.’
”‘True,’ said Pierre’s mother, for she had the greatest respect for her husband’s opinion.
”‘At the same time do not mistake me,’ he said. ‘I am more than ready to do any service the Countess could desire. It may be that what she says is the fact – that she has no friends she can so depend on as upon us. We are plain and simple folk, but we are faithful, and we are grateful, and the time may come for us to show it.’
”‘God grant we may see how to act wisely should it be so,’ said his wife fervently. ‘And God spare my lady and her child for a peaceful life in their own home.’
”‘Amen,’ said the forester, no less devoutly than his good wife.
“Nanette’s wedding-day arrived, and the ceremony was celebrated with the usual gaieties. According to a special message from Edmée, Pierre, who was a better scribe than either his father or mother, wrote a full account of it to the Countess in Paris. He was very important over this letter, which took him quite a week to complete to his satisfaction, and then he took it to Nanette, now young Madame Delmar, for her approval, which was heartily bestowed.
”‘Ah, how pleased Mademoiselle will be to get it,’ she said. ‘I can fancy her reading it aloud to her dear mother, and possibly, if he has been “very good,” as Mademoiselle calls it, Monsieur Edmond will be allowed to hear it.’
“Pierre’s face darkened.
”‘That fellow!’ he exclaimed, and he made a movement as if he would tear the paper. ‘I won’t have him mocking at my letter, Nanette.’
“The young woman looked at him with surprise.
”‘No fear,’ she said. ‘You don’t think our young lady would allow him or any one to mock at anything to do with her dear Valmont. Besides poor Monsieur Edmond is not likely to do so. He is much the best of them, and he is so ill; they say he cannot live long. I think it is partly pity for him that keeps our ladies there. I was telling your good mother about him the other day, but you were not there, I remember.’
“Pierre looked a little ashamed of his ebullition.
”‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I did not know. I thought of him as when I saw him five years ago.’
”‘Ah, yes,’ said Nanette; ‘but since then he is much changed. And he worships the very ground our young lady stands on. No wonder! what would he have been but for her and her mother? For neither his father nor mother can bear the sight of him.’
”‘Poor fellow,’ said Pierre. ‘Then he cannot be much of a protector to our ladies in case of need.’
”‘No indeed,’ said Madame Delmar. And from that moment Pierre only thought of his childish enemy with profound pity.”
Chapter Eight
“As a rule, news, even of great importance, travelled very slowly in those days. But not long after the return of Nanette there came to Valmont, as to even far remoter corners of France, with a rush like that of a mighty wind, tidings of the first tremendous outburst of the great storm – the assault and taking of the prison of the Bastille by the infuriated mob. My mother well remembers that day in Paris. The terror which spread through all classes – the strange stories which were afloat about the wretched prisoners released from the dungeons, where some of them had been confined till they had forgotten not only the crime – imaginary in many cases – for which they had been punished, but even their own names and histories! The destruction of the terrible Bastille can never be regretted, but it was accompanied by dreadful deeds. The murder of the governor and other officers who were but doing their duty; for the people, maddened by hunger as well as by their many wrongs, did not stop to consider which were the guilty and which the innocent. I have said to my mother that from this point I wish she would take this narrative into her own hands. It seems to me that as an eye-witness – for in this year 1789, she was an intelligent girl of nearly thirteen – she could describe with much more force and vividness many of the scenes which followed. But she begs me to continue as I have begun. The story concerns my father quite as much as herself, she says, and she wishes it to be written as much from his recollections, which he has often related to me, as from her own. So I must do my best, sadly imperfect though I feel it to be.
“The taking of the Bastille was the signal for outrages through many parts of the country. Châteaux were burnt, convents sacked and destroyed, many even among the superior farmer class, who had had nothing to do with the government or the oppression of the poor, whose only crime was that through their industry and economy they had grown richer than their neighbours, suffered as well as their betters. In Paris itself many of the most conspicuous among the nobility were dragged by the mob from their houses and put to death in a horrible way, by being hanged on the street lamps. These I have always thought much more to be pitied than those later sufferers who perished by the famous guillotine; for this first manner of death united insult to barbarity.
“How it came to pass that my great-uncle, the Marquis de Sarinet, was not among those on whom this first fury was wreaked, my mother has often felt at a loss to explain. It may have been that he had never mixed himself up much with affairs of state – for he was selfish even in this, disliking everything which gave him trouble – and that thus his name was not one of the best known. But his punishment had already begun, for the following winter saw the complete destruction by fire, after it had been robbed of everything of value, of the beautiful old Château of Sarinet.
“News of this was not long in reaching Valmont.
“All through these months many a faithful heart there had ached with anxiety for their Countess and her child. But the disordered state of things was having everywhere a bad effect. Quiet and peaceable folk began to be frightened. Many dared not express any interest in or sympathy with those whose turn it was now to be unjustly and cruelly treated. And among the loose characters who now and then passed through or loitered about our quiet Valmont, there were not wanting some on the look-out for mischief-making.
”‘You speak of your lady as different from others,’ they would say. ‘Let her show herself among you. If she cared for you she would be here, not amusing herself and wasting money on nonsense like all the fine ladies in Paris. It is that which has brought ruin on the country.’
“And some listened to and believed these cunning words, so that already, had the Countess just then returned to Valmont, it is to be doubted if she would have been received with the old affection. There was some reason, too, for discontent. Collet, the Countess’s bailiff, was the most discreet of men, devoted to the family’s interest, but at the same time ready to carry out all his lady’s endeavours to do good to her people. But it began to be noticed that he was more rigorous than formerly in exacting all the payments due, also that less money was forthcoming for charitable purposes, that the new year’s gifts year by year were curtailed, and that Collet looked anxious and careworn.
”‘It is his bad conscience,’ said some. ‘He is going the way of all like him, enriching himself at our expense.’
”‘And the Countess is no doubt learning to throw about her money too. Trust fine ladies for that, however sweet-spoken they may be; and after all she is a Sarinet by birth,’ said others.
“But I need not say that in the Germains’ cottage, and indeed in most of those in the village, nothing of this kind was believed, and once or twice, when words or hints to this effect were uttered before Pierre, his father had to check the hot indignation with which the lad would have met them, reminding him that by a dignified silence he was both showing more respect for their lady, and perhaps better serving her cause. He could speak with authority, for both he and the old curé were in poor Collet’s confidence, and knew, what he thought it would be dishonourable to tell, that he strongly suspected that the Marquis, having exhausted his own resources, was now helping himself to the money of his sister and his niece. And more than once both were of a mind to say out what they were almost, sure of. ‘If it goes much further we shall feel it our duty to do so,’ said the curé to the bailiff. ‘And even now I have almost made up my mind to write to the Countess, for I am certain she has no idea of what is being done, to some extent, in her name.’
“But just as the good man was meditating a letter to Paris, one was received from there which altered the state of things, and for a long time brought some sunshine and hopefulness back to the hearts of the faithful friends of Edmée and her mother.
“The Countess and her daughter were returning to Valmont.
”‘All then will be well,’ said Madame Germain, wiping her eyes from which were running tears of joy. ‘Things are evidently quieting down; otherwise our ladies would not think of undertaking the journey. Those poor, foolish people, no doubt, seeing how ready the king is to agree to everything reasonable, will be satisfied at last, and all will be well.’
“Nor was she the only one to hope, from time to time, during these early years of the Revolution, that the black cloud might after all disperse. For, thanks to the efforts of some unselfish and wise men, more than once a cordial understanding between the king, the government, and the people was almost arrived at, though always, alas! to be again broken through by treachery or mistakes or passionate outburst on one side or the other.
“This was in the summer of 1790, about a year after the taking of the Bastille. All through the autumn days that followed, the Germain family and others waited eagerly for further news from Paris. At last came again a few hurried words to Madame Germain from the Countess, referring to other letters sent by the post which had never been received at Valmont. She had found it impossible, she said, to carry out her plan of returning home that last summer. The Marquis had opposed it; he was so sure that things were calming down, and he objected to any member of his family leaving Paris. ‘So again,’ wrote the poor lady, ‘Edmée and I must take patience. But surely next summer, the fourth since our absence, will see us in our own dear home.’
“Next summer! Preceded by a severe winter, which saw sufferings such as Valmont had never known before – for the demands on Collet for money became more and more peremptory, and though the curé and Germain had written to the Countess a full account of the state of things, no notice had been taken of it, and they began to fear she had never received their letter – ‘next summer’ brought no better state of things. The king and his family were now, to all intents and purposes, prisoners in the hands of their people; the few wiser and cooler-headed men in the government were overruled; great numbers of the better classes had left their unhappy country; of those whom obstinacy, in some cases poverty, caused to remain, till too late to get away, the fate became daily more uncertain. And among these there was every reason to fear were Edmée de Valmont and her mother!
”‘If they had left the country, I feel sure they would have found some means of letting us know,’ said Madame Germain, shaking her head, for the long anxiety and uncertainty had lessened her hopefulness. And just as her husband and son, after discussing for perhaps the hundredth time this sad state of things, had arrived at the conclusion that something must be done, some step they must and would take, there came again suddenly, and in an unexpected way, news of the two so dear to them.
“It came in the shape of a very feeble and very old man, who, looking more dead than alive, dragged himself one evening, late in the month of September, in the year I have now reached in my narrative, that of 1792, to the door of the forester’s cottage, and there, half-fainting on the threshold, asked in a broken voice for Germain or his wife. They did not know him in the least – how could they, in this wretched, dust-and-mud-covered old beggar, whose white beard hung neglectedly, whose feet were almost shoeless, whose poor old hands trembled with nervous weakness, have recognised the carefully-attired, respectable, nay stately Ludovic, who had driven away on the box of the travelling chariot, so proud to follow his ladies to the end of the world, had they bidden him? His devotion had cost him dear, poor old man, and as he feebly murmured —
”‘Don’t you know me – your old friend Ludovic?’ mother Germain burst into tears – tears of pity for him, of terror for those he had come from.
“They at once did their best for him. It would have been cruel to question him till he had regained a little strength, and indeed useless. Now that he had reached the end of his journey, his forces seemed altogether to collapse, and for some hours they feared he would die without having told them anything. But food and wine carefully administered, and a refreshing sleep into which he fell, did wonders for him, for notwithstanding his age, he had been till lately a vigorous and healthy man; and by the evening he woke up greatly revived, and eager to explain everything, and by degrees his kind hosts heard all, which perhaps it is well to give as far as possible in his own words – for the events he related have often been told me both by my mother who had seen them herself, and by my father who heard them at the moment from Ludovic’s own lips.
