The Catholic World Volume I Part 14

"Madame and these Messieurs are English, is it not?"

"A pretty place," we went on to say, after owning our nationality, "and very pleasant in this hot weather after the glare of Brussels."

"It is that; and I am here as often as possible," returned our new acquaintance. "My sister is staying here for the advantage of this little man... . Monsieur Auguste, at your service. Salute then the society, Auguste. You must know he has the pretension to be a little delicate, this young man. An invalid, if you please; consequently his aunt spoils him! It is a ruse on his part, you perceive. Ah, bah! An invalid! My word, he fatigues my poor arm. Ah--h! I cannot longer sustain him. I faint--I drop him down he goes... la--a--a!"

Here, lowering him carefully, as if he were crystal, he pretended to let his son suddenly tumble on a bit of gra.s.s-plot.

"At present" (grumbling) "here he is, broken to pieces probably; we shall have the trouble of mending him. His aunt must bring her needle and thread."

Monsieur Auguste was so enchanted with this performance that he encored it ecstatically. His father obeyed, and then sent him off running to call out his aunt to breakfast, which was laid under a neighboring trellis.

"He is strong on his legs, is it not, Madame?" said the father, looking after him; his jolly face and light blue eyes a little grave, and wistful. "His spirits are so high, see you? He is {110} too intelligent, too intellectual--he has a little exhausted his strength; that says all. He is well enough; he has no malady; and every day he is getting stouter, plainly to the eye."

Here the aunt and nephew joined us. Our new acquaintance introduced her.

"Ma belle-soeur. Ma chere,--Madame and these Messieurs are English.

They are good enough to take an interest in this infant Hercules of ours."

He tossed the child on his shoulder again; established on which throne his little monarch amused himself by ornamenting the parental straw-hat with a huge flaring poppy and some green leaves, beneath which the jovial face bloomed Bacchic.

Meanwhile the quiet young French-woman, smiling affectionately at those playfellows as they went off together, sat down on a chair we offered her, and frankly entered into conversation.

In a few minutes we knew a great deal about this little family. The man in the blouse was a Belgian painter, Jean Baudin, and "well seen in the expositions of Paris and Brussels." "His wife was my sister: we were of Paris. When our little Auguste was born, my poor sister died.

She was always delicate. The little one is very delicate. Ah, so delicate, also. It is impossible to be over-careful of him. And his father, who is so strong--so strong! But the little one resembles in every manner his mother. His poor father adores him, as you see. Poor Jean! he so tenderly loved his wife, who died in her first youth... .

She had but eighteen years--she had six years less than I. In dying she begged me to be to her infant a mother, and to her poor Jean a sister. Jean is a good brother, bon et brave homme. And for the little one, he is truly a child to be adored--judiciously, it is understood, madame: I spoil him not, believe me. But he is clever to astonish you, that child. So spiritual, and then such a tender little good heart--a disposition so amiable. Hardly he requires correction... . Auguste!

how naughty thou art! Auguste! dost thou hear? Jean! take him then off the dusty wall, and wipe him a little. Mon ami, thou spoilest the child; one must be judicious."

We presently left the garden, and, in pa.s.sing, beheld Monsieur Auguste at breakfast. He was seated between his papa and aunt, and was being adored by both (judiciously and injudiciously) to the heart's content of all three.

We stayed a month at this little hotel at The Tadpoles. The English family soon fraternized with that of Jean Baudin, the Flemish painter, also sojourning there, and the only other resident guests.

John's wife and Mademoiselle became good friends and gossips, and sat at work and chat many a summer hour under the hop trellises.

Mademoiselle Rose Leclerc was the Frenchwoman's name, but her name of ceremony was simply "Mademoiselle." John and I used to walked about the country, among the lanes, and woods, and hamlets which diversify the flats on that side of Brussels, accompanying Jean Baudin and his paint-box. We sat under a tree, or on a stone fence, smoking pipes of patience, while Jean made studies for those wonderful, elaborate tiny pictures, the work of his big hands, by which he and his little son lived. I remember, in particular, a mossy old cottage, rough and grey; the front clothed with vines, the quaint long gable running down behind to within a yard of the ground. Baudin sketched that cottage very often; and often used its many picturesque features.

Sometimes it was the rickety, black-timbered porch, garlanded with vine; a sonsy, blond-haired young Flemish maiden sat there, and twirled the bobbins on a lace-cus.h.i.+on, in a warm yellow flicker of suns.h.i.+ne. Sometimes Jean went right into the porch and into the cottage itself, and presently brought us out an old blue-gowned, black-coifed creature, knitting as she kicked the grand-babe's clumsy cradle {111} with her clumsy sabot;--a ray through the leafy little window-hole found the crone's white hair, and the infant cheek. Honest Jean only painted what he saw with his eyes. He could copy such simple poetry as this, and feel it too, though he could indite no original poems on his canvas pages. He was a hearty good fellow, and we soon got to like him, and his kindly, unpretentious, but not unshrewd, talk--that is, when it could be got off the paternal grooves--which, to say the truth, was seldomer than we (who were not ourselves at that period the parents of prodigies) may have secretly desired.

In the summer evenings we used to sit in the garden all together, the ladies graciously permitting us to smoke. We liked to set the children a-dancing again on the gra.s.s-plot before us; and I must here confess that they saltated to a mandolin touched by this hand. I had studied the instrument under a ragged maestro of Naples, and flattered myself.

I performed on it with credit to both, and to the general delight.

Sometimes Jean Baudin would tie to his cane a little pocket-handkerchief of Monsieur Auguste, and putting this ensign into his hand, cause him to go through a certain vocal performance of a martial and defiant character. The pale little man did it with much spirit, and a truculent aspect, stamping fiercely at particular moments of the strain. I can only remember the effective opening of this entertainment. Thus it began--"_Les Belges_" (at this point the small performer threw up the staff and flag of his country, and shouted _ff_) "_SONT BRAVES!!"_ Papa and aunt regarded with pride that ferocious champion of his valiant compatriots, looking round to read our astonishment and rapture in our faces.

We all got on excellently with the hotel folk, ingratiating ourselves chiefly by paying a respectful court to the solid and rosy little princess of the house. Jean Baudin painted her, sitting placid, a little open-mouthed, heavy-lidded, over-fed, with a lapful of cherries. We all made much of her and submitted to her. John's wife presented her with a frock of English print, of a charming apple-green; out of which the fat pink face bloomed like a carnation-bud out of its calyx.

The young landlord would bring us out a dish to our garden dinner-table, on purpose that he might linger and chat about England.

That country, and some of its model inst.i.tutions, appeared to excite in his mind a mixture of awe and curiosity, wonder and horror. For instance, he had heard--he did not altogether believe it (deprecatingly)--that not only were the shops of London closed, with shutters, on the Sunday, but also the theatres; and not only the theatres, but also the expositions, the gardens and salons of dance, of music, of play. How! it was actually the truth?

"Certainly, what Madame was good enough to affirm one must believe.

But then what do they? No business, no amus.e.m.e.nt what then do they, mon Dieu!--"

"They go to church, read the Bible, and keep the Sabbath day holy,"

a.s.serts Mrs. Freshe, in perfect good faith, and severely and proudly, as becomes a Protestant Britishwoman.

"Tiens, tiens! But it is triste, that--. Is it not that it is triste, Madame? Tiens, tiens! And this is that which is the Protestantism.

Since Madame herself affirms it, one can doubt no longer."

And he goes pondering away, to tell his wife; with no increased tendency to the reformed faith.

Even Joseph, the stolid and fishy-eyed waiter, patronized us, and gravely did us a hundred obliging services beyond his official duty.

On a certain evening, Mademoiselle, John, John's wife, and I, sat as usual at book or work under the trellises; while the two children, at healthful play, prattled under the shade of the laurel-bushes hard by.

As usual, the solid little Flemish maiden was {112} tyrannizing calmly over her playfellow. We constantly heard her small voice, quiet, slow, and dominating: "_Je le veux_." "_Je ne le veux pas_." They had for playthings a little handbell and a toy-wagon, and were playing at railways. Auguste was the porter, trundling up, with shrill cries, heavy luggage-trucks piled with gravel, gooseberry-skins, tin soldiers, and bits of cork. Marie was a rich and haughty lady about to proceed by the next convoi, and paying an immense sum, in daisies, for her ticket, to Auguste, become a clerk. A disputed point in these transactions appeared to be the possession of the bell; the frequent ringing of which was indeed a princ.i.p.al feature of the performance.

Auguste contended hotly, but with considerable show of reason, to this effect:--That the instrument belonged to him, in his official capacities of porter and clerk, rather than to the rich and haughty lady, who as a pa.s.senger was not, and could not be, ent.i.tled to monopolize the bell of the company. Indeed, he declared himself nearly certain that, as far as his experience went, pa.s.sengers never did ring it at all. But Marie's "Je le veux" settled the dispute, and carried her in triumph, after the crus.h.i.+ng manner of her s.e.x, over all frivolous masculine logic.

Mademoiselle sat placid beside us, doing her interminable and elaborate satin-st.i.tch. She was working at a broad white slip, intended, I understood, to form the ornamental base of a petticoat. It was at least a foot wide, of a florid and labyrinthine pattern, full of oval and round holes, which appeared to have been cut out of the stuff in order that Mademoiselle might be at the pains of filling them up again with thready cobwebs. She would often with demure and innocent complacency display this fabric, in its progress, to John's wife (who does not herself, I fancy, excel in satin-st.i.tch), and relate how short a time (four months, I think) she had taken to bring it so near completion. Mrs. Freshe regarded this work of art with feminine eyes of admiration, and slyly remarked that it was really beautiful enough "meme pour un trousseau." At the same time she with difficulty concealed her disapproval of the waste of precious time incurred by the auth.o.r.ess of the petticoat-border. Not that Mademoiselle could be accused of neglecting the severer forms of her science; such as the construction of frocks and blouses for Monsieur Auguste--adorned, it must be admitted, with frivolous and intricate convolutions of braid. And the exquisite neatness of the visible portions of Monsieur Jean's linen also bore honorable testimony to Mademoiselle's more solid labors.

Into the midst of this peaceful garden-scene entered a new personage.

A man of middle height, with a knapsack at his back, came up the gravel-walk: a handsome brown-faced fellow of five-and-thirty, with a big black beard, and a neat holland blouse, and a grey felt hat.

Mademoiselle and he caught sight of each other at the same instant.

Both gave a cry. Her rather sallow little face flushed like a rose.

She started up; down dropped her petticoat-work; she ran forward, throwing out her hands; she stopped short--shy, and bright, and pretty as eighteen! The man made a stride and took her in his arms.

"Ma Rose! ma Rose! Enfin!" cried he in a strangled voice.

She said nothing, but hung at his neck, her two little hands on his shoulders, her face on his breast.

But that was only for a moment. Then Mademoiselle disengaged herself, and glanced shamefacedly at us. Then she came quickly up--came to John's wife, slid an arm round her neck, and said rapidly, tremulously, with sparkling, tearful eyes:

"C'est Jules, Madame. C'est mon fiance depuis quatre ans. Ah, Madame, j'ai honte--mais,"--and ran back to him. She was transformed. In place of that staid, almost old-maidish {113} little person we knew, lo! a bashful, rosy, smiling girl, tripping, skipping, beside herself with happy love! And her little collar was all rumpled, and so were her smooth brown braids. Monsieur Jules took off his felt hat, and bowed politely when she came to us, guessing that he was being introduced.

His brown face blushed a little, too: it was a happy and honest one, very pleasant to see.

The children had left off playing, and stared wide-eyed at these extraordinary proceedings. Mademoiselle ran to her little nephew, and brought him to Jules.

"I recognize well the son of our poor Lolotte," said he, softly, lifting and kissing him. "And that dear Jean, where is he?"

Even as he spoke there came a familiar roar from that window overlooking the court-yard, by which the painter sat at his easel almost all day. "Ohe! Monsieur Ba-Bou!" The little boy nearly jumped out of his new friend's arms.

"Papa! papa! Laissez-moi, done, Mosou!--Papa!"

"Is it that thou art by chance this monsieur whom they call?" laughed Jules, as he put him down.

"Way, way!" cried the little man as he pattered off, with that gleeful shriek of his. "C'est moi, Mosou Ba-Bou! Ba-Bou!"

"Thou knowest that great voice of our Jean," said Mademoiselle; "when he has finished his day's labor he always calls his child like that.

Having worked all day for the little one, he goes now to make himself a child to play with him. He calls that to rest himself. And truly the little one idolizes his father, and for him will leave all other playfellows--even me. Come, then, Jules, let us seek Jean."

And with a smiling salute to us the happy couple went arm-in-arm out of the garden.