L'Arrabiata and Other Tales Part 6

"'Returns thanks for kind enquiries. Master Ernest,' I said; 'she has just kittened, and will be delighted, as we all are, to see your honour back again.'

"'I am afraid it is a delight that won't last long, Flor,' he said; and at night, when I was lighting him to bed, as I always did, he told me all about it; how he had done his father's bidding, and been to see the great world, and he had seen enough of it to find it terribly tedious; and now he had had some trouble in carrying his point, which was to go and study alone for a year or two. 'It was a shame,' he said, 'the confusion that was in his brain.' I could only stare at this, for to me he seemed a man in all things, and cleverer, I thought, it was not possible to be, when I heard him talk with others. But he knew best, of course, and I did not contradict him then; for there were other things I was more curious to know. I asked him about the life he had been leading, and whether the fine ladies he had been dancing with, were handsomer than the daughters of our townspeople? And look you, Sir, at this, he turned as red as a boy;--he, the accomplished fine-grown gentleman, who had just come from living among the fine folks;--and he only said: 'Some perhaps, not many;' and so I saw that old love does not always rust. The very next day he rode over to the town; I suppose to make enquiries, and find out whether she were still unmarried. Of course, I did not know, for I had never heard who she was. When he came back, in the evening, he looked very grave. 'It is all over,' I said to myself, 'and all the better that it is so; what could have ever come of it?'

"Between him and his father things were no better than they used to be.

When I helped to wait at table, I saw that the count was always ready for a quarrel with his son, who could never say or do a single thing to please him. He seemed provoked to be, in a manner, forced to respect the lad, who never by any chance forgot himself, but only quietly defended his own opinion, or held his tongue. Just as the blessed countess had always done, and the count was not fond of being reminded of her. Nothing would have pleased him better than to see his son just such another bold bird of prey as he himself still was, for all his half century. Never had he found a horse too wild, a woman too witty, or a sword too sharp for him. He could not forgive the boy for being so modest. Indeed I often thought--G.o.d forgive me!--that he had rather have seen Count Ernest forget his duty to him as his father, if he only would have forgotten that the countess was his mother. Therefore the count always went back to talk of the good old times, when the world was merrier and less particular. Now it was only a world for sneaks and lubbers. And when he had drunk a gla.s.s beyond the common, he would tell us all sorts of love-adventures he had had when he was young; while the young count would look straight before him, and hold his peace. I was horrified to hear him, and said to myself: 'Can a father really find it in his heart to be the tempter of his son, when he finds his innocence a reproach to him?'"

"To be sure, I knew that was not the way to tempt my boy at all; he did not even lose the respect he owed him as a father. Only it grieved him sadly, never to see the slightest sign that his father loved him; that I saw by his eyes; but he never spoke about it, not even to me, to whom he generally told everything. And so I was almost glad when he left us in a week to go to College, and never once came home for the next five years; much as he loved his home, and his woods, and everything about the place, and often as he used to enquire after them in his letters.

"I say, I was almost glad, and was more glad presently.

"The young count may have been away for about three years, when I fell into a bad illness; and that left me a weakness in my limbs, so that I could hardly drag myself up and down the stairs. For I kept all the keys, and n.o.body but Mamsell Flor ever touched a thing in the cellars, store-rooms, or plate-chests. When the count came home in the autumn, and saw me crawling about the house with a stick; 'Flor,' he said, 'you have been doing too much for your strength; you must have some a.s.sistance; a sort of housekeeper under you, to save you going up and down the stairs.' So kind he was, you see, sir, in some things; and for all I could say against it, next day, it appeared in the daily papers, that a housekeeper was wanted at the castle.

"All sorts of women came, but none to please me. One or two among them I even suspected of coveting a higher place, (or a lower, as one takes it) than that of housekeeper; for the count was known to be a gallant gentleman. I was rather pleased that none of them could be found to suit; I was always too particular, and none of them did things as I liked to have them done. And so we had nearly forgotten that we had wanted one, when one afternoon, in comes a tall slight young woman, in deep mourning, with very weary eyes. She had come two days' journey from a town where her father and mother, one after the other, had lately died, and left her entirely unprovided for. Her father had been a functionary of some importance, and had lived upon his pay. Her only brother was an engineer, and was now employed in England on a railway, which he could not leave without the sacrifice of all his prospects.

She had therefore written to him not to mind her; she had found a situation in a n.o.ble family, and was well provided for; meaning if she were not accepted here, to take even a lower place.

"Although everything I could learn about the poor child was entirely satisfactory, and though she pa.s.sed the severest examination I could think of in household matters, I felt a something in my heart, that warned me not to take her. I told her plainly I thought it might not be for her good. I said she was too young, and what more I could think of.

And just as she was going, quite submissively, without any prayers or tears, I called her back, and kept her after all. In fact I was only afraid she might please the count too well, for she was as fine a girl as you could see, with a splendid figure, and a high-bred face like n.o.body else's; and then such a weight of long brown hair, that could reach three times round her head. But I found that she had a grave decided way with her, and that she was not easily to be put upon. And besides, Count Henry was just then over head and ears in love, as Mr.

Pierre had whispered, with a singer he had met in London, and had only broken from her chains for a short time, to hasten back to them as fast as ever he could. So he did not take much notice of the stranger, when she took her place at the servants' table for the first time; he just glanced at her from head to foot, gave an approving nod, and sat all the evening alone, at the master's table, playing with his ring, and letting the beautiful green stone glitter at the light, and Mr. Pierre told us it was a present from his London friend. And I suppose it was true, for when he came back next year, the ring was gone, and Mr.

Pierre told us strange stories about it, which you will not care to hear, sir.

"When the count first saw the girl again, Mamsell Gabrielle, as she was called, I watched his face attentively as she walked across the hall.

He looked much as he used to do, when the dealers brought him horses, and he had them trotted out into the yard. But he treated her just as he did the rest of us, only that he spoke to her less often. She had begun to bloom again, in the quiet life here among the woods, and with the exercise she took when she was busy about the house. She had left off mourning, and sometimes I even heard her singing in the little garden she had laid out with her own hands in the moat, that we might have our vegetables more handy.

"In this, as in everything else, she was clever, quiet, and independent; I may say I got to love her dearly, and thought we never should be able to do without her; and yet we had done so long!--We used to sit together for many a pleasant hour, spinning and chatting. I used to talk to her of my dear Count Ernest, and read his letters to her, and when Count Henry was at home, we would stand at the window till late at night, listening to his beautiful playing, and to the nightingales singing. Then she would tell me how her childhood had been pa.s.sed, and of the happy life she had led when her parents were alive, and how well off they had been; and also about her brother; and she spoke of all this without any bitterness, and so I saw that she was quite contented; and that the longer she lived among us, the more she liked us.

"And now, for the first time, I was glad when the winter came, and we were snowed up again by ourselves. When the count was here, we had no peace; though he only received gentlemen, and was particular about these. To be safe from the ladies of the neighbourhood, he had left all the roads without repair, save only a few bridle paths. But it did not come at all as I expected. The count did not leave the castle, and Mr.

Pierre insinuated that it was because he had never been able to forget that faithless love of his, and therefore preferred to live in solitude. I could not get this idea into my stupid old head, for I knew my master too well to believe that he could be so long cast down, for such an amour as that. However, stay he did, and the winter came, and snowed us up; and with us, the count and Mr. Pierre.

"How he managed to get through those long winter-days, is more than I can tell; for he never had been fond of his book. We could hear him playing on the piano out of his own head for hours together, and then he used to take long rides into the woods, and it was fine to see him come home, riding in a cloud of smoke from the nostrils of his snorting horse, his beard all tinkling with icicles, and his grand proud face colored by the frosty air. He had always been a handsome man, and if his hair was getting a trifle thinner and more grey, his eyes looked all the darker and more fiery. He must have found a sweetheart in this neighbourhood, I thought, but we heard nothing; not even in this dull place, where we could hear the leaf fall; market-women and b.u.t.ter-women took care of that. Visits or invitations there were none. I used to shake my head, and Mr. Pierre, who had been used to a gayer life, shook his. He had never dreamed that the count would hold out so long as Christmas.

"'Mamsell Flor,' he said; 'il y a du mystere, as sure as my name is Pierre!' and he would whistle the Ma.r.s.eillaise and wink; but in fact, the rogue knew nothing. To pa.s.s the time, he took it into his head to make love to Mamsell Gabrielle, but he soon let that alone. For modest as she was, yet she had a way of throwing back her head at times, you would have thought she was a d.u.c.h.ess, and he found out that it was none of his Paris sewing women he had to deal with. Something French he must have, and so he took to the Bordeaux wine in our cellars, and often he was so drunk that he could not wait at table. But his master never said a word to him. The count was more gentle than he used to be; he never said an angry word, and at Christmas he made each of us a present. With the new year he took to dining downstairs in the hall, and of an evening he came early, and sat reading the newspapers all alone, at the master's table. But he did not like us to be silent; on the contrary, after supper, he made us stay and sing. The second forester had a fine ba.s.s voice, and Mamselle Gabrielle could sing like the very wood witch herself. We often sat up till past eleven, and it sounded, beautifully in the echo of the great hall. Many a time I saw the count drop the paper, and listen pensively, with his head leaning on his hand. But I always kept thinking of my own dear young count, and what a weary time he had been away; and I used to talk of him to Mamselle Gabrielle, till she sometimes fell asleep;--which made me cross with her.

"For the rest, we were always the best of friends, and it was no small shock to me, when one morning she came to tell me, that she was obliged to give up her place. She did not think the air was good for her; she meant to try another. Well, she had slept very badly, I knew, the night before. She still looked feverish, and her eyes were red; and as often as I called to her, she would begin trembling all over. She might have caught cold, for she had come home late from a walk in the woods the day before, and had gone straight to bed, without coming down to supper. 'Child,' I said;--'it will pa.s.s off. The air of this place is healthy; and where will you find so easy a situation, and so kind a master?--not to speak of my own humble self.' But the more I talked, the more positive she grew, and I thought I should only make her worse; so I went upstairs to my master, to tell him that Mamselle Gabrielle had just given warning.

"The count heard me out, and then he said: 'Do you know any reason for her going, Flor?'--when I began about her health;--'What room have you given her?' 'I took her into mine. Sir,' I said; 'Your honor knows the rooms on the first story, just opposite my lady's bedroom; I have slept in them for twenty years and more, and I never found anything unwholesome for one moment.'"

"He considered a while, and said: 'If Mamselle Gabrielle chooses to go, of course we can't prevent her, Flor; she is her own mistress. But at least, she shall not say that she lost her health in my service. Your rooms look to the forest, and the west winds come blowing against the windows. It must be damp; and in winter there is not a finger's breadth of suns.h.i.+ne. While Mamselle Gabrielle remains, you will have to give her another room. Put her in those opposite, that look into the court; they have the morning-sun full upon them; and then you may advertise for another situation for her.'

"I stared at him. 'I am to put Mamselle Gabrielle in the appartments where our gracious countess slept?'"

"He nodded. 'I will have it so:' he said shortly."

"'But all the furniture is just as it was then;' I went on, without minding his frown. 'How can I give my blessed mistress's things,--her bed and table, and her toilette service--to a stranger?'"

"'You can do as I bid you;' he said, very quietly. 'Leave every thing as it stands.'"

"'And if the poor thing gets worse;'--and I spoke more eagerly;--'whom has she at hand to look after her?'"

"'There is only the pa.s.sage between you;' he answered. 'If Mamselle Gabrielle should be unwell, it will be very easy for you to nurse her.'"

"He sat down to the piano, and began to play, and so I was obliged to go. And I must say, fond as I was of Mamselle Gabrielle, it cut me to the heart to have to go down-stairs, and air those beautiful appartments, to put a servant in them. For that she was, the same as I was. And moreover, I did not like her face, when I told her what the count had been pleased to order. She first turned white, as if she had been frightened, and then she grew scarlet; she curled her lip half scornfully, and said: 'Very well; G.o.d will not forget me, wherever you may please to put me!' She took over her little bed with her, and would not put her bits of clothes in those beautiful inlaid drawers, but left them packed in her little trunk, all ready to go. And I liked that of her; and I kissed her, and begged her pardon in my heart, for having so grudged her my lady's rooms. She sobbed a while on my shoulder, and I had some little trouble in soothing her, but I laid it all upon the fever. That night, I left my door ajar, to hear if she went quietly to sleep; and all was quiet till about twelve o'clock. Then, all of a sudden, I thought I heard her talking loud and angrily. I jumped out of bed, and all the time I was feeling for my slippers, I heard her talking on. I could not catch the words till I got into the pa.s.sage, and then I distinctly heard her say: 'I am only a poor servant-girl; but may the walls of this castle fall upon me, and crush me, rather than ...'

"I knocked at the door,--(which she had bolted by my advice),--and screamed out: 'Gabrielle, child! What is the matter? Answer me, for the love of G.o.d! Whom are you talking to?--Is the room haunted?'--No answer. I looked through the keyhole--nothing to be seen--I went on knocking and calling, but it was a long time before I could get a wiselike answer. 'Mamsell Flor? is that you? what makes you come so late?'--and presently I heard her unbolting the door.

"She stood before me in the darkness; only the snow gave a faint light from the windows. I took her hand, and felt it trembling and ice-cold.

'What makes you come to me so late, Mamsell Flor?' she said--'Have I been talking in my sleep? Oh! yes, I am ill; I think I am in a fever; just feel how my limbs are shaking!' And with that, she burst out crying. I got her to bed again as fast as ever I could, and sat up all night with her.

"In the morning she was too ill to rise, and did not get well again for more than a week. The count did not seem much concerned about it, though he sent Mr. Pierre to enquire after her.

"The first time she came downstairs to supper, my master went up to her, and said a few words in a low voice, and then she walked silently and thoughtfully to her seat. And silent and thoughtful she remained, for the matter of that. But she slept quietly of nights, and did her work, as usual, like a pattern. She asked me now and then, whether any answer had been made to our advertis.e.m.e.nt. Our letters all went through Mr. Pierre's hands, and he had heard of none. But she seemed in no hurry to go, and I was only too glad to have her stay.

"Spring came, and we were still without my dear young count. Instead of him, there arrived one day a very disagreeable stranger, a gentleman from London--and indeed I don't think that even my master was quite glad to see him. But he did his best to receive him civilly, as was due to an old acquaintance; he rode with him all over the country, and he invited people to play cards with him. They would sit up gambling till daybreak; trying all the wines in the cellar, and never once coming down to the hall.

"This went on for about a fortnight, and glad enough I was when I heard that the English Lord was going away next morning. The last day, they had been to dine at the Baron's, eight miles off; it might be about nine o'clock, when we heard their horses come pattering over the bridge. We were just at supper, and I was getting up to take a candle, and light the gentleman upstairs, but before we could leave the table, they came in. The English gentleman foremost, with that look he had in his eyes when he had just dined. And the count came after him, with his riding-whip under his arm, and his spurs jingling with that heavy tread by which I knew that his spirit was up.

"We all rise, and make our bows and curtsies; the English Lord, keeping his hat upon his head, gives us a sort of condescending nod, and says: 'Devil take long rides, Harry! I feel as stiff as a poker! don't let us go upstairs to-night; let us have our grog down here by the chimney corner--I incline to affability towards these your trusty va.s.sals!'--and he stared from one of us to the other, and never listened to what the count was saying to him in French, in a low voice. All at once he catches sight of Mamsell Gabrielle, and chuckles quite out loud. 'Ha! Harry, old boy!' he cries; 'what an old fox you are! do you keep such doves as these in your hen-house? Foi de gentilhomme!'--and he laughed so insolently that I felt the blood rush into my face. 'Let us have this dove at supper, I say, with a good gla.s.s of Burgundy: you have plucked it long ago, of course--' and then another great roar of laughter. My very heart stood still--I looked at the poor girl--she was as white as the wall--and my master looked--Sir, I cannot tell you how he looked. He went close up to the Englishman, where he stood laughing, and said out loud: 'You will ask the young lady's pardon, sir, this moment--and then you will leave the room. I can protect my people from the insolence of any man, be he who he may!'"

"The Lord did not seem to hear him, and kept staring at the girl. 'By Jove!' he said, speaking thick with drink; 'deuced neat built she is!

and I have been in the house a week and more, and never yet--Ah!

Harry--I say--d--d sly old fox is Harry. Come, dear, don't let me frighten you.' And he stretched out his arm to take her round the waist, while the poor thing stood motionless against the wall, as if she had been struck by lightning--when we heard a sharp sound whistling through the air, and with a great oath the Lord drew back his hand. The count had drawn a broad red stripe across it with his riding-whip.

"Sir, I need not tell you all that pa.s.sed that night; only, that by seven o'clock next morning my master had fought the stranger, without seconds, at a place they call the wolfs gap. We heard the crack of the four shots in the still February morning, and half an hour afterwards, the count came home bleeding from his left hand. He did not send for a surgeon, but had it bound up by his valet, Mr. Pierre, who had been with him on the ground, and told us that the Lord had not come off so easily; but he had been able to get on horseback and ride on to the next town.

"What that poor thing,--Gabrielle,--said to it all? Good Lord! She held her peace, as if she had really been turned to stone that evening--and what surprised me rather--she never thought of going to thank her master for what he had done; but she never talked of leaving now.

"From that morning when we heard the shots, she was so changed, I should scarcely have known her. She went through her work as usual, and was neither glad nor sad, only absent; so absent, that of an evening she would sit for hours, staring into the light, as if she were in a trance--and I must say these strange ways became her; she grew handsomer from day to day. We every one of us noticed it. As to the younger functionaries about the place, there was not a single man of them, who was not over head and ears in love with her. But she never seemed to see it--and not one of them had a kinder word to boast of than the others.

"Summer came, and brought no change. The count was still at the castle; Mr. Pierre sitting with his bottle before him half the day; and every body wondering and conjecturing what was likely to come of this new style of living. The busy tongues had a fresh match ready every week for my Master. For he had got to be far gayer; he willingly accepted invitations in the neighbourhood, and even gave little fetes in return, where he was all politeness. I had never known him to be in such a humour before, and I thanked G.o.d for it; the more, as we expected our young count to come home in the Autumn, and it would have broken my heart if they had not met in peace and kindness.

"And oh! Sir, that night, when my Count Ernest came, and his father rode out to meet him--(he came from Berlin, after having pa.s.sed his examination most brilliantly)--I felt--his own mother could not have felt more. And when I saw him, so tall and handsome, riding beside his father through the triumphal arch of fir-trees the men had put up for him across the bridge--and the lovely transparency over the gate, with the word: 'Welcome!' and Mr. Pierre's rockets whizzing right up into the sky, I burst into tears, and could not speak a word--I only took his hand, and kept kissing it again and again.--

"And he was just the same as ever; and he stroked my face, and had his old jokes with me, that were only between us two. Ah! Sir, that was a pleasant meeting! The count--I mean the father--walked upstairs with his son, looking quite pleased and proud; and indeed it was a son to be proud of. I felt so cross with Mamsell Gabrielle, when I asked her what she thought of our young count, and found she could not tell me whether he were dark or fair. But when I came to consider of it, I said to myself that, after all, this was better than falling in love with him--for that was what I had always been afraid of.--Poor shortsighted creatures that we are!

"In the evening I was called upstairs, to help to wait upon the gentlemen, who had their supper in Count Henry's room. Monsieur Pierre's fireworks had so heated him, that he was not to be got out of the cool cellars that night at all; and I was only too happy to take his place, and have a good look at my young count. But my pleasure was soon spoiled, for the count his father soon began to talk again, as he used to do, of the good old times. 'The young folks of the present day,' he said, 'are fit for nothing but to sit by the chimney-corner, with their noses on their books--worse still, to write themselves--even for the daily papers.' I don't remember all he said--only some things that appeared to me the worst--some things I shall not forget to my dying-day.

"You must know. Sir, that when Count Henry had been a half-grown lad, he had, been taken to Paris by his father, just when the Empire was at its height; and as the old count (grand-father to our Count Ernest) had always been of those to whom Napoleon was as a G.o.d, of course they met with the best reception. The old count had been at Paris before, for some years during the revolution; and most of those bad b.l.o.o.d.y men had been his friends; and Count Henry began to talk of these. 'Do you suppose,' he said, 'that the Emperor could have fought these battles with our good bourgeois of the present day? Wild beasts those were he had to tame, and to let loose upon his enemies. There was a scent of blood in the very air of Paris then, that was withering to the sicklier plants; and turned the weaker spirits faint. But to a resolute man, the sulphureous atmosphere proved intoxicating. He would have dared a thousand devils. And as the men, so the women; all had tasted blood--and blood makes brighter eyes than household dust. Just look at our present world,'--he said--'our German world at least--compared to that! all so prim, precise, and regular, like the straight lines of a Dutch garden. Fathers, schoolmasters, and wise professors are there to trim it, and if anything escapes them, there is the police. If ever the brute begins to shew itself in man,--in civilized man--quick comes the police with a summons to expel it; but the beast is not to be expelled--it must have blood--if not in pailfuls, at least in drops--it will turn sneakingly domestic, and suck it from the veins of its nearest neighbour. Out upon the small sly social vices of the day! they are so shabby!--worse:--they are so stupid!--see what they will do for this puny generation when a time for action comes--for great deeds to be done by thorough men, and genuine mettle. When a man says he shrinks from shedding blood, and would not crush a worm, I say it is his own blood he is so chary of, and shrinks from shedding. At that time Death was the Parisian's familiar,--his bosom friend; together they fought and won the Emperor's great victories.' And then my master went on to talk of a ball where his father had been; they called it 'le bal des Zephirs,' because it was given on a spot which had been a churchyard--I forget the name of the church. And just above the skull and cross-bones upon the gateway, they had put up a transparency with the inscription: 'Le bal des Zephirs;' and they had danced like mad upon the graves and tombstones, till morning.

"All this time, my dear young count sat grave and silent, opposite his father, whose discourse, I could plainly see, appeared as blasphemous to him, as it did to me; but he spoke very calmly, and beautiful were the things he said:--'Man has progressed since then,' he said; 'it requires more energy to build up than to destroy.' In his opinion: 'a world without a sense of veneration must necessarily decay and fall in pieces, like a building without cement;' and more of the like which I have forgotten, more's the pity; but when he spoke, I used rather to watch his eyes, than mind his lips! His eyes would grow so clear, you could look right through them. Only one thing more I recollect; he said: 'A generation that can dance on the graves of its fathers, will a.s.suredly care little for its children; a man who tramples upon the past, is unworthy of a future--'

"As these words escaped him, he turned red and stopped short,--fearful lest his father should be offended by them. But, bless you, he was not used to mind such trifles!

"'Bah!' says he: 'we are all the same--only we are quieter; we do the same things, only not to the sound of fifes and trumpets--we have no piping to our dancing. In every generation man is selfish, and has a right to be. There was another kind of ball in those days, they called it le bal des victimes. When the Convention had confiscated the property of the guillotined, it was returned to their heirs, after the 9th Thermidor. Thus many of them held their lands, par la grace de Robespierre. Young men began to live fast again, and to enjoy themselves. They gave b.a.l.l.s where only those were admitted who could prove that some very near relation had been beheaded; it was a sort of herald's office to the scaffold; and to shew their grat.i.tude for their inheritance, they invented a peculiar mode of salutation. A gentleman would go up to a lady, and jerk his head forwards, as if he dropped it, and the lady would do the same. They called it Salut a la victime; and all this with fiddling and dancing, and wax-lights and champagne. I do not admire that style of thing myself; it was a fas.h.i.+on like any other, and not a pretty one, I think; but I really do see no improvement in young people's babbling of the sanct.i.ty of family ties, and of their duty to their fathers, and forefathers, and sighing in secret for their turn to come, even if without the connivance of a Robespierre.'"

"I left the room, for I could not hear him speak in such a way, to such a son. I waited in the antechamber till Count Ernest came out to go to bed. He was sad and silent, and would have pa.s.sed without noticing me, but I took up my light, and followed him. In the pa.s.sage he suddenly stopped and looked eagerly up the staircase, that was well lighted with a two-branched lamp. 'What now?' thinks I--and then I saw Mamsell Gabrielle coming down from the loft with some plate she had been to fetch, and pa.s.s us on her way downstairs. When she had quite disappeared; 'Who is that, Flor?' says he, quickly turning to me--'Who is that lady?'

"When I told him, he shook his head. 'Can it be the same?' he murmured, 'or can I be so far mistaken?' And then after a while, when I had come into his room with him: 'Flor,' he said, 'I am right; she was only on a visit to X, when she was at that ball, and she left it again soon after. _Both_ parents did you say?--and so poor,--so friendless--that she was forced to go to service?--'

"'She wants for nothing here;' I said, to pacify him; for then I saw at once that she was that old flame of his, for whom he had pined so long.

'My dear young master,' I said, 'she could never be better off than she is here. His honor is very kind to her, and will have her treated with the greatest consideration and respect.'