Bohemian Days Part 13

Her color fell a little at this, for she had no love for the needle. It was merrier in the _boutique_ to chat with customers, yet she started fairly, and for a week earned a franc a day. The eighth day came; she had no money. Ralph put on his hat and went down the _Rue L'ecole de Medecin_ without her; but his breakfast was unpalatable, indigestible.

Five o'clock came round; she was sitting at the window, perturbedly waiting to see how he would act.

It wrung his heart to think that she was hungry, but he tried to be very firm.

"I am going to dinner, Suzette! I keep my word, you see."

"It is well, Ralph."

That night they said little to each other. The dovecote was quite cold, for the autumn days were running out, and they lighted a hearth fire.

Suzette made pretence of reading. She had an impenitent look; for she conceived that she had been cruelly treated, and would not be soothed nor kissed. Ralph smoked, and said over some old rhymes, and, finally rising, put on his cloak.

"I am going out, Suzette; you don't make my room cheerful."

"_Bien!_"

He walked very slowly and heavily down the stairs, to convince her that he was really going or hoping to be recalled, but she did not speak. He saw the light burning from his windows as he looked up from below. He was regretful and angry. At Terrapin's room he drank much raw brandy and sang a song. He even called the astute Terrapin a humbug, and toward midnight grew quarrelsome. They escorted him to his hotel door; the light was still burning in his room. He was sober and repentant when he had ascended the long stairs, though he counterfeited profound drunkenness when he stood before her.

She had been weeping, and in her white night-habit, with her dark hair falling loosely upon her shoulders, she was very lovely. The clock struck one as they looked at each other. She fell upon his neck and removed his garments, and wrapped him away between the coverlets; and he watched her for a long time in the flickering light till a deep sleep fell upon him, so that he could not feel how closely he was clasped in her arms.

PART III.

CONSCIENCE.

Lest it has not been made clear in these paragraphs whether Suzette was a good or a wicked being, we may give the matured and recent judgment of Ralph Flare himself. Put to the test of religion, or even of respectability, this intimacy was baneful. A wild young man had broken his honor for the companions.h.i.+p of a poor, errant girl. She was poor, but she hated to work; she had no regard for his money; she did not share his ambition. Making against her a case thus clear and certain, Ralph Flare entered for Suzette the plea of _not_ wicked, and this was his defence!

_She was educated in France._ Particular sins lose their shame in some countries. Woman in France had not the high mission and respect which she fulfilled in his own land. Suzette was one of many children. Her father was the cultivator of a few acres in Normandy. Her mother died as the infant was ushered into the world. To her father and brothers she was of an unprofitable s.e.x, and her sisters disliked her because she was handsomer than they. Her childhood was cheerless enough, for she had quick instincts, and her education availed only to teach her how grand was the world, and how confined her life. She left her home by stealth, in the night, and alone. In the city of Cherbourg she found occupation.

She dwelt with strangers; she was lonely; her poverty and her beauty were her sorrows. She was a girl only till her fifteenth year.

The young mother has but one city of refuge--Paris. Without friends she pa.s.sed the bitterness of reminiscence. Through the poverty of skill or sustenance she lost her boy, and the great city lay all before her where to choose. Luckily, in France every avenue to struggle was not closed to her sisterhood; with us such gather only the wages of sin. It was not there an irreparable disgrace to have fallen. For a full year she lived purely, industriously, lonely; what adventures ensued Ralph knew imperfectly. She met, he believed that she loved him. It was not probable, of course, that she came out of the wrestle unscathed. She deceived in little things, but he knew when to trust her. She was quick-tempered and impatient of control, but he understood her, and their quarrels were harbingers of their most happy seasons. She was generous, affectionate, artless. He did not know among the similar attachments of his friends any creature so pliable, so true, so beautiful.

It was upon her acquaintances that Ralph placed the blame when she erred. Fanchette was one of these--the dame of a student from Bretagne, a worldly, plotting, masculine woman--the only one whom he permitted to visit her. It was Fanchette who loaned her money when she was indolent, and who prompted her to ask favors beyond his means.

Toward the end of every month Ralph's money ran out, and then he was petulant and often upbraided her. Those were the only times when he essayed to study, and he would not walk with her of evenings, so dest.i.tute. Then Fanchette amused her: "Sew in my room," she would say; "Ralph will come for you at eight o'clock." But Ralph never went, and Fanchette poisoned his little girl's mind.

"When will you leave Paris, baby?" said Suzette one evening, as she returned from her friend's and found him sitting moodily by the fire.

"Very soon," he replied crisply; "that is, if ever I have money or resolution enough to start."

"Won't you take me with you, little one?"

"No!"

"You don't love me any more!"

"Pis.h.!.+"

"Kiss me, my boy!"

"Oh, go away, you bother me--you always bother me when my money is low.

Haven't I told you about it before?"

But the next morning as Suzette made her toilet, older and more silently, he felt repentant, and called her to him, and they talked a long while of nothingnesses. He had a cruel way of playing with her feelings.

"Suzette," he would say, "would you like me to take you to my country and live with you forever?"

"Very much, my child!"

"My father has a beautiful farm, which he means to give to me. There is a grand old house upon it, and from the high porch you can see the blue bay speckled with sails. The orchards are filled with apples and pears.

You must walk an hour to get around the corn-fields, and there is a picnic ground in the beech-woods, where we might entertain our friends.

I have many friends. How jolly you would look in my big rocking-chair, before the fireplace blazing with logs, and with your lap full of chestnuts, telling me of Paris life!"

She was drinking it all in, and the blood was ripe in her cheeks.

"Think, little one," he said, "of pa.s.sing our days there, you and I! I have made you my wife, for example; I paint great pictures; you are proud of me; everybody respects you; you have your saddle-horse and your tea-parties; you learn to be ashamed of what you were; you are anxious to be better--not in people's eyes only, but in mine, in your own. To do good deeds; to sit in the church hearing good counsel; to be patted upon the forehead by my father--his daughter!--and to call my brother your brother also. Thus honored, contented, good, your hairs turn gray with mine. We walk along hand in hand so evenly that we do not perceive how old we are growing. We may forget everything but our love; that remains when we are gone--a part of our children's inheritance."

He spoke excellent French now; to her it was eloquence. Her arms were around his neck. He could feel her heart, beating. He had expressed what she scarcely dared to conceive--all her holiest, profoundest hopes, her longing for what she had never been, for what she believed she would try to be worthy of.

"Oh, my baby," she cried, half in tears, "you make me think! I have never thought much or often; I wish I was a scholar, as you are, to tell you how, since we have dwelt together, something like that has come to me in a dream. Perhaps it is because you talk to me so that I love you so greatly. n.o.body ever spoke to me so before. That is why I am angry when your proud friend Lizzie writes to you. All that good fortune is for her; you are to quit Paris and me. My name will be unworthy to be mentioned to her. How shall I be in this bad city, growing old; yet I would try so earnestly to improve and be grateful!"

"Would you, truly, sweetheart?"

She only sobbed and waited; he coughed in a dry way and unclasped her hands.

"I pity you, poor Suzette," he said, "but it is quite impossible for us to be more to each other. My people would never speak to me if I behaved so absurdly. Go to bed now, and stop crying; good-night."

She staggered up, so crushed and bowed and haggard that his conscience smote him. He could not have done a greater cruelty to one like her--teaching her to hope, then to despair. The next day, and the next, she worked at Fanchette's. His remittance did not come; he was out of temper, and said in jest that he would set out for Italy within a week.

There was a pale decision in her countenance the fourth morning. She put on her gray robe and a little cap which she had made. He did not offer to kiss her, and she did not beseech it. He saw her no more until nine o'clock, when she came in with Fanchette, and her cheeks were flushed as with wine. This made him more angry. He said nothing to either of them and went to sleep silently.

The fifth day she returned as before. He was sitting up by the fireplace; his rent was due; he was quite cast down, and said:

"Dear, when my purse was full you never went away two whole days, leaving me alone."

"You are to leave me, Ralph, forever!" But she was touched, and in the morning said that she would come back at midday. Still no remittance. He felt like a bear. Twelve o'clock came--Suzette did not appear. It drifted on to one; he listened vainly for her feet upon the stairs. At two he sat at the window watching; she entered at three, half mild, half timorous, and gave him a paper of sugar plums.

"Where did those come from?" he asked, with a scowl.

"Fanchette gave them to me."

"I don't believe it; there is _kirsch wa.s.ser_ on your lips; you have been drinking."

She drew her handkerchief from her pocket; a little box, gilt-edged, came out with it, and rolled into the middle of the floor. Suzette leaped for it with a quick pallor; he wrenched it from her hands after a fierce struggle, and delving into the soft cotton with which it was packed, brought out sleeve-b.u.t.tons of gold and a pearl breastpin. They were new and glittering, and they flashed a burning suspicion into his heart. He forced her unresisting into a chair, and flung them far out of the window, over the house-roofs. Then he sat down a moment to gain breath, and marked her with eyes in which she saw that she was already tried and sentenced.

"Who gave you those things, Suzette?" he asked in a forced, strange monotone.