V.
“What art thou writing, my brother?” asked Julie from among her pillows one day; “something for the journals?”
“Oui, cherie.”
“Oh, dear Julien, take care! do not say that the Emperor of America is not a good Emperor!”
“Fear not, mon enfant: we are in a free country where one says what one pleases.”
Julien brought a basin which had been heating on the stove.
“Here is something for thee, little one.”
“Wilt thou not have of it also, brother? Let us dine together. I never see thee eat.”
“The beef tea is not for strong men: it is for the little invalids.”
“Ah, but thou art not strong! I remember when thy cheeks were like the rose. Now thou art so pale and thin! and I saw thy hand tremble while thou wast writing. Oh, my brother, if thou shouldst be sick, I fear I could not be to thee the good angel thou art to me. Come, take of this a little: it is excellent.”
“I have already dined, cherie.”
“When?”
“While thou wast sleeping.”
“I bet thy dinner was not so good as mine! n’est ce pas?”
No, truly it was not. It was of stale bread, as wee a morsel as ever kept body and soul together. But the little one must never know.
“Tell me, Julie, who is oncle le capitaine?”
“Oh, that is the monsieur charming who gave me a ride in his ship. He promised to find thee for me. But who hast thou heard to speak of him?”
“A little fairy. And so he gave thee the ride?”
“Yes, Julien, was he not good? He would not take the cross—thou rememberest?—our poor mamma’s beautiful cross. It was yesterday, was it not, that I was telling thee how she gave it to me? Madame locked it in the drawer. I wonder if she would not let thee have it if thou wert to ask her? for thou art a man, and thou canst speak English, and she will comprehend. Oh, dear Julien, what is the matter? what have I said? art thou angry with me?”
“No, not with thee, my poor dear little angel! but with those people there—the brutes!”
“Comment! who has told thee of them, my brother?”
“A little fairy.”
“Who is that little fairy that tells thee so much? what is she called?”
“She is called Julie.”
“Comment! what dost thou say? I am she! But how could I tell thee, since thou wilt scarcely allow me to speak a single word, dear monsieur le docteur?”
“My poor little Julie has had bad dreams and talked in her sleep. There, now, thou art weary. Close thy pretty eyes and rest thee. Already, I fear, I have let thee talk too long.”
“But it is so good to be with one who comprehends, and can speak with me our own beautiful language!”
“Poor little sister! when thou art stronger, we will do nothing but talk for a whole day.”
While the child lay sleeping, there came a rap at the outer door. Julien hoped he was going to have a patient. But no, a tall, stout gentleman strode into the office. His face was ruddy, his eyes twinkled merrily. He didn’t look as if he were in any need of medicine.
“I came to ask after the little Julie,” he said. “She came over in my ship,” he explained. “Possibly she has made mention of—”
“Ah! is it ‘oncle le capitaine’?”
“The same,” answered the gentleman, smiling.
“Then let me thank you for your kindness to my little sister!” cried the young man, grasping his hand. “I know not how to express my gratitude.”
“Bah! where is she?”
“In the next room. She sleeps. She is just recovering from a fever—of the brain.”
“Indeed! Strange that woman should not have spoken of it! Has she been very sick?”
“It has been a struggle for life.”
“Ah-h-h, those Lanes! the rascals! Why, sir, I left the child in charge of people I thought I could trust—people I had befriended. Why, that man, Lane, was head and ears in debt! but for me, he and his would be in want and misery to-day! What do they do, the moment I am out of sight, but send her to an orphan asylum! Sent her off! off West! that was all they could tell me at the asylum. Gone West! Nothing definite. No record, no trace. I’ve had a search, I can tell you. Hunted, advertised, from place to place. Yesterday I came here. It was by this cross I found her. I saw it in a shop window and identified it at once with one little Julie had shown me on shipboard. You recognize it?”
“I do, indeed. It is an heir-loom. It has been handed down through I know not how many generations.”
“I made inquiries in the shop, and was directed to a lady who they said was its owner. She proved to be the person who took the child from the asylum. She seemed strangely embarrassed and disinclined to speak about the matter.”
“With good reason! mon Dieu! my blood boils as I think of it. It was the cruelty and overtask that caused my little one’s illness.”
“I suspected something of the kind. Listen to the condition upon which that person acquainted me with your whereabouts—that I ‘shouldn’t mention the matter to any one in town!’ And there’s something wrong about this cross. She said she was afraid the child might lose it, and so had put it under lock and key for safe keeping, and had afterwards lent it to the jeweler as a curiosity. But he was wonderfully inquisitive, and undertook to pump me when I went back after it. What do you think he had labeled it? As one of the jewels of your ex-Empress!”
“C’en est trop![7] these Yankees!” exclaimed Julien; then coloring to the roots of his hair he stammered:
“Pardon, monsieur!”
“No offense,” said the captain, smiling. “I am, then, so genuine a Yankee?”
“I do not say it,” the other slowly answered.
The captain laughed aloud.
Julien opened the inner door.
“Didst thou call, sister?”
“Oui, mon frere. Tell me who is with thee? But I know it—I! It is oncle le capitaine! I heard him laugh!”
“Bonjour, bonjour, mademoiselle l’Empress! how is your Majesty’s health to-day?” cried a voice over Julien’s shoulder. “See, little pale one, I come to bring thee thy cross.”
“Oh, the cross of mamma! the cross of mamma!” exclaimed Julie, seizing it and covering it with kisses, while silent tears crept down her wan cheeks.
Julien turned away to the window, and the captain sat down by the couch and shaded his eyes with his hand.
“But, mon oncle,” said Julie after awhile, “tell me, did you have a good voyage? Did the great waves come and tip the ship right over on its side and almost spill you out? You were gone so long I feared you were drowned. Oh, mon oncle, do not go away again upon the terrible sea; but stay with us, my brother and me.”
“Ah, my little Julie, thy poor old uncle is, upon land, like a fish out of water.”
Julie must not yet hear, the captain thought, the story of that great gale off the coast of the Carolinas, in which his good ship had nearly been wrecked. It would better suit the little convalescent to be told of those islands where he had been; those sunny islands where it is always summer, where oranges and bananas and the rarest and most beautiful flowers grow wild.
While the two were talking, Julien once more took up his pen.
“With monsieur’s permission. An article for the Morning Post. It must be ready within the next two hours.”
“Ah!—a treatise on health, doubtless.”
“A treatise on Louis Napoleon—ce scelerat!”
“My friend, take the advice of your sister’s venerable uncle; let that poor wretch alone. He’s about played out. At all events, you are out of his reach. Stick to your profession. Writing is fool’s business. ‘A jack at all trades is good at none.’”
“But monsieur knows one must find some way to kill time.”
“Ah? Pill-peddling is not a lively business nowadays, I take it.”
“Monsieur, I have set up shop in three cities, and in each have waited three months for a patient.”
“Whew! is that so? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Why be in haste to tell of it, monsieur? It is nothing to boast of, surely!”
“Why? Because I can help you. I am going to help you. I intended to when I came here, if I found you were in need of it.”
“I have not said I was in need. I ask no one for help. What I ask for is—work!”
“Young man, you are altogether too proud! You should take lessons of Young America! Young America isn’t afraid of the jingling of coin. Young America doesn’t spurn a good offer. Young America would jump at the chance. But as for work, why, work will come to you if you only wait for it long enough. ‘Patient waiters are no losers.’”
“Wait, wait, wait! mon Dieu! and the child there!”
“Yes, we must think of her! Come, my dear fellow, you’ve had a hard row to hoe. No use denying!”
Julien was silent for a few moments; then he said:
“I will confess, monsieur, that I have seen times when I have wished myself well back in France. There, at least, one could fight for one’s country.”
“Is it worth fighting for? Poor France!—a republic, a kingdom, an empire, a bedlam, by fits! ruled yesterday by an idiot, to-day by a lynx, to-morrow by a pack of bloodhounds! Better off where you are, young man; better off where you are.”
Julien had arisen, and stood glaring at the captain.
“Monsieur forgets he is speaking of the land of my birth!”
“And of the land of his birth, as well,” was the quiet reply.
“Quoi! what do I understand monsieur to say?”
“Have you never heard your mother speak of her brother Jean?”
“Often.”
“I am he.”
“But no! He entered a monastery. He was a monk.”
“Still again, I am he. At your age I grew weary of the cloister. Disguised as a sailor I escaped to the United States; and disguised as a sailor I have knocked about the world ever since. My own country is the one I avoid most of all. I suppose I never should have known aught of Marguerite’s children if the little Julie had not come to me just as she did. Indeed, although she told me her name, I never suspected who she might be until she showed me her poor mother’s cross. In the cloister one is buried from the world. I did not know whom my sister married. He, too, is dead, the child told me. I mean your father.”
“General Leblanc, of the Italian campaign—you have never heard of him? It was there that he lost his life.”
“Poor Marguerite! She was coming to you, it seems, and fell ill upon the way.”
“I first learned it from Julie. I had received no tidings for months. Our home was in the region which has fallen into the enemy’s clutches. Mails, of course, were stopped. What other reason for the silence? Mon Dieu! the agony of suspense! I should have returned immediately when the republic was declared, if I could have seen my way—”
“And you two might have sought each other till your locks were gray—and probably would never have met.”
“Mon oncle, please tell to me also those strange, sad things you have been telling my brother now for a long time in that dreadful English, till suddenly, at this moment, he looks frightened.”
Julien went over to the little questioner and kissed her wondering eyes.
“Thy uncle, sister—dear angel!—has been telling me that he is also my uncle.”
[7] That’s too much!