CHAPTER VII.
LOOKING BACK.
The half of a life! for so Marie counted the loss of her violin. She never spoke of this—to whom should she speak? In her husband's eyes it was a thing accursed, she knew. She almost hoped he had forgotten about the precious treasure that lay so quietly in some dark nook in the lonely garret; for as long as he did not think of it, it was safe there, and she should not feel that terrible anguish that had seemed to rend body and soul when she saw him lay the violin across his knee to break it. And Abby came not, and gave no sign; and there was no one else.
She saw little of the neighbours at first. The women looked rather askance at her, and thought her little better than a fool, even if she had contrived to make one of Jacques De Arthenay. She never seemed to understand their talk, and had a way of looking past them, as if unaware of their presence, that was disconcerting, when one thought well of oneself. But Marie was not a fool, only a child; and she did not look at the women simply because she was not thinking of them. With the children, however, it was different Marie felt that she would have a great deal to say to the children, if only she had the half of her that could talk to them. Ah, how she would speak, with Madame on her arm! What wonders she could tell them, of fairies and witches, of flowers that sang and birds that danced! But this other part of her was shy, and she did not feel that she had anything worth saying to the little ones, who looked at her with half-frightened, half-inviting eyes when they passed her door. By-and-by, however, she mustered up courage, and called one or two of them to her, and gave them flowers from her little garden. Also a pot of jam with a spoon in it proved an eloquent argument in favour of friendship; and after a while the children fell into a way of sauntering past with backward glances, and were always glad to come in when Marie knocked on the window, or came smiling to the door, with her handkerchief tied under her chin and her knitting in her hand. It was only when her husband was away that this happened; Marie would not for worlds have called a child to meet her husband's eyes, those blue eyes of which, she stood in such terror, even when she grew to love them.
One little boy in particular came often, when the first shyness had worn away. He was an orphan, like Marie herself: a pretty, dark-eyed little fellow, who looked, she fancied, like the children at home in France. He did not expect her to talk and answer questions, but was content to sit, as she loved to do, gazing at the trees or the clouds that went sailing by, only now and then uttering a few quiet words that seemed in harmony with the stillness all around. I have said that Jacques De Arthenay's house lay somewhat apart from the village street. It was a pleasant house, long and low, painted white, with vines trained over the lower part. Directly opposite was a pine grove, and here Marie and her little friend loved to sit, listening to the murmur of the wind in the dark feathery branches. It was the sound of the sea, Marie told little Petie. As to how it got there, that was another matter; but it was undoubtedly the sound of the sea, for she had been at sea, and recognised it at once.
"What does it say?" asked the child one day.
"Of words," said Marie, "I hear not any, Petie. But it wants always somesing, do you hear? It is hongry always, and makes moans for the sorry thinks it has in its heart."
"I am hungry in my stomach, not in my heart," objected Petie.
But Marie nodded her head sagely. "Yes," she said. "It is that you know not the deeference, Petie, bit-ween those. To be hongry at the stomach, that is made better when you eat cakes, do you see, or _pot_atoes. But when the heart is hongry, then—ah, yes, that is ozer thing." And she nodded again, and glanced up at the attic window, and sighed.
It was a long time before she spoke of her past life; but when she found that Petie had no sharp-eyed mother at home, only a deaf great-aunt who asked no questions, she began to give him little glimpses of the circus world, which filled him with awe and rapture. It was hardly a real circus, only a little strolling troupe, with some performing dogs, and a few trained horses and ponies, and two tight-rope dancers; then there were two other musicians, and Marie herself, besides Le Boss and his family, and Old Billy, who took care of the horses and did the dirty work. It was about the dogs that Petie liked best to hear; of the wonderful feats of Monsieur George, the great brindled greyhound, and the astonishing sagacity of Coquelicot, the poodle.
"Monsieur George, he could jump over anything, yes! He was always jump, jump, all day long, to practise himself. Over our heads all, that was nothing, yet he did it always when we come in the tent, pour saluer, to say the how you do. But one day come in a man to see Le Boss, very tall, oh, like mountains, and on him a tall hat. And Monsieur George, he not stopped to measure with his eye, for fear he be too late with the politesse, and he jump, and carry away the man's hat, and knock him down and come plomp, down on him. Yes, very funny! The man got a bottle in his hat, and that break, and run all over him, and he say, oh, he say all things what you think of. But Monsieur George was so 'shamed, he go away and hide, and not for a week we see him again. Le Boss think that man poison him, and he goes to beat him; but that same day Monsieur George come back, and stop outside the tent and call us all to come out. And when we come, he run back, and say, 'Look here, what I do!' and he jump, and go clean over the tent, and not touch him wiz his foot. Yes, I saw it: very fine dog, Monsieur George! But Coquelicot, he have more thinking than Monsieur George. He very claiver, Coquelicot! Some of zem think him a witch, but I think not that. He have minds, that was all. But his legs so short, and that make him hate Monsieur George."
"My legs are short," objected Petie, stretching out a pair of plump calves, "but that doesn't make me hate people."
"Ah, but if you see a little boy what can walk over the roof of the house, you want the same to do it, n'est-ce-pas?" cried Marie. "You try, and try, and when you cannot jump, you think that not a so nize little boy as when his legs were short. So boy, so dog. Coquelicot, all his life he want to jump like Monsieur George, and all his life he cannot jump at all. You say to him, 'Coquelicot, are you foolishness? you can do feefty things and George not one of zem: you can read the letters, and find the things in the pocket, and play the ins_tru_ment, and sing the tune to make die people of laughing, yet you are not _con_tent. Let him have in peace his legs, Monsieur George, then!' But no! and every time Monsieur George come down from the great jump, Coquelicot is ready, and bite his legs so hard what he can."
Petie laughed outright. "I think that's awful funny!" he said. "I say, Mis' De Arthenay, I'd like to seen him bite his legs. Did he holler?"
"Monsieur George? He cry, and go to his bed. All the dogs, they afraid of Coquelicot, because he have the minds. And he, Coquelicot, he fear nossing, except Madame when she is angry."
"Who was she?" asked Petie,—"a big dog?"
"Ah, dog, no!" cried Marie, her face flushing. "Madame my violon, my life, my pleasure, my friend. Ah, mon Dieu, what friend have I?" Her breast heaved, and she broke into a wild fit of crying, forgetting the child by her side, forgetting everything in the world save the hunger at her heart for the one creature to whom she could speak, and who could speak in turn to her.
Petie sat silent, frightened at the sudden storm of sobs and tears. What had he done, he wondered? At length he mustered courage to touch his friend's arm softly with his little hand.
"I didn't go to do it!" he said. "Don't ye cry, Mis' De Arthenay! I don't know what I did, but I didn't go to do it, nohow."
Marie turned and looked at him, and smiled through her tears. "Dear little Petie!" she said, stroking the curly head, "you done nossing, little Petie. It was the honger, no more! Oh, no more!" she caught her breath, but choked the sob back bravely, and smiled again. Something woke in her child heart, and bade her not sadden the heart of the younger child with a grief which was not his. It is one of the lessons of life, and it was well with Marie that she learned it early.
"Madame, my violon," she resumed after a pause, speaking cheerfully, and wiping her eyes with her apron, "she have many voices, Petie; tousand voices, like all birds, all winds, all song in the world; and she have an angry voice, too, deep down, what make you tr-remble in your heart, if you are bad. Bien! Sometime Coquelicot, he been bad, very bad. He know so much, that make him able for the bad, see, like for the good. Yes! Sometime, he steal the sugar; sometime he come in when we make music, and make wiz us yells, and spoil the music; sometime he make the horreebl' faces at the poppies and make scream them with fear."
"Kin poppies scream?" asked Petie, opening great eyes of wonder. "My! ourn can't. We've got big red ones, biggest ever you see, but I never heerd a sound out of 'em."
Explanations ensued, and a digression in favour of the six puppies, whose noses were softer and whose tails were funnier than anything else in the known, world; and then—
"So Coquelicot, he come and he sit down before the poppies, and he open his mouth, so!" here Marie opened her pretty mouth, and tried to look like a malicious poodle,—with singular lack of success; but Petie was delighted, and clapped his hands and laughed.
"And then," Marie went on, "Lisette, she is the poppies' mother, and she hear them, and she come wiz yells, too, and try to drive Coquelicot, but he take her wiz his teeth and shake her, and throw her away, and go on to make faces, and all is horreebl' noise, to wake deads. So Old Billy call me, and I come, and I go softly behind Coquelicot, and down I put me, and Madame speak in her angry voice justly in Coquelicot's ear. 'La la! tra la li la!' deep down like so, full wiz angryness, terreebl', yes! And Coquelicot he jump, oh my! oh my! never he could jump so of all his life. And the tail bit-ween his legs, and there that he run, run, as if all devils run after him. Yes, funny, Petie, vairy funny!" She laughed, and Petie laughed in violent, noisy peals, as children love to do, each gust of merriment fanning the fire for another, till all control is lost, and the little one drops into an irrepressible fit of the "giggles." So they sat under the pine-trees, the two children, and laughed, and Marie forgot the hunger at her heart; till suddenly she looked and saw her husband standing near, leaning on his rake and gazing at her with grave, uncomprehending eyes. Then the laugh froze on her lips, and she rose hastily, with the little timid smile which was all she had for Jacques (yet he was hungry too, so hungry! and knew not what ailed him!) and went to meet him; while Petie ran away through the grove, as fast as his little legs would carry him.
CHAPTER VIII.
A FLOWER IN THE SNOW.
The winter, when it came, was hard for Marie. She had never known severe weather before, and this season it was bitter cold. People shook their heads, and said that old times had come again, and no mistake. There was eager pride in the lowest mercury, and the man whose thermometer registered thirty degrees below zero was happier than he who could boast but of twenty-five. There was not so much snow as in milder seasons, but the cold held without breaking, week after week: clear weather; no wind, but the air taking the breath from the dryness of it, and in the evening the haze hanging blue and low that tells of intensest cold. As the snow fell, it remained. The drifts and hollows never changed their shape, as in a soft or a windy season, but seemed fixed as they were for all time. Across the road from Jacques De Arthenay's house, a huge drift had been piled by the first snowstorm of the winter. Nearly as high as the house it was, and its top combed forward, like a wave ready to break; and in the blue hollow beneath the curling crest was the likeness of a great face. A rock cropped out, and ice had formed upon its surface, so that the snow fell away from it. The explanation was simple enough; Jacques De Arthenay, coming and going at his work, never so much as looked at it; but to Marie it was a strange and a dreadful thing to see. Night and morning, in the cold blue light of the winter moon and the bright hard glitter of the winter sun, the face was always there, gazing in at her through the window, seeing everything she did, perhaps—who could tell?—seeing everything she thought. She changed her seat, and drew down the blind that faced the drift; yet it had a strange fascination for her none the less, and many times in the day she would go and peep through the blind, and shiver, and then come away moaning in a little way that she had when she was alone. It was pitiful to see how she shrank from the cold,—the tender creature who seemed born to live and bloom with the flowers, perhaps to wither with them. Sometimes it seemed to her as if she could not bear it, as if she must run away and find the birds, and the green and joyous things that she loved. The pines were always green, it is true, in the little grove across the way; but it was a solemn and gloomy green, to her child's mind,—she had not yet learned to love the steadfast pines. Sometimes she would open the door with a wild thought of flying out, of flying far away, as the birds did, and rejoining them in southern countries where the sun was warm, and not a fire that froze while it lighted one. So cold! so cold! But when she stood thus, the little wild heart beating fiercely in her, the icy blast would come and chill her into quiet again, and turn the blood thick, so that it ran slower in her veins; and she would think of the leagues and leagues of pitiless snow and ice that lay between her and the birds, and would close the door again, and go back to her work with that little weary moan.
Her husband was very kind in these days; oh, very kind and gentle. He kept the dark moods to himself, if they came upon him, and tried even to be gay, though he did not know how to set about it. If he had ever known or looked at a child, this poor man, he would have done better; but it was not a thing that he had ever thought of, and he did not yet know that Marie was a child. Sometimes when she saw him looking at her with the grave, loving, uncomprehending look that so often followed her as she moved about, she would come to him and lay her head against his shoulder, and remain quiet so for many minutes; but when he moved to stroke her dark head, and say, "What is it, Mary? what troubles you?" she could only say that it was cold, very cold, and then go away again about her work.
Sometimes an anguish would seize him, when he saw how pale and thin she grew, and he would send for the village doctor, and beg him to give her some "stuff" that would make her plump and rosy again; but the good man shook his head, and said she needed nothing, only care and kindness,—kindness, he repeated, with some emphasis, after a glance at De Arthenay's face, and good food. "Cheerfulness," he said, buttoning up his fur coat under his chin,—"cheerfulness, Mr. De Arthenay, and plenty of good things to eat. That's all she needs." And he went away wondering whether the little creature would pull through the winter or not.
And Jacques did not throw the food into the fire any more; he even tried to think about it, and care about it. And he got out the Farmer's Almanac,—yes, he did,—and tried reading the jokes aloud, to see if they would amuse Mary; but they did not amuse her in the least, or him either, so that was given up. And so the winter wore on.
It had to end sometime; even that winter could not last forever. The iron grasp relaxed: fitfully at first, with grim clutches and snatches at its prey, gripping it the closer because it knew the time was near when all power would go, drop off like a garment, melt away like a stream. The unchanging snow-forms began to shift, the keen outlines wavered, grew indistinct, fell into ruin, as the sun grew warm again, and sent down rays that were no longer like lances of diamond. The glittering face in the hollow of the great drift lost its watchful look, softened, grew dim and blurred; one morning it was gone. That day Marie sang a little song, the first she had sung through all the long, cruel season. She drew up the blind and gazed out; she wrapped a shawl round her head and went and stood at the door, afraid of nothing now, not even thinking of making those tiresome horns. She was aware of something new in the air she breathed. It was still cold, but with a difference; there was a breathing as of life, where all had been dry, cold death. There was a sense of awakening everywhere; whispers seemed to come and go in the tops of the pine-trees, telling of coming things, of songs that would be sung in their branches, as they had been sung before; of blossoms that would spring at their feet, brightening the world with gold and white and crimson.
Life! life stirring and waking everywhere, in sky and earth; soft clouds sweeping across the blue, softening its cold brightness, dropping rain as they go; sap creeping through the ice-bound stems, slowly at first, then running freely, bidding the tree awake and be at its work, push out the velvet pouch that holds the yellow catkin, swell and polish the pointed leaf-buds: life working silently under the ground, brown seeds opening their leaves to make way for the tender shoot that shall draw nourishment from them and push its way on and up while they die content, their work being done; roots creeping here and there, threading their way through the earth, softening, loosening, sucking up moisture and sending it aloft to carry on the great work,—life everywhere, pulsing in silent throbs, the heart-beats of Nature; till at last the time is ripe, the miracle is prepared, and
"In green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins."
Marie too, the child-woman, standing in her doorway, felt the thrill of new life; heard whispers of joy, but knew not what they meant; saw a radiance in the air that was not all sunlight; was conscious of a warmth at her heart which she had never known in her merriest days. What did it all mean? Nay, she could not tell, she was not yet awake. She thought of her friend, of the silent voice that had spoken so often and so sweetly to her, and the desire grew strong upon her. If she died for it, she must play once more on her violin.
There came a day in spring when the desire mastered the fear that was in her. It was a perfect afternoon, the air a-lilt with bird-songs, and full of the perfume of early flowers. Her husband was ploughing in a distant field, and surely would not return for an hour or two; what might one not do in an hour? She called her little friend, Petie, who was hovering about the door, watching for her. Quickly, with fluttering breath, she told him what she meant to do, bade him be brave and fear nothing; locked the door, drew down the blinds, and closed the heavy wooden shutters; turned to the four corners of the room, bowing to each corner, as she muttered some words under her breath; and then, catching the child's hand in hers, began swiftly and lightly to mount the attic stairs.