LOST IN THE LOUVRE.
"Oh how I wish that I had lived
In the ages that are gone!"
A CHILD'S WISH.
It was—did I say so before? the children's first visit to Paris. They had travelled a good deal, for such small people quite "a very good deal," as Molly used to maintain for the benefit of their less experienced companions. They knew England, "of course," Ralph would say in his lordly, big-boy fashion, Scotland too, and Wales, and they had spent some time in Germany. But they had never been in Paris, and the excitement on finding the journey safely past and themselves really there was very considerable.
"And, Molly," said Sylvia, on their way from the railway station to the hotel where rooms had been engaged for them, "remember you've promised not to awake me in the middle of the night if you begin thinking about the top of the bed coming down."
"And, oh, Sylvia! I wish you hadn't reminded me of it just now," said Molly pathetically, for which all the satisfaction she received was a somewhat curt observation from Sylvia, that she shouldn't be so silly.
For Sylvia, though in reality the kindest of little elder sisters, was sometimes inclined to be "short" with poor Molly. Sylvia was clever and quick, and very "capable," remarkably ready at putting herself, as it were, in the place of another and seeing for the time being, through his or her spectacles. While Molly had not got further than opening wide her eyes, and not unfrequently her mouth too, Sylvia, practical in the way that only people of lively imagination can be so, had taken in the whole case, whatever it might be, and set her ready wits to work as to the best thing to be said or done. And Molly would wonderingly admire, and wish she could manage to "think of things" the way Sylvia did.
They loved each other dearly, these two—but to-night they were tired, and when people, not children only, big people too, very often—are tried, it is only a very little step to being cross and snappish. And when aunty, tired too, and annoyed by the unamiable tones, turned round to beg them to "try to leave off squabbling; it was so thoughtless of them to disturb their grandmother," two or three big tears welled up in Molly's eyes, though it was too dark in the omnibus, which was taking them and their luggage from the station, for any one to see, and she thought to herself what a terrible disappointment it would be if, after all, this delightful, long-talked-of visit to Paris, were to turn out not delightful at all. And through Sylvia's honest little heart there darted a quick sting of pain and regret for her sharpness to Molly. How was it that she could not manage to keep the resolutions so often and so conscientiously made? How was it that she could not succeed in remembering at the time, the very moment at which she was tempted to be snappish and supercilious, her never-really-forgotten motive for peculiar gentleness and patience with her younger sister, the promise she had made, now so many years ago, to the mother Molly could scarcely even remember, to be kind, very kind, and gentle to the little, flaxen-haired, toddling thing, the "baby" whom that dear mother had loved so piteously.
"Eight years ago," said Sylvia to herself. "I was five and Molly only three and a half then. Poor little Molly, how funny she was!"
And a hand crept in under Molly's sleeve, and a whisper reached her ear.
"I don't mean to be cross or to tease you, Molly."
And Molly in a moment was her own queer, happy, muddle-headed little self again.
"Dear Sylvia," she whispered in return, "of course you don't. You never do, and if the top of the bed did come down, I'm sure I'd pull you out first, however sleepy I was. Only of course I know it won't, and it's just my silly way, but when I'm as big as you, Sylvia, I'll get out of it, I'm sure."
"You're as big as me now, you silly girl," said Sylvia laughingly, which was true. Molly was tall and well-grown for her age, while Sylvia was small, so that very often, to Molly's delight, they were taken for twins.
"In my body, but not in my mind," rejoined Molly, with a little sigh. "I wish the growing would go into my mind for a little, though I wouldn't like to be much smaller than you, Sylvia. Perhaps we shouldn't be dressed alike, then."
"Do be quiet, Molly, you are such an awful chatterbox," growled Ralph from his corner. "I was just having a nice little nap."
He was far too "grown-up" to own to the eagerness with which, as they went along, he had been furtively peeping out at the window beside him—or to join in Molly's screams of delight at the brilliance of the illumined shop windows, and the interminable perspective of gas lamps growing longer and longer behind them as they rapidly made their way.
A sudden slackening of their speed, a sharp turn, and a rattle over the stones, told of their arrival at their destination. And "Oh!" cried Molly, "I am so glad. Aren't you awfully hungry, Sylvia?"
And grandmother, who, to tell the truth, had been indulging in a peaceful, real little nap—not a sham one like Ralph's—quite woke up at this, and told Molly it was the best sign in the world to be hungry after a journey; she was delighted to find her so good a traveller.
The "dinner-tea" which, out of consideration for the children's home hours, had been ordered for them, turned out delicious. Never had they tasted such butter, such bread, such grilled chicken, and fried potatoes! And to complete Molly's satisfaction the beds proved to have no tops to them at all.
"I told you so," said Ralph majestically, when they had made the tour of the various rooms and settled who was to have which, and though neither Sylvia nor Molly had the slightest recollection of his "telling you so," they were wise enough to say nothing.
"But the little doors in the walls are quite as bad, or worse," Ralph continued mischievously. "There's one at the head of your bed, Molly,"—Molly and Sylvia were to have two little beds in the same room, standing in a sort of alcove—"which I am almost sure opens on to a secret staircase."
Molly gave a little shiver, and looked up appealingly.
"Ralph, you are not to tease her," said aunty. "Remember all your promises to your father."
Ralph looked rather snubbed.
"Let us talk of something pleasant," continued aunty, anxious to change the subject. "What shall we do to-morrow? What shall we go to see first?"
"Yes," said grandmother. "What are your pet wishes, children?"
"Notre Dame," cried Molly.
"The Louvre," said Sylvia.
"Anything you like. I don't care much for sightseeing," said Ralph.
"That's a pity," said aunty drily. "However, as you are the only gentleman of the party, and we are all dependent on you, perhaps it is just as well that you have no special fancies of your own. So to-morrow I propose that we should go a drive in the morning, to give you a general idea of Paris, returning by Notre Dame. In the afternoon I have some calls to make, and a little shopping to do, and you three must not forget to write to your father. Then the next day we can go to the Louvre, as Sylvia wished."
"Thank you, aunty," said Sylvia. "It isn't so much for the pictures I want to go, but I do so want to see the room where poor Henry the Fourth was killed. I am so fond of Henry the Fourth."
Aunty smiled, and Ralph burst out laughing.
"What a queer idea!" he said. "If you are so fond of him, I should think you would rather not see the room where he was killed."
Sylvia grew scarlet, and Molly flew up in her defence.
"You've no business to laugh at Sylvia, Ralph," she cried. "I understand her quite well. And she knows a great deal more history than you do—and about pictures, too. Of course we want to see the pictures, too. There's that beautiful blue and orange one of Murillo's that papa has a little copy of. It's at the Louvre."
"I didn't say it wasn't," retorted Ralph. "It's Sylvia's love of horrors I was laughing at."
"She doesn't love horrors," replied Molly, more and more indignant.
"You needn't talk," said Ralph coolly. "Who was it that took a box of matches in her pocket to Holyrood Palace, and was going to strike one to look for the blood-stains on the floor? It was the only thing you cared to see, and yet you are such a goose—crying out if a butterfly settles on you. I think girls are——"
"Ralph, my boy," said grandmother, seeing that by this time Molly was almost in tears; "whatever you think of girls, you make me, I am sorry to say, think that boys' love of teasing is utterly incomprehensible—and oh, so unmanly!"
The last touch went home.
"I was only in fun, grandmother," said Ralph with unusual meekness; "I didn't mean really to vex Molly."
So peace was restored.
To-morrow turned out fine, deliriously fine.
"Not like England," said Molly superciliously, "where it always rains when you want it to be fine."
They made the most of the beautiful weather, though by no means agreeing with aunty's reminder that even in Paris it did sometimes rain, and the three pairs of eager feet were pretty tired by the time bed-time came.
And oh, what a disappointment the next morning brought!
The children woke to a regular, pouring wet day, no chance of fulfilling the programme laid out, for Sylvia was subject to sore throats, and grandmother would not let her go out in the damp, and there would be no fun in going to the Louvre without her. So, as what can't be cured must be endured, the children had just to make the best of it and amuse themselves in the house in the hopes of sunshine again for to-morrow. These hopes were happily fulfilled.
"A lovely day," said aunty, "all the brighter for yesterday's rain."
"And we may go to the Louvre," exclaimed Sylvia eagerly.
Aunty hesitated and turned, as everybody did when they were at a loss, to grandmother.
"What do you think?" she said. She was reluctant to disappoint the children—Sylvia especially—as they had all been very good the day before, but yet——"It is Saturday, and the Louvre will be so crowded you know, mother."
"But I shall be with you," said Ralph.
"And I!" said grandmother. "Is not a little old lady like me equal to taking care of you all?"
"Will you really come too, dear grandmother?" exclaimed Sylvia and Molly in a breath. "Oh, how nice!"
"I should like to go," said grandmother. "It is ever so many years since I was at the Louvre."
"Do let us go then. Oh, do let us all go," said the little girls. "You know we are leaving on Tuesday, and something might come in the way again on Monday."
So it was settled.
"Remember, children," said grandmother as they were all getting out of the carriage, "remember to keep close together. You have no idea how easily some of you might get lost in the crowd."
"Lost!" repeated Sylvia incredulously.
"Lost!" echoed Molly.
"LOST!" shouted Ralph so loudly that some of their fellow-sight-seers, passing beside them into the palace, turned round to see what was the matter. "How could we possibly get lost here?"
"Very easily," replied aunty calmly. "There is nothing, to people unaccustomed to it, so utterly bewildering as a crowd."
"Not to me," persisted Ralph. "I could thread my way in and out of the people till I found you. The girls might get lost, perhaps."
"Thank you," said Molly; "as it happens, Master Ralph, I think it would be much harder to lose us than you. For one thing we can speak French ever such a great deal better than you."
"And then there are two of us. If one of us was lost, grandmother and aunty could hold out the other one as a pattern, and say, 'I want a match for this,'" said Sylvia laughing, and a little eager to prevent the impending skirmish between Ralph and Molly.
"Hush, children, you really mustn't chatter so," said aunty. "Use your eyes, and let your tongues, poor things, rest for a little."
They got on very happily. Aunty managed to show the children the special picture or pictures each had most wanted to see—including the "beautiful blue and orange" one of Molly's recollection. She nearly screamed with delight when she saw "how like it was to the one in papa's study," but took in good part Ralph's cynical observation that a thing that was copied from another was generally supposed to be "like" the original.
Only Sylvia was a little disappointed when, after looking at the pictures in one of the smaller rooms—a room in no way peculiar or remarkable as differing from the others—they suddenly discovered that they were in the famous "Salle Henri II.," where Henry the Fourth was killed!
"I didn't think it would be like this," said Sylvia lugubriously. "Why do they call it 'Salle Henri II.?' It should be called after Henry the Fourth; and I don't think it should have pictures in, and be just like a common room."
"What would you have it? Hung round with black and tapers burning?" said her aunt.
"I don't know—any way I thought it would have had old tapestry," said Sylvia. "I should like it to have been kept just the way it was then."
"Poor Sylvia!" said grandmother. "But we must hurry on, children. We have not seen the 'Petite Galérie' yet—dear me, how many years it is since I was in it!—and some of the most beautiful pictures are there."
They passed on—grandmother leaning on aunty's arm—the three children close behind, through a room called the "Salle des Sept Cheminées," along a vestibule filled with cases of jewellery, leading again to one of the great staircases. Something in the vestibule attracted grandmother's attention, and she stopped for a moment. Sylvia, not interested in what the others were looking at, turned round and retraced her steps a few paces by the way they had entered the hall. A thought had struck her.
"I'd like just to run back for a moment to Henry the Fourth's Room," she said to herself. "I want to notice the shape of it exactly, and how many windows there are, and then I think I can fancy to myself how it looked then, with the tapestry and all the old-fashioned furniture."
No sooner thought than done. In a moment she was back in the room which had so curiously fascinated her, taking accurate note of its features.
"I shall remember it now," she said to herself, after gazing round her for a minute or two. "Now I must run after grandmother and the others, or they'll be thinking I am lost."
She turned with a little laugh at the idea, and hastened out of the room, through the few groups of people standing or moving about, looking at the pictures—hastened out, expecting in another moment to see the familiar figures. The room into which she made her way was also filled with pictures, as had been the one through which she had entered the "Salle Henri II." She crossed it without misgiving: she had no idea that she had left the Salle Henri II. by the opposite door from that by which she had entered it!
Poor little Sylvia, she did not know that grandmother's warning was actually to be fulfilled. She was "lost in the Louvre!"
CHAPTER III.
"WHERE IS SYLVIA?"
"What called me back?
A voice of happy childhood,
"Yet might I not bewail the vision gone,
My heart so leapt to that dear loving tone."
Mrs. HEMANS, "An Hour of Romance."
She did not find out her mistake. She passed through the room and entered the vestibule into which it led, quite confident that she would meet the others in an instant. There were several groups standing about this vestibule as there had been in the other, but none composed of the figures she was looking for.
"They must have passed on," said Sylvia to herself; "I wish they hadn't; perhaps they never noticed I wasn't beside them."
Then for the first time a slight feeling of anxiety seized her. She hurried quickly across the ante-room where she was standing, to find herself in another "salle," which was quite unlike any of the others she had seen. Instead of oil-paintings, it was hung round with colourless engravings. Here, too, there were several people standing about, but none whom, even for an instant, Sylvia could have mistaken for her friends.
"How quickly they must have hurried on," she thought, her heart beginning to beat faster. "I do think they might have waited a little. They must have missed me by now."
No use delaying in this room. Sylvia hurried on, finding herself now in that part of the palace devoted to ancient pottery and other antiquities, uninteresting to a child. The rooms through which she passed were much less crowded than those containing pictures. At a glance it was easy to distinguish that those she was in search of were not there. Still she tried to keep up heart.
"There is nothing here they would much care about," she said to herself. "If I could get back to the picture rooms I should be sure to find them."
At last, to her delight, after crossing a second vestibule, from which descended a great staircase which she fancied she had seen before, she entered another of the long galleries completely hung with paintings. She bounded forward joyously.
"They're sure to be here," she said.
The room was very crowded. She dared not rush through it as fast as hitherto; it was so crowded that she felt it would be quite possible to overlook a group of even four. More than once she fancied she caught sight of grandmother's small and aunty's taller figure, both dressed in black. Once her heart gave a great throb of delight when she fancied she distinguished through the crowd the cream-coloured felt hat and feathers of Molly, her double. But no—it was a cream-coloured felt hat, but the face below it was not Molly's. Then at last a panic seized the poor little girl. She fairly lost her head, and the tears blinding her so, that had Molly and all of them been close beside her, she could scarcely have perceived them, she ran half frantically through the rooms. Half frantically in reality, but scarcely so to outward appearance. Her habit of self-control, her unconquerable British dislike to being seen in tears, or to making herself conspicuous, prevented her distress being so visible as to attract general attention. Some few people remarked her as she passed—a forlorn little Evangeline—her pretty face now paler, now more flushed than its wont, as alternations of hope and fear succeeded each other, and wondered if she had lost her party or her way. But she had disappeared before there was time to do more than notice her. More than once she was on the point of asking help or advice from the cocked-hat officials at the doors, but she was afraid. In some ways she was very ignorant and childish for her age, notwithstanding her little womanlinesses and almost precocious good sense, and to tell the truth, a vague misty terror was haunting her brain—a terror which she would hardly have confessed to Molly, not for worlds untold to Ralph—that, being in France and not in England, she might somehow be put in prison, were the state of the case known to these same cocked-hat gentlemen! So, when at last one of these dignitaries, who had been noticing her rapid progress down the long gallery "Napoléon III.," stopped her with the civil inquiry, "Had Mademoiselle lost her way? was she seeking some one?" she bit her lips tight and winked her eyes briskly not to cry, as she replied in her best French, "Oh no," she could find her way. And then, as a sudden thought struck her that possibly he had been deputed by grandmother and aunty, who must have missed her by now, to look for her, she glanced up at him again with the inquiry, had he, perhaps, seen a little girl like her? just like her?
