ARE YOU MY WIFE?
BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.
CHAPTER V.
Angélique was having a field day of it, and there was nothing she liked better. It was an event when Sir Simon dropped in at The Lilies toward supper-time, and announced his intention of staying to take pot-luck; but this evening’s entertainment was a very different affair from these friendly droppings-in, and Angélique was proportionately flurried. Like most people who have a strong will and a good temper, she was easy to live with; her temper was indeed usually so well controlled that few suspected her of having one. But on occasions like the present they were apt to find out their mistake; it was not safe to come in her way when she had more than one extra dish on hand. Franceline knew this; and after such interference in the way of whipping the eggs and dusting the glass and china as Angélique would tolerate, she took herself off to the woods for the remainder of the afternoon. There was a cleared space where the timber had been cut down in spring, and here she settled herself on the stem of a felled tree, and opened her book. It can hardly have been a very interesting one; for, after turning over a few pages, she began to look about her, and to listen to the contralto recitative of a wood-pigeon with as much attention as if that familiar dilettante performance had been some striking novelty. It was not long, however, before sounds of a very different sort broke on her ear. Some one was crying passionately, filling the wood with shrieks and sobs. Franceline started to her feet and listened; she could distinguish the shrill treble of a child’s voice, and, hurrying on in the direction from whence it proceeded, she soon came upon a little girl, the daughter of a poor woman of the neighborhood, called Widow Bing. The child was lying in a heap on the ground, her basketful of school-books and lunch spilt on the grass beside her, while her little body and soul seemed literally torn to pieces by sobs.
“Why, Bessy, what’s the matter?” cried Franceline. “Have you hurt yourself?”
“No-o-o-o!” gasped Bessy, without lifting her head.
“Have you broken something?”
“No-o-o-o!”
“Has anything happened to mammy?”
“No-o-o, but something’s a-goin to.” And the child raised her head for a louder scream, and let it drop again with a thud on the ground.
“What’s going to happen to her? Tell me, there’s a good child,” coaxed Franceline, crouching down beside the little, prostrate figure, and trying to make it look up. “If it hasn’t happened, perhaps it will never happen. I might prevent it, or somebody else might.”
A dim ray of consolation apparently dawned out of this hypothesis on Bessy’s mind; she lifted her head, and, after suppressing her sobs, exclaimed: “Mammy’s a-goin’ to be damned, she is!”
“Good gracious, child, what a dreadful thing for you to say!” exclaimed Franceline, too much shocked by the announcement to catch the comical side of it at once. “Who put such a naughty thing into your head?”
“It’s Farmer Griggs as said it. He says as how he knows mammy’s a-goin’ to be damned!” And the sound of her own words was so dreadful that it sent Bessy into a fresh paroxysm, and she shrieked louder than before.
“He’s a wicked man, and you mustn’t mind him,” said Franceline; “he knows nothing about it!”
“Ye-e-es he does!” insisted Bessy. “He-e-s not wicked; … he prea-a-a-ches every Sunday at the cha-a-a-pel, he does.”
“Then he preaches very wicked sermons, I’m sure,” said Franceline, who saw an argument on the wrong side for Farmer Griggs’ sanctity in this evidence. “You must leave off crying and not mind him.”
But Bessy was not to be comforted by this negative suggestion. She went on crying passionately, until Franceline, finding that neither scolding nor coaxing had the desired effect, threatened to tell Miss Bulpit, and have her left out from the next tea and cake feast; whereupon Bessy brightened up with extraordinary alacrity, gathered up her books and her dry bread and apple, and proceeded to trot along by the side of Franceline, who soothed her still further by the promise of a piece of bread and jam from Angélique, if she gave up crying altogether and told her all about mammy and Farmer Griggs. An occasional sob showed every now and then that the waters had not quite subsided; but Bessy did her best, and before they reached The Lilies she had given in somewhat disjointed sentences the following history of the prophecy and what led to it. The widow Bing—who, for motives independent of all theological views, had recently joined the Methodist Connection, of which Farmer Griggs was a burning and shining light—had been laid up for the last month with the rheumatism, and consequently unable to attend the meeting; but last Sunday, being a good deal better, though still unequal to toiling up-hill to the chapel, which was nearly half an hour’s walk from her cottage, she had compromised matters by going to church, which was within ten minutes’ walk of her. This scandal spread quickly through the Connection, and was not long coming to Farmer Griggs’ ears, who straightway declared that the widow Bing had thrown in her lot with the transgressors, and was henceforth a castaway whose name should be blotted out. This fearful doom impending over her mother had just been made known to Bessy by Farmer Griggs’ boy, who met her tripping along with her basket on her arm, and singing to herself as she went. The sight of the child’s gayety under such appalling circumstances was not a thing to be tolerated; so he conveyed to Bessy in very comprehensible vernacular the soothing intelligence that her mother was “a bad ’un as was gone over to the parson, as means the devil, and how as folk as was too lazy to come to chapel ’ud find it ’arder a-goin’ down to the bottomless pit, where there was devils and snakes and all manner o’ dreadful things a-blazin’ and a-burnin’ like anythink!”
All this Franceline contrived to elicit from Bessy by the time they reached The Lilies, where they found Miss Merrywig sitting outside the kitchen-window in high confabulation with Angélique, busy inside at her work. The day was intensely hot, and the sun was still high enough to make shade a necessity of existence for everybody except cats and bees; but there sat Miss Merrywig under the scorching glare, with a large chinchilla muff in her lap.
“A muff!” cried Franceline, standing aghast before the old lady. “Dear Miss Merrywig, you don’t mean to say you want it on such a day as this! Why, it suffocates one to look at it.”
“Yes, my dear, just so. As you say, it suffocates one to look at it,” assented Miss Merrywig, “and I assure you I didn’t find it at all comfortable carrying it to-day; but I only bought it yesterday, and I wanted to let Angélique see it and hear her opinion on it, you see. I went in to Newford yesterday, and they were selling off at Whilton’s, the furrier’s, and this muff struck me as such a bargain that I thought I could not do better than take it. Now, what do you think I gave for it? Don’t you say anything, Angélique; I want to hear what mademoiselle will say herself. Now, just look well at it. Remember how hot the weather is; as you say, the sight of fur suffocates one, and that makes such a difference. My dear mother used to say—and she was a judge of fur, you know; she made a voyage to Sweden with my father in poor dear old Sir Hans Neville’s yacht, and that gave her such a knowledge of furs—you know Sweden is a great place for all sorts of furs—well, she used to say, ‘If you want the value of your money in fur, buy it in the summer.’ I only just mention that to show you. But you can see for yourself whether I got the full value in this one. You see it is lined with satin—and such splendid satin! As thick as a board, and so glossy! And it’s silk all through. I just ripped a bit here at the edge to see if it was a cotton back; but it’s all pure silk. The young man of the shop was so extremely polite, and so anxious I should understand that it was a bargain, he called my attention to the quality of the satin—which was really very kind of him; for of course that didn’t matter to him. But they are wonderfully civil at Whilton’s. I remember buying some swan’s-down to trim a dress when I was a girl and I was bridesmaid to Lady Arabella Wywillyn—they lived at the Grange then—and it was, I must say, a most excellent piece of swan’s-down, and cleaned like new. I asked the young man if he remembered it—I meant, of course, the marriage. Dear me, what a sensation it did make! But he did not, which was of course natural, as it was long before he was born; but I thought he might have heard the old people of the place speak of it. Well, now that you’ve examined it, tell me, what do you think I gave for it?”
Franceline was hovering on the brink of a guess, when Angélique, who had returned to her saucepans, suddenly reappeared at the window, and, spying Bessy’s red face staring with all its eyes at the chinchilla muff—which looked uncommonly like a live thing that might bite if the fancy took it, and was best considered from a respectful distance—called out: “What’s that child doing there?” Franceline, thankful for the timely rescue, began to pour out volubly in French the story of Farmer Griggs and the widow Bing.
“It’s a shame these sort of people should be allowed to terrify the poor people,” said Miss Merrywig when she had taken it all in. “I wonder the vicar does not do something. He ought to take steps to stop it; there’s no saying what may be the end of it. But dear Mr. Langrove is so kind and so very much afraid of annoying anybody!”
While Miss Merrywig was delivering this opinion Angélique was making good the bread-and-jam promise for Bessy, who stood watching the operation with distended eyes through the open window, and saw with satisfaction that the grenadier was laying on the jam very thick.
“Now, you’re not going to cry any more, and you’re going to be a good girl?” said Franceline before she let Bessy seize the tempting slice that Angélique held out to her.
Bessy promised unhesitatingly.
“Stop a minute,” said Franceline, as the child stretched up on tiptoe to clutch the prize. “You must not repeat to poor, sick mammy what that naughty boy said to you. Do you promise?” But the proximity of bread and jam was not potent enough to hurry Bessy into committing herself to this rash promise. What between the sudden vision of “devils and snakes a-blazin’ and a-burnin’” which the demand conjured up again, and what between the dread of seeing the bread and jam snatched away by the grenadier, who stood there, brown and terrible, waiting a signal from Franceline, her feelings were too much for her; there was a preparatory sigh and a sob, and down streamed the tears again.
“I’d better go home with her, and tell the poor woman myself,” said Franceline, appealing to Miss Merrywig.
“Yes, you come ’ome and tell mammy!” sobbed the child, who seemed to have some vague belief in Franceline’s power to avert the threatened doom.
“I dare say that will be the safest way, and I’m sure it’s the kindest,” said Miss Merrywig; “but it will be a dreadfully hot walk for you on the road, my dear, with no shelter but your sunshade. I had better go with you. I don’t mind the heat; you see I’m used to it.” Franceline could not exactly see how this fact of Miss Merrywig’s company would lessen the heat to her; but it was meant in kindness, so she assented. The meadowlands went flowering down to the river, richly planted with fine old trees, and only separated from the garden and its adjoining fields by an invisible iron rail, so that the little cottage looked as if it were in the centre of a great private park. A short cut through the fields took you out on the road in a few minutes, and the trio had not gone far when they saw Mr. Langrove walking at a brisk pace on before them, his umbrella tilted to one side to screen him from the sun, that was striking him obliquely on the right ear. Franceline clapped her hands and called out, and they soon came up to him.
“What are you doing down here, may I ask? Having your face burned, eh?” said the vicar familiarly.
Franceline burst out with her story at once. The vicar made a short, impatient gesture, and they all walked on together, Bessy holding fast by Franceline’s gown with one hand, while the other was doing duty with the bread and jam.
“Really, my dear Mr. Langrove,” broke in Miss Merrywig, “you ought to take steps; excuse me for saying so, but you really ought. It’s quite dreadful to think of the man’s frightening the poor people in this way. You really should put a stop to it.”
“My good lady,” replied the vicar, “if you can tell me how it’s to be done, there’s nothing will give me greater pleasure.”
“Well, of course you know best; but it seems to me something ought to be done. The poor people are all falling into dissent as fast as they can; it’s quite melancholy to think of it—it really is. You’ll excuse me for saying so—for it must be very painful to your feelings, and I never do interfere with what doesn’t concern me; though of course what concerns you, as our pastor, and the Church of England, does concern us, all of us—but I really think you are too forbearing. You ought to enforce your authority a little more strictly.”
“Authority!” echoed the vicar with a mild, ironical laugh. “What authority have I to enforce? Show me that first!”
“Dear me! But an ordained minister of the church, the church of the realm—surely, that gives you authority?”
“Just as much as you and other members of the church choose to accredit me with, and no more,” said Mr. Langrove, with as much bitterness in the emphasis as he was capable of. “If Griggs thinks fit to set himself up as a preacher, and every man, woman, and child in my parish choose to desert me and go over to him, I can no more prevent them than I can prevent their buying their sugar at market instead of getting it from the grocers.”
“And who is Monsieur Greegs?” inquired Franceline, who was backward in gossip, and knew few of the local notabilities except by sight.
“Monsieur Griggs is a very respectable farmer, a shrewd judge of cattle, who knows a great deal about the relative merits of short-horns and the Devonshire breed, and all about pigs and poultry,” said the vicar with mild sarcasm.
“And he is a minister too!”
“After a fashion. He elected himself to the office, and it would seem he has plenty of followers. He started services on week-days when he found that I had commenced having them on Fridays, and drew away the very portion of the congregation they were specially intended for; and he preaches on Sundays. You have a sample of his style here,” nodding at Bessy, who was licking her fingers with great gusto, having finished her last mouthful.
“Is it not dreadful!” exclaimed Miss Merrywig. “And the people are so infatuated; they actually tell me that they understand this man better than their clergymen, that he speaks plainer to them, and understands better what they want, and that sort of thing. They don’t care about doctrine, you see, or controversy; they like to be talked to in a kind of conversational way by one of their own class who speaks bad grammar like themselves. They tell you to your face that they don’t understand the clergyman—I assure you they do; that his sermons are too learned, and only fit for gentle folk. You see they are so ignorant, the poor people! It’s very melancholy to think of.”
“They like better to be told they’ll go to hell and be damned, if they go to their own church; they ought not to be allowed to go to hear such things. I’ll speak to widow Bing, and make her promise me she’ll never go there again,” said Franceline peremptorily.
“No, no, my dear child; you mustn’t do anything of the kind,” said the vicar quickly. “No one has a right to meddle with the people in these things; if she likes to go to the dissenters, no one can prevent her.”
“But if she was fond of going into the gin-shop and getting tipsy, you’d have a right to meddle and to prevent her, would you not?” inquired Franceline.
“That’s a different thing,” said the vicar, who in his own mind thought the parallel was not so very wide of the mark.
“I can’t see it,” protested Franceline with an expressive shrug. “If you have a right to prevent their bodies from getting tipsy, and killing themselves or somebody else perhaps, why not their souls?”
The vicar laughed a complacent little laugh at this cogent reasoning of his young friend. “Unfortunately,” he said, “we have no authority for interfering with people in the management of their souls in this country. Such a proceeding would be quite unconstitutional; the state only legislates for the salvation of their bodies.”
“Dear me, just so!” ejaculated Miss Merrywig. “I remember my dear mother telling me that a very clever man—I’m not sure if he wasn’t a member of Parliament, but anyhow he made speeches in public—and he said—I really think it was an electioneering speech just at the time the Catholic Emancipation bill was being passed—that in this free country every man had a right to go to the devil his own way. How exceedingly shocking! To think of people’s going to the devil at all! But that’s just it. They prefer to go their own way, and, as you say, the law can’t prevent them. It’s entirely a question of personal influence, you see.”
“Then perhaps Sir Simon could do something,” suggested Franceline; “he’s master here, and he makes everybody do what he likes. Why don’t you speak to him, monsieur?”
“He might do something, perhaps, if anybody could; but, unfortunately, he does not see it,” observed the vicar.
“I’ll speak to him. I’ll make him see it,” said Franceline, who flew with a woman’s natural instinct to arbitrary legislation as the readiest mode of redressing wrongs, and had, moreover, a strong faith in her own power of making Sir Simon “see it.”
“But is this not rather—of course you know best, only it does strike me that it is a case for the bishop’s interference rather than the squire’s,” said Miss Merrywig. She was a remnant of the old times when a bishop could hold his own; that was before ritualism came into vogue.
“Yes,” cried Franceline, with sudden exultation, “of course it’s the bishop who must do it. You ought to write to him, monsieur!”
Mr. Langrove smiled. “The bishop has no more power to interfere with the proceedings of my parishioners than you have.”
“Then what has he power to do? What are bishops good for?” demanded the obtuse young Papist.
But Mr. Langrove, being a loyal “churchman,” was not going to enter on such slippery, debatable ground as this. He was happily saved from the disagreeable process of beating about the bush for an answer by the fact of their being close by widow Bing’s door, from which there issued distinctly a twofold sound as of somebody crying and somebody else exhorting. Bessy no sooner caught it than she swelled the chorus of lamentation by breaking forth into a loud cry. If there was any weeping to be done, Bessy was not the one to be behindhand. And now she was resolved to do her very best; for perhaps the prophecy was already coming true, and mammy was beginning to be a prey to the snakes and devils.
“Stay here and keep that child quiet,” said the vicar hastily. “I hear Miss Bulpit’s voice. I had better go in alone.”
“He is greatly to be pitied, poor Mr. Langrove! I think,” said Franceline, as she turned back with Miss Merrywig. “I think you all ought to write to the bishop for him.”
“Oh! that would be a scandal! Besides, you heard him say the bishop could not help him,” said the old lady.
“What a blessed thing it is to be a Catholic!” exclaimed Franceline, laughing. “We have no farmers’ boys or anybody else meddling with our priests; but then we have the Pope, who settles everything, and everybody submits. You ought to invite the Pope to come over and deliver you from all your troubles!”
The table was spread on the grass-plot in front of the cottage. Franceline had made it pretty with ferns and flowers, and then sat down under the porch, in her white muslin dress and pink sash, to converse with her doves while waiting for Sir Simon and his two friends. Her doves were great company to her; she had been so used to talking to them ever since she was a child, complaining to them of her small griefs and telling them of her little joys, that she came to fancy they understood her, and took their plaintive coo or their little crystal laughter as an intelligible and sympathetic response. One of the soft-breasted, opal-winged little messengers is upon her finger now, clutching the soft white perch sharply enough with its coral claws, and answering her caresses with that low, inarticulate sighing that sounds like the yearning of an imprisoned spirit. Franceline took some seed out of a box on the window-sill beside her, and began to feed it out of her hand, watching the little, pearly head bobbing on her palm with a smile of tenderest approval. At the sound of footsteps crunching the gravel at the back of the cottage she rose, still feeding her dove, to go and meet the gentlemen. But there was only one.
“I fear I am before my time,” said Mr. de Winton, “but I expected to find the others here before me.” (O Clide, Clide! what prevarication is this?) “They went out about half an hour ago, and told me to meet them in the Beech walk, where we were to come on together. Have I come too soon?”
“Oh! not at all,” said the young girl graciously; “my father will come out in a moment, and I am not very busy, as you see!”
“You are fond of animals, I perceive.”
“Animals! Oh! don’t call my sweet little doves animals,” retorted Franceline indignantly. “That’s worse than papa. When they coo too much and disturb him, and I take their part, he always says: ‘Oh! I’m fond of the birds, but they are noisy little things’! The idea of speaking of them as ‘the birds’! It hurts my feelings very much.”
“Then pray instruct me, so that I may not have the misfortune to do so too!” entreated Clide. “Tell me by what name I must call them.”
“Oh! you may laugh. I am used to being laughed at about my doves; I don’t mind it,” said Franceline with a pretty toss of her small, haughty head.
“I am not laughing at you; I should be very sorry to call anything you loved by a name that hurt you,” protested the young man with a warmth that made Franceline look up from her dove at him; the fervor of the glance that met her did not cause her to avert her eyes, and brought no glow over her face. Three of the doves came flying down from the medlar-tree, scattering the starry-white blossoms in their flight. After making a few circles in the air, one perched on Franceline’s shoulder, and two alighted on her head. Clide thought it was the prettiest picture he had ever seen; and as he watched the soft little creatures nestling into the copper-colored hair, he wondered if this choice of a nest did not betray a little cunning, mingled with their native simplicity. But Franceline could not see the performance from this picturesque point of view. The two on her head were fighting, each trying to push the other off. She put up her hand to chase them away, but the claws of one got entangled in her hair, and the more it struggled, the more difficult it became to escape. Clide could not but come to her assistance; he disengaged the tenacious rose-leaves very deftly from the glossy meshes, and set the prisoner free.
“Naughty little bird!” said Franceline, shaking back her flushed face, and smoothing the slightly-dishevelled braids; and then, without a word of thanks to her deliverer, or otherwise alluding to the misconduct of her pets, she walked on towards the summer-house, and broke out into observations about the beauties of the neighborhood, asking her companion what he had seen and how he liked the country round Dullerton. She spoke English as fluently as a native, with only a slight foreign accentuation of the vowels that was too piquant to be a blemish; but every now and then a literal translation reminded you unmistakably that the speaker was a foreigner.
Clide thought the accent and the Gallicisms quite charming; he was, however, a little startled when the young lady, in pointing out the various places of the surrounding parts, and telling him who owned them, informed him very gravely that the pretty Mrs. Lawrence, who lived in that Elizabethan house with a clock-tower rising behind the wood, was thirty years younger than her rich husband, and had married him for his “propriety,” as she was very poor and had none of her own.
Franceline noticed the undisguised astonishment caused by this announcement, and, blushing up with a little vexation, exclaimed: “I mean for his property! You know in French propriété means property.” But after this she insisted on talking French. Clide protested he liked English much better, and vowed that she spoke it in perfection; but it was no use.
“English is too serious for conversation, and too stiff,” said Franceline, revenging herself for her blunder on the innocent medium of it, as we are all apt to do. “It is only fit for sermons and speeches. In French you can talk for an hour without saying anything, and it doesn’t matter. French is like a light, airy little carriage that only wants a touch to send it spinning along, and, once going, it will go on for ever; but English is a stagecoach, stately and top-heavy, and won’t go without passengers to steady it and horses to draw it. Foolish thoughts always sound so much more foolish in English than in French. People who are not serious and wise should always talk French.”
“Ah! merci, now I see why you insist on my talking it,” said Clide, laughing.
“It would have been a rash judgment; I could not tell whether you were wise or not.”
“I dare say you are right, though it never occurred to me before,” he remarked deprecatingly. “Our robust Anglo-Saxon is rather a clumsy vehicle for conversation compared with yours.”
“I did not call it clumsy; I said stately,” corrected Franceline.
Clide began to fear he was making himself disagreeable; that she was taking a dislike to him. Happily, before he committed himself further, M. de la Bourbonais came out and joined them. He was soon followed by Sir Simon and the admiral, and the little party sat down to Angélique’s chefs-d’œuvre under the shade of the medlar-tree, with the doves sounding their bugle in the adjoining copse. The sun was setting, and sent a stream of orange and rose colored light into the garden and over the group at the table; a breeze came up from the river, fluttering the strawberry leaves and Franceline’s hair, and blowing the heavy scent of new-mown hay into her face. It happened—of course by chance, unless that far-sighted old Angélique had a hand in it—that Clide was seated next to her; and as the leg of the long table made a space between her and Sir Simon, it was natural that the two young people should be thrown on their own resources for conversation, while their elders at the other end talked incessantly of old times and people that neither Clide nor Franceline cared about. It was the first time in her life that she found herself the object of direct homage and attention from a young yet mature man, and the experience was decidedly pleasant. Clide was determined to efface the bad impression that he imagined he had made, and to win Franceline’s good graces or die in the effort. It was not a very difficult task, and the zest with which he set about it proved that it was not a disagreeable one. He bent all the energies of his mind to the sole end of interesting and entertaining her, and soon the undisguised pleasure that shone in the listener’s face showed that he was succeeding. With that instinct which quickens the perception of young gentlemen in Clide de Winton’s present state of mind, he was not long in hitting upon the subjects that most excited her curiosity. She had never been beyond the woods of Dullerton since she was of an age to observe things, and it was like a flight in a balloon over all these far-off countries to be carried there in imagination by the vivid descriptions of one who had seen them all. Clide began to wonder at himself as he went on; he had never suspected himself of such brilliant conversational powers as he was now displaying. He was surprised to see how much the dreamy, dark eyes had read about the various countries he spoke of, and what an enlightened interest she took in the natural history of each. She wanted to know a great deal about the splendid tropical birds that have no voices, and about the albatross and other marvellous inhabitants of the skies in far-away lands; and Clide lent himself with the utmost condescension to her catechising. But when he came to talking of Rome and the Catacombs, the eyes kindled with a different sort of interest.
“And you saw the very spot where S. Cecilia was buried, and S. Agatha, and S. Agnes, who was only thirteen when she was martyred? Oh! how I envy you. I would walk all the way barefooted from this to see those sacred places. And the Colosseum, where the wild beasts tore the martyrs to pieces!” She clasped her hands and looked at him with the look of awe and wonder that we might bestow on some one who had seen a vision. “And the tombs of the apostles, and the prison where S. Peter was when the angel came and set him free?”
“Yes, I saw them all; it was a great privilege,” said Clide, conscious of realizing for the first time how great.
“Indeed it was!” murmured Franceline, as if speaking to herself; then suddenly looking up at him, “Did it not make you long to be a martyr?”
Clide hesitated. The temptation to answer “yes” was very strong. The dark, appealing eyes were fixed on him with an expression that it was dreadful to disappoint; but he was too honest and too proud to steal her approval under false colors.
“No, I am afraid I did not. I saw it all too much from the historical point of view. The triumphs of the Christian heroes were mixed up in my memory with too many classical associations; and even if it had not been so, I confess that the phase of martyrdom recalled by the Colosseum and the Catacombs is not the one to stir my slow heroic pulses. There is too much of the ghastly physical strife on the one hand, and of wanton cruelty on the other; the contemplation rather shocks and harrows than stimulates me. I did once feel something like what you describe, but it was not in Rome.”
“Where was it?” inquired Franceline eagerly.
“It was in Africa, amongst a tribe of savages. I remember feeling it would be a grand use of a man’s life to devote it to rescuing them from their deplorable state of mental darkness and physical degradation; and that if one died in the struggle, like Francis Xavier, an outcast on the sea-shore, forsaken by every visible helpmate, it would be as noble a death as a man could wish to die.”
“I wonder you did not follow the impulse,” said Franceline. “You might have converted thousands of those poor savages, and been a second S. Francis Xavier. It must have been a great struggle not to try it.”
Clide did not laugh, but went on gravely dipping his strawberries into sugar for a moment, and then said:
“No, I can’t pretend even to the negative glory of a struggle. I am ashamed to say the desire was a mere transient caprice. I got the length of spending ten days learning the language, and by that time the dirt and stupidity and cruelty of the neophytes had done for my apostolic vocation; the debased condition of the poor creatures was brought home to me so fearfully that I gave it up in disgust. I dare say it was very cowardly, very selfish; but, looking back on it, I can’t help feeling that the savages had no great loss. It takes more than an impulse of emotional pity to make a hero of the Francis Xavier type; one can’t be an apostle by mere willing and wishing.”
“Yes, but one can,” denied Franceline; “that is just the one kind of hero that it only wants will to be. One cannot be a warrior or a poet, or that kind of thing, because that requires genius; but one may be a martyr or an apostle simply by willing. Love is the only genius that one wants; it was love that turned the twelve fishermen into apostles and heroes, you know.”
“Just so; but I didn’t love the savages.”
“Perhaps you would if you had tried.”
“Do you think it is possible to love any one by trying?”
“Well, I don’t know; if they were very unhappy and wanted my love very much, I think I might.”
Clide stole a quick glance at her; but Franceline was peeling a pear, and evidently an undue portion of her thoughts were concentrated on that operation and a care not to let the juice run on her fingers. “Then you think it was very wicked of me not to have loved those savages?” he began again.
“I don’t say it was wicked. If they were so very dirty and cruel, it must have been hard enough; but you might have found another tribe that would have been more lovable, and that wanted quite as much to be civilized and converted—nice, simple savages, like wild flowers or dumb animals, that would have been docile and grateful, perhaps revengeful too; but then when they were Christians they would have conquered that—”
Clide laughed outright.
“I don’t think your vocation for converting the savages is so very much superior to mine,” he said; “it certainly would not have lived through my three days’ novitiate.”
Franceline looked at him, and laughed too—that clear, ringing laugh of hers, that was so contagious; they both felt very young together.
“And what was your next vocation?” she asked, perfectly unconscious of any indiscretion. “What are you going to do now?”
“This morning my mind was made up to go abroad again in a few days, and recommence my old life of busy idleness; but your father has upset all my plans.”
“My father!”
“Yes. It ought not to surprise you much; it is not likely to be the first time that M. de la Bourbonais has proved the good genius of another. He was kind enough to let me talk to him of myself, and to give my folly the benefit of his wisdom; he made me feel that I was leading a very selfish, good-for-nothing sort of life, and showed me how wrong it was; in fact, he did for me what I wanted to do for the savages. He taught me what my duty was, and I promised him I would try to do it.”
“Ah! then perhaps you are going to be a hero after all,” said Franceline, a gleam of enthusiasm sparkling in her face again.
“I fear not; at least, it will be a very prosaic, humdrum sort of heroism. I am going to stay at home, and try to be useful to a few people in a quiet way on my own property.”
“Oh! I am so glad. Then we shall see you again. You’ll be sure to come and see Sir Simon sometimes, will you not?”
“Yes, I will come in any case to see M. de la Bourbonais,” said Clide. “His advice will be invaluable to me; and he was so kind as to promise that he would always be glad to give it to me.”
The sweet dimples broke out with a blush of pleasure and pride in Franceline’s face; it was a delight to her to hear any one speak so of her father, and Clide had seen so many wise and clever people in his travels that his admiration and respect implied a great deal. If the young man had been a Talleyrand bent on attaining some diplomatic end, he could not have displayed greater cunning and tact.
“It’s a great come down from the grand African scheme, you see,” he observed, laughing; “but under such good guidance there is no saying what I may not achieve. I may turn out a hero in the end.”
“If you do your duty perfectly, of course you will,” replied Franceline confidently. “Papa says the real heroes are those that do their duty best and get no praise for it.”
“Oh! but I should like a little praise; you would not grudge me a little now and then if I deserved it?” And the look that accompanied the question would have most fully explained the praise he coveted, if Franceline had not been as unlearned in that species of language as one of her doves.
“Bless me! how beautiful that child is!” said the admiral in a sotto voce. “Just look at her color; did you ever see anything to come up to it? It reminds me of that tinted Hebe that we went to see together in Florence; you remember, Harness?”
The excitement of talking had brought an exquisite pink glow into Franceline’s cheeks, and made her eyes sparkle with unwonted brilliancy. Her father listened to the flattering outburst of the old sailor with a bright smile of satisfaction, not venturing to look at Franceline, lest he should betray his acquiescence too palpably.
“And she’s the very picture of health too!” remarked the admiral.
At this Raymond turned and looked at her.
“How like her mother she is!” said Sir Simon, appealing to him; but he had no sooner uttered the words than he wished himself silent. The smile died immediately out of M. de la Bourbonais’ face, and a sharp spasm of pain passed over it like a shadow. Sir Simon guessed at once what caused it: the bright and delicate color, that the admiral had aptly compared to the transparency of tinted marble, reminded him of Armengarde when death had cast its terrible beauty over her.
“Like her in beauty and in many other things,” resumed the baronet in a careless, abstracted tone. “But, happily, Franceline does not know what delicacy means; she has never known a day’s illness in her life, I believe.”
But this reassuring remark did not bring back the smile into the father’s face; he fixed his eyes on Franceline with an uneasy glance, as if looking for something that he dreaded to see there.
“She must find this place dull, pretty little pet,” observed the admiral, who saw nothing to check his admiring comments.
“It never occurred to me before, but I dare say she does,” assented the baronet; “and she’s old enough now to want a little amusement. We ought to have thought of that already, Raymond; but we’re a selfish lot, the best of us. We forget that we were young ourselves once upon a time. I’ll tell you what it is, De Winton, we’ll carry the child off one of these days to London, and show her the sights and take her to the opera. You’d like that, Franceline, would you not?” And shifting his chair to the other side of the table, he set himself down by her side in an affectionate attitude.
The project was discussed with great animation, Franceline being evidently delighted with it.
“My step-mother was to be in town next week,” said Clide, “and I’m sure she would be very happy to give her services as chaperon, if you have not any more privileged person in view.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I had not thought of that. I’m glad you mentioned it. I’ll write to her this very night,” said Sir Simon. “Meantime, it strikes me that it would be a very good thing if you learned to ride, Miss Franceline; it’s a disgrace to us all to think of your having entered your eighteenth year without being taught this accomplishment. We must set about repairing your neglected education at once. How about a pony, Clide? Which of the nags would suit best, do you think?”
“I should say Rosebud would be about the nicest you could find for a lady; she’s as gentle as a lamb, and as smooth-footed as a cat.”
“Rosebud!” echoed M. de La Bourbonais. “Mon cher…”
“Yes, I think you’re right,” said Sir Simon, completely ignoring the interruption. “Rosebud is a gem of a lady’s horse. We’ll have a few private lessons in the park first, and let her canter over the turf before we show off in public.”
“Mon cher Simon,” broke in Raymond again, “it cannot be thought of. Franceline would not like it; she does not care, I assure you.…”
“O petit papa!” cried Franceline with a little, entreating gesture.
“Ah! is it so indeed? But, my child, consider…”
“Consider, Monsieur le Philosophe, that you don’t understand the matter at all; you just leave it to us to settle, and attend to what De Winton is saying to you.”
This last was a difficult injunction, inasmuch as the admiral was saying nothing. “Come along with me out of the reach of busybodies, Franceline,” he continued, and, drawing her arm within his own, they walked off to the summer-house, where Clide, without being invited, followed them. There was a long and most interesting conference, which terminated in Franceline’s standing on tiptoe to be kissed by her old friend, and declaring that it was very naughty of him to spoil her so.
“Show him in,” said the vicar, laying down his pen, and a stout, rosy-cheeked, fair-haired young man in corduroys and top-boots was ushered into the study.
“Well Griggs, I’m glad to see you. Sit down,” said Mr. Langrove in the bland, familiar tone of kindness that put simple folk at ease with him directly. “You’ve come to consult me on a matter of importance, eh?”
“Of importance,” echoed the farmer, twirling his round hat between his knees and contemplating his boots—“of great importance, sir.”
“Well, let me hear what it is. If I can help you in any way, you may count upon me,” replied the vicar encouragingly, drawing his chair a little nearer.
“Thank you, I don’t want help,” he said with a significant emphasis. “I know where to look for it when I do,” turning up his eyes sanctimoniously to heaven.
“Certainly, that help is ever at hand for us. But what is your business with me?”
“You’ll not take it amiss if I speak frankly, sir. We can none of us do more than bear testimony to the truth, according to our lights,” explained the farmer; and, Mr. Langrove having by a grave nod acceded to this proposition, he resumed: “You contradicted yourself in the pulpit last Sunday. It’s been repeated to me that you found fault with my teaching concerning faith and works; and so, for sake of them as look to me for guidance, I came up to hear what views you held on that head, as the gospel of the day said: ‘And every man shall be judged according to his works.’ Now, sir, it appears to me the end of the sermon was a flat contradiction of the beginning.”
“Can you name the contradictory passages?” demanded the vicar, after an imperceptible start.
“Well, I can’t say as I can,” admitted the farmer; “but I’d know them if I heard them.”
Mr. Langrove rose, and took down a large manuscript volume from a shelf directly over his head. Opening it at random, his eye fell upon the text: “Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” He lingered on it for a second, then turned over the leaves, and, having found the place he wanted, he read aloud the first and last few pages of the preceding Sunday’s sermon.
“Where do you see the contradiction?” he inquired, looking up and laying his hand on the page.
“Well, as you read it now, I can’t say it sounds much amiss,” replied Mr. Griggs, lifting his feet and bringing them down again with a dubious thud. “I expect the fault was in the way of saying it. You don’t speak plain enough; if you spoke plainer, folks would most likely understand you better. Many as have joined the Connection say as it was that as drove them to us. They couldn’t understand you; they often came away puzzled.”
A transient flush rose and died out in the vicar’s face, and his lips trembled a little. But Farmer Griggs did not notice this; he was looking at his boots, and pondering on the wisdom of his own words. Mr. Langrove had been pretty well trained to forbearance of late years, and, though he was too humble-minded and too honest to pretend to be indifferent to the humiliating interference he had to suffer, he was surprised to find how keenly he smarted under the present one, and mortified to feel how alive the old man was in him, in spite of the many blows he had dealt him. He never, since he was a school-boy, was conscious of such a strong desire to kick a fellow-creature; and this rising movement was no sooner strangled by an imperious effort of self-control than it rose up instantaneously in the milder form of an impulse to open the door and show his visitor out. Before this second rebellion of the old man was put down, Farmer Griggs, mistaking the vicar’s momentary silence for a tacit acknowledgment of his shortcomings, observed:
“It’s a solemn thing to break the word; and the plainer and simpler one speaks the better it is for those that hear it, though it mayn’t be such a credit for them that speak it. There’s them that say you think more about making a fine sermon than doing good to souls—which is no better than spiritual pride. You can’t shut folks’ mouths, no more than you can stop the river from running; they will say what they think.”
“Yes, and that is why we are commanded to think no evil,” rejoined the vicar. “We are too ready to judge of other people’s motives, when in all conscience we are hard set enough to judge our own. If we go to church to pick holes in the sermon, as you say, we had better stay away. The preacher may be a very poor one, but, trust me, while he does his best, those who listen in the right spirit will learn no harm from him; those who have not that spirit would do well to ask for it, and meantime to study the chapter of S. James on the use of the tongue.”
The vicar rose, as if to intimate that the audience was at an end.
“Well, there may be something in that,” remarked the farmer, rising slowly; “but, for my own part, I never had much opinion of James. Paul is the man; if it hadn’t been for Paul, it’s my belief the whole concern would have been a failure.[92] Good-morning, sir.” And without waiting to see the effect of this startling announcement of his private views, Farmer Griggs bowed himself out.
“And these are the men who take the word out of our mouths! Did he come of his own accord, or was he set on to it by Miss Bulpit?” was the vicar’s reflection, as he stood watching the farmer’s retreating figure from the window. “It is more than I can bear; some steps must be taken. It’s high time for Harness to interfere; it’s too bad of him if he refuses.”
Mr. Langrove took up his hat, and went straight to the Court.
“Depend upon it,” said Sir Simon when the clergymen had related the recent interview—“depend upon it, Griggs is too shy a chap to have done it on his own hook; take my word for it, there is a woman at the bottom of it.”
“That is just what makes it so serious. Griggs is a poor, ignorant, conceited fellow that one can’t feel very angry with; one is more inclined to laugh at him and pity him. But it is altogether unpardonable in such a person as Miss Bulpit; it’s her being at the bottom of it that makes the case hard on me.”
Sir Simon agreed that it was.
“Then what do you advise me to do? What steps are you prepared to take?” asked Mr. Langrove.
“My advice is that we leave her alone,” replied Sir Simon. “We’re none of us a match for womankind. She circumvented me about that bit of ground for the Methodist chapel. She’s too many guns for both of us together, Langrove; if you get into a quarrel with the old lady, she’ll raise the parish against you with port wine and flannel shirts, and you’ll go to the wall. After all, why need you worry about it! Let her have her say. They love to hear themselves talk, women do; you can’t change them, and you wouldn’t if you could. Come, now, Langrove, you know you wouldn’t. Halloo! here’s something to look at!” And he started from his semi-recumbent attitude in the luxurious arm-chair, and went to the open window. It was a charming sight that met them. Two riders, a lady and a gentleman, were cantering over the sward on two magnificent horses, a bay and a black.
“Is that Franceline?” exclaimed Mr. Langrove, forgetting, in his surprise and admiration, the annoyance of having his grievance pooh-poohed so unconcernedly.
“Yes. How capitally the little thing holds herself! She only had three lessons, and she sits in her saddle as if it were a chair. Let’s come out and have a look at them!”
They stepped on the terrace. But Clide and Franceline were lost to view for a few minutes in the avenue; presently they emerged from the trees and came cantering up the lawn, Franceline’s laugh sounding as merry as a hunting-horn through the park.
“Bravo! Capital! We’ll make a first-rate horse-woman of her by-and-by. She’ll cut out every girl in the county one of these days. And pray who gave you leave to assume the duties of riding-master without consulting me, sir?”
This was to Clide, who had sprung off his horse to set something right in his pupil’s saddle and adjust the folds of her habit, which had nothing amiss that any one else could see.
“They told me you were engaged, so I did not like to disturb you,” he explained.
“I should very much like to know who told you so,” said Sir Simon, with offensive incredulity.
“My respected uncle is the offender, if offence there be; but now that you are disengaged, perhaps you would like to take a canter with us. I’ll go round and order your horse?”
“No, you sha’n’t. I don’t choose to be taken up second-hand in that fashion; you’ll be good enough to walk off to The Lilies, and tell the count I have something very particular to say to him, and I’ll take it as a favor if he’ll come up at once.”
Clide turned his horse’s head in the direction indicated.
“No, no; you’ll get down and walk there,” said Sir Simon. “If he sees you on horseback, he may suspect something, and that would spoil the fun.” The young man alighted, and gave his bridle to be held.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t hold it in the saddle,” said the baronet after a moment; “and we will take a turn while we’re waiting.” He vaulted into Clide’s vacant seat with the agility of a younger man.
“Well, a pleasant ride to you both!” said Mr. Langrove, moving away. “You do your master credit, Franceline, whoever he is; and the exercise has given you a fine color too,” he added, nodding kindly to her.
“Oh! it’s enchanting!” cried the young Amazon passionately. “I feel as if I had wings; and Rosebud is so gentle!”
“Look here, Langrove,” called out Sir Simon, backing his powerful black horse, and stooping towards the vicar, “don’t you go worrying yourself about this business; it’s not worth it. They are a parcel of humbugs, the whole lot of them. I know Griggs well—a hot-headed, canting lout that would be much better occupied attending to his pigs. It would never do for a man like you to come into collision with him. Let those that like his fire and brimstone go and take it; you’ve a good riddance of them. And as to the old lady, keep never minding. You’ll do no good by crossing her; she’s a harmless old party as long as you let her have her own way, but if you rouse her there will be the devil to pay.”
M. de la Bourbonais had been kept out of the secret of the riding lessons. He had heard nothing more of the scheme since that evening at supper, and, with Angélique in the plot, it required no great diplomacy to manage the trying on of the riding habit, that had been made by the first lady’s dressmaker in London, brought down for the purpose; so that the intended surprise was as complete as Sir Simon and his accomplices could have wished.
“Comment donc!”[93] he exclaimed, breaking out into French, as usual when he was excited. “What is this? What do I see? My Clair de lune[94] turned into an Amazon!” And he stood at the end of the lawn and beheld Franceline careering on her beautiful, thoroughbred pony. “Ah! Simon, Simon, this is too bad. This is terrible!” he protested, as the baronet rode up; but the smile of inexpressible pleasure that shone in his face took all the reproach out of the words.
“Look at her!” cried Sir Simon triumphantly; “did you ever see any one take to it so quickly? Just see how she sits in her saddle. Stand out of the way a bit, till we have another gallop. Now, Franceline, who’ll be back first?”
And away they flew, Sir Simon reining in his more powerful steed, so as to let Rosebud come in a neck ahead of him.
“Simon, Simon, you are incorrigible! I don’t know what to say to you,” said Raymond, settling and unsettling the spectacles under his bushy eyebrows.
“Compliment me; that’s all you need say for the present,” said Sir Simon. “See what a color I’ve brought into her cheeks!”
“O petit père! it is so delightful,” exclaimed Franceline, caressing the hand her father had laid on Rosebud’s neck. “I never enjoyed anything so much. And I’m not the least fatigued; you know you were afraid it would fatigue me? And is not Rosebud a beauty? And look at my whip.” And she turned the elegant gold-headed handle for his inspection.
“Mounted in gold, and with your cipher in turquoise! Ah! you are nicely spoiled! Simon, Simon!” What more could he say at such a moment? It would have been odious to show anything but gratitude and pleasure, even if he felt it. This, then, was the end of the earnest midnight conference, and the distinct promise that Rosebud and Nero should be sold! The animal that would have paid half a lawful and urgent debt was to be kept for Franceline, and he must sanction the folly; to say nothing of the rigging out of that young lady in a complete riding suit of the most expensive fashion. Well, well, it was no use protesting now, and it was impossible to deny that the exquisitely-fitting habit and the dark beaver hat set off her figure and hair in singular perfection. The bright, healthy glow of her cheeks, too pleaded irresistibly in extenuation of Sir Simon’s extravagance.
“Shall we ride down to The Lilies? I should like Angélique to see me. She would be so pleased,” said Franceline, appealing to Sir Simon.
“You think she would? Silly old woman! very likely; but I want to have a talk with your father, so Clide must go and take care of you.” And the baronet slipped off his horse, which Mr. de Winton, with exemplary docility, at once mounted. The two young people set off at a canter, Franceline turning round to kiss her hand to her father, as they plunged into the trees and were lost to sight.
It would be useless to attempt to describe the effect of the apparition on Angélique: how she threw up her hands, and then flattened them between her knees, calling all the saints in Paradise to witness if any one had ever seen the like; and how nothing would satisfy her but that they should gallop up and down the field in front for her edification; and the astonishment of a flock of sheep which the performance sent scampering and bleating in wild dismay backwards and forwards along with them; and how, when Franceline’s hair came undone in the galloping, and fell in a golden shower down her back, the old woman declared it was the very image of S. Michael on horseback, whom she had seen trampling down the dragon in an Assyrian church. When it was all over, and Franceline had gone upstairs to change her dress, Clide tied the horses to a tree, and completed his conquest of the old lady by asking her to show him that wonderful casket he had heard so much about. She produced it from its hiding-place in M. de la Bourbonais’ room, and, reverently unwrapping it, proceeded to tell the story of how the papers had been rescued, and how they had been burned, watching her listener’s face with keen eyes all the while, to see if any shadow of scepticism was to be detected in it; but Clide was all attention and faith. “There are people who think it clever to laugh at the family for believing in such a story,” she observed; “but, as I say, when a thing has come down from father to son for nigh four thousand years, it’s hard not to believe in it; and to my mind it’s easier to believe it than to think anybody could have had the wit to invent it.” And Clide having agreed that no mere human imagination could ever indeed have reached so lofty a flight, Angélique called his attention to the ornamentation of the casket. “Monsieur can see how unlike anything in our times it is,” pointing to the antediluvian vipers crawling and writhing in the rusty iron; “and all that is typical—the snakes and the birds and the crooked signs—everything is typical, as Monsieur le Comte will tell you.”
“And what is it supposed to typify?” asked Clide, anxious to seem interested.
“Ah! I know nothing about that, monsieur!” replied Angélique with a shrug; and lest other questions of an equally indiscreet and unreasonable nature should follow, she covered up the casket and carried it off.
TO BE CONTINUED.