I.
On a fine summer evening, in 1846, I left my house, which was in the neighborhood of Honfleur, Normandy, to take a stroll. It was July. All the morning and all the afternoon the sun had been busily pouring down streams of radiance like streams of boiling water, and I had kept the house, and kept it closely shut up too, till the orb of day had gone some way down towards the sea, as if, like a fire-eater, or like a locomotive, to get a drink after its work.
My wife being asleep, I borrowed her parasol, for English life in France is very free and easy, and I was rather careful of my complexion. I lit a cigar, and starting, soon left the church of St. Catharine behind. My business in the town was to post a letter, which I got safely done, and then passing down the fish-market, I found myself, ere long, at the foot of the Côte de Grace—a steep hill which rises abruptly from the town, and is scaleable at one part by a sandy zigzag.
My cigar was a bad one altogether—a bad one to look at and a bad one to blow. Of government manufacture, it cost five sous, and was not worth one. Its skin was as thick as an ass's hide, and no persuasion would make it draw. Like a false friend, it became quite hollow when I put the fire of trial to it; and only waxed hot and oily as it burnt on. It was a French regalia, and had nothing of French royalty about it but bad smoke. The tobacco had, I think, lost savor, as salt used to do, in passing through the monopolizing hands of the Citoyen Roi. In a word, my gorge rose at it.
I stood awhile at the foot of the zigzag, endeavoring to coax it into usefulness, for I was a family man, and had given many hostages to fortune, and dared not to be extravagant. I tried to doctor it by incisions, and by giving it draughts; but all was in vain. At last it began to unwind, and some loose ashes found their way to my eyes. I was about to throw it away in disgust, when a young Frenchman, who had passed me a moment before with a party (I knew him slightly and we had bowed), returned, and observing that my cigar seemed troublesome, asked me to try one of his.
His name was Le Brun. We had met occasionally on the pier, where in the quiet evenings I used to take refuge from the uproar of my sanctuary at home, and for awhile almost believed myself a lay bachelor lounging through France without a charming wife and eight children. He and I had succeeded well in chit-chat. The Browns, he was fond of saying, were a numerous race in England, but if he ever settled there he would be distinguished from them as The Brown. He was vain of this play on his name, and I always laughed when he produced it. I had no hesitation, therefore, when he offered me a cigar: besides, I knew that he always smoked smuggled Cubas.
We gossiped for a few moments. At length I saw him glance at my wife's parasol, which was shielding me from the sun. He said nothing, but I felt my cheek burn with a sudden sort of shame, and immediately shut it up.
"Madame will return," he said, "and Monsieur attends her."
This was not the fact. Monsieur had to return, and Madame attended him. But the observation was put in the narrative form, and if my friend gave me information which I knew to be false, I was not bound to say so. I only bowed, therefore; and he added that he was forced to join his party, and bowed too; and so we separated.
He had scarcely left me, when I thought that if I had avowed my solitary state he might have asked me to join his party, which was evidently a merry one; and I internally execrated the parasol, which had been the means of preventing this. If by any accident I should meet him again, I resolved that he should not see me with it, and without the lady; so I deposited it at a little lace-maker's, and soon after began to ascend the Côte de Grace, not without hopes of meeting the party as they returned, perhaps from Val-à-Reine.
Between each wind of the zigzag path was a flight of wooden steps, by which the adventurous might ascend directly from the bottom of the hill. At the head of some of these flights of steps were rustic seats; they were generally on the outer edge of the path, but a few were placed far back, so that the hill immediately below was unseen.
I always climbed the Côte by the steps, as I used ever and anon to lie down on the green carpet which nature has spread over each of the short ascents. On the present occasion I had not mounted far before a pleasant piece of this turf-flooring near the top of one of the little hills seduced me from my toils. I sat down, took Shelley's "Revolt of Islam" from my pocket, finished my cigar, and in consequence of reading half a dozen stanzas from the poem—fell asleep.
I woke suddenly, and as soon as I had my faculties about me, noticed that people were speaking, and in loud tones, close above me. Otherwise, all was still around. There was no wind among the little trees; a bee buzzed past me now and then, and insects hummed, but further off down the hill, and these voices sounded harsh and dissonant in the quiet air. I listened, at first mechanically. The conversation was carried on in French.
"It is time to end this," said a stern, disagreeable voice; "and I will not wait any longer, M. Raymond."
"But M. Gray," answered another and more pleasant voice, "you will think of my situation—my family. I have done all I could."
"I have thought too much of your family," replied Gray; "but I must also think of myself. Esther—your daughter—she does not speak with me, for example, as you said she should."
"Monsieur!" exclaimed the other.
"This Le Brun—she is all ears and eyes for him. She——"
"M. Gray!" said Raymond. His voice had been deprecating before—it was firm now. "You are so harsh to me; how can you expect kindness from her?"
"Why, sir, you promised to use your influence with her——"
"Promised, M. Gray!" Raymond burst in. "You did not think I should sell my daughter for a debt of the table? I do not think, monsieur, you expected me to sell my Esther, for example." And there was an emphasis on these last words which only a Frenchman could give.
"I did not say you promised that," replied the other; "but I am seeking for the money you owe me. I love your daughter; you know it; she does not smile, and I must wait. But my creditors will not wait. I owe money, and come to you for what you owe me."
The voice that said this was cold and stern. Suddenly, as I listened to it, it seemed familiar to me; but where I had heard it I could not remember. Raymond replied:
"And suppose I had not played with you and lost? What would you have done?"
"But my friends in England are so dilatory," was the evasive answer. "Still—if Mademoiselle Esther——"
"Sacré!" cried Raymond, starting to his feet, and stamping on the path. Gray seemed to rise too. "You press me too far. What do I know of you, monsieur? You live here some few months—you play high—you—you——"
"Ah, well, monsieur," said Gray, icily, as he paused.
"My daughter, too," cried Raymond; "you use my debt to you as a means——." He stopped again in his sudden passion.
"Pardon me, monsieur," said Gray, sternly, "this is only a debt of honor;" and he laid a stress on the word which drove it home. "In England we cannot enforce a debt of honor."
"What do you do there when it is not paid?"
"First post the guilty man, and then shoot him," was the answer.
I felt inclined to start from my concealment and say that this was false. I recollected, however, just in time, that it was true.
"But this is folly," pursued Gray, "and we should not quarrel. I am not going to shoot Esther's father, for example."
The effect of this cordial and peaceful declaration was instantaneous. Glad apparently to drop his creditor in his friend at any price, Raymond answered kindly, and even proposed to give Gray a small sum on account of his debt, which he accepted. They then began to ascend the zigzag, and ere long their voices died away in the distance.
I had remained lying-to where I was all this while, and felt glad when they left the neighborhood. I never overheard a conversation with pleasure since I read how the Rev. Dr. Follett declared that his bamboo, and not his cloth, should protect him from Mr. Eavesdrop. Once, indeed, I had thought of retiring, but put it off so long that I thought I might just as well stay out the interview.
I knew Mr. Raymond by name. He was a banker, and reputed rich. He was also thought religious—for a Frenchman, even pious. He crossed himself at all the twopenny representations of the Divine agony. He never galloped past a crucifix, or calvaire, or burial-place. And yet he now showed himself a gambler, and apparently on the way to sell his daughter's hand to a man he did not know, for a gambling debt. The discovery made me feel sick. And yet I thought how many of my own parisioners, who wave their heads at the sacred name in the creed, and appear to men to worship, are as false as this man; packing away their religion like their best hat till next Sunday, when it seems as good to the next pew as ever.
But I felt more than an abstract discomfort at my discoveries. Le Brun's name had been mixed up with Esther Raymond's by this Gray. Now his Cuba cigar had bound me indissolubly to The Brown, and as long as he asked nothing but what cost nothing, I was his faithful well-wisher and friend. This was the time to show my friendship; and accordingly I sprang from my couch, put Shelley into my pocket, and resumed my ascent of the Côte.
I had gained the top, and, after looking across the water to Harfleur, which showed well in the soft light of the westering sun, was about to walk on, when I saw a party on the rude bench which is set on the seaward side of the top of the Côte—Le Brun with them. I looked back across the Seine, and watched the lights and shades shift on the hills of the opposite shore, collecting my thoughts the while. Ere they were collected, however, he joined me.
"Ah! but madame is no longer with monsieur?" he said.
"No; she's at home now," I answered, thinking how I should best break ground, and almost inclined to leave him to his own courses now that it was time to act. Why should I meddle in these foreigners' affairs? What were they to me? I felt thus for a moment; Le Brun produced his cigar-case, and I did not feel so for another.
"I hope you liked my cigar; it is not French," he said. "Will you try another?"
"If you will try one of mine," I answered, ashamed to take without giving, and forgetting that my property consisted of none but the despised French article. The young gentleman took one of the great clown-like regalias with a slight shudder, and I saw him wince as he inhaled a mouthful of its rank produce, and, ere long, quietly drop the thing when he thought I was not looking, and substitute one of his own.
The flavor of his Cuba opened my heart to him, and ere long I broached the subject with which I had no earthly business.
"You know a certain M. Gray?" I asked. He started.
"Yes," he said; "that is him talking to mademoiselle. Shall I introduce you?"
"Not at present—no, I thank you," I answered. He looked up at me.
"Do you know him?" he asked. My eye had been bent on him for the last few seconds.
"I think I do," I said; "I am not sure."
"He came here with the Dowlasses; he is the son of an English milord, who allows him a thousand pounds a year."
"Why did he leave England, then?" I inquired.
"He was too gay, I believe."
"And left his debts unpaid, I suppose." He looked up at me again.
"If you do know him, or anything about him," he exclaimed, "pray tell me; I am particularly anxious about him."
"I know you must be, and so ought mademoiselle to be," I said. He blushed like a girl and was going to speak, but I continued: "If he is the man I think, never play at cards with him, M. le Brun; and, between us, separate his hat from those pink ribbons further than they are now."
His curiosity, his anxiety, was thoroughly aroused; but, as he began to speak, a lady's voice called him. It was Esther's.
"Will you join us?" he said. In another moment I was being introduced to the party.
I was at first surprised to find Gray and his dupe smoking and chatting as gayly as any of the party. I am a good wonderer, but always reason my surprises away. I soon did so now, reflecting that all men use their faces as masks, by which they lie without speaking falsehood. And, though I detest hypocrisy myself, I remembered that I often smiled when I could grind my teeth with rage—that is, if they were not false ones.
Le Brun had been summoned to rejoin the circle because a curious topic had been started. M. Raymond was proprietor of an estate near St. Sauveur, the house of which was reported to be haunted, and Esther had dared Gray to spend a night there.
"But I don't believe in ghosts," he recommenced, after the introduction. "It would only be to waste a night."
"Oh, there is a goblin though," replied the beautiful girl—"a male Amina; always walking into an occupied chamber, so that you're sure to see him. He does not, however, stop to be caught napping in the morning, like La Sonnambula."
"I'll tell you what I'll do," answered Gray. "You've called M. le Brun"—and he looked somewhat fiercely at my friend—"if he'll spend a night there, I will. I'm engaged to-night, and to-morrow night, so that he can go first. But I can't believe in your ghost, mademoiselle."
"Not if I acknowledge to have seen him myself?" she asked. There was a general movement among the listeners. "Well, I will accept for M. le Brun; he shall go to-night or to-morrow, and you the night after—eh, M. Frederic?"
Le Brun murmured something about obedience to her wishes; what, I did not hear. He evidently, however, did not like the scheme, and Gray saw it; but, in the general interest for Esther's tale, no one else did.
I do not give it here, for divers reasons. When she had done, it was found to be time to return. I would have left the party, but Raymond having seperated Le Brun from Esther, he joined himself to me, and I was unable to do so.
"What will Grace say?" thought I. "I hope she won't wait tea for me." I should have been somewhat crusty if, on an ordinary occasion, I had returned from a stroll and found that she and the rest had not waited. Le Brun asked me—as M. Raymond had already done—to stay all the evening with the party. That, however, I felt to be impossible, and said so.
"Well, for the present, then," he said. "What can you tell me of M. Gray?" he added.
"I expect my brother here to-morrow," I said, "when I will compare notes with him. Till then I should be cautious, as I may injure an innocent man. But do you be cautious too. How about this challenge? Shall you sleep in the haunted house? It is romantic nonsense—this of a spirit, you know. Mademoiselle has seen a clothes-horse, or a—a part of her dress in moonlight. I don't believe in ghosts myself at all."
"Don't you?" said he, somewhat sadly. "I—the truth is, mon cher, I am afraid I do."
"You must go on now, though," I said, maliciously.
"Oh, yes—of course—go on," he answered; "but, monsieur——" he hesitated.
"What is it, my dear friend?" I said.
"I thought to ask a favor of you," he replied. "Will you accompany me to this house, monsieur? I feel I ask much—but will you?"
"Much, my very dear sir!" I exclaimed, in the fullness of my heart—"not at all too much. I shall be happy to be of any use to you, and will sit and smoke those cigars of yours, and let the ghosts go to old ——." I stopped suddenly.
"And what," thought I, "will Grace say to that?" A sort of dampness rushed out upon my skin; I had forgotten her. My sentence remained unfinished, and I looked eagerly about me, as if to question the adjoining shrubs as to what on earth I was to do. My dear Grace was the light of my eyes, and the joy of my heart, I'm sure; the best wife, the most amiable of the sex, but yet she had a kind of will of her own, which was apt to get grafted, as it were, upon mine. She never opposed me positively in any thing, but somehow, if she did not like it, it was rarely done. I had just promised what I might not be able to perform; and yet I did not like to confess to this foreigner that my wife led me. "A plague upon his Cubas and him too," I thought. Still, what was to be done?
"If you cannot sleep there to-night," he said, noticing my uneasiness, "I will claim the night's grace——"
"Grace!" I exclaimed; my wife before me in the word.
"Yes, she said to-night or to-morrow."
"Oh, to-night?—impossible!" I cried. "I have a very—an engagement to-night. I can not possibly make it to-night. Besides," I exclaimed, grasping at an idea like a drowner at a rope, or any thing saving, "mademoiselle may not give leave to share your danger with any one."
"I asked her," he said—I had noticed them exchange whispers—"and she will——"
"Bother!" I muttered; but instantly continued, with a smile, "if it is to be so I will be at your service to-morrow. Meanwhile, let me slip away now—that engagement, you know."
We were at the foot of the Côte de Grace by this time. He brought the party to a stand-still, and, after some difficulty, I was allowed to desert, Le Brun asking me to join him next day to dinner, to which I agreed. After I left the joyous set I walked away fiercely, like a man with a purpose, till they were out of sight; but, as I neared that sanctuary of the heart where the tea would be waiting for me, the fierceness of my pace abated, and, with hands in pockets and head depressed, I slackened my speed more and more, till at last, when I reached my garden-gate, I came to a stand-still.
Unhappily I am tall, and my children are all wonderfully quick. I had not stood at the gate three seconds before I was surrounded by my urchins, whooping, and getting among my legs, and hanging to my tails, and playing the wildest pranks off on me.
But suddenly I saw my wife leave the house and come down the garden without her bonnet to welcome me. Oh, how I wished that, just for once, she had been a shrew; I could have brazened out the matter then. But she smiled so sweetly at me!
"Well," she exclaimed, heartily, putting her hands in mine, "you have had a splendid afternoon for your walk! Have you enjoyed it?"
"Oh, yes," I said, "except for one thing."
"What's that?" she asked; "no accident I hope. You've never, surely, been among the orchards again; I'm sure the grass swarms with adders and snakes." And she looked so anxiously and tenderly up into my face that I was forced to stoop and——. But this is weakness. "What was it? I saw you took out that divine Shelley."
"Yes," I answered, jumping at any subject foreign to the one at my heart, "he is divine. I'll never deny it again; the very god of sleep."
"For shame!" she cried; "and I saw you took something else, too. But where is it?—the parasol, I mean?" I had forgotten it! I think I must have started and changed color, for she immediately proceeded: "Never mind, it's too late to go into the fields for it now. It will be quite destroyed, though, by the dew to-night—there's always so much in this weather. But, never mind—and yet how could you forget it?"
"Oh, it's all right," I replied, somewhat pettishly; "we'll get it in the morning. I left it in a shop at the foot of the Côte de Grace."
"Well, then, what was the drawback to your walk?"
"Oh! never mind it just now," I exclaimed. "Dear Grace, do let me have some tea; I'll tell you by-and-by." And I bustled among the children towards the house, she following in some surprise.
As soon as tea was over I dispatched the children into the garden and solemnly commenced my tale. Commenced? I plunged into it heels over head, as a timid bather plunges into the pool when he is the cynosure of the eyes of all swimmers in it, and by appearing on the brink in Nature's undress uniform, feels himself pledged to enter the liquid. Like him, too, when once in, I did not find the water so cold as I feared, after all. I had made my promise so strong by constantly referring to it, that Grace never even proposed my giving it up. My brother would arrive by to-morrow's boat, and so that the house would have a guardian she would not object—for once. I inwardly vowed not to put it in her power to refuse or grant such a favor again.