“She did not come, but Bélisaire brought a note from her. It was very brief, merely stating that M. D’Argenton was very ill, and that she regarded it as her duty to watch at his side. As soon as he was well she would return. Ill! I had not thought of that. I might call myself ill, too, and keep her at my bedside. How well he understood her, the wretch! How thoroughly he had studied that weak but kindly nature! You remember those ‘attacks’ he talked of at Etiolles, and which so soon disappeared after a good dinner. It is one of those which he now has. But my mother was only too glad of an excuse, and allowed herself to be deceived. But to return to my story. Behold me alone in this little home, amid all the wasted efforts, time and money! Was it not cruel? I could not remain there; I returned to my old room. The house seemed to me as sad as a funeral-chamber. I permitted the fire to die out, and the roses wither and fall on the marble hearth below with a gentle rustle. I took the rooms for two years, and I shall keep them with something of the same superstition with which one preserves for a long time the cage from which some favorite bird has flown. If my mother returns we will go there together. But if she does not I shall never inhabit the place. I have now told you all, but do not let Cécile see this letter. Ah, my friend, will she too desert me? The treachery of those we love is terrible indeed. But of what am I thinking; I have her word and her promise, and Cécile always tells the truth.”
CHAPTER XXII.
CÉCILE UNHAPPY RESOLVE.
For a long time Jack had faith that his mother would return. In the morning, in the evening, in the silence of midday, he fancied that he heard the rustling of her dress, her light step on the threshold. When he went to the Rondics he glanced at the little house, hoping to see the windows opened and Ida installed in the refuge, the address of which, with the key, he had sent to her: “The house is ready. Come when you will.” Not a word in reply. The desertion was final and absolute.
Jack was in great grief. When our mothers do us harm, it wounds and grieves us, and seems like a direct cruelty from the hand of God. But Cécile was the magician to cure him; she knew just the words to use, and her delicate tenderness defied the rough trials of destiny. A great resource to him at this time was hard work, which is one’s best defence against sorrow and regrets. While his mother had been with him, she, without knowing it, had often prevented him from working. Her indecision had been at times very harassing. She sometimes was all ready to go out, with hat and shawl on, when she would suddenly decide to remain at home. Now that she was gone, he took rapid strides and regained his lost time. Each Sunday he went to Etiolles; he was at once more in love, and wiser. The doctor was delighted with the progress of his pupil; before a year was over, he said, if he went on in this way, he could take his degree.
These words thrilled Jack with joy, and when he repeated them to Bélisaire, the little attic positively glowed and palpitated with happiness. Madame Bélisaire was suddenly filled with a desire to learn, and her husband must teach her to read. But while M. Rivals was pleased at Jack’s progress with his books, he was discontented with the state of his health; the old cough had come back, his eyes were feverish and his hands hot.
“I do not like this,” said the good man; “you work too hard; you must stop; you have plenty of time: Cécile does not mean to run away.”
Never had the girl been more loving and tender; she seemed to feel that she must take his mother’s place as well as her own; and it was precisely this sweetness that induced Jack to make greater exertions each day. His bodily frame was in the same condition as that of the Fakirs of India—urged to such a point of feverish excitement that pain becomes a pleasure. He was grateful to the cold of his little attic, and to the hard dry cough that kept him from sleeping. Sometimes at his writing-table he suddenly felt lightness throughout all his being—a strange clearness of perception and an extraordinary excitement of all his intellectual faculties; but this was accompanied with great physical exhaustion.
His work went like lightning, and all the difficulties of his task disappeared. He would have gone on thus to the end of his labor, had he not received a painful shock. A telegram arrived:
“Do not come to-morrow; we are going away for a week.
Rivals.”
Jack received that despatch just as Madame Bélisaire had ironed his fine linen for the next day. The suddenness of this departure, the brevity of the despatch, and even the printed characters instead of his friend’s well-known writing, affected him most painfully. He expected a letter from Cécile or the doctor to explain the mystery, but nothing came, and for a week he was a prey to suspense and anxiety. The truth was: neither Cécile nor the doctor had left home, but that M. Rivals wished for time to prepare the youth for an unexpected blow—for a decision of Cécile’s so extraordinary that he hoped his granddaughter would be induced to reconsider it. One evening, on coming into the house, he had found Cécile in a state of singular agitation; her lips were pale but firmly closed. He tried to make her smile at the dinner-table, but in vain; and suddenly, in reply to some remark of his in regard to Jack’s coming, she said, “I do not wish him to come.”