“Are my young mistresses wan, and thin?”
“Treason! blasphemy! ah, no! By Venus and Hebe, no!”
Jacintha smiled at this enthusiastic denial, and also because her sex is apt to smile when words are used they do not understand.
“Dard is a fool,” suggested Riviere, by way of general solution. He added, “And yet, do you know I wish every word he said had been true.” (Jacintha’s eyes expressed some astonishment.) “Because then you and I would have concerted means to do them kindnesses, secretly; for I see you are no ordinary servant; you love your young mistresses. Do you not?”
These simple words seemed to touch a grander chord in Jacintha’s nature.
“Love them?” said she, clasping her hands; “ah, sir, do not be offended; but, believe me, it is no small thing to serve an old, old family. My grandfather lived and died with them; my father was their gamekeeper, and fed to his last from off the poor baron’s plate (and now they have killed him, poor man); my mother died in the house and was buried in the sacred ground near the family chapel. They put an inscription on her tomb praising her fidelity and probity. Do you think these things do not sink into the heart of the poor?—praise on her tomb, and not a word on their own, but just the name, and when each was born and died, you know. Ah! the pride of the mean is dirt; but the pride of the noble is gold.”
“For, look you, among parvenues I should be a servant, and nothing more; in this proud family I am a humble friend; of course they are not always gossiping with me like vulgar masters and mistresses; if they did, I should neither respect nor love them; but they all smile on me whenever I come into the room, even the baroness herself. I belong to them, and they belong to me, by ties without number, by the many kind words in many troubles, by the one roof that sheltered us a hundred years, and the grave where our bones lie together till the day of judgment.” *
* The French peasant often thinks half a sentence, and
utters the other half aloud, and so breaks air in the middle
of a thought. Probably Jacintha’s whole thought, if we had
the means of knowing it, would have run like this—“Besides,
I have another reason: I could not be so comfortable myself
elsewhere—for, look you”—
Jacintha clasped her hands, and her black eyes shone out warm through the dew. Riviere’s glistened too.
“That is well said,” he cried; “it is nobly said: yet, after all, these are ties that owe their force to the souls they bind. How often have such bonds round human hearts proved ropes of sand! They grapple YOU like hooks of steel; because you are steel yourself to the backbone. I admire you, Jacintha. Such women as you have a great mission in France just now.”