De L'Orme. / The Works of G. P. R. James, Esq., Vol. XVI.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER III.

Though I have not gone very far into my history, I have learned to hate being my own historian, stringing I, and I, and I, together to the end of the chapter. Nevertheless, I believe that no man's history can be so well told as by himself, if he will but be candid; for no one can so completely enter into his feelings, or have so vivid an impression of the circumstances amidst which he has acted. Notwithstanding this, it shall be my endeavour to pass over the events of my youth as rapidly as possible, for the purpose of arriving at that part of this history where the stirring nature of the scenes in which I mingled may cover the egotism of the detail; but still, as there are persons and occurrences yet unmentioned, by which my after life was entirely modified, I must still pause a little on this part of my tale.

Faithful to the charge she had undertaken, my mother made the education of Helen Arnault her particular care. At first, she confined her instructions to those arts alone that were likely to be useful to her in the bourgeoise class in which she had been born; but there was a degree of ready genius mixed with the infinite gentleness of Helen's disposition, which gradually seduced my mother into teaching her much more than she had at first intended. Nor was she ill qualified for the task, possessing every female accomplishment, both mental and corporeal, in as much perfection as they had received in those days. At first, the education of the sweet girl, thus placed under her protection, formed a sort of amusement for her, when my father and myself were absent in any of the long rides we used to take through the country--gradually it became so habitual as to be necessary to her comfort; and Helen so completely wound herself round the Countess's heart, that she could not bear to be without her for any considerable length of time.

Perhaps it was the very attachment which she herself experienced towards Helen, that made my mother feel how strong might be the effect of such sweetness and such beauty at some after time upon the heart of an ardent, sensitive, imaginative youth--and my mother from the first knew me to be such. Whatever was the cause, certain it is she took care that between Helen and myself should be placed a barrier of severe and chilling formality, calculated to repress the least intimacy in its very bud. Whenever she mentioned my name to her young protégée, it was always under the ceremonious epithet of Count Louis. Whenever I entered the room, Helen Arnault was sent away, upon some excuse which prevented her return; or if she was permitted to remain, there was a sort of courtly etiquette maintained, well calculated to freeze all the warmer blood of youth.

All this my mind has commented on since, though I only regarded it, at the time, as something very disagreeable, without in the least understanding why my mother chose to play so very different a part from that which suited her natural character. She certainly acted for the best, but I think she was mistaken in her judgment of the means to be employed for effecting her object. It is probable, that had she suffered me at the first to look upon Helen Arnault as a sister, and taught her to consider me as her brother, the feelings which we acquired towards each other at ten and twelve years old would have remained unchanged at a later period. God knows how it would have been! I am afraid that all experiments upon young hearts are dangerous things. The only remedy is, I believe, a stone wall; and the example of Pyramus and Thisbe demonstrates that even it must not have a crack in it.

As it was, the years rolled on, and I began to acquire the sensations of manhood. I saw Helen Arnault but by glimpses, but I saw nothing on earth so lovely. Every day new beauties broke forth upon me; and it was impossible to behold her hour by hour expanding into the perfection of womanhood, without experiencing those feelings with which we see a bud open out into the rose--a wish to possess so beautiful a thing.

In the meanwhile, several changes took place in our vicinity; the most important of which was the arrival of a neighbour. The Château de l'Orme stood, as I have said, upon the side of the hill, commanding an extensive view through the valley below. It had originally been nothing more than one of those towers to be found in every gorge of the Pyrenees, built in times long past to defend the country from the incursions of the Moors of Spain.

After the expulsion of the infidels from the Peninsula, it had been converted into a hunting residence for the counts of Bigorre, and a great many additions had been made to it, according to the various tastes of a long line of proprietors, who had each in general followed the particular style of architecture which accorded with his own immediate pursuits. The more warlike had built towers, and walls, and turrets, and battlements. One of the counts dying without children, it had fallen into the hands of his brother, who was a bishop. He added a Gothic chapel and a dormitory for ecclesiastics. His nephew, a famous lawyer and President de Grenoble, no sooner succeeded, than he built an immense hall, exactly copied from the hall of justice in which he had so often presided; and others of different dispositions had equally taken care of the stables, the dairy, and the kitchen.

In short, they had been like the fairies called to the birth of a child in our nursery tales; each had endowed the building with some particular gift, so that on the whole, though somewhat straggling and irregular, it contained an apartment of every kind, sort, and description, that could be wanted or wished for.

In one of the square towers, built upon the edge of a steep rock, some ninety feet in height, my father had fixed his library. Here he could read whatever book he chose, in a quiet, dozy sort of manner, without hearing any noise from the rest of the house; though, at the same time, he just caught, through the open windows, the murmuring of the waterfall below, and could look up from what he was perusing, and run his eye through all the windings of the valley, with a dreamy contemplative listlessness, in which he was very fond to indulge.