Abby wondered afterward what power had spoken in her voice; it must have had some unusual force, for De Arthenay, after a moment's hesitation, did as she bade him,—turned slowly and left the room, and the next moment was heard mounting the garret stairs. While he was gone, she still held Marie in her arms, and begged her not to tremble so, and told her that her husband was a good man, a kind man, that he had never hurt any one in his life except evil-doers, and had been a good son and a good brother to his own people while they lived. Then she bade the child look around at her new home, and see how neat and good everything was, and how tastefully Jacques had arranged it all for her. "Why, he vallies the ground you step on, child!" she cried. "You don't want to be afraid of him, dear. You can do anything you're a mind to with him, I tell you. See them flowers there, in the chaney bowl! Now he never looked at a flower in his life, Jacques didn't; but knowing you set by them, he went out and picked them pretty ones o' purpose. Now I call that real thoughtful, don't you, Maree?"
So the good soul talked on, soothing the girl, who said no word, only trembled, and gazed at her with wide, frightened eyes; but Abby's heart was heavy within her, and she hardly heard her own cheery words. What kind of union was this likely to be, with such a beginning! Why had she not realised, before it was too late, how set Jacques was in his ways, and how he never would give in to the heathen notions and fiddling ways of the foreign child?
Sadly the good woman bade farewell to the bridal couple, and left them alone in their new home. On the threshold she turned back for a moment, and had a moment's comfort; for Jacques had taken Marie's hands in his own, and was gazing at her with such love in his eyes that it must have melted a stone, Abby thought; and perhaps Marie thought so too, for she forgot to make the horns, and smiled back, a little faint piteous smile, into her husband's face.
So Abby went away to the West, to tend her sister, and Jacques and
Marie De Arthenay began their life together.
It was not so very terrible, Marie found after a while. Of course a person could not always help it, to have the evil eye; it had happened that even the best of persons had it, and sometimes without knowing it. The Catholic girls at home in the village had a saint who always carried her eyes about in a plate because they were evil, and she was afraid of hurting some one with them. (Poor Saint Lucia! this is a new rendering of thy martyrdom!) Yes, indeed! Marie was no Catholic, but she had seen the picture, and knew that it was so. And oh, he did mean to be kind, her husband! that saw itself more and more plainly every day.
Then, there was great pleasure in the housekeeping. Marie was a born housewife, with delicate French hands, and an inborn skill in cookery, the discovery of which gave her great delight. Everything in the kitchen was fresh and clean and sweet, and in the garden were fruits, currants and blackberries and raspberries, and every kind of vegetable that grew in the village at home, with many more that were strange to her. She found never-ending pleasure in concocting new dishes, little triumphs of taste and daintiness, and trying them on her silent husband. Sometimes he did not notice them at all, but ate straight on, not knowing a delicate fricassee from a junk of salt beef; that was very trying. But again he would take notice, and smile at her with the rare sweet smile for which she was beginning to watch, and praise the prettiness and the flavor of what was set before him. But sometimes, too, dreadful things happened. One day Marie had tried her very best, and had produced a dish for supper of which she was justly proud,—a little friture of lamb, delicate golden-brown, with crimson beets and golden carrots, cut in flower-shapes, neatly ranged around. Such a pretty dish was never seen, she thought; and she had put it on the best platter, the blue platter with the cow and the strawberries on it; and when she set it before her husband, her dark eyes were actually shining with pleasure, and she was thinking that if he were very pleased, but very, very, she might possibly have courage to call him "Mon ami," which she had thought several times of doing. It had such a friendly sound, "Mon ami!"
But alas! when De Arthenay came to the table he was in one of his dark moods; and when his eyes fell on the festal dish, he started up, crying out that the devil was tempting him, and that he and his house should be lost through the wiles of the flesh; and so caught up the dish and flung it on the fire, and bade his trembling wife bring him a crust of dry bread. Poor Marie! she was too frightened to cry, though all her woman's soul was in arms at the destruction of good food, to say nothing of the wound to her house-wifely pride. She sat silent, eating nothing, only making believe, when her husband looked her way, to crumble a bit of bread. And when that wretched meal was over, Jacques called her to his side, and took out the great black Bible, and read three chapters of denunciation from Jeremiah, that made Marie's blood chill in her veins, and sent her shivering to her bed. The next day he would eat nothing but Indian meal porridge, and the next; and it was a week before Marie ventured to try any more experiments in cookery.
Marie had a great dread of the black Bible. She was sure it was a different Bible from the one which Mere Jeanne used to read at home, for that was full of lovely things, while this was terrible. Sometimes Jacques would call her to him and question her, and that was really too frightful for anything. Perhaps he had been reading aloud, as he was fond of doing in the evenings, some denunciatory passage from the psalms or the prophets. "Mary," he would say, turning to her, as she sat with her knitting in the corner, "what do you think of that passage?"
"I think him horreebl'," Marie would answer. "Why do you read of such things, Jacques! Why you not have the good Bible, as we have him in France, why?"
"There is but one Bible, Mary, but one in the world; and it is all good and beautiful, only our sinful eyes cannot always see the glory of it."