Not in the window itself, though that was near enough the clouds—but Cosmo, looking down, looked, as his good fortune was, into another window over the way, a pretty second floor, with white curtains and flowers to garnish it, and sunshine that loved to steal in for half the day. It was a pretty point of itself, with its little stand of early-blooming plants, and its white curtains looped up with ribbon. The plants were but early spring flowers, and did not at all screen the bright little window which Cosmo looked at, as though it had been a picture—and even when the evening lamp was lighted, no jealous blinds were drawn across the cheerful light. The lad was not impertinent nor curious, yet he sat in the dusk sometimes, looking down as into the heart of a little sacred picture. There were only two people ever in the room, and these were ladies, evidently a mother and daughter—one of them an invalid. That there was a sofa near the fire, on which some one nearly always lay—that once or twice in the day this recumbent figure was raised from the couch, and the two together paced slowly through the room—and that, perhaps once a week, a little carriage came to the door to take the sick lady out for a drive, was all that Cosmo knew of the second person in this interesting apartment; and the lad may have been supposed to be sufficiently disinterested in his curiosity, when we say that the only face which he ever fully saw at that bright window was the face of an old lady—a face as old as his mother’s. It was she who watered the flowers and looped the curtains—it was she who worked within their slight shadow, always visible—and it was she who, sometimes looking up and catching his eye, smiled either at or to Cosmo, causing him to retreat precipitately for the moment, yet leaving no glance of reproach on his memory to forbid his return.
Beauty is not a common gift; it is especially rare to the fanciful, young imagination, which is very hard to please, save where it loves. This old lady, however, old though she was, caught Cosmo’s poetic eye with all the glamour, somehow tenderer than if she had been young, of real loveliness. She must have been beautiful in her youth. She had soft, liquid, dark-blue eyes, full of a motherly and tender light now-a-days, and beautiful light-brown hair, in which, at this distance, it was not possible to see the silvery threads. She was tall, with a natural bend in her still pliant form, which Cosmo could not help comparing to the bend of a lily. He said to himself, as he sat at his window, that he had seen many pretty girls, but never any one so beautiful as this old lady. Her sweet eyes of age captivated Cosmo; he was never weary of watching her. He could have looked down upon her for an hour at a time, as she sat working with her white hands, while the sun shone upon her white lace cap, and on the sweet old cheek, with its lovely complexion, which was turned to the window; or when she half disappeared within to minister to the other half visible figure upon the sofa. Cosmo did not like to tell Cameron of his old lady, but he sat many an hour by himself in this little room, to the extreme wonderment of his friend, who supposed it was all for the benefit of the Auld Reekie Magazine, and smiled a little within himself at the lad’s literary enthusiasm. For his part, Cosmo dreamed about his opposite neighbors, and made stories for them in his own secret imagination, wondering if he ever could come to know them, or if he left St. Ouen, whether they were ever likely to meet again. It certainly did not seem probable, and there was no photography in those days to enable Cosmo to take pictures of his beautiful old lady as she sat in the sunshine. He took them on his own mind instead, and he made them into copies of verses, which the beautiful old lady never would see, nor if she saw could read—verses for the Auld Reekie Magazine and the North British Courant.
CHAPTER LII.
The house of Cosmo’s residence was not a great enough house to boast a regular portière or concierge. A little cobbler, who lived in an odd little ever-open room, on the ground floor, was the real renter and landlord of the much-divided dwelling place. He and his old wife lived and labored without change or extension in this one apartment, which answered for all purposes, and in which Baptiste’s scraps of leather contended for preëminence of odor over Margot’s pot au feu; and it was here that the lodgers hung up the keys of their respective chambers, and where the letters and messages of the little community were left. Cameron and Cosmo were both very friendly with Baptiste. They understood him but imperfectly, and he, for his part, kept up a continual chuckle behind his sleeve over the blunders of les Anglais. But as they laughed at each other mutually, both were contented, and kept their complacence. Cosmo had found out by guess or inference, he could not quite tell how, that madame in the second floor opposite, with the invalid daughter, was the owner of Baptiste’s house—a fact which made the cobbler’s little room very attractive to the lad, as it was easy to invent questions, direct or indirect, about the beautiful old lady. One morning, Baptiste looked up, with a smirk, from his board, as he bid good-day to his young lodger. He had news to tell.
“You shall now have your wish,” said Baptiste; “Madame has been asking Margot about the young Englishman. Madame takes interest in les Anglais. You shall go to present yourself, and make your homage when her poor daughter is better. She loves your country. Madame is Anglais herself.”
“Is she?” cried Cosmo, eagerly; “but I am not English, unfortunately,” added the lad, with a jealous nationality. “I am a Scotsman, Baptiste; madame will no longer wish to see me.”
“Eh, bien!” said Baptiste, “I know not much of your differences, you islanders—but madame is Ecossais. Yes, I know it. It was so said when Monsieur Jean brought home his bride. Ah, was she not beautiful? too pretty for the peace of the young man and the ladies; they made poor Monsieur Jean jealous, and he took her away.”
“Is that long ago?” asked Cosmo.
“It was the year that Margot’s cousin, Camille, was drawn in the conscription,” said Baptiste, smiling to himself at his own private recollections. “It is twenty years since. But madame was lovely! So poor Monsieur Jean became jealous and carried her away. They went, I know not where, to the end of the world. In the meantime the old gentleman died. He was of the old régime—he was of good blood—but he was poor—he had but this house here and that other to leave to his son—fragments, monsieur, fragments, crumbs out of the hands of the Revolution; and Monsieur Jean was gay and of a great spirit. He was not a bourgeois to go to become rich. The money dropped through his fine fingers. He came back, let me see, but three years ago. He was a gentleman, he was a noble, with but a thousand francs of rent. He did not do any thing. Madame sat at the window and worked, with her pretty white hands. Eh, bien! what shall you say then? she loved him—nothing was hard to her. He was made to be loved, this poor Monsieur Jean.”
“It is easy to say so—but he could not have deserved such a wife,” cried Cosmo, with a boy’s indignation; “he ought to have toiled for her rather, night and day.”