L'Arrabiata and Other Tales

by Paul Heyse

"'I am afraid it is a delight that won't last long, Flor,' he said; and at night, when I was lighting him to bed, as I always did, he told me all about it; how he had done his father's bidding, and been to see the great world, and he had seen enough of it to find it terribly tedious; and now he had had some trouble in carrying his point, which was to go and study alone for a year or two. 'It was a shame,' he said, 'the confusion that was in his brain.' I could only stare at this, for to me he seemed a man in all things, and cleverer, I thought, it was not possible to be, when I heard him talk with others. But he knew best, of course, and I did not contradict him then; for there were other things I was more curious to know. I asked him about the life he had been leading, and whether the fine ladies he had been dancing with, were handsomer than the daughters of our townspeople? And look you, Sir, at this, he turned as red as a boy;--he, the accomplished fine-grown gentleman, who had just come from living among the fine folks;--and he only said: 'Some perhaps, not many;' and so I saw that old love does not always rust. The very next day he rode over to the town; I suppose to make enquiries, and find out whether she were still unmarried. Of course, I did not know, for I had never heard who she was. When he came back, in the evening, he looked very grave. 'It is all over,' I said to myself, 'and all the better that it is so; what could have ever come of it?'

"Between him and his father things were no better than they used to be. When I helped to wait at table, I saw that the count was always ready for a quarrel with his son, who could never say or do a single thing to please him. He seemed provoked to be, in a manner, forced to respect the lad, who never by any chance forgot himself, but only quietly defended his own opinion, or held his tongue. Just as the blessed countess had always done, and the count was not fond of being reminded of her. Nothing would have pleased him better than to see his son just such another bold bird of prey as he himself still was, for all his half century. Never had he found a horse too wild, a woman too witty, or a sword too sharp for him. He could not forgive the boy for being so modest. Indeed I often thought--God forgive me!--that he had rather have seen Count Ernest forget his duty to him as his father, if he only would have forgotten that the countess was his mother. Therefore the count always went back to talk of the good old times, when the world was merrier and less particular. Now it was only a world for sneaks and lubbers. And when he had drunk a glass beyond the common, he would tell us all sorts of love-adventures he had had when he was young; while the young count would look straight before him, and hold his peace. I was horrified to hear him, and said to myself: 'Can a father really find it in his heart to be the tempter of his son, when he finds his innocence a reproach to him?'"

"To be sure, I knew that was not the way to tempt my boy at all; he did not even lose the respect he owed him as a father. Only it grieved him sadly, never to see the slightest sign that his father loved him; that I saw by his eyes; but he never spoke about it, not even to me, to whom he generally told everything. And so I was almost glad when he left us in a week to go to College, and never once came home for the next five years; much as he loved his home, and his woods, and everything about the place, and often as he used to enquire after them in his letters.

"I say, I was almost glad, and was more glad presently.

"The young count may have been away for about three years, when I fell into a bad illness; and that left me a weakness in my limbs, so that I could hardly drag myself up and down the stairs. For I kept all the keys, and nobody but Mamsell Flor ever touched a thing in the cellars, store-rooms, or plate-chests. When the count came home in the autumn, and saw me crawling about the house with a stick; 'Flor,' he said, 'you have been doing too much for your strength; you must have some assistance; a sort of housekeeper under you, to save you going up and down the stairs.' So kind he was, you see, sir, in some things; and for all I could say against it, next day, it appeared in the daily papers, that a housekeeper was wanted at the castle.

"All sorts of women came, but none to please me. One or two among them I even suspected of coveting a higher place, (or a lower, as one takes it) than that of housekeeper; for the count was known to be a gallant gentleman. I was rather pleased that none of them could be found to suit; I was always too particular, and none of them did things as I liked to have them done. And so we had nearly forgotten that we had wanted one, when one afternoon, in comes a tall slight young woman, in deep mourning, with very weary eyes. She had come two days' journey from a town where her father and mother, one after the other, had lately died, and left her entirely unprovided for. Her father had been a functionary of some importance, and had lived upon his pay. Her only brother was an engineer, and was now employed in England on a railway, which he could not leave without the sacrifice of all his prospects. She had therefore written to him not to mind her; she had found a situation in a noble family, and was well provided for; meaning if she were not accepted here, to take even a lower place.

"Although everything I could learn about the poor child was entirely satisfactory, and though she passed the severest examination I could think of in household matters, I felt a something in my heart, that warned me not to take her. I told her plainly I thought it might not be for her good. I said she was too young, and what more I could think of. And just as she was going, quite submissively, without any prayers or tears, I called her back, and kept her after all. In fact I was only afraid she might please the count too well, for she was as fine a girl as you could see, with a splendid figure, and a high-bred face like nobody else's; and then such a weight of long brown hair, that could reach three times round her head. But I found that she had a grave decided way with her, and that she was not easily to be put upon. And besides, Count Henry was just then over head and ears in love, as Mr. Pierre had whispered, with a singer he had met in London, and had only broken from her chains for a short time, to hasten back to them as fast as ever he could. So he did not take much notice of the stranger, when she took her place at the servants' table for the first time; he just glanced at her from head to foot, gave an approving nod, and sat all the evening alone, at the master's table, playing with his ring, and letting the beautiful green stone glitter at the light, and Mr. Pierre told us it was a present from his London friend. And I suppose it was true, for when he came back next year, the ring was gone, and Mr. Pierre told us strange stories about it, which you will not care to hear, sir.

"When the count first saw the girl again, Mamsell Gabrielle, as she was called, I watched his face attentively as she walked across the hall. He looked much as he used to do, when the dealers brought him horses, and he had them trotted out into the yard. But he treated her just as he did the rest of us, only that he spoke to her less often. She had begun to bloom again, in the quiet life here among the woods, and with the exercise she took when she was busy about the house. She had left off mourning, and sometimes I even heard her singing in the little garden she had laid out with her own hands in the moat, that we might have our vegetables more handy.

"In this, as in everything else, she was clever, quiet, and independent; I may say I got to love her dearly, and thought we never should be able to do without her; and yet we had done so long!--We used to sit together for many a pleasant hour, spinning and chatting. I used to talk to her of my dear Count Ernest, and read his letters to her, and when Count Henry was at home, we would stand at the window till late at night, listening to his beautiful playing, and to the nightingales singing. Then she would tell me how her childhood had been passed, and of the happy life she had led when her parents were alive, and how well off they had been; and also about her brother; and she spoke of all this without any bitterness, and so I saw that she was quite contented; and that the longer she lived among us, the more she liked us.

"And now, for the first time, I was glad when the winter came, and we were snowed up again by ourselves. When the count was here, we had no peace; though he only received gentlemen, and was particular about these. To be safe from the ladies of the neighbourhood, he had left all the roads without repair, save only a few bridle paths. But it did not come at all as I expected. The count did not leave the castle, and Mr. Pierre insinuated that it was because he had never been able to forget that faithless love of his, and therefore preferred to live in solitude. I could not get this idea into my stupid old head, for I knew my master too well to believe that he could be so long cast down, for such an amour as that. However, stay he did, and the winter came, and snowed us up; and with us, the count and Mr. Pierre.