“I was incautious,” replied Monsieur de Salins; “but it will be better for you, my young friend, to wait for further explanations till the time when they can be given to you by persons much better qualified to enter into all the details than I am. In fact, I deeply regret that I came near so painful a subject at all, and beg you to pardon my having done so, when taken by surprise.”
I could gain no further information from him; but I lingered yet for an hour or two in conversation with himself, Mariette, and her mother, walked with them in the little garden behind the cottage, talked of shrubs and flowers, and every thing the furthest removed from the subjects which really occupied my mind, and at length returned home, resolving to visit London, and see the Marquis de Carcassonne the next day.
I made the attempt accordingly, but was disappointed. I saw the old French apothecary in his shop, and learned from him that his lodger was out. The man seemed to have no recollection of me, and was somewhat more civil than at our previous meeting. His answer to my question was prompt and unhesitating, and I judged that he was not deceiving me. I was therefore obliged, unwillingly, to wait for another opportunity, and turned my steps toward the lodging of Westover, in Brook street. It was one of those days, however, when every one is out, and merely leaving my card, I returned to Blackheath, having accomplished nothing.
My next task was to get the Count de Salins to bring Mariette and her mother to spend a day at our cottage; and I quietly prompted Father Bonneville to ask the whole party, in his own name, for the Monday following, when the count’s class did not meet.
Etiquette, and ceremonies, and conventionalities, were very much laid aside at this time amongst the poor French emigrants. We had so much need of all the comforts and sympathies of social life, such scanty means of keeping up the stately reserves which had previously existed in France—covering, it must be confessed, a multitude of glaring vices—that we were glad to seize upon any occasion of enjoying a little friendly intercourse in a land where we were generally poor, and strangers, and by the great mass of the vulgar utterly despised.
The invitation was accepted frankly, and I set to work to devise how the day might be made to pass pleasantly for all parties. I had a very beautiful garden, now rich in flowers, and a gate at the back opened into some pleasant fields. There was nothing very striking in the scenery around, but there was a soft rural beauty rarely to be met with, so near a great capital. I planned walks in directions which we were not destined to take. I decorated our two sitting-rooms with nosegays of the flowers which Mariette had loved in childhood. I laid her little book of reading-lessons on the table, and a withered violet beside it, which she had given to me in its beauty, and which I had kept ever after between the leaves of the book. I arranged every thing, in short, as far as possible, to carry her mind back to the past, and, in my own eagerness, I felt very much like a child again myself.
One thing, however, I avoided. Neither in the dinner I had ordered, nor in any of the arrangements did I suffer any thing like great expense, or an attempt at display, to appear. Every thing was simple, though every thing was comfortable and good. As I went about early in the morning, busying myself with a thousand trifles, I could see Father Bonneville’s eyes following me, while a quiet smile played about his lips. I saw that he comprehended, in some degree at least, what was going on in my heart, and that he did not even care to conceal his amusement at the eagerness which, if he had ever known, he knew no longer.
The morning was as bright and beautiful as could be. Nature seemed to smile upon me. There might be a few clouds, but they were only such as fancy sometimes brings over a happy heart. There had been a light shower, indeed, in the night, but it had only sufficed to lay the dust and soften the ground, and render the rich unequalled verdure of England the more brilliant.
Our friends were to come to breakfast, and they appeared punctually at the hour. O, how warmly did I welcome them, and how happy did Mariette’s presence make me there. The very memory of that day is so sweet that I could dwell—even now—upon all the details with childish fondness. Fancy one of your own dreams of early delight, and spread it through a bright, glorious summer-day, and you will comprehend the passing of the next twelve hours to me.
But I must pass over much of what we did. Monsieur de Salins was suffering a good deal—as I found was still frequently the case—from the effect of his old wounds; but he sat out in the garden with Father Bonneville, while I, and Madame de Salins and Mariette, wandered about amongst the shrubs and flowers. Dinner had been ordered early, that we might not lose the cool of the evening for any ramble we might choose to take, and I suggested two or three little expeditions, all of which were determined upon in turn, but ultimately abandoned. To my surprise, however, I found, at length, that Mariette—though residing so long in the neighborhood—had never visited a spot celebrated in history, and exquisitely beautiful in itself, but which has long since lost one of its best charms from the multitudes which throng thither on a summer’s day. I speak of Greenwich park. Madame de Salins said that she had often thought of going thither with her daughter, but it was too far from their house for them to walk, and they could not afford a carriage. I pressed them both to go that evening; they were a mile nearer: we had but to cross the heath—and then I proposed to send for the pony-phaeton, and drive them over. That Madame de Salins would not hear of, and she feared the fatigue of a walk. Mariette looked a little disappointed, perhaps; and her father—who watched every look of his child’s face with earnest affection—exclaimed: