Jack (10 page)

Then the publishers would make him offers; he would be famous, perhaps a member of the Academy—though, to be sure, that institution was mildewed, moth-eaten, and ready to fall.

“That is nothing!” said Ida; “you must be a member!” and she saw herself already in a corner on a reception-day, modestly and quietly dressed, as befitted the wife of a man of letters. While they waited, however, they regaled themselves on the pears sent by “the kind friend, who was certainly the best and least suspicious of men.”

D’Argenton found these pears, with their satiny skins, very delicious; but he ate them with so many expressions of discontent, and with so many little cutting remarks to Ida, that she spent much of her time in tears.

Weeks and months passed on in this way without any other change in their lives than that which naturally grew out of an increasing estrangement between Moronval and his professor of literature. The principal, daily expecting a decision from Ida on the subject of the Review, suspected D’Argenton of influencing her against the project, and this belief he ended by expressing to the poet.

One morning, Jack, who now went out but rarely, looked out of the windows with longing eyes. The spring sunshine was so bright, the sky so blue, that he longed for liberty and out-door life.

The leaf-buds of the lilacs were swelling, and the flower-beds in the garden were gently upheaved, as if with the movements of invisible life.

From the lane without came the sounds of children at play, and of singing-birds, all revelling in the sunshine. It was one of those days when every window is thrown open to let in the light and air, and to drive away all wintry shadows, all that blackness imparted by the length of the nights and the smoke of the fires.

While Jack was longing for wings, the door-bell rang, and his mother entered in great haste and much agitated, although dressed with great care. She came for him to breakfast with her in the Bois, and would not bring him back until night. He must ask Moronval’s permission first; but as Ida brought the quarterly payment, you may imagine that permission was easily granted.

“How jolly!” cried Jack; “how jolly!” and while his mother casually informed Moronval that M. d’Argenton had told her the evening previous that he was summoned to Auvergne, to his aunt who was dying, the boy ran to change his dress. On his way he met Mβdou, who, sad and lonely, was busy with his pails and brooms, and had not had time to find out that the air was soft and the sunshipe warm. On seeing him, Jack had a bright idea.

“O, mamma, if we could take Mβdou!”

This permission was a little difficult to procure, so multifarious were the duties of the prince; but Jack was so persistent that kind Madame Moronval agreed for that day to assume the black boy’s place.

“Mβdou! Mβdou!” cried the child, rushing toward him. “Quick, dress yourself and come out in the carriage with us; we are going to breakfast in the Bois!”

There was a moment of confusion. Mβdou stood still in amazement, while Madame Moronval borrowed a tunic that would be suitable for him in this emergency. Little Jack danced with joy, while Madame de Barancy, excited like a canary by the noise, chattered on to Moronval, giving him details in regard to the illness of D’Argenton’s aunt.

At last they started, Jack and his mother seated side by side in the victoria, and Mβdou on the box with Augustin. The progress would hardly be regarded as a royal one, but Mβdou was satisfied. The drive itself was charming, the Avenue de l’Imperatrice was filled with people driving, riding, and walking. Children of all ages enlivened the scene. Babies, in their long white skirts, gazing about with the sweet solemnity of infancy, and older children fancifully dressed, with their tutors or nurses, crowded the pavements. Jack, in an ecstasy of delight, kissed his mother, and pulled Mβdou by the sleeve.

“Are you happy, Mβdou?”

“Yes, sir, very happy,” was the answer. They reached the Bois, in places quite green and fresh already. There were some spots where the tops of the trees were in leaf, but the foliage was so minute that it looked like smoke. The holly, whose crisp, stiff leaves had been covered with snow half the winter, jostled the timid and distrustful lilacs whose leaf-buds were only beginning to swell The carriage drew up at the restaurant, and while the breakfast ordered by Madame de Barancy was in course of preparation, she and the children took a walk to the lake. At this early hour there were few of those superb equipages to be seen that appeared later in the day. The lake was lovely, with white swans dotting it here and there, and now and then a gentle ripple shook its surface, and miniature waves dashed against the fringe of old willows on one side.

What a walk! And what a breakfast served at the open windows! The children attacked it with the vigor of schoolboys. They laughed incessantly from the beginning to the end of the repast.

When breakfast was over, Ida proposed that they should visit the Jardin d’Acclimation.

“That is a splendid idea,” said Jack, “for Mβdou has never been there, and won’t he be amused!”

They drove through La Grande Allιe in the almost deserted garden, which to the children was full of interest. They were fascinated by the animals, who, as they passed, looked at them with sleepy or inquisitive eyes, or smelled with pink nostrils at the fresh bread they had brought from the restaurant.

Mβdou, who at first had made a pretence of interest only to gratify Jack, now became absorbed in what he saw. He did not need to examine the blue ticket over the little inclosures to recognize certain animals from his own land. With mingled pain and pleasure he looked at the kangaroos, and seemed to suffer in seeing them in the limited space which they covered in three leaps.

He stood in silence before the light grating where the antelopes were inclosed. The birds, too, awakened his compassion. The ostriches and cassowaries looked mournful enough in the shade of their solitary exotic; but the parrots and smaller birds in a long cage, without even a green leaf or twig, were absolutely pitiful, and Mβdou thought of the Academy Moronval and of himself. The plumage of the birds was dull and torn; they told a tale of past battles, of dismal flutterings against the bars of their prison-house. Even the rose-colored flamingoes and the long-billed ibex, who seem associated with the Nile and the desert and the immovable sphinx, all assumed a thoroughly commonplace aspect among the white peacocks and the little Chinese ducks that paddled at ease in their miniature pond.

By degrees the garden filled up with people, and there suddenly appeared at the end of the avenue so strange and fantastic a spectacle that Mβdou stood still in silent ecstasy. He saw the heads of two elephants, who were slowly approaching, waving their trunks slowly, and bearing on their broad backs a crowd of women with light umbrellas, of children with straw hats and colored ribbons. Following the elephant came a giraffe carrying his small and haughty head very high. This singular caravan wound through the circuitous road, with many nervous laughs and terrified cries.

Under the glowing sunlight every tint of color was thrown out in relief upon the thick and rugged skin of the elephants, who extended their trunks either toward the tops of the trees or to the pockets of the spectators, shaking their long ears when gently touched by some child, or by the umbrella of some laughing girl on their backs.

“What is the matter, Mβdou; you tremble. Are you ill?” asked Jack. Mβdou was absolutely faint with emotion, but when he learned that he too could mount the clumsy animals, his grave face became almost tragic in expression. Jack refused to accompany him, and remained with his mother, whom he considered too grave for this fκte-day. He liked to walk close at her side, or linger behind her in the dust of her long silken skirts, which she disdained to lift. They seated themselves, and watched the little black boy climb on the back of the elephant. Once there, the child seemed in his native place. He was no longer an exile, nor the awkward schoolboy, nor the little servant, humiliated by his menial duties and by his master’s tyranny. He seemed imbued with new life, and his eyes sparkled with energy and determination. Happy little king! Two or three times he went around the garden. “Again! again!” he cried, and over the little bridge, between the inclosures of the kangaroos and other animals, he went to and fro, excited almost to madness by the heavy long strides of the elephant. Kιrika, Dahomey, war-like scenes, and the hunt, all returned to his memory. He spoke to the elephant in his native tongue, and as he heard the sweet African voice, the huge creature shut his eyes with delight and trumpeted his pleasure. The zebras neighed, and the antelopes started in terror, while from the great cage of tropical birds, where the sun shone most fully, came warblings and flutterings of wings, discordant screams, and an enraged chatter, all the tumult, in short, on a small scale, of a primeval forest in the tropics.

But it was growing late. Mβdou must awaken from this beautiful dream. Besides, as soon as the sun dropped behind the horizon, the wind rose keen and cold, as so often happens in the early spring. This wintry chill affected the spirits of the children, and they grew strangely quiet and sad. Madame de Barancy for a wonder was also very silent. She had something she wished to say, and she probably found some difficulty in selecting her words, for she left them unsaid until the last moment. Then she took Jack’s hand in hers. “Listen, child, I have some bad news to tell you!”

He understood at once that some great misfortune was impending, and he turned his supplicating eyes toward his mother. She continued in a low, quick voice,—

“I am going away, my son, on a long journey; I am obliged to leave you behind, but I will write to you. Do not cry, dear, for it hurts me; I shall not be gone long, and we shall soon see each other again. Yes, very soon, I promise you.” And she threw out mysterious hints of a fortune to come, and money affairs, and other things that were not at all interesting to the child, who in reality paid little attention to her words, for he was weeping silently but chokingly. The gay streets seemed no longer the Paris of the morning, the sunshine was gone, the flowers on the corner-stands were faded, and all was very dreary, for he saw through eyes dim with tears, and the child was about to lose his mother.

CHAPTER VII.~~MADOU’S FLIGHT.

Some time after this a letter arrived at the academy from D’Argenton.

The poet wrote to announce that the death of a relative had so changed the position of his private affairs that he must offer his resignation as Professor of Literature. In a somewhat abrupt postscript he added that Madame de Barancy was obliged to leave Paris for an indefinite time, and that she confided her little Jack to M. Moronval’s paternal care. In case of illness or accident to the child, a letter could be forwarded to the mother under cover to D’Argenton.

“The paternal care of Moronval!” Had the poet laughed aloud as he penned these words? Did he not know perfectly well the child’s fate at the academy as soon as it was understood that his mother had left Paris, and that nothing more was to be expected from her?

The arrival of this letter threw Moronval into a terrible fit of rage, which rage shook the equilibrium of the academy as a violent tornado might have done in the tropics.

The countess gone! and gone too, apparently, with that brainless fellow, who had neither wit nor imagination. Was it not shameful that a woman of her years—for she was by no means in her earliest youth—should be so heartless as to leave her child alone in Paris, among strangers.

But even while he pitied Jack, Moronval said to himself, “Wait a while, young man, and I will show you how paternally I shall manage you.”

But if he was enraged when he thought of the Review, his cherished project, he was more indignant that D’Argenton and Ida should have made use of him and his house to advance their own plans. He hurried off to the Boulevard Haussmann to learn all he could; but the mystery was no nearer elucidation.

Constant was expecting a letter from her mistress, and knew only that she had broken entirely with all past relations; that the house was to be given up, and the furniture sold.

“Ah! sir,” said Constant, mournfully, “it was an unfortunate day for us when we set foot in your old barracks!”

The preceptor returned home convinced that at the termination of the next quarter Jack would be withdrawn from the school. Deciding, therefore, that the child was no longer a mine of wealth, he determined to put an end to all the indulgences with which he had been treated. Poor Jack after this day sat at the table no longer as an equal, but as the butt for all the teachers. No more dainties, no more wine for him. There were constant allusions made to D’Argenton: he was selfish and vain, a man totally without genius; as to his noble birth, it was more than doubtful; the chβteau in the mountains, of which he discoursed so fluently, existed only in his imagination. These fierce attacks on the man whom he detested, amused the child; but something prevented him from joining in the servile applause of the other children, who eagerly laughed at each one of Moronval’s witticisms. The fact was, that Jack dreaded the veiled allusions to his mother with which these remarks invariably terminated. He, to be sure, rarely caught their full meaning, but he saw by the contemptuous laughter that they were far from kindly. Madame Moronval would sometimes interrupt the conversation by a friendly word to Jack, or by sending him on some trifling errand. During his absence, she administered a reproof to her husband and his friends.

“Pshaw!” said Labassandre, “he does not understand.” Perhaps he did not fully, but he comprehended enough to make his heart very sore.

He had known for a long time that he had a father whose name was not the same as his own, that his mother had no husband; and, one day, when one of the schoolboys made some taunting allusion, he flew at him in a rage. The boy was nearly choked; his cries summoned Moronval to the scene, and Jack for the first time was severely flogged.

From that day the charm was broken, and Jack’s daily life did not greatly differ from that of Mβdou, who was at this time very unhappy. The pleasant weather, and the day at the Jardin d’Aclimation, had given him a terrible fit of homesickness. His melancholy at first took the form of a sullen revolt against his exacting masters. Suddenly all this was changed, the boy’s eyes grew bright, and he seemed to go about the house and the garden as if in a dream.