Jack (28 page)

“You see I must leave you; write often, and take good care of yourself.”

He went slowly down the steps, with his face turned toward his mother all the time. He was sad at heart, but not by reason of this fκte from which he was excluded, but at the thought of all the happiness in life from which he had been always shut out. He thought of the children who could love and respect their parents, who had a name, a fireside, and a family. He remembered, too, that his unhappy fate would prevent him from asking any woman to share his life. He was wretched without realizing that to regret these joys was in fact to be worthy of them, and that it was only the fall perception of the sad truths of his destiny that would impart the strength to cope with them.

Wrapped in these dismal meditations, he had reached the Lyons station, a spot where the mud seems deeper, and the fog thicker, than elsewhere. It was just the hour that the manufactories closed. A tired crowd, overwhelmed by discouragement and distress, hurried through the streets, going at once to the wineshops, some of which had as a sign the one word Consolation, as if drunkenness and forgetfulness were the sole refuge for the wretched. Jack, feeling that darkness had settled down on his life as absolutely as it had on this cold autumnal night, uttered an exclamation of despair.

“They are right; what is there left to do but to drink?” and entering one of those miserable drinking-shops, Jack called for a double measure of brandy. Just as he lifted his glass, amid the din of coarse voices, and through the thick smoke, he heard a flute-like voice,—

“Do you drink brandy, Jack?”

No, he did not drink it, nor would he ever touch it again. He left the shop abruptly, leaving his glass untouched and the money on the counter.

How Jack had a sharp illness of some weeks’ duration after this long walk; how Dr. Hirsch experimented upon him until routed by Dr. Rivals, who carried the youth to his own house and nursed him again to health, is too long a story. We prefer also to introduce our readers to Jack seated in a comfortable armchair, reading at the window of the doctor’s office. It was peaceful about him, a peace that came from the sunny sky, the silent house, and the gentle footfall of Cιcile.

He was so happy that he rarely spoke, and contented himself with watching the movements of the dear presence that pervaded the simple home. She sewed and kept her grandfather’s accounts.

“I am sure,” she said, looking up from her book, “that the dear man forgets half his visits. Did you notice what he said yesterday, Jack?”

“Mademoiselle!” he answered, with a start.

He had not heard one word, although he had been watching her with all his eyes. If Cιcile said, “My friend,” it seemed to Jack that no other person had ever so called him; and when she said farewell, or good-night, his heart contracted as if he were never to see her again. Her slightest words were full of meaning, and her simple, unaffected ways were a delight to the youth. In his state of convalescence he was more susceptible to these influences than he would ordinarily have been.

O, the delicious days he spent in that blessed home! The office, a large, deserted room, with white curtains at the windows opening on a village street, communicated to him its healthful calm. The room was filled with the odors of plants culled in the splendor of their flowering, and he drank it in with delight.

In the scent of the balsam he heard the rushing of the clear brooks in the forest, and the woods were green and shady, when he caught the odor of the herbs gathered from the foot of the tall oaks.

With returning strength Jack tried to read; he turned over the old volumes, and found those in which he had studied so long before, and which he could now far better comprehend. The doctor was out nearly all day, and the two young people remained alone. This would have horrified many a prudent mother, and, of course, had Madame Rivals been living, it would not have been permitted; but the doctor was a child himself, and then, who knows? he may have had his own plans.

Meanwhile D’Argenton, informed of Jack’s removal to the Rivals, saw fit to take great offence. “It is not at all proper,” wrote Charlotte, “that you should remain there. People will think us unwilling to give you the care you need? You place us in a false position.”

This letter failing to produce any effect, the poet wrote himself:—“I sent Hirsch to cure you, but you preferred a country idiot to the science of our friend! As you call yourself better, I give you now two days to return to Aulnettes. If you are not there at the expiration of that time, I shall consider that you have been guilty of flagrant disobedience, and from that moment all is over between us.”

As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with much dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart from her poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the least intimidated by her coldness, said at once, “I ought to tell you, madame, that it is my fault alone that your son did not obey you. He has passed through a great crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when constitutions can be reformed, and I trust that his will resist the rough trials to which it has been exposed. Hirsch would have killed him with his musk and his other perfumes. I took him away from the poisonous atmosphere, and now I hope the boy is out of danger. Leave him to me a while longer, and you shall have him back more healthy than ever, and capable of renewing the battle of life; but if you let that impostor Hirsch get hold of him again, I shall think that you wish to get rid of him forever.”

“Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such an insult?” and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with a few kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her son. She found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off some outer husk, but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He turned pale when he saw her.

“You have come to take me away,” he exclaimed.

“Not at all,” she answered, hastily. “The doctor wishes you to remain, and where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so tenderly?”

For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his mother, and a departure from the roof under which he was would have certainly caused him a relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable; she looked tired and troubled.

“We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a reading, and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese prince at the Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D’Argenton has translated it into French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese tongue. I find it very difficult, and have come to the conclusion that literature is not my forte. The Review does not bring in a single cent, and has not now one subscriber. By the way, our good friend at Tours is dead. Do you remember him?”

At this moment Cιcile came in and was received by Charlotte with the most flattering exclamations and much warmth of manner. She talked of D’Argenton and of their friend at Tours, which annoyed Jack intensely, for he would have wished neither person to have been mentioned in Cιcile’s pure presence, and over and over again he stopped the careless babble of his mother who had no such scruples. They urged Madame D’Argenton to remain to dinner, but she had already lingered too long, and was uneasily occupied in inventing a series of excuses for her delay, which should be in readiness when she encountered her poet’s frowning face.

“Above all, Jack, if you write to me, be sure that you put on your letter ‘to be called for,’ for M. D’Argenton is much vexed with you just now. So do not be astonished if I scold you a little in my next letter, for he is always there when I write. He even dictates my sentences sometimes; but don’t mind, dear, you will understand.”

She acknowledged her slavery with naοvetι, and Jack was consoled for the tyranny by which she was oppressed by seeing her go away in excellent spirits, and with her shawl wrapped so gracefully around her, and her travelling-bag carried as lightly as she carried all the burdens of life.

Have you ever seen those water-lilies, whose long stems arise from the depths of the river, finding their way through all obstacles until they expand on the surface, opening their magnificent white cups, and filling the air with their delicate perfume? Thus grew and flowered the love of these two young hearts. With Cιcile, the divine flower had grown in a limpid soul, where the most careless eyes could have discerned it. With Jack, its roots had been tangled and deformed, but when the stems reached the regions of air and light, they straightened themselves, and needed but little more to burst into flower.

“If you wish,” said M. Rivals, one evening, “we will go to-morrow to the vintage at Coudray; the farmer will send his wagon; you two can go in that in the morning, and I will join you at dinner.”

They accepted the proposition with delight. They started on a bright morning at the end of October. ΐ soft haze hung over the landscape, retreating before them, as it seemed; upon the mown fields and on the bundles of golden grain, upon the slender plants, the last remains of the summer’s brightness, long silken threads floated like particles of gray fog. The river ran on one side of the highway, bordered by huge trees. The freshness of the air heightened the spirits of the two young travellers, who sat on the rough seat with their feet in the straw, and holding on with both hands to the side of the wagon. One of the farmer’s daughters drove a young ass, who, harassed by the wasps, which are very numerous at the time when the air is full of the aroma of ripening fruits, impatiently shook his long ears.

They went on and on until they reached a hillside, where they saw a crowd at work. Jack and Cιcile each snatched a wicker basket and joined the others. What a pretty sight it was! The rustic landscape seen between the vine-draped arches, the narrow stream, winding and picturesque, full of green islands, a little cascade and its white foam, and above all, the fog showing through a golden mist, and a fresh breeze that suggested long evenings and bright fires.

This charming day was very short, at least so Jack found it. He did not leave Cιcile’s side for a minute. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a skirt of flowered cambric. He filled her basket with the finest of the grapes, exquisite in their purple bloom, delicate as the dust on the wings of a butterfly. They examined the fruit together; and when Jack raised his eyes, he admired on the cheeks of the young girl the same faint, powdery bloom. Her hair, blown in the wind in a soft halo above her brow, added to this effect. He had never seen a face so changed and brightened as hers. Exercise and the excitement of her pretty toil, the gayety of the vineyard, the laughs and shouts of the laborers, had absolutely transformed M. Rivals’ quiet housekeeper. She became a child once more, ran down the slopes, lifted her basket on her shoulder, watched her burden carefully, and walked with that rhythmical step which Jack remembered to have seen in the Breton women as they bore on their heads their full water-jugs. There came a time in the day when these two young persons, overwhelmed by fatigue, took their seats at the entrance of a little grove where the dry leaves rustled under their feet.

And then? Ah, well, they said nothing. They let the night descend softly on the most beautiful dream of their lives; and when the swift autumnal twilight brought out in the darkness the bright windows of the simple homes scattered about, the wind freshened, and Cιcile insisted on fastening around Jack’s throat the scarf she had brought, the warmth and softness of the fabric, the consciousness of being cared for, was like a caress to the lover.

He took her hand, and her fingers lingered in his for a moment; that was all. When they returned to the farm the doctor had just arrived; they heard his cheery voice in the courtyard. The chill of the early autumnal evenings has a charm that both Cιcile and Jack felt as they entered the large room filled with the light from the fire. At supper innumerable dusty bottles were produced, but Jack manifested profound indifference to their charms. The doctor, on the contrary, fully appreciated them, so fully that his granddaughter quietly left her seat, ordered the carriage to be harnessed, and wrapped herself in her cloak. Dr. Rivals seeing her in readiness, rose without remonstrance, leaving on the table his half-filled glass.

The three drove home, as in the olden days, through the quiet country roads; the cabriolet, which had increased in size as had its occupants, groaned a little on its well-used springs. This noise took nothing from the charm of the drive, which the stars, so numberless in autumn, seemed to follow with a golden shower.

“Are you cold, Jack?” said the doctor, suddenly.

How could he be cold? The fringe of Cιcile’s great shawl just touched him.

Alas! why must there be a to-morrow to such delicious days? Jack knew now that he loved Cιcile, but he realized also that this love would be to him only an additional cause of sorrow. She was too far above him, and although he had changed much since he had been so near her, although he had thrown aside much of the roughness of his habits and appearance, he still felt himself unworthy of the lovely fairy who had transformed him.

The mere idea that the girl should know that he adored her was distasteful to him. Besides, as his bodily health returned, he began to grow ashamed of his hours of inaction in “the office.” What would she think of him should he continue to remain there? Cost what it would, he must go.

One morning he entered M. Rivals’ house to thank him for all his kindness, and to inform him of his decision.

“You are right,” said the old man; “you are well now bodily and mentally, and you can soon find some employment.”

There was a long silence, and Jack was disturbed by the singular attention with which M. Rivals regarded him. “You have something to say to me,” said the doctor, abruptly.

Jack colored and hesitated.

“I thought,” continued the doctor, “that when a youth was in love with a girl who had no other relation than an old grandfather, the proper thing was to speak to him frankly.”

Jack, without answering, hid his face in his hands.