The Little Old Portrait

“Feeling still bewildered by all she had heard, Edmée obeyed half-tremblingly. A glance at her mother told her there was further trouble in store for her. The Countess was in tears, and her room, usually so neat and orderly, was all in confusion: cupboards and drawers open, and great travelling cases, which Edmée did not remember ever to have seen before, standing about, and the Countess’s maid, Franchise, an old woman who had been in the Valmont family since the time of the last Count’s mother, was fussing about with trembling hands, her red eyes telling their own tale.

”‘Oh, Edmée, my darling, I am glad you have come back!’ exclaimed her mother, but without giving her time to say more the little girl flew into her arms.

”‘She has told me, mamma – mother Germain has told me. But why are you crying? You were not so unhappy when I went out this morning – and poor Françoise too!’

”‘It is only, my darling,’ said the Countess, taking her little daughter upon her knee, ‘it is only that the summons has come rather sooner than I expected. A courier has arrived from Sarinet with letters from your uncle, desiring us to arrange for going there almost at once. He requires me to be there a few days before going on with him and the Marquise to Paris, for there is much to arrange. So, Edmée, my sweet, we must say good-bye to our dear home.’

“It was hard, very hard, for Edmée to keep her resolution of doing nothing to add to her mother’s distress. But she bravely drove back her tears, and throwing her arms round the Countess’s neck, kissed her tenderly.

”‘Don’t cry, dear little mother,’ she said; ‘Madame Germain has been speaking to me, and I am going to be very good. I am going to learn my lessons in Paris so well, so very well, that you will be quite surprised how clever I shall become, and then we shall all the sooner be able to return to our dear Valmont. When are we to start, dear mamma? You see, I am going to be very good. You need not be afraid to tell me all, and she sat up, valiantly blinking away the tears that would, keep coming.’

“The Countess was greatly relieved.

”‘My good Marie,’ she said – ‘Marie’ was Madame Germain’s first name – ‘it is very kind of her to have spoken so wisely to my little girl, and it will make all easier for me. Yes, dear, it will be soon, very soon – the day after to-morrow we have to leave for Sarinet.’

”‘The day after to-morrow!’ exclaimed Edmée. ‘Ah, yes, that is very soon.’

“But no other words of complaint or distress escaped her.

“And two days later saw the Countess and her daughter in the great big travelling carriage, which had made but few journeys since the good Count’s death, on their way to the Château de Sarinet. They were accompanied by Nanette and her uncle Ludovic, who had long been a sort of steward in the house, and could not make up his mind to see his lady go to Paris without him. Poor old Françoise would gladly have gone too, but at her age it was out of the question, so she remained, with many tears, at Valmont, where she kept all in the most perfect order, so that, as she used to say, ‘if my lady comes back at any moment, there will be nothing to do but light the fire.’ And on the box, between the rather fat coachman and Ludovic, Pierre Germain managed to squeeze himself in. He had begged hard to accompany them all the way to Sarinet, but the Countess had judged it better not. Her regard for the boy and his parents was very sincere, and it would have pained her for him to have been treated at her brother’s house like a common servant-boy, as, indeed, no servant-boy was ever treated at Valmont. So Pierre bade his dear ladies farewell at Machard, a little village where they stopped for the first night, whence he returned by himself to his home, for twenty or thirty miles on foot were nothing to the sturdy boy.

“It was a sad farewell – sadder my mother has often told me, than the actual circumstances really warranted, and many times, on looking back to it, she has thought that some foreboding of the terrible events to come must have been on their spirits.

”‘Good-bye, my faithful little friend,’ were the Countess’s last words to poor Pierre, as he reverently kissed her hand; ‘you are the true son of your good father and mother – I can wish no better thing for you, my boy, than that you may grow up to resemble them.’

”‘My lady,’ said Pierre, the tears coursing down his face, ‘I can never, never thank you for all your goodness to me, but my life – everything I possess – is yours and my little lady’s. I would give my life for you if it would do you good.’

“And the future showed that his words said no more than the truth. As for Edmée, she was sobbing too much to say farewell to her childhood’s friend at all. But the last view he had of her face was drowned in tears – the dear little face that had so seldom been aught but radiant and sunny.

“She brightened up a little when they started again. It was the first time in her remembrance that she had been so far from home, and novelty has always great charm for a child. Travelling was not in those days as it is now, when the public conveyances go to Paris at least twice a week, and one does not require to be a great lord to be able to visit distant places. And Edmée felt as if she had got quite to the other side of the world when, on the evening of the second day, the heavy travelling carriage turned in the gates of Sarinet and drew up before the great door, where her uncle, the Marquise, a small delicate-looking lady, with a peevish expression, and a boy, whom, though he had grown taller, she knew again in an instant to be her cousin Edmond, were all waiting to receive them with proper ceremony.

“Edmée turned as quickly as she could, with politeness, from the smiles of her uncle, which she somehow always fancied to be half-mocking, and the careless greeting of her aunt, to the boy cousin, of whom she had often thought with pity. She wondered if he had become better-tempered and less selfish. But the first glance was not reassuring. Except that he had grown taller he was very much the same as the cross, haughty little boy of two or three years ago.

”‘What do you look at me so for, my cousin?’ he said; ‘I have grown tall, have I not? You are taller too, though of course much smaller than I. But you are very pretty. I find you even prettier than before, only your hair is arranged in a very old-fashioned way. However, I am delighted you have come to live with us. I shall now have some one to amuse me, and for you too – you will find Paris, and even Sarinet much livelier than Valmont.’

“Edmée had grown redder and redder during this speech, but Edmond did not seem to observe it.

”‘And how is that stable-boy you used to be so fond of?’ continued Edmond. The children were a little apart from the elders of the group by this time, so, fortunately perhaps for future harmony, no one overheard when the girl flashed round upon her cousin.

”‘Edmond de Sarinet,’ she said with a dignity that was comical and yet touching, ‘I warn you now, once for all, that I will only be your friend – I will only play with you and be kind to you – on condition of your never daring to say one word against my dear home or my dear friends. And this, sir, it is just as well you should understand from the beginning,’ and then, overcome by all she had gone through in the last few days, she flew to her mother, and hiding her face in her arms burst into tears.

”‘What a little savage!’ said the Marquise in a low voice to her husband. But the boy Edmond looked sorry.”

Chapter Seven

“On a fine summer evening about two years after the sad day that had seen the departure of Edmée and her mother from their beloved home, Madame Germain, with her husband and son, was sitting on the bench in front of their cottage – the cottage which is at present, at the time I am writing, inhabited by Mathurine Le Blanc and her sons, standing, as I think I have already said, some short way out of the village – enjoying a little rest after the labour of the day. Not that they were altogether idle. The mother was of course knitting, the father smoking his pipe, if that can be considered an occupation, and the son was holding an open letter in his hand, from which he had just been reading aloud.

”‘Yes,’ he said, ‘in a few days from now we may certainly expect her. She was to leave the next week, my lady says, and that is a fortnight ago.’

”‘Old Ludovic was to bring her a part of the way, was he not?’ said Germain, taking his pipe out of his mouth; ‘I wish he had been coming all the way. I should have liked a talk about many things with the good old man.’

”‘Ah yes,’ agreed his wife, ‘and so should I. But think of the long journey, Germain, and he is getting very old.’

”‘Besides, he would never have agreed to leave my lady and her daughter for so long,’ said Pierre. ‘Think – now that Nanette has left them, old Ludovic is the only one of their own people about them! Oh, how I wish my lady would make up her mind to come home!’

”‘Perhaps she cannot – she hints as much,’ said Madame Germain. ‘You know the Marquis is the dear child’s guardian bylaw, and he is an obstinate man once he takes a thing in his head. But we shall hear more from Nanette – more, perhaps, than the Countess likes to write; letters are risky things, to my way of thinking.’

”‘And these are ticklish times,’ said father Germain. He was a man of few words, and therefore what he did say carried the more weight.

”‘Yes, father, you are right,’ said Pierre, and unconsciously he dropped his voice and spoke in a lower key. ‘Our good curé was telling me some strange things to-day. The bad feeling is spreading fast. There was a château fired last week not very far from Sarinet. To be sure it was put out and no lives lost; but there was a good deal of destruction done, and it shows that it is coming nearer.’

”‘But here at Valmont,’ said his mother, always slow to believe ill, ‘I could never be afraid. Think how steady and industrious a set our people are – how loyal and faithful they have always shown themselves; and with good reason, for have they not ever been treated most generously and kindly by our masters?’

”‘Ah yes,’ said Germain, ‘but it is not always the majority that carries the day. Here, as everywhere, there are some idle and discontented and turbulent spirits – enough to give trouble if they united with others. And I am assured that in no case is it the country people themselves that start the thing. Poor creatures! they are mostly too ground-down and wretched to start anything. But they are ready to follow, though not to lead, and the fire of revolt once lighted by the secret emissaries sent for the purpose from Paris, soon spreads. Alas, I see not what is before us all – here even in our quiet, happy Valmont!’

“Pierre, who had listened eagerly to his father’s words, was on the point of replying when he suddenly started. They had been talking so earnestly that they had not heard footsteps coming up the few yards of lane which led from the village main street, till the new-comer was close to them, and Pierre, recovering from his first surprise, touched his mother on the shoulder.

”‘Some one is here, mother,’ he said, as Madame Germain looked up from her knitting. ‘Can it be – yes, I think it must be – Nanette?’

”‘Yes, indeed,’ said the young woman, holding out her hand with a smile. ‘I am not surely so changed as you, Monsieur Pierre. Had I seen you anywhere else I would not have known you, so tall as you have grown. And you, Monsieur and Madame, of course you are not changed at all; you do not look a day older.’

”‘Life passes quietly here, my good Nanette,’ said the forester. ‘We do not wear ourselves out with wishing to be everything that we are not, as some do.’

”‘Ah no – you are wise,’ said the girl. ‘And I – I cannot tell you how happy I am to be at home again. Even,’ she added with a slight blush, ‘even if I were not going to be married’ – for it was to fulfil an engagement made before she had gone to Paris that Nanette had returned – ‘it is so good to feel safe in one’s own country.’

”‘Safe,’ repeated Madame Germain; ‘but surely you were not afraid in Paris?’

”‘I don’t know,’ said Nanette evasively, and yet with a half glance round as if she feared her words might be overheard; ‘I don’t like Paris. It is not a place for good, simple people. All these new ideas! – ah, don’t let us talk of all that. I have so much to tell you of our dear ladies; Paris or no Paris, it has been a terrible grief to me to leave them,’ and her pretty bright eyes filled with tears.

”‘We were just talking of them when you came up,’ said Madame Germain, ‘and wondering when we should see you. Sit down, my child; in our surprise at seeing you we are forgetting politeness, and you must be tired with your long journey.’

”‘When did you arrive?’

”‘Only last night,’ said Nanette. ‘But I am not tired now. Yesterday was very pleasant; father drove the light cart over to Machard to meet me. The two days before in the diligence – ah, that was tiring. My great-uncle Ludovic came the first day’s journey with me, by my lady’s wish; you see what care she takes of me – of every one about her.’

”‘As ever – our dear lady!’ said Madame Germain.

”‘Ah, if there were more like her!’ said Nanette. ‘Things and feelings would not be what they are coming to, if there had been more like her. The Marquise now – for all she looks so tiny and delicate – ah! she has a hard and cruel heart – or no heart at all. She is a fit wife for her husband. And how they are hated! Worse than ever, I believe.’

”‘By those about them in Paris, do you mean?’ said the father Germain. ‘At Sarinet he is now almost a stranger. All these years, I think, he has never been back again.’

”‘And do you not know why?’ said Nanette. ‘’Tis said he dare not – and yet at worst he is a brave man. Perhaps after all he has some conscience left, and shrinks from seeing the utter wretchedness he has caused. We passed through many villages on our way, but in none did I see more hideous misery than at Sarinet. My lord is always short of money now – he spends so much in every way – and they do say that he and the Marquise too lose great sums at play. And when the money runs dry it is always the same thing. “Get it out of those lazy hounds of mine at Sarinet,” writes my lord to his bailiff, and then the screw is put on again, ever tighter and tighter. Ah, it is horrible!’ and Nanette shuddered.

“Germain looked up at her in surprise. She had changed. It was not like the simple, light-hearted girl of three years ago to speak so forcibly, or to feel things so deeply.

”‘How have you heard so much, my girl?’ he said.

”‘In Paris one learns much,’ said Nanette. ‘Much ill I might have learnt had my lady not taken care of me almost as if I had been her own sister. But the servants all talk, and chatter, and complain, and threaten – and my lady, she too told me a great deal. She has almost no one to talk to there – no one who sees things as she does. And she told me to tell you – her good friends she always calls you – all I could. She wants you to understand how she is placed. There is nothing she longs for so much as to return to Valmont, and from month to month she is hoping to see her way to doing so. But the Marquis opposes it, and you know he is Mademoiselle’s guardian by law, and my lady does not like to anger him; his temper, too, grows worse and worse, though he is gentler to her than to any one else. But you can fancy it is not a home such as our dear ladies can be happy in. And at times I can see that the Countess is really afraid. There is talk of dark and wild things. There have been meetings of the people where dreadful threats have been uttered against the king and queen, the clergy and the nobles – against every one in high position, and sometimes the police and the soldiers even, could scarce disperse them. Many think the people once roused will not be quieted again. And of all the great rich nobles who have oppressed the poor and made themselves hated, none, or few at least, are more hated than the Marquis.’

”‘And our dear Countess is his sister!’ exclaimed Madame Germain, over whose cheerful face had crept a cloud of foreboding.

”‘I wonder you could bear to leave them,’ said Pierre, almost indignantly; but Nanette did not resent his tone. She turned to him, her eyes full of tears.

”‘I did my utmost to stay,’ she replied, ‘but my lady would not hear of it. Albert had waited so long, she said; it was not right to put him off still, though for my part I could have found it in my heart to put him off altogether. I saw that the idea worried her. Then, too, I think she was glad for me to come home to talk to you – to explain things a little. She dare not write very much – letters are never very safe. And she is so lonely – in the midst of all that racket – she and Mademoiselle Edmée.’

”‘Have they no friends they care for?’ asked Pierre.

”‘Few – very few. And already of those some have left the country. Yes, indeed,’ said Nanette, ‘it is not yet much known, but several of the wiser and far-seeing among the nobility have gone to Switzerland – some to Holland, and to England, on pretence of travelling, but it is known they do not intend to return till they see how things turn out.’

”‘It seems almost cowardly,’ said Pierre.

”‘Yes,’ said Nanette, ‘so my lady said. But I do not know that it is so. What can the few do in such a state of things? And they have their children to think of.’

”‘It is true. But our lady need not go so far. In no foreign country could she be so safe as here in her own Valmont.’

”‘It seems so at present,’ said the girl with a sigh. ‘But all the talk I have heard frightens and confuses me. Once the fire is lighted, who can say? Still I wish with all my heart, and so does my old uncle Ludovic, that the ladies were here, and not in Paris. And you may be sure the Countess will seize the first chance of returning. I was to tell you this – and to say that she will count on you, father Germain, and on Pierre, to help them if occasion arises.’

”‘She will not be disappointed,’ said Germain, and Pierre eagerly agreed with him.

”‘But all the same,’ continued his father, ‘I confess I do not see the great difficulty about their getting away; the Marquis would never force his sister to stay?’

”‘No,’ said Nanette, ‘but there are difficulties. I think my lord has power over Mademoiselle Edmée’s money, and if the Countess broke off with him she might not know what he did with it. It is something like that, but my lady never fully explained to me. I only hope – ’ But then Nanette hesitated.

”‘What, my girl?’ said Madame Germain.

”‘Perhaps it is wrong of me to think so, but I have sometimes wondered if my dear little lady’s money is safe. The Marquis is always short of money now, and for my part I think some of these fine gentlemen have strange notions of honesty.’

”‘Not among themselves,’ said Germain. ‘They may rob the poor, but they would think it dishonour to rob each other. However, I can understand how you mean, Nanette,’ and he too gave a deep sigh. Ruin to their young mistress would not be prosperity for Valmont.

”‘And who is taking your place now, my good Nanette,’ asked mother Germain. ‘Is that girl whom Edmée disliked so – that Victorine, still with the Marquise?’

”‘Yes,’ said Nanette. ‘I cannot bear her. She is clever and cunning, and no one can please the Marquise as she does. She flatters her lady to her face, but behind her back she speaks worse than any of the servants. She is as false as she can be, and would be the first to turn on her masters – she wanted to attend to Mademoiselle when she heard I was leaving, but our ladies do not like her. They live so simply – never going to parties or anything of that kind, for which indeed, Mademoiselle is too young, and my lady too sad she says – that they need but little attendance. And there is a poor girl there – a Sarinet girl – whom my ladies have taken a fancy to. Marguerite Ribou is her name. She is a pretty, gentle girl, about my own age. I taught her what I could; perhaps with such kind mistresses she may get on,’ said Nanette, with a slightly patronising tone.

”‘A Sarinet girl! I wonder to hear they have any one from Sarinet in the household,’ said mother Germain.

”‘This girl is an orphan. Her only brother died some years ago. I think there was some ugly story about his death, though she never speaks of it,’ said Nanette. ‘I fancy he was cruelly treated, and that even the Marquis was somewhat ashamed, and the girl was offered a place at the château to save appearances.’

”‘I wonder she took it,’ said mother Germain.

”‘She was starving probably,’ said Nanette. ‘Hunger is a hard master. But I doubt if her feelings to the family are much better than those of Victorine, only Marguerite says nothing.’

“Suddenly Pierre broke in.

”‘Marguerite Ribou – I remember her!’ he exclaimed. ‘Mother, you have not forgotten my telling you of what I saw at Sarinet? – a young man all fainting and bleeding, and they were driving him – the brutes! And his sister was called Marguerite. Yes, indeed! how could she go to serve them?’

”‘It must have been, as I say – she had no choice,’ answered Nanette. ‘And now I think she will stay out of affection for our ladies, who have been kind to her from the first. But for them, in that bad Paris, what would have become of her, heaven only knows. I must be going, my good friends. I promised mother not to be long – my first day at home! But I shall see you often, for I shall not be more quickly tired of talking of our ladies than you will be of hearing. The Countess has such trust in you; she even told me to say to you – ’ But here again poor Nanette stopped, and the tears filled her eyes. ‘There is no hurry,’ she said; ‘I will tell you another time.’

”‘Nay, my dear,’ said Mother Germain, ‘I would like to hear it now, while her words are fresh in your mind.’

”‘It was the day I left. She was very sad; I think she was sorry for me to go, and perhaps there were other causes. “Tell my dear Germains,” she said, “that if anything happens to me – one knows not what it might be in these times that are threatening us – there is no one – I have no friends I trust as I do them, no one to whom I could better confide my child. Even little Pierre” – my lady does not know how tall you are now, Monsieur Pierre,’ said Nanette, with a smile – ‘“Pierre, I believe, would give his life for Edmée,” she said.’

”‘And she said true,’ said Pierre, his face glowing.

”‘Thank you, Mademoiselle Nanette, for telling me her very words.’

“Then at last the girl left them, after reminding them all, Pierre included, that she counted upon them as guests at her wedding the following week.

”‘She is a good girl,’ said Madame Germain, when Nanette had gone; ‘but that she always was. She comes of a good stock. Old Ludovic is as faithful a servant as any one could possibly desire. Nanette has improved wonderfully. I used not to think her so intelligent and quick of perception.’

”‘It is the society of the Countess that has improved and educated her,’ said father Germain, between the puffs of smoke from his pipe, which he was again enjoying – with, however, a grave, almost uneasy, expression on his face.

“He said nothing, however, till that evening, when alone with his wife, for he was a man who well considered not only his words, but the best time at which to utter them.

”‘I like not the look of things – over there,’ he said, with a jerk of his thumb in the direction where Paris was supposed to lie. ‘I think the girl Nanette is right in her fears. I wish my lady were back among us.’

”‘So indeed do I,’ said Madame Germain.

”‘There is no use saying much about it before the boy,’ resumed her husband. ‘He thinks enough of it already. Much more and he would be setting off to Paris to rescue them before one clearly sees the danger.’

”‘But we would not stop him,’ said his wife.

”‘Not if it were to render them real service. I would go myself. Thou knowest that, wife! But we must wait awhile till we see. No use getting ourselves into trouble without doing them any good.’

”‘True,’ said Pierre’s mother, for she had the greatest respect for her husband’s opinion.

”‘At the same time do not mistake me,’ he said. ‘I am more than ready to do any service the Countess could desire. It may be that what she says is the fact – that she has no friends she can so depend on as upon us. We are plain and simple folk, but we are faithful, and we are grateful, and the time may come for us to show it.’