III.

We did not see much of our friends the next day. After their early dinner, Jean came up the garden all alone, to smoke a pipe, and stretch his legs before he returned to his work. We thought his good-natured face was a little sad, in spite of his cheerful _abord_, as he came to our garden parlor and spoke to us.

"It is a pleasure to see them, is it not?" said he, looking after the lovers, just vanishing under the archway of the court-yard, into the sunny village road. Mademoiselle had left off her sober black silk, and floated in the airiest of chintz muslins.

"My good little Rose merits well her happiness. She sent that brave Jules marching four years ago, because she had promised my poor wife not to abandon her helpless infant. Truly she has been the best of little mothers to my Auguste. Jules went away angry enough; but without doubt he must have loved her all the better when he came to reflect. He has been to Italy, to Switzerland, to England--know I where? He is artist-painter, like me--of France always understood. Me, I am Flemish, and very content to be the compatriot of Rubens, of Vand.y.k.e. But Jules has very much talent: he paints also the portraits, and has made successes. He is a brave boy, and deserves his Rose."

"Will the marriage take place now, at last?" we ventured to ask.

"As I suppose," answered Jean, his face clouding perceptibly.

"But you will not separate; you will live together, perhaps,"

suggested John's wife.

"Ah, Madame, how can that be? Jules is of France and I of Belgium.

When I married I brought my wife to Brussels; naturally he will carry his to Paris. C'est juste."

"Poor little Auguste will miss his aunt," said John's wife, involuntarily, "and she will hardly bear to leave him, I think."

"Ah, Madame," said Jean, with ever so little bitterness in his tone, "what would you? The little one must come second now; the husband will {114} be first. Yes, yes, and it is but fair! Auguste is strong now, and I must find him a good bonne. I complain not. I am not so ungrateful. My poor Rose must not be always the sacrifice. She has been an angel to us. See you, she has saved the life of us both. The little one must have died without her, and apparently I must have died without the little one. C'est simple, n'est ce pas?" smiling. Then he gave a sigh, truly as if he could not repress it, and walked away hastily. "We looked after him, compa.s.sion in our hearts.

"That sickly little boy will hardly live if his aunt leaves him," said Mrs. Freshe, "_and his father knows it_."

"But what a cruel sacrifice if she stayed!" said John.

"And can her lover be expected to wait till Auguste has grown up into a strong man?" I put in.

The day after was Sunday. Coming from an early walk, I heard a tremendous clamor, of woe or merriment, proceeding from a small sitting-room that opened into the entrance pa.s.sage. The door was wide, and I looked in. Jean Baudin was jammed up in a corner, behind a barricade of chairs, and was howling miserably, entreating to be let out. His big sun-browned face was crowned by a white coif made of paper, and a white ap.r.o.n was tied round his great waist over his blue blouse. Auguste and Marie danced about the barricade with shrill screams, frantic with joy.

When Baudin saw me he gave a dismal yell, and piteously begged me to come to his a.s.sistance. "See, then, my dear young gentleman, how these bandits, these rebels, these demons, maltreat their poor bonne! Help, help!" and suddenly, with a roar like a small Niagara, he burst out of his prison and took to his heels, round and round the court and up the garden, the children screaming after him--the noise really terrific.

Presently it died away, and he came back to the doorstep where I stood, Auguste on his shoulder and the little maiden demurely trotting after. "At present, I am the bonne," said he. "Rose and her Jules are gone to church; so is our hostess. In the meanwhile, I undertake to look after the children. Have you ever seen a little bonne more pretty? with my coquette cap and my neat ap.r.o.n--hein?"

That evening the lovers went out in a boat on the great pond, or little lake, at the back of the hotel. They carried Auguste with them.

We all went to the water's edge; the rest remained a while, leaning over the rails that partly skirted the parapet wall except Jean, who strolled off with his tiny sketch-book. A very peaceful summer picture was before us, which I can see now if I shut my eyes--I often see it.

A calm and lovely August evening near sunset; a few golden feathers afloat in the blue sky. Below, the gla.s.sy pond that repeats blue sky, red-roofed cottages, green banks, and woody slopes--repeats, also, the solitary boat rowed by Jules, the three light-colored figures it contains, and a pair of swans that glide stately after. The little boy is throwing bits of bread or cake to them.

As we stood there and admired this pretty little bright panorama, John's wife observed that the child was flinging himself dangerously forward, in his usual eager, excited way, at every cast he made.

"I wonder," said she, "that his aunt takes no notice. She is so absorbed in talk with Jules she never turns her head. Look! look!

A--h!"

A dreadful shriek went up from lake and sh.o.r.e. The poor little fellow, had overbalanced himself, and had gone headlong into the lake. Some one had flashed over the parapet wall at the same moment, and struck the water with a splash and a thud. Some one was tearing through it like a steam-engine, toward the boat. It was my brother John. We saw and heard Jules, frantic, and evidently impotent to save; we saw him make a vain clutch at something that rose to the surface. At the same time we {115} perceived that he had scarce power to keep Rose with his left hand from throwing herself into the water.

Hardly three minutes had yet pa.s.sed, yet half the population seemed thronging to the lake-side, here, where the village skirted it.

And suddenly we beheld a terrible--a piteous sight. A big, bareheaded man, that burst through the people, pale, furious, awful; his teeth set, his light blue eyes flaring. He seemed to crash through the crowd, splintering it right and left, like a bombsh.e.l.l through a wall, and was going crazy and headlong over the parapet into the water. He could swim no more than Jules.

"Sauve! sauve!" cried John's wife, gripping his hand and hanging to it as he went rushing past. "My husband has found him. See! see there, Jean Baudin! He holds up the dear child."

She could not have kept him back a moment--probably he did not feel her touch; he was only dragging her with him. But his wild eyes, fixed and staring forward, had seen for themselves what he never heard her say.

Fast, fast as one arm could oar him, my brother was bringing Jean his little one, held above water by the other hand. Then that poor huge body swayed and shivered; the trembling hands went out, the face unlocked a little, there came a hoa.r.s.e sob, and like a thin, strangled cry in a dream--

"Mon pet.i.t! mon pet.i.t!"

But strong again, and savage with love, how he s.n.a.t.c.hed the pale little burden from John, and tore up the bank to the hotel. There were wooden back-gates that opened into the court on the lake-side, but which were unused and locked. At one mighty kick they yawned open before Jean, and he rushed on into the house. Here all had been prudently prepared, and the little dripping body was quickly stripped and wrapped in hot blankets. The village doctor was already there, and two or three women. Jean Baudin helped the doctor and the women with a touching docility. All his noisy roughness was smoothed. He tamed his big voice to a delicate whisper. He spoke and moved with an affecting submissive gentleness, watching what there was he could do, and doing it exactly as he was bid. Now and then he spoke a word or two under his breath--"One must be patient, I know, Monsieur le Medecin; yes, yes." And now and then he muttered piteously "Mon pet.i.t! mon pet.i.t!"

But he was as gentle as a lamb, and touchingly eager to be helpful.

In half an hour his pain got the better of him a little.

"Mais, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" he moaned, "how I suffer! Ah, Monsieur, is it not that he breathes a little, my dear little one? Ah, my G.o.d, save me him! Mon pet.i.t! mon pet.i.t!"

He went into a corner of the room, and stood with his forehead against the wall, his shoulders heaving with silent sobs. Then he came back quiet and patient again.

"Priez, priez pour moi, Madame," said he, once, to John's wife.

"I am praying without ceasing, my poor friend," said she. And once she hastily laid a handkerchief soaked in essence on his forehead, for she thought he was surely going to faint, when the hope, long, long deferred, began to turn his heart sick.

All this time John and I lingered in the dusky pa.s.sage, in which that door ajar made a cleft of yellow light. Every now and then a dim figure stole up to us with an eager sad whisper, asking, "How goes it?

how goes it?" and slipped away down-stairs with the comfortless answer.

It was poor Jules, who could do nothing for his Rose but this. She had thrown herself on the floor in a darkening room, and lay there moaning. Her dire anguish, sharp as a mother's for the little one, was cruelly and unduly aggravated by self-reproach, and by the self-inflicted agony of her exile from that room up-stairs. She dared not enter Jean's presence. She felt that he must for ever abhor the sight of her; she was afraid he {116} might curse her! She rejected all kindness, all sympathy, especially from Jules, whom she quite fiercely ordered to quit her. But when it got quite dark, the poor fellow took in a candle, and set it on a table; and he spent the time in going up and down-stairs to fetch her that whisper of news, which, perhaps, he sweetened with a little false hope before he offered it to her.

At last we outside heard a movement--a stifled exclamation; and then one of the women ran out.

"The child has opened his eyes!" said she, as she hurried down-stairs for some article required.

Presently we heard a man sobbing softly; and then--yes, a faint tiny voice. And after that--nothing, for a long while. But at last at last!

a miserable, awful cry, and a heavy, heavy fall. And then came out John's wife, at sight of whose face we turned sick at heart, and followed her silently down-stairs. We knew what had happened: the little one was dead.

He had opened his eyes, and had probably known his father; for the light that his presence always kindled there had come into the little white face. Jean, too ready to clutch the delusive hope, fell a-sobbing with rapture, and kissing the little fair head. The child tried to speak, and did speak, though but once.

"He said, 'Ba-Bou' quite distinctly," said John's wife, "and then such a pretty smile came; and it's--it's there still, on his little dear _dead_ face, John."

Here she broke down, and went into a pa.s.sion of tears, sobbing for "poor Jean! poor Jean!"

He had fainted for the first time in his strong life, and so that blessed unconsciousness was deadening the first insupportable agony of his dreadful wound. They carried him out, and laid him on his bed, and I believe the doctor bled him. They hoped he would sleep afterward from sheer exhaustion.

Presently poor Jules came to us, crying like a child, and begging us to go to his Rose to try to rouse her, if only to make her weep. She had fallen into a dry depth and abyss of despair--an icy creva.s.se, where even his love could not reach her.

Since she had known the child was dead, she had not stirred, except to resist, moaning, every attempt to lift her from the floor, where she had cast herself, and except that she shuddered and repulsed Jules, especially, whenever he went near her.

We went into the room where she lay. My good brother stooped, and spoke to her in his tender, manly fashion, and lifted her, with a resolution to which she yielded, and seated her on a sofa beside his wife, whose kind arms closed round her suffering sister.

And suddenly some one had come in whom Rose could not see, for her eyes were pressed to that womanly bosom. John's wife made a little warning gesture that kept us others silent.

It was poor Jean himself; he came in as if in search of somewhat; he was deadly pale, and perhaps half unconscious what he did. He was without shoes, and his clothes and blond hair and beard were tumbled and disordered--just as when they had laid him on his bed. When he saw Rose, he came straight up to her, and sat down on her other side.