Frances Waldeaux Part 20

"He is very like George and you," Lisa answered. "He is a Waldeaux."

"Yes, I see."

She held him close to her breast as they drove back to Vannes. George whistled and sang on the box. He was very light of heart to have her with him again.

He looked impatiently at an ancient village through which they pa.s.sed, with its towers, and peasants in strange garbs, like the pictures in some crusading tale.

"Now that we have mother, Lisa," he said, "we'll go straight back home.

I am tired of mediaeval times. I must get to work for this youngster."

Lisa did not speak for a moment. "I should like to stay in Vannes a little longer," she said. "I did not tell you, but--my mother is buried there. That was why I came; I should like to be with her."

"Why, of course, dear. As long as you like," he said affectionately.

"I will not detain you long. Perhaps only a week or two," she said.

He nodded, and began to whistle cheerfully again. Frances looked at Lisa, and her eyes filled with tears. It was a pitiful tragedy!

But the poor girl was quite right not to worry George until the last moment. She was blocking his way--ruining his life, and G.o.d was taking her away so that she could no longer harm him.

And yet--poor Lisa!

They drove on. The sun warmed the crimson fields, and the birds chirped, and this was George's child creeping close to her breast. It stirred there a keen pang of joy.

Surely He had forgiven her.

A month later a group of pa.s.sengers in deep mourning stood apart on the deck of the Paris as she left the dock at Liverpool. It was George Waldeaux, his mother, and little Jacques with his nurse. Mrs. Waldeaux was looking at Clara and her girls, who were watching her from the dock. They had come to Vannes when Lisa died, and had taken care of her and the baby until now. Frances had cried at leaving them, but George stood with his back to them moodily, looking down into the black water.

"It seems but a few days since we sailed from New York on the Kaiser Wilhelm," he said, "and yet I have lived out all my life in that time."

"All? Is there nothing left, George?" his mother said gently.

"Oh, of course, you are always a good companion, and there is the child----" He paused. The fierce pa.s.sions, the storms of delight and pain of his life with Lisa rushed back on him. "I will work for others, and wear out the days as I can," he said. "But life is over for me. The story is told. There are only blank pages now to the end."

He turned his dim eyes toward the French coast. She knew that they saw the little bare grave on the hill in Vannes. "I wish I could have seen something green growing on it before I left her there alone!" he muttered.

"Her mother's grave was covered with roses----" Frances answered quickly. "They will creep over to her. She is not alone, George. I am glad she was laid by her mother. She loved her dearly."

"Yes. Better than any thing on earth," he responded gloomily.

A few moments later the ship swung heavily around.

"We are going!" Mrs. Waldeaux cried, waving her hand. "Won't you look at Clara and Lucy, George? They have been so good to us. If Lucy had been my own child, she could not have been kinder to me."

Mr. Waldeaux turned and raised his crepe-bound hat, looking at Lucy in her soft gray gown vaguely, as he might at a white gull dropped on the sh.o.r.e.

"I suppose I never shall see her again," said his mother. "Clara tells me she is besieged by lovers. She is going to marry a German prince, probably."

"That would be a pity," George said, with a startled glance back at the girl.

"Good-by, my dear!" Mrs. Waldeaux leaned over the bulwark. "She is beautiful as an angel! Good-by, Lucy! G.o.d bless you!" she sobbed, kissing her hand.

Mr. Waldeaux looked steadily at Lucy. "How clean she is!" he said.

When the sh.o.r.e was gone he walked down the deck, conscious of a sudden change in himself. He was wakening out of an ugly dream. The sight of the healthy little girl, with her dewy freshness and blue eyes, full of affection and common sense, cheered and heartened him. He did not know what was doing it, but he threw up his head and walked vigorously. The sun shone and the cold wind swept him out into a dim future to begin a new life.

CHAPTER XVI

George Waldeaux took his mother and boy back to the old homestead in Delaware. They arrived at night, and early the next morning he rowed away in his bateau to some of his old haunts in the woods on the bay, and was seen no more that day.

"He is inconsolable!" his mother told some of her old neighbors who crowded to welcome her. "His heart is in that grave in Vannes." The women listened in surprise, for Frances was not in the habit of exploiting her emotions in words.

"We understood," said one of them, with a sympathetic shake of the head, "that it was a pure love match. Mrs. George Waldeaux, we heard, was a French artist of remarkable beauty?"

Frances moved uneasily. "I never thought her--but I can't discuss Lisa!" She was silent a moment. "But as for her social position"--she drew herself up stiffly, fixing cold defiant eyes on her questioner--"as for her social position," she went on resolutely, "she was descended on one side from an excellent American family, and on the other from one of the n.o.blest houses in Europe."

When they were gone she hugged little Jacques pa.s.sionately as he lay on her lap. "That is settled for you!" she said.

When George came back in the evening, he found her walking with the boy in her arms on the broad piazzas.

"I really think he knows that he has come home, George!" she exclaimed.

"See how he laughs! And he liked the dogs and horses just as Lisa thought he would. I am glad it is such a beautiful home for him. Look at that slope to the bay! There is no n.o.bler park in England! And the house is as big as most of their palaces, and much more comfortable!"

"Give the child to Colette, mother, and listen to me. Now that I have settled you and him here, I must go and earn your living."

"Yes."

She followed him into the hall.

"I leave you to-morrow. There is no time to be lost."

"You are going back to art, George?"

"No! Never!"

Frances grew pale. She thought she had torn open his gaping wound.

"I did not mean to remind you of--of----"

"No, it isn't that!"

He scowled at the fire. Art meant for him his own countless daubs, and the sickening smell of oily paints and musk, and soiled silk tea gowns, and the whole slovenly, disreputable scramble of Bohemian life in Paris.

"I loathe art!" he said, with a furious blow at the smouldering log in the fireplace, as if he struck these things all down into the ashes with it.

"Will you go back into the Church, dear?" his mother ventured timidly.