Francezka Part 29

That year of 1737 was an active one for Count Saxe. I could make a very pretty history of our travels and adventures in Paris, Dresden, Leipsic, Brussels and other gay towns, but I will not. For myself all places were alike to me, provided I was with Count Saxe or with Francezka. I hoped eagerly that Francezka would send for me, knowing that would mean some clue to Gaston Cheverny, but she did not. I had from her three letters, however, in which her soul shone forth. In the spring of 1738 we were at Paris again. The women were very troublesome that year after Count Saxe, and a gay set of rival d.u.c.h.esses came near driving him to drink. One night in May he came into my chamber at midnight, and throwing himself on a chair, said:

"Babache, I am weary of this town of Paris, and there is a d.u.c.h.ess or two that I would as lief were somewhere else. But as they will not go, I have bethought me of our errand to Brussels. We can travel slowly through the pleasant French country in this month of May; we can stop at the chateau of Capello and see that matchless Francezka, and for a little while we can live like men, instead of courtiers. What do you think of this?"

I thought it well; my heart leaped at the mention of the chateau of Capello. It was arranged that we should not give the least hint where we were going. In fact, I was instructed to say that we were going to the Pyrenees, and the story took so well that both the d.u.c.h.esses sent their private spies to Spain to find out what my master was doing there. Meanwhile we were on the high road to Brabant.

No one was with Count Saxe except myself and Beauvais. We left Paris on a spring morning, very like the one so many years before when I had been led out to be shot. We traveled briskly, and at every step that we left the d.u.c.h.esses behind my master's spirits rose. As we had given out that this journey was to the Pyrenees, the ladies sent their couriers with their love-letters in the wrong direction, and Count Saxe did not get a single love-letter between Paris and Brussels, and his health and spirits visibly improved. Trust a woman of rank for hounding a man to death.

We sent word ahead to the chateau of Capello of our coming, and planned to arrive about sunset. The country of Brabant is everywhere beautiful, rich and well tilled, but the estate of Capello was the most beautiful, the richest and the best tilled of any we saw.

Francezka had not increased the park land, rightly thinking she had no right to reduce the arable land of the peasants, but she had made them keep their cottages like the cottages of a theater scene, and she had planted most charming hedges of roses and of lilacs, and other beautiful plants and trees. I think I never saw anything lovelier than the rich meadow, where cows were grazing, almost encircled by a lilac hedge, with occasional rose trees; and the cows had sense enough to prefer the rich gra.s.s to the th.o.r.n.y roses or tough lilac foliage. This was characteristic of Francezka. She loved beauty, as a Spaniard does, but this love was tempered by that stern Scotch sense which does not lose sight of what is useful.

Count Saxe had not seen the chateau since 1732, and he, too, was lost in admiration at the beauty, order and fruitfulness of it all. The windows of the chateau blazed in the sinking sun when we crossed the stone bridge, dismounted, and walked up the steps of the terrace.

Francezka met us on the highest terrace. She wore, as when I had last seen her, a rich Spanish costume of black, but not of mourning. She was then in her twenty-seventh year, and was in the full perfection of her charms. She received us joyfully, gave Count Saxe her cheek to kiss and me her hand, and thanked us for coming to see her. Bold was still her inseparable companion, and barked a joyful welcome to me.

As I had noted in her, after she had married Gaston Cheverny, a new and sweet humility, so I now saw a new development of gentle patience and quiet courage. She had taken up at last the burden of anxiety which is a part of every creature's burden on this earth, and she bore it more sweetly than would have been thought possible by one who knew how dazzlingly happy and brilliant her path had been heretofore.

Unlike most persons whose lives and fortunes are dedicated to a single pursuit, Francezka had not become ill balanced or fanciful. I thought I had never seen her more dignified or sensible than when she presided at supper that night.

She was perfectly informed on public affairs in Europe, being naturally a great reader, and the retired life she led inclining her the more to reading. She blushed with pleasure at Count Saxe's compliments upon her acquirements. But Francezka, in spite of all changes, was still Francezka. She knew perfectly well how to entertain a great man like Count Saxe. While we supped she had musicians in the gallery, who sang a song recounting Count Saxe's triumphs in war. My master listened with pleasure, the greater when Francezka admitted that she was the author of both the words and the music. In her voluntary retirement she had cultivated gifts that would have lain fallow had she kept her place in the world.

Old Peter waited on us, as usual, at supper. There was something in his response to my inquiry after his health which was more cheerful than I had seen in him for years. I was not surprised, therefore, when Francezka whispered to me, during Peter's absence from the room, that poor little Lisa had returned.

Madame Chambellan was still of Francezka's household, but being, as I think, incurably lazy, she kept her room and asked to be excused to us, which we cheerfully granted.

When supper was over it was still warm enough to go out of doors, so Francezka led the way to that well-remembered spot, the Italian garden, and there, under the solemn yew trees, and looking down upon the somber lake, dark, although the twilight was still mellow, we sat and talked with the joy and peace of friends after a long separation.

Bold, of course, was of the party, and continued to honor me with his friendship.

The first thing Count Saxe asked Francezka was, if she had any news of Gaston. Francezka shook her head.

"But I have not given up hope; if I did I should throw myself into the lake. And, after all, what does any search amount to, after my discovery that my lord was alive and present in a place which had been searched a dozen times in three months? Could any wife give up hope after that? No! All I can do is to wait and watch and hope and pray and work, for work I do, that when my husband returns he may find a wife to his taste. I read somewhere lately that Hesiod, an old Greek, said that the G.o.ds have placed labor as a sentinel over virtue. As long as I work and stay quietly at home no one can slander me, no one can accuse me, and I can live my own life of work, study and prayer."

Count Saxe looked at her in silent admiration. There was something heroic in the steady fight this woman was making for her love. She told us that she still spent a great part of her income in promoting the search for Gaston Cheverny. She acknowledged that much of this money went to deceitful and designing persons, who professed to have information to sell which was no information at all, but as Francezka said coolly, she would rather spend her fortune in that way than in any other. Then she told us about Lisa's return.

"Jacques Haret, it seems, had deserted her after six months," said Francezka, "and poor, doglike Lisa followed him for almost a year from place to place, not to force herself on him, but only to get a glimpse of his face. Think of such love being wasted on Jacques Haret! Think of such devotion to him as old Peter's! Well, Lisa, at last, came face to face with Jacques Haret. He spoke to her, gave her a silver snuff-box in default of money, and when she threw it away before his face, the only act of spirit I ever knew in her, Jacques Haret laughed at her. That stung even her patient soul.

"She fled from him, and in her despair thought to drown herself. She was stricken with remorse at her thought, however, and little by little the desire to kill herself departed. Then the longing to see poor old Peter and her home overcame everything, and she turned her face toward Brabant. It took her long, of course, to reach here; she was quite on the other side of Paris; she had to live and to work, but with steady purpose she came toward Brabant. One evening, in the late winter, when Peter went home, he found Lisa sitting in rags by the fire. She fell on her knees before him and was forgiven in a breath.

"Next morning Peter came to me, and, with tears, implored me not to send Lisa too far away. He was overwhelmed when I told him she might stay in the cottage. Poor Lisa! If all sinners were as penitent!

Father Benart is kind to her, and the poor soul works and prays. Some of the people in the parish are indignant with Father Benart, and with me, too, for countenancing Lisa, but they have not so far ventured to speak to me on the subject. If they did--" Francezka turned her head with an air that showed that neither sorrow nor disappointment had impaired the lofty martial spirit she had inherited from the Kirkpatricks.

She also told us that Madame Riano was absent upon her tour of visits, but would return within a fortnight. That night, before we slept, Count Saxe told me he did not propose to remain long enough to encounter Peggy Kirkpatrick.

CHAPTER XXV

A DISCOMFITED BISHOP

Next morning, as usual, I was up early, and walked down to the village. There I found Father Benart, the good little man, just coming out of the church. He told me he had got word that his brother, the bishop, was coming to visit him and Madame Cheverny that day, and he knew a sharp disappointment was in store for the bishop when he should find Madame Riano absent. Then Father Benart asked me some very intelligent questions about Count Saxe's exploits in the Rhine campaigns. As we talked we walked along a narrow road by a field, in which some women were at work, digging and planting. Among the workers I recognized at once the unfortunate Lisa. She was poorly but cleanly clad, and although it was plain she labored hard, she was inexpert, and did not accomplish a great deal.

All of the women, except Lisa, were coa.r.s.e peasant women, with stout arms and legs, broad backs, and but little inferior in physical strength to men. Lisa, on the contrary, was more delicate, more thin and pale than she had ever been before. She worked steadily, neither turning to the right nor to the left, not even when one of the women pointed to her and uttered a jeer, which was greeted with coa.r.s.e laughter. Her pale face colored faintly, but she made no response, going on with her work. Father Benart opened his mouth to call out a reproof to the women, who joined in taunting the unfortunate girl, but changed his mind.

"No," he said aloud, "it is just that she should bear her punishment, and this public shame may save some other girl from the same downward path, but G.o.d is more merciful than man."

While we were standing in the road beside the field we saw a great, lumbering coach approaching, which the little priest at once recognized as that of his brother, the bishop. His Grace had not been expected until the afternoon, but here he was at eight o'clock in the morning. I suspected the bishop had not enjoyed a very good lodging the night before. When the coach drew near we saw the bishop sitting in it alone. As soon as it was close enough it was stopped, and the bishop called to his brother, invited him to step within, and recognizing me as the Tatar prince with whom he was acquainted, extended the same civility to me. We both accepted and mounted into the coach, which proceeded toward the chateau of Capello, where his Grace said he was going on a particular errand. I fancied the bishop preferred the cookery of the chateau to that of Father Benart's housekeeper.

His Grace had sharp eyes, and had observed the scene going on in the fields, about which he inquired. Father Benart told him it was Lisa, with whose story the bishop was perfectly acquainted.

"That is one of the things that I wish especially to speak to you about," said the bishop to Father Benart, in the tone of a schoolmaster and without regarding my presence in the least. "My brother, it is with grief that I learn of what has been going on in your parish of late, of the sin and evil behavior."

"Alas, my brother," responded Father Benart gravely, "there is always sin and evil behavior of some sort in this parish, and I greatly fear, until mankind is totally changed from what it has ever been, that a certain portion of sin and evil behavior must abide with us."

The bishop scowled.

"I fear you do not precisely understand me, brother. I refer particularly to the case of Peter Embden's niece, who, I hear, has returned here, and has not only had all her sins forgiven, but forgotten, as it were. And I recognize the girl yonder flaunting her shame in the face of honest women."

Father Benart silently pointed out of the coach window to Lisa in the distance, her thin form outlined against the bright sky of a May morning. She was a picture of patience and penitence. The bishop, however, although he was not a cruel man, loved to scold, and proceeded to harangue Father Benart, who listened patiently and replied:

"The unfortunate girl is a shining example of G.o.d's grace. She tells me--and I have ever found her truthful, having known her from her infancy--that finding herself deserted by that villain of villains, Jacques Haret, she had but one thought--to drown herself--and, as she walked along the brink of a river with this thought in her heart, G.o.d's light came to her; she saw it would be but to heap sin on sin, and a voice within her bade her return to her uncle, who had suffered so much for her sin. And so, struggling against the Spirit of Evil, which made her dread this place worse than any in the world, she came back; came back half starved, half clothed, and arriving at nightfall, went to Peter Embden's door, and offered to go or to stay, as he should wish. And he, a gentle and forgiving man, bade her, as did our Lord and Saviour, to sin no more, and took her again under his roof.

Then, coming early next morning to ask of me what he should do, being greatly troubled in his mind, I said to him to treat this poor sinner as he himself would wish to be treated at the Last Day. So he has given her bread and shelter since."

"Very reprehensible," cried the bishop. "Such lapses should be punished, punished with severity, and Madame Cheverny, wilful and impractical woman that she is, disdaining advice from all, abetted you in this, for the girl could not have remained in Peter's house without Madame Cheverny's consent."

"True," said Father Benart. "Of course Peter was obliged to ask Madame Cheverny's consent. I did not even think it necessary to remind him of that. And as to Madame Cheverny's asking advice, I know of no one who has managed affairs so successfully as Madame Cheverny. We might all of us ask advice of her in many things."

The air of humility with which the little priest said this convinced me that he was a wit disguised in his rusty ca.s.sock. The bishop did not relish the implication in his brother's speech, and resumed with some choler.

"I presume that headstrong woman, Peggy Kirkpatrick, who wishes to be thought Jove in petticoats, went about the parish counseling all the young women to follow Lisa Embden's example."

"I can not inform you on that point, brother," replied Father Benart, "I have not cognizance of all Madame Riano says and does."

"She is a great trial of my patience," said the bishop. "She is the thorn in my flesh like unto the one that St. Paul prayed seven times that he might be delivered from. I should come oftener to the chateau of Capello, but for the unpleasant chance of meeting Peggy Kirkpatrick."

"You will not meet her this time, brother. She is in Luxembourg."

At once the bishop's countenance fell, but he recovered himself sufficiently to express satisfaction that Madame Riano was in Luxembourg. He then went on to say, taking me as well as his brother into his confidence, that one object of his visit was to induce Francezka to give up all hope of her husband's return, and, putting on mourning, to comport herself as a widow should. I could not help compa.s.sionating the bishop when he said this, knowing what he was likely to receive. He consulted with Father Benart whether he should admonish Francezka in public or in private. Father Benart reflected a moment before he answered. We were then driving along the splendid avenue of lindens toward the chateau, which sat in fairy beauty on its terraces, the morning sun gilding its white facade, the ca.n.a.l sparkling in the light, the gra.s.s freshly green--all, all, lovely to excess. After a pause, Father Benart spoke:

"It is a painful and delicate subject, brother, and but little can be safely said upon it. I think it best, perhaps, if you are determined to speak, to do so in the presence of a third person."

The little priest told me afterward, that he was afraid, if the bishop undertook to harangue Francezka in private, he would get such a reception that his ears would burn for a week; and he looked to the third person to restrain Francezka's tongue, which was somewhat free on all occasions.

By that time we had dismounted from the coach. Francezka was not awaiting the bishop at the top of the terrace, which seemed to annoy him. He forgot that he had arrived some hours in advance of the time.

Count Saxe, however, was strolling about enjoying the fragrance of the morning. The bishop had not seen him since our return from Courland, and, by some accident, had never been enlightened as to his real name and rank. It was not without secret amus.e.m.e.nt that I introduced him to the bishop, who instantly recognized his old acquaintance. His Grace was a moving sight at the moment. His face fell, his eye wandered aimlessly around as he muttered to himself:

"Count Saxe--Count Saxe--and is it possible I did not know that he was Count Saxe?"

"I think not, Monseigneur," replied Count Saxe, "else your Grace would not have criticized my expedition into Courland so freely before my face."