In and out of Three Normandy Inns Part 10

Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone the process of transformation in our absence. He was now M. le Marquis de Pompadour--under the heart-shaped arch of the great trees, he was standing, resplendent in laces, in glistening satins, leaning on a rusty, dull-jewelled sword. Renard had mounted his palette; he was dipping already into the mounds of color that dotted the palette-board, with his long brushes. On the canvas, in colors laid on by the touch of genius, this archway beneath which we were standing reared itself aloft; the park trees were as tall and n.o.ble, transfixed in their image of immutable calm, on that strip of linen, as they towered now above us; even the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made the sunshine of the shaded gra.s.s, as it did here, where else no spot of sun might enter, so dense was the night of shade. The life of another day and time lived, however, beneath that shade; Charm and the cure, as they drooped over the canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier, sickening in a languor of adoration, and a sprightly coquette, whose porcelain beauty was as finished as the feathery edges of her lacy sleeves.

"_Tres bien tres bien_" said the cure, nodding his head in critical commendation. "It will be a little masterpiece. And now," waving his hand toward us, "what do you propose to do with these ladies while you are painting?"

"Oh, they can wander about," Renard replied, abstractedly. He had already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was painting in.

"I knew it, I could have told you--a painter hasn't the manners of a peasant when he's painting," cried the priest, lifting cane and hands high in air, in mock horror. "But all the better, all the better, I shall have you all to myself. Come, come with me. You can see the house later. I'll send for the gardener. It's too fine a day to be indoors.

What a day, _hein_? _Le bon Dieu_ sends us such days now and then, to make us ache for paradise. This way, this way--we'll go through the little door--my little door; it was made for me, you know, when the manoir was last inhabited. I and the children were too impatient--we suffered from that malady--all of us--we never could wait for the great gates yonder to be opened. So Monsieur de H---- built us this one." The little door opened directly on the road, and on the cure's house. There was a tangle of underbrush barring the way; but the cure pushed the briars apart with his strong hands, beating them down with his cane.

When the door opened, we pa.s.sed directly beyond the roadway, to the steep steps leading to the church. The cure, before mounting the steps, swept the road, upward and downward, with his keen glance. It was the instinctive action of the provincial, scenting the chance of novelty.

Some distant object, in the meeting of two distant roadways, arrested the darting eyes; this time, at least, he was to be rewarded for his prudence in looking about him. The object slowly resolved itself into two crutches between which hung the limp figure of a one-legged man.

"_Bonjour, Monsieur le cure_." The crutches came to a standstill; the cripple's hand went up to doff a ragged worsted cap.

"Good-day, good-day, my friend; how goes it? Not quite so stiff, _hein_--in such a bath of sunlight as this? Good-day, good-day."

The crutches and their burden pa.s.sed on, kicking a little cloud of dust about the lean figure.

"_Un peu ca.s.se, le bonhomme_" he said, as he nodded to the cripple in a tone of reflection, as if the breakage that bad befallen his humble friend were a fresh incident in his experience. "Yes, he's a little broken, the poor old man; but then," he added, quickly renewing his tone of unquenchable high spirits--"one doesn't die of it. No, one doesn't die, fortunately. Why, we're all more or less cracked, or broken up here."

He shook another laugh out, as he preceded us up the stone steps. Then he turned to stop for a moment to point his cane toward the small house with whose chimneys we were now on a level. "There, mesdames, there is the proof that more breaking doesn't signify in this matter of life and death, _Tenez_, madame--" and with a charming gesture he laid his richly-veined, strong old hand on my arm--a hand that ended in beautiful fingers, each with its rim of moon-shaped dirt; "_tenez_--figure to yourself, madame, that I myself have been here twenty years, and I came for two! I bought out the _bonhomme_ who lived over yonder.

"I bought him and his furniture out. I said to myself, 'I'll buy it for eight hundred, and I'll sell it for four hundred, in a year.'" Here he laid his finger on his nose--lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, _elles se ca.s.sent les reins_--they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor old things, they are of the Empire, no wonder they groan. You should see us, when our brethren come to take a cup of soup with me. Such a collection of antiquities as we are! I catch them, my brothers, looking about, slyly peering into the secrets of my little menage. 'From his ancestors, doubtless, these old chairs and tables, say these good freres, under their breath. And then I wink slyly at the chairs, and they never let on."

Again the mellow laugh broke forth. He stopped again to puff and blow a little, from his toil up the steep steps. Then all at once, as the rough music of his clicking sabots and the playful taps of his cane ceased, the laugh on his mobile lips melted into seriousness. He lifted his cane, pointing to the cemetery just above us, and to the gravestones looking down over the hillsides between a network of roses.

"We are old, madame--we are old, but, alas! we never die! It is difficult to people, that cemetery. There are only sixty of us in the parish, and we die--we die hard. For example, here is my old servant"--and he covered a grave with a sweep of his cane--for we were leisurely sauntering through the little cemetery now. The grave to which he pointed was a garden; heliotrope, myosotis, hare-bells and mignonette had made of the mound a bed of perfume--"see how quietly she lies--and yet what a restless soul the flowers cover! She, too, died hard. It took her years to make up her mind; finally _le bon Dieu_ had to decide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She complained to the last--she was poor, she was in my way, she was blind. '_Eh bien, tu n'as pas besoin de me faire les beaux yeux, toi_'--I used to say to her. Ah, the good soul that she was!" and the dark eye glistened with moisture. A moment later the cure was blowing vigorously the note of his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that only a Frenchman can render an effective adjunct to moments of emotion.

"You see, _mes enfants_, I am like that--I weep over my friends--when they are gone! But see," he added quickly, recovering himself--"see, over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He lies well, _hein?_--comfortable, too--looking his old church in the face and the sun on his old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will have company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous smile was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed to lie there with us, 'but we shall be crunching each other's bones!'

'No,' he replied, 'only falling into each other's arms!' So it was settled. He comes over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our tombstones over; we drink a gla.s.s of wine together, and take a pipe and talk about our future--in eternity! Ah, how gay we are! It is so good to be friends with G.o.d!"

The voice deepened into seriousness. He went on in a quieter key:

"But why am I always preaching and talking about death and eternity to two such ladies--two such children? Ah--I know, I am really old--I only deceive myself into pretending I'm young. You will do the same, both of you, some day. But come and see my good works. You know everyone has his little corner of conceit--I have mine. I like to do good, and then to boast of it. You shall see--you shall see."

He was hurrying us along the narrow paths now, past the little company of grave-stones, graves that were bearing their barbaric burdens of mortuary wreaths, of beaded crosses, and the motley a.s.semblage, common to all French graveyards, of hideous shrines encasing tin saints and madonnas in plaster.

Above the sunken graves and the tin effigies of the martyrs behind the church, arose a fair and glittering marble tomb. It was strangely out of keeping with the meagre and paltry surroundings of the peasant grave-stones. As we approached the tomb it grew in imposingness. It was a circular mortuary chapel, with carved pediment and iron-wrought gateway.

"It's fine, _hein_, and beautiful, _hein?_ It is the Duke's!" The cure, it was easy to see, considered the chapel in the light of a personal possession. He stood before it, bare-headed, with a new earnestness on his mobile face. "It is the Duke's. Yes, the Duke's. I saved his soul, blessed be G.o.d! and he--he rebuilds my cellars for me: See"--and he pointed to the fine new base of stone, freshly cemented, on which the church rested--"see, I save his soul, and he preserves my buildings for me. It's a fair deal, isn't it? How does it come about, that he is converted? Ah, you see, although I am a man without science, without knowledge, devoid of pretensions and learning, the good G.o.d sometimes makes use of such humble instruments to work His will. It came about in the usual way. The Duke came here carrying his religion lightly, as one may say, not thinking of his soul. I--I dine with him. We talk, we argue; he does, that is--I only preach from my Bible. And behold! one day he is converted. He is devout. And from grat.i.tude, he repairs my crumbling old stones. And now see how solid, how strong is my church cellar!"

Again the fountain of his irrepressible merriment bubbled forth. For all the gayety, however, the severe line deepened as one grew to know the face better; the line in profile running from the nose into the firm upper lip and into the still more resolute chin, matched the impress of authority marked on the n.o.ble brow. It was the face of one who might have infinite charity and indulgence for a sin, and yet would make no compromise with it.

We had resumed our walk. It led us at last into the interior of the little church. The gloom and silence within, after the dazzling brilliancy of the noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested the narrow nave and dim altar with an added charm. The old priest knelt for the briefest instant in reverence to the altar. When he turned there was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in the changeable eyes.

"And you, mesdames! How is this? You are not Catholics? And I was so sure of it! Quite sure of it, you were so sympathetic, so full of reverence. And you, my child"--turning to Charm--"you speak our tongue so well, with the very accent of a good Catholic. What! you are Protestant? La! La! What do I hear?" He shook his cane over the backs of the straw-bottomed chairs; the sweet, mellow accents of his voice melted into loving protest--a protest in which the fervor was not quenched in spite of the merry key in which it was pitched.

"Protestants? Pouffe! pouffe! What is that? What is it to be a Protestant? Heretics, heretics, that is what you are. So you are _deux affreuses heretiques_? Ah, la! la! Horrible! horrible! I must cure you of all that. I must cure you!" He dropped his cane in the enthusiasm of his attack; it fell with a clanging sound on the stone pavement. He let it lie. He had a.s.sumed, unconsciously, the orator's, the preacher's att.i.tude. He crowded past the chairs, throwing back his head as he advanced, striking into argumentative gesture:

"_Tenez_, listen, there is so little difference, after all. As I was saying to M. le comte de Chermont the other day, no later than Thursday--he has married an English wife, you know--can't understand that either, how they can marry English wives. However, that's none of my business--we have nothing to do with marrying, we priests, except as a sacrament for others. I said to M. le comte, who, you know, shows tendencies toward anglicism--astonishing the influence of women--I said: 'But, my dear M. le comte, why change? You will only exchange certainty for uncertainty, facts for doubts, truth for lies.' 'Yes, yes,' the comte replied, 'but there are so many new truths introduced now into our blessed religion--the infallibility of the pope--the--'

'_Ah, mon cher comte--ne m'en parlez pas_. If that is all that stands in your way--_faites comme le bon Dieu! Lui--il ferme les yeux et tend les bras._ That is all we ask--we his servants--to have you close your eyes and open your arms.'"

The good cure was out of breath; he was panting. After a moment, in a deeper tone, he went on:

"You, too, my children, that is what I say to you--you need only to open your arms and to close your eyes. G.o.d is waiting for you."

For a long instant there was a great stillness--a silence during which the narrow s.p.a.ces of the dim aisles were vibrating with the echoes of the rich voice.

The rustle of a light skirt sweeping the stone flooring broke the moment's silence. Charm was crossing the aisles. She paused before a little wooden box, nailed to the wall. There came suddenly on the ear the sound of coin rattling down into the empty box; she had emptied into it the contents of her purse.

"For your poor, monsieur le cure," she smiled up, a little tremulously, into the burning, glowing eyes. The priest bent over the fair head, laying his hand, as if in benediction, upon it.

"My poor need it sadly, my child, and I thank you for them. G.o.d will bless you."

It was a touching little scene, and I preferred, for one, to look out just then at Henri's figure advancing toward us, up the stone steps.

When the priest spoke again, it was in a husky tone, the gold in his voice dusted with moisture; but the bantering spirits in him had reappeared.

"What a pity, that you must burn! For you must, dreadful heretics that you are! And this dear child, she seems to belong to us--I can never sit by, now, in Paradise, happy and secure, and see her burn!" The laugh that followed was a mingled caress and a blessing. Henri came in for a part of the indulgence of the good cure's smile as he came up the steps.

"Ah, Henri, you have come for these ladies?"

"_Oui_, monsieur le cure, luncheon is served."

Our friend followed us to the topmost step, and to the very edge of the step. He stood there, talking down to us, as we continued to press him to return with us.

"No, my children--no--no, I can't join you; don't urge me; I can't, I must not. I must say my prayers instead; besides the children come soon, for their catechism. No, don't beg me, I don't need to be importuned; I know what that dear Renard's wine is. _Au revoir et a bientot_--and remember," and here he lifted his arms--cane and all, high in the air--"all you need do is to close your eyes and to open your arms. G.o.d himself is doing the same."

High up he stood, with uplifted hands, the smile irradiating a face that glowed with a saint's simplicity. Behind the black lines of his robe, the sunlight lay streaming in noon glory; it aureoled him as never saint was aureoled by mortal brush. A moment only he lingered there, to raise his cap in parting salute. Then he turned, the trail of his gown sweeping the gravel paths, and presently the low church door swallowed him up. Through the door, as we crossed the road, there came out to us the click of sabots striking the rude flagging; and a moment after, the murmuring echo of a deep, rich voice, saying the office of the hour.

CHAPTER XIII.

HONFLEUR--NEW AND OLD.

The stillness of the park trees, as we pa.s.sed beneath them, was like the silence that comes after a blessing. The sun, flooding the landscape with a deluge of light, lost something of its effulgence, by contrast with the fulness of the priest's rich nature. This fair world of beauty that lay the other side of the terrace wall, beneath which our luncheon was spread, was fair and lovely still--but how unimportant the landscape seemed compared to the varied scenery of the cure's soul-lit character! Of all kinds of nature, human nature is a.s.suredly the best; it is at least the most perdurably interesting. When we tire of it, when we weary of our fellow-man and turn the blase cheek on the fresh pillow of mother-earth, how quickly is the pillow deserted once the mental frame is rested or renewed! The history of all human relations has the same ending--we all of us only fall out of love with man to fall as swiftly in again.

The remainder of the afternoon pa.s.sed with the rapidity common to all phases of enchantment.

How could one eat seriously, with vulgar, gluttonous hunger, of a feast spread on the parapet of a terrace-wall? The white foam of napkins, the mosaic of the _patties_, the white b.r.e.a.s.t.s of chicken, the salads in their bath of dew--these spoke the language of a lost cause. For there was an open-air concert going on in full swing, and the performance was one that made the act of eating seem as gross as the munching of apples at an oratorio--the music being, indeed, of a highly refined order of perfection. One's ears needed to be highly attuned to hear the p.r.i.c.king of the locusts in the leaves; even the breeze kept uncommonly still, that the brushing of the humming-birds' and bees' wings against the flower-petals might be the more distinctly heard.

I never knew which one of the party it was that decided we were to see the day out and the night in; that we were to dine at the Cheval Blanc, on the Honfleur quays, instead of sedately breaking bread at the Mere Mouchard's. Even our steed needed very little urging to see the advantages of such a scheme. Henri alone wore a grim air of disapproval. His aspect was an epitome of rigid protest. As he took his seat in the cart, he held the sword between his legs with the air of one burning with a pent-up anguish of protest. His eye gloomed on the day; his head was held aloft, reared on a column of bristling vertebra, and on his brow was written the sign of mutiny.

"Henri--you think we should go back; you think going on to Honfleur a mistake?"

"Madame has said it"--Henri was a fatalist--in his speech, at least, he lived up to his creed. "Honfleur is far--Monsieur Renard has not the good digestion when he is tired--he suffers. _Il pa.s.se des nuits d'angoisse. Il souffre des fatigues de l'estomac. Il se fatigue aujourd'hui!_" This, with an air of stern conviction, was accompanied by a glance at his master in which compa.s.sion was not the most obvious note to be read. He went on, remorselessly: