Lazarre Part 39

She said--"O Lazarre!"--and Paul beat on Ernestine's knee, echoing--"O Zar!" and my comfort was absolute as release from pain, because she had come to visit her old friend the marquis.

I helped her down and stood with her at the latticed door.

"How bright it is here!" said Eagle.

"It is very bright. I came up the hill from a dark place."

"Did the news of his death meet you on the post-road?"

"It met me at the foot of this hill. The goose girl told me."

"Oh, you have been hurt!" she said, looking at me. "Your face is all seamed. Don't tell me about Mittau to-day. Paul and I are taking possession of the estates!"

"Napoleon has given them back to you!"

"Yes, he has! I begged the De Chaumonts to let me come alone! By hard posting we reached Mont-Louis last night. You are the only person in France to whom I would give that vacant seat in the carriage to-day."

I cared no longer for my own loss, as I am afraid has been too much my way all through life; or whether I was a prince or not. Like paradise after death, as so many of our best days come, this perfect day was given me by the marquis himself. Eagle's summer dress touched me. Paul and Ernestine sat facing us, and Paul ate cherries from a little basket, and had his fingers wiped, beating the cushion with his heels in excess of impatience to begin again.

We paused at a turn of the height before descending, where fields could be seen stretching to the horizon, woods fair and clean as parks, without the wildness of the American forest, and vineyards of bushy vines that bore the small black grapes. Eagle showed me the far boundaries of Paul's estates. Then we drove where holly spread its p.r.i.c.kly foliage near the ground, where springs from cliffs trickled across delicious lanes.

h.o.a.ry stone farmhouses, built four-square like a fortress, each having a stately archway, saluted us as we pa.s.sed by. The patron and his wife came out, and laborers, pulling their caps, dropped down from high-yoked horses.

But when the long single street of stone cottages which formed the village opened its arms, I could see her breast swelling and her gray eyes sweeping all with comprehensive rush.

An elderly man, shaking some salad in a wire basket, dropped it at his feet, and bowed and bowed, sweeping his cap to the ground. Some women who were washing around a roofed pool left their paddles, and ran, wiping suds from their arms; and houses discharged their inmates, babies in children's arms, wives, old men, the simplicity of their lives and the openness of their labor manifest. They surrounded the carriage.

Eagle stood Paul upon his feet that they might worship him, and his mouth corners curled upward, his blue-eyed fearless look traveled from face to face, while her gloved hand was kissed, and G.o.d was praised that she had come back.

"O Jean!" she cried, "is your mother alive?" and "Marguerite! have you a son so tall?"

An old creature bent double, walked out on four feet, two of them being sticks, lifted her voice, and blessed Eagle and the child a quarter of an hour. Paul's mother listened reverently, and sent him in Ernestine's arms for the warped human being to look upon at close range with her failing sight. He stared at her unafraid, and experimentally put his finger on her knotted cheek; at which all the women broke into chorus as I have heard blackbirds rejoice.

"I have not seen them for so long!" Madame de Ferrier said, wiping her eyes. "We have all forgotten our behavior!"

An inverted pine tree hung over the inn door, and dinner was laid for us in its best room, where host and hostess served the marquise and the young marquis almost on their knees.

When we pa.s.sed out at the other end of the village, Eagle showed me a square-towered church.

"The De Ferriers are buried there--excepting my father. I shall put a tablet in the wall for Cousin Philippe. Few Protestants in France had their rights and privileges protected as ours were by the throne. I mention this fact, sire, that you may lay it up in your mind! We have been good subjects, well worth our salt in time of war."

Best of all was coming to the chateau when the sun was about an hour high. The stone pillars of the gateway let us upon a terraced lawn, where a fountain played, keeping bent plumes of water in the air. The lofty chateau of white stone had a broad front, with wings. Eagle bade me note the two dove-cotes or pigeon towers, distinctly separate structures, one flanking each wing, and demonstrating the antiquity of the house. For only n.o.bles in medieval days were accorded the privilege of keeping doves.

Should there be such another evening for me when I come to paradise, if G.o.d in His mercy brings me there, I shall be grateful, but hardly with such fresh-hearted joy. Night descends with special benediction on remote ancient homes like Mont-Louis. We walked until sunset in the park, by lake, and bridged stream, and hollied path; Ernestine carrying Paul or letting him pat behind, driving her by her long cap ribbons while he explored his mother's playground. But when the birds began to nest, and dewfall could be felt, he was taken to his supper and his bed, giving his mother a generous kiss, and me a smile of his upcurled mouth corners. His forehead was white and broad, and his blue eyes were set well apart.

[Ill.u.s.tration: We walked until sunset in the park, by lake, and bridged stream, and hollied path.]

I can yet see the child looking over Ernestine's shoulder. She carried him up stairs of oak worn hollow like stone, a mighty hand-wrought bal.u.s.trade rising with them from hall to roof.

We had our supper in a paneled room where the lights were reflected as on mirrors of polished oak, and the man who served us had served Madame de Ferrier's father and grandfather. The gentle old provincial went about his duty as a religious rite.

There was a pleached walk like that in the marquis' Paris garden, of branches flattened and plaited to form an arbor supported by tree columns; which led to a summer-house of stone smothered in ivy. We walked back and forth under this thick roof of verdure. Eagle's cap of brown hair was roughened over her radiant face, and the open throat of her gown showed pulses beating in her neck. Her lifted chin almost touched my arm as I told her all the Mittau story, at her request.

"Poor Madame d'Angouleme! The cautious priest and the king should not have taken you from me like that! She knew you as I knew you; and a woman's knowing is better than a man's proofs. She will have times of doubting their policy. She will remember the expression of your mouth, your shrugs, and gestures--the little traits of the child Louis, that reappear in the man."

"I wish I had never gone to Mittau to give her a moment's distress."

"Is she very beautiful?"

"She is like a lily made flesh. She has her strong dislikes, and one of them is Louis Philippe--"

"Naturally," said Eagle.

"But she seemed sacred to me. Perhaps a woman brings that hallowedness out of martyrdom."

"G.o.d be with the royal lady! And you, sire!"

"And you!--may you be always with me, Eagle!"

"This journey to Mittau changes nothing. You were wilful. You would go to the island in Lake George: you would go to Mittau."

"Both times you sent me."

"Both times I brought you home! Let us not be sorrowful to-night."

"Sorrowful! I am so happy it seems impossible that I come from Mittau, and this day the Marquis du Plessy died to me! I wish the sun had been tied to the trees, as the goose girl tied her gander."

"But I want another day," said Eagle. "I want all the days that are my due at home."

We ascended the steps of the stone pavilion, and sat down in an arch like a balcony over the sunken garden. Pears and apricots, their branches flattened against the wall, showed ruddy garnered sunlight through the dusk. The tangled enclosure sloped down to the stream, from which a fairy wisp of mist wavered over flower bed and tree. Dew and herbs and the fragrance of late roses sent up a divine breath, invisibly submerging us, like a tide rising out of the night.

Madame de Ferrier's individual traits were surprised in this nearness, as they never had been when I saw her at a distance in alien surroundings. A swift ripple, involuntary and glad, coursed down her body; she shuddered for joy half a minute or so.

Two feet away, I worshiped her smiling eyes and their curved ivory lids, her rounded head with its abundant cap of hair, her chin, her shoulders, her bust, the hands in her lap, the very sweep of her scant gown about her feet.

The flash of extreme happiness pa.s.sing, she said gravely,

"But that was a strange thing--that you should fall unconscious!"

"Not so strange," I said; and told her how many times before the eclipse--under the edge of which my boyhood was pa.s.sed--had completely shadowed me. At the account of Ste. Pelagie she leaned toward me, her hands clenched on her breast. When we came to the Hotel Dieu she leaned back pallid against the stone.

"Dear Marquis du Plessy!" she whispered, as his name entered the story.

When it was ended she drew some deep breaths in the silence.

"Sire, you must be very careful. That Bellenger is an evil man."

"But a weak one."

"There may be a strength of court policy behind him."