Monsieur Maurice Part 3

"Here it is," he said, taking out a piece of folded paper.

It contained the thing he had described--a sc.r.a.p of fringe composed of crimson and yellow twist, about two inches in length.

"And those other things?" I said, peering into the secret drawer with a child's inquisitiveness. "Have they a history, too?"

Monsieur Maurice hesitated--took them out--sighed--and said, somewhat reluctantly:--

"You may see them, little Gretchen, if you will. Yes; they, too, have their history--but let it be. We have had enough sad stories for to-day."

Those other things, as I had called them, were a withered rose in a little cardboard box, and a miniature of a lady in a purple morocco case.

5

It so happened that the Winter this year was unusually severe, not only at Bruhl and the parts about Cologne, but throughout all the Rhine country.

Heavy snows fell at Christmas and lay unmelted for weeks upon the ground.

Long forgotten sleighs were dragged out from their hiding places and put upon the road, not only for the transport of goods, but for the conveyance of pa.s.sengers. The ponds in every direction and all the smaller streams were fast frozen. Great ma.s.ses of dirty ice, too, came floating down the Rhine, and there were rumours of the great river being quite frozen over somewhere up in Switzerland, many hundred miles nearer its source.

For myself, I enjoyed it all--the bitter cold, the short days, the rapid exercise, the blazing fires within, and the glittering snow without. I made snow-men and snow-castles to my heart's content. I learned to skate with my father on the frozen ponds. I was never weary of admiring the wintry landscape--the wide plains sheeted with silver; the purple mountains peeping through brown vistas of bare forest; the nearer trees standing out in featherlike tracery against the blue-green sky. To me it was all beautiful; even more beautiful than in the radiant summertime.

Not so, however, was it with Monsieur Maurice. Racked by a severe cough and unable to leave the house for weeks together, he suffered intensely all the winter through. He suffered in body, and he suffered also in mind. I could see that he was very sad, and that there were times when the burden of life was almost more than he knew how to bear. He had brought with him, as I have shown, certain things wherewith to alleviate the weariness of captivity--books, music, drawing materials, and the like; but I soon discovered that the books were his only solace, and that he never took up pencil or guitar, unless for my amus.e.m.e.nt.

He wrote a great deal, however, and so consumed many a weary hour of the twenty-four. He used a thick yellowish paper cut quite square, and wrote a very small, neat, upright hand, as clear and legible as print. Every time I found him at his desk and saw those closely covered pages multiplying under his hand, I used to wonder what he could have to write about, and for whose eyes that elaborate ma.n.u.script was intended.

"How cold you are, Monsieur Maurice!" I used to say. "You are as cold as my snow-man in the court-yard! Won't you come out to-day for half-an-hour?"

And his hands, in truth, were always ice-like, even though the hearth was heaped with blazing logs.

"Not to-day, pet.i.te," he would reply. "It is too bleak for me--and besides, you see, I am writing."

It was his invariable reply. He was always writing--or if not writing, reading; or brooding listlessly over the fire. And so he grew paler every day.

"But the writing can wait, Monsieur Maurice," I urged one morning, "and you can't always be reading the same old books over and over again!"

"Some books never grow old, little Gretchen," he replied. "This, for instance, is quite new; and yet it was written by one Horatius Flaccus somewhere about eighteen hundred years ago."

"But the sun is really shining this morning, Monsieur Maurice!"

"_Comment_!" he said, smiling. "Do you think to persuade me that yonder is the sun--the great, golden, glorious, bountiful sun? No, no, my child! Where I come from, we have the only true sun, and believe in no other!"

"But you come from France, don't you, Monsieur Maurice?" I asked quickly.

"From the South of France, pet.i.te--from the France of palms, and orange-groves, and olives; where the myrtle flowers at Christmas, and the roses bloom all the year round!"

"But that must be where Paradise was, Monsieur Maurice!" I exclaimed.

"Ay; it was Paradise once--for me," he said, with a sigh.

Thus, after a moment's pause, he went on:--

"The house in which I was born stands on a low cliff above the sea. It is an old, old house, with all kinds of quaint little turrets, and gable ends, and picturesque nooks and corners about it--such as one sees in most French Chateaux of that period; and it lies back somewhat, with a great rambling garden stretching out between it and the edge of the cliff. Three _berceaux_ of orange-trees lead straight away from the paved terrace on which the salon windows open, to another terrace overhanging the beach and the sea. The cliff is overgrown from top to bottom with shrubs and wild flowers, and a flight of steps cut in the living rock leads down to a little cove and a strip of yellow sand a hundred feet below. Ah, pet.i.te, I fancy I can see myself scrambling up and down those steps--a child younger than yourself; watching the sun go down into that purple sea; counting the sails in the offing at early morn; and building castles with that yellow sand, just as you build castles out yonder with the snow!"

I clasped my hands and listened breathlessly.

"Oh, Monsieur Maurice," I said, "I did not think there was such a beautiful place in the world! It sounds like a fairy tale."

He smiled, sighed, and--being seated at his desk with the pen in his hand--took up a blank sheet of paper, and began sketching the Chateau and the cliff.

"Tell me more about it, Monsieur Maurice," I pleaded coaxingly.

"What more can I tell you, little one? See--this window in the turret to the left was my bed-room window, and here, just below, was my study, where as a boy I prepared my lessons for my tutor. That large Gothic window under the gable was the window of the library."

"And is it all just like that still?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said dreamily. "I suppose so."

He was now putting in the rocks, and the rough steps leading down to the beach.

"Had you any little brothers and sisters, Monsieur Maurice?" I asked next; for my interest and curiosity were unbounded.

He shook his head.

"None," he said, "none whatever. I was an only child; and I am the last of my name."

I longed to question him further, but did not dare to do so.

"You will go back there some day, Monsieur Maurice," I said hesitatingly, "when--when--"

"When I am free, little Gretchen? Ah! who can tell? Besides the old place is no longer mine. They have taken it from me, and given it to a stranger."

"Taken it from you, Monsieur Maurice!" I exclaimed indignantly.

"Ay; but--who knows? We see strange changes. Where a king reigns to-day, an emperor, or a mob, may rule to-morrow."

He spoke more to himself than to me, but I had some dim understanding, nevertheless, of what he meant.

He had by this time drawn the cliff, and the strip of sand, and the waste of sea beyond; and now he was blotting in some boats and figures--figures of men wading through the surf and dragging the boats in sh.o.r.e; and other figures making for the steps. Last of all, close under the cliff, in advance of all the rest, he drew a tiny man standing alone--a tiny man scarce an eighth of an inch in height, struck out with three or four touches of the pen, and yet so full of character that one knew at a glance he was the leader of the others. I saw the outstretched arm in act of command--I recognised the well-known c.o.c.ked hat--the general outline of a figure already familiar to me in a hundred prints, and I exclaimed, almost involuntarily:--

"Bonaparte!"

Monsieur Maurice started; shot a quick, half apprehensive glance at me; crumpled the drawing up in his hand, and flung it into the fire.

"Oh, Monsieur Maurice!" I cried, "what have you done?"

"It was a mere scrawl," he said impatiently.