The History of David Grieve Part 118

He was received at the inn, as his driver had brought him--with astonishment. But Barbizon has been long accustomed, beyond most places in France, to the eccentricities of the English and American visitor; and being a home of artists, it understands the hunt for "impressions," and easily puts up with the unexpected. Before a couple of hours were over, David was installed in a freezing room, and was being discussed in the kitchen, where his arrival produced a certain animation, as the usual English madman in quest of a sensation, and no doubt ready to pay for it.

There were, however, three other guests in the inn, as he found, when he descended for dinner. They were all artists--young, noisy, _bons camarades_, and of a rough and humble social type. To them the winter at Barbizon was as attractive as anywhere else.

Life at the inn was cheap, and free; they had the digestion of ostriches, eating anything that was put before them, and drinking oceans of red wine at ten sous a litre; on bad days they smoked, fed, worked at their pictures or played coa.r.s.e practical jokes on each other and the people of the inn; in fine weather there was always the forest to be exploited, and the chance of some happy and profitable inspiration.

They stared at David a good deal during the _biftek_, the black pudding which seemed to be a staple dish of the establishment, and the _omelette aux fines herbes_, which the landlord's wife had added in honour of the stranger. One of them, behind the shelter of his gla.s.ses, drew the outline of the Englishman's head and face on the table-cloth, and showed it to his neighbour.

'Poetical, grand style, _hein_?'

The other nodded carelessly. '_Pourtant--l'hiver lui plait_,'

he hummed under his breath, having some lines of Hugo's, which he had chosen as a motto for a picture, running in his head.

After dinner everybody gathered round the great fire, which the servant had piled with logs, while the flames, and the wreaths of smoke from the four pipes alternately revealed and concealed the rough sketches of all sorts--landscape, portrait, _genre_--legacies of bygone visitors, wherewith the walls of the _salle a manger_ were covered. David sat in his corner smoking, ready enough to give an account of his journey across the forest, and to speak when he was spoken to.

As soon as the strangeness of the new-comer had a little worn off, the three young fellows plunged into a flood of amusing gossip about the storm and the blocking of the roads, the scarcity of food in Barbizon, the place in general, and its inhabitants. David fell silent after a while, stiffening under a presentiment which was soon realised. He heard his sister's wretched lot discussed with shouts of laughter--the chances of Brenart's escape from the mistress he had already wearied of and deceived--the perils of 'la Montjoie's' jealousy. _'Il veut bien se debarra.s.ser d'elle--mais on ne plaisante pas avec une tigresse_!' said one of the speakers. So long as there was information to be got which might serve him he sat motionless, withdrawn into the dark, forcing himself to listen. When the talk became mere scurrility and noise, he rose and went out.

He pa.s.sed through the courtyard of the inn, and turned down the village street. The storm had gone down, and there were a few stars amid the breaking clouds. Here and there a light shone from the low houses on either hand; the snow, roughly shovelled from the foot pavements, lay piled in heaps along the roadway, the white roofs shone dimly against the wild sky. He pa.s.sed Madame Pyat's _maisonnette_, pausing a moment to look over the wall. Not a sign of life in the dark building, and, between him and it, great drifts of snow choking up and burying the garden. A little further on, as he knew, lay the goal of his quest. He easily made out the house from Mr. O'Kelly's descriptions, and he lingered a minute, on the footway, under an overhanging roof to look at it. It was just a labourer's cottage standing back a little from the street, and to one side rose a high wooden addition which he guessed to be the studio. Through the torn blind came the light of a lamp, and as he stood there, himself invisible in his patch of darkness, he heard voices--an altercation, a woman's high shrill note.

Then he crept back to the inn vibrating through all his being to the shame of those young fellows' talk, the incredible difficulty of the whole enterprise. Could he possibly make any impression upon her whatever? What was done was done; and it would be a crime on his part to jeopardise in the smallest degree the wholesome brightness of Sandy's childhood by any rash proposals which it might be wholly beyond his power to carry out.

He carried up a basket of logs to his room, made them blaze, and crouched over them till far into the night. But in the end the doubt and trouble of his mind subsided; his purpose grew clear again. 'It was my own voice that spoke to me on the moor,' he thought, 'the voice of my own best life.'

About eight o'clock, with the first light of the morning, he was roused by bustle and noise under his window. He got up, and, looking out, saw two sledges standing before the inn, in the cold grey light. Men were busy harnessing a couple of horses to each, and there were a few figures, m.u.f.fled in great coats and carrying bags and wraps, standing about.

'They are going over to Fontainebleau station,' he thought; 'if that man keeps his appointment in Paris to-day, he will go with them.'

As the words pa.s.sed through his mind, a figure came striding up from the lower end of the street, a young fair-haired man, in a heavy coat lined with sheepskin. His delicately made face--naturally merry and _bon enfant_--was flushed and scowling. He climbed into one of the sledges, complained of the lateness of the start, swore at the ostler, who made him take another seat on the plea that the one he had chosen was engaged, and finally subsided into a moody silence, pulling at his moustache, and staring out over the snow, till at last the signal was given, and the sledges flew off on the Fontainebleau road, under a shower of s...o...b..a.l.l.s which a group of shivering bright-eyed urchins on their way to school threw after them, as soon as the great whips were at a safe distance.

David dressed and descended.

'Who was that fair-haired gentleman in the first sledge?' he casually asked of the landlord who was bringing some smoking hot coffee into the _salle a manger_.

'That was a M. Brenart, monsieur,' said the landlord, cheerfully, absorbed all the while in the laying of his table. '_C'est un drole de corps, M. Brenart_. I don't take to him much myself; and as for madame--_qui n'est pas madame!_'

He shrugged his shoulders, saw that there were no fresh rolls, and departed with concern to fetch them.

David ate and drank. He would give her an hour yet.

When his watch told him that the time was come, he went out slowly, inquiring on the way if there would be any means of getting to Paris later in the day. Yes, the landlord thought a conveyance of some sort could be managed--if monsieur would pay for it!

A few minutes later David knocked at the door of Brenart's house.

He could get no answer at all, and at last he tried the latch. It yielded to his hand, and he went in.

There was no one in the bare kitchen, but there were the remains of a fire, and of a meal. Both the crockery on the table and a few rough chairs and stools the room contained struck him as being in great disorder. There were two doors at the back. One led into a back room which was empty, the other down a few steps into a garden. He descended the steps and saw the long wooden erection of the studio stretching to his left. There was a door in the centre of its princ.i.p.al wall, which was ajar. He went up to it and softly pushed it open. There, at the further end, huddled over an iron stove, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaken with fierce sobs, was Louie.

He closed the door behind him, and at the sound she turned, hastily. When she saw who it was she gave a cry, and, sinking back on her low canvas chair, she lay staring at him, and speechless.

Her eyes were red with weeping; her beauty was a wreck; and in face of the despair which breathed from her, and from her miserable surroundings, all doubt, all repulsion, all condemnation fled from the brother's heart. The iron in his soul melted. He ran up to her, and, kneeling beside her, he put his arms round her, as he had never done in his life.

'Oh you poor thing--you poor thing!' he cried, scarcely knowing what he said. He took her worn, tear-stained face, and, laying it on his shoulder, he kissed her, breathing incoherent words of pity and consolation.

She submitted a while, helpless with shock and amazement, and still shaken with the tempest of her own pa.s.sion. But there came a moment when she pushed him away and tried desperately to recover herself.

'I don't know what you want--you're not going to have anything to do with me now--you can't. Let me alone--it will be over soon--one way or the other.'

And she sat upright, one hand clenched on her knees, her frowning brows drawn together, and the tears falling in spite of her intense effort to drive them back.

He found a painter's stool, and sat down by her, pale and determined. He told her the history of his search; he implored her to be guided by him, to let him take her home to England and Manchester, where her story was unknown, save to Dora and John. He would make a home for her near his own; he would try to comfort her for the loss of her child; they would understand each other better, and the past should be buried.

Louie looked at him askance. Every now and then she ceased to listen to him at all; while, under the kindling of her own thoughts, her wild eyes flamed into fresh rage and agony.

'Don't!--leave me alone!' she broke out at last, springing up. 'I don't want your help, I don't want you; I only want _him_,--and I will have him, or we shall kill each other.'

She paced to and fro, her hands clasped on her breast, her white face setting into a ghastly calm. David gazed at her with horror.

This was another note! one which in all their experience of each other he had never heard on her lips before. _She loved this man_!--this mean wretch, who had lived upon her and betrayed her, and, having got from her all she had to give, was probably just about to cast her off into the abyss which yawns for such women as Louie. He had thought of her flight to him before as the frenzy of a nature which must have distraction at any cost from the unfamiliar and intolerable weight of natural grief.

But this!--one moment it cut the roots from hope, the next it nerved him to more vigorous action.

'You cannot have him,' he said, steadily and sternly. 'I have listened to the talk here for your sake--he is already on the point of deserting you--everyone else in this place knows that he is tired of you--that he is unfaithful to you.'

She dropped into her chair with a groan. Even her energies were spent--she was all but fainting--and her miserable heart knew, with more certainty than David himself did, that all he said was true.

Her unexpected weakness, the collapse of her strained nerves, filled him with fresh hopes. He came close to her again and pleaded, by the memory of her child, of their father--that she would yield, and go away with him at once.

'What should I do'--she broke in pa.s.sionately, her sense of opposition of absurdity reviving her, 'when I get to your hateful Manchester? Go to church and say my prayers! And you? In a week or two, I tell you, you would be sick of having soiled your hands with such _mud_ as I am.'

She threw herself back in her chair with a superb gesture, and folded her arms, looking him defiance.

'Try me,' he said quietly, while his lip trembled. 'I am not as I was, Louie. There are things one can only learn by going down--down--into the depths of sorrow. The night before Lucy died--she could hardly speak--she sent you a message: "I wish I had been kinder--ask her to come to Manchester when I am gone." I have not seen her die--not seen her whole life turn to love--through such unspeakable suffering--for nothing. Oh Louie--when we submit ourselves to G.o.d--when we ask for His life--and give up our own--then, and then only, there is peace--and strength. We ourselves are nothing--creatures of pa.s.sion--miserable--weak--but in Him and through Him--'

His voice broke. He took her cold hand and pressed it tenderly. She trembled in spite of herself, and closed her eyes.

'_Don't_--I know all about that--why did the child die? There is no G.o.d--nothing. It's just talk. I told Him what I'd do--I vowed I'd go to the bad, for good and all--and I have. There--let me alone!'

But he only held her hand tighter.

'No I--never! Your trouble was awful--it might well drive you mad. But others have suffered, Louie--no less--and yet have believed--have hoped. It is not beyond our power--for it has been done again and again!--by the most weak, the most miserable. Oh!

think of that--tear yourself first from the evil life--and you, too, will know what it is to be consoled--to be strengthened. The mere effort to come with me--I promise it you!--will bring you healing and comfort. We make for ourselves the promise of eternal life, by turning to the good. Then the hope of recovering our dear ones--which was nothing to us before--rises and roots itself in our heart. Come with me,--conquer yourself,--let us begin to love each other truly, give me comfort and yourself--and you will bear to think again of Cecile and of G.o.d--there will be calm and peace beyond this pain.'

His eyes shone upon her through a mist. She said no more for a while. She lay exhausted and silent, the tears streaming once more down her haggard cheeks.

Then, thinking she had consented, he began to speak of arrangements for the journey--of the possibility of getting across the forest.

Instantly her pa.s.sion returned. She sprang up and put him away from her.

'It is ridiculous, I tell you--_ridiculous!_ How can I decide in such an instant? You must go away and leave me to think.'

'No,' he said firmly, 'my only chance is to stay with you.'

She walked up and down, saying wild incoherent things to herself under her breath. She wore the red dress she had worn at Manchester--now a torn and shabby rag--and over it, because of the cold, a long black cloak, a relic of better days. Her splendid hair, uncombed and dishevelled, hung almost loose round her head and neck; and the emaciation of face and figure made her height and slenderness more abnormal than ever as she swept tempestuously to and fro.