The Hour and the Man Part 39

"She never said or showed that she was. But I know that she was grieved to the very soul, and for life. This, my dear, has been the greatest affliction I have ever known. I did not feel it so at the time, having no doubt of my vocation; but what I have suffered since from the thought that an only child and only parent, who ought to have made each other happy, were both miserable, G.o.d only knows."

"Yet you did what you thought was your duty to G.o.d. I wonder whether you were right?"

"If you knew how many times--but," said the lady, interrupting herself, "we shall know all when our hearts are laid open; and may minister to my mother yet. If I erred, and there be further punishment yet for my error, I am ready to bear it. You see, my child, how much you have to be thankful for, that your difficulty is not from having failed in duty to your parent. For the future, fear not but that your duty will be made clear to you. I am sure this is all you desire."

"Shall we have any more such conversations as this when I come to live here? If we can--"

"We shall see," replied the lady, smiling. "Father Gabriel says there may easily be too much talk, even about our duties; but occasions may arise."

"I hope so," said Euphrosyne, rising, as she perceived that the lady thought it was time for her to go. "I dare say Pierre is here."

Pierre had been waiting some time.

The abbess sat alone after Euphrosyne was gone, contemplating, not the lamp, though her eyes were fixed upon it, but the force of the filial principle in this lonely girl--a force which had constrained her to open the aching wound in her own heart to a mere child. She sat, till called by the hour to prayer, pondering the question how it is that relations designed for duty and peace become the occasions of the bitterest sin and suffering. The mystery was in no degree cleared up when she was called to prayer--which, however, has the blessed power of solving all painful mysteries for the hour.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

PERPLEXITY SOLVED.

"What is the matter, child? What makes you look so merry?" asked Monsieur Revel, when his eyes opened upon Euphrosyne the next morning.

"Nothing has happened, grandpapa. The only thing is, that I like to do what you wish; and I always will, as long as you live. I will go to the convent to-day. You can send for me at any time when you want me, you know. I am sure the abbess will let me come whenever you send Pierre for me."

"Well, well--do not be in such a hurry. I do not want you to go to-day.

Why should you be in such a hurry?"

When the breeze had come to refresh him, and he had had his coffee, Monsieur Revel felt more complaisant, and explained what he meant by there being no hurry. Euphrosyne should not leave him till to-morrow; and this day should be spent as she pleased. Whatever she liked to ask to-day should be granted. This indulgence was promised under a tolerable certainty that she would ask nothing unreasonable: that she would not propose a dinner-party of dark-complexioned guests, for instance. There might also be an expectation of what it would be that she would choose. M. Revel was conscious that he did not visit his estate of Le Bosquet, in the plain of Limbe, so often as Euphrosyne would have liked, or as he himself knew to be good for his agent, the cultivators, and his heiress. He was aware that if he could have shown any satisfaction in the present order of affairs, any good-will towards the working of the new system, there might have been a chance of old stories dying away--of old grievances being forgotten by the cultivators, in his present acquiescence in their freedom. He could not order the carriage, and say he was going to Le Bosquet; but he had just courage enough to set Euphrosyne free to ask to go. It turned out exactly as he expected.

"We will do what you will, my child, to-day. I feel strong enough to be your humble servant."

"It is a splendid day, grandpapa. It must be charming at Le Bosquet.

If I order the carriage now, we can get there before the heat; and we need not come home till the cool of the evening. We will fill the carriage with fruit and flowers for the abbess. May I order the carriage?"

Le Bosquet was only twelve miles off. They arrived when the cultivators were settling to their work after breakfast. It was now, as on every former occasion, a perplexity, an embarra.s.sment to Euphrosyne, that the negroes lost all their gaiety, and most of their civility, in the presence of her grandfather. She could hardly wonder, when she witnessed this, at his intolerance of the very mention of the blacks, at his ridicule of all that she ever told him about them, from her own observation. When she was in any other company, she saw them merry, active, and lavish of their kindness and politeness; and whenever this occurred, she persuaded herself that she must have been mistaken the last time she and Monsieur Revel were at Le Bosquet, and that they ought to go again soon. The next time they went, there was the same gloom, listlessness, and avoidance on the part of the negroes; the same care on her grandfather's that she should not stir a step without the escort of Pierre or the agent. He would not even let her go with Portia, the dairy-woman, to gather eggs; nor with little Sully, to see his baby-brother. She made up her mind that this was all wrong--that all parties would have been more amiable and happy, if there had been the same freedom and confidence that she saw on other estates. Poor girl!

she little knew what was in all minds but her own--what recollections of the lash and the stocks, and hunger and imprisonment on the one hand, and of the horrors of that August night on the other. She little knew how generally it was supposed that she owed it to the grandfather whom she loved so much that she was the solitary orphan whom every one pitied.

It was, as Euphrosyne had said, a splendid day; and all went well.

Monsieur Revel would not go out much; but as he sat in the shaded room, looking forth upon the lawn, the agent satisfied him with accounts of the prosperity of the estate, the fine promise of the cacao walks, and the health and regular conduct of the negroes. Euphrosyne showed herself from time to time, now in the midst of a crowd of children, now with a lapful of eggs, and then with a basket of fruit. In honour of the master and young mistress, the dinner was very superb, and far too long; so that the day had slipped away before Euphrosyne felt at all disposed to return. She was glad that the agent was engaged in a deep discussion with his employer when the carriage came round; so that she was able to make one more short circuit in the twilight while they were settling their point.

The gentlemen were talking over the two late proclamations-- L'Ouverture's and Hedouville's. The agent wished that Hedouville had never come, rather than that he should have set afloat the elements of mischief contained in his proclamation. Monsieur Revel could not believe that a Commissary, sent out for the very purpose of regulating such matters, could have got very far wrong upon them; and besides, the proclamation had never been issued. Never formally issued, the agent said; but it had been circulated from hand to hand of those who were interested in its provisions. Some were, at that moment, preparing to act upon it; and he feared that mischief might come of it yet. It was certain that L'Ouverture knew more about claims to deserted estates, and about the proper regulations as to tillage, than any novice from France could know; and it was no less certain that he was ever more eager to gratify the whites than the blacks. It would have been by far the wisest plan to leave that cla.s.s of affairs in the hands of the person who understood them best; and, if he was not much mistaken, the Government at home would yet rue Hedouville's rashness in acting without so much as consulting L'Ouverture. Monsieur Revel was so amazed at finding that L'Ouverture was not only worshipped by romantic young ladies and freed negroes, but approved and confided in by such practical and interested whites as his own agent, that he could only say again what he said every day--that the world was turned upside down, and that he expected to be stripped, before he died, of Le Bosquet, and of everything else that he had; so that his poor child would be left dependent on the charity of France. To this the agent replied, as usual, that the property had never before been so secure, nor the estate so prosperous; and that all would go well, if only the Government at home would employ competent people to write its proclamations.

"Where is this child?" cried Monsieur Revel at last. "I am always kept waiting by everybody. It is dark already, and the carriage has been standing this hour. Where is she?"

"Mademoiselle is in the carriage," said Pierre, from the hall. "I made Prince light the lamps, though he thinks we shall not want them."

"Come, come! let us lose no more time," said Monsieur Revel, as if every one had not been waiting for him.

Euphrosyne jumped from the carriage, where she had been packing her basket of eggs, her fruit, and her flowers, so that they might be out of her grandfather's way. He could not admire any of them, and found them all in his way. While the road lay under the dark shadow of the groves on the estate, he cast anxious glances among the tall stems on which the carriage lamps cast a pa.s.sing gleam. He muttered a surly good-night to the negroes who held open the gates; but, when the last of these swung-to, when the carriage issued upon the high road, and the plain lay, though dim in the starlight, yet free and lovely to the eye, while the line of grey sea was visible to the left, the old man's spirits seemed to rise. It was seldom that he quitted the town; and when he did, and could throw off his cares, he was surprised to find how reviving were the influences of the country.

"It is a lovely night, really," said he. "If you ever go to Paris, my dear, you will miss this starlight. There the stars seem to have shrunk away from you, a myriad of miles. Let those flowers be, child. Why may not I have the pleasure of smelling them? There! Let them lie. Who would believe that that sea, which looks so quiet now, will be rolling and dashing upon the beach in November, as if it meant to swallow up the plain? How it seems to sleep in the starlight! You found little Sully grown, my dear, I dare say."

"Oh, yes! but more glad to see us than ever. He had to show me how he could read, and how he had been allowed to put a new leg to the master's desk at the school. Sully will make a good carpenter, I think. He is going to make a box for me; and he declares the ants shall never get through it, at the hinge, or lid, or anywhere. How the people are singing all about! I love to hear them. Prince drives so fast, that we shall be home too soon. I shall be quite sorry to be in the streets again."

It seemed as if Prince had heard her, for, in another moment, he was certainly checking his horses, and their speed gradually relaxed.

"He must have driven us fast, indeed," said Monsieur Revel. "Look at the lights of the town--how near they are! Are those the lights of the town?"

"I should have looked for them more to the left." Euphrosyne replied.

"Let us ask Pierre. We cannot possibly have lost our way."

Pierre rode up to the carriage window, at the moment that Prince came to a full stop.

"We do not know," said Louis, the black footman, who was beside Prince--"We do not know what those lights can mean. They seem to be moving, and towards this way."

"I think it is a body of people," said Pierre. "I fear so, sir."

"We had better go back," said Euphrosyne. "Let us go back to Le Bosquet."

"Forward! Forward!" cried Monsieur Revel, like one frantic. "Why do you stand still, you rascal? I will drive myself if you do not push on.

Drive on--drive like the devil--like what you all are," he added, in a lower tone.

"Surely we had better go back to Le Bosquet."

"No, no, you little fool," cried the agonised old man, grasping hold of her, and dragging her towards himself.

Louis shouted from the box, as Prince lashed his horses onwards, "We shall be in the midst of them, sir, this way."

"Drive on," was still the command. "Drive through everything to get home!" As he clasped his arms round Euphrosyne, and pressed her so closely that she could scarcely breathe, heaping his cloak upon her head, she heard and felt him murmuring to himself--

"To Le Bosquet! No, indeed! anywhere but there! Once at home--she once safe--and then--"

Euphrosyne would have been glad to see a little of what appeared--to know something of what to expect. Once or twice she struggled to raise her head; but this only made the convulsive clasp closer than before.

All she knew was, that Pierre or the men on the box seemed to speak, from time to time; for the pa.s.sionate "Drive on!"

"Forward!" was repeated. She also fancied that they must at last be in the midst of a crowd; for the motion of the carriage seemed to be interrupted by a sort of hustling on either side. Her heart beat so tumultuously, however, and the sense of suffocation was so strong, that she was sure of nothing but that she felt as if dying. Once more she struggled for air. At the same moment, her grandfather started--almost bounded from his seat, and relaxed his hold of her. She thought she had heard firearms. She raised her head; but all was confusion. There was smoke--there was the glare of torches--there was a mult.i.tude of shining black faces, and her grandfather lying back, as if asleep, in the corner of the carriage.

"Drive on!" she heard Pierre cry. The whip cracked, the horses plunged and scrambled, and in another moment broke through the crowd. The yelling, the lights, the smoke, were left behind; the air blew fresh; and there was only calm starlight without, as before.

The old man's hand fell when lifted. He did not move when she stroked his cheek. He did not answer when she spoke. She put her hand to his forehead, and it was wet.

"Pierre! Pierre!" she cried, "he is shot! he is dead!"

"I feared so, Mademoiselle. Drive on, Prince!"

In an inconceivably short time, they were at their own door. Pierre looked into the carriage, felt his master's wrist and heart, spoke softly to Prince, and they drove on again--only past the corner--only to the gate of the convent.