White Lies Part 4

So the baroness did nothing new in this family when she hung her chaplet on the knights' bough; and, in fact, on the west side, about eighteen feet from the ground, there still mouldered one corner of an Atchievement an heir of Beaurepaire had nailed there two centuries before, when his predecessor died: "For," said he, "the chateau is of yesterday, but the tree has seen us all come and go." The inside of the oak was hollow as a drum; and on its east side yawned a fissure as high as a man and as broad as a street-door. Dard used to wheel his wheelbarrow into the tree at a trot, and there leave it.

Yet in spite of excavation and mutilation not life only but vigor dwelt in this wooden sh.e.l.l. The extreme ends of the longer boughs were firewood, touchwood, and the crown was gone this many a year: but narrow the circle a very little to where the indomitable trunk could still shoot sap from its cruse deep in earth, and there on every side burst the green foliage in its season countless as the sand. The leaves carved centuries ago from these very models, though cut in stone, were most of them mouldered, blunted, notched, deformed: but the delicate types came back with every summer, perfect and lovely as when the tree was but their elder brother: and greener than ever: for, from what cause nature only knows, the leaves were many shades richer than any other tree could show for a hundred miles round; a deep green, fiery, yet soft; and then their mult.i.tude--the staircases of foliage as you looked up the tree, and could scarce catch a glimpse of the sky. An inverted abyss of color, a mound, a dome, of flake emeralds that quivered in the golden air.

And now the sun sets; the green leaves are black; the moon rises: her cold light shoots across one half that giant stem.

How solemn and calm stands the great round tower of living wood, half ebony, half silver, with its mighty cloud above of flake jet leaves tipped with frosty fire!

Now is the still hour to repeat in a whisper the words of the dame of Beaurepaire, "You were here before us: you will be here when we are gone."

We leave the h.o.a.ry king of trees standing in the moonlight, calmly defying time, and follow the creatures of a day; for, what they were, we are.

A s.p.a.cious saloon panelled; dead but showy white picked out sparingly with gold. Festoons of fruits and flowers finely carved in wood on some of the panels. These also not smothered in gilding, but as it were gold speckled here and there, like tongues of flame winding among insoluble snow. Ranged against the walls were sofas and chairs covered with rich stuffs well worn. And in one little distant corner of the long room a gray-haired gentleman and two young ladies sat round a small plain table, on which burned a solitary candle; and a little way apart in this candle's twilight an old lady sat in an easy-chair, thinking of the past, scarce daring to inquire the future. Josephine and Rose were working: not fancy-work but needle-work; Dr. Aubertin writing. Every now and then he put the one candle nearer the girls. They raised no objection: only a few minutes after a white hand would glide from one or other of them like a serpent, and smoothly convey the light nearer to the doctor's ma.n.u.script.

"Is it not supper-time?" he inquired. "I have an inward monitor; and I think our dinner was more ethereal than usual."

"Hush!" said Josephine, and looked uneasily towards her mother. "Wax is so dear."

"Wax?--ah!--pardon me:" and the doctor returned hastily to his work.

But Rose looked up and said, "I wonder Jacintha does not come; it is certainly past the hour;" and she pried into the room as if she expected to see Jacintha on the road. But she saw in fact very little of anything, for the s.p.a.cious room was impenetrable to her eye; midway from the candle to the distant door its twilight deepened, and all became shapeless and sombre. The prospect ended sharp and black, as in those out-o'-door closets imagined and painted by a certain great painter, whose Nature comes to a full stop as soon as he has no further commercial need of her, instead of melting by fine expanse and exquisite gradation into genuine distance, as nature does in Claude and in nature.

To reverse the picture, if you stood at the door you looked across forty feet of black, and the little corner seemed on fire, and the fair heads about the candle shone like the St. Cecilias and Madonnas in an antique stained-gla.s.s window.

At last the door opened, and another candle fired Jacintha's comely peasant face in the doorway. She put down her candle outside the door, and started as crow flies for the other light. After glowing a moment in the doorway she dived into the shadow and emerged into light again close to the table with napkins on her arm. She removed the work-box reverentially, the doctor's ma.n.u.script unceremoniously, and proceeded to lay a cloth: in which operation she looked at Rose a point-blank glance of admiration: then she placed the napkins; and in this process she again cast a strange look of interest upon Rose. The young lady noticed it this time, and looked inquiringly at her in return, half expecting some communication; but Jacintha lowered her eyes and bustled about the table. Then Rose spoke to her with a sort of instinct of curiosity, on the chance of drawing her out.

"Supper is late to-night, is it not, Jacintha?"

"Yes, mademoiselle; I have had more cooking than usual," and with this she delivered another point-blank look as before, and dived into the palpable obscure, and came to light in the doorway.

Her return was anxiously expected; for, if the truth must be told, they were very hungry. So rigorous was the economy in this decayed but honorable house that the wax candles burned to-day in the oratory had scrimped their dinner, unsubstantial as it was wont to be. Think of that, you in fustian jackets who grumble after meat. The door opened, Jacintha reappeared in the light of her candle a moment with a tray in both hands, and, approaching, was lost to view; but a strange and fragrant smell heralded her. All their eyes turned with curiosity towards the unwonted odor, and Jacintha dawned with three roast partridges on a dish.

They were wonder-struck, and looked from the birds to her in mute surprise, that was not diminished by a certain cynical indifference she put on. She avoided their eyes, and forcibly excluded from her face everything that could imply she did not serve up partridges to this family every night of her life.

"The supper is served, madame," said she, with a respectful courtesy and a mechanical tone, and, plunging into the night, swam out at her own candle, shut the door, and, unlocking her face that moment, burst out radiant, and so to the kitchen, and, with a tear in her eye, set-to and polished all the copper stewpans with a vigor and expedition unknown to the new-fangled domestic.

"Partridges, mamma! What next?"

"Pheasants, I hope," cried the doctor, gayly. "And after them hares; to conclude with royal venison. Permit me, ladies." And he set himself to carve with zeal.

Now nature is nature, and two pair of violet eyes brightened and dwelt on the fragrant and delicate food with demure desire; for all that, when Aubertin offered Josephine a wing, she declined it. "No partridge?"

cried the savant, in utter amazement.

"Not to-day, dear friend; it is not a feast day to-day."

"Ah! no; what was I thinking of?"

"But you are not to be deprived," put in Josephine, anxiously. "We will not deny ourselves the pleasure of seeing you eat some."

"What!" remonstrated Aubertin, "am I not one of you?"

The baroness had attended to every word of this. She rose from her chair, and said quietly, "Both you and he and Rose will be so good as to let me see you eat."

"But, mamma," remonstrated Josephine and Rose in one breath.

"Je le veux," was the cold reply.

These were words the baroness uttered so seldom that they were little likely to be disputed.

The doctor carved and helped the young ladies and himself.

When they had all eaten a little, a discussion was observed to be going on between Rose and her sister. At last Aubertin caught these words, "It will be in vain; even you have not influence enough for that, Rose."

"We shall see," was the reply, and Rose put the wing of a partridge on a plate and rose calmly from her chair. She took the plate and put it on a little work-table by her mother's side. The others pretended to be all mouths, but they were all ears. The baroness looked in Rose's face with an air of wonder that was not very encouraging. Then, as Rose said nothing, she raised her aristocratic hand with a courteous but decided gesture of refusal.

Undaunted Rose laid her palm softly on the baroness's shoulder, and said to her as firmly as the baroness herself had just spoken,--

"Il le veut."

The baroness was staggered. Then she looked with moist eyes at the fair young face, then she reflected. At last she said, with an exquisite mixture of politeness and affection, "It is his daughter who has told me 'Il le veut.' I obey."

Rose returning like a victorious knight from the lists, saucily exultant, and with only one wet eyelash, was solemnly kissed and petted by Josephine and the doctor.

Thus they loved one another in this great, old, falling house. Their familiarity had no coa.r.s.e side; a form, not of custom but affection, it went hand-in-hand with courtesy by day and night.

The love of the daughters for their mother had all the tenderness, subtlety, and unselfishness of womanly natures, together with a certain characteristic of the female character. And whither that one defect led them, and by what gradations, it may be worth the reader's while to observe.

The baroness retired to rest early; and she was no sooner gone than Josephine leaned over to Rose, and told her what their mother had said to the oak-tree. Rose heard this with anxiety; hitherto they had carefully concealed from their mother that the government claimed the right of selling the chateau to pay the creditors, etc.; and now both sisters feared the old lady had discovered it somehow, or why that strange thing she had said to the oak-tree? But Dr. Aubertin caught their remarks, and laid down his immortal MS. on French insects, to express his hope that they were putting a forced interpretation on the baroness's words.

"I think," said he, "she merely meant how short-lived are we all compared with this ancient oak. I should be very sorry to adopt the other interpretation; for if she knows she can at any moment be expelled from Beaurepaire, it will be almost as bad for her as the calamity itself; THAT, I think, would kill her."

"Why so?" said Rose, eagerly. "What is this house or that? Mamma will still have her daughters' love, go where she will."

Aubertin replied, "It is idle to deceive ourselves; at her age men and women hang to life by their habits; take her away from her chateau, from the little oratory where she prays every day for the departed, from her place in the sun on the south terrace, and from all the memories that surround her here; she would soon pine, and die."

Here the savant seeing a hobby-horse near, caught him and jumped on. He launched into a treatise upon the vitality of human beings, and proved that it is the mind which keeps the body of a man alive for so great a length of time as fourscore years; for that he had in the earlier part of his studies carefully dissected a mult.i.tude of animals,--frogs, rabbits, dogs, men, horses, sheep, squirrels, foxes, cats, etc.,--and discovered no peculiarity in man's organs to account for his singular longevity, except in the brain or organ of mind. Thence he went to the longevity of men with contented minds, and the rapid decay of the careworn. Finally he succeeded in convincing them the baroness was so const.i.tuted, physically and mentally, that she would never move from Beaurepaire except into her grave. However, having thus terrified them, he proceeded to console them. "You have a friend," said he, "a powerful friend; and here in my pocket--somewhere--is a letter that proves it."

The letter was from Mr. Perrin the notary. It appeared by it that Dr.

Aubertin had reminded the said Perrin of his obligations to the late baron, and entreated him to use all his influence to keep the estate in this ancient family.

Perrin had replied at first in a few civil lines; but his present letter was a long and friendly one. It made both the daughters of Beaurepaire shudder at the peril they had so narrowly escaped. For by it they now learned for the first time that one Jaques Bonard, a small farmer, to whom they owed but five thousand francs, had gone to the mayor and insisted, as he had a perfect right, on the estate being put up to public auction. This had come to Perrin's ears just in time, and he had instantly bought Bonard's debt, and stopped the auction; not, however, before the very bills were printed; for which he, Perrin, had paid, and now forwarded the receipt. He concluded by saying that the government agent was personally inert, and would never move a step in the matter unless driven by a creditor.

"But we have so many," said Rose in dismay. "We are not safe a day."

Aubertin a.s.sured her the danger was only in appearance. "Your large creditors are men of property, and such men let their funds lie unless compelled to move them. The small mortgagee, the petty miser, who has, perhaps, no investment to watch but one small loan, about which he is as anxious and as noisy as a hen with one chicken, he is the clamorous creditor, the harsh little egoist, who for fear of risking a crown piece would bring the Garden of Eden to the hammer. Now we are rid of that little wretch, Bonard, and have Perrin on our side; so there is literally nothing to fear."

The sisters thanked him warmly, and Rose shared his hopes; and said so; but Josephine was silent and thoughtful. Nothing more worth recording pa.s.sed that night. But the next day was the first of May, Josephine's birthday.

Now they always celebrated this day as well as they could; and used to plant a tree, for one thing. Dard, well spurred by Jacintha, had got a little acacia; and they were all out in the Pleasaunce to plant it.

Unhappily, they were a preposterous time making up their feminine minds where to have it set; so Dard turned rusty and said the park was the best place for it. There it could do no harm, stick it where you would.