Jack (27 page)

“Come in, Jack,” said a sweet voice.

Instead of obeying, he was seized with a strange emotion of fear.

The door opened suddenly, and Jack asked himself if the charming apparition on the threshold, in her blue dress and clustering blonde hair, was not the sun itself. How intimidated he would have been had not the little hand slipped into his own recalled so many sweet recollections of their common childhood!

“Life has been very hard for you, my grandfather tells me,” she said. “I have had much sorrow, too. Dear grandmamma is dead; she loved you, and often spoke of you.”

He sat opposite to her, looking at her. She was tall and graceful; as she stood leaning against the corner of an old bookcase, she bent her head slightly to talk to her friend, and reminded him of a bird.

Jack remembered that his mother was beautiful also; but in Cιcile there was something indefinable—an aroma of some divine springtime, something fresh and pure, to which Charlotte’s mannerisms and graces bore little resemblance.

Suddenly, while he sat in this ecstasy before her, he caught sight of his own hand. It seemed enormous to him; it was black and hardened, and the nails were broken and deformed,—irretrievably injured by contact with fire and iron. He was ashamed, but could not conceal them even by putting them in his pocket. But he saw himself now with the eyes of others, dressed in shabby clothes and an old vest of D’Argenton’s, that was too small for him and too short in the sleeves. In addition to this physical awkwardness, poor Jack was overwhelmed by the memory of all the disgraceful scenes through which he had passed. The drunken orgies, the hours of beastly intoxication, all returned to his recollection, and it seemed to him that Cιcile knew them, too. The slight cloud that hung on her fair young brow, the compassion he read in her eyes, all told him that she understood his shame and humiliation. He wished to run away and shut himself into a room at Aulnettes, and never leave it again.

Fortunately, some one came into the office, and Cιcile, busy at her scales, writing the labels as her grandmother had done, gave Jack time to recover his equanimity.

How good and patient she was! These poor peasant women were very stupid and wearisome with their long explanations. She encouraged them with her sympathy, cheered them with her words of counsel, and reproved them gently for their mistakes.

She was busy at this moment with an old acquaintance of Jack’s,—the very woman who had taken so much pleasure in terrifying him when he was little. Bowed, as nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor, burned by the sun, and powdered by the dust, old Salι yet retained a little life in her sharp eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been sick for months,—who could not work, and yet had to eat. She said two or three things calculated to disconcert a young girl, and looked Cιcile directly in the face with malicious delight. Two or three times Jack felt a strong inclination to put the wretch out of the door; but he restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with which Cιcile listened.

The old woman finally finished her discourse, and, as she passed Jack going out, recognized him.

“What!” she exclaimed, “the little Aulnettes boy come to life again? Ah, Mademoiselle Cιcile, your uncle won’t want you to marry him now, I fancy, though there was a time when everybody thought that was what the doctor desired;” and, chuckling, she left the room.

Jack turned pale. The old woman had finally struck the blow that, so many years ago, she had threatened him with. But Jack was not the only one who was disturbed. A fair face, bent low over a big book, was scarlet with annoyance.

“Come, Catherine, bring the soup.” It was the doctor who spoke. “And you two, have you not found a word to say to each other after seven years’ absence?”

At the table Jack was no more at his ease. He was afraid that some of his bad habits would show themselves; and his hands—what could he do with them? With one he must hold his fork, but with the other? The whiteness of the linen made it look appallingly black. Cιcile saw his discomfort, and understanding that her watchfulness increased it, hardly glanced again in his direction.

Catherine took away the dessert, and put before the young girl hot water, sugar, and a bottle of old brandy. It was she who since her grandmother’s death had mixed the doctor’s grog. And the good man had not gained by the change; for she, as the doctor observed in a melancholy tone, “diminished daily the quantity of alcohol.”

When she had served her grandfather, Cιcile turned toward their guest.

“Do you drink brandy?” she asked.

“Does he drink brandy?” said the doctor, with a laugh, “and he in an engine-room for three years? Don’t you know—ignorant little puss that you are—that that is the only way the poor fellows can live? On board a vessel where I was, one fellow drank a bottle of pure spirit at a draught. Make Jack’s strong, my dear.”

She looked at her old friend sadly and seriously.

“Will you have some?”

“No, mademoiselle,” he answered, in a low, ashamed voice; and he withdrew his glass,—for which effort of self-denial he was rewarded by one of those eloquent looks of gratitude which some women can give, and which are only understood by those whom they address.

“Upon my word, a conversion!” said the doctor, laughing. But Jack was converted only after the fashion of savages, who consent to believe in God only to please the missionaries. The peasants of Etiolles, at work in the fields, who saw Jack on his way home that night, might have had every reason to suppose that he was crazy or intoxicated. He was talking to himself, and gesticulating wildly. “Yes,” he exclaimed, “M. d’Argenton was right: I am a mere artisan and must live and die with my equals; it is useless for me to try and rise above them.” It was a very long time since the young man had felt any such energy. New thoughts and ideas crowded into his mind; among them was Cιcile’s image. What a marvel of grace and purity she was! He sighed as he thought that had he been differently educated, he might have ventured to ask her to become his wife. At this moment, as he turned a sharp angle in the road, he found himself face to face with Mother Salι, who was dragging a fagot of wood. The old woman looked at him with a wicked smile, that in his present mood exasperated him to such a degree that his look of anger so terrified the old creature that she dropped her fagot and ran into the wood.

That evening he spent in darkness, and lighted neither fire nor lamp. Seated in a corner of the dining-room, with his eyes fixed on the glass doors that led to the garden, through which the soft mist of a superb autumnal night was visible, he thought of his childhood, and of the last years of his life.

No, Cιcile would not marry him. In the first place, he was a mechanic; secondly, his birth was illegitimate. It was the first time in his life that this thought had weighed upon him, for Jack had not lived among very scrupulous people. He had never heard his father’s name mentioned, and therefore rarely thought of him, being as unable to measure the extent of his loss as a deaf mute is unable to realize the blessing of the senses he lacks.

But now the question of his birth occupied him to the exclusion of all others.

He had listened calmly to the name of his father when Charlotte told it; but now he would like to learn from her every detail. Was he really a marquis? Was he certainly dead? Had not his mother said this merely to avoid the disclosure of a mortifying desertion? And if this father were still alive, would he not be willing to give his name to his son? The poor fellow was ignorant of the fact that a true woman’s heart is more moved by compassion than by all the vain distinctions of the world.

“I will write to my mother,” he thought. But the questions he wished to ask were so delicate and complicated, that he resolved to see her at once, and have one of those earnest conversations where eyes do the work of words, and where silence is as eloquent as speech. Unfortunately he had no money for his railroad fare. “Pshaw!” he said, “I can go on foot. I did it when I was eleven, and I can surely try it again.” And he did try it the next day; and if it seemed to him less long and less lonely than it did before, it was far more sad.

Jack saw the spot where he had slept, the little gate at Villeneuve Saint-George’s, where he had been dropped by the kind couple from their carriage, the pile of stones where the recumbent form of a man had so terrified him, and he sighed to think that if the Jack of his youth could suddenly rise from the dust of the highway, he would be more afraid of the Jack of to-day than of any other dismal wanderer.

He reached Paris in the afternoon. A settled, cold rain was falling; and pursuing the comparison that he had made of his souvenirs with the present time, he recalled the glow of the sunset on that May evening when his mother appeared to him, like the archangel Michael, wrapped in glory, and chasing away the shades of night.

Instead of the little house at Aulnettes where Ida sang amid her roses, Jack saw D’Argenton just issuing from the door, followed by Moronval, who was carrying a bundle of proofs.

“Here is Jack!” said Moronval.

The poet started and looked up. To see these two men, one dressed with so much care, brushed, perfumed, and gloved; the other in a velvet coat, much too short for him, shiny from wear and weather, no one would have supposed that any tie could exist between them.

Jack extended his hand to D’Argenton, who gave one finger in return, and asked if the house at Aulnettes was rented.

“Rented?” said the other, not understanding.

“To be sure. Seeing you here, I supposed that of course the house was occupied, and you were compelled to leave it.”

“No,” said Jack, somewhat disconcerted; “no one has even called to look at the place.”

“What are you here for?”

“To see my mother.”

“Filial affection is a most excellent thing. Unfortunately, however, there are travelling expenses to be thought of.”

“I came on foot,” said Jack, with simple dignity.

“Indeed!” drawled D’Argenton, and then added, “I am glad to see that your legs are in better order than your arms.”

And pleased at this mot, the poet bowed coldly, and went on.

A week before, and these words would have scarcely been noticed by Jack, but since the previous night he had not been the same person. His pride was now so wounded that he would have returned to Aulnettes without seeing his mother, had he not wished to speak to her most seriously. He entered the salon; it was in disorder: chairs and benches were being brought in, for a great fκte was in progress of arrangement, which was the reason that D’Argenton was so out of temper on seeing Jack. Charlotte did not appear pleased, but stopped in some of her preparations.

“Is it you, my dear Jack. You come for money, too, I fancy. I forgot it utterly,—that is, I begged Dr. Hirsch to hand it to you. He is going to Aulnettes in two or three days to make some very curious experiments with perfumes. He has made an extraordinary discovery.”

They were talking in the centre of the room; a half dozen workmen were going to and fro, driving nails, and moving the furniture.

“I wish to speak seriously,” said Jack.

“What! now? You know that serious conversation is not my forte; and to-day all is in confusion. We have sent out five hundred invitations, it will be superb! Come here, then, if it is absolutely necessary. I have arranged a veranda for smoking. Come and see if it is not convenient?”

She went with him into a veranda covered with striped cotton, furnished with a sofa and jardiniθre, but rather dismal-looking with the rain pattering on the zinc roof.

Jack said to himself, “I had better have written,” and did not know what to say first.

“Well?” said Charlotte, leaning her chin on her hand in that graceful attitude that some women adopt when they listen. He hesitated a moment, as one hesitates in placing a heavy load upon an ιtagθre of trifles, for that which he had to say seemed too much for that pretty little head that leaned toward him.

“I should like—I should like to talk to you of my father,” he said, with some hesitation.

On the end of her tongue she had the words, “What folly!” If she did not utter them, the expression of her face, in which were to be read amazement and fear, spoke for her.

“It is too sad for us, my child, to discuss. But still, painful as it is to me, I understand your feelings, and am ready to gratify you. Besides,” she added, solemnly, “I have always intended, when you were twenty, to reveal to you the secret of your birth.”

It was time now for him to look astonished. Had she forgotten that three months previous she had made this disclosure. Nevertheless, he uttered no protest, he wished to compare her story of to-day with an older narration. How well he knew her!

“Is it true that my father was noble?” he asked, suddenly.

“Indeed he was, my child.”

“ΐ marquis?”

“No, only a baron.”

“But I supposed—in fact, you told me—”

“No, no—it was the elder branch of the Bulac family that was noble.”

“He was connected then with the Bulac family?”

“Most assuredly. He was the head of the younger branch.”

“And his name was—”

“The Baron de Bulac—a lieutenant in the navy.”

Jack felt dizzy, and had only strength to ask, “How long since he died?”

“O, years and years!” said Charlotte, hurriedly.

That his father was dead he was sure; but had his mother told him a falsehood now, or on the previous occasion? Was he a De Bulac or a L’Epau?

“You are looking ill, child,” said Charlotte, interrupting herself in the midst of a long romance she was telling, “your hands are like ice.”

“Never mind, I shall get warm with exercise,” answered Jack, with difficulty.

“Are you going so soon? Well, it is best that you should get back before it is late.” She kissed him tenderly, tied a handkerchief around his throat, and slipped some money into his pocket. She fancied that his silence and sadness came from seeing all the preparations for a fκte in which he was to have no share, and when her maid summoned her for the waiting coiffeur, she said good-bye hurriedly.