The Little Old Portrait

”‘Pardon,’ said he, lifting his cap – a vague idea had struck him that this perhaps might be the Marguerite he was in search of, but one glance at the girl’s round rosy face told him he was wrong; ‘is there anywhere near here I can get anything to eat at?’

”‘Follow me,’ said the girl, who seemed a matter-of-fact person, ‘there is an eating-house round the corner.’

”‘Do you live there?’ said Pierre, glancing back to the wine-shop.

”‘To be sure. I am the servant.’

”‘Do you know any one called Marguerite, who comes there sometimes?’

“The girl shook her head.

”‘She comes no more,’ she said. ‘She and the mistress, the Citizeness Victorine, had words one day, and since then she comes no more.’

”‘Do you know where she is now?’

“Again the stolid young person shook her head.

”‘It is somewhere over by the church of Notre Dame – a good way from here. But I cannot tell you where,’ said the girl. ‘It is possible that the Citizeness Victorine may know, and would tell you if she were in a good temper.’

“But Pierre, feeling sure that the Victorine she spoke of was none other than his old enemy of the same name, was unutterably thankful to have avoided coming across her, so in his turn he shook his head.

”‘It would not be worth while to derange the Citizeness, a mere inquiry,’ he said vaguely, and then having arrived within sight of the modest restaurant, he thanked the girl, and entering, asked for the food he was much in need of.

“His spirits rose a little when he was no longer faint and hungry. He determined to go in the direction the girl had mentioned, with a vague hope of somehow or other coming upon some trace, for in his inexperience he did not realise the difficulty and improbability of doing so. He spent the whole of the day in wandering about, seeing and hearing many strange and startling things, doing his utmost to hide his impressions, for fear of attracting notice. But when night fell, and he could wander about no more he took refuge in a little room he had managed to find in the house of a poor washerwoman, who let it to him cheaply, on the condition of his paying a week in advance, and then poor Pierre, completely disheartened, beginning to doubt if after all he had done right in coming off as he had done, threw himself upon the little bed and burst into tears.

“The history of that day was very much the history of many that followed. At the wine-shop of the Rue de Poitiers, they would not or could not direct him to Marguerite Ribou, and Pierre wandered about, glancing in every face he passed in the hopes of seeing some one who might help him in his quest, though rarely, very rarely, venturing to make any inquiry. He forced himself to frequent places that were abhorrent to him; many an hour he hung about the streets through which would, as he came to know, pass the fearful ‘tumbrils,’ as they were called – the heavy waggons crowded every day with the victims for the guillotine. Never in after-life did he forget the faces he saw – on this ghastly journey to death; some strong in despair, some fainting and unconscious as if already dead, a few, but very few, shrieking wildly for mercy to their brutal keepers – others, many even, with looks of sweet resignation and noble courage, to whom the guillotine was indeed but the gate of Heaven. Put among them all, never did he perceive the pale, beautiful features of the Countess of Valmont, nor, though youthful boys and girls, little children even, were often among the condemned, did he ever catch sight of Edmée’s fair head and blue eyes, which he felt sure he would have known among a thousand. Some few times he forced himself to make one of the crowd in the dreadful Place de la République, where the guillotine stood: but he grew too sick with horror to repeat often his search there, feeling, too, how awful would have been his success! He learnt to know all the principal prisons, and the doors at which came out both the condemned and the appallingly small number of the released. But in vain – always, always in vain, till his hope began to die out, and his sad and wistful eyes told their own tale, had any one cared to read it. His money, too, was running low; he saw no possibility of gaining any; he felt that his days in Paris were numbered, and that he must return to Valmont having failed. But for his poor father and mother, he felt that he would rather die than do so.

“At last came the first ray of hope. One evening, in a sort of old curiosity shop, not far from the neighbourhood where he had been told to look for Marguerite Ribou, he fancied he caught sight, as he passed, of a picture resembling the well-remembered portrait of the baby Edmée. It was some little way back in the shop, and the owner was just closing for the night, so he could see no more. But with the first of the morning he was back again, waiting till the window was opened, and the contents exposed to view. It was a quiet street, and there were few people about. What were his feelings when, able at last to press his face against the glass and peer into the shop, he saw that his glance the night before had not deceived him! It was indeed the well-known portrait of his little lady. This time Pierre threw caution to the winds: he entered the shop boldly, and walking up to the picture, asked the old man behind the counter, just preparing to enjoy his early breakfast of a bowl of soup, if he could tell him from whence it had come. The shopman’s first glance of suspicion – everybody in Paris looked at everybody else with suspicion, it seemed to simple Pierre – fell before the boy’s earnest and straightforward manner.

”‘Yes,’ he said, ‘if you have any particular reason for wanting to know.’

”‘I have the best of reasons,’ said Pierre. ‘It belongs – it belonged to the friends I owe most to in the world, and if they were not in great trouble, it would not be here.’

”‘You are right,’ said the old man. ‘Many people to whom trouble is new are having a sharp taste of it now. I do not take any part in these things. I live as I have always done, and for my business it is a good time just now. You would wonder at the objects of value I have bought for almost nothing. It is not my fault. I cannot give more. And it will only be afterwards that I shall reap my benefit; when things recover themselves I daresay many will be glad to buy back at a profit the things I have. I should be glad to do the owners a good turn if I can, so I label the things carefully, and when I cannot get the real name I distinguish them somehow.’

”‘And thus,’ said Pierre, beside himself with impatience, ‘you can tell me where this came from?’

”‘Yes,’ said the old man, ‘for you seem honest and trustworthy. It came from some people living in the first street round the corner there,’ and he pointed through the window, ‘the first street to the right. I do not know their name, but they have been there some time, and are, no doubt, as you say, in great trouble. I have several things of theirs – I mark them all with the name of the street and the number.’

”‘What is it?’ asked Pierre breathlessly.

”‘Nine, number nine,’ said the man, and scarcely waiting to thank him, young Germain, in a bewilderment of feeling, such as he had never known, rushed out of the shop and in the direction pointed out.

“It was a poor place, and it was not till he had knocked at several doors, and repeated several times the description of what he wanted – a lady – a citizeness, he was obliged to say – with her young daughter, a young girl with fair hair and blue eyes, that he was at last directed to the right rooms. Up at the very top of the house they were – rooms that would be dreary even to those who had never known any better: what must they have been to the Countess and her child? Pierre’s tremulous knock was twice repeated before it was responded to. Then the door was opened, hesitatingly and unwillingly, by a boy. At first Pierre’s heart sank with new disappointment; then, looking again, fresh perplexity seized him – it was the boy, though still paler and thinner, the same boy he had met in the crowd that first day in Paris. And as he stared at him a new idea struck him like a revelation.

”‘I am not mistaken,’ he said suddenly; ‘they must be here. You are – are you not? – you are Edmond de Sarinet?’ though, strangely enough, through all his search, the remembrance of his childish enemy, the thought of him as perhaps with his aunt and cousin, had never before occurred to him.

“The boy drew himself up haughtily; thin and miserable as he looked, there would have been something ludicrous in his manner had it not been so piteous.

”‘And what if I am?’ he was beginning, when he was suddenly pushed aside. A girl, as tall as he, nearly, and far stronger and healthier in appearance, though her face was pale, and her eyes swollen with much crying, her flaxen hair tossed back over her shoulders, as if she had not had the time or the heart to arrange it, came flying forward, and in another instant her arms were round Pierre’s neck, her fair face pressed against his sturdy shoulders as he bent to meet her.

”‘Oh, Pierrot! my own good Pierrot!’ she cried, though her voice shook with sobs, ‘you have come at last. I knew your voice at once. Oh, Pierrot, pity your poor Edmée! – Mamma is dying! But come, come,’ she went on, dragging him forward before he had time to utter a word of the sorrow and sympathy which were choking him; ‘she will know you still – she will speak to you. It will make the leaving me less hard; she has prayed so, that God has answered at last. Come, Pierre, and comfort her.’

“And before he could take in that he had really found them, feeling as if he were dreaming, Pierre Germain was standing in a small and poorly-furnished room, where the evident efforts to make it as comfortable as possible but made its bareness more touching – standing beside a bed, on which, whiter than the pillows that supported her, lay his dearly-loved lady, the sweet and gentle Countess of Valmont!

”‘That I should have found you thus!’ were the first words he uttered, while the tears ran down his sunburnt cheeks. ‘After my long search – why has it come too late?’

“But the Countess checked his words. With the beautiful calm of the dying for whom death has no terrors she smiled up into his face.

”‘Not too late,’ she whispered; ‘in time – just in time, say rather, my boy. I think God has let me live for this. I think I should have died some days ago but for a strange hope that you would come. You will take her home to your mother, Pierre; she will love my Edmée as her own child. I cannot see into the future – I am too tired to think. But she will be safe with you, safer than anywhere else. O God, I thank Thee!’

“Her words were scarcely audible – she had to stop between every two or three. She did not seem surprised to see Pierre, nor did she ask why he did not come before. Her spirit was already on the wing, only, as it were, recalled, or held back, by her great mother-love. And not for Edmée alone. After a pause, during which Pierre, kneeling beside her, murmured, amidst his sobs, his most solemn promises to devote his life, his strength, his everything to the girl so soon to be orphan and alone – promises which seemed to increase the soft peace on the dying face – she glanced round as if seeking some one.

”‘Edmond, my poor Edmond!’ she whispered; ‘him too – you will be kind to him too, Pierre?’

”‘God helping me, I will,’ said Pierre.

”‘Where are you, Edmond? Give me your hand,’ she said.

“The poor boy came from behind the thin curtain of the bed, where he had hidden.

”‘Take me with you, auntie – little aunt, who has been my only true mother!’ he said, in an agony of tears. ‘No one will care for me now. I am not strong enough to protect Edmée as I fain would, and she will not want me. Oh, cannot you ask God to take me too – weak and useless that I am?’

“Even in the extremity of her own grief Edmée’s generous heart was touched. She drew Edmond round to where she and Pierre were kneeling, and threw her arm round his thin shoulders.

”‘I love you, my poor Edmond. I will always love you, and we will all take care of you.’

“He yielded to her, but he said nothing. But the Countess caught what Edmée said, and smiled again.

”‘Thank God!’ she said. They were her last words, and what could have shown her more fit for Heaven? Thanking God through all – through the dark and bitter days that had befallen, through sunshine and through storm – thanking Him now with her latest breath for the ray of comfort that had come at the last, though so long deferred that hope had well-nigh fled.

“She died that afternoon. All through the long, sad hours of that strange day the three young creatures watched beside her, not knowing, in their inexperience, the exact moment at which the gentle spirit fled – not till the Sister of Charity, who, in disguise, like many others all through those awful months, still went about ministering to the sick and dying – not till Sister Angelique tapped softly at the door, and entering, saw in a moment the sad truth, did they understand that the mother and friend was no longer there – only the garment she had worn.

”‘I would have come sooner, but I was even more wanted elsewhere; there was nothing to be done here. The doctor saw her yesterday,’ she said to Pierre, when it was explained to her who he was.

”‘And the kind priest,’ sobbed Edmée; ‘he will come again, dear Sister, will he not? No one knows he is a priest,’ she said to Pierre. ‘He has to dress like a workman.’

“Angelique stayed a while and did what she could. There was a little, a very little money remaining, and Pierre drew out the remains of his. Edmée had been obliged to sell everything they had brought away in their flight from the Rue de Lille. ‘My portrait was the last to go,’ she said, ‘but my darling did not know it. And as it brought us you, Pierre, we must not regret it. Some day we may buy it back again,’ and by degrees she related to him all the details of the last few weeks. How the Marquis and Marquise had been taken very soon after Ludovic had left, how but for a warning from Marguerite Ribou she, her mother, and Edmond would infallibly have perished as they did.

”‘They were not long in prison,’ she said. ‘Marguerite told us the day they were guillotined. My uncle died like a gentleman, and at the last the Marquise seemed to find courage too. They must have repented of much in those last days I think. See! this is what my poor uncle sent us secretly,’ and she held out a soiled scrap of paper, on which were written the two words ‘Forgive me!’ ‘Ah,’ continued Edmée, who – such is the education of sorrow – at fourteen spoke like a woman, ‘I cannot murmur that she is gone when I think of her gentle death, and what it might have been. Marguerite had not wished to save Edmond,’ she went on after a pause. ‘She is very angry, even now, whenever she sees him. I think her brain is a little gone. But she has been most faithful to us. It was that dreadful Victorine that caused it. She kept persuading my aunt there was no danger, and thus delayed their escaping till she had completed her own plans. She must have robbed them fearfully.’

“Pierre let Edmée talk. She was too excited to remain quiet. He listened without saying much, though his mind was terribly full. How were they to accomplish the journey to Valmont? Penniless to begin with, and almost afraid to spend money if they had had it! How could Edmée ever make the journey on foot, and almost worst, Edmond, of whom Pierre had never thought? His presence, too, made the risk greater, for, as his father’s son, there must be many to hate him, and notwithstanding his pity for the boy, Pierre foresaw trouble. Edmond had scarcely spoken to him, and even through his misery there flashed out sparks of his old ill-feeling.

“There came again a knock at the door.

”‘It must be our kind priest,’ said Edmée.

“Pierre started up joyfully, ‘Let me speak to him,’ he said. And in his heart he added, ‘Here will be some one to give me counsel.’”