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One day – I could not help it – I broke into one of those little reveries of hers.
'My sister,' I said, 'sweet and beautiful as you are, how is it that you never married?'
With lifted finger, as one speaks to a too daring child, she said only 'Ssshh!' Then, with the movement of the emigrant readjusting his knapsack, she added, 'Allons! half-past ten! Dr. Nadaud will be here before we are ready for him!'
From that day Sister Gabrielle avoided sitting by my bedside. She watched over me just as tenderly as before, but our talks were shorter, and I never ventured to repeat my question, as you may imagine. Nevertheless, lying there through the long days, it was impossible not to go on wondering what had sent this beautiful woman into the rough groove where I found her.
One day I discovered that Dr. Nadaud came from the same town as herself, and I fell at once to questioning him about her. All that I could elicit from him was that her name in the world had been Jeanne D'Alcourt, and that she came of a good old Norman titled family. I did not learn much by that. It was not necessary to hear that she was noble, for she had the stamp of nobility in every line and in every pose of her body. For a talkative fellow, I thought Nadaud had remarkably little to say about his former townswoman, and, after gently sounding him once or twice on the subject, I came to the conclusion that it was useless to look to him for enlightenment, but I also came to the conclusion that Sister Gabrielle had a history.
August came. I had been three months in St. Malo Hospital, and now the time for leaving it had arrived.
It was early morning. A fiacre stood at the gate with my luggage upon it, and Sister Gabrielle had come to the doorway which led into the courtyard to see me off.
Early as it was, the sun was already well on his day's journey, and perhaps it was the strong glare from the white wall that made her shade her eyes so persistently with her left hand while we were saying 'Good-bye.' As for my own eyes, there was something the matter with them, too, for the landscape, or so much of it as I could see from the St. Malo Hospital doorway, had taken on a strange, blurred look since I saw it from the window ten minutes before.
'Adieu, mon lieutenant, adieu!' cried Sister Gabrielle, in a voice meant to be very cheery.
'Adieu, ma sœur! May I come to see you and the old place if ever I find myself in these latitudes again?'
'Yes, yes, that is it; come back and see who is in your little bed under the window. Take care of the arm!' touching the sling that held it. 'Dr. Nadaud will expect a letter from you in copper-plate style before another month is over. Allons! We will say au revoir, then, not adieu. Bon voyage, mon lieutenant, bon voyage!'
Another hand-grasp, and I made my way to the cab, feeling a strange, intoxicated sensation at being once more on my legs in the open air after such a long stretch between the blankets. Away we rattled down the steep stone-paved street, past the queer old high houses that, as the window-shutters were swung back, seemed to open their eyes and wake up with a spirited relish for another day's bustle and work. Very different to the lazy drawing up of a roller-blind in England is the swinging open of a pair of French persiennes. Whiffs of new bread and freshly-ground coffee floated out from the open doorways of the bakers and the earliest risers of St. Malo, and presently the pungent, invigorating odour of the sea made itself smelt in spite of the mixed odours of the street. It was new life to be out in the open again, and I was going to see my mother; but I could not forget Sister Gabrielle.
Several years passed before I saw again the old steep streets of St. Malo. These years brought great changes to me. My right arm being no longer capable of using the sword, I retired from the army, took to journalism, and eventually accepted an engagement in London. In the English capital I made my home, marrying and settling down to a quasi-English life, which possessed great interest for me from the first.
One summer (six years after the war) I began to make a yearly journey to a town on the borders of Brittany, and always landed at St. Malo to take train for my destination. Trains ran there only twice a day, and so there was generally time enough to climb the dirty, picturesque street to the hospital and see sweet Sister Gabrielle, whose face would light up at sight of her old patient, and whose voice had still the same sympathetic charm. When the now English-looking traveller presented himself, it was always the Mother-Superior who came to him in the bare, cool room reserved for visitors. And then Sister Gabrielle would arrive, with a sweet, grave smile playing about her beautiful mouth, and there would be long talks about all that I had been doing, of the pleasant, free life in England, etc., etc.
One hot August morning, just seven years after I had left the hospital with my arm in a sling, I pulled at the big clanging bell and asked to see Sister Gabrielle. I was ushered into the shady waiting-room, and stood drinking in the perfume of the roses that clambered about the open window. Presently the Mother's steps approached, but when she saw me she had no longer in her voice the cheery notes with which she used to greet me, nor did she offer to send Sister Gabrielle to me.
In a few sad words she told me my sweet nurse was dead, that she had died as she had lived, beloved by all who were privileged to be near her. There was no positive disease, the doctor had said, but some shock or grief of years before must have undermined her health, and the life of self-sacrifice she led had not been calculated to lengthen the frail strand of her life. Gently and without struggle it had snapped, and she had drooped and died with the early violets.
Touched and saddened, I turned down the steep street to the lower town. More than ever I wondered what had been the history of the brave, beautiful woman who had nursed me seven years before.
Turning the corner of the Place Châteaubriand, I ran against a man.
'Pardon, monsieur!'
'Pardon, monsieur!'
The exclamations were simultaneous. Looking up, we two men recognised each other.
'Ah, my dear doctor!' I exclaimed.
'Sapristi, my dear lieutenant! What are you doing in St. Malo?'
Having properly accounted for my presence in the old Breton town, and made known to Dr. Nadaud how glad I was to see him again, we two went off together to lunch at the Hôtel de Bretagne, where I had left my luggage.
Having refreshed ourselves with a light French déjeuner, the doctor and his former patient strolled out of the long dining-room into the central courtyard of the hotel, which the sun had not yet made too warm, and there, installing ourselves at a little round table, we smoked and sipped our coffee.
'I will tell you all I know,' said the doctor, in reply to a question from me. 'It seemed almost a breach of confidence to tell you Sister Gabrielle's story while she lived, for I knew that she had come away out of the world on purpose to work unknown and to bury all that remained of Jeanne D'Alcourt. When she first came, she seemed not at all pleased to see me, no doubt because my presence reminded her of Caen and of the scenes that she had turned her back upon for ever.
'Well,' continued Dr. Nadaud, 'the D'Alcourts had lived for generations in a fine old house on the Boulevard de l'Est, and it was there that Jeanne was born. Next door lived my sister and her husband, M. Leconte, the chief notary of the town, and a man well considered by all classes of his townsmen. It is the old story of affections knotted together in the skipping-rope, and proving to be as unending as the circle of the hoop. My sister had a girl and a boy. The three children played together, walked out with their nurses together, and were hardly ever separated until the time came for Raoul to go to Paris to school. The boy was fourteen when they parted, Jeanne was only eleven, but the two children's love had so grown with their growth, that, before the day of parting came, they had made a solemn little compact never to forget each other.
'Eight years passed, during which Jeanne and Raoul saw little of each other.
'The first time the boy came home, he seemed to Jeanne no longer a boy, and the shyness which sprang up between them then deepened with each succeeding year.
'The boy was allowed to choose his profession, and he chose that of surgery. News reached Jeanne from time to time through his sister of the promising young student, who, it was said, bid fair to win for himself a great name some day.
'At the age of twenty-five Raoul left Paris. His parents, who were growing old, wished their son near them, and steps were taken to establish him in a practice in Caen.
'Time passed on, and Raoul had been six months in partnership with old Dr. Grévin, whom he was eventually to succeed, when Mme. D'Alcourt fell ill of inflammation of the lungs, and so it happened that the two young people often met beside the sick-bed, for the elder partner was not always able to attend the patient, and his young aide was called upon to take his place.
'By the time that Mme. D'Alcourt was well again, both the young people knew that the old love of their childhood had smouldered in their hearts through all the years of separation, and was ready to burst into flame at a touch. But no word was spoken.
'It was Raoul's fond hope to be one day in a position to ask for Jeanne as his wife, but he knew that by speaking before he was in that position, he would only destroy all chance of being listened to by her parents.
'The touch that should stir the flame soon came.
'One day in the summer following, a hasty summons from Mme. D'Alcourt took Dr. Grévin to Jeanne's bedside, and a few moments' examination showed him that the poor girl had taken diphtheria. After giving directions as to the treatment to be followed, he said he would return late in the evening or would send M. Leconte.
'It was Raoul who came.
'With horror he saw that the case was already grave, and a great pang went through him as he spoke to Mme. D'Alcourt of the possibility of its being necessary to perform tracheotomy in the morning. When morning came – in fact, all next day – Jeanne was a little better, and the young man hoped with a deep, longing, passionate hope.
'The day after, however, it was evident that nothing could save the girl but the operation, and it was quickly decided to try this last chance.
'The rest is soon told. In that supreme moment, as Raoul made ready for the work, the two young people told all their hearts' secret to each other in one long greeting of the eyes, that was at once a "Hail" and a "Farewell."
'The operation was successful.
'All went well with Jeanne, and in two days she was declared practically out of danger.
'But Raoul, unmindful of everything except Jeanne's danger, had not been careful for himself, and had received some of the subtle poison from her throat.'
In the cemetery of Caen, high up where the sun first strikes, can be seen a gravestone with the inscription:
Ci-gîtRAOUL LECONTE, Décédé le 18 Juillet., 1869And this is why Sister Gabrielle never married.
CHAPTER XLIII
PORTRAIT OF A FRENCH MOTHER
Madame Proquet lived in a little town in Brittany, which she had never quitted in her life. She had been born there, she had married there, and there it was that she had brought up her only son, Henri. When friends said to her, 'Why not travel a little? You should at least go and see Paris!' she would reply: 'Thank you, I am happy enough at home.' She cared little for the outer world. Early left a widow, she had resolved to live for her son. She had made herself his dearest friend without effeminating him, his constant guide without monopolizing him, and his preceptor without ceasing to be his comrade.
Before sending the boy to any school, she set to work herself and learned enough Latin and Greek to enable her to hear his lessons; and by the time he reached the upper forms, Madame Proquet would have been able to cut a very fair figure beside him.
Thanks to the care and order with which she managed her small fortune, she was well off – rich even – with her 5,000 or 6,000 francs a year, for at the end of each year the budget showed an excess of receipts over expenditure. Her house, her books and her garden occupied all the time which was not devoted to Henri. She was fond of receiving visits, but rarely paid calls herself; and in the winter evenings she loved to sit with a book by the fireside in the room, half kitchen, half dining-room, which, with its great open fireplace, is very often the most attractive-looking apartment in a small Breton house. Sometimes it was her needlework that she would bring out and busy her fingers upon, while the faithful Fanchette, who had held Henri on her knee, and who still 'thee'd' and 'thou'd' him, took her knitting, and to the steady click of the needles would go over again the merry tricks that he was wont to play when he was a little boy.
By-and-by Henri finished his studies and took his B.A. with honours. Then it became necessary to choose a profession. For some time past he had been longing to say to his mother: 'Mother, let me go to Paris and study painting. Something tells me that I should be successful.' But he knew that Madame Proquet had long been putting by 1,000 francs a year to send him to Paris to study law or medicine, whichever he should choose. She had made up her mind to make a lawyer or a doctor of him. Is it not the ambition of every French provincial mother? Henri allowed himself to be persuaded, although he felt not the least inclination for the one profession or the other. However, when it came to the point he chose the law.
What he did in Paris during six years we may see from the fact that, in the month of May, 1877, he pleaded at the assizes in a case which resulted in two years' imprisonment for his client; and that he exhibited at the Salon a portrait which earned for the artist the praise of all critical Paris. A very talented painter had arisen. Madame Proquet learned the news without making a very wry face, swallowed the pill without grimacing, and, Fanchette having declared that she had always predicted that Henri's genius would soon manifest itself, she wisely decided under the circumstances to be proud of her boy.
'But who is going to keep the dear fellow while he is painting in Paris? I cannot, that is certain,' said the good mother to herself.
'But, madam,' said Fanchette, 'do you not know that there are rich folks who pay one hundred and even as much as two hundred francs to have their portrait painted, and that Paris is full of people like that?'
Madame Proquet remained incredulous and full of anxiety. She certainly was not going to discourage her son, but she could not find it in her to encourage him. She would let events follow their course, while she remained calm at her post of observation. She had every confidence in her son after all. Was he not an advocate, and could he not always return to his profession if painting should fail him?
The following year Henri exhibited another portrait, which excited not merely the admiration but the enthusiasm of the critics. People talked of a future Bonnat, and the name of Henri Proquet was on everyone's tongue. The young painter was striding into fame.
Orders began to flow in. This news reassured Madame Proquet, and made her mother's heart swell with pride.
'Did I not tell you so?' repeated Fanchette.
But something that dropped like a bomb into the quiet household in the little Breton town was the news that a rich financier of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré had just paid 10,000 francs for his portrait, which Henri had taken hardly a month to paint.
'But the dear fellow will be making a fortune and losing his head,' exclaimed Madame Proquet.
Fanchette herself was dumfounded. It seemed to them that their boy was going to slip from them – that fame and fortune must needs raise an inseparable barrier between the luxurious studio which Henri talked of, and was embellishing day by day, and the humble maternal home which never changed at all. They were both believers in the quiet and unobtruding happiness that hides itself and goes unenvied, and they could neither of them understand how happiness was possible in that feverish Paris, where artists and men of letters are drawn body and soul into the whirl of a great vortex; and the good souls bewailed themselves, foreseeing terrible things and getting into their heads a thousand ideas, which all had but one conclusion – 'Our Henri is lost to us!'
How mistaken they were!
The years followed one another, and Henri came regularly twice a year to the dear little house where the ivy and jasmine, the clematis and the honeysuckle protected our successful man against intruders: the jealous, the gossips, the bores and all the jostling crowd that hovers around celebrities, and often makes them its prey.
Better than that, he soon did something that should still strengthen his position in the good books of Madame Proquet and Fanchette. He married a girl as good as she was beautiful, an artist's ideal, whom he had the greatest difficulty to get Fanchette to tutoyer.
'But, my dear, I cannot say "thee" and "thou" to that beautiful lady,' pleaded poor Fanchette.
'Nonsense, Fanchette! and why not? She is your daughter as much as I am your boy.'
And the good Fanchette, with her eyes full of tears of joy, kissed everybody and exclaimed:
'He has not changed a bit, you see. I told you so; I knew it.'
Then the young couple came twice a year to Brittany to live and love with more freedom. Soon, instead of two, it was a trio that came, and Fanchette declared that the loveliest baby in the world was the one that she called hers.
'And,' she added, 'no one can accuse me of partiality, for everyone knows how I laugh at the people who think their babies the finest in the world.'
And the others would reply in chorus:
'Certainly not, Fanchette.'
Madame Proquet was overwhelmed with joy, the proudest and happiest of mothers.
She went so far as to say to her neighbours, as well as to herself: 'Did I not do well after all to encourage Henri to be an artist!' I say advisedly 'as well as to herself,' for by dint of innocently and honestly deceiving others, one ends by innocently and honestly deceiving one's self.
Madame Proquet had no more fear for her son's future. His fame was well established, and he remained to her the same devoted son, perfectly unaffected, his head turned neither by celebrity nor riches.
The good lady unhappily reckoned without that very absorbing mistress called Art, who was to supplant her a little, if not in Henri's affection, yet in his rule of conduct. The name of Henri Proquet was not celebrated in Paris alone, but in all the capitals of the civilized world. He one day wrote to his mother that he had just received from England a most flattering invitation to go and paint the portrait of the Queen and the principal members of the Royal Family, and that he had resolved to settle in London with his family for several years; for no doubt, after the Royal Family, his brush would be in demand by lords and ladies, and he would return from the land of fogs laden with guineas and glory.
'And,' he added, 'I embrace the opportunity with all the more alacrity, having just lost 100,000 francs in a gold mine in the United States, a loss which makes an ugly hole in my savings. Thank Heaven I am young, full of life and energy, and in less than two years I shall have forgotten the thing altogether and replaced the money.'
Madame Proquet was aghast at the news.
'So, then,' she ejaculated, 'Henri speculates! He has lost everything, and that in a gold mine, a hole in the earth, which, instead of yielding money, swallows up what fools fling into it. After that, how is it possible to feel any security about him? With all his talent, his genius, he will end in the poor-house. He talks of expatriating himself now. He is out of his mind.'
She believed in none but sure investments, and saw no difference between speculation and gambling. Land, house-property and Government securities, no other stock had any value in her eyes. She would not for the world have had anything to do with shares in even the great railways of her own country. However, in the end she calmed herself.
'He will be prudent in the future,' she said to herself, 'and the lesson will be a wholesome one. After all, England is not far from Brittany. I shall see the dear children almost as often as before.'
And seeing Fanchette looking at her, she smiled, but the smile did not deceive the good woman, who saw clearly that something was being hidden from her, and that that something concerned Henri. Her eyes filled.
'It is nothing, my dear Fanchette!' said Madame Proquet, making her faithful servant sit down by her side while she read to her Henri's letter, and discussed with her its contents.
The painter remained three years in England, and returned to Paris after having made the conquest of the English public and the Royal Academy, just as he had made the conquest of the French public and the Salon.
Mayfair and Belgravia had been painted by Henri Proquet; Fifth Avenue, New York, now claimed him, and offered him fabulous prices. He set out for America, and passed two years there. Madame Proquet and Fanchette both begged him earnestly, in all their letters, to give up these voyages, and to return to Paris and settle there definitely. 'Have a little patience, mother dear,' he wrote; 'I shall soon have 1,000,000 francs put by, and then I shall think of nothing but your wishes.' A few months later he wrote: 'I shall soon have finished my work in America, and we shall set out from New York to make our longest and last voyage. We shall cross America to the Californian side: from there we shall visit Japan, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, and Australia. On the way home we shall stop at the Cape of Good Hope to sketch a few Zulus, who are said to be such fine people. We count on being back in Paris by the end of the year, and we will be with you on New Year's Day. What souvenirs of our travels you will have to listen to! What endless chats we will have, won't we?'
'Decidedly he is mad,' said Madame Proquet to herself. 'As if our French women were not far prettier than all those horrid black African creatures, or those hideous little dods of Japan!' Even Fanchette began to ask herself seriously whether, after all, her boy was the same, and not a changed person. Henri had no longer any one to take his part under his mother's roof.
Madame Proquet fell ill meanwhile. The heart had been attacked for some time past; a herpetic affection threatened to complicate the state of affairs.
No sooner arrived in Paris than Henri and his wife sped into Brittany. They found their mother very changed. The doctor did not attempt to conceal from them the danger of the disease, which, at Madame Proquet's age, must needs be incurable.
This illness, which was likely to be a long and painful one, necessitated the most constant and delicate attentions, continual doctor's visits, and expensive medicines. Fanchette and the femme de chambre, two brave devoted women such as provincial France alone still possesses, but such as the future scarcely holds in store for us, lavished their care upon their dear mistress. They were taxed to the utmost of their strength, Fanchette especially, who had just passed her sixtieth year. To ease them, Madame Proquet engaged two nursing sisters from the convent, who came alternately to watch by her at night.
Henri, fearing that his mother's income might not be equal to the strain put upon it by these extra expenses, begged her to accept from him a little annuity of 2,000 francs. 'Every New Year's Day, dear mother,' he said to her, 'I shall send you that for my New Year's gift; you must be good and accept it. For too long a time you were my banker; now I am going to be yours.' Madame Proquet had such strong ideas of independence that he expected a refusal. Great was his joy to find his mother accept with alacrity. The disease followed its course for more than four years. Each New Year's Day Henri sent the sum he had promised. A few days before her death, in the month of December, 1890, Madame Proquet even wrote to Henri to remind him that New Year's Day was approaching, and that she would be looking out for her 2,000 francs by the next post. This made her son smile. 'Poor mother! She is perhaps hard up. What a good thing I induced her to accept help! Without it she would not have had enough for her nursing expenses. Thanks to me, we shall be able to keep her alive for years. And there are fools who say that money will not buy happiness!' Then, on the spot, he wrote out a cheque for the sum he sent every year. At the very moment that he was about to ring for a servant a telegram was handed to him.