The Little Old Portrait

”‘The twentieth,’ replied Pierre.

”‘And you have no news?’

”‘Not a word,’ said Germain.

”‘Then,’ said old Ludovic, ‘it is for you to decide what can be done. A few days still – a few days perhaps we can wait. It will give me time to recover my old wits a little, if it brings no news from our poor ladies.’”

Chapter Nine

“Long after poor old Ludovic was in bed and asleep that night, the Germains sat up talking over all he had told them.

”‘To-morrow will be the twenty-first of September,’ said old Germain thoughtfully; ‘that makes nine days more to wait – ’

”‘But should we wait, father,’ exclaimed Pierre. ‘I feel so certain no news will come, and every day, every hour, it is so much time lost – can we not set off at once? Father, mother, let me go! I am so young and strong – fatigue is nothing to me, and father is not so strong as he was,’ which was true, for rheumatism, that sad enemy of those whose duties force them to be out in all weather, had already more than once, for weeks at a time, crippled the forester’s active limbs.

“The father and mother looked at each other. True, they had said they would not grudge their boy in the service they had all their lives been devoted to, and the risk they did not think so great for him as it perhaps really was. But when it came to the point of his setting off on the long journey – so uncertain how to proceed, so young and inexperienced as he was?

”‘No, my son,’ said Germain. ‘It is right that I should go myself. I am an ignorant man – less taught than you – but I have the training of age, and have learnt to keep cool and quiet when your fiery young tongue would be getting you into trouble. No, stay you here and take care of your mother, and I will go where it is my duty to go. To-morrow we will talk over about when I should start. I should like to hear what Nanette Delmar thinks about it,’ and with these words he rose from his chair, but stiffly and with difficulty; his wife and Pierre both noticed it more than heretofore. He was not the man he had been.

”‘Sitting so long cramps one – and the fire is out too,’ he said.

“But his wife looked concerned.

”‘These damp days in the woods are bringing the rheumatism out again, I fear,’ she said sadly; ‘but I must not murmur; I have had almost too happy a life, even compared with my dear lady. No, I would grudge nothing for her.’

“Pierre kissed her – more affectionately even than usual, as he bade her good-night. Then he went up to his own little room, his mother thought, to go to bed and sleep as usual.

“But early the next morning – very early, while the autumn haze was still over the woods, and the hoarfrost on the fields, there came a soft tap to young Madame Delmar’s door. Nanette was up already, for her husband was working just now at some distance, and she had to get his soup ready betimes, and so, as he had half hoped, Pierre Germain found her alone.

“He quickly explained his errand. He had come to charge her with the duty of telling his parents that he had gone.

”‘They must not think me disobedient,’ he said. ‘I feel that I am right, and they too will come to see it. My father is not what he was; if he set off on the journey alone he might fall ill on the way and we never know it; or if I went with him I might be obliged to nurse him in some strange place, feeling miserable at nothing being done. No, Nanette, father is best at home. I am young and strong, and I have so often thought over this, and all that I might have to do, that it seems to me as if I had got it by heart. But you, Nanette, who have seen them so much more lately than we, who have been in Paris and know all about where they live and everything, I want you to talk to me, and tell me all you can, so that I shall feel less confused when I get there.’

”‘Willingly,’ said Nanette. And then after putting the rest of the soup they had had on to the fire again to heat for Pierre, and fetching some bread and a couple of eggs to beat up into an omelette – he must have a good breakfast before starting, she said – she sat down and told him all she could think of. She described the house, the rooms occupied by Edmée and her mother, the one or two among the servants she thought better off than the others, though the only one she seemed to have any real confidence in was Marguerite Ribou.

”‘And even she,’ said Pierre, ‘she has more reason to wish for revenge than any of them – are you sure we can trust her?’

”‘She has no ill-will, nothing but good feelings to our ladies,’ said Nanette, thoughtfully. ‘But beyond that – as to the Sarinet family, certainly I am sure she is bitter past words. And that Victorine may have influenced her! Of her I need not tell you to beware.’

”‘Then if all is still as usual with them when I get there,’ said Pierre, ‘how should I proceed? It would not be wise to say I came from Valmont to see the Countess.’

”‘No,’ said Nanette, ‘for if the Marquis were still there he might hear of it, and he would suspect his sister was again making some plan without telling him, which he would only oppose – he is so obstinate. No, I think you had better ask for Marguerite, and judge for yourself. But Pierre, I have faint hopes,’ and Nanette’s face grew very grave, ‘very small hope that you will find things as they were in the Rue de Lille. Had they still been so I feel sure the Countess would have written – and, indeed, I do not think she would have remained there all this time without making some other effort to get away.’

”‘She may have written,’ said Pierre; ‘letters miscarry so in these days.’

”‘If she dared write I am sure she will have done so,’ said Nanette, ‘unless,’ and the young woman shuddered. ‘No, do not let us think the worst; only it is sometimes impossible not to remember all I heard there. But again, if the Countess is in disguise somewhere, you see she would not dare to write for fear her letter might be traced, and would betray who she was.’

”‘Should I know Mademoiselle Edmée, again if I saw her, do you think?’ asked Pierre.

”‘Oh yes, I think so; she has grown tall, of course, but still she has the same face. Indeed, she is still very like the dear little picture. My lady never has it out of her sight. It hangs in her room in Paris just as it did here.’

”‘Many a time my mother and I have wished they had left it at the Château,’ said Pierre with a smile; ‘it would have been some consolation.’

”‘Ah, yes; that I understand,’ said Nanette.

“But then Pierre started up.

”‘I must be off,’ he said. ‘I mean to get over a good piece of ground before the day is old.’

”‘But you are not going on foot? You have some money with you, surely?’ said Madame Delmar anxiously.

”‘Oh yes,’ said Pierre; ‘I have enough to pay my journey. I mean to get on as fast as I can till I am near Paris. Then, perhaps, it will be as well to go on foot. No one will pay any attention to a young fellow like me, and I daresay it is as well for me not to have much money with me. It might be stolen. The Countess is sure to have money; there is no fear on that score!’

“Nanette hesitated.

”‘I don’t know,’ she said; ‘there is no telling to what straits even she may be brought. See here, Pierre,’ she added, going to a cupboard from which she took out a locked box; ‘in here are some of my savings. Take what you can; it is my own money, and even if it were not, Albert would be the last to grudge it in such a case,’ and she forced into the boy’s hands a little packet containing a few gold coins. ‘See here, a moment; I will stitch it into the lining of your coat, where no one would suspect it.’

“Pierre did not resist.

”‘It is for them,’ he said simply, ‘and for them I thank you. At worst, Nanette, my father and mother would repay you. Tell them you gave it to me; it will make them less anxious about me. Try to see them soon – before noon, will you not? And tell them you agree with me that if anything is to be done it is best at once, and that it was best for my father to stay at home.’

”‘Yes,’ said Nanette, ‘I will say all. I think you are right, Pierre. Farewell, and God bless you, my friend!’

“She stood at the door, watching him along the road as far as she could see, and then with a sigh re-entered her cottage.

”‘I wish he were safe back again, and our dear ladies with him,’ she said to herself. ‘Though even their absence would seem nothing now, were one sure they were in safety. I wish they were safe in some other country, however far away, and even if we could not see them for years. It is too dreadful to think of what may happen to them – of what may have already happened. My sweet lady and the dear tender little Edmée! Ah! I must not think of it, or I shall unfit myself for everything. Albert must not tell me any more of the dreadful things he hears. Not till they are safe at least.’

“I cannot tell very much of Pierre Germain’s journey to Paris. He himself used to say he did not, in after years, recall it very clearly; later events and anxieties made it grow vague and cloudy. But nothing of very great importance occurred. As he had himself said, he was not a figure in any way conspicuous, or likely to draw much attention. A fine, sturdy young fellow of seventeen or eighteen, his little bundle slung over his shoulder, making his way along the country roads, whistling as he went, or now and then mounted on the top of the public coach ready for a little conversation, or to give a helping hand with the horses if he were wanted – he had not the appearance of a dangerous person. Nor would any one have suspected the intense anxiety he learned so well to hide, the burning eagerness to get to the end of his journey which possessed him. All the information he could pick up, without seeming too much interested in doing so, he tried to acquire. And the nearer he approached the capital the greater seemed the half-suppressed excitement, the stranger became the looks and tones of many of the people he came across; while all through his journey he met the sight of burnt and ruined châteaux, of convents deserted by their inmates and pillaged by the neighbouring townspeople or villagers, of farms where no longer the cheerful sounds of labour were to be heard – and everywhere misery and reckless disorder.

“He had no difficulty in entering the great city.

“In those days it was much easier to get into Paris than, once there, to get out again. The bundle which he carried was carelessly glanced at by the official at the barriers, who asked him mockingly if he had come to make his fortune in Paris, taking him for a country lad attracted, like hundreds of others, by the accounts of the lawlessness and licence of the ‘rule of the mob,’ and Pierre laughed back a mocking reply. He did not yet, not till he had made his way through what seemed to him innumerable streets, dare to ask for the Rue de Lille, so fearful was he of attracting attention by seeming to have any errand about which he might be questioned. But at last, feeling hungry and tired, he ventured into a milk shop, where a meek, rather frightened-looking woman, with a little child in her arms, was standing behind the counter.

”‘Madame,’ he was beginning, but the woman quickly interrupted him: ‘Citizeness, you mean, boy,’ she said. ‘Whence do you come to use a word we never hear now?’ and on his hastily begging her pardon, ‘it is not for me; it matters nothing to me. It is for yourself, citizen,’ she added. ‘You must watch your words, and indeed by your looks it were better for you to go back whence you came.’

“Pierre felt startled. ‘By my looks, citizeness,’ he said. ‘I look what I am – a country lad come to see Paris for the first time.’

”‘Better never have seen it, then,’ said the woman, earnestly. ‘Go back to your home, if you have one, my boy, for you look honest and innocent,’ but she spoke in a low voice, and glanced round her as if afraid of being overheard.

“There was something in her face, in her very timidity, which inspired Pierre with confidence.

”‘I cannot go back,’ he said, speaking also in a low voice. ‘I have come for a purpose, but I am a complete stranger. Perhaps you can help me. Will you tell me the way to the Rue de Lille?’

“The woman looked at him with regret.

”‘It is not far from here,’ she said; ‘but it is a long street. What house do you want there?’

”‘The house – the hotel of the Marquis de Sarinet,’ he replied, but low as he spoke the woman held up her hand with a warning gesture.