The Little Old Portrait

The Marcel children were up betimes the next morning – not that they were ever late, in summer especially, for, young as they were, there were plenty of ways in which they already helped their busy father and mother. And as everybody knows, there is no time so busy in a farm in summer as the early morning. In general they were all, except little Roger, due at school at eight o’clock, but to-day, as I have explained, was a holiday, and the mere feeling of not having to go to school seemed to make them wish to get up even earlier than usual.

Then there was the treat of coffee for breakfast, instead of the soup – a very homely kind of soup made with dripping, which English children would not, I fancy, think very good – which was their usual fare, and not coffee, but white bread and butter! Joseph smacked his lips at this, you may be sure. After breakfast they all went into the parlour for a few minutes, there to present to Madame Marcel the little gifts they had prepared for her, with which she was of course greatly pleased, as well as with the decorations of the room.

“Now go, my children,” she said, “and amuse yourselves well till dinner-time. It is a most lovely day. If you can find a nice basketful of wood strawberries they will not come in badly for the dessert.”

“No, indeed,” said Joseph, “there is nothing better than strawberries with cream. You will give us a little of that beautiful thick cream you make the little cheeses for market with, won’t you, mother? For a very great treat.”

And Madame Marcel could not help laughing at the pathetic air with which he said it, even though she told him she feared he was growing too fond of nice things to eat.

The strawberry hunt was very successful, and the children came home in good spirits, and quite ready to do justice to the birthday dinner, to which had been invited the clergyman of the village, or curé, as he was called, and Farmer Marcel’s widowed sister, with her two children.

Later in the day the young people all played games in the orchard; then, too hot and tired to romp more, they sat on the grass playing with their pet kitten, till mother called them in. Their aunt and her little boys and the old curé soon after went away, and then, when Joseph and Roger were safely in bed, the three elder ones reminded their mother of her promise.

“I have not forgotten it,” she said. “Your father is coming in a moment. I must let you sit up an hour later than usual this evening; but if there is not time to read all the story, we can finish it on Sunday evening, perhaps.”

And then she led the way back to the parlour, which seemed the most suitable place for reading the story in, besides being cooler than the kitchen, for the evening was very hot.

In a few minutes the farmer made his appearance. He seated himself in one of the two largest and most comfortable of the arm-chairs, while Madame Marcel took the other, drawing it near enough to the window to have a good light; for the sheaf of papers which she held in her hand was yellow with age, and the ink of the writing, from the same cause, had become pale and not very easy to read. And the children’s eyes watched with eagerness, not unmixed with awe, the pages, which were tied together with a faded blue ribbon, as their mother smoothed them out and placed them ready.

“Before I begin,” she said, “I must tell you, children, who wrote this little story, and why. It was written by my mother; you cannot remember your dear grandmother, children; she died when you, even, Pierre, were a very little boy, and Edmée still a baby. It was a great sorrow to me. I had hoped she would have lived to help me to bring you up, and to educate you as she educated me, though I fear I have now forgotten much of what she taught me.”

“There is no one in the village as clever as you, mother,” said Pierre and Edmée. “Every one says so. Who can write so nicely, as you, mother, or keep accounts so beautifully?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the farmer. “Many a compliment I have had about my accounts, and very proud I am to say it is my good wife who makes them out.”

“So you see, mother!” said the children.

“Well, well,” said Madame Marcel. “But the little I can do is nothing to what my dear mother knew and could do. And she, again, used to say she felt ashamed of her ignorance in comparison with her mother’s superiority. And this brings me to the story, or rather, in the first place, to the picture. That dear little girl up there, children, is my grandmother, your great-grandmother, whose maiden name was Edmée de Valmont.”

“Edmée de Valmont,” repeated the children, as if they could scarcely believe it. “You don’t mean – not de Valmont of Valmont-les-Roses, not one of them?” said Pierre eagerly.

“Yes, dear. My grandmother was the last of the old name. And how she came to be so, and how in the end she changed it for a much humbler one, and never repented having done so – that is the story here written out by her wish, and under her superintendence, by her daughter, my mother.”

The children looked at their mother bewilderedly.

“I don’t think I quite understand,” said Edmée. “Whom did she marry? Was it our grandfather Marcel?”

“Oh dear no, my child,” replied her mother, laughing. “That would have made very funny relationships,” and Farmer Marcel smiled as he said —

“It is not to my side of the house, but to little mother’s, that you owe your noble descent.”

And Madame Marcel went on to explain.

“My grandmother, Edmée de Valmont, married Pierre Germain. They had but one child, my mother, also Edmée, and she in turn married Joseph Laurent, my father. I, again, was an only child, so it has always been by Edmées that the de Valmonts have been remembered, till now, when my little Roger has revived the old Valmont name. There was always a Roger de Valmont in the old days.”

“Ah yes,” exclaimed Pierre, “I know that by the old inscriptions in the church. Mother, why did you not call me, the eldest, Roger? I should have been proud of the name.”

His mother looked at him with a rather anxious expression; he was a handsome boy, and before now some of the old people in the village had whispered to her that the Valmont blood was to be seen in the little farmer, though she had begged them always to put no nonsense in her boy’s head.

“My boy,” she said seriously, almost solemnly, “when you have heard this little story, you will, I think, agree with me that no one could be otherwise than proud to bear the name of my dear and honoured grandfather, Pierre Germain. I do not wish to speak with anything but respect of my grandmother’s ancestors, especially as I am happy to think many of them deserved to be so thought of. They did their best, and strove to be just and benevolent at a time when there were few to show the example, and for that let us honour them. But the ancestors I am the most proud of, and I know your father agrees with me, are not the de Valmonts.”

Pierre slipped his hand into his mother’s.

“I should like to think the same as you and father,” he said gently. And then Madame Marcel, having the papers smoothed out, and sitting in a good clear light began to read as follows: —

“Belle Prairie Farm, —

“Valmont-les-Roses, —

“Touraine.

“1st June, in the year of our Lord 1822.

“I, Edmée Germain, the only child of Pierre Germain and Edmée his wife (born Edmée de Valmont), by the wish of my mother, am going to endeavour to write the story of her life, that her descendants may know the true facts, and above all, may learn to honour the memory of my dear father, Pierre Germain, who ended his good and faithful life on the 12th of last April. My dear mother and I have felt dreadfully sad since his death, and the idea of writing this simple narrative is the first thing which has at all consoled us. I fear I shall not do it very well, for though my mother has educated me carefully, I am not by nature as clever as she, and I feel that I have not well repaid the trouble she has taken with me. But it is her wish that I should write it rather than she herself; so I shall do my best, and if it should ever be read by children or grandchildren of mine, I am sure they will judge it gently, and not be severe on my blunders. When it is completed, mother is going to ask our kind curé to read it through, and to put his name to it as a sign that all is truly stated, and without exaggeration. My mother and I wish that these papers should be always kept in the top drawer of the handsome chest of drawers in the best parlour at Belle Prairie Farm, so long, that is to say, as the farm continues in the hands of our descendants, which we hope will be for very, very long. And as the children of the family grow old enough to feel an interest in its history, we wish that what I am about to write should be read aloud to them.”

Madame Marcel stopped a moment. All eyes were fixed on her, all ears were eagerly listening. So she went on again. There was no other title or heading to the manuscript.

“It is nearly forty years ago that one day a little girl – a very little girl – was playing with a boy a few years older than herself on the terrace in front of the château of Valmont-les-Roses. The château was very old; many generations of Valmonts had played on the same old terrace – had grown to be men and women, and found there were many things besides playing to be done in the world – had passed through the busy noontime of life, and gradually down the hill to old age and peaceful death. For they had been in general kindly and gentle, loving to live quietly on their lands, and make those about them happy, so that they were respected and trusted by their dependants; and even in troubled times of widely-spread discontent and threatened revolt, the talk of these things passed quietly by our peaceful village, and no one paid much heed to it.

“The little girl who was racing up and down the terrace, her companion pretending to try to catch her, and letting her slip past so that she might fancy she was quicker than he, was Edmée, only child of the Count de Valmont, and the boy was Pierre Germain, her favourite playfellow, though only the son of her father’s head forester.

“Edmée had no brothers or sisters, and Pierre’s mother had been for some time her nurse when she was a tiny baby. The kind woman had left her own little boy to come to the château to take care of the Countess’s baby, who was so delicate that no one thought she would live, and by her devotion Madame Germain had helped to make her the bright, healthy little girl that she now, at five years old, had become. So, as one always loves those to whom one has been of great service, Madame Germain loved little Edmée dearly, and Edmée loved her. There was nowhere in the village she so much liked to go as to the Germains’ little cottage, and no child she cared to play with as much as Pierre, who was only four years older than she, but so gentle and careful with her that no one felt any anxiety when they knew that the little lady, ‘Mademoiselle,’ as she was called, was with Pierre Germain.

“Tired with running and laughing, Edmée called to Pierre to help her down the steep stone steps at one end of the terrace, and the two children settled themselves comfortably under the shade of a wide-spreading beech tree.

”‘Now Pierrot, good pretty Pierrot,’ said Edmée coaxingly, ‘tell Edmée a story – a pretty story.’

”‘What about? My little lady has heard all the stories I know, so often,’ said Pierre, gently stroking the pretty fair hair tumbling over his arm, as she leant her head against him.

”‘Never mind, I like them again – only not about Red Riding Hood,’ said Edmée; ‘that frightens me so, Pierre; I fancy I am little Red Riding Hood, only then I always think my Pierrot would come running, running so fast, so that the naughty wolf shouldn’t eat me. Wouldn’t my Pierrot do that? He wouldn’t let the naughty wolf eat poor little Edmée?’

”‘No, indeed —indeed! I wouldn’t,’ said Pierre eagerly.

”‘I’d get the old sword – you know it, Edmée: father has it hanging up over the door in our cottage; it’s rather rusty, but it would be good enough for a wolf – and I’d run at him with it before he could touch you. If he had to eat up somebody, I’d let him eat me first.’

”‘Oh, don’t! don’t, Pierrot,’ said Edmée, trembling and clinging to him, ‘I don’t say that; don’t let us speak about things like that! There are no wolves here, are there? and don’t you think, Pierrot dear, if people were very, very kind to all the wolves, and never hunted them, or anything like that – don’t you think perhaps the wolves would get kind?’ Pierre smiled.

”‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, ‘but there are no wolves about here.’

”‘No, no,’ repeated Edmée, ‘no wolves and no naughty people at Valmont. Don’t you wish there were no naughty people anywhere, Pierrot?’

”‘Indeed, I do,’ said the boy, and then he sat silent. ‘What makes you talk about naughty people, Edmée?’

”‘I don’t know,’ said Edmée; ‘sometimes I hear things, Pierrot, that frighten me. I hear the servants talking – they say that some lords like papa are so naughty and unkind. Is it true, Pierrot?’

”‘I’m afraid all rich men are not so kind as the Count,’ said Pierre. ‘But don’t trouble yourself about it, dear; we won’t let naughty unkind people come here.’

“Somehow Edmée had grown silent; she sat there quite still, leaning her little head on the boy’s shoulder. And he did not talk either; Edmée’s innocent words had reminded him of things he too had heard – of talk between his father and mother, which, young as he was, he already understood a good deal of. Even to quiet Valmont growlings of the yet distant storm, which ere long was to overwhelm the country, had begun to penetrate. Now and then peasants from other villages would make their way to this peaceful corner, with tales of cruelties and indignities from which they were suffering, which could not but rouse the sympathy of their more fortunate compatriots. And more than once Pierre had seen his quiet and serious father strangely excited.