Fragments Of An Autobiography Part 13

"That you can; and tell Monsieur Claude that I am grateful to him for bringing me those three fairies. It was that morning, the second time he came---- But I am talking too much," she said, interrupting herself suddenly, "and that is rude. I hope you will excuse, monsieur."

"Excuse! Why, my dear child, I love to hear you talk about all that--I am devoted to Fairyland myself; it is quite the artist's home, you know, and I must tell you my experience of it presently; but first I am curious to know how he came to bring those good fairies to you. And three too; just like in the tales; everything always goes by threes."

"I never thought of that," she said reflectively, and then continued, once for all giving up the idea that talking much was rude. "I've got them pressed between the leaves of my prayer-book. They were three beautiful red roses when he brought them; I never saw such three roses before. I turned them to the light and tried to make them happy whilst they were with me, but to be sure I knew I could not keep them alive long, so when they seemed ready to die, I put them in the book. They were under my pillow when I was very, very ill. I must have been bad, for one night the doctors thought I was going to die, and Sur Louise wouldn't let Sur Amelie take her turn to sit by me. But I knew I was not going to die; I even knew I was going to get quite well, because the three good roses told me so--I hope you won't laugh at me, monsieur, for calling a rose a fairy, but I----"

"Now really, mademoiselle, you couldn't for a moment imagine that I should be so matter-of-fact and heartless as to laugh."

"Well, what do you think of her, monsieur?" broke in Monsieur Tamia.s.se.

"What does she look like now? There's her record in that third Division, Casier G, No. 721. There we have her from the first day when she was brought to us, to the day when we thought she was going to be carried away from us, and so on up to date. She is not a bad specimen of the sort we turn out at the Lyons City Hospital, is she? Not that we always succeed. We are beaten more than once by the grim old gentleman with the scythe. But we are always ready to fight him, and we manage sometimes to get hold of his hour-gla.s.s and turn it upside down. Well, to-morrow we hand this young lady over to my friend Mademoiselle Chevillard. She will be here at twelve o'clock. Will you come and give your sanction to the transfer?"

"Certainly," I said, and took my leave.

And as I went home I thought the world was not so bad after all, with its Sisters of Charity, its bright, devoted little econome, and its Madeleine with her friends the fairies.

To-morrow came, and with it the transfer. I sanctioned it with all my heart, for Mademoiselle Chevillard at once struck me as just the person we could entrust our ward to. She and the econome were settling the business part of the transaction, and I turned to Madeleine and asked her whether she was pleased to learn the art of embroidery.

"Pleased!" she said, "why, it's the very thing I have always been longing for. That's just why I am going to get it. I told you that things happened to me as they do in the fairy tales. So my wish is to be fulfilled, and I'm going to paint pictures like the one Monsieur le Cure showed me, all done with a needle."

I wanted to know more about Monsieur le Cure and the picture, and so she told me he was her great friend and instructor at the convent. He had one day taken her into the sacristy of his church, and there she had seen the most lovely piece of embroidery one could imagine. It was under gla.s.s and in a gold frame, and represented the Madonna surrounded by little lambs with silky curls; one of them she was fondly petting. Over her head two little angels were holding a large crown, all of intertwined gold threads, and at her feet l'enfant Jesus was seated on the gra.s.s amongst flowers, every one of which was a combination of glossy silks and sparkling beads and spangles. I remember it all so well, for I am sure that girl taught me, if not to admire, at least to a.n.a.lyse the beauties of ecclesiastical embroidery.

By this time we had got quite confidential, and she said, "You were going to tell me about your fairyland."

So I told her that I too was one of those privileged creatures to whom all good things seemed to come without much waiting. I could not lay claim to a fairy G.o.dmother, but my G.o.dfather was quite a match for any good genius of either s.e.x.

Yes, mademoiselle, every Thursday evening, as the clock struck half-past six, he would appear in a hallowed place called the "House of Robes."[9]

There he stood, every inch a ruler, the centre figure in a group of loyal va.s.sals, waiting for a sign from his hand--I see him now--He raises his magic wand; a great rite is about to be performed, and spell-bound we listen for the coming sounds. Then onwards, upwards he leads us, into realms of unfathomable mysteries, where Music rules supreme."

"Who was that, monsieur? I cannot follow you."

"A magician, Maddalena! He could conjure up to your vision the dream of a Midsummer night, and his were the Songs that needed no words. Now, he has left us for the very realms his fancy had created. When he arrived there, the gate was opened wide to admit him, and Elijah the prophet stood ready with St. Paul to receive him. No wonder you are mystified, my dear. I'll explain it all to you another time. I really only meant to tell you that his name was Felix, and that means happy, and with the name my good G.o.dfather gave me happiness. Yes, good things seem to come to me as they do to you. May it last! At any rate we will hold on to the fairies as long as we can, and if ever the wicked dragon crosses our paths, we will stand by one another, won't we?"

"Well, I can't do much," she said, "but I'll run a needle through him, if he means mischief."

And the offensive and defensive alliance thus ratified, we parted, each the richer for a new friend.

In my letters to Claude I gave very full particulars of my conversations with Madeleine, and of the practical result of my visit; in fact it is from these letters, now in my hands, that I have been largely quoting.

More than a twelvemonth was to elapse before we met again, for I had left Paris to pursue my studies under Kaulbach in Munich. The numerous letters Claude wrote to me during the interval, mostly treat of the two subjects uppermost in his mind, art and love. As I once more read them over after many years, I am aware that the history of his loves really offers no very remarkable features, and I approach the subject with some diffidence on that account. But on the other hand I remember that we all like the old story that always a.s.sumes a new shape; we like it perhaps, because, in this wicked world of ours, hatred and evil influences so constantly cross our path, that we are always glad to turn aside when the opportunity offers, and to listen to tales of love and devotion. And there were gold and silver threads that ran through Claude's life, as they do through most people's.

He was very impressionable, but he never treated love lightly; he often would see beauty where I, for the life of me, saw no more than ordinary good looks; in fact his artistic temperament would lead him to evolve a perfect Venus or a paragon of virtue from very slender materials. But he was too honest, and too much of an idealist, to indulge in the popular pastime of flirtation. Love skirmishes he might be drawn into, but they were not of his seeking, and he usually remained on the defensive. The Venuses and Paragons might rule supreme for a while, but when--as would soon happen--they were found wanting in some of the perfections his imagination had endowed them with, his idol had to step off its pedestal. Nor was he particularly humbled when he had to acknowledge his mistake. He would often say that it was quite a different thing to be "amoureux d'une femme," and to "aimer une femme"--to be in love with, or to love a woman. And then, dear old mystic that he was at the bottom of his heart, he would conjure up a "Vision of Love," as he called it, a vision to be "divined, not defined." Was he ever to marry and be happy?

I often wondered.

When I arrived in Paris, I found Claude at the station, and we embraced in true continental fas.h.i.+on. I had been invited to stay with him and his father, and I was soon established under their hospitable roof.

The first twenty-four hours we slept little and talked much. I knew all about the picture and all about a new star in his horizon, Mademoiselle Jeanne, but what is _all_ when it is crammed into the few pages of a letter? Very little as compared with what can be made of it in conversation.

Of the picture later on; first about the girl. Mademoiselle Jeanne was the daughter of the _grand Roule_; so we had called her father, for no better reason than that his charming residence was in the Faubourg du Roule.

He was one of the leading physicians in Paris, more particularly known by his writings, which treated of some pathological speciality, I forget which. Her mother was an Englishwoman. During a twenty years' residence in Paris she had added to the sterling qualities of her race the graceful attributes of a Parisian. She was not only a charming hostess, but a woman of great literary attainments, and indeed she must have been more than that, an erudite scholar, if, as the world said, some of the best pages in the doctor's books came from her pen. He gave colour to the a.s.sertion, for by word and deed he showed that he held her and her judgment in the highest esteem. It was quite a pleasure to see this united couple together, a pleasure I often enjoyed, for during my first long stay in Paris I had been made quite at home in their house.

Jeanne, or, as her mother persisted in calling her, Jane, was about sixteen when I first knew her. She was reserved and diffident; happiest when allowed to remain unnoticed in the background, positively distressed when dragged into broad daylight, or obliged to take her share in gaieties. I soon discovered the cause of her shyness. She suffered from the consciousness that she had red hair; in fact that consciousness seemed to have sunk deep into her heart and mind, and to have made her morbidly sensitive.

In those days red hair evoked nothing but a pointed reference to carrots--that from the ill-natured; the good-natured would feel compa.s.sion for the poor girls who were thus afflicted. I wonder sometimes whether the red of those days was the same we admire now, whether those carrots of my youth can have been transformed into the lusciously l.u.s.trous locks of to-day. Were they formerly only under a cloud and crushed under the weight of unanimous condemnation? Could the molten gold have been hidden away, and the deep-toned bra.s.s notes silenced, and were they only waiting to be combed and coaxed to the front?--Well, the trials of the sandy-hair phase are over, and I, for one, am grateful to live in the Renaissance period, and to witness the triumph of woman's loveliest crown.

Poor Mademoiselle Jeanne did what she could to conceal the luxuriant crop Nature had given her. She wound it in tight coils round the back of her head, where at least she could not see it if she chanced to come across a looking-gla.s.s. She brushed it off her forehead with a determination to show as little as possible of it in front, and if a few spiteful stray hairs would not lie down with the rest, she cut them off, much to my distress, for, when talking to her, my eyes were always wandering to the little border of reddish stubble that remained, and I saw her see me seeing, and that made it awkward for both.

Her extreme sensitiveness no doubt originated in the unkind comments made upon her in her childhood. As she grew up, it seemed impossible to efface these early impressions. She had got it into her head that she was the ugly duckling, and neither parents nor friends could persuade her to the contrary. But she gradually accepted what she considered the inevitable, and at the time Claude appeared on the scene (I introduced him to the family) she had sufficiently overcome her shyness, to perform the duties of a young lady of eighteen in her mother's salon, without betraying how much she would have preferred keeping in the background.

It was very characteristic of that young lady that, when she did emerge from the background, she would do so with a rush; whether she offered you a chair or a cup of tea, she came upon you unexpectedly, firing as it were, at close quarters, and retreating before you could capture her.

"I know I'm a coward," she said to me one day when we were talking of heroes, "and it's just because I'm a coward that there is no virtue I admire more than courage. If I were a man, I would, I could"----

There she stopped short, and left me to guess the rest. I often noticed that when her thoughts were about to come to the surface, she would get alarmed at her own boldness, and take refuge in some commonplace remark, or relapse into silence, leaving your curiosity ungratified as to what was really going on in her mind.

With Claude she was more at her ease than with any of the other young men that came to the house. This was not to be wondered at, for Claude, as I have said, was the sort of man who would inspire even little street girls with confidence. I don't think he ever made any comments on her hair, but perhaps his eye too sometimes rested unconsciously on the stubbles, and thus exercised its influence; certain it is that an influence was at work. The little refractory hairs that had been a source of so much trouble, were allowed to follow their natural bent, and began to wave and frizz. That was a symptom: others were to follow.

One evening conversation had turned on skulls and brains, and the doctor had given us some interesting facts relating to the comparative sizes of the brains in man and in the inferior animals. Claude, who had made quite a special study of anatomy, took up the subject from the artistic point of view, and showed the relations.h.i.+p between brains and beauty.

"The great artists," he said, "have ever given due predominance to the cranium over the eyes, nose, and mouth. The receptacle of the brains must lord it over the representatives of the senses. That is, too, why they have made so much of the hair, using it to give full development to the upper part of the head. It's a most fascinating art, that of the hairdresser," he wound up, "and I sometimes feel that _Anch'io_ might have been _Parruchiere_! I think I missed my vocation!"

These observations of Claude's had a remarkable effect. The coils were loosened, a little at first, then by degrees more; and the material at hand, one could not help noticing, was being reconstructed after the style adopted by the immortal Venus of Milo. At that time Claude was but moderately interested in Jeanne, but, much as a gardener looks with satisfaction at the fresh shoots of a plant that seemed doomed, so he looked with pleasure on the rising waves which he knew had come at his bidding. His eyes had a way of indicating a little in advance what his lips were going to say; it was a case of light travelling faster than sound; so first came the twinkle and then the words. Jeanne got the full benefit of the approving twinkle, and was relieved when she found that it was not followed by a congratulatory speech. He only said--

"I see your brain is struggling for s.p.a.ce," and then changed the subject.

It is surprising how symptoms have a way of begetting symptoms, and what striking effects they are apt to have on sensitive natures like Claude's. He became more and more of a gardener, and brought beneficent suns.h.i.+ne into the life of the budding flower.

On the 15th of August he and Jeanne were together at the Turkish Emba.s.sy. They were amongst the guests invited to witness the grand spectacle provided for the pleasure-seeking Parisian on that day, the _Mi-Aout_, as it is called. It was the great Napoleon's birthday, henceforth to be consecrated as the National Holiday. The newly founded Empire spared nothing to organise fetes in general, and this one in particular, on the grandest scale. All the resources of the decorator's art had been brought to bear on the Champs Elysees, and with such success that no fields could have looked more Elysian. The sculptor had contributed colossal figures, the architect triumphal arches, and an untold number of _lampions_ were suspended in festoons which reached in gradually ascending curves from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe de l'etoile.

A grand review, a military pageant, such as only a Napoleon could call into existence, was once more to show an admiring universe the unrivalled superiority of the French army, when marshalled by the Emperor now representing the greatest of Cesarian dynasties.

The Parisian was overflowing with patriotic emotions; his heart beat fast and vibrated with legitimate pride, as drums and bugles summoned him to witness the glorious spectacle. From all sides the people were streaming towards the Place de la Concorde. There, to your left, if you turn your back on the Obelisk and the fountains, you see the garden of what was then the Turkish Emba.s.sy (now a club). It is considerably raised above the level of the Rue Boissy d'Anglais on the one side, and the Avenue Gabrielle on the other. It was a point of vantage from which it must have been quite pleasant for the privileged beau-monde to look down on the struggling plebeian.

Jeanne and Claude had been walking up and down that garden absorbed in earnest conversation. He was bitterly opposed to these military pageants, and with the natural eloquence of conviction, he had been inveighing against the delusions of mankind that culminate in fratricidal warfare. He was particularly hard on Horace Vernet, that panegyrist of the _piou-piou_, as he called him.

"How can a man lower his art to the level of tunics and red breeches?"

he asked. "He's at best a stump orator on canvas, using his brushes to tickle the national pride of the Frenchman! 'L'Empire, c'est la Paix,'

indeed! Does it look like it?"

"Well, so far it does," said Mademoiselle Jeanne. "Surely this is a peaceful fete. See how the people enjoy it."

"Yes, mademoiselle, poor blind deluded people! Look again, and fancy that man shot through the heart with a bullet, and that boy on his shoulders pinned to the wall with a bayonet."

"Oh, don't speak like that, Monsieur Claude; you know I'm an abject coward. I should fly to the ends of the earth rather than face danger."

"You are right. I beg your pardon; I know I ought not to conjure up ugly visions, least of all before your eyes, Mademoiselle Jeanne."

"I dare say you think me very foolish, Monsieur Claude, but----"

"Not foolish, mademoiselle; on the contrary, I am grateful to you for pulling me up when I fly off at a tangent as I did just now."

"Yes, monsieur," she answered, "I know you are always indulgent. That is, I suppose, why I venture to pull you up, as you call it. You see, I can't always follow you, and I don't want to be left behind."