The Yellow Book Volume II Part 2

Almost unconsciously, her phrases a.s.sumed apologetic form. She had an uneasy feeling Tourtel's wife might resent her unexpected advent; although why Mrs. Tourtel should object, or why she herself should stand in any awe of the Tourtels, she could net have explained.

Tourtel was but gardener, the wife housekeeper and nurse, to her cousin Louis Renouf, master of Les Calais. "I sha'n't inconvenience Mrs. Tourtel, I hope? Of course I shouldn't think of staying tea if she is busy; I'll just sit an hour with Cousin Louis, and catch the six o'clock omnibus home from Vauvert."

Tourtel stood looking at her with wooden countenance, in which two small s.h.i.+fting eyes alone gave signs of life. "Eh, but you won't be no inconvenience to de ole woman, ma'am," said he suddenly, in so loud a voice that Mrs. Poidevin jumped; "only de apple-goche, dat she was gain' to bake agen your visit, won't be ready, dat's all."

He turned, and stared up at the front of the house; Mrs. Poidevin, for no reason at all, did so too. Door and windows were open wide. In the upper storey, the white roller-blinds were let down against the sun, and on the broad sills of the parlour windows were nosegays placed in blue china jars. A white trellis-work criss-crossed over the facade, for the support of climbing rose and purple clematis which hung out a curtain of blossom almost concealing the masonry behind. The whole place breathed of peace and beauty, and Louisa Poidevin was lapped round with that pleasant sense of well-being which it was her chief desire in life never to lose. Though poor Cousin Louis--feeble, childish, solitary--was so much to be pitied, at least in his comfortable home and his worthy Tourtels he found compensation.

An instant after Tourtel had spoken, a woman pa.s.sed across the wide hall. She had on a blue linen skirt, white stockings, and shoes of grey list. The strings of a large, bibbed, lilac ap.r.o.n drew the folds of a flowered bed-jacket about her ample waist; and her thick yellow-grey hair, worn without a cap, was arranged smoothly on either side of a narrow head. She just glanced out, and Mrs. Poidevin was on the point of calling to her, when Tourtel fell into a torrent of words about his flowers. He had so much to say on the subject of horticulture; was so anxious for her to examine the freesia bulbs lying in the tool-house, just separated from the spring plants; he denounced so fiercely the grinding policy of Brehault the middleman, who purchased his garden stuff to resell it at Covent Garden--"my good! on dem freesias I didn't make not two doubles a bunch!"--that for a long quarter of an hour all memory of her cousin was driven from Mrs. Poidevin's brain. Then a voice said at her elbow, "Mr. Rennuf is quite ready to see you, ma'am," and there stood Tourtel's wife, with pale composed face, square shoulders and hips, and feet that moved noiselessly in her list slippers.

"Ah, Mrs. Tourtel, how do you do?" said the visitor; a question which in the Islands is no mere formula, but demands and obtains a detailed answer, after which the questioner's own health is politely inquired into. Not until this ceremony had been scrupulously accomplished, and the two women were on their way to the house, did Mrs. Poidevin beg to know how things were going with her "poor cousin."

There lay something at variance between the ruthless, calculating spirit which looked forth from the housekeeper's cold eye, and the extreme suavity of her manner of speech.

"Eh, my good! but much de same, ma'am, in his health, an' more fancies dan ever in his head. First one ting an' den anudder, an' always tinking dat everybody is robbin' him. You rem-ember de la.r.s.e time you was here, an' Mister Rennuf was abed? Well, den, after you was gone, if he didn't deck-clare you had taken some of de fedders of his bed away wid you. Yes, my good! he tought you had cut a hole in de tick, as you sat dere beside him an' emptied de fedders away into your pocket."

Mrs. Poidevin was much interested. "Dear me, is it possible?... But it's quite a mania with him. I remember now, on that very day he complained to me Tourtel was wearing his s.h.i.+rts, and wanted me to go in with him to Lepage's to order some new ones."

"Eh! but what would Tourtel want wid fine white s.h.i.+rts like dem?" said the wife placidly. "But Mr. Louis have such dozens an' dozens of 'em dat dey gets hidden away in de presses, an' he tinks dem stolen."

They reached the house. The interior is quite as characteristic of the Islands as is the outside. Two steps take you down into the hall, crossing the further end of which is the staircase with its bal.u.s.trade of carved black oak. Instead of the mean painted sticks, known technically as "raisers," and connected together at the top by a vulgar mahogany hand-rail--a fundamental article of faith with the modern builder--these old Island bal.u.s.trades are formed of wooden panels, fretted out into scrolls, representing flower, or leaf, or curious beaked and winged creatures, which go curving, creeping, and ramping along in the direction of the stairs. In every house you will find the detail different, while each resembles all as a whole. For in the old days the workman, were he never so humble, recognised the possession of an individual mind, as well as of two eyes and two hands, and he translated fearlessly this individuality of his into his work. Every house built in those days and existing down to these, is not only a confession, in some sort, of the tastes, the habits, the character, of the man who planned it, but preserves a record likewise of every one of the subordinate minds employed in the various parts.

Off the hall of Les Calais are two rooms on the left and one on the right. The solidity of early seventeenth-century walls is shown in the embrasure depth (measuring fully three feet) of windows and doors. Up to fifty years ago all the windows had leaded cas.e.m.e.nts, as had every similar Island dwelling-house. To-day, to the artist's regret, you will hardly find one. The showy taste of the Second Empire spread from Paris even to these remote parts, and plate-gla.s.s, or at least oblong panes, everywhere replaced the mediaeval style. In 1854, Louis Renouf, just three and thirty, was about to bring his bride, Miss Marie Mauger, home to the old house. In her honour it was done up throughout, and the diamonded cas.e.m.e.nts were replaced by guillotine windows, six panes to each sash.

The best parlour then became a "drawing-room"; its raftered ceiling was whitewashed, and its great centre-beam of oak infamously papered to match the walls. The newly married couple were not in a position to refurnish in approved Second Empire fas.h.i.+on. The gilt and marble, the console tables and mirrors, the impossibly curved sofas and chairs, were for the moment beyond them; the wife promised herself to acquire these later on. But later on came a brood of sickly children (only one of whom reached manhood); to the consequent expenses Les Calais owed the preservation of its inlaid wardrobes, its four-post bedsteads with slender fluted columns, and its Chippendale parlour chairs, the backs of which simulate a delicious intricacy of twisted ribbons. As a little girl, Louisa Poidevin had often amused herself studying these convolutions, and seeking to puzzle out among the rippling ribbons some beginning or some end; but as she grew up, even the simplest problem lost interest for her, and the sight of the old Chippendale chairs standing along the walls of the large parlour scarcely stirred her bovine mind now to so much as reminiscence.

It was the door of this large parlour that the housekeeper opened as she announced, "Here is Mrs. Pedvinn come to see you, sir," and followed the visitor in.

Sitting in a capacious "berceuse," stuffed and chintz-covered, was the shrunken figure of a more than seventy-year-old man. He was wrapped in a worn grey dressing-gown, with a black velvet skull-cap, napless at the seams, covering his spiritless hair, and he looked out upon his narrow world from dim eyes set in cavernous...o...b..ts. In their expression was something of the questioning timidity of a child, contrasting curiously with the querulousness of old age, shown in the thin sucked-in lips, now and again twitched by a movement in unison with the twitching of the withered hands spread out upon his knees.

The suns.h.i.+ne, slanting through the low windows, bathed hands and knees, lean shanks and slippered feet, in mote-flecked streams of gold. It bathed anew rafters and ceiling-beam, as it had done at the same hour and season these last three hundred years; it played over the worm-eaten furniture, and lent transitory colour to the faded samplers on the walls, bringing into prominence one particular sampler, which depicted in silks Adam and Eve seated beneath the fatal tree, and recorded the fact that Marie Hochede was seventeen in 1808 and put her "trust in G.o.d"; and the same ray kissed the check of that very Marie's son, who at the time her girlish fingers p.r.i.c.ked the canvas belonged to the enviable myriads of the unthought-of and the unborn.

"Why, how cold you are, Cousin Louis," said Mrs. Poidevin, taking his pa.s.sive hand between her two warm ones, and feeling a chill strike from it through the violet kid gloves; "and in spite of all this suns.h.i.+ne too!"

"Ah, I'm not always in the suns.h.i.+ne," said the old man; "not always, not always in the suns.h.i.+ne." She was not sure that he recognised her, yet he kept hold of her hand and would not let it go.

"No; you are not always in de suns.h.i.+ne, because de suns.h.i.+ne is not always here," observed Mrs. Tourtel in a reasonable voice, and with a side glance for the visitor.

"And I am not always here either," he murmured, half to himself. He took a firmer hold of his cousin's hand, and seemed to gain courage from the comfortable touch, for his thin voice changed from complaint to command. "You can go, Mrs. Tourtel," he said; "we don't require you here. We want to talk. You can go and set the tea-things in the next room. My cousin will stay and drink tea with me."

"Why, my cert'nly! of course Mrs. Pedvinn will stay tea. P'r'aps you'd like to put your bonnet off in the bedroom, first, ma'am?"

"No, no," he interposed testily, "she can lay it off here. No need for you to take her upstairs."

Servant and master exchanged a mute look; for the moment his old eyes were lighted up with the unforeseeing, unveiled triumph of a child; then they fell before hers. She turned, leaving the room with noiseless tread; although a large-built, ponderous woman, she walked with the softness of a cat.

"Sit down here close beside me," said Louis Renouf to his cousin, "I've something to tell you, something very important to tell you." He lowered his voice mysteriously, and glanced with apprehension at window and door, squeezing tight her hand. "I'm being robbed, my dear, robbed of everything I possess."

Mrs. Poidevin, already prepared for such a statement, answered complacently, "Oh, it must be your fancy, Cousin Louis. Mrs. Tourtel takes too good care of you for that."

"My dear," he whispered, "silver, linen, everything is going; even my fine white s.h.i.+rts from the shelves of the wardrobe. Yet everything belongs to poor John, who is in Australia, and who never writes to his father now. His last letter is ten years old--ten years old, my dear, and I don't need to read it over, for I know it by heart."

Tears of weakness gathered in his eyes, and began to trickle over on to his check.

"Oh, Cousin John will write soon, I'm sure," said Mrs. Poidevin, with easy optimism; "I shouldn't wonder if he has made a fortune, and is on his way home to you at this moment."

"Ah, he will never make a fortune, my dear, he was always too fond of change. He had excellent capabilities, Louisa, but he was too fond of change.... And yet I often sit and pretend to myself he has made money, and is as proud to be with his poor old father as he used to be when quite a little lad. I plan out all we should do, and all he would say, and just how he would look ... but that's only my make-believe; John will never make money, never. But I'd be glad if he would come back to the old home, though it were without a penny. For if he don't come soon, he'll find no home, and no welcome.... I raised all the money I could when he went away, and now, as you know, my dear, the house and land go to you and Pedvinn.... But I'd like my poor boy to have the silver and linen, and his mother's furniture and needlework to remember us by."

"Yes, cousin, and he will have them some day, but not for a great while yet, I hope."

Louis Renouf shook his head, with the immovable obstinacy of the very old or the very young.

"Louisa, mark my words, he will get nothing, nothing. Everything is going. They'll make away with the chairs and the tables next, with the very bed I lie on."

"Oh, Cousin Louis, you mustn't think such things," said Mrs. Poidevin serenely; had not the poor old man accused her to the Tourtels of filching his mattress feathers?

"Ah, you don't believe me, my dear," said he, with a resignation which was pathetic; "but you'll remember my words when I am gone. Six dozen rat-tailed silver forks, with silver candlesticks, and tray, and snuffers. Besides odd pieces, and piles and piles of linen. Your cousin Marie was a notable housekeeper, and everything she bought was of the very best. The large table-cloths were five guineas apiece, my dear, British money--five guineas apiece."

Louisa listened with perfect calmness and scant attention.

Circ.u.mstances too comfortable, and a too abundant diet, had gradually undermined with her all perceptive and reflective powers. Though, of course, had the household effects been coming to her as well as the land, she would have felt more interest in them; but it is only human nature to contemplate the possible losses of others with equanimity.

"They must be handsome cloths, cousin," she said pleasantly; "I'm sure Pedvinn would never allow me half so much for mine."

At this moment there appeared, framed in the open window, the hideous vision of an animated gargoyle, with elf-locks of flaming red, and an intense malignancy of expression. With a finger dragging down the under eyelid of either eye, so that the eyeball seemed to bulge out--with a finger pulling back either corner of the wide mouth, so that it seemed to touch the ear--this repulsive apparition leered at the old man in blood-curdling fas.h.i.+on. Then catching sight of Mrs.

Poidevin, who sat dumfounded, and with her "heart in her mouth," as she afterwards expressed it, the fingers dropped from the face, the features sprang back into position, and the gargoyle resolved itself into a buxom red-haired girl, who, bursting into a laugh, impudently stuck her tongue out at them before skipping away.

The old man had cowered down in his chair with his hands over his eyes; now he looked up. "I thought it was the old Judy," he said, "the old Judy she is always telling me about. But it's only Margot."

"And who is Margot, cousin?" inquired Louisa, still shaken from the surprise.

"She helps in the kitchen. But I don't like her. She pulls faces at me, and jumps out upon me from behind doors. And when the wind blows and the windows rattle she tells me about the old Judy from Jethou, who is sailing over the sea on a broomstick, to come and beat me to death. Do you know, my dear," he said piteously, "you'll think I'm very silly, but I'm afraid up here by myself all alone? Do not leave me, Louisa; stay with me, or take me back to town with you. Pedvinn would let me have a room in your house, I'm sure? And you wouldn't find me much trouble, and of course I would bring my own bed linen, you know."

"You had best take your tea first, sir," said Mrs. Tourtel from outside the window; she held scissors in her hand, and was busy tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the roses. She offered no excuse for eavesdropping.

The meal was set out, Island fas.h.i.+on, with abundant cakes and sweets.

Louisa saw in the silver tea-set another proof, if need be, of her cousin's unfounded suspicions. Mrs. Tourtel stood in the background, waiting. Renouf desired her to pack his things; he was going into town. "To be sure, sir," she said civilly, and remained where she stood. He brought a clenched hand down upon the table, so that the china rattled. "Are you master here, or am I?" he cried; "I am going down to my cousin Pedvinn's. To-morrow I shall send my notary to put seals on everything, and to take an inventory. For the future I shall live in town."

His senility had suddenly left him; he spoke with firmness; it was a flash-up of almost extinct fires. Louisa was astounded. Mrs. Tourtel looked at him steadily. Through the part.i.tion wall, Tourtel in the kitchen heard the raised voice, and followed his curiosity into the parlour. Margot followed him. Seen near, and with her features at rest, she appeared a plump touzle-headed girl, in whose low forehead and loose-lipped mouth, cra.s.sness, cruelty, and sensuality were unmistakably expressed. Yet freckled cheek, rounded chin, and bare red mottled arms, presented the beautiful curves of youth, and there was a certain sort of attractiveness about her not to be gainsaid.

"Since my servants refuse to pack what I require," said Renouf with dignity, "I will do it myself. Come with me, Louisa."

At a sign from the housekeeper, Tourtel and Margot made way. Mrs.

Poidevin would have followed her cousin, as the easiest thing to do--although she was confused by the old man's outbreak, and incapable of deciding what course she should take--when the deep vindictive baying of the dog ushered a new personage upon the scene.

This was an individual who made his appearance from the kitchen regions--a tall thin man of about thirty years of age, with a pallid skin, a dark eye and a heavy moustache. His shabby black coat and tie, with the cords and gaiters that clothed his legs, suggested a combination of sportsman and family pract.i.tioner. He wore a bowler hat, and was pulling off tan driving gloves as he advanced.

"Ah my good! Doctor Owen, but dat's you?" said Mrs. Tourtel. "But we wants you here badly. Your patient is in one of his tantrums, and no one can't do nuddin wid him. He says he shall go right away into town.

Wants to make up again wid Doctor Lelever for sure."

The new comer and Mrs. Poidevin were examining each other with the curiosity one feels on first meeting a person long known by reputation or by sight. But now she turned to the housekeeper in surprise.