Rose A Charlitte Part 41

Bidiane glanced at the cool white cottage against its green background.

"Why, it is like a tiny Grand Trianon!"

"An' what's that?"

"It is a villa near Paris, a very fine one, built in the form of a horseshoe."

"Yes,--that's what we call it," interrupted her aunt. "We ain't blind.

We say the horseshoe cottage."

"One of the kings of France had the Grand Trianon built for a woman he loved," said Bidiane, reverently. "I think Mr. Nimmo must have sent the plan for this from Paris,--but he never spoke to me about it."

"He is not a man who tells all," said Claudine, in French.

Bidiane and Mirabelle Marie had been speaking English, but they now reverted to their own language.

"When do you have lunch?" asked Bidiane.

"Lunch,--what's that?" asked her aunt. "We have dinner soon."

"And I must descend," said Claudine, hurrying down-stairs. "I smell something burning."

Bidiane was about to follow her, when there was a clattering heard on the stairway.

"It's the young ones," cried Mirabelle Marie, joyfully. "Some fool has told 'em. They'll wring your neck like the blowpipe of a chicken."

The next minute two noisy, rough, yet slightly shy boys had taken possession of their returned cousin and were leading her about the inn in triumph.

Mirabelle Marie tried to keep up with them, but could not succeed in doing so. She was too excited to keep still, too happy to work, so she kept on waddling from one room to another, to the stable, the garden, and even to the corner,--to every spot where she could catch a glimpse of the tail of Bidiane's gown, or the heels of her twinkling shoes. The girl was indefatigable; she wished to see everything at once. She would wear herself out.

Two hours after lunch she announced her determination to call on Rose.

"I'll skip along, too," said her aunt, promptly.

"I wish to be quite alone when I first see this wonderful woman," said Bidiane.

"But why is she wonderful?" asked Mirabelle Marie.

Bidiane did not hear her. She had flitted out to the veranda, wrapping a scarf around her shoulders as she went. While her aunt stood gazing longingly after her, she tripped up the village street, enjoying immensely the impression she created among the women and children, who ran to the doorways and windows to see her pa.s.s.

There were no houses along the cutting in the hill through which the road led to the sullen stream of Sleeping Water. Rose's house stood quite alone, and at some distance from the street, its gleaming, freshly painted front towards the river, its curved back against a row of pine-trees.

It was very quiet. There was not a creature stirring, and the warm July suns.h.i.+ne lay languidly on some deserted chairs about a table on the lawn.

Bidiane went slowly up to the hall door and rang the bell.

Rosy-cheeked Celina soon stood before her; and smiling a welcome, for she knew very well who the visitor was, she gently opened the door of a long, narrow blue and white room on the right side of the hall.

Bidiane paused on the threshold. This dainty, exquisite apartment, furnished so simply, and yet so elegantly, had not been planned by an architect or furnished by a decorator of the Bay. This bric-a-brac, too, was not Acadien, but Parisian. Ah, how much Mr. Nimmo loved Rose a Charlitte! and she drew a long breath and gazed with girlish and fascinated awe at the tall, beautiful woman who rose from a low seat, and slowly approached her.

Rose was about to address her, but Bidiane put up a protesting hand.

"Don't speak to me for a minute," she said, breathlessly. "I want to look at you."

Rose smiled indulgently, and Bidiane gazed on. She felt herself to be a dove, a messenger sent from a faithful lover to the woman he wors.h.i.+pped.

What a high and holy mission was hers! She trembled blissfully, then, one by one, she examined the features of this Acadien beauty, whose quiet life had kept her from fading or withering in the slightest degree. She was, indeed, "a rose of dawn."

These were the words written below the large painting of her that hung in Mr. Nimmo's room. She must tell Rose about it, although of course the picture and the inscription must be perfectly familiar to her, through Mr. Nimmo's descriptions.

"Madame de Foret," she said at last, "it is really you. Oh, how I have longed to see you! I could scarcely wait."

"Won't you sit down?" said her hostess, just a trifle shyly.

Bidiane dropped into a chair. "I have teased Mrs. Nimmo with questions.

I have said again and again, 'What is she like?'--but I never could tell from what she said. I had only the picture to go by."

"The picture?" said Rose, slightly raising her eyebrows.

"Your painting, you know, that is over Mr. Nimmo's writing-table."

"Does he have one of me?" asked Rose, quietly.

"Yes, yes,--an immense one. As broad as that,"--and she stretched out her arms. "It was enlarged from a photograph."

"Ah! when he was here I missed a photograph one day from my alb.u.m, but I did not know that he had taken it. However, I suspected."

"But does he not write you everything?"

"You only are my kind little correspondent,--with, of course, Narcisse."

"Really, I thought that he wrote everything to you. Dear Madame de Foret, may I speak freely to you?"

"As freely as you wish, my dear child."

Bidiane burst into a flood of conversation. "I think it is so romantic,--his devotion to you. He does not talk of it, but I can't help knowing, because Mrs. Nimmo talks to me about it when she gets too worked up to keep still. She really loves you, Madame de Foret. She wishes that you would allow her son to marry you. If you only knew how much she admires you, I am sure you would put aside your objection to her son."

Rose for a few minutes seemed lost in thought, then she said, "Does Mrs.

Nimmo think that I do not care for her son?"

"No, she says she thinks you care for him, but there is some objection in your mind that you cannot get over, and she cannot imagine what it is."

"Dear little mademoiselle, I will also speak freely to you, for it is well for you to understand, and I feel that you are a good friend, because I have received so many letters from you. It is impossible that I should marry Mr. Nimmo, therefore we will not speak of it, if you please. There is an obstacle,--he knows and agrees to it. Years ago, I thought some day this obstacle might be taken away. Now, I think it is the will of our Lord that it remain, and I am content."

"Oh, oh!" said Bidiane, wrinkling her face as if she were about to cry, "I cannot bear to hear you say this."

Rose smiled gently. "When you are older, as old as I am, you will understand that marriage is not the chief thing in life. It is good, yet one can be happy without. One can be pushed quietly further and further apart from another soul. At first, one cries out, one thinks that the parting will kill, but it is often the best thing for the two souls. I tell you this because I love you, and because I know Mr. Nimmo has taken much care in your training, and wishes me to be an elder sister. Do not seek sorrow, little one, but do not try to run from it. This dear, dear man that you speak of, was a divine being, a saint to me. I did wrong to wors.h.i.+p him. To separate from me was a good thing for him. He is now more what I then thought him, than he was at the time. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes," said Bidiane, breaking into tears, and impulsively throwing herself on her knees beside her, "but you dash my pet scheme to pieces.

I wish to see you two united. I thought perhaps if I told you that, although no one knows it but his mother, he just wor--wor--s.h.i.+ps you--"