Frances Waldeaux: A Novel

CHAPTER XIII

George Waldeaux hummed a tune gayly as he climbed the winding maze of streets in Vannes, one cloudy afternoon, with Lisa.

"It is impertinent to be modern Americans in this old town," he said. "We might play that we were jongleurs, and that it was still mediaeval times. I am sure the gray walls yonder and the fortress houses in this street have not changed in ages."

"Neither have the smells, apparently," said Lisa grimly. "Wrap this scarf about your throat, George. You coughed last night."

George tied up his throat. "Coughed, did I?" he said anxiously. He had had a cold last winter, and his wife with her poultices and fright had convinced him that he was a confirmed invalid. The coming of her baby had given to the woman a motherly feeling toward all of the world, even to her husband.

"Look at these women," he said, going on with his fancy presently. "I am sure that they were here wearing these black gowns and huge red aprons in the twelfth century. What is this?" he said, stopping abruptly, to a boy of six who was digging mud at the foot of an ancient ivy-covered tower.

"C'est le tour du Connetable," the child lisped. "Et v'la, monsieur!" pointing to a filthy pen with a gate of black oak; "v'la le donjon de Clisson!" "Who was Clisson?" said Lisa impatiently.

"A live man to Froissart—and to this boy," said George, laughing. "I told you that we had gone back seven centuries. This fog comes in from the Morbihan sea where Arthur and his knights went sailing to find the Holy Greal. They have not come back. And south yonder is the country of the Druids. I will take you to-morrow and show you twenty thousand of their menhirs, and then we will sail away to an island where there is an altar that the serpent worshippers built ages before Christ."

Lisa laughed. He was not often in this playful mood. She panted as she toiled up the dark little street, a step behind him, but he did not think of giving her his arm. He had grown accustomed to regard himself as the invalid now, and the one who needed care.

"I am going for letters," he called back, diving into a dingy alley. The baby and its bonne were near Lisa. The child never was out of her sight for, a moment. She waited, standing a little apart from Colette to watch whether the passers-by would notice the baby. When one or two of the gloomy and stolid women who hurried past in their wooden sabots clicked their fingers to it, she could not help smiling gayly and bidding them good-day.

The fog was stifling. As she waited she gave a tired gasp. Colette ran to her. "Madame is going to be ill!"

"No, no! Don't frighten monsieur."

George came out of the gate at the moment.

"Going to faint again, Lisa?" he said, with an annoyed glance around the street. "Your attacks do choose the most malapropos times——"

"Oh, dear no, George! I am quite well quite." She walked beside him with an airy step, laughing gayly now and then, but George's frown deepened.

"I don't understand these seizures at all," he said. "You seem to be in sound physical condition."

"Oh, all women have queer turns, George."

"Did you consult D'Abri, as I told you to do, in Paris?"

"Yes, yes! Now let us talk no more about it. I have had these—symptoms since I was a child."

"You never told me of them before we were married," he muttered.

Lisa scowled darkly at him, but she glanced at the baby and her mouth closed. Little Jacques should never hear her rage nor swear.

From an overhanging gable at the street corner looked down a roughly hewn stone Madonna. The arms of the Holy Child were outstretched to bless. Lisa paused before it, crossing herself. A strange joy filled her heart.

"I too am a mother! I too!" she said. She hurried after George and clung to his arm as they went home.

"Was there any letter?" she asked.

"Only one from Munich—Miss Vance. I haven't opened it."

"I thought your mother would write. She must have heard about the boy!"

George's face grew dark. "No, she'll not write. Nor come."

"You wish for her every day, George?" She looked at him wistfully.

"Yes, I do. She and I were comrades to a queer degree. I long for something hearty and homelike again. See here, Lisa. I'm going home before my boy begins to talk. I mean he shall grow up under wholesome American influences—not foreign."

"Not foreign," she repeated gravely. She was silent a while. "I have thought much of it all lately," she said at last. "It will be wholesome for Jacques on your farm. Horses—dogs—— Your mother will love him. She can't help it. She—I acted like a beast to that woman, George. I'll say that. She hit me hard. But she has good traits. She is not unlike my own mother."

George said nothing. God forbid that he should tell her, even by a look, that she and her mother were of a caste different from his own.

But he was bored to the soul by the difference; he was tired of her ignorances, which she showed every minute, of her ghastly, unclean knowledges—which she never showed.

They came into the courtyard of the Chateau de la Motte, the ancient castle of the Breton dukes, which is now an inn. The red sunset flamed up behind the sad little town and its gray old houses and spires massed on the hill, and the black river creeping by. George's eyes kindled at the sombre picture.

"In this very court," he said, "Constance stood when she summoned the States of Brittany to save her boy Arthur from King John."

"Oh, yes, you have read of it to me in your Shakespeare. It is one of his unpleasant stories. Come, Bebe. It grows damp."

As she climbed the stone stairway with the child, Colette lingered to gossip with the portier. "Poor lady! You will adore her! She is one of us. But she makes of that bete Anglais and the ugly child, saints and gods!"

When George presently came up to their bare little room, Lisa was singing softly, as she rocked Jacques to sleep.

"Can't you sing the boy something a bit more cheerful?" he said. "You used to know some jolly catches from the music halls."

"Catches for HIM?" with a frightened look at the child's shut eyes.

"The 'Adeste Fideles' is moral, but it is not a merry air. You sing it morning, noon, and night," he grumbled.

"Yes," she whispered, laying the child in its crib. "One never knows how much HE understands, and he may remember, I thought. Some day when he is a great boy, he may hear it and he'll think, 'My mother sang that hymn. She must have been a good woman!'"

"Nonsense, Lisa," said George kindly. "You'll teach him every day, while he is growing to be a great boy, that you are a good woman."

She said nothing, but stood on the other side of the crib looking at him.

"Well, what is it?" said George uneasily. "You look at me as if somebody were dragging you away from me."

She laughed. "What ridiculous fancies you have!" She came behind him and, drawing his head back, kissed him on the forehead. "Oh, you poor, foolish boy!" she said.

Lisa sat down to her work, which was the making of garments for Jacques out of her own gowns. She was an expert needlewoman, and had already a pile of fantastic kilts of cloth and velvet.

"Enough to last until he is ten years old," George said contemptuously. "And you will not leave a gown for yourself."

"There will be all I shall need," she said.

He turned up the lamp and opened Clara's letter.

Lisa's needle flew through the red and yellow silk. It was pleasant work; she was doing it skilfully. The fire warmed her thin blood. She could hear the baby's regular, soft breathing as it slept. A pleasure that was almost like health stole through her lean body. She leaned back in her chair looking at Jacques. In three years he could wear the velvet suit with the cap and pompon. His hair would be yellow and curly, like his father's. But his eyes would be like her mother's. She pressed her hands together, laughing, the hot tears rushing to her eyes. "Ah, maman!" she said. "Do you know that your little girl has a baby? Can you see him?"

What a superb "great boy" he would be! He should go to a military school. Yes! She lay back in her chair, watching him.

George suddenly started up with a cry of amazement.

"What is it?" she said indifferently.

He did not answer, but turned the letter and read it over again. Then he folded it with shaking fingers.

"I have news here. Miss Vance thinks it time that I was told, and I agree with her. It appears that I am a pauper, and always have been. My father died penniless."

"Then Jacques will be poor?"

"Jacques! You think of nothing but that mewling, senseless thing! It is mother—she always has supported me. We are living now on the money that she earns from week to week, while I play that I am an artist!"

Lisa listened attentively. "It does not seem strange that a mother should work for her son," she said slowly. "But she has never told us! That is fine! I like that! I told you she had very good traits."

George stared at her. "But—me! Don't you see what a cad I am?"

He paced up and down, muttering, and then throwing on his hat went out into the night to be alone.

Lisa sank back again and watched Jacques. At military school, yes; and after he had left school he would be a soldier, perhaps. Such a gallant young fellow!

She leaned over the cradle, holding out her hands. Ah, God! if she could but live to see it! Surely it might be? There was no pain now. Doctors were not infallible—even D'Abri might be mistaken, after all.

George, coming in an hour later, found her sitting with her hands covering her face.

"Are you asleep, Lisa?"

"No."

"There is a telegram from Clara. My mother has left Munich for Vannes. She will be here in two days."

She rose with an effort. "I am glad for you, George."

"You are ill, Lisa!"

"A little tired, only. Colette will give me my powder, and I shall be quite well in the morning. Will you send her to me now?"

After George was gone the rumbling of a diligence was heard in the courtyard, and presently a woman was brought up to the opposite chamber.

The hall was dark. Looking across it, Frances Waldeaux saw in the lighted room Lisa and her child.