Racketty-Packetty House and Other Stories (11 page)

But when she found herself face to face with him and he said some witty thing to her and seemed to find her only amusing, all her courage failed her. Sometimes she thought she would throw herself upon her knees before him and beg him to send her back to Normandy—to let her live alone in the
château
as her Aunt Clotilde had done.

One morning she arose very early, and knelt a long time before the little altar she had made for herself in her dressing room. It was only a table with some black velvet thrown over it, a crucifix, a saintly image, and some flowers standing upon it. She had put on, when she got up, the quaint black serge robe, because she felt more at home in it, and her heart was full of determination. The night before she had received a letter from the
curé
and it had contained sad news. A fever had broken out in her beloved village, the vines had done badly, there was sickness among the cattle, there was already beginning to be suffering, and if something were not done for the people they would not know how to face the winter. In the time of Mademoiselle de Rochemont they had always been made comfortable and happy at Christmas. What was to be done? The
curé
ventured to write to Mademoiselle Elizabeth.

The poor child had scarcely slept at all. Her dear village! Her dear people! The children would be hungry; the cows would die; there would be no fires to warm those who were old.

“I must go to uncle,” she said, pale and trembling. “I must ask him to give me money. I am afraid, but it is right to mortify the spirit. The martyrs went to the stake. The holy Saint Elizabeth was ready to endure anything that she might do her duty and help the poor.”

Because she had been called Elizabeth she had thought and read a great deal of the saint whose namesake she was—the saintly Elizabeth whose husband was so wicked and cruel, and who wished to prevent her from doing good deeds. And oftenest of all she had read the legend which told that one day as Elizabeth went out with a basket of food to give to the poor and hungry, she had met her savage husband, who had demanded that she should tell him what she was carrying, and when she replied, “Roses,” and he tore the cover from the basket to see if she spoke the truth, a miracle had been performed, and the basket was filled with roses, so that she had been saved from her husband's cruelty, and also from telling an untruth. To little Elizabeth this legend had been beautiful and quite real—it proved that if one were doing good, the saints would take care of one. Since she had been in her new home, she had, half consciously, compared her Uncle Bertrand with the wicked Landgrave, though she was too gentle and just to think he was really cruel, as Saint Elizabeth's husband had been, only he did not care for the poor, and loved only the world—and surely that was wicked. She had been taught that to care for the world at all was a fatal sin.

She did not eat any breakfast. She thought she would fast until she had done what she intended to do. It had been her Aunt Clotilde's habit to fast very often.

She waited anxiously to hear that her Uncle Bertrand had left his room. He always rose late, and this morning he was later than usual as he had had a long gay dinner party the night before.

It was nearly twelve before she heard his door open. Then she went quickly to the staircase. Her heart was beating so fast that she put her little hand to her side and waited a moment to regain her breath. She felt quite cold.

“Perhaps I must wait until he has eaten his breakfast,” she said. “Perhaps I must not disturb him yet. It would make him displeased. I will wait—yes, for a little while.”

She did not return to her room, but waited upon the stairs. It seemed to be a long time. It appeared that a friend breakfasted with him. She heard a gentleman come in and recognized his voice, which she had heard before. She did not know what the gentleman's name was, but she had met him going in and out with her uncle once or twice, and had thought he had a kind face and kind eyes. He had looked at her in an interested way when he spoke to her—even as if he were a little curious, and she had wondered why he did so.

When the door of the breakfast room opened and shut as the servants went in, she could hear the two laughing and talking. They seemed to be enjoying themselves very much. Once she heard an order given for the mail phaeton. They were evidently going out as soon as the meal was over.

At last the door opened and they were coming out. Elizabeth ran down the stairs and stood in a small reception room. Her heart began to beat faster than ever.

“The blessed martyrs were not afraid,” she whispered to herself.

“Uncle Bertrand!” she said, as he approached, and she scarcely knew her own faint voice. “Uncle Bertrand——”

He turned, and seeing her, started, and exclaimed, rather impatiently—evidently he was at once amazed and displeased to see her. He was in a hurry to get out, and the sight of her odd little figure, standing in its straight black robe between the
portières,
the slender hands clasped on the breast, the small pale face and great dark eyes uplifted, was certainly a surprise to him.

“Elizabeth!” he said, “what do you wish? Why do you come downstairs? And that impossible dress! Why do you wear it again? It is not suitable.”

“Uncle Bertrand,” said the child, clasping her hands still more tightly, her eyes growing larger in her excitement and terror under his displeasure, “it is that I want money—a great deal. I beg your pardon if I derange you. It is for the poor. Moreover, the cure has written the people of the village are ill—the vineyards did not yield well. They must have money. I must send them some.”

Uncle Bertrand shrugged his shoulders.

“That is the message of
monsieur le curé
, is it?” he said. “He wants money! My dear Elizabeth, I must inquire further. You have a fortune, but I cannot permit you to throw it away. You are a child, and do not understand——”

“But,” cried Elizabeth, trembling with agitation, “they are so poor when one does not help them: their vineyards are so little, and if the year is bad they must starve. Aunt Clotilde gave to them every year—even in the good years. She said they must be cared for like children.”

“That was your Aunt Clotilde's charity,” replied her uncle. “Sometimes she was not so wise as she was devout. I must know more of this. I have no time at present. I am going out of town. In a few days I will reflect upon it. Tell your maid to give that hideous garment away. Go out to drive—amuse yourself—you are too pale.”

Elizabeth looked at his handsome, careless face in utter helplessness. This was a matter of life and death to her; to him it meant nothing.

“But it is winter,” she panted, breathlessly; “there is snow. Soon it will be Christmas, and they will have nothing—no candles for the church, no little manger for the holy child, nothing for the poorest ones. And the children——”

“It shall be thought of later,” said Uncle Bertrand. “I am too busy now. Be reasonable, my child, and run away. You detain me.”

He left her with a slight impatient shrug of his shoulders and the slight amused smile on his lips. She heard him speak to his friend.

“She was brought up by one who had renounced the world,” he said, “and she has already renounced it herself—
pauvre
petite enfant!
At eleven years she wishes to devote her fortune to the poor and herself to the Church.”

Elizabeth sank back into the shadow of the
portières.
Great burning tears filled her eyes and slipped down her cheeks, falling upon her breast.

“He does not care,” she said; “he does not know. And I do no one good—no one.” And she covered her face with her hands and stood sobbing all alone.

When she returned to her room she was so pale that her maid looked at her anxiously, and spoke of it afterwards to the other servants. They were all fond of Mademoiselle Elizabeth. She was always kind and gentle to everybody.

Nearly all the day she sat, poor little saint! by her window looking out at the passers-by in the snowy street. But she scarcely saw the people at all, her thoughts were far away, in the little village where she had always spent her Christmas before. Her Aunt Clotilde had allowed her at such times to do so much. There had not been a house she had not carried some gift to; not a child who had been forgotten. And the church on Christmas morning had been so beautiful with flowers from the hot-houses of the
château.
It was for the church, indeed, that the conservatories were chiefly kept up. Mademoiselle de Rochemont would scarcely have permitted herself such luxuries.

But there would not be flowers this year, the
château
was closed; there were no longer gardeners at work, the church would be bare and cold, the people would have no gifts, there would be no pleasure in the little peasants' faces. Little Saint Elizabeth wrung her slight hands together in her lap.

“Oh,” she cried, “what can I do? And then there is the poor here—so many. And I do nothing. The Saints will be angry; they will not intercede for me. I shall be lost!”

It was not alone the poor she had left in her village who were a grief to her. As she drove through the streets she saw now and then haggard faces; and when she had questioned a servant who had one day come to her to ask for charity for a poor child at the door, she had found that in parts of this great, bright city which she had not seen, there was said to be cruel want and suffering, as in all great cities.

“And it is so cold now,” she thought, “with the snow on the ground.”

The lamps in the street were just beginning to be lighted when her Uncle Bertrand returned. It appeared that he had brought back with him the gentleman with the kind face. They were to dine together, and Uncle Bertrand desired that Mademoiselle Elizabeth should join them. Evidently the journey out of town had been delayed for a day at least. There came also another message: Monsieur de Rochemont wished Mademoiselle to send to him by her maid a certain box of antique ornaments which had been given to her by her Aunt Clotilde. Elizabeth had known less of the value of these jewels than of their beauty. She knew they were beautiful, and that they had belonged to her Aunt Clotilde in the gay days of her triumphs as a beauty and a brilliant and adored young woman, but it seemed that they were also very curious, and Monsieur de Rochemont wished his friend to see them. When Elizabeth went downstairs she found them examining them together.

“They must be put somewhere for safe keeping,” Uncle Bertrand was saying. “It should have been done before. I will attend to it.”

The gentleman with the kind eyes looked at Elizabeth with an interested expression as she came into the room. Her slender little figure in its black velvet dress, her delicate little face with its large soft sad eyes, the gentle gravity of her manner made her seem quite unlike other children.

He did not seem simply to find her amusing, as her Uncle Bertrand did. She was always conscious that behind Uncle Bertrand's most serious expression there was lurking a faint smile as he watched her, but this visitor looked at her in a different way. He was a doctor, she discovered. Dr. Norris, her uncle called him, and Elizabeth wondered if perhaps his profession had not made him quick of sight and kind.

She felt that it must be so when she heard him talk at dinner. She found that he did a great deal of work among the very poor-that he had a hospital, where he received little children who were ill—who had perhaps met with accidents, and could not be taken care of in their wretched homes. He spoke most frequently of terrible quarters, which he called Five Points; the greatest poverty and suffering was there. And he spoke of it with such eloquent sympathy, that even Uncle Bertrand began to listen with interest.

“Come,” he said, “you are a rich, idle fellow, De Rochemont, and we want rich, idle fellows to come and look into all this and do something for us. You must let me take you with me some day.”

“It would disturb me too much, my good Norris,” said Uncle Bertrand, with a slight shudder. “I should not enjoy my dinner after it.”

“Then go without your dinner,” said Dr. Norris. “These people do. You have too many dinners. Give up one.”

Uncle Bertrand shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

“It is Elizabeth who fasts,” he said. “Myself, I prefer to dine. And yet, some day, I may have the fancy to visit this place with you.”

Elizabeth could scarcely have been said to dine this evening. She could not eat. She sat with her large, sad eyes fixed upon Dr. Norris' face as he talked. Every word he uttered sank deep into her heart. The want and suffering of which he spoke were more terrible than anything she had ever heard of—it had been nothing like this in the village. Oh! no, no. As she thought of it there was such a look in her dark eyes as almost startled Dr. Norris several times when he glanced at her, but as he did not know the particulars of her life with her aunt and the strange training she had had, he could not possibly have guessed what was going on in her mind, and how much effect his stories were having. The beautiful little face touched him very much, and the pretty French accent with which the child spoke seemed very musical to him, and added a great charm to the gentle, serious answers she made to the remarks he addressed to her. He could not help seeing that something had made little Mademoiselle Elizabeth a pathetic and singular little creature, and he continually wondered what it was.

“Do you think she is a happy child?” he asked Monsieur de Rochemont when they were alone together over their cigars and wine.

“Happy?” said Uncle Bertrand, with his light smile. “She has been taught, my friend, that to be happy upon earth is a crime. That was my good sister's creed. One must devote one's self, not to happiness, but entirely to good works. I think I have told you that she, this little one, desires to give all her fortune to the poor. Having heard you this evening, she will wish to bestow it upon your Five Points.”