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Marie, a novel by Laura E. Richards |
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Chapter 7. Looking Back |
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_ CHAPTER VII. LOOKING BACK
She saw little of the neighbours at first. The women looked rather askance at her, and thought her little better than a fool, even if she had contrived to make one of Jacques De Arthenay. She never seemed to understand their talk, and had a way of looking past them, as if unaware of their presence, that was disconcerting, when one thought well of oneself. But Marie was not a fool, only a child; and she did not look at the women simply because she was not thinking of them. With the children, however, it was different Marie felt that she would have a great deal to say to the children, if only she had the half of her that could talk to them. Ah, how she would speak, with Madame on her arm! What wonders she could tell them, of fairies and witches, of flowers that sang and birds that danced! But this other part of her was shy, and she did not feel that she had anything worth saying to the little ones, who looked at her with half-frightened, half-inviting eyes when they passed her door. By-and-by, however, she mustered up courage, and called one or two of them to her, and gave them flowers from her little garden. Also a pot of jam with a spoon in it proved an eloquent argument in favour of friendship; and after a while the children fell into a way of sauntering past with backward glances, and were always glad to come in when Marie knocked on the window, or came smiling to the door, with her handkerchief tied under her chin and her knitting in her hand. It was only when her husband was away that this happened; Marie would not for worlds have called a child to meet her husband's eyes, those blue eyes of which, she stood in such terror, even when she grew to love them. One little boy in particular came often, when the first shyness had worn away. He was an orphan, like Marie herself: a pretty, dark-eyed little fellow, who looked, she fancied, like the children at home in France. He did not expect her to talk and answer questions, but was content to sit, as she loved to do, gazing at the trees or the clouds that went sailing by, only now and then uttering a few quiet words that seemed in harmony with the stillness all around. I have said that Jacques De Arthenay's house lay somewhat apart from the village street. It was a pleasant house, long and low, painted white, with vines trained over the lower part. Directly opposite was a pine grove, and here Marie and her little friend loved to sit, listening to the murmur of the wind in the dark feathery branches. It was the sound of the sea, Marie told little Petie. As to how it got there, that was another matter; but it was undoubtedly the sound of the sea, for she had been at sea, and recognised it at once. "What does it say?" asked the child one day. "Of words," said Marie, "I hear not any, Petie. But it wants always somesing, do you hear? It is hongry always, and makes moans for the sorry thinks it has in its heart." "I am hungry in my stomach, not in my heart," objected Petie. But Marie nodded her head sagely. "Yes," she said. "It is that you know not the deeference, Petie, bit-ween those. To be hongry at the stomach, that is made better when you eat cakes, do you see, or _pot_atoes. But when the heart is hongry, then--ah, yes, that is ozer thing." And she nodded again, and glanced up at the attic window, and sighed. It was a long time before she spoke of her past life; but when she found that Petie had no sharp-eyed mother at home, only a deaf great-aunt who asked no questions, she began to give him little glimpses of the circus world, which filled him with awe and rapture. It was hardly a real circus, only a little strolling _troupe_, with some performing dogs, and a few trained horses and ponies, and two tight-rope dancers; then there were two other musicians, and Marie herself, besides Le Boss and his family, and Old Billy, who took care of the horses and did the dirty work. It was about the dogs that Petie liked best to hear; of the wonderful feats of Monsieur George, the great brindled greyhound, and the astonishing sagacity of Coquelicot, the poodle. "Monsieur George, he could jump over anything, yes! He was always jump, jump, all day long, to practise himself. Over our heads all, that was nothing, yet he did it always when we come in the tent, _pour saluer_, to say the how you do. But one day come in a man to see Le Boss, very tall, oh, like mountains, and on him a tall hat. And Monsieur George, he not stopped to measure with his eye, for fear he be too late with the _politesse_, and he jump, and carry away the man's hat, and knock him down and come plomp, down on him. Yes, very funny! The man got a bottle in his hat, and that break, and run all over him, and he say, oh, he say all things what you think of. But Monsieur George was so 'shamed, he go away and hide, and not for a week we see him again. Le Boss think that man poison him, and he goes to beat him; but that same day Monsieur George come back, and stop outside the tent and call us all to come out. And when we come, he run back, and say, 'Look here, what I do!' and he jump, and go clean over the tent, and not touch him wiz his foot. Yes, I saw it: very fine dog, Monsieur George! But Coquelicot, he have more thinking than Monsieur George. He very claiver, Coquelicot! Some of zem think him a witch, but I think not that. He have minds, that was all. But his legs so short, and that make him hate Monsieur George." "My legs are short," objected Petie, stretching out a pair of plump calves, "but that doesn't make me hate people." "Ah, but if you see a little boy what can walk over the roof of the house, you want the same to do it, _n'est-ce-pas_?" cried Marie. "You try, and try, and when you cannot jump, you think that not a so nize little boy as when his legs were short. So boy, so dog. Coquelicot, all his life he want to jump like Monsieur George, and all his life he cannot jump at all. You say to him, 'Coquelicot, are you foolishness? you can do feefty things and George not one of zem: you can read the letters, and find the things in the pocket, and play the ins_tru_ment, and sing the tune to make die people of laughing, yet you are not _con_tent. Let him have in peace his legs, Monsieur George, then!' But no! and every time Monsieur George come down from the great jump, Coquelicot is ready, and bite his legs so hard what he can." Petie laughed outright. "I think that's awful funny!" he said. "I say, Mis' De Arthenay, I'd like to seen him bite his legs. Did he holler?" "Monsieur George? He cry, and go to his bed. All the dogs, they afraid of Coquelicot, because he have the minds. And he, Coquelicot, he fear nossing, except Madame when she is angry." "Who was she?" asked Petie,--"a big dog?" "Ah, dog, no!" cried Marie, her face flushing. "Madame my violon, my life, my pleasure, my friend. Ah, _mon Dieu_, what friend have I?" Her breast heaved, and she broke into a wild fit of crying, forgetting the child by her side, forgetting everything in the world save the hunger at her heart for the one creature to whom she could speak, and who could speak in turn to her. Petie sat silent, frightened at the sudden storm of sobs and tears. What had he done, he wondered? At length he mustered courage to touch his friend's arm softly with his little hand. "I didn't go to do it!" he said. "Don't ye cry, Mis' De Arthenay! I don't know what I did, but I didn't go to do it, nohow." Marie turned and looked at him, and smiled through her tears. "Dear little Petie!" she said, stroking the curly head, "you done nossing, little Petie. It was the honger, no more! Oh, no more!" she caught her breath, but choked the sob back bravely, and smiled again. Something woke in her child heart, and bade her not sadden the heart of the younger child with a grief which was not his. It is one of the lessons of life, and it was well with Marie that she learned it early. "Madame, my violon," she resumed after a pause, speaking cheerfully, and wiping her eyes with her apron, "she have many voices, Petie; tousand voices, like all birds, all winds, all song in the world; and she have an angry voice, too, deep down, what make you tr-remble in your heart, if you are bad. _Bien_! Sometime Coquelicot, he been bad, very bad. He know so much, that make him able for the bad, see, like for the good. Yes! Sometime, he steal the sugar; sometime he come in when we make music, and make wiz us yells, and spoil the music; sometime he make the horreebl' faces at the poppies and make scream them with fear." "Kin poppies scream?" asked Petie, opening great eyes of wonder. "My! ourn can't. We've got big red ones, biggest ever you see, but I never heerd a sound out of 'em." Explanations ensued, and a digression in favour of the six puppies, whose noses were softer and whose tails were funnier than anything else in the known, world; and then-- "So Coquelicot, he come and he sit down before the poppies, and he open his mouth, so!" here Marie opened her pretty mouth, and tried to look like a malicious poodle,--with singular lack of success; but Petie was delighted, and clapped his hands and laughed. "And then," Marie went on, "Lisette, she is the poppies' mother, and she hear them, and she come wiz yells, too, and try to drive Coquelicot, but he take her wiz his teeth and shake her, and throw her away, and go on to make faces, and all is horreebl' noise, to wake deads. So Old Billy call me, and I come, and I go softly behind Coquelicot, and down I put me, and Madame speak in her angry voice justly in Coquelicot's ear. 'La la! tra la li la!' deep down like so, full wiz angryness, terreebl', yes! And Coquelicot he jump, oh my! oh my! never he could jump so of all his life. And the tail bit-ween his legs, and there that he run, run, as if all devils run after him. Yes, funny, Petie, vairy funny!" She laughed, and Petie laughed in violent, noisy peals, as children love to do, each gust of merriment fanning the fire for another, till all control is lost, and the little one drops into an irrepressible fit of the "giggles." So they sat under the pine-trees, the two children, and laughed, and Marie forgot the hunger at her heart; till suddenly she looked and saw her husband standing near, leaning on his rake and gazing at her with grave, uncomprehending eyes. Then the laugh froze on her lips, and she rose hastily, with the little timid smile which was all she had for Jacques (yet he was hungry too, so hungry! and knew not what ailed him!) and went to meet him; while Petie ran away through the grove, as fast as his little legs would carry him. _ |
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