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Bebee; Or, Two Little Wooden Shoes, a fiction by Ouida |
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CHAPTER XXII |
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_ People saw that Bebee had grown very quiet. But that was all they saw. Her little face was pale as she sat among her glowing autumn blossoms, by the side of the cobbler's stall; and when the Varnhart children cried at the gate to her to come and play, she would answer gently that she was too busy to have play-time now. The fruit girl of the Montagne de la Cour hooted after her, "Gone so soon?--oh he! what did I say?--a fine pine is sugar in the teeth a second only, but the brown nuts you may crack all the seasons round. Well, did you make good harvest while it lasted? has Jeannot a fat bridal portion promised?" And old Jehan, who was the tenderest soul of them all in the lane by the swans' water, would come and look at her wistfully as she worked among the flowers, and would say to her,-- "Dear little one, there is some trouble: does it come of that painted picture? You never laugh now, Bebee, and that is bad. A girl's laugh is pretty to hear; my girl laughed like little bells ringing--and then it stopped, all at once; they said she was dead. But you are not dead, Bebee. And yet you are so silent; one would say you were." But to the mocking of the fruit girl, as to the tenderness of old Jehan, Bebee answered nothing; the lines of her pretty curled mouth grew grave and sad, and in her eyes there was a wistful, bewildered, pathetic appeal like the look in the eyes of a beaten dog, which, while it aches with pain, does not cease to love its master. One resolve upheld and made her feet firm on the stones of the streets and her lips mute under all they said to her. She would learn all she could, and be good, and patient, and wise, if trying could make her wise, and so do his will in all things--until he should come back. "You are not gay, Bebee," said Annemie, who grew so blind that she could scarce see the flags at the mastheads, and who still thought that she pricked the lace patterns and earned her bread. "You are not gay, dear. Has any lad gone to sea that your heart goes away with, and do you watch for his ship coming in with the coasters? It is weary work waiting; but it is all the men think us fit for, child. They may set sail as they like; every new port has new faces for them; but we are to sit still and to pray if we like, and never murmur, be the voyage ever so long, but be ready with a smile and a kiss, a fresh pipe of tobacco, and a dry pair of socks;--that is a man. We may have cried our hearts out; we must have ready the pipe and the socks, or, 'Is that what you call love?' they grumble. You want mortal patience if you love a man,--it is like a fretful child that thumps you when your breast is bare to it. Still, be you patient, dear, just as I am, just as I am." And Bebee would shudder as she swept the cobwebs from the garret walls,--patient as she was, she who had sat here fifty years watching for a dead man and for a wrecked ship. _ |
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