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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:12 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:12 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13912-0.txt b/13912-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37394db --- /dev/null +++ b/13912-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6273 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13912 *** + +BÉBÉE + +Or, Two Little Wooden Shoes + +by + +LOUISA DE LA RAMÉE ("OUIDA") + +1896 + + + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Bébée sprang out of bed at daybreak. She was sixteen. + +It seemed a very wonderful thing to be as much as that--sixteen--a woman +quite. + +A cock was crowing under her lattice. He said how old you are!--how old +you are! every time that he sounded his clarion. + +She opened the lattice and wished him good day, with a laugh. It was so +pleasant to be woke by him, and to think that no one in all the world +could ever call one a child any more. + +There was a kid bleating in the shed. There was a thrush singing in the +dusk of the sycamore leaves. There was a calf lowing to its mother away +there beyond the fence. There were dreamy muffled bells ringing in the +distance from many steeples and belfries where the city was; they all +said one thing, "How good it is to be so old as that--how good, how very +good!" + +Bébée was very pretty. + +No one in all Brabant ever denied that. To look at her it seemed as if +she had so lived among the flowers that she had grown like them, and only +looked a bigger blossom--that was all. + +She wore two little wooden shoes and a little cotton cap, and a gray +kirtle--linen in summer, serge in winter; but the little feet in the +shoes were like rose leaves, and the cap was as white as a lily, and the +gray kirtle was like the bark of the bough that the apple-blossom parts, +and peeps out of, to blush in the sun. + +The flowers had been the only godmothers that she had ever had, and fairy +godmothers too. + +The marigolds and the sunflowers had given her their ripe, rich gold to +tint her hair; the lupins and irises had lent their azure to her eyes; +the moss-rosebuds had made her pretty mouth; the arum lilies had uncurled +their softness for her skin; and the lime-blossoms had given her their +frank, fresh, innocent fragrance. + +The winds had blown, and the rains had rained, and the sun had shone on +her, indeed, and had warmed the whiteness of her limbs, but they had only +given to her body and her soul a hardy, breeze-blown freshness like that +of a field cowslip. + +She had never been called anything but Bébée. + +One summer day Antoine Mäes--a French subject, but a Belgian by adoption +and habit, an old man who got his meagre living by tilling the garden +plot about his hut and selling flowers in the city squares--Antoine, +going into Brussels for his day's trade, had seen a gray bundle floating +among the water-lilies in the bit of water near his hut and had hooked +it out to land, and found a year-old child in it, left to drown, no +doubt, but saved by the lilies, and laughing gleefully at fate. + +Some lace-worker, blind with the pain of toil, or some peasant woman +harder of heart than the oxen in her yoke, had left it there to drift +away to death, not reckoning for the inward ripple of the current or the +toughness of the lily leaves and stems. + +Old Antoine took it to his wife, and the wife, a childless and aged soul, +begged leave to keep it; and the two poor lonely, simple folks grew to +care for the homeless, motherless thing, and they and the people about +all called it Bébée--only Bébée. + +The church got at it and added to it a saint's name; but for all its +little world it remained Bébée--Bébée when it trotted no higher than +the red carnation heads;--Bébée when its yellow curls touched as high as +the lavender-bush;--Bébée on this proud day when the thrush's song and +the cock's crow found her sixteen years old. + +Old Antoine's hut stood in a little patch of garden ground with a brier +hedge all round it, in that byway which lies between Laeken and Brussels, +in the heart of flat, green Brabant, where there are beautiful meadows +and tall, flowering hedges, and forest trees, and fern-filled ditches, +and a little piece of water, deep and cool, where the swans sail all day +long, and the silvery willows dip and sway with the wind. + +Turn aside from the highway, and there it lies to-day, and all the place +brims over with grass, and boughs, and blossoms, and flowering beans, and +wild dog-roses; and there are a few cottages and cabins there near the +pretty water, and farther there is an old church, sacred to St. Guido; +and beyond go the green level country and the endless wheat-fields, and +the old mills with their red sails against the sun; and beyond all these +the pale blue, sea-like horizon of the plains of Flanders. + +It was a pretty little hut, pink all over like a sea-shell, in the +fashion that the Netherlanders love; and its two little square lattices +were dark with creeping plants and big rose-bushes, and its roof, so low +that you could touch it, was golden and green with all the lichens and +stoneworts that are known on earth. + +Here Bébée grew from year to year; and soon learned to be big enough and +hardy enough to tie up bunches of stocks and pinks for the market, and +then to carry a basket for herself, trotting by Antoine's side along the +green roadway and into the white, wide streets; and in the market the +buyers--most often of all when they were young mothers--would seek out +the little golden head and the beautiful frank blue eyes, and buy Bébée's +lilies and carnations whether they wanted them or not. So that old Mäes +used to cross himself and say that, thanks to Our Lady, trade was thrice +as stirring since the little one had stretched out her rosy fingers with +the flowers. + +All the same, however stirring trade might be in summer, when the long +winters came and the Montagne de la Cour was a sharp slope of ice, and +the pinnacles of St. Gudule were all frosted white with snow, and the +hot-house flowers alone could fill the market, and the country gardens +were bitter black wind-swept desolations where the chilly roots huddled +themselves together underground like homeless children in a cellar,--then +the money gained in the time of leaf and blossom was all needed to buy a +black loaf and fagot of wood; and many a day in the little pink hut Bébée +rolled herself up in her bed like a dormouse, to forget in sleep that she +was supperless and as cold as a frozen robin. + +So that when Antoine Mäes grew sick and died, more from age and weakness +than any real disease, there were only a few silver crowns in the brown +jug hidden in the thatch; and the hut itself, with its patch of ground, +was all that he could leave to Bébée. + +"Live in it, little one, and take nobody in it to worry you, and be good +to the bird and the goat, and be sure to keep the flowers blowing," said +the old man with his last breath; and sobbing her heart out by his +bedside, Bébée vowed to do his bidding. + +She was not quite fourteen then, and when she had laid her old friend to +rest in the rough green graveyard about St. Guido, she was very sorrowful +and lonely, poor little, bright Bébée, who had never hardly known a worse +woe than to run the thorns of the roses into her fingers, or to cry +because a thrush was found starved to death in the snow. + +Bébée went home, and sat down in a corner and thought. + +The hut was her own, and her own the little green triangle just then +crowded with its Mayday blossom in all the colors of the rainbow. She was +to live in it, and never let the flowers die, so he had said; good, rough +old ugly Antoine Mäes, who had been to her as father, mother, country, +king, and law. + +The sun was shining. + +Through the little square of the lattice she could see the great tulips +opening in the grass and a bough of the apple-tree swaying in the wind. A +chaffinch clung to the bough, and swung to and fro singing. The door +stood open, with the broad, bright day beaming through; and Bébée's +little world came streaming in with it,--the world which dwelt in the +half-dozen cottages that fringed this green lane of hers like beavers' +nests pushed out under the leaves on to the water's edge. + +They came in, six or eight of them, all women; trim, clean, plain Brabant +peasants, hard-working, kindly of nature, and shrewd in their own simple +matters; people who labored in the fields all the day long, or worked +themselves blind over the lace pillows in the city. + +"You are too young to live alone, Bébée," said the first of them. "My old +mother shall come and keep house for you." + +"Nay, better come and live with me, Bébée," said the second. "I will give +you bit and drop, and clothing, too, for the right to your plot of +ground." + +"That is to cheat her," said the third. "Hark, here, Bébée: my sister, +who is a lone woman, as you know well, shall come and bide with you, and +ask you nothing--nothing at all--only you shall just give her a crust, +perhaps, and a few flowers to sell sometimes." + +"No, no," said the fourth; "that will not do. You let me have the garden +and the hut, Bébée, and my sons shall till the place for you; and I will +live with you myself, and leave the boys the cabin, so you will have all +the gain, do you not see, dear little one?" + +"Pooh!" said the fifth, stouter and better clothed than the rest. "You +are all eager for your own good, not for hers. Now I--Father Francis says +we should all do as we would be done by--I will take Bébée to live with +me, all for nothing; and we will root the flowers up and plant it with +good cabbages and potatoes and salad plants. And I will stable my cows in +the hut to sweeten it after a dead man, and I will take my chance of +making money out of it, and no one can speak more fair than that when one +sees what weather is, and thinks what insects do; and all the year round, +winter and summer, Bébée here will want for nothing, and have to take no +care for herself whatever." + +She who spoke, Mère Krebs, was the best-to-do woman in the little lane, +having two cows of her own and ear-rings of solid silver, and a green +cart, and a big dog that took the milk into Brussels. She was heard, +therefore, with respect, and a short silence followed her words. + +But it was very short; and a hubbub of voices crossed each other after it +as the speakers grew hotter against one another and more eager to +convince each other of the disinterestedness and delicacy of their offers +of aid. + +Through it all Bébée sat quite quiet on the edge of the little +truckle-bed, with her eyes fixed on the apple bough and the singing +chaffinch. + +She heard them all patiently. + +They were all her good friends, friends old and true. This one had given +her cherries for many a summer. That other had bought her a little waxen +Jesus at the Kermesse. The old woman in the blue linen skirt had taken +her to her first communion. She who wanted her sister to have the crust +and the flowers, had brought her a beautiful painted book of hours that +had cost a whole franc. Another had given her the solitary wonder, +travel, and foreign feast of her whole life,--a day fifteen miles away at +the fair at Mechlin. The last speaker of all had danced her on her knee a +hundred times in babyhood, and told her legends, and let her ride in the +green cart behind big curly-coated Tambour. + +Bébée did not doubt that these trusty old friends meant well by her, and +yet a certain heavy sense fell on her that in all these counsels there +was not the same whole-hearted and frank goodness that had prompted the +gifts to her of the waxen Jesus, and the Kermesse of Mechlin. + +Bébée did not reason, because she was too little a thing and too +trustful; but she felt, in a vague, sorrowful fashion, that they were all +of them trying to make some benefit out of her poor little heritage, with +small regard for herself at the root of their speculations. + +Bébée was a child, wholly a child; body and soul were both as fresh in +her as a golden crocus just born out of the snows. But she was not a +little fool, though people sometimes called her so because she would sit +in the moments of her leisure with her blue eyes on the far-away clouds +like a thing in a dream. + +She heard them patiently till the cackle of shrill voices had exhausted +itself, and the six women stood on the sunny mud floor of the hut eyeing +each other with venomous glances; for though they were good neighbors at +all times, each, in this matter, was hungry for the advantages to be got +out of old Antoine's plot of ground. They were very poor; they toiled in +the scorched or frozen fields all weathers, or spent from dawn to +nightfall poring over their cobweb lace; and to save a son or gain a +cabbage was of moment to them only second to the keeping of their souls +secure of heaven by Lenten mass and Easter psalm. + +Bébée listened to them all, and the tears dried on her cheeks, and her +pretty rosebud lips curled close in one another. + +"You are very good, no doubt, all of you," she said at last. "But I +cannot tell you that I am thankful, for my heart is like a stone, and I +think it is not so very much for me as it is for the hut that you are +speaking. Perhaps it is wrong in me to say so; yes, I am wrong, I am +sure,--you are all kind, and I am only Bébée. But you see he told me to +live here and take care of the flowers, and I must do it, that is +certain. I will ask Father Francis, if you wish: but if he tells me I am +wrong, as you do. I shall stay here all the same." + +And in answer to their expostulations and condemnation, she only said the +same thing over again always, in different words, but to the same +steadfast purpose. The women clamored about her for an hour in reproach +and rebuke; she was a baby indeed, she was a little fool, she was a +naughty, obstinate child, she was an ungrateful, wilful little creature, +who ought to be beaten till she was blue, if only there was anybody that +had the right to do it! + +"But there is nobody that has the right," said Bébée, getting angry and +standing upright on the floor, with Antoine's old gray cat in her round +arms. "He told me to stay here, and he would not have said so if it had +been wrong; and I am old enough to do for myself, and I am not afraid, +and who is there that would hurt me? Oh, yes; go and tell Father Francis, +if you like! I do not believe he will blame me, but if he do, I must bear +it. Even if he shut the church door on me, I will obey Antoine, and the +flowers will know I am right, and they will let no evil spirits touch me, +for the flowers are strong for that; they talk to the angels in the +night." + +What use was it to argue with a little idiot like this? Indeed, peasants +never do argue; they use abuse. + +It is their only form of logic. + +They used it to Bébée, rating her soundly, as became people who were old +enough to be her grandmothers, and who knew that she had been raked out +of their own pond, and had no more real place in creation than a water +rat, as one might say. + +The women were kindly, and had never thrown this truth against her +before, and in fact, to be a foundling was no sort of disgrace to their +sight; but anger is like wine, and makes the depths of the mind shine +clear, and all the mud that is in the depths stink in the light; and in +their wrath at not sharing Antoine's legacy, the good souls said bitter +things that in calm moments they would no more have uttered than they +would have taken up a knife to slit her throat. + +They talked themselves hoarse with impatience and chagrin, and went +backwards over the threshold, their wooden shoes and their shrill voices +keeping a clattering chorus. By this time it was evening; the sun had +gone off the floor, and the bird had done singing. + +Bébée stood in the same place, hardening her little heart, whilst big and +bitter tears swelled into her eyes, and fell on the soft fur of the +sleeping cat. + +She only very vaguely understood why it was in any sense shameful to have +been raked out of the water-lilies like a drowning field mouse, as they +had said it was. + +She and Antoine had often talked of that summer morning when he had found +her there among the leaves, and Bébée and he had laughed over it gayly, +and she had been quite proud in her innocent fashion that she had had a +fairy and the flowers for her mother and godmothers, which Antoine always +told her was the case beyond any manner of doubt. Even Father Francis, +hearing the pretty harmless fiction, had never deemed it his duty to +disturb her pleasure in it, being a good, cheerful old man, who thought +that woe and wisdom both come soon enough to bow young shoulders and +to silver young curls without his interference. + +Bébée had always thought it quite a fine thing to have been born of +water-lilies, with the sun for her father, and when people in Brussels +had asked her of her parentage, seeing her stand in the market with a +certain look on her that was not like other children, had always gravely +answered in the purest good faith,-- + +"My mother was a flower." + +"You are a flower, at any rate," they would say in return; and Bébée had +been always quite content. + +But now she was doubtful; she was rather perplexed than sorrowful. + +These good friends of hers seemed to see some new sin about her. Perhaps, +after all, thought Bébée, it might have been better to have had a human +mother who would have taken care of her now that old Antoine was dead, +instead of those beautiful, gleaming, cold water-lilies which went to +sleep on their green velvet beds, and did not certainly care when the +thorns ran into her fingers, or the pebbles got in her wooden shoes. + +In some vague way, disgrace and envy--the twin Discords of the +world--touched her innocent cheek with their hot breath, and as the +evening fell, Bébée felt very lonely and a little wistful. + +She had been always used to run out in the pleasant twilight-time among +the flowers and water them, Antoine filling the can from the well; and +the neighbors would come and lean against the little low wall, knitting +and gossiping; and the big dogs, released from harness, would poke their +heads through the wicket for a crust; and the children would dance and +play Colin Maillard on the green by the water; and she, when the flowers +were no longer thirsted, would join them, and romp and dance and sing the +gayest of them all. + +But now the buckets hung at the bottom of the well, and the flowers +hungered in vain, and the neighbors held aloof, and she shut to the hut +door and listened to the rain which began to fall, and cried herself to +sleep all alone in her tiny kingdom. + +When the dawn came the sun rose red and warm; the grass and boughs +sparkled; a lark sang; Bébée awoke sad in heart, indeed, for her lost old +friend, but brighter and braver. + +"Each of them wants to get something out of me," thought the child. +"Well, I will live alone, then, and do my duty, just as he said. The +flowers will never let any real harm come, though they do look so +indifferent and smiling sometimes, and though not one of them hung their +heads when his coffin was carried through them yesterday." + +That want of sympathy in the flower troubled her. + +The old man had loved them so well; and they had all looked as glad as +ever, and had laughed saucily in the sun, and not even a rosebud turned +the paler as the poor still stiffened limbs went by in the wooden shell. + +"I suppose God cares; but I wish they did." said Bébée, to whom the +garden was more intelligible than Providence. + +"Why do you not care?" she asked the pinks, shaking the raindrops off +their curled rosy petals. + +The pinks leaned lazily against their sticks, and seemed to say, "Why +should we care for anything, unless a slug be eating us?--_that_ is +real woe, if you like." + +Bébée, without her sabots on, wandered thoughtfully among the sweet wet +sunlightened labyrinths of blossom, her pretty bare feet treading the +narrow grassy paths with pleasure in their coolness. + +"He was so good to you!" she said reproachfully to the great gaudy +gillyflowers and the painted sweet-peas. "He never let you know heat or +cold, he never let the worm gnaw or the snail harm you; he would get up +in the dark to see after your wants; and when the ice froze over you, he +was there to loosen your chains. Why do you not care, anyone of you?" + +"How silly you are!" said the flowers. "You must be a butterfly or a +poet, Bébée, to be as foolish as that. Some one will do all he did. We +are of market value, you know. Care, indeed! when the sun is so warm, and +there is not an earwig in the place to trouble us." + +The flowers were not always so selfish as this; and perhaps the sorrow in +Bébée's heart made their callousness seem harder than it really was. + +When we suffer very much ourselves, anything that smiles in the sun seems +cruel--a child, a bird, a dragon-fly--nay, even a fluttering ribbon, or a +spear-grass that waves in the wind. + +There was a little shrine at the corner of the garden, set into the wall; +a niche with a bit of glass and a picture of the Virgin, so battered that +no one could trace any feature of it. + +It had been there for centuries, and was held in great veneration; and +old Antoine had always cut the choicest buds of his roses and set them in +a delf pot in front of it, every other morning all the summer long. +Bébée, whose religion was the sweetest, vaguest mingling of Pagan and +Christian myths, and whose faith in fairies and in saints was exactly +equal in strength and in ignorance,--Bébée filled the delf pot anew +carefully, then knelt down on the turf in that little green corner, and +prayed in devout hopeful childish good faith to the awful unknown Powers +who were to her only as gentle guides and kindly playmates. + +Was she too familiar with the Holy Mother? + +She was almost fearful that she was; but then the Holy Mother loved +flowers so well, Bébée would not feel aloof from her, nor be afraid. + +"When one cuts the best blossoms for her, and tries to be good, and never +tells a lie," thought Bébée, "I am quite sure, as she loves the lilies, +that she will never altogether forget me." + +So she said to the Mother of Christ fearlessly, and nothing doubting; and +then rose for her daily work of cutting the flowers for the market in +Brussels. + +By the time her baskets were full, her fowls fed, her goat foddered, her +starling's cage cleaned, her hut door locked, and her wooden shoes +clattering on the sunny road into the city, Bébée was almost content +again, though ever and again, as she trod the familiar ways, the tears +dimmed her eyes as she remembered that old Antoine would never again +hobble over the stones beside her. + +"You are a little wilful one, and too young to live alone," said Father +Francis, meeting her in the lane. + +But he did not scold her seriously, and she kept to her resolve; and the +women, who were good at heart, took her back into favor again; and so +Bébée had her own way, and the fairies, or the saints, or both together, +took care of her; and so it came to pass that all alone she heard the +cock crow whilst it was dark, and woke to the grand and amazing truth +that this warm, fragrant, dusky June morning found her full sixteen years +old. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The two years had not been all playtime any more than they had been all +summer. + +When one has not father, or mother, or brother, and all one's friends +have barely bread enough for themselves, life cannot be very easy, nor +its crusts very many at any time. + +Bébée had a cherub's mouth, and a dreamer's eyes, and a poet's thoughts +sometimes in her own untaught and unconscious fashion. + +But all the same she was a little hard-working Brabant peasant girl; +up whilst the birds twittered in the dark; to bed when the red sun +sank beyond the far blue line of the plains; she hoed, and dug, and +watered, and planted her little plot; she kept her cabin as clean as +a fresh-blossomed primrose; she milked her goat and swept her floor; she +sat, all the warm days, in the town, selling her flowers, and in the +winter time, when her garden yielded her nothing, she strained her sight +over lace-making in the city to get the small bit of food that stood +between her and that hunger which to the poor means death. + +A hard life; very hard when hail and snow made the streets of Brussels +like slopes of ice; a little hard even in the gay summer time when she +sat under the awning fronting the Maison du Roi; but all the time the +child throve on it, and was happy, and dreamed of many graceful and +gracious things whilst she was weeding among her lilies, or tracing the +threads to and fro on her lace pillow. + +Now--when she woke to the full sense of her wonderful sixteen +years--Bébée, standing barefoot on the mud floor, was as pretty a sight +as was to be seen betwixt Scheldt and Rhine. + +The sun had only left a soft warmth like an apricot's on her white skin. +Her limbs, though strong as a mountain pony's, were slender and well +shaped. Her hair curled in shiny crumpled masses, and tumbled about her +shoulders. Her pretty round plump little breast was white as the lilies +in the grass without, and in this blooming time of her little life, +Bébée, in her way, was beautiful as a peach-bloom is beautiful, and her +innocent, courageous, happy eyes had dreams in them underneath their +laughter, dreams that went farther than the green woods of Laeken, +farther even than the white clouds of summer. + +She could not move among them idly as poets and girls love to do; she had +to be active amidst them, else drought and rain, and worm and snail, and +blight and frost, would have made havoc of their fairest hopes. + +The loveliest love is that which dreams high above all storms, unsoiled +by all burdens; but perhaps the strongest love is that which, whilst it +adores, drags its feet through mire, and burns its brow in heat, for the +thing beloved. + +So Bébée dreamed in her garden; but all the time for sake of it hoed and +dug, and hurt her hands, and tired her limbs, and bowed her shoulders +under the great metal pails from the well. + +This wondrous morning, with the bright burden of her sixteen years upon +her, she dressed herself quickly and fed her fowls, and, happy as a bird, +went to sit on her little wooden stool in the doorway. + +There had been fresh rain in the night: the garden was radiant; the smell +of the wet earth was sweeter than all perfumes that are burned in +palaces. + +The dripping rosebuds nodded against her hair as she went out; the +starling called to her, "Bébée, Bébée--bonjour, bonjour." These were all +the words it knew. It said the same words a thousand times a week. But +to Bébée it seemed that the starling most certainly knew that she was +sixteen years old that day. + +Breaking her bread into the milk, she sat in the dawn and thought, +without knowing that she thought it, "How good it is to live when one +is young!" + +Old people say the same thing often, but they sigh when they say it. +Bébée smiled. + +Mère Krebs opened her door in the next cottage, and nodded over the wall. + +"What a fine thing to be sixteen!--a merry year, Bébée." + +Marthe, the carpenter's wife, came out from her gate, broom in hand. + +"The Holy Saints keep you, Bébée; why, you are quite a woman now!" + +The little children of Varnhart, the charcoal-burner, who were as poor as +any mouse in the old churches, rushed out of their little home up the +lane, bringing with them a cake stuck full of sugar and seeds, and tied +round with a blue ribbon, that their mother had made that very week, all +in her honor. + +"Only see, Bébée! Such a grand cake!" they shouted, dancing down the +lane. "Jules picked the plums, and Jeanne washed the almonds, and +Christine took the ribbon off her own communion cap, all for you--all for +you; but you will let us come and eat it too?" + +Old Gran'mère Bishot, who was the oldest woman about Laeken, hobbled +through the grass on her crutches and nodded her white shaking head, and +smiled at Bébée. + +"I have nothing to give you, little one, except my blessing, if you care +for that." + +Bébée ran out, breaking from the children, and knelt down in the wet +grass, and bent her pretty sunny head to the benediction. + +Trine, the miller's wife, the richest woman of them all, called to the +child from the steps of the mill,--' + +"A merry year, and the blessing of Heaven, Bébée! Come up, and here is my +first dish of cherries for you; not tasted one myself; they will make you +a feast with Varnhart's cake, though she should have known better, so +poor as she is. Charity begins at home, and these children's stomachs are +empty." + +Bébée ran up and then down again gleefully, with her lapful of big black +cherries; Tambour, the old white dog, who had used to drag her about in +his milk cart, leaping on her in sympathy and congratulation. + +"What a supper we will have!" she cried to the charcoal-burner's +children, who were turning somersaults in the dock leaves, while the +swans stared and hissed. + +When one is sixteen, cherries and a cake have a flavor of Paradise still, +especially when they are tasted twice, or thrice at most, in all the +year. + +An old man called to her as she went by his door. All these little cabins +lie close together, with only their apple-trees, or their tall beans, or +their hedges of thorn between them; you may ride by and never notice them +if you do not look for them under the leaves closely, as you would for +thrushes' nests. + +He, too, was very old; a lifelong neighbor and gossip of Antoine's; he +had been a day laborer in these same fields all his years, and had never +travelled farther than where the red mill-sails turned among the colza +and the corn. + +"Come in, my pretty one, for a second," he whispered, with an air of +mystery that made Bébée's heart quicken with expectancy. "Come in; I have +something for you. They were my dead daughter's--you have heard me talk +of her--Lisette, who died forty year or more ago, they say; for me I +think it was yesterday. Mère Krebs--she is a hard woman--heard me talking +of my girl. She burst out laughing, 'Lord's sake, fool, why, your girl +would be sixty now an she had lived.' Well, so it may be; you see, the +new mill was put up the week she died, and you call the new mill old; +but, my girl, she is young to me. Always young. Come here, Bébée." + +Bébée went after him a little awed, into the dusky interior, that smelt +of stored apples and of dried herbs that hung from the roof. There was a +walnut-wood press, such as the peasants of France and the low countries +keep their homespun linen in and their old lace that serves for the +nuptials and baptisms of half a score of generations. + +The old man unlocked it with a trembling hand, and there came from it an +odor of dead lavender and of withered rose leaves. + +On the shelves there were a girl's set of clothes, and a girl's sabots, +and a girl's communion veil and wreath. + +"They are all hers," he whispered,--"all hers. And sometimes in the +evening time I see her coming along the lane for them--do you not know? +There is nothing changed; nothing changed; the grass, and the trees, and +the huts, and the pond are all here; why should she only be gone away?" + +"Antoine is gone." + +"Yes. But he was old; my girl is young." + +He stood a moment, with the press door open, a perplexed trouble in his +dim eyes; the divine faith of love and the mule-like stupidity of +ignorance made him cling to this one thought without power of judgment in +it. + +"They say she would be sixty," he said, with a little dreary smile. "But +that is absurd, you know. Why, she had cheeks like yours, and she would +run--no lapwing could fly faster over corn. These are her things, you +see; yes--all of them. That is the sprig of sweetbrier she wore in her +belt the day before the wagon knocked her down and killed her. I have +never touched the things. But look here, Bébée, you are a good child and +true, and like her just a little. I mean to give you her silver clasps. +They were her great-great-great-grandmother's before her. God knows how +old they are not. And a girl should have some little wealth of that sort; +and for Antoine's sake--" + +The old man stayed behind, closing the press door upon the +lavender-scented clothes, and sitting down in the dull shadow of the hut +to think of his daughter, dead forty summers and more. + +Bébée went out with the brave broad silver clasps about her waist, and +the tears wet on her cheeks for a grief not her own. + +To be killed just when one was young, and was loved liked that, and +all the world was in its May-day flower! The silver felt cold to her +touch--as cold as though it were the dead girl's hands that held her. + +The garlands that the children strung of daisies and hung about her had +never chilled her so. + +But little Jeanne, the youngest of the charcoal-burner's little tribe, +running to meet her, screamed with glee, and danced in the gay morning. + +"Oh, Bébée! how you glitter! Did the Virgin send you that off her own +altar? Let me see--let me touch! Is it made of the stars or of the sun?" + +And Bébée danced with the child, and the silver gleamed and sparkled, and +all the people came running out to see, and the milk carts were half an +hour later for town, and the hens cackled loud unfed, and the men even +stopped on their way to the fields and paused, with their scythes on +their shoulders, to stare at the splendid gift. + +"There is not such another set of clasps in Brabant; old work you could +make a fortune of in the curiosity shops in the Montagne," said Trine +Krebs, going up the steps of her mill house. "But, all the same, you +know, Bébée, things off a dead body bring mischance sometimes." + +But Bébée danced with the child, and did not hear. + +Whose fête day had ever begun like this one of hers? + +She was a little poet at heart, and should not have cared for such +vanities; but when one is only sixteen, and has only a little rough +woollen frock, and sits in the market place or the lace-room, with other +girls around, how should one be altogether indifferent to a broad, +embossed, beautiful shield of silver that sparkled with each step one +took? + +A quarter of an hour idle thus was all, however, that Bébée or her +friends could spare at five o'clock on a summer morning, when the city +was waiting for its eggs, its honey, its flowers, its cream, and its +butter, and Tambour was shaking his leather harness in impatience to be +off with his milk-cans. + +So Bébée, all holiday though it was, and heroine though she felt herself, +ran indoors, put up her cakes and cherries, cut her two basketfuls out of +the garden, locked her hut, and went on her quick and happy little feet +along the grassy paths toward the city. + +The sorting and tying up of the flowers she always left until she was +sitting under the awning in front of the Broodhuis; the same awning, +tawny as an autumn pear and weather-blown as an old sail, which had +served to shelter Antoine Mäes from heat and rain through all the years +of his life. + +"Go to the Madeleine; you will make money there, with your pretty blue +eyes, Bébée," people had said to her of late; but Bébée had shaken her +head. + +Where she had sat in her babyhood at Antoine's feet, she would sit so +long as she sold flowers in Brussels,--here, underneath the shadow of the +Gothic towers that saw Egmont die. + +Old Antoine had never gone into the grand market that is fashioned after +the Madeleine of Paris, and where in the cool, wet, sweet-smelling halls, +all the flowers of Brabant are spread in bouquets fit for the bridal of +Una, and large as the shield of the Red-Cross Knight. + +Antoine could not compete with all those treasures of greenhouse and +stove. He had always had his little stall among those which spread their +tawny awnings and their merry hardy blossoms under the shadow of the +Hôtel de Ville, in the midst of the buyings and sellings, the games and +the quarrels, the auctions and the Cheap Johns, the mountebank and the +marriage parties, that daily and hourly throng the Grande Place. + +Here Bébée, from three years old, had been used to sit beside him. By +nature she was as gay as a lark. The people always heard her singing as +they passed the garden. The children never found their games so merry as +when she danced their rounds with them; and though she dreamed so much +out there in the air among the carnations and the roses, or in the long, +low workroom in the town, high against the crocketed pinnacles of the +cathedral, yet her dreams, if vaguely wistful, were all bright of hue and +sunny in their fantasies. Still, Bébée had one sad unsatisfied desire: +she wanted to know so much, and she knew nothing. + +She did not care for the grand gay people. + +When the band played, and the park filled, and the bright little cafés +were thronged with pleasure seekers, and the crowds flocked hither and +thither to the woods, to the theatres, to the galleries, to the +guinguettes, Bébée, going gravely along with her emptied baskets +homeward, envied none of these. + +When at Noël the little children hugged their loads of puppets and +sugar-plums; when at the Fête Dieu the whole people flocked out +be-ribboned and vari-colored like any bed of spring anemones; when in the +merry midsummer the chars-a-bancs trundled away into the forest with +laughing loads of students and maidens; when in the rough winters the +carriages left furred and jewelled women at the doors of the operas or +the palaces,--Bébée, going and coming through the city to her flower +stall or lace work, looked at them all, and never thought of envy or +desire. + +She had her little hut: she could get her bread; she lived with the +flowers; the neighbors were good to her, and now and then, on a saint's +day, she too got her day in the woods; it never occurred to her that her +lot could be better. + +But sometimes sitting, looking at the dark old beauty of the Broodhuis, +or at the wondrous carven fronts of other Spanish houses, or at the +painted stories of the cathedral windows, or at the quaint colors of the +shipping on the quay, or at the long dark aisles of trees that went away +through the forest, where her steps had never wandered,--sometimes Bébée +would get pondering on all this unknown world that lay before and behind +and around her, and a sense of her own utter ignorance would steal on +her; and she would say to herself, "If only I knew a little--just a very +little!" + +But it is not easy to know even a very little when you have to work for +your bread from sunrise to nightfall, and when none of your friends know +how to read or write, and even your old priest is one of a family of +peasants, and can just teach you the alphabet, and that is all. For +Father Francis could do no more than this; and all his spare time was +taken up in digging his cabbage plot and seeing to his beehives; and the +only books that Bébée ever beheld were a few tattered lives of saints +that lay moth-eaten on a shelf of his cottage. + +But Brussels has stones that are sermons, or rather that are quaint, +touching, illuminated legends of the Middle Ages, which those who run may +read. + +Brussels is a gay little city that lies as bright within its girdle of +woodland as any butterfly that rests upon moss. + +The city has its ways and wiles of Paris. It decks itself with white and +gold. It has music under its trees and soldiers in its streets, and +troops marching and countermarching along its sunny avenues. It has blue +and pink, and yellow and green, on its awnings and on its house fronts. +It has a merry open-air life on its pavements at little marble tables +before little gay-colored cafés. It has gilded balconies, and tossing +flags, and comic operas, and leisurely pleasure seekers, and tries always +to believe and make the world believe that it is Paris in very truth. + +But this is only the Brussels of the noblesse and the foreigners. + +There is a Brussels that is better than this--a Brussels that belongs +to the old burgher life, to the artists and the craftsmen, to the +master-masons of the Moyen-âge, to the same spirit and soul that once +filled the free men of Ghent and the citizens of Bruges and the besieged +of Leyden, and the blood of Egmont and of Horn. + +Down there by the water-side, where the old quaint walls lean over the +yellow sluggish stream, and the green barrels of the Antwerp barges swing +against the dusky piles of the crumbling bridges. + +In the gray square desolate courts of the old palaces, where in cobwebbed +galleries and silent chambers the Flemish tapestries drop to pieces. + +In the great populous square, where, above the clamorous and rushing +crowds, the majestic front of the Maison du Roi frowns against the sun, +and the spires and pinnacles of the burgomaster's gathering-halls tower +into the sky in all the fantastic luxuriance of Gothic fancy. + +Under the vast shadowy wings of angels in the stillness of the cathedral, +across whose sunny aisles some little child goes slowly all alone, laden +with lilies for the Feast of the Assumption, till their white glory hides +its curly head. + +In all strange quaint old-world niches withdrawn from men in silent +grass-grown corners, where a twelfth-century corbel holds a pot of roses, +or a Gothic arch yawns beneath a wool warehouse, or a waterspout with a +grinning faun's head laughs in the grim humor of the Moyen-âge above the +bent head of a young lace-worker. + +In all these, Brussels, though more worldly than her sisters of Ghent and +Bruges, and far more worldly yet than her Teuton cousins of Freiburg and +Nürnberg, is still in her own way like as a monkish story mixed up with +the Romaunt of the Rose; or rather like some gay French vaudeville, all +fashion and jest, illustrated in old Missal manner with helm and hauberk, +cope and cowl, praying knights and fighting priests, winged griffins and +nimbused saints, flame-breathing dragons and enamoured princes, all +mingled together in the illuminated colors and the heroical grotesque +romance of the Middle Ages. + +And it was this side of the city that Bébée knew; and she loved it well, +and would not leave it for the market of the Madeleine. + +She had no one to tell her anything, and all Antoine had ever been able +to say to her concerning the Broodhuis was that it had been there in his +father's time; and regarding St. Gudule, that his mother had burned many +a candle before its altars for a dead brother who had been drowned off +the dunes. + +But the child's mind, unled, but not misled, had pondered on these +things, and her heart had grown to love them; and perhaps no student of +Spanish architecture, no antiquary of Moyen-âge relics, loved St. Gudule +and the Broodhuis as little ignorant Bébée did. + +There had been a time when great dark, fierce men had builded these +things, and made the place beautiful. So much she knew; and the little +wistful, untaught brain tried to project itself into those unknown times, +and failed, and yet found pleasure in the effort. And Bébée would say to +herself as she walked the streets, "Perhaps some one will come some day +who will tell me all those things." + +Meanwhile, there were the flowers, and she was quite content. + +Besides, she knew all the people: the old cobbler, who sat next her, and +chattered all day long like a magpie; the tinker, who had come up many a +summer night to drink a-glass with Antoine; the Cheap John, who cheated +everybody else, but who had always given her a toy or a trinket at every +Fête Dieu all the summers she had known; the little old woman, sour as a +crab, who sold rosaries and pictures of saints, and little waxen Christs +upon a tray; the big dogs who pulled the carts in, and lay panting all +day under the rush-bottomed chairs on which the egg-wives and the fruit +sellers sat, and knitted, and chaffered; nay, even the gorgeous huissier +and the frowning gendarme, who marshalled the folks into order as they +went up for municipal registries, or for town misdemeanors,--she knew +them all; had known them all ever since she had first trotted in like +a little dog at Antoine's heels. + +So Bébée stayed there. + +It is, perhaps, the most beautiful square in all Northern Europe, with +its black timbers, and gilded carvings, and blazoned windows, and +majestic scutcheons, and fantastic pinnacles. That Bébée did not know, +but she loved it, and she sat resolutely in front of the Broodhuis, +selling her flowers, smiling, chatting, helping the old woman, counting +her little gains, eating her bit of bread at noonday like any other +market girl, but at times glancing up to the stately towers and the blue +sky, with a look on her face that made the old tinker and cobbler whisper +together, "What does she see there?--the dead people or the angels?" + +The truth was that even Bébée herself did not know very surely what she +saw--something that was still nearer to her than even this kindly crowd +that loved her. That was all she could have said had anybody asked her. + +But none did. + +No one wanted to hear what the dead said; and for the angels, the tinker +and the cobbler were of opinion that one had only too much of them +sculptured about everywhere, and shining on all the casements--in +reverence be it spoken, of course. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"I remembered it was your name-day, child Here are half a dozen eggs," +said one of the hen wives; and the little cross woman with the pedler's +tray added a waxen St. Agnes, colored red and yellow to the very life no +doubt; and the old Cheap John had saved her a cage for the starling; and +the tinker had a cream cheese for her in a vine-leaf, and the sweetmeat +seller brought her a beautiful gilded horn of sugarplums, and the cobbler +had made her actually a pair of shoes--red shoes, beautiful shoes to go +to mass in and be a wonder in to all the neighborhood. And they thronged +round her, and adored the silver waist buckles; and when Bébée got fairly +to her stall, and traffic began, she thought once more that nobody's +feast day had ever dawned like hers. + +When the chimes began to ring all over the city, she could hardly believe +that the carillon was not saying its "Laus Deo" with some special meaning +in its bells of her. + +The morning went by as usual; the noise of the throngs about her like a +driving of angry winds, but no more hurting her than the angels on the +roof of St. Gudule are hurt by the storm when it breaks. + +Hard words, fierce passions, low thoughts, evil deeds, passed by the +child without resting on her; her heart was in her flowers, and was like +one of them with the dew of daybreak on it. + +There were many strangers in the city, and such are always sure to loiter +in the Spanish square; and she sold fast and well her lilacs and her +roses, and her knots of thyme and sweetbrier. + +She was always a little sorry to see them go, her kindly pretty playmates +that, nine times out of ten no doubt, only drooped and died in the hands +that purchased them, as human souls soil and shrivel in the grasp of the +passions that woo them. + +The day was a busy one, and brought in good profit. Bébée had no less +than fifty sous in her leather pouch when it was over,--a sum of +magnitude in the green lane by Laeken. + +A few of her moss-roses were still unsold, that was all, when the Ave +Maria began ringing over the town and the people dispersed to their homes +or their pleasuring. + +It was a warm gray evening: the streets were full; there were blossoms in +all the balconies, and gay colors in all the dresses. The old tinker put +his tools together, and whispered to her,-- + +"Bébée, as it is your feast day, come and stroll in St. Hubert's gallery, +and I will buy you a little gilt heart, or a sugar-apple stick, or a +ribbon, and we can see the puppet show afterwards, eh?" + +But the children were waiting at home: she would not spend the evening in +the city; she only thought she would just kneel a moment in the cathedral +and say a little prayer or two for a minute--the saints were so good in +giving her so many friends. + +There is something very touching in the Flemish peasant's relation with +his Deity. It is all very vague to him: a jumble of veneration and +familiarity, of sanctity and profanity, without any thought of being +familiar, or any idea of being profane. + +There is a homely poetry, an innocent affectionateness in it, +characteristic of the people. He talks to his good angel Michael, and to +his friend that dear little Jesus, much as he would talk to the shoemaker +over the way, or the cooper's child in the doorway. + +It is a very unreasonable, foolish, clumsy sort of religion, this +theology in wooden shoes; it is half grotesque, half pathetic; the +grandmothers pass it on to the grandchildren as they pass the bowl of +potatoes round the stove in the long winter nights; it is as silly as +possible, but it comforts them as they carry fagots over the frozen +canals or wear their eyes blind over the squares of lace; and it has in +it the supreme pathos of any perfect confidence, of any utterly childlike +and undoubting trust. + +This had been taught to Bébée, and she went to sleep every night in the +firm belief that the sixteen little angels of the Flemish prayer kept +watch and ward over her bed. For the rest, being poetical, as these north +folks are not, and having in her--wherever it came from, poor little +soul--a warmth of fancy and a spirituality of vision not at all northern, +she had mixed up her religion with the fairies of Antoine's stories, and +the demons in which the Flemish folks are profound believers, and the +flowers into which she put all manner of sentient life, until her +religion was a fantastic medley, so entangled that poor Father Francis +had given up in despair any attempt to arrange it more correctly. Indeed, +being of the peasantry himself, he was not so very full sure in his own +mind that demons were not bodily presences, quite as real and often much +more tangible than saints. Anyway, he let her alone; and she believed in +the goodness of God as she believed in the shining of the sun. + +People looked after her as she went through the twisting, picture-like +streets, where sunlight fell still between the peaked high roofs, and +lamps were here and there lit in the bric-à -brac shops and the fruit +stalls. + +Her little muslin cap blew back like the wings of a white butterfly. Her +sunny hair caught the last sun-rays. Her feet were fair in the brown +wooden shoes. Under the short woollen skirts the grace of her pretty +limbs moved freely. Her broad silver clasps shone like a shield, and she +was utterly unconscious that any one looked; she was simply and gravely +intent on reaching St. Gudule to say her one prayer and not keep the +children waiting. + +Some one leaning idly over a balcony in the street that is named after +Mary of Burgundy saw her going thus. He left the balcony and went down +his stairs and followed her. + +The sun-dazzle on the silver had first caught his sight; and then he had +looked downward at the pretty feet. + +These are the chances women call Fate. + +Bébée entered the cathedral. It was quite empty. Far away at the west end +there was an old custodian asleep on a bench, and a woman kneeling. That +was all. + +Bébée made her salutations to the high altar, and stole on into the +chapel of the Saint Sacrament; it was the one that she loved best. + +She said her prayer and thanked the saints for all their gifts and +goodness, her clasped hand against her silver shield, her basket on the +pavement by her, abovehead the sunset rays streaming purple and crimson +and golden through the painted windows that are the wonder of the world. + +When her prayer was done she still kneeled there; her head thrown back to +watch the light, her hands clasped still, and on her upturned face the +look that made the people say, "What does she see?--the angels or the +dead?" + +She forgot everything. She forgot the cherries at home, and the children +even. She was looking upward at the stories of the painted panes; she was +listening to the message of the dying sun-rays; she was feeling vaguely, +wistfully, unutterably the tender beauty of the sacred place and the +awful wonder of the world in which she with her sixteen years was all +alone, like a little blue corn-flower among the wheat that goes for grist +and the barley that makes men drunk. + +For she was alone, though she had so many friends. Quite alone sometimes; +for God had been cruel to her, and had made her a lark without song. + +When the sun faded and the beautiful casements lost all glow and +meaning, Bébée rose with a startled look--had she been dreaming?--was it +night?--would the children be sorry, and go supperless to bed? + +"Have you a rosebud left to sell to me?" a man's voice said not far off; +it was low and sweet, as became the Sacrament Chapel. + +Bébée looked up; she did not quite know what she saw: only dark eyes +smiling into hers. + +By the instinct of habit she sought in her basket and found three +moss-roses. She held them out to him. + +"I do not sell flowers here, but I will _give_ them to you," she said, in +her pretty grave childish fashion. + +"I often want flowers," said the stranger, as he took the buds. "Where do +you sell yours?--in the market?" + +"In the Grande Place." + +"Will you tell me your name, pretty one?" + +"I am Bébée." + +There were people coming into the church. The bells were booming +abovehead for vespers. There was a shuffle of chairs and a stir of feet. +Boys in white went to and fro, lighting the candles. Great clouds of +shadow drifted up into the roof and hid the angels. + +She nodded her little head to him. + +"Good night; I cannot stay. I have a cake at home to-night, and the +children are waiting." + +"Ah! that is important, no doubt, indeed. Will you buy some more cakes +for the children from me?" + +He slid a gold piece in her hand. She looked at it in amaze. In the green +lanes by Laeken no one ever saw gold. Then she gave it him back. + +"I will not take money in church, nor anywhere, except what the flowers +are worth. Good night." + +He followed her, and held back the heavy oak door for her, and went out +into the air with her. + +It was dark already, but in the square there was still the cool bright +primrose-colored evening light. + +Bébée's wooden shoes went pattering down the sloping and uneven stones. +Her little gray figure ran quickly through the deep shade cast from the +towers and walls. Her dreams had drifted away. She was thinking of the +children and the cake. + +"You are in such a hurry because of the cake?" said her new customer, as +he followed her. + +Bébée looked back at him with a smile in her blue eyes. + +"Yes, they will be waiting, you know, and there are cherries too." + +"It is a grand day with you, then?" + +"It is my fête day: I am sixteen." + +She was proud of this. She told it to the very dogs in the street. + +"Ah, you feel old, I dare say?" + +"Oh, quite old! They cannot call me a child any more." + +"Of course not, it would be ridiculous. Are those presents in your +basket?" + +"Yes, every one of them." She paused a moment to lift the dead +vine-leaves, and show him the beautiful shining red shoes. "Look! old +Gringoire gave me these. I shall wear them at mass next Sunday. I never +had a pair of shoes in my life." + +"But how will you wear shoes without stockings?" + +It was a snake cast into her Eden. + +She had never thought of it. + +"Perhaps I can save money and buy some," she answered after a sad little +pause. "But that I could not do till next year. They would cost several +francs, I suppose." + +"Unless a good fairy gives them to you?" + +Bébée smiled; fairies were real things to her--relations indeed. She did +not imagine that he spoke in jest. + +"Sometimes I pray very much and things come," she said softly. "When the +Gloire de Dijon was cut back too soon one summer, and never blossomed, +and we all thought it was dead, I prayed all day long for it, and never +thought of anything else; and by autumn it was all in new leaf, and now +its flowers are finer than ever." + +"But you watered it whilst you prayed, I suppose?" + +The sarcasm escaped her. + +She was wondering to herself whether it would be vain and wicked to pray +for a pair of stockings: she thought she would go and ask Father Francis. + +By this time they were in the Rue Royale, and half-way down it. The +lamps were lighted. A regiment was marching up it with a band playing. +The windows were open, and people were laughing and singing in some of +them. The light caught the white and gilded fronts of the houses. The +pleasure-seeking crowds loitered along in the warmth of the evening. + +Bébée, suddenly roused from her thoughts by the loud challenge of the +military music, looked round on the stranger, and motioned him back. + +"Sir,--I do not know you,--why should you come with me? Do not do it, +please. You make me talk, and that makes me late." + +And she pushed her basket farther on her arm, and nodded to him and ran +off--as fleetly as a hare through fern--among the press of the people. + +"To-morrow, little one," he answered her with a careless smile, and let +her go unpursued. Above, from the open casement of a café, some young men +and some painted women leaned out, and threw sweetmeats at him, as in +carnival time. + +"A new model,--that pretty peasant?" they asked him. + +He laughed in answer, and went up the steps to join them; he dropped the +moss-roses as he went, and trod on them, and did not wait. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Bébée ran home as fast as her feet would take her. + +The children were all gathered about her gate in the dusky dewy evening; +they met her with shouts of welcome and reproach intermingled; they had +been watching for her since first the sun had grown low and red, and now +the moon was risen. + +But they forgave her when they saw the splendor of her presents, and she +showered out among them Père Melchior's horn of comfits. + +They dashed into the hut; they dragged the one little table out among the +flowers; the cherries and cake were spread on it; and the miller's wife +had given a big jug of milk, and Father Francis himself had sent some +honeycomb. + +The early roses were full of scent in the dew; the great gillyflowers +breathed\out fragrance in the dusk; the goat came and nibbled the +sweetbrier unrebuked; the children repeated the Flemish bread-grace, with +clasped hands and reverent eyes, "Oh, dear little Jesus, come and sup +with us, and bring your beautiful Mother, too; we will not forget you are +God." Then, that said, they ate, and drank, and laughed, and picked +cherries from each other's mouths like little blackbirds; the big white +dog gnawed a crust at their feet; old Krebs who had a fiddle, and could +play it, came out and trilled them rude and ready Flemish tunes, such as +Teniers or Mieris might have jumped to before an alehouse at the +Kermesse; Bébée and the children joined hands, and danced round together +in the broad white moonlight, on the grass by the water-side; the idlers +came and sat about, the women netting or spinning, and the men smoking a +pipe before bedtime; the rough hearty Flemish bubbled like a brook in +gossip, or rung like a horn over a jest; Bébée and the children, tired of +their play, grew quiet, and chanted together the "Ave Maria Stella +Virginis"; a nightingale among the willows sang to the sleeping swans. + +All was happy, quiet, homely; lovely also in its simple way. + +They went early to their beds, as people must do who rise at dawn. + +Bébée leaned out a moment from her own little casement ere she too went +to rest. + +Through an open lattice there sounded the murmur of some little child's +prayer; the wind sighed among the willows; the nightingales sang on in +the dark--all was still. + +Hard work awaited her on the morrow, and on all the other days of the +year. + +She was only a little peasant--she must sweep, and spin, and dig, and +delve, to get daily her bit of black bread,--but that night she was as +happy as a little princess in a fairy tale; happy in her playmates, in +her flowers, in her sixteen years, in her red shoes, in her silver +buckles, because she was half a woman; happy in the dewy leaves, in the +singing birds, in the hush of the night, in the sense of rest, in the +fragrance of flowers, in the drifting changes of moon and cloud; happy +because she was half a woman, because she was half a poet, because +she was wholly a poet. + +"Oh, dear swans, how good it is to be sixteen!--how good it is to live at +all!--do you not tell the willows so?" said Bébée to the gleam of silver +under the dark leaves by the water's side, which showed her where her +friends were sleeping, with their snowy wings closed over their stately +heads, and the veiled gold and ruby of their eyes. + +The swans did not awake to answer. + +Only the nightingale answered from the willows, with Desdemona's song. + +But Bébée had never heard of Desdemona, and the willows had no sigh for +her. + +"Good night!" she said, softly, to all the green dewy sleeping world, and +then she lay down and slept herself.--The nightingale sang on, and the +willows trembled. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +"If I could save a centime a day, I could buy a pair of stockings this +time next year," thought Bébée, locking her shoes with her other +treasures in her drawer the next morning, and taking her broom and pail +to wash down her little palace. + +But a centime a day is a great deal in Brabant, when one has not always +enough for bare bread, and when, in the long chill winter, one must weave +thread lace all through the short daylight for next to nothing at all; +for there are so many women in Brabant, and every one of them, young or +old, can make lace, and if one do not like the pitiful wage, one may +leave it and go and die, for what the master lacemakers care or know; +there will always be enough, many more than enough, to twist the thread +round the bobbins, and weave the bridal veils, and the trains for the +courts. + +"And besides, if I can save a centime, the Varnhart children ought to +have it," thought Bébée, as she swept the dust together. It was so +selfish of her to be dreaming about a pair of stockings, when those +little things often went for days on a stew of nettles. + +So she looked at her own pretty feet,--pretty and slender, and arched, +rosy, and fair, and uncramped by the pressure of leather,--and resigned +her day-dream with a brave heart, as she put up her broom and went out to +weed, and hoe, and trim, and prune the garden that had been for once +neglected the night before. + +"One could not move half so easily in stockings," she thought with true +philosophy as she worked among the black, fresh, sweet-smelling mould, +and kissed a rose now and then as she passed one. + +When she got into the city that day, her rush-bottomed chair, which was +always left upside down in case rain should fall in the night, was set +ready for her, and on its seat was a gay, gilded box, such as rich people +give away full of bonbons. + +Bébée stood and looked from the box to the Broodhuis, from the Broodhuis +to the box; she glanced around, but no one had come there so early as +she, except the tinker, who was busy quarrelling with his wife and +letting his smelting fire burn a hole in his breeches. + +"The box was certainly for her, since it was set upon her chair?"--Bébée +pondered a moment; then little by little opened the lid. + +Within, on a nest of rose-satin, were two pair of silk stockings!--real +silk!--with the prettiest clocks worked up their sides in color! + +Bébée gave a little scream, and stood still, the blood hot in her cheeks; +no one heard her, the tinker's wife, who alone was near, having just +wished Heaven to send a judgment on her husband, was busy putting out his +smoking smallclothes. It is a way that women and wives have, and they +never see the bathos of it. + +The place filled gradually. + +The customary crowds gathered. The business of the day began underneath +the multitudinous tones of the chiming bells. Bébée's business began too; +she put the box behind her with a beating heart, and tied up her flowers. + +It was the fairies, of course! but they had never set a rush-bottomed +chair on its legs before, and this action of theirs frightened her. + +It was rather an empty morning. She sold little, and there was the more +time to think. + +About an hour after noon a voice addressed her,-- + +"Have you more moss-roses for me?" + +Bébée looked up with a smile, and found some. It was her companion of the +cathedral. She had thought much of the red shoes and the silver clasps, +but she had thought nothing at all of him. + +"You are not too proud to be paid to-day?" he said, giving her a silver +franc; he would not alarm her with any more gold; she thanked him, and +slipped it in her little leathern pouch, and went on sorting some +clove-pinks. + +"You do not seem to remember me?" he said, with a little sadness. + +"Oh, I remember you," said Bébée, lifting her frank eyes. "But you know I +speak to so many people, and they are all nothing to me." + +"Who is anything to you?" It was softly and insidiously spoken, but it +awoke no echo. + +"Varnhart's children," she answered him, instantly. "And old Annémie by +the wharfside--and Tambour--and Antoine's grave--and the starling--and, +of course, above all, the flowers." + +"And the fairies, I suppose?--though they do nothing for you." + +She looked at him eagerly,-- + +"They have done something to-day. I have found a box, and some +stockings--such beautiful stockings! Silk ones! Is it not very odd?" + +"It is more odd they should have forgotten you so long. May I see them?" + +"I cannot show them to you now. Those ladies are going to buy. But you +can see them later--if you wait." + +"I will wait and paint the Broodhuis." + +"So many people do that; you are a painter then?" + +"Yes--in a way." + +He sat down on an edge of the stall, and spread his things there, and +sketched, whilst the traffic went on around them. He was very many years +older than she; handsome, with a dark, and changeful, and listless face; +he wore brown velvet, and had a red ribbon at his throat; he looked a +little as Egmont might have done when wooing Claire. + +Bébée, as she sold the flowers and took the change fifty times in the +hour, glanced at him now and then, and watched the movements of his +hands, she could not have told why. + +Always among men and women, always in the crowds of the streets, people +were nothing to her; she went through them as through a field of standing +corn,--only in the field she would have tarried for poppies, and in the +town she tarried for no one. + +She dealt with men as with women, simply, truthfully, frankly, with the +innocent fearlessness of a child. When they told her she was pretty, she +smiled; it was just as they said that her flowers were sweet. + +But this man's hands moved so swiftly; and as she saw her Broodhuis +growing into color and form beneath them, she could not choose but look +now and then, and twice she gave her change wrong. + +He spoke to her rarely, and sketched on and on in rapid bold strokes the +quaint graces and massive richness of the Maison du Roi. + +There is no crowd so busy in Brabant that it will not find leisure to +stare. The Fleming or the Walloon has nothing of the Frenchman's +courtesy; he is rough and rude; he remains a peasant even when town bred, +and the surly insolence of the "Gueux" is in him still. He is kindly to +his fellows, though not to beasts; he is shrewd, patient, thrifty, +industrious, and good in very many ways, but civil never. + +A good score of them left off their occupations and clustered round the +painter, staring, chattering, pushing, pointing, as though a brush had +never been seen in all the land of Rubens. + +Bébée, ashamed of her people, got up from her chair and rebuked them. + +"Oh, men of Brussels; fie then for shame!" she called to them as +clearly as a robin sings. "Did never you see a drawing before? and are +there not saints and martyrs enough to look at in the galleries? and have +you never some better thing to do than to gape wide-mouthed at a +stranger? What laziness--ah! Just worthy of a people who sleep and smoke +while their dogs work for them! Go away, all of you; look, there comes +the gendarme--it will be the worse for you. Sir, sit under my stall; they +will not dare trouble you then." + +He moved under the awning, thanking her with a smile; and the people, +laughing, shuffled unwillingly aside and let him paint on in peace. It +was only little Bébée, but they had spoilt the child from her infancy, +and were used to obey her. + +The painter took a long time. He set about it with the bold ease of one +used to all the intricacies of form and color, and he had the skill of a +master. But he spent more than half the time looking idly at the humors +of the populace or watching how the treasures of Bébée's garden +went away one by one in the hands of strangers. + +Meanwhile, ever and again, sitting on the edge of her stall, with +his colors and brushes tossed out on the board, he talked to her, and, +with the soft imperceptible skill of long practice in those arts, he drew +out the details of her little simple life. + +There were not always people to buy, and whilst she rested and sheltered +the flowers from the sun, she answered him willingly, and in one of her +longer rests showed him the wonderful stockings. + +"Do you think it _could_ be the fairies?" she asked him a little +doubtfully. + +It was easy to make her believe any fantastical nonsense; but her fairies +were ethereal divinities. She could scarcely believe that they had laid +that box on her chair. + +"Impossible to doubt it!" he replied, unhesitatingly. "Given a belief in +fairies at all, why should there be any limit to what they can do? It is +the same with the saints, is it not?" + +"Yes," said Bébée, thoughtfully. + +The saints were mixed up in her imagination with the fairies in an +intricacy that would have defied the best reasonings of Father +Francis. + +"Well, then, you will wear the stockings, will you not? Only, believe me, +your feet are far prettier without them." + +Bébée laughed happily, and took another peep in the cosy rose-satin nest. +But her little face had a certain perplexity. Suddenly she turned on him. + +"Did not _you_ put them there?" + +"I?--never!" + +"Are you quite sure?" + +"Quite; but why ask?" + +"Because," said Bébée, shutting the box resolutely and pushing it a +little away,--"because I would not take it if you did. You are a +stranger, and a present is a debt, so Antoine always said." + +"Why take a present then from the Varnhart children, or your old friend +who gave you the clasps?" + +"Ah, that is very different. When people are very, very poor, equally +poor, the one with the other, little presents that they save for and +make with such a difficulty are just things that are a pleasure; +sacrifices; like your sitting up with a sick person at night, and then +she sits up with you another year when you want it. Do you not know?" + +"I know you talk very prettily. But why should you not take any one +else's present, though he may not be poor?" + +"Because I could not return it." + +"Could you not?" + +The smile in his eyes dazzled her a little; it was so strange, and yet +had so much light in it; but she did not understand him one whit. + +"No; how could I?" she said earnestly. "If I were to save for two years, +I could not get francs enough to buy anything worth giving back; and I +should be so unhappy, thinking of the debt of it always. Do tell me if +you put those stockings there?" + +"No"; he looked at her, and the trivial lie faltered and died away; the +eyes, clear as crystal, questioned him so innocently. "Well, if I did?" +he said, frankly; "you wished for them; what harm was there? Will you be +so cruel as to refuse them from me?" + +The tears sprang into Bébée's eyes. She was sorry to lose the beautiful +box, but more sorry he had lied to her. + +"It was very kind and good," she said, regretfully. "But I cannot think +why you should have done it, as you had never known me at all. And, +indeed, I could not take them, because Antoine would not let me if he +were alive; and if I gave you a flower every day all the year round I +should not pay you the worth of them, it would be quite impossible; and +why should you tell me falsehoods about such a thing? A falsehood is +never a thing for a man." + +She shut the box and pushed it towards him, and turned to the selling of +her bouquets. Her voice shook a little as she tied up a bunch of +mignonette and told the price of it. + +Those beautiful stockings! why had she ever seen them, and why had he +told her a lie? + +It made her heart heavy. For the first time in her brief life the +Broodhuis seemed to frown between her and the sun. + +Undisturbed, he painted on and did not look at her. + +The day was nearly done. The people began to scatter. The shadows grew +very long. He painted, not glancing once elsewhere than at his study. +Bébée's baskets were quite empty. + +She rose, and lingered, and regarded him wistfully: he was angered; +perhaps she had been rude? Her little heart failed her. + +If he would only look up! + +But he did not look up; he kept his handsome dark face studiously over +the canvas of the Broodhuis. She would have seen a smile in his eyes if +he had lifted them; but he never raised his lids. + +Bébée hesitated: take the stockings she would not; but perhaps she had +refused them too roughly. She wished so that he would look up and save +her speaking first; but he knew what he was about too warily and well to +help her thus. + +She waited awhile, then took one little red moss-rosebud that she had +saved all day in a corner of her basket, and held it out to him frankly, +shyly, as a peace offering. + +"Was I rude? I did not mean to be. But I cannot take the stockings; and +why did you tell me that falsehood?" + +He took the rosebud and rose too, and smiled; but he did not meet her +eyes. + +"Let us forget the whole matter; it is not worth a sou. If you do not +take the box, leave it; it is of no use to me." + +"I cannot take it." + +She knew she was doing right. How was it that he could make her feel as +though she were acting wrongly? + +"Leave it then, I say. You are not the first woman, my dear, who has +quarrelled with a wish fulfilled. It is a way your sex has of rewarding +gods and men.--Here, you old witch, here is a treasure-trove for you. You +can sell it for ten francs in the town anywhere." + +As he spoke he tossed the casket and the stockings in it to an old +decrepit woman, who was passing by with a baker's cart drawn by a dog; +and, not staying to heed her astonishment, gathered his colors and easel +together. + +The tears swam in Bébée's eyes as she saw the box whirled through the +air. + +She had done right; she was sure she had done right. + +He was a stranger, and she could never have repaid him; but he made her +feel herself wayward and ungrateful, and it was hard to see the beautiful +fairy gift borne away forever by the chuckling, hobbling, greedy old +baker's woman. If he had only taken it himself, she would have been glad +then to have been brave and to have done her duty. + +But it was not in his design that she should be glad. + +He saw her tears, but he seemed not to see them. + +"Good night, Bébée," he said carelessly, as he sauntered aside from her. +"Good night, my dear. To-morrow I will finish my painting; but I will not +offend you by any more gifts." + +Bébée lifted her drooped head, and looked him in the eyes eagerly, with a +certain sturdy resolve and timid wistfulness intermingled in her look. + +"Sir, see, you speak to me quite wrongly," she said with a quick +accent, that had pride as well as pain in it. "Say it was kind to +bring me what I wished for; yes, it was kind I know; but you never saw +me till last night, and I cannot tell even your name; and it is very +wrong to lie to any one, even to a little thing like me; and I am only +Bébée, and cannot give you anything back, because I have only just enough +to feed myself and the starling, and not always that in winter. I thank +you very much for what you wished to do; but if I had taken those things, +I think you would have thought me very mean and full of greed; and +Antoine always said, 'Do not take what you cannot pay--not ever what you +cannot pay--that is the way to walk with pure feet.' Perhaps I spoke ill, +because they spoil me, and they say I am too swift to say my mind. But I +am not thankless--not thankless, indeed--it is only I could not take what +I cannot pay. That is all. You are angry still--not now--no?" + +There was, anxiety in the pleading. What did it matter to her what a +stranger thought? + +And yet Bébée's heart was heavy as he laughed a little coldly, and bade +her good day, and left her alone to go out of the city homewards. A sense +of having done wrong weighed on her; of having been rude and ungrateful. + +She had no heart for the children that evening. Mère Krebs was sitting +out before her door shelling peas, and called to her to come in and have +a drop of coffee. Krebs had come in from Vilvöorde fair, and brought a +stock of rare good berries with him. But Bébée thanked her, and went on +to her own garden to work. + +She had always liked to sit out on the quaint wooden steps of the mill +and under the red shadow of the sails, watching the swallows flutter to +and fro in the sunset, and hearing the droll frogs croak in the rushes, +while the old people told her tales of the time of how in their babyhood +they had run out, fearful yet fascinated, to see the beautiful Scots +Grays flash by in the murky night, and the endless line of guns and +caissons crawl black as a snake through the summer dust and the +trampled corn, going out past the woods to Waterloo. + +But to-night she had no fancy for it: she wanted to be alone with the +flowers. + +Though, to be sure, they had been very heartless when Antoine's coffin +had gone past them, still they had sympathy; the daisies smiled at her +with their golden eyes, and the roses dropped tears on her hand, just as +her mood might be; the flowers were closer friends, after all, than any +human souls; and besides, she could say so much to them! + +Flowers belong to fairyland; the flowers and the birds and the +butterflies are all that the world has kept of its Golden Age; the only +perfectly beautiful things on earth, joyous, innocent, half divine, +useless, say they who are wiser than God. + +Bébée went home and worked among her flowers. + +A little laborious figure, with her petticoats twisted high, and her feet +wet with the night dews, and her back bowed to the hoeing and clipping +and raking among the blossoming plants. + +"How late you are working to-night, Bébée!" one or two called out, as +they passed the gate. She looked up and smiled; but went on working while +the white moon rose. + +She did not know what ailed her. + +She went to bed without supper, leaving her bit of bread and bowl of +goat's milk to make a meal for the fowls in the morning. + +"Little ugly, shameful, naked feet!" she said to them, sitting on the +edge of her mattress, and looking at them in the moonlight. They were +very pretty feet, and would not have been half so pretty in silk hose and +satin shoon; but she did not know that: he had told her she wanted those +vanities. + +She sat still a long while, her rosy feet swaying to and fro like two +roses that grow on one stalk and hang down in the wind. The little +lattice was open; the sweet and dusky garden was beyond; there was a +hand's breadth of sky, in which a single star was shining; the leaves +of the vine hid all the rest. + +But for once she saw none of it. + +She only saw the black Broodhuis; the red and gold sunset overhead; the +gray stones, with the fallen rose leaves and crushed fruits; and in the +shadows two dark, reproachful eyes, that looked at hers. + +Had she been ungrateful? + +The little tender, honest heart of her was troubled and oppressed. For +once, that night she slept ill. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +All the next day she sat under the yellow awning, but she sat alone. + +It was market day; there were many strangers. Flowers were in demand. The +copper pieces were ringing against one another all the hours through in +her leathern bag. The cobbler was in such good humor that he forgot to +quarrel with his wife. The fruit was in such plenty that they gave her a +leaf-full of white and red currants for her noonday dinner. And the +people split their sides at the Cheap John's jokes; he was so droll. No +one saw the leaks in his kettles or the hole in his bellows, or the leg +that was lacking to his milking stool. + +Everybody was gay and merry that day. But Bébée's eyes looked wistfully +over the throng, and did not find what they sought. Somehow the day +seemed dull, and the square empty. + +The stones and the timbers around seemed more than ever full of a +thousand stories that they would not tell her because she knew nothing, +and was only Bébée. + +She had never known a dull hour before. She, a little bright, +industrious, gay thing, whose hands were always full of work, and whose +head was always full of fancies, even in the grimmest winter time, when +she wove the lace in the gray, chilly workroom, with the frost on the +casements, and the mice running out in their hunger over the bare brick +floor. + +That bare room was a sad enough place sometimes, when the old women would +bewail how they starved on the pittance they gained, and the young women +sighed for their aching heads and their failing eyesight, and the +children dropped great tears on the bobbins, because they had come out +without a crust to break their fast. + +She had been sad there often for others, but she had never been dull--not +with this unfamiliar, desolate, dreary dulness, that seemed to take all +the mirth out of the busy life around her, and all the color out of the +blue sky above. Why, she had no idea herself. She wondered if she were +going to be ill; she had never been ill in her life, being strong as a +little bird that has never known cage or captivity. + +When the day was done, Bébée gave a quick sigh as she looked across the +square. She had so wanted to tell him that she was not ungrateful; and +she had a little moss-rose ready, with a sprig of sweetbrier, and a tiny +spray of maidenhair fern that grew under the willows, which she had kept +covered up with a leaf of sycamore all the day long. + +No one would have it now. + +The child went out of the place sadly as the carillon rang. There was +only the moss-rose in her basket, and the red and white currants that had +been given her for her dinner. + +She went along the twisting, many-colored, quaintly fashioned streets, +till she came to the water-side. + +It is very ancient there still, there are all manner of old buildings, +black and brown and gray, peaked roofs, gabled windows, arched doors, +crumbling bridges, twisted galleries leaning to touch the dark surface of +the canal, dusky wharves crowded with barrels, and bales, and cattle, and +timber, and all the various freightage that the good ships come and go +with all the year round, to and from the ZuyderZee, and the Baltic water, +and the wild Northumbrian shores, and the iron-bound Scottish headlands, +and the pretty gray Norman seaports, and the white sandy dunes of +Holland, with the toy towns and the straight poplar-trees. + +Bébée was fond of watching the brigs and barges, that looked so big to +her, with their national flags flying, and their tall masts standing +thick as grass, and their tawny sails flapping in the wind, and about +them the sweet, strong smell of that strange, unknown thing, the sea. + +Sometimes the sailors would talk with her; sometimes some old salt, +sitting astride of a cask, would tell her a mariner's tale of far-away +lands and mysteries of the deep; sometimes some curly-headed cabin-boy +would give her a shell or a plume of seaweed, and try and make her +understand what the wonderful wild water was like, which was not quiet +and sluggish and dusky as this canal was, but was forever changing and +moving, and curling and leaping, and making itself now blue as her eyes, +now black as that thunder-cloud, now white as the snow that the winter +wind tossed, now pearl hued and opaline as the convolvulus that blew in +her own garden. + +And Bébée would listen, with the shell in her lap, and try to +understand, and gaze at the ships and then at the sky beyond them, and +try to figure to herself those strange countries to which these ships +were always going, and saw in fancy all the blossoming orchard province +of green France, and all the fir-clothed hills and rushing rivers of the +snow-locked Swedish shore, and saw too, doubtless, many lands that had no +place at all except in dreamland, and were more beautiful even than the +beauty of the earth, as poets' countries are, to their own sorrow, +oftentimes. + +But this dull day Bébée did not go down upon the wharf; she did not want +the sailors' tales; she saw the masts and the bits of bunting that +streamed from them, and they made her restless, which they had never done +before. + +Instead she went in at a dark old door and climbed up a steep staircase +that went up and up, as though she were mounting St. Gudule's belfry +towers; and at the top of it entered a little chamber in the roof, where +one square unglazed hole that served for light looked out upon the canal, +with all its crowded craft, from the dainty schooner yacht, fresh as +gilding and holystone could make her, that was running for pleasure to +the Scheldt, to the rude, clumsy coal barge, black as night, that bore +the rough diamonds of Belgium to the snow-buried roofs of Christiania and +Stromstad. + +In the little dark attic there was a very old woman in a red petticoat +and a high cap, who sat against the window, and pricked out lace patterns +with a pin on thick paper. She was eighty-five years old, and could +hardly keep body and soul together. + +Bébée, running to her, kissed her. "Oh, mother Annémie, look here! +Beautiful red and white currants, and a roll; I saved them for you. They +are the first currants we have seen this year. Me? oh, for me, I have +eaten more than are good! You know I pick fruit like a sparrow, always. +Dear mother Annémie, are you better? Are you quite sure you are better +to-day?" + +The little old withered woman, brown as a walnut and meagre as a rush, +took the currants, and smiled with a childish glee, and began to eat +them, blessing the child with each crumb she broke off the bread. + +"Why had you not a grandmother of your own, my little one?" she mumbled. +"How good you would have been to her, Bébée!" + +"Yes," said Bébée seriously, but her mind could not grasp the idea. It +was easier for her to believe the fanciful lily parentage of Antoine's +stories. "How much work have you done, Annémie? Oh, all that? all that? +But there is enough for a week. You work too early and too late, you dear +Annémie." + +"Nay, Bébée, when one has to get one's bread that cannot be. But I am +afraid my eyes are failing. That rose now, is it well done?" + +"Beautifully done. Would the Baës take them if they were not? You know he +is one that cuts every centime in four pieces." + +"Ah! sharp enough, sharp enough, that is true. But I am always afraid of +my eyes. I do not see the flags out there so well as I used to do." + +"Because the sun is so bright, Annémie; that is all. I myself, when I +have been sitting all day in the place in the light, the flowers look +pale to me. And you know it is not age with _me_, Annémie?" + +The old woman and the young girl laughed together at that droll idea. + +"You have a merry heart, dear little one," said old Annémie. "The saints +keep it to you always." + +"May I tidy the room a little?" + +"To be sure, dear, and thank you too. I have not much time, you see; and +somehow my back aches badly when I stoop." + +"And it is so damp here for you, over all that water!" said Bébée as she +swept and dusted and set to rights the tiny place, and put in a little +broken pot a few sprays of honeysuckle and rosemary that she had brought +with her. "It is so damp here. You should have come and lived in my hut +with me, Annémie, and sat out under the vine all day, and looked after +the chickens for me when I was in the town. They are such mischievous +little souls; as soon as my back is turned one or other is sure to push +through the roof, and get out among the flower-beds. Will you never +change your mind, and live with me, Annémie? I am sure you would be +happy, and the starling says your name quite plain, and he is such a +funny bird to talk to; you never would tire of him. Will you never come? +It is so bright there, and green and sweet smelling; and to think you +never even have seen it!--and the swans and all,--it is a shame." + +"No, dear," said old Annémie, eating her last bunch of currants. +"You have said so so often, and you are good and mean it, that I +know. But I could not leave the water. It would kill me. Out of this +window you know I saw my Jeannot's brig go away--away--away--till the +masts were lost in the mists. Going with iron to Norway; the 'Fleur +d'Epine' of this town, a good ship, and a sure, and her mate; and as +proud as might be, and with a little blest Mary in lead round his throat. +She was to be back in port in eight months, bringing timber. Eight +months--that brought Easter time. But she never came. Never, never, +never, you know. I sat here watching them come and go, and my child +sickened and died, and the summer passed, and the autumn, and all the +while I looked--looked--looked; for the brigs are all much alike; and +only her I always saw as soon as she hove in sight (because he tied a +hank of flax to her mizzen-mast); and when he was home safe and +sound I spun the hank into hose for him; that was a fancy of his, and for +eleven voyages, one on another, he had never missed to tie the flax +nor I to spin the hose. But the hank of flax I never saw this time; nor +the brave brig; nor my good man with his sunny blue eyes. Only one day in +winter, when the great blocks of ice were smashing hither and thither, a +coaster came in and brought tidings of how off in the Danish waters they +had come on a water-logged brig, and had boarded her, and had found her +empty, and her hull riven in two, and her crew all drowned and dead +beyond any manner of doubt. And on her stern there was her name painted +white, the 'Fleur d'Epine,' of Brussels, as plain as name could be; and +that was all we ever knew: what evil had struck her, or how they had +perished, nobody ever told. Only the coaster brought that bit of beam +away, with the 'Fleur d'Epine' writ clear upon it. But you see I never +_know_ my man is dead. Any day--who can say?--any one of those ships may +bring him aboard of her, and he may leap out on the wharf there, and come +running up the stairs as he used to do, and cry, in his merry voice, +'Annémie, Annémie, here is more flax to spin, here is more hose to +weave!' For that was always his homeward word; no matter whether he had +had fair weather or foul, he always knotted the flax to his masthead. So +you see, dear, I could not leave here. For what if he came and found me +away? He would say it was an odd fashion of mourning for him. And I could +not do without the window, you know. I can watch all the brigs come in; +and I can smell the shipping smell that I have loved all the days of my +life; and I can see the lads heaving, and climbing, and furling, and +mending their bits of canvas, and hauling their flags up and down. And +then who can say?--the sea never took him, I think--I think I shall hear +his voice before I die. For they do say that God is good." + +Bébée, sweeping very noiselessly, listened, and her eyes grew wistful and +wondering. She had heard the story a thousand times; always in different +words, but always the same little tale, and she knew how old Annémie was +deaf to all the bells that tolled the time, and blind to all the +whiteness of her hair and all the wrinkles of her face, and only thought +of her sea-slain lover as he had been in the days of her youth. + +But this afternoon the familiar history had a new patheticalness for her, +and as the old soul put aside with her palsied hand the square of canvas +that screened the casement, and looked out, with her old dim sad eyes +strained in the longing that God never answered, Bébée felt a strange +chill at her own heart, and wondered to herself,-- + +"What can it be to care for another creature like that? It must be so +terrible, and yet it must be beautiful too. Does every one suffer like +that?" + +She did not speak at all as she finished sweeping the bricks, and went +down-stairs for a metal cruche full of water, and set over a little +charcoal on the stove the old woman's brass soup kettle with her supper +of stewing cabbage. + +Annémie did not hear or notice; she was still looking out of the hole in +the wall on to the masts, and the sails, and the water. + +It was twilight. + +From the barges and brigs there came the smell of the sea. The sailors +were shouting to each other. The craft were crowded close, and lost in +the growing darkness. On the other side of the canal the belfries were +ringing for vespers. + +"Eleven voyages one and another, and he never forgot to tie the flax +to the mast," Annémie murmured, with her old wrinkled face leaning out +into the gray air. "It used to fly there,--one could see it coming up +half a mile off,--just a pale yellow flake on the wind, like a tress of +my hair, he would say. No, no, I could not go away; he may come to-night, +to-morrow, any time; he is not drowned, not my man; he was all I had, and +God is good, they say." + +Bébée listened and looked; then kissed the old shaking hand and took up +the lace patterns and went softly out of the room without speaking. + +When old Annémie watched at the window it was useless to seek for any +word or sign of her: people said that she had never been quite right in +her brain since that fatal winter noon sixty years before, when the +coaster had brought into port the broken beam of the good brig "Fleur +d'Epine." + +Bébée did not know about that, nor heed whether her wits were right or +not. + +She had known the old creature in the lace-room where Annémie pricked out +designs, and she had conceived a great regard and sorrow for her; and +when Annémie had become too ailing and aged to go herself any longer to +the lace-maker's place, Bébée had begged leave for her to have the +patterns at home, and had carried them to and fro for her for the last +three or four years, doing many other little useful services for the lone +old soul as well,--services which Annémie hardly perceived, she had +grown so used to them, and her feeble intelligence was so sunk in the one +absorbing idea that she must watch all the days through and all the years +through for the coming of the dead man and the lost brig. + +Bébée put the lace patterns in her basket, and trotted home, her sabots +clattering on the stones. + +"What it must be to care for any one like that!" she thought, and by some +vague association of thought that she could not have pursued, she lifted +the leaves and looked at the moss-rosebud. + +It was quite dead. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +As she got clear of the city and out on her country road, a shadow Fell +across her in the evening light. + +"Have you had a good day, little one?" asked a voice that made her stop +with a curious vague expectancy and pleasure. + +"It is you!" she said, with a little cry, as she saw her friend of the +silk stockings leaning on a gate midway in the green and solitary road +that leads to Laeken. + +"Yes, it is I," he answered, as he joined her. "Have you forgiven me, +Bébée?" + +She looked at him with frank, appealing eyes, like those of a child in +fault. + +"Oh, I did not sleep all night!" she said, simply. "I thought I had been +rude and ungrateful, and I could not be sure I had done right, though to +have done otherwise would certainly have been wrong." + +He laughed. + +"Well, that is a clearer deduction than is to be drawn from most moral +uncertainties. Do not think twice about the matter, my dear. I have not, +I assure you." + +"No!" + +She was a little disappointed. It seemed such an immense thing to her; +and she had lain awake all the night, turning it about in her little +brain, and appealing vainly for help in it to the sixteen sleep-angels. + +"No, indeed. And where are you going so fast, as if those wooden shoes of +yours were sandals of Mercury?" + +"Mercury--is that a shoemaker?" + +"No, my dear. He did a terrible bit of cobbling once, when he made +Woman. But he did not shoe her feet with swiftness that I know of; she +only runs away to be run after, and if you do not pursue her, she comes +back--always." + +Bébée did not understand at all. + +"I thought God made women," she said, a little awe-stricken. + +"You call it God. People three thousand years ago called it Mercury or +Hermes. Both mean the same thing,--mere words to designate an unknown +quality. Where are you going? Does your home lie here?" + +"Yes, onward, quite far onward," said Bébée, wondering that he had +forgotten all she had told him the day before about her hut, her garden, +and her neighbors. "You did not come and finish your picture to-day: why +was that? I had a rosebud for you, but it is dead now." + +"I went to Anvers. You looked for me a little, then?" + +"Oh, all day long. For I was so afraid I had been ungrateful." + +"That is very pretty of you. Women are never grateful, my dear, except +when they are very ill-treated. Mercury, whom we were talking of, gave +them, among other gifts, a dog's heart." + +Bébée felt bewildered; she did not reason about it, but the idle, +shallow, cynical tone pained her by its levity and its unlikeness to +the sweet, still, gray summer evening. + +"Why are you in such a hurry?" he pursued. "The night is cool, and it is +only seven o'clock. I will walk part of the way with you." + +"I am in a hurry because I have Annémie's patterns to do," said Bébée, +glad that he spoke of a thing that she knew how to answer. "You see, +Annémie's hand shakes and her eyes are dim, and she pricks the pattern +all awry and never perceives it; it would break her heart if one showed +her so, but the Baës would not take them as they are; they are of no use +at all. So I prick them out myself on fresh paper, and the Baës thinks it +is all her doing, and pays her the same money, and she is quite content. +And as I carry the patterns to and fro for her, because she cannot walk, +it is easy to cheat her like that; and it is no harm to cheat _so_, you +know." He was silent. + +"You are a good little girl, Bébée, I can see." he said at last, with a +graver sound in his voice. "And who is this Annémie for whom you do so +much? an old woman, I suppose." + +"Oh, yes, quite old; incredibly old. Her man was drowned at sea sixty +years ago, and she watches for his brig still, night and morning." + +"The dog's heart. No doubt he beat her, and had a wife in fifty other +ports." + +"Oh, no!" said Bébée, with a little cry, as though the word against the +dead man hurt her. "She has told me so much of him. He was as good as +good could be, and loved her so, and between the voyages they were so +happy. Surely that must have been sixty years now, and she is so sorry +still, and still will not believe that he was drowned." + +He looked down on her with a smile that had a certain pity in it. + +"Well, yes; there are women like that, I believe. But be very sure, my +dear, he beat her. Of the two, one always holds the whip and uses it, the +other crouches." + +"I do not understand," said Bébée. + +"No; but you will." + +"I will?--when?" + +He smiled again. + +"Oh--to-morrow, perhaps, or next year--or when Fate fancies." + +"Or rather, when I choose," he thought to himself, and let his eyes rest +with a certain pleasure on the little feet, that went beside him in the +grass, and the pretty fair bosom that showed ever and again, as the +frills of her linen bodice were blown back by the wind and her own quick +motion. + +Bébée looked also up at him; he was very handsome, and looked so to her, +after the broad, blunt, characterless faces of the Walloon peasantry +around her. He walked with an easy grace, he was clad in picture-like +velvets, he had a beautiful poetic head, and eyes like deep brown waters, +and a face like one of Jordaens' or Rembrandt's cavaliers in the +galleries where she used to steal in of a Sunday, and look up at the +paintings, and dream of what that world could be in which those people +had lived. + +"_You_ are of the people of Rubes' country, are you not?" she asked him. + +"Of what country, my dear?" + +"Of the people that live in the gold frames," said Bébée, quite +seriously. "In the galleries, you know. I know a charwoman that scrubs +the floors of the Arenberg Palace, and she lets me in sometimes to look; +and you are just like those great gentlemen in the gold frames, only you +have not a hawk and a sword, and they always have. I used to wonder where +they came from, for they are not like any of us one bit, and the +charwoman--she is Lisa Dredel, and lives in the street of the Pot +d'Etain--always said. 'Dear heart, they all belong to Rubes' land: we +never see their like nowadays.' But _you_ must come out of Rubes' land; +at least, I think so, do you not?" + +He caught her meaning; he knew that Rubes was the homely abbreviation of +Rubens that all the Netherlanders used, and he guessed the idea that was +reality to this little lonely fanciful mind. + +"Perhaps I do," he answered her with a smile, for it was not worth his +while to disabuse her thoughts of any imagination that glorified him to +her. "Do you not want to see Rubes' world, little one? To see the gold +and the grandeur, and the glitter of it all?--never to toil or get +tired?--always to move in a pageant?--always to live like the hawks in +the paintings you talk of, with silver bells hung round you, and a hood +all sewn with pearls?" + +"No," said Bébée, simply. "I should like to see it, just to see it, as +one looks through a grating into the king's grape-houses here. But I +should not like to live in it. I love my hut, and the starling, and the +chickens, and what would the garden do without me? and the children, and +the old Annémie? I could not anyhow, anywhere, be any happier than I am. +There is only one thing I wish." + +"And what is that?" + +"To know something; not to be so ignorant. Just look--I can read a +Little, it is true: my Hours, and the letters, and when Krebs brings +in a newspaper I can read a little of it, not much. I know French well, +because Antoine was French himself, and never did talk Flemish to me; +and they being Netherlanders, cannot, of course, read the newspapers at +all, and so think it very wonderful indeed in me. But what I want is to +know things, to know all about what _was_ before ever I was living. St. +Gudule now--they say it was built hundreds of years before; and Rubes +again--they say he was a painter king in Antwerpen before the oldest, +oldest woman like Annémie ever began to count time. I am sure books +tell you all those things, because I see the students coming and going +with them; and when I saw once the millions of books in the Rue du Musée, +I asked the keeper what use they were for, and he said, 'To make men +wise, my dear.' But Gringoire Bac, the cobbler, who was with me,--it was +a fête day,--Bac, _he_ said, 'Do not you believe that, Bébée; they +only muddle folks' brains; for one book tells them one thing, and another +book another, and so on, till they are dazed with all the contrary +lying; and if you see a bookish man, be sure you see a very poor creature +who could not hoe a patch, or kill a pig, or stitch an upper-leather, +were it ever so.' But I do not believe that Bac said right. Did he?" + +"I am not sure. On the whole, I think it is the truest remark on +literature I have ever heard, and one that shows great judgment in Bac. +Well?" + +"Well, sometimes, you know," said Bébée, not understanding his answer, +but pursuing her thoughts confidentially,--"sometimes I talk like this to +the neighbors, and they laugh at me. Because Mère Krebs says that when +one knows how to spin and sweep and make bread and say one's prayers and +milk a goat or a cow, it is all a woman wants to know this side of +heaven. But for me, I cannot help it, when I look at those windows in the +cathedral, or at those beautiful twisted little spires that are all over +our Hôtel de Ville, I want to know who the men were that made them,--what +they did and thought,--how they looked and spoke,--how they learned to +shape stone into leaves and grasses like that,--how they could imagine +all those angel faces on the glass. When I go alone in the quite early +morning or at night when it is still--sometimes in winter I have to +stay till it is dark over the lace--I hear their feet come after me, and +they whisper to me close, 'Look what beautiful things we have done, +Bébée, and you all forget us quite. We did what never will die, but our +names are as dead as the stones.' And then I am so sorry for them and +ashamed. And I want to know more. Can you tell me?" + +He looked at her earnestly; her eyes were shining, her cheeks were warm, +her little mouth was tremulous with eagerness. + +"Did any one ever speak to you in that way?" he asked her. + +"No," she answered him. "It comes into my head of itself. Sometimes I +think the cathedral angels put it there. For the angels must be tired, +you know; always pointing to God and always seeing men turn away, I used +to tell Antoine sometimes. But he used to shake his head and say that it +was no use thinking; most likely St. Gudule and St. Michael had set the +church down in the night all ready made, why not? God made the trees, and +they were more wonderful, he thought, for his part. And so perhaps they +are, but that is no answer. And I do _want_ to know. I want some one who +will tell me; and if you come out of Rubes' country as I think, no doubt +you know everything, or remember it?" + +He smiled. + +"The free pass to Rubes' country lies in books, pretty one. Shall I give +you some?--nay, lend them, I mean, since giving you are too wilful to +hear of without offence. You can read, you said?" + +Bébée's eyes glowed as they lifted themselves to his. + +"I can read--not very fast, but that would come with doing it more and +more, I think, just as spinning does; one knots the thread and breaks it +a million times before one learns to spin as fine as cobwebs. I have read +the stories of St. Anne, and of St. Catherine, and of St. Luven fifty +times, but they are all the books that Father Francis has; and no one +else has any among us." + +"Very well. You shall have books of mine. Easy ones first, and then those +that are more serious. But what time will you have? You do so much; you +are like a little golden bee." + +Bébée laughed happily. + +"Oh! give me the books and I will find the time. It is light so early +now. That gives one so many hours. In winter one has so few one must lie +in bed, because to buy a candle you know one cannot afford except, of +course, a taper now and then, as one's duty is, for our Lady or for the +dead. And will you really, really, lend me books?" + +"Really, I will. Yes. I will bring you one to the Grande Place +to-morrow, or meet you on your road there with it. Do you know what +poetry is, Bébée?" + +"No." + +"But your flowers talk to you?" + +"Ah! always. But then no one else hears them ever but me; and so no one +else ever believes." + +"Well, poets are folks who hear the flowers talk as you do, and the +trees, and the seas, and the beasts, and even the stones; but no one +else ever hears these things, and so, when the poets write them out, the +rest of the world say, 'That is very fine, no doubt, but only good for +dreamers; it will bake no bread.' I will give you some poetry; for I +think you care more about dreams than about bread." + +"I do not know," said Bébée; and she did not know, for her dreams, like +her youth, and her innocence, and her simplicity, and her strength, were +all unconscious of themselves, as such things must be to be pure and true +at all. + +Bébée had grown up straight, and clean, and fragrant, and joyous as one +of her own carnations; but she knew herself no more than the carnation +knows its color and its root, + +"No. you do not know," said he, with a sort of pity; and thought within +himself, was it worth while to let her know? + +If she did not know, these vague aspirations and imaginations would drop +off from her with the years of her early youth, as the lime-flowers drop +downwards with the summer heats. She would forget them. They would linger +a little in her head, and, perhaps, always wake at some sunset hour or +some angelus chime, but not to trouble her. Only to make her cradle song +a little sadder and softer than most women's was. Unfed, they would sink +away and bear no blossom. + +She would grow into a simple, hardy, hardworking, God-fearing Flemish +woman like the rest. She would marry, no doubt, some time, and rear +her children honestly and well; and sit in the market stall every day, +and spin and sew, and dig and wash, and sweep, and brave bad weather, +and be content with poor food to the end of her harmless and laborious +days--poor little Bébée! + +He saw her so clearly as she would be--if he let her alone. + +A little taller, a little broader, a little browner, less sweet of voice, +less soft of skin, less flower-like in face; having learned to think only +as her neighbors thought, of price of wood and cost of bread; laboring +cheerily but hardly from daybreak to nightfall to fill hungry mouths: +forgetting all things except the little curly-heads clustered round her +soup-pot, and the year-old lips sucking at her breasts. + +A blameless life, an eventless life, a life as clear as the dewdrop, and +as colorless; a life opening, passing, ending in the little green wooded +lane, by the bit of water where the swans made their nests under the +willows; a life like the life of millions, a little purer, a little +brighter, a little more tender, perhaps, than those lives usually are, +but otherwise as like them as one ear of barley is like another as it +rises from the soil, and blows in the wind, and turns brown in the strong +summer sun, and then goes down to the sod again under the sickle. + +He saw her just as she would be--if he let her alone. + +But should he leave her alone? + +He cared nothing; only her eyes had such a pretty, frank, innocent +look like a bird's in them, and she had been so brave and bold with him +about those silken stockings; and this little ignorant, dreamful mind of +hers was so like a blush rosebud, which looks so close-shut, and so +sweet-smelling, and so tempting fold within fold, that a child will pull +it open, forgetful that he will spoil it forever from being a full-grown +rose, and that he will let the dust, and the sun, and the bee into its +tender bosom--and men are true children, and women are their rosebuds. + +Thinking only of keeping well with this strange and beautiful wayfarer +from that unknown paradise of Rubes' country, Bébée lifted up the +vine-leaves of her basket. + +"I took a flower for you to-day, but it is dead. Look; to-morrow, if you +will be there, you shall have the best in all the garden." + +"You wish to see me again then?" he asked her. Bébée looked at him with +troubled eyes, but with a sweet frank faith that had no hesitation in it. + +"Yes! you are not like anything I ever knew, and if you will only help me +to learn a little. Sometimes I think I am not stupid, only ignorant; but +I cannot be sure unless I try." + +He smiled; he was listlessly amused; the day before he had tempted the +child merely because she was pretty, and to tempt her in that way seemed +the natural course of things, but now there was something in her that +touched him differently; the end would be the same, but he would change +the means. + +The sun had set. There was a low, dull red glow still on the far edge of +the plains--that was all. In the distant cottages little lights were +twinkling. The path grew dark. + +"I will go away and let her alone," he thought. "Poor little soul! it +would give itself lavishly, it would never be bought. I will let it +alone; the mind will go to sleep and the body will keep healthy, and +strong, and pure, as people call it. It would be a pity to play with both +a day, and then throw them away as the boy threw the pear-blossom. She +is a little clod of earth that has field flowers growing in it. I will +let her alone, the flowers under the plough in due course will die, and +she will be content among the other clods,--if I let her alone." + +At that moment there went across the dark fields, against the dusky red +sky, a young man with a pile of brushwood on his back, and a hatchet in +his hand. + +"You are late, Bébée," he called to her in Flemish, and scowled at the +stranger by her side. + +"A good-looking lad; who is it?" said her companion. + +"That is Jeannot, the son of old Sophie," she answered him. "He is so +good--oh, so good, you cannot think; he keeps his mother and three little +sisters, and works so very, very hard in the forest, and yet he often +finds time to dig my garden for me, and he chops all my wood in winter." + +They had come to where the road goes up by the king's summer palace. They +were under great hanging beeches and limes. There was a high gray wall, +and over it the blossoming fruit boughs hung. In a ditch full of long +grass little kids bleated by their mothers. Away on the left went the +green fields of colza, and beetroot, and trefoil, with big forest trees +here and there in their midst, and, against the blue low line of the far +horizon, red mill-sails, and gray church spires; dreamy plaintive bells +far away somewhere were ringing the sad Flemish carillon. + +He paused and looked at her. + +"I must bid you good night, Bébée; you are near your home now." + +She paused too and looked at him. + +"But I shall see you to-morrow?" + +There was the wistful, eager, anxious unconsciousness of appeal as when +the night before she had asked him if he were angry. + +He hesitated a moment. If he said no, and went away out of the city +wherever his listless and changeful whim called him, he knew how it would +be with her; he knew what her life would be as surely as he knew the +peach would come out of the peach-flower rosy on the wall there: life in +the little hut; among the neighbors; sleepy and safe and soulless;--if he +let her alone. + +If he stayed and saw her on the morrow he knew, too, the end as surely as +he knew that the branch of white pear-blossom, which in carelessness he +had knocked down with a stone on the grass yonder, would fade in the +night and would never bring forth its sweet, simple fruit in the +sunshine. + +To leave the peach-flower to come to maturity and be plucked by a +peasant, or to pull down the pear-blossom and rifle the buds? + +Carelessly and languidly he balanced the question with himself, whilst +Bébée, forgetful of the lace patterns and the flight of the hours, stood +looking at him with anxious and pleading eyes, thinking only--was he +angry again, or would he really bring her the books and make her wise, +and let her know the stories of the past? + +"Shall I see you to-morrow?" she said wistfully. + +Should she?--if he left the peach-blossom safe on the wall, Jeannot the +woodcutter would come by and by and gather the fruit. + +If he left the clod of earth in its pasture with all its daisies +untouched, this black-browed young peasant would cut it round with his +hatchet and carry it to his wicker cage, that the homely brown lark of +his love might sing to it some stupid wood note under a cottage eave. + +The sight of the strong young forester going over the darkened fields +against the dull red skies was as a feather that suffices to sway to one +side a balance that hangs on a hair. + +He had been inclined to leave her alone when he saw in his fancy the +clean, simple, mindless, honest life that her fanciful girlhood would +settle down into as time should go on. But when in the figure of the +woodman there was painted visibly on the dusky sky that end for her which +he had foreseen, he was not indifferent to it; he resented it; he was +stirred to a vague desire to render it impossible. + +If Jeannot had not gone by across the fields he would have left her and +let her alone from that night thenceforwards; as it was,-- + +"Good night, Bébée," he said to her. "Tomorrow I will finish the +Broodhuis and bring you your first book. Do not dream too much, or you +will prick your lace patterns all awry. Good night, pretty one." + +Then he turned and went back through the green dim lanes to the city. + +Bébée stood a moment looking after him, with a happy smile; then she +picked up the fallen pear-blossom, and ran home as fast as her feet would +take her. + +That night she worked very late watering her flowers, and trimming them, +and then ironing out a little clean white cap for the morrow; and then +sitting down under the open lattice to prick out all old Annémie's +designs by the strong light of the full moon that flooded her hut with +its radiance. + +But she sang all the time she worked, and the gay, pretty, wordless songs +floated across the water and across the fields, and woke some old people +in their beds as they lay with their windows open, and they turned and +crossed themselves, and said, "Dear heart!--this is the eve of the +Ascension, and the angels are so near we hear them." + +But it was no angel; only the thing that is nearer heaven than anything +else,--a little human heart that is happy and innocent. + +Bébée had only one sorrow that night. The pear-blossoms were all dead; +and no care could call them back even for an hour's blooming. + +"He did not think when he struck them +down," she said to herself, regretfully. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +"Can I do any work for you, Bébée?" said black Jeannot in the daybreak, +pushing her gate open timidly with one hand. + +"There is none to do, Jeannot. They want so little in this time of the +year--the flowers," said she, lifting her head from the sweet-peas she +was tying up to their sticks. + +The woodman did not answer; he leaned over the half-open wicket, and +swayed it backwards and forwards under his bare arm. He was a good, +harmless, gentle fellow, swarthy as charcoal and simple as a child, and +quite ignorant, having spent all his days in the great Soignies forests +making fagots when he was a little lad, and hewing down trees or burning +charcoal as he grew to manhood. + +"Who was that seigneur with you last night, Bébée?" he asked, after a +long silence, watching her as she moved. + +Bébée's eyes grew very soft, but they looked up frankly. + +"I am not sure--I think he is a painter--a great painter prince, I +mean--as Rubes was in Antwerpen; he wanted roses the night before last in +the cathedral." + +"But he was walking with you?" + +"He was in the lane as I came home last night--yes." + +"What does he give you for your roses?" + +"Oh! he pays me well. How is your mother this day, Jeannot?" + +"You do not like to talk of him?" + +"Why should you want to talk of him? He is nothing to you." + +"Did you really see him only two days ago, Bébée?" + +"Oh, Jeannot! did I ever tell a falsehood? You would not say that to one +of your little sisters." + +The forester swayed the gate to and fro drearily under his folded arms. + +Bébée, not regarding him, cut her flowers, and filled her baskets, and +did her other work, and set a ladder against the hut and climbed on its +low roof to seek for eggs, the hens having green tastes sometimes for the +rushes and lichens of its thatch. She found two eggs, which she promised +herself to take to Annémie, and looking round as she sat on the edge of +the roof, with one foot on the highest rung of the ladder, saw that +Jeannot was still at the gate. + +"You will be late in the forest, Jeannot," she cried to him. "It is such +a long, long way in and out. Why do you look so sulky? and you are +kicking the wicket to pieces." + +"I do not like you to talk with strangers," said Jeannot, sullenly and +sadly. + +Bébée laughed as she sat on the edge of the thatch, and looked at the +shining gray skies of the early day, and the dew-wet garden, and the +green fields beyond, with happy eyes that made the familiar scene +transfigured to her. + +"Oh, Jeannot, what nonsense! As if I do not talk to a million strangers +every summer! as if I could ever sell a flower if I did not! You are +cross this morning; that is what it is." + +"Do you know the man's name?" said Jeannot, suddenly. + +Bébée felt her cheeks grow warm as with some noonday heat of sunshine. +She thought it was with anger against blundering Jeannot's curiosity. + +"No! and what would his name be to us, if I did know it? I cannot ask +people's names because they buy my roses." + +"As if it were only roses!" + +There was the length of the garden between them, and Bébée did not hear +as she sat on the edge of her roof with that light dreamful enjoyment +of air and sky and coolness, and all the beauty of the dawning day, which +the sweet vague sense of a personal happiness will bring with it to the +dullest and the coldest. + +"You are cross, Jeannot, that is what it is," she said, after a while. +"You should not be cross; you are too big and strong and good. Go in and +get my bowl of bread and milk for me, and hand it to me up here. It is so +pleasant. It is as nice as being perched on an apple-tree." + +Jeannot went in obediently and handed up her breakfast to her, looking at +her with shy, worshipping eyes. But his face was overcast, and he sighed +heavily as he took up his hatchet and turned away; for he was the sole +support of his mother and sisters, and if he did not do his work in +Soignies they would starve at home. + +"You will be seeing that stranger again?" he asked her. + +"Yes!" she answered with a glad triumph in her eyes; not thinking at all +of him as she spoke. "You ought to go, Jeannot, now; you are so late. I +will come and see your mother to-morrow. And do not be cross, you dear +big Jeannot. Days are too short to snip them up into little bits by bad +temper; it is only a stupid sheep-shearer that spoils the fleece by +snapping at it sharp and hard; that is what Father Francis says." + +Bébée, having delivered her little piece of wisdom, broke her bread into +her milk and ate it, lifting her face to the fresh wind and tossing +crumbs to the wheeling swallows, and watching the rose-bushes nod and +toss below in the breeze, and thinking vaguely how happy a thing it was +to live. + +Jeannot looked up at her, then went on his slow sad way through the wet +lavender-shrubs and the opening buds of the lilies. + +"You will only think of that stranger, Bébée, never of any of us--never +again," he said; and wearily opened the little gate and went through it, +and down the daybreak stillness of the lane. It was a foolish thing to +say; but when were lovers ever wise? + +Bébée did not heed; she did not understand herself or him; she only knew +that she was happy; when one knows that, one does not want to seek much +further. + +She sat on the thatch and took her bread and milk in the gray clear air, +with the swallows circling above her head, and one or two of them even +resting a second on the edge of the bowl to peck at the food from the big +wooden spoon; they had known her all the sixteen summers of her life, and +were her playfellows, only they would never tell her anything of what +they saw in winter over the seas. That was her only quarrel with them. +Swallows do not tell their secrets They have the weird of Procne on +them all. + +The sun came and touched the lichens of the roof into gold. + +Bébée smiled at it gayly as it rose above the tops of the trees, and +shone on all the little villages scattered over the plains. + +"Ah, dear Sun!" she cried to it. "I am going to be wise. I am going into +great Rubes' country. I am going to hear of the Past and the Future. I am +going to listen to what the Poets say. The swallows never would tell me +anything; but now I shall know as much as they know. Are you not glad for +me, O Sun?" + +The Sun came over the trees, and heard and said nothing. If he had +answered at all he must have said,-- + +"The only time when a human soul is either wise or happy is in that one +single moment when the hour of my own shining or of the moon's beaming +seems to that single soul to be past and present and future, to be at +once the creation and the end of all things. Faust knew that; so will +you." + +But the Sun shone on and held his peace. He sees all things ripen and +fall. He can wait. He knows the end. It is always the same. + +He brings the fruit out of the peach-flower, and rounds it and touches it +into ruddiest rose and softest gold: but the sun knows well that the +peach must drop--whether into the basket to be eaten by kings, or on to +the turf to be eaten by ants. What matter which very much after all? + +The Sun is not a cynic; he is only wise because he is Life and he is +Death, the creator and the corrupter of all things. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +But Bébée, who only saw in the sun the sign of daily work, the brightness +of the face of the world, the friend of the flowers, the harvest-man of +the poor, the playmate of the birds and butterflies, the kindly light +that the waking birds and the ringing carillon welcomed,--Bébée, who was +not at all afraid of him, smiled at his rays and saw in them only fairest +promise of a cloudless midsummer day as she gave her last crumb to the +swallows, dropped down off the thatch, and busied herself in making bread +that Mère Krebs would bake for her, until it was time to cut her flowers +and go down into the town. + +When her loaves were made and she had run over with them to the +mill-house and back again, she attired herself with more heed than +usual, and ran to look at her own face in the mirror of the deep +well-water--other glass she had none. + +She was used to hear herself called pretty; bat she had never thought +about it at all till now. The people loved her; she had always believed +that they had only said it as a sort of kindness, as they said, "God keep +you." But now-- + +"He told me I was like a flower," she thought to herself, and hung over +the well to see. She did not know very well what he had meant; but the +sentence stirred in her heart as a little bird under tremulous leaves. + +She waited ten minutes full, leaning and looking down, while her eyes, +that were like the blue iris, smiled back to her from the brown depths +below. Then she went and kneeled down before the old shrine in the wall +of the garden. + +"Dear and holy Mother of Jesus, I do thank you that you made me a little +good to look at," she said, softly. "Keep me as you keep the flowers, and +let my face be always fair, because it is a pleasure to _be_ a pleasure. +Ah, dear Mother, I say it so badly, and it sounds so vain, I know. But I +do not think you will be angry, will you? And I am going to try to be +wise." + +Then she murmured an ave or two, to be in form as it were, and then rose +and ran along the lanes with her baskets, and brushed the dew lightly +over her bare feet, and sang a little Flemish song for very joyousness, +as the birds sing in the apple bough. + +She got the money for Annémie and took it to her with fresh patterns to +prick, and the new-laid eggs. + +"I wonder what he meant by a dog's heart?" she thought to herself, as she +left the old woman sitting by the hole in the roof pricking out the +parchment in all faith that she earned her money, and looking every now +and then through the forests of masts for the brig with the hank of flax +flying,--the brig that had foundered fifty long years before in the +northern seas, and in the days of her youth. + +"What is the dog's heart?" thought Bébée; she had seen a dog she knew--a +dog which all his life long had dragged heavy loads under brutal stripes +along the streets of Brussels--stretch himself on the grave of his +taskmaster and refuse to eat, and persist in lying there until he died, +though he had no memory except of stripes, and no tie to the dead except +pain and sorrow. Was it a heart like this that he meant? + +"Was her sailor, indeed, so good to her?" she asked an old gossip of +Annémie's, as she went down the stairs. + +The old soul stopped to think with difficulty of such a far-off time, and +resting her brass flagon of milk on the steep step. + +"Eh, no; not that I ever saw," she answered at length. "He was fond of +her--very fond; but he was a wilful one, and he beat her sometimes when +he got tired of being on land. But women must not mind that, you know, my +dear, if only a man's heart is right. Things fret them, and then they +belabor what they love best; it is a way they have." + +"But she speaks of him as of an angel nearly!" said Bébée, bewildered. + +The old woman took up her flagon, with a smile flitting across her wintry +face. + +"Ay, dear; when the frost kills your brave rose-bush, root and bud, +do you think of the thorns that pricked you, or only of the fair, +sweet-smelling things that flowered all your summer?" + +Bébée went away thoughtfully out of the old crazy water-washed house by +the quay; life seemed growing very strange and intricate and knotted +about her, like the threads of lace that a bad fairy has entangled in the +night. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Her stranger from Rubes' land was a great man in a certain world. He had +become great when young, which is perhaps a misfortune. It indisposes men +to be great at their maturity. He was famous at twenty, by a picture +hectic in color, perfect in drawing, that made Paris at his feet. He +became more famous by verses, by plays, by political follies, and by +social successes. He was faithful, however, to his first love in art. He +was a great painter, and year by year proved afresh the cunning of his +hand. Purists said his pictures had no soul in them. It was not wonderful +if they had none. He always painted soulless vice; indeed, he saw very +little else. + +One year he had some political trouble. He wrote a witty pamphlet that +hurt where it was perilous to aim. He laughed and crossed the border, +riding into the green Ardennes one sunny evening. He had a name of some +power and sufficient wealth; he did not feel long exile. Meanwhile he +told himself he would go and look at Scheffer's Gretchen. + +The King of Thule is better; but people talk most of the Gretchen. He had +never seen either. + +He went in leisurely, travelling up the bright Meuse River, and across +the monotony of the plains, then green with wheat a foot high, and +musical with the many bells of the Easter kermesses in the quaint +old-world villages. + +There was something so novel, so sleepy, so harmless, so mediaeval, in +the Flemish life, that it soothed him. He had been swimming all his +life in salt sea-fed rapids; this sluggish, dull, canal water, mirroring +between its rushes a life that had scarcely changed for centuries, had a +charm for him. + +He stayed awhile in Antwerpen. The town is ugly and beautiful; it is like +a dull quaint grés de Flandre jug, that has precious stones set inside +its rim. It is a burgher ledger of bales and barrels, of sale and barter, +of loss and gain; but in the heart of it there are illuminated leaves of +missal vellum, all gold and color, and monkish story and heroic ballad, +that could only have been executed in the days when Art was a religion. + +He gazed himself into an homage of Rubens, whom before he had slighted, +never having known (for, unless you have seen Antwerp, it is as absurd to +say that you have seen Rubens, as it is to think that you have seen +Murillo out of Seville, or Raffaelle out of Rome); and he studied the +Gretchen carefully, delicately, sympathetically, for he loved Scheffer; +but though he tried, he failed to care for her. + +"She is only a peasant; she is not a poem," he said to himself; "I will +paint a Gretchen for the Salon of next year." + +But it was hard for him to portray a Gretchen. All his pictures were +Phryne,--Phryne in triumph, in ruin, in a palace, in a poor-house, on a +bed of roses, on a hospital mattress; Phryne laughing with a belt of +jewels about her supple waist; Phryne lying with the stones of the +dead-house under her naked limbs,--but always Phryne. Phryne, who living +had death in her smile; Phryne, who lifeless had blank despair on her +face; Phryne, a thing that lived furiously every second of her days, but +Phryne a thing that once being dead was carrion that never could live +again. + +Phryne has many painters in this school, as many as Catherine and Cecilia +had in the schools of the Renaissance, and he was chief amidst them. + +How could he paint Gretchen if the pure Scheffer missed? Not even if, +like the artist monks of old, he steeped his brushes all Lent through in +holy water. + +And in holy water he did not believe. + +One evening, having left Antwerpen ringing its innumerable bells over the +grave of its dead Art, he leaned out of the casement of an absent +friend's old palace in the Brabant street that is named after Mary of +Burgundy; an old casement crusted with quaint carvings, and gilded round +in Spanish fashion, with many gargoyles and griffins, and illegible +scutcheons. + +Leaning there, wondering with himself whether he would wait awhile and +paint quietly in this dim street, haunted with the shades of Memling and +Maes, and Otto Veneris and Philip de Champagne, or whether he would go +into the East and seek new types, and lie under the red Egyptian heavens +and create a true Cleopatra, which no man has ever done yet,--young +Cleopatra, ankle-deep in roses and fresh from Cæsar's kisses,--leaning +there, he saw a little peasant go by below, with two little white feet in +two wooden shoes, and a face that had the pure and simple radiance of a +flower. + +"There is my Gretchen," he thought to himself, and went down and followed +her into the cathedral. If he could get what was in her face, he would +get what Scheffer could not. + +A little later walking by her in the green lanes, he meditated, "It is +the face of Gretchen, but not the soul--the Red Mouse has never passed +this child's lips. Nevertheless--" + +"Nevertheless--" he said to himself, and smiled. + +For he, the painter all his life long of Phryne living and of Phryne +dead, believed that every daughter of Eve either vomits the Red Mouse +or swallows it. + +It makes so little difference which,--either way the Red Mouse has been +there the evening towards this little rush-covered hut, he forgot the Red +Mouse, and began vaguely to see that there are creatures of his mother's +sex from whom the beast of the Brocken slinks away. + +But he still said to himself, "Nevertheless." "Nevertheless,"--for he +knew well that when the steel cuts the silk, when the hound hunts the +fawn, when the snake wooes the bird, when the king covets the vineyard, +there is only one end possible at any time. It is the strong against the +weak, the fierce against the feeble, the subtle against the simple, the +master against the slave; there is no equality in the contest and no +justice--it is merely inevitable, and the issue of it is written. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +The next day she had her promised book hidden under the vine-leaves of +her empty basket as she went homeward, and though she had not seen him +very long or spoken to him very much, she was happy. + +The golden gates of knowledge had just opened to her; she saw a faint, +far-off glimpse of the Hesperides gardens within; of the dragon she had +never heard, and had no fear. + +"Might I know your name?" she had asked him wistfully, as she had given +him the rosebud, and taken the volume in return that day. + +"They call me Flamen." + +"It is your name?" + +"Yes, for the world. You must call me Victor, as other women do. Why do +you want my name?" + +"Jeannot asked it of me." + +"Oh, Jeannot asked it, did he?" + +"Yes; besides," said Bébée, with her eyes very soft and very serious, and +her happy voice hushed,--"besides, I want to pray for you of course, +every day; and if I do not know your name, how can I make Our Lady +rightly understand? The flowers know you without a name, but she might +not, because so very many are always beseeching her, and you see she has +all the world to look after." + +He had looked at her with a curious look, and had bade her farewell, and +let her go home alone that night. + +Her work was quickly done, and by the light of the moon she spread her +book on her lap in the porch of the hut and began her new delight. + +The children had come and pulled at her skirts and begged her to play. +But Bébée had shaken her head. + +"I am going to learn to be very wise, dear," she told them; "I shall not +have time to dance or to play." + +"But people are not merry when they are wise, Bébée," said Franz, the +biggest boy. + +"Perhaps not," said Bébée: "but one cannot be everything, you know, +Franz." + +"But surely, you would rather be merry than anything else?" + +"I think there is something better, Franz. I am not sure; I want to find +out; I will tell you when I know." + +"Who has put that into your head, Bébée?" + +"The angels in the cathedral," she told them; and the children were awed +and left her, and went away to play blind-man's-buff by themselves, on +the grass by the swan's water. + +"But for all that the angels have said it," said Franz to his sisters, "I +cannot see what good it will be to her to be wise, if she will not care +any longer afterwards for almond gingerbread and currant cake." + +It was the little tale of "Paul and Virginia" that he had given her to +begin her studies with: but it was a grand copy, full of beautiful +drawings nearly at every page. + +It was hard work for her to read at first, but the drawings enticed and +helped her, and she soon sank breathlessly into the charm of the story. +Many words she did not know; many passages were beyond her comprehension; +she was absolutely ignorant, and had nothing but the force of her own +fancy to aid her. + +But though stumbling at every step, as a lame child through a flowery +hillside in summer, she was happy as the child would be, because of the +sweet, strange air that was blowing about her, and the blossoms that she +could gather into her hand, so rare, so wonderful, and yet withal so +familiar, because they _were_ blossoms. + +With her fingers buried in her curls, with her book on her knee, with the +moon rays white and strong on the page, Bébée sat entranced as the hours +went by; the children's play shouts died away; the babble of the gossip +at the house doors ceased; people went by and called good night to her; +the little huts shut up one by one, like the white and purple convolvulus +cups in the hedges. + +Bébée did not stir, nor did she hear them; she was deaf even to the +singing of the nightingales in the willows, where she sat in her little +thatch above, and the wet garden-ways beyond her. + +A heavy step came tramping down the lane. A voice called to her,-- + +"What are you doing, Bébée, there, this time of the night? It is on the +strike of twelve." + +She started as if she were doing some evil thing, and stretched her arms +out, and looked around with blinded, wondering eyes, as if she had been +rudely wakened from her sleep. + +"What are you doing up so late?" asked Jeannot; he was coming from the +forest in the dead of night to bring food for his family; he lost his +sleep thus often, but he never thought that he did anything except his +duty in those long, dark, tiring tramps to and fro between Soignies and +Laeken. + +Bébée shut her book and smiled with dreaming eyes, that saw him not at +all. + +"I was reading--and, Jeannot, his name is Flamen for the world, but I may +call him Victor." + +"What do I care for his name?" + +"You asked it this morning." + +"More fool I. Why do you read? Reading is not for poor folk like you and +me." + +Bébée smiled up at the white clear moon that sailed above the woods. + +She was not awake out of her dream. She +only dimly heard the words he spoke. + +"You are a little peasant," said Jeannot roughly, as he paused at the +gate. "It is all you can do to get your bread. You have no one to stand +between you and hunger. How will it be with you when the slug gets your +roses, and the snail your carnations, and your hens die of damp, and your +lace is all wove awry, because your head runs on reading and folly, and +you are spoilt for all simple pleasures and for all honest work?" + +She smiled, still looking up at the moon, with the dropping ivy touching +her hair. + +"You are cross, dear Jeannot. Good night." + +A moment afterwards the little rickety door was shut, and the rusty bolt +drawn within it; Jeannot stood in the cool summer night all alone, and +knew how stupid he had been in his wrath. + +He leaned on the gate a minute; then crossed the garden as softly as his +wooden shoes would let him. He tapped gently on the shutter of the +lattice. + +"Bébée--Bébée--just listen. I spoke roughly, dear--I know I have no +right. I am sorry. Will you be friends with me again?--do be friends +again." + +She opened the shutter a little way, so that he could see her +pretty mouth speaking, "we are friends--we will always be friends, +of course--only you do not know. Good night." + +He went away with a heavy heart and a long-drawn step. He would have +preferred that she should have been angry with him. + +Bébée, left alone, let the clothes drop off her pretty round shoulders +and her rosy limbs, and shook out her coils of hair, and kissed the book, +and laid it under her head, and went to sleep with a smile on her face. + +Only, as she slept, her ringers moved as if she were counting her beads, +and her lips murmured,-- + +"Oh, dear Holy Mother, you have so much to think of--yes. I know--all the +poor, and all the little children. But take care of _him_; he is called +Flamen, and he lives in the street of Mary of Burgundy; you cannot miss +him; and if you will look for him always, and have a heed that the angels +never leave him, I will give you my great cactus glower--my only one--on +your Feast of Roses this very year. Oh, dear Mother, you will not +forget!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Bébée was a dreamer in her way, and aspired to be a scholar too. But all +the same, she was not a little fool. + +She had been reared in hardy, simple, honest ways of living, and would +have thought it as shameful as a theft to have owed her bread to other +folk. + +So, though she had a wakeful, restless night, full of strange fantasies, +none the less was she out in her garden by daybreak; none the less did +she sweep out her floor and make her mash for the fowls, and wash out her +bit of linen and hang it to dry on a line among the tall, flaunting +hollyhocks that were so proud of themselves because they reached to the +roof. + +"What do you want with books, Bébée?" said Reine, the sabot-maker's wife, +across the privet hedge, as she also hung out her linen. "Franz told me +you were reading last night. It is the silver buckles have done that: one +mischief always begets another." + +"Where is the mischief, good Reine?" said Bébée, who was always prettily +behaved with her elders, though, when pushed to it, she could hold her +own. + +"The mischief will be in discontent," said the sabot-maker's wife. +"People live on their own little patch, and think it is the world; that +is as it should be--everybody within his own, like a nut in its shell. +But when you get reading, you hear of a swarm of things you never saw, +and you fret because you cannot see them, and you dream, and dream, and a +hole is burnt in your soup-pot, and your dough is as heavy as lead. You +are like bees that leave their own clover fields to buzz themselves dead +against the glass of a hothouse." + +Bébée smiled, reaching to spread out her linen. But she said nothing. + +"What good is it talking to them?" she thought; "they do not know." + +Already the neighbors and friends of her infancy seemed so far, far away; +creatures of a distant world, that she had long left; it was no use +talking, they never would understand. + +"Antoine should never have taught you your letters," said Reine, groaning +under the great blue shirts she was hanging on high among the leaves. "I +told him so at the time. I said, 'The child is a good child, and spins, +and sews, and sweeps, rare and fine for her age; why go and spoil her?' +But he was always headstrong. Not a child of mine knows a letter, the +saints be praised! nor a word of any tongue but our own good Flemish. You +should have been brought up the same. You would have come to no trouble +then." + +"I am in no trouble, dear Reine," said Bébée, scattering the potato-peels +to the clacking poultry, and she smiled into the faces of the golden +oxlips that nodded to her back again in sunshiny sympathy. + +"Not yet," said Reine, hanging her last shirt. + +But Bébée was not hearing; she was calling the chickens, and telling the +oxlips how pretty they looked in the borders; and in her heart she was +counting the minutes till the old Dutch cuckoo-clock at Mère Krebs's--the +only clock in the lane--should crow out the hour at which she went down +to the city. + +She loved the hut, the birds, the flowers; but they were little to her +now compared with the dark golden picturesque square, the changing +crowds, the frowning roofs, the gray stones, and colors and shadows of +the throngs for one face and for one smile. + +"He is sure to be there," she thought, and started half an hour earlier +than was her wont. She wanted to tell him all her rapture in the book; no +one else could understand. + +But all the day through he never came. + +Bébée sat with a sick heart and a parched little throat, selling her +flowers and straining her eyes through the tumult of the square. + +The whole day went by, and there was no sign of him. + +The flowers had sold well: it was a feast day; her pouch was full of +pence--what was that to her? + +She went and prayed in the cathedral, but it seemed cold, and desolate, +and empty; even the storied windows seemed dark. + +"Perhaps he is gore out of the city," she thought; and a terror fell on +her that frightened her, it was so unlike any fear that she had ever +known--even the fear when she had seen death on old Antoine's face had +been nothing like this. + +Going home through the streets, she passed the café of the Trois Frères +that looks out on the trees of the park, and that has flowers in its +balconies, and pleasant windows that stand open to let the sounds of the +soldiers' music enter. She saw him in one of the windows. There were +amber and scarlet and black; silks and satins and velvets. There was a +fan painted and jewelled. There were women's faces. There was a heap of +purple fruit and glittering sweetmeats. He laughed there. His beautiful +Murillo head was dark against the white and gold within. + +Bébée looked up,--paused a second,--then went onward, with a thorn in her +heart. + +He Had not seen her. + +"It is natural, of course--he has his world--he does not think often of +me--there is no reason why he should be as good as he is," she said to +herself as she went slowly over the stones. + +She had the dog's soul--only she did not know it. + +But the tears Fell down her cheeks, as she walked. + +It looked so bright in there, so gay, with the sound of the music coming +in through the trees, and those women,--she had seen such women before; +sometimes in the winter nights, going home from the lacework, she had +stopped at the doors of the palaces, or of the opera house, when the +carriages were setting down their brilliant burdens; and sometimes on the +great feast days she had seen the people of the court going out to some +gala at the theatre, or some great review of troops, or some ceremonial +of foreign sovereigns; but she had never thought about them before; she +had never wondered whether velvet was better to wear than woollen serge, +or-diamonds lighter on the head than a little cap of linen. + +But now-- + +Those women seemed to her so dazzling, so wondrously, so superhumanly +beautiful; they seemed like some of those new dahlia flowers, rose and +purple and gold, that outblazed the sun on the south border of her little +garden, and blanched all the soft color out of the homely roses, and +pimpernels, and sweet-williams, and double-stocks, that had bloomed +there ever since the days of Waterloo. + +But the dahlias had no scent; and Bébée wondered if these women had any +heart in them,--they looked all laughter, and glitter, and vanity. To the +child, whose dreams of womanhood were evolved from the face of the Mary +of the Assumption, of the Susannah of Mieris, and of that Angel in the +blue coif whose face has a light as of the sun,--to her who had dreamed +her way into vague perceptions of her own sex's maidenhood and maternity +by help of those great pictures which had been before her sight from +infancy, there was some taint, some artifice, some want, some harshness +in these jewelled women; she could not have reasoned about it, but she +felt it, as she felt that the grand dahlias missed a flower's divinity, +being scentless. + +She was a little bit of wild thyme herself; hardy, fragrant, clean, +tender, flowering by the wayside, full of honey, though only nourished +on the turf and the stones, these gaudy, brilliant, ruby-bright, +scarlet-mantled dahlias hurt her with a dim sense of pain and shame. + +Fasting, next day at sunrise she confessed to Father Francis:-- + +"I saw beautiful rich women, and I envied them; and I could not pray to +Mary last night for thinking of them, for I hated them so much." + +But she did not say,-- + +"I hated them because they were with him." + +Out of the purest little soul, Love entering drives forth Candor. + +"That is not like you at all, Bébée," said the good old man, as she knelt +at his feet on the bricks of his little bare study, where all the books +he ever spelt out were treatises on the art of bee-keeping. + +"My dear, you never were covetous at all, nor did you ever seem to care +for the things of the world. I wish Jehan had not given you those silver +buckles; I think they have set your little soul on vanities." + +"It is not the buckles; I am not covetous," said Bébée; and then her face +grew warm. She did not know why. and she did not hear the rest of Father +Francis's admonitions. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +But the next noon-time brought him to the market stall, and the next +also, and so the summer days slipped away, and Bébée was quite happy if +she saw him in the morning time, to give him a fresh rose, or at evening +by the gates, or under the beech-trees, when he brought her a new book, +and sauntered awhile up the green lane beside her. + +An innocent, unconscious love like Bébée's wants so little food to make +it all content. Such mere trifles are beautiful and sweet to it. Such +slender stray gleams of light suffice to make a broad, bright golden noon +of perfect joy around it. + +All the delirium, and fever, and desire, and despair, that are in maturer +passion, are far away from it: far as is the flash of the meteor across +sultry skies from the blue forget-me-not down in the brown meadow brook. + +It was very wonderful to Bébée that he, this stranger from Rubes' +fairyland, could come at all to keep pace with her little clattering +wooden shoes over the dust and the grass in the dim twilight time. The +days went by in a trance of sweet amaze, and she kept count of the hours +no more by the cuckoo-clock of the mill-house, or the deep chimes of the +Brussels belfries; but only by such moments as brought her a word from +his lips, or even a glimpse of him from afar, across the crowded square. + +She sat up half the nights reading the books he gave her, studying the +long cruel polysyllables, and spelling slowly through the phrases that +seemed to her so cramped and tangled, and which yet were a pleasure to +unravel forsake of the thought they held. + +For Bébée, ignorant little simple soul that she was, had a mind in her +that was eager, observant, quick to acquire, skilful to retain; and it +would happen in certain times that Flamen, speaking to her of the things +which he gave to her to read, would think to himself that this child had +more wisdom than was often to be found in schools. + +Meanwhile he pondered various studies in various stages of a Gretchen, +and made love to Bébée--made love at least by his eyes and by his voice, +not hurrying his pleasant task, but hovering about her softly, and +mindful not to scare her, as a man will gently lower his hand over a +poised butterfly that he seeks to kill, and which one single movement, a +thought too quick, may scare away to safety. + +Bébée knew where he lived in the street of Mary of Burgundy: in an old +palace that belonged to a great Flemish noble, who never dwelt there +himself; but to ask anything about him--why he was there? what his rank +was? why he stayed in the city at all?--was a sort of treason that never +entered her thoughts. + +Psyche, if she had been as simple and loyal as Bébée was, would never +have lighted her own candle; but even Psyche would not have borrowed any +one else's lamp to lighten the love darkness. + +To Bébée he was sacred, unapproachable, unquestionable; he was a +wonderful, perfect happiness that had fallen into her life; he was a +gift of God, as the sun was. + +She took his going and coming as she took that of the sun, never dreaming +of reproaching his absence, never dreaming of asking if in the empty +night he shone on any other worlds than hers. + +It was hardly so much a faith with her as an instinct; faith must reason +ere it know itself to be faith. Bébée never reasoned any more than her +roses did. + +The good folks in the market place watched her a little anxiously; they +thought ill of that little moss-rose that every day found its way to one +wearer only; but after all they did not see much, and the neighbors +nothing at all. For he never went home to her, nor with her, and most of +the time that he spent with Bébée was in the quiet evening shadows, as +she went up with her empty basket through the deserted country roads. + +Bébée was all day long in the city, indeed, as other girls were, but with +her it had always been different. Antoine had always been with her up to +the day of his death; and after his death she had sat in the same place, +surrounded by the people she had known from infancy, and an insult to her +would have been answered by a stroke from the cobbler's strap or from the +tinker's hammer. There was one girl only who ever tried to do her any +harm--a good-looking stout wench, who stood at the corner of the Montagne +de la Cour with a stall of fruit in the summer time, and in winter time +drove a milk cart over the snow. This girl would get at her sometimes, +and talk of the students, and tell her how good it was to get out of the +town on a holiday, and go to any one of the villages where there was +Kermesse and dance, and drink the little blue wine, and have trinkets +bought for one, and come home in the moonlight in a char-à -banc, with the +horns sounding, and the lads singing, and the ribbons flying from the +old horse's ears. + +"She is such a little close sly thing!" thought the fruit girl, sulkily. +To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery. + +"We dance almost every evening, the children and I," Bébée had +answered when urged fifty times by this girl to go to fairs, and balls at +the wine shops. "That does just as well. And I have seen Kermesse once at +Malines--it was beautiful. I went with Mère Dax, but it cost a great deal +I know, though she did not let me pay." + +"You little fool!" the fruit girl would say, and grin, and eat a pear. + +But the good honest old women who sat about in the Grande Place, hearing, +had always taken the fruit girl to task, when they got her by herself. + +"Leave the child alone, you mischievous one," said they. "Be content with +being base yourself. Look you, Lisette; she is not one like you to make +eyes at the law students, and pester the painter lads for a day's outing. +Let her be, or we will tell your mother how you leave the fruit for the +gutter children to pick and thieve, while you are stealing up the stairs +into that young French fellow's chamber. Oh, oh! a fine beating you will +get when she knows!" + +Lisette's mother was a fierce and strong old Brabantoise who exacted +heavy reckoning with her daughter for every single plum and peach +that she sent out of her dark sweet-smelling fruit shop to be sunned in +the streets, and under the students' love-glances. + +So the girl took heed, and left Bébée alone. + +"What should I want her to come with us for?" she reasoned with herself. +"She is twice as pretty as I am; Jules might take to her instead--who +knows?" + +So that she was at once savage and yet triumphant when she saw, as she +thought, Bébée drifting down the high flood of temptation. + +"Oh, oh, you dainty one!" she cried one day to her. "So you would not +take the nuts and mulberries that do for us common folk, because you +had a mind for a fine pine out of the hothouses! That was all, was it? +Eh, well; I do not begrudge you. Only take care; remember, the nuts and +mulberries last through summer and autumn, and there are heaps of them on +every fair-stall and street corner; but the pine, that is eaten in a day, +one springtime, and its like does not grow in the hedges. You will have +your mouth full of sugar an hour,--and then, eh!--you will go famished +all the year." + +"I do not understand," said Bébée, looking up, with her thoughts far +away, and scarcely hearing the words spoken to her. + +"Oh, pretty little fool! you understand well enough," said Lisette, +grinning, as she rubbed up a melon. "Does he give you fine things? You +might let me see." + +"No one gives me anything." + +"Chut! you want me to believe that. Why Jules is only a lad, and his +father is a silk mercer, and only gives him a hundred francs a month, +but Jules buys me all I want--somehow--or do you think I would take +the trouble to set my cap straight when he goes by? He gave me these +ear-rings, look. I wish you would let me see what you get." + +But Bébée had gone away--unheeding--dreaming of Juliet and of Jeanne +d'Arc, of whom he had told her tales. + +He made sketches of her sometimes, but seldom pleased himself. + +It was not so easy as he had imagined that it would prove to portray this +little flower-like face, with the clear eyes and the child's open brow. +He who had painted Phryne so long and faithfully had got a taint on his +brush--he could not paint this pure, bright, rosy dawn--he who had always +painted the glare of midnight gas on rouge or rags. Yet he felt that if +he could transfer to canvas the light that was on Bébée's face he would +get what Scheffer had missed. For a time it eluded him. You shall paint a +gold and glistening brocade, or a fan of peacock's feathers, to +perfection, and yet, perhaps, the dewy whiteness of the humble little +field daisy shall baffle and escape you. + +He felt, too, that he must catch her expression flying as he would do the +flash of a swallow's wing across a blue sky; he knew that Bébée, forced +to studied attitudes in an atelier, would be no longer the ideal that he +wanted. + +More than once he came and filled in more fully his various designs in +the little hut garden, among the sweet gray lavender and the golden disks +of the sunflowers; and more than once Bébée was missed from her place in +the front of the Broodhuis. + +The Varnhart children would gather now and then open-mouthed at the +wicket, and Mère Krebs would shake her head as she went by on her +sheepskin saddle, and mutter that the child's head would be turned by +vanity; and old Jehan would lean on his stick and peer through the +sweetbrier, and wonder stupidly if this strange man who could make +Bébée's face beam over again upon that panel of wood could not give him +back his dead daughter who had been pushed away under the black earth so +long, long before, when the red mill had been brave and new, the red mill +that the boys and girls called old. + +But except these, no one noticed much. + +Painters were no rare sights in Brabant. + +The people were used to see them coming and going, making pictures of mud +and stones, and ducks and sheep, and of all common and silly things. + +"What does he pay you, Bébée?" they used to ask, with the shrewd Flemish +thought after the main chance. + +"Nothing," Bébée would answer, with a quick color in her face; and they +would reply in contemptuous reproof, "Careless little fool; you should +make enough to buy you wood all winter. When the man from Ghent painted +Trine and her cow, he gave her a whole gold bit for standing still so +long in the clover. The Krebs would be sure to lend you her cow, if it +be the cow that makes the difference." + +Bébée was silent, weeding her carnation bed;--what could she tell them +that they would understand? + +She seemed so far away from them all--those good friends of her +childhood--now that this wonderful new world of his giving had opened to +her sight. + +She lived in a dream. + +Whether she sat in the market place taking copper coins, or in the +moonlight with a book on her knees, it was all the same. Her feet ran, +her tongue spoke, her hands worked; she did not neglect her goat or her +garden, she did not forsake her house labor or her good deeds to old +Annémie; but all the while she only heard one voice, she only felt one +touch, she only saw one face. + +Here and there--one in a million--there is a female thing that can love +like this, once and forever. + +Such an one is dedicated, birth upwards, to the Mater Dolorosa. + +He had something nearer akin to affection for her than he had ever had in +his life for anything, but he was never in love with her--no more in +love with her than with the moss-rosebuds that she fastened in his +breast. Yet he played with her, because she was such a little, soft, +tempting female thing; and because, to see her face flush, and her heart +heave, to feel her fresh feelings stir into life, and to watch her +changes from shyness to confidence, and from frankness again into fear, +was a natural pastime in the lazy golden weather. + +That he spared her as far as he did,--when after all she would have +married Jeannot anyhow,--and that he sketched her face in the open air, +and never entered her hut and never beguiled her to his own old palace in +the city, was a new virtue in himself for which he hardly knew whether to +feel respect or ridicule; anyway, it seemed virtue to him. + +So long as he did not seduce the body, it seemed to him that it could +never matter how he slew the soul,--the little, honest, happy, pure, +frank soul, that amidst its poverty and hardships was like a robin's song +to the winter sun. + +"Hoot, toot, pretty innocent, so you are no better than the rest of us," +hissed her enemy, Lisette, the fruit girl, against her as she went by the +stall one evening as the sun set. "Prut! so it was no such purity after +all that made you never look at the student lads and the soldiers, eh? +You were so dainty of taste, you must needs pick and choose, and, Lord's +sake, after all your coyness, to drop at a beckoning finger as one may +say--pong!--in a minute, like an apple over-ripe! Oh hé, you sly one!" + +Bébée flushed red, in a sort of instinct of offence; not sure what her +fault was, but vaguely stung by the brutal words. + +Bébée walked homeward by him, with her empty baskets: looked at him with +grave wondering eyes. + +"What did she mean? I do not understand. I must have done some wrong--or +she thinks so. Do you know?" + +Flamen laughed, and answered her evasively,-- + +"You have done her the wrong of a fair skin when hers is brown, and a +little foot while hers is as big as a trooper's; there is no greater sin, +Bébée, possible in woman to woman." + +"Hold your peace, you shrill jade," he added, in anger to the fruiterer, +flinging at her a crown piece, that the girl caught, and bit with her +teeth with a chuckle. "Do not heed her, Bébée. She is a coarse-tongued +brute, and is jealous, no doubt." + +"Jealous?--of what?" + +The word had no meaning to Bébée. + +"That I am not a student or a soldier, as her lovers are." + +As her lovers were! Bébée felt her face burn again. Was he her lover +then? The child's innocent body and soul thrilled with a hot, sweet +delight and fear commingled. + +Bébée was not quite satisfied until she had knelt down that night and +asked the Master of all poor maidens to see if there were any wickedness +in her heart, hidden there like a bee in a rose, and if there were to +take it out and make her worthier of this wonderful new happiness in her +life. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +The next day, waking with a radiant little soul as a bird in a forest +wakes in summer Bébée was all alone in the lane by the swans' water. In +the gray of the dawn all the good folk except herself and lame old Jehan +had tramped off to a pilgrimage, Liége way, which the bishop of the city +had enjoined on all the faithful as a sacred duty. + +Bébée doing her work, singing, thinking how good God was, and dreaming +over a thousand fancies of the wonderful stories he had told her, and of +the exquisite delight that would lie for her in watching for him all +through the shining hours, Bébée felt her little heart leap like a +squirrel as the voice that was the music of heaven to her called through +the stillness,--"Good day, pretty one! you are as early as the lark, +Bébée. I go to Mayence, so I thought I would look at you one moment as I +pass." + +Bébée ran down through the wet grass in a tumult of joy. She had never +seen him so early in the day--never so early as this, when nobody was up +and stirring except birds and beasts and peasant folk. + +She did not know how pretty she looked herself; like a rain-washed wild +rose; her feet gleaming with dew, her cheeks warm with health and joy; +her sunny clustering hair free from the white cap and tumbling a little +about her throat, because she had been stooping over the carnations. + +Flamen loosed the wicket latch, and thought there might be better ways of +spending the day than in the gray shadows of old Mechlin. + +"Will you give me a draught of water?" he asked her as he crossed the +garden. + +"I will give you breakfast," said Bébée, happy as a bird. She felt no +shame for the smallness of her home; no confusion at the poverty of +her little place; such embarrassments are born of self-consciousness, +and Bébée had no more self-consciousness than her own sweet, gray +lavender-bush blowing against the door. + +The lavender-bush has no splendor like the roses, has no colors like the +hollyhocks; it is a simple, plain, gray thing that the bees love and that +the cottagers cherish, and that keeps the moth from the homespun linen, +and that goes with the dead to their graves. + +It has many virtues and infinite sweetness, but it does not know it or +think of it; and if the village girls ever tell it so, it fancies they +only praise it out of kindness as they put its slender fragrant spears +away in their warm bosoms. Bébée was like her lavender, and now that this +beautiful Purple Emperor butterfly came from the golden sunbeams to find +pleasure for a second in her freshness, she was only very grateful, as +the lavender-bush was to the village girls. + +"I will give you your breakfast," said Bébée, flushing rosily with +pleasure, and putting away the ivy coils that he might enter. + +"I have very little, you know," she added, wistfully. "Only goat's milk +and bread; but if that will do--and there is some honey--and if you would +eat a salad, I would cut one fresh." + +He did enter, and glanced round him with a curious pity and wonder both +in one. + +It was such a little, small, square place; and its floor was of beaten +clay; and its unceiled roof he could have touched; and its absolute +poverty was so plain,--and yet the child looked so happy in it, and was +so like a flower, and was so dainty and fresh, and even so full of grace. + +She stood and looked at him with frank and grateful eyes; she could +hardly believe that he was here; he, the stranger of Rubes' land, in her +own little rush-covered home. + +But she was not embarrassed by it; she was glad and proud. + +There is a dignity of peasants as well as of kings,--the dignity that +comes from all absence of effort, all freedom from pretence. Bébée had +this, and she had more still than this: she had the absolute simplicity +of childhood with her still. + +Some women have it still when they are four-score. + +She could have looked at him forever, she was so happy; she cared +nothing now for those dazzling dahlias--he had left them; he was actually +here--here in her own, little dear home, with the cocks looking in at the +threshold, and the sweet-peas nodding at the lattice, and the starling +crying, "Bonjour! Bonjour!" + +"You are tired, I am sure you must be tired," she said, pulling her +little bed forward for him to sit on, for there were only two wooden +stools in the hut, and no chair at all. + +Then she took his sketching-easel and brushes from his hand, and would +have kneeled and taken the dust off his boots if he would have let her; +and went hither and thither gladly and lightly, bringing him a wooden +bowl of milk and the rest of the slender fare, and cutting as quick as +thought fresh cresses and lettuce from her garden, and bringing him, as +the crown of all, Father Francis's honey-comb on vine-leaves, with some +pretty sprays of box and mignonette scattered about it--doing all this +with a swift, sweet grace that robbed the labor of all look of servitude, +and looking at him ever and again with a smile that said as clearly as +any words, "I cannot do much, but what I do, I do with all my heart." + +There was something in the sight of her going and coming in those simple +household errands, across the sunlit floor, that moved him as some +mountain air sung on an alp by a girl driving her cows to pasture may +move a listener who indifferent has heard the swell of the organ of +La Hague, or the recitative of a great singer in San Carlo. + +The gray lavender blowing at the house door has its charm for those who +are tired of the camellias that float in the porcelain bowls of midnight +suppers. + +This man was not good. He was idle and vain, and amorous and cold, and +had been spoiled by the world in which he had passed his days; but he had +the temper of an artist: he had something, too, of a poet's fancy; he +was vaguely touched and won by this simple soul that looked at him out of +Bébée's eyes with some look that in all its simplicity had a divine gleam +in it that made him half ashamed. + +He had known women by the thousand, good women and bad; women whom he had +dealt ill with and women who had dealt ill with him; but this he had not +known--this frank, fearless, tender, gay, grave, innocent, industrious +little life, helping itself, feeding itself, defending itself, working +for itself and for others, and vaguely seeking all the while some unseen +light, some unknown god, with a blind faith so infinitely ignorant and +yet so infinitely pathetic. + +"All the people are gone on a pilgrimage," she explained to him when he +asked her why her village was so silent this bright morning. "They are +gone to pray for a fine harvest, and that she wants herself as well--it +costs seven francs apiece. They take their food with them; they go and +laugh and eat in the fields. I think it is nonsense. One can say one's +prayers just as well here. Mère Krebs thinks so too, but then she says, +'If I do not go, it will look ill; people will say I am irreligious; and +as we make so much by flour, God would think it odd for me to be absent; +and, besides, it is only seven francs there and back; and if it does +please Heaven, that is cheap, you know. One will get it over and over +again in Paradise.' That is what Mere Krebs says. But, for me, I +think it is nonsense. It cannot please God to go by train and eat galette +and waste a whole day in getting dusty. + +"When I give the Virgin my cactus flower, I do give up a thing I love, +and I let it wither on her altar instead of pleasing me in bloom here +all the week, and then, of course, she sees that I have done it out of +gratitude. But that is different: that I am sorry to do, and yet I am +glad to do it out of love. Do you not know?" + +"Yes, I know very well. But is the Virgin all that you love like this?" + +"No; there is the garden, and there is Antoine--he is dead, I know. But I +think that we should love the dead all the better, not the less, because +they cannot speak or say that they are angry; and perhaps one pains them +very much when one neglects them, and if they are ever so sad, they +cannot rise and rebuke one--that is why I would rather forget the flowers +for the Church than I would the flowers for his grave, because God can +punish me, of course, if he like, but Antoine never can--any more--now." + +"You are logical in your sentiment, my dear," said Flamen, who was more +moved than he cared to feel. "The union is a rare one in your sex. Who +taught you to reason?" + +"No one. And I do not know what to be logical means. Is it that you laugh +at me?" + +"No. I do not laugh. And your pilgrims--they are gone for all day?" + +"Yes. They are gone to the Sacred Heart at St. Marie en Bois. It is on +the way to Liége. They will come back at nightfall. And some of them will +be sure to have drunk too much, and the children will get so cross. +Prosper Bar, who is a Calvinist, always says, 'Do not mix up prayer and +play; you would not cut a gherkin in your honey'; but I do not know why +he called prayer a gherkin, because it is sweet enough--sweeter than +anything, I think. When I pray to the Virgin to let me see you next day, +I go to bed quite happy, because she will do it, I know, if it will be +good for me." + +"But if it were not good for you, Bébée? Would you cease to wish it +then?" + +He rose as he spoke, and went across the floor and drew away her hand +that was parting the flax, and took it in his own and stroked it, +indulgently and carelessly, as a man may stroke the soft fur of a young +cat. + +Leaning against the little lattice and looking down on her with musing +eyes, half smiling, half serious, half amorous, half sad, Bébée looked +up with a sudden and delicious terror that ran through her as the charm +of the snake's gaze runs through the bewildered bird. + +"Would you cease to wish it if it were not good?" he asked again. + +Bébée's face grew pale and troubled. She left her hand in his because she +did not think any shame of his taking it. But the question suddenly flung +the perplexity and darkness of doubt into the clearness of her pure +child's conscience. All her ways had been straight and sunlit before her. + +She had never had a divided duty. + +The religion and the pleasure of her simple little life had always gone +hand-in-hand, greeting one another, and never for an instant in conflict. +In any hesitation of her own she had always gone to Father Francis, and +he had disentangled the web for her and made all plain. + +But here was a difficulty in which she could never go to Father Francis. + +Right and wrong, duty and desire, were for the first time arrayed before +her in their ghastly and unending warfare. + +It frightened her with a certain breathless sense of peril--the peril of +a time when in lieu of that gentle Mother of Roses whom she kneeled +to among the flowers, she would only see a dusky shadow looming between +her and the beauty of life and the light of the sun. + +What he said was quite vague to her. She attached no definite danger to +his words. She only thought--to see him was so great a joy--if Mary +forbade it, would she not take it if she could notwithstanding, always, +always, always? + +He kept her hand in his, and watched with contentment the changing play +of the shade and sorrow, the fear and fascination, on her face. + +"You do not know, Bébée?" he said at length, knowing well himself; so +much better than ever she knew. "Well, dear, that is not flattering to +me. But it is natural. The good Virgin of course gives you all you have, +food, and clothes, and your garden, and your pretty plump chickens; and I +am only a stranger. You could not offend her for me; that is not likely." + +The child was cut to the heart by the sadness and humility of words of +whose studied artifice she had no suspicion. + +She thought that she seemed to him ungrateful and selfish, and yet all +the mooring-ropes that held her little boat of life to the harbor of +its simple religion seemed cut away, and she seemed drifting helpless and +rudderless upon an unknown sea. + +"I never did do wrong--that I know," she said, timidly, and lifted her +eyes to his with an unconscious appeal in them. + +"But--I do not see why it should be wrong to speak with you. You are +good, and you lend me beautiful things out of other men's minds that will +make me less ignorant: Our Lady could not be angry with that--she must +like it." + +"Our Lady?--oh, poor little simpleton!--where will her reign be when +Ignorance has once been cut down root and branch?" he thought to himself: +but he only answered,-- + +"But whether she like it or not, Bébée?--you beg the question, my dear; +you are--you are not so frank as usual--think, and tell me honestly?" + +He knew quite well, but it amused him to see the perplexed trouble that +this, the first divided duty of her short years, brought with it. + +Bébée looked at him, and loosened her hand from his, and sat quite still. +Her lips had a little quiver in them. + +"I think." she said at last, "I think--if it _be_ wrong, still I will +wish it--yes. Only I will not tell myself it is right. I will just say to +Our Lady, 'I am wicked, perhaps, but I cannot help it' So, I will not +deceive her at all; and perhaps in time she may forgive. But I think you +only say it to try me. It cannot, I am sure, be wrong--any more than it +is to talk to Jeannot or to Bac." + +He had driven her into the subtleties of doubt, but the honest little +soul in her found a way out, as a flower in a cellar finds its way +through the stones to light. + +He plucked the ivy leaves and threw them at the chickens on the bricks +without, with a certain impatience in the action. The simplicity and the +directness of the answer disarmed him; he was almost ashamed to use +against her the weapons of his habitual warfare. It was like a maître +d'armes fencing with bare steel against a little naked child armed with a +blest palm-sheaf. + +When she had thus brought him all she had, and he to please her had sat +down to the simple food, she gathered a spray of roses and set it in a +pot beside him, then left him and went and stood at a little distance, +waiting, with her hands lightly crossed on her chest, to see if there +were anything that he might want. + +He ate and drank well to please her, looking at her often as he did so. + +"I break your bread, Bébée," he said, with a tone that seemed strange to +her,--"I break your bread. I must keep Arab faith with you." + +"What is that?" + +"I mean--I must never betray you." + +"Betray me How could you?" + +"Well--hurt you in any way." + +"Ah, I am sure you would never do that." + +He was silent, and looked at the spray of roses. + +"Sit down and spin," he said impatiently. "I am ashamed to see you stand +there, and a woman never looks so well as when she spins. Sit down, and I +will eat the good things you have brought me. But I cannot if you stand +and look." + +"I beg your pardon. I did not know," she said, ashamed lest she should +have seemed rude to him; and she drew out her wheel under the light of +the lattice, and sat down to it, and began to disentangle the threads. + +It was a pretty picture--the low, square casement; the frame of ivy, the +pink and white of the climbing sweet-peas: the girl's head; the cool, wet +leaves: the old wooden spinning-wheel, that purred like a sleepy cat. + +"I want to paint you as Gretchen, only it will be a shame." he said. + +"Who is Gretchen?" + +"You shall read of her by-and-by. And you live here all by yourself?" + +"Since Antoine died--yes." + +"And are never dull?" + +"I have no time, and I do not think I would be if I had time--there is so +much to think of, and one never can understand." + +"But you must be very brave and laborious to do all your work yourself. +Is it possible a child like you can spin, and wash, and bake, and garden, +and do everything?" + +"Oh, many do more than I. Babette's eldest daughter is only twelve, and +she does much more, because she has all the children to look after; and +they are very, very poor; they often have nothing but a stew of nettles +and perhaps a few snails, days together." + +"That is lean, bare, ugly, gruesome poverty; there is plenty of that +everywhere. But you, Bébée--you are an idyll." + +Bébée looked across the hut and smiled, and broke her thread. She did not +know what he meant, but if she were anything that pleased him, it was +well. + +"Who were those beautiful women?" she said suddenly, the color mounting +into her cheeks. + +"What women, my dear?" + +"Those I saw at the window with you, the other night--they had jewels." + +"Oh!--women, tiresome enough. If I had seen you, I would have dropped you +some fruit. Poor little Bébée! Did you go by, and I never knew?" + +"You were laughing--" + +"Was I?" + +"Yes, and they _were_ beautiful." + +"In their own eyes; not in mine." + +"No?" + +She stopped her spinning and gazed at him with wistful, wondering eyes. +Could it be that they were not beautiful to him? those deep red, glowing, +sun-basked dahlia flowers? + +"Do you know," she said very softly, with a flush of penitence that came +and went, "when I saw them, I hated them; I confessed it to Father +Francis next day. You seemed so content with, them, and they looked so +gay and glad there--and then the jewels! Somehow, I seemed to myself such +a little thing, and so ugly and mean. And yet, do you know--" + +"And yet--well?" + +"They did not look to me good--those women," said Bébée, thoughtfully, +looking across at him in deprecation of his possible anger. "They were +great people, I suppose, and they appeared very happy; but though I +seemed nothing to myself after them, still I think I would not change." + +"You are wise without books, Bébée." + +"Oh, no, I am not wise at all. I only feel. And give me books; oh, pray, +give me books! You do not know; I will learn so fast; and I will not +neglect anything, that I promise. The neighbors and Jeannot say that I +shall let the flowers die, and the hut get dirty, and never spin or prick +Annémie's patterns; but that is untrue. I will do all, just as I have +done, and more too, if only you will give me things to read, for I do +think when one is happy, one ought to work more--not less." + +"But will these books make you happy? If you ask me the truth, I must +tell you--no. You are happy as you are, because you know nothing else +than your own little life; for ignorance _is_ happiness, Bébée, let +sages, ancient and modern, say what they will. But when you know a +little, you will want to know more: and when you know much, you will want +to see much also, and then--and then--the thing will grow--you will be no +longer content. That is, you will be unhappy." + +Bébée watched him with wistful eyes. + +"Perhaps that is true. No doubt it is true, if you say it. But you know +all the world seems full of voices that I hear, but that I cannot +understand; it is with me as I should think it is with people who go to +foreign countries and do not know the tongue that is spoken when they +land; and it makes me unhappy, because I cannot comprehend, and so the +books will not make me more so, but less. And as for being content--when +I thought you were gone away out of the city, last night, I thought +I would never be able to pray any more, because I hated myself, and I +almost hated the angels, and I told Mary that she was cruel, and she +turned her face from me--as it seemed, forever." + +She spoke quite quietly and simply, spinning as she spoke, and looking +across at him with earnest eyes, that begged him to believe her. She was +saying the pure truth, but she did not know the force or the meaning of +that truth. + +He listened with a smile; it was not new to him; he knew her heart much +better than she knew it herself, but there was an unconsciousness, and +yet a strength, in the words that touched him though. + +He threw the leaves away, irritably, and told her to leave off her +spinning. + +"Some day I shall paint you with that wheel as I painted the Broodhuis. +Will you let me, Bébée?" + +"Yes." + +She answered him as she would have answered if he had told her to go on +pilgrimage from one end of the Low Countries to the other. + +"What were you going to do to-day?" + +"I am going into the market with the flowers; I go every day." + +"How much will you make?" + +"Two or three francs, if I am lucky." + +"And do you never have a holiday?" + +"Oh, yes; but not often, you know, because it is on the fete days that +the people want the most flowers." + +"But in the winter?" + +"Then I work at the lace." + +"Do you never go into the woods?" + +"I have been once or twice; but it loses a whole day." + +"You are afraid of not earning?" + +"Yes. Because I am afraid of owing people anything." + +"Well, give up this one day, and we will make holiday. The people are +out; they will not know. Come into the forest, and we will dine at a café +in the woods; and we will be as poetic as you like, and I will tell you a +tale of one called Rosalind, who pranked herself in boy's attire, all for +love, in the Ardennes country yonder. Come, it is the very day for the +forest; it will make me a lad again at Meudon, when the lilacs were in +bloom. Poor Paris! Come." + +"Do you mean it?" + +The color was bright in her face, her heart was dancing, her little feet +felt themselves already on the fresh green turf. + +She had no thought that there could be any harm in it. She would have +gone with Jeannot or old Bac. + +"Of course I mean it. Come. I was going to Mayence to see the Magi and +Van Dyck's Christ. We will go to Soignies instead, and study green +leaves. I will paint your face by sunlight. It is the best way to paint +you. You belong to the open air. So should Gretchen; or how else should +she have the blue sky in her eyes?" + +"But I have only wooden shoes!" + +Her face was scarlet as she glanced at her feet; he who had wanted to +give her the silk stockings--how would he like to be seen walking abroad +with those two clumsy, clattering, work-a-day, little sabots? + +"Never mind. My dear, in my time I have had enough of satin shoes and of +silver gilt heels; they click-clack as loud as yours, and cost much more +to those who walk with them, not to mention that they will seldom deign +to walk at all. Your wooden shoes are picturesque. Paganini made a violin +out of a wooden shoe. Who knows what music may lurk in yours, only you +have never heard it. Perhaps I have. It was Bac who gave you the red +shoes that was the barbarian, not I. Come." + +"You really mean it?" + +"Come." + +"But they will miss me at market." + +"They will think you are gone on the pilgrimage: you need never tell them +you have not." + +"But if they ask me?" + +"Does it never happen that you say any other thing than the truth?" + +"Any other thing than the truth! Of course not. People take for granted +that one tells truth; it would be very base to cheat them. Do you really +mean that I may come?--in the forest!--and you will tell me stories +like those you give me to read?" + +"I will tell you a better story. Lock your hut, Bébée, and come." + +"And to think you are not ashamed!" + +"Ashamed?" + +"Yes, because of my wooden shoes." + +Was it possible? Bébée thought, as she ran out into the garden and +locked the door behind her, and pushed the key under the waterbutt as +usual, being quite content with that prudent precaution against robbers +which had served Antoine all his days. Was it possible, this wonderful +joy?--her cheeks were like her roses, her eyes had a brilliance like the +sun; the natural grace and mirth of the child blossomed in a thousand +ways and gestures. + +As she went by the shrine in the wall, she bent her knee a moment and +made the sign of the cross; then she gathered a little moss-rose that +nodded close under the border of the palisade, and turned and gave it to +him. + +"Look, she sends you this. She is not angry, you see, and it is much more +pleasure when she is pleased--do you not know?" + +He shrank a little as her fingers touched him. + +"What a pity you had no mother, Bébée!" he said, on an impulse of +emotion, of which in Paris he would have been more ashamed than +of any guilt. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +In the deserted lane by the swans' water, under the willows, the +horses waited to take him to Mechlin; little, quick, rough horses, with +round brass bells, in the Flemish fashion, and gay harness, and a low +char-à -banc, in which a wolf-skin and red rugs, and all a painter's many +necessities, were tossed together. + +He lifted her in, and the little horses flew fast through the green +country, ringing chimes at each step, till they plunged into the deep +glades of the woods of Cambre and Soignies. + +Bébée sat breathless with delight. + +She had never gone behind horses in all her life, except once or twice +in a wagon when the tired teamsters had dragged a load of corn across +the plains, or when the miller's old gray mare had hobbled wearily before +a cart-load of noisy, happy, mischievous children going home from the +masses and fairs, and flags, and flowers, and church banners, and +puppet-shows, and lighted altars, and whirling merry-go-rounds of the +Fête Dieu. + +She had never known what it was to sail as on the wings of the wind along +broad roads, with yellow wheat-lands, and green hedges, and wayside +trees, and little villages, and reedy canal water, all flying by her to +the sing-song of the joyous bells. + +"Oh, how good it is to live!" she cried, clapping her hands in a very +ecstasy, as the clear morning broadened into gold and the west wind rose +and blew from the sands by the sea. + +"Yes--it is good--if one did not tire so soon," said he, watching her +with a listless pleasure. + +But she did not hear; she was beyond the reach of any power to sadden +her; she was watching the white oxen that stood on the purple brow of +the just reapen lands, and the rosy clouds that blew like a shower of +apple-blossoms across the sky to the south. + +There was a sad darkling Calvary on the edge of the harvest-field that +looked black against the blue sky; its shadow fell across the road, but +she did not see it: she was looking at the sun. + +There is not much change in the great Soignies woods. They are aisles on +aisles of beautiful green trees, crossing and recrossing; tunnels of dark +foliage that look endless; long avenues of beech, of oak, of elm, or of +fir, with the bracken and the brushwood growing dense between; a +delicious forest growth everywhere, shady even at noon, and by a little +past midday dusky as evening; with the forest fragrance, sweet and dewy, +all about, and under the fern the stirring of wild game, and the white +gleam of little rabbits, and the sound of the wings of birds. + +Soignies is not legend-haunted like the Black Forest, nor king-haunted +like Fontainebleau, nor sovereign of two historic streams like the brave +woods of Heidelberg; nor wild and romantic, arid broken with black rocks, +and poetized by the shade of Jaques, and swept through by a perfect +river, like its neighbors of Ardennes; nor throned aloft on mighty +mountains like the majestic oak glades of the Swabian hills of the ivory +carvers. + +Soignies is only a Flemish forest in a plain, throwing its shadows over +corn-fields and cattle pastures, with no panorama beyond it and no +wonders in its depth. But it is a fresh, bold, beautiful forest for all +that. + +It has only green leaves to give,--green leaves always, league after +league; but there is about it that vague mystery which all forests have, +and this universe of leaves seems boundless, and Pan might dwell in it, +and St. Hubert, and John Keats. + +Bébée, in her rare holidays with the Bac children or with Jeannot's +sisters, had never penetrated farther than the glades of the Cambre, +and had never entered the heart of the true forest, which is much still +what it must have been in the old days when the burghers of Brabant cut +their yew bows and their pike staves from it to use against the hosts of +Spain. + +To Bébée it was as an enchanted land, and every play of light and shade, +every hare speeding across the paths, every thrush singing in the leaves, +every little dog-rose or harebell that blossomed in the thickets, was to +her a treasure, a picture, a poem, a delight. + +He had seen girls thus in the woods of Vincennes and of Versailles in the +student days of his youth: little work-girls fresh from châlets of the +Jura or from vine-hung huts of the Loire, who had brought their poor +little charms to perish in Paris; and who dwelt under the hot tiles and +amidst the gilded shop signs till they were as pale and thin as their own +starved balsams; and who, when they saw the green woods, laughed and +cried a little, and thought of the broad sun-swept fields, and wished +that they were back again behind their drove of cows, or weeding among +the green grapes. + +But those little work-girls had been mere homely daisies, and daisies +already with the dust of the pavement and of the dancing-gardens upon +them. + +Bébée was as pure and fresh as these dew-wet dog-roses that she found in +the thickets of thorn. + +He had meant to treat her as he had used to do those work-girls--a little +wine, a little wooing, a little folly and passion, idle as a butterfly +and brief as a rainbow--one midsummer day and night--then a handful of +gold, a caress, a good-morrow, and forgetfulness ever afterwards--that +was what he had meant when he had brought her out to the forest of +Soignies. + +But--she was different, this child. + +He made the great sketch of her for his Gretchen, sitting on a moss-grown +trunk, with marguerites in her hand; he sent for their breakfast far into +the woods, and saw her set her pearly teeth into early peaches and costly +sweetmeats; he wandered with her hither and thither, and told her tales +out of the poets and talked to her in the dreamy, cynical, poetical +manner that was characteristic of him, being half artificial and half +sorrowful, as his temper was. + +But Bébée, all unconscious, intoxicated with happiness, and yet touched +by it into that vague sadness which the summer sun brings with it even to +young things, if they have soul in them,--Bébée said to him what the +work-girls of Paris never had done. + +Beautiful things: things fantastic, ignorant, absurd, very simple, very +unreasonable oftentimes, but things beautiful always, and sometimes even +very wise by a wisdom not of the world; by a certain light divine that +does shine now and then as through an alabaster lamp, through minds that +have no grossness to obscure them. + +Her words were not equal to the burden of her thoughts at times, but he +knew how to take the pearl of the thought from the broken shell and +tangled sea-weed of her simple, untutored speech. + +"If there be a God anywhere," he thought to himself, "this little Fleming +is very near him." + +She was so near that, although he had no belief in any God, he could not +deal with her as he had used to do with the work-girls in the primrose +paths of old Vincennes. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +"To be Gretchen, you must count the leaves of your daisies," he said to +her, as he painted,--painted her just as she was, with her two little +white feet in the wooden shoes, and the thick green leaves behind; the +simplest picture possible, the dress of gray--only cool dark gray--with +white linen bodice, and no color anywhere except in the green of the +foliage; but where he meant the wonder and the charm of it to lie was in +the upraised, serious, child-like face, and the gaze of the grave, +smiling eyes. + +It was Gretchen, spinning, out in the open air among the flowers. +Gretchen, with the tall dog-daisies growing up about her feet, among +the thyme and the roses, before she had had need to gather, one to ask +her future of its parted leaves. + +The Gretchen of Scheffer tells no tale; she is a fair-haired, +hard-working, simple-minded peasant, with whom neither angels nor devils +have anything to do, and whose eyes never can open to either hell or +heaven. But the Gretchen of Flamen said much more than this: looking +at it, men would sigh from shame, and women weep from sorrow. + +"Count the daisies?" echoed Bébée. "Oh, I know what you mean. A +little--much--passionately--until death--not at all. What the girls say +when they want to see if any one loves them? Is that it?" + +She looked at him without any consciousness, except as she loved the +flowers. + +"Do you think the daisies know?" she went on, seriously, parting their +petals with her fingers. "Flowers do know many things--that is certain." + +"Ask them for yourself." + +"Ask them what?" + +"How much--any one--loves you?" + +"Oh, but every one loves me; there is no one that is bad. Antoine used to +say to me. 'Never think of yourself, Bébée; always think of other people, +so every one will love you.' And I always try to do that, and every one +does." + +"But that is not the love the daisy tells of to your sex." + +"No?" + +"No; the girls that you see count the flowers--they are thinking, not of +all the village, but of some one unlike all the rest, whose shadow falls +across theirs in the moonlight! You know that?" + +"Ah, yes--and they marry afterwards--yes." + +She said it softly, musingly, with no embarrassment; it was an unreal, +remote thing to her, and yet it stirred her heart a little with a vague +trouble that was infinitely sweet. + +There is little talk of love in the lives of the poor; they have no space +for it; love to them means more mouths to feed, more wooden shoes to buy, +more hands to dive into the meagre bag of coppers. Now and then a girl +of the commune had been married, and had ploughing in the fields or to +her lace-weaving in the city. Bébée had thought little of it. + +"They marry or they do not marry. That is as it may be," said Flamen, +with a smile. "Bébée, I must paint you as Gretchen before she made a +love-dial of the daisies. What is the story? Oh, I have told you stories +enough. Gretchen's you would not understand, just yet." + +"But what did the daisies say to her?" + +"My dear, the daisies always say the same thing, because daisies always +tell the truth and know men. The daisies always say 'a little'; it is the +girl's ear that tricks her, and makes her hear 'till death,'--a folly and +falsehood of which the daisy is not guilty." + +"But who says it if the daisy does not?" + +"Ah, the devil perhaps--who knows? He has so much to do in these things." + +But Bébée did not smile; she had a look of horror in her blue eyes; she +belonged to a peasantry who believed in exorcising the fiend by the aid +of the cross, and who not so very many generations before had driven him +out of human bodies by rack and flame. + +She looked with a little wistful fear on the white, golden-eyed +marguerites that lay on her lap. + +"Do you think the fiend is in these?" she whispered, with awe in her +voice. + +Flamen smiled. "When you count them he will be there, no doubt." + +Bébée threw them with a shudder on the grass. + +"Have I spoilt your holiday, dear?" he said, with a certain +self-reproach. + +She was silent a minute, then she gathered up the daisies again, and +stroked them and put them to her lips. + +"It is not they that do wrong. You say the girls' ears deceive them. It +is the girls who want a lie and will not believe a truth because it +humbles them; it is the girls that are to blame, not the daisies. As for +me, I will not ask the daisies anything ever, so the fiend will not enter +into them." + +"Nor into you. Poor little Bébée!" + +"Why, you pity me for that?" + +"Yes. Because, if women never see the serpent's face, neither do they +ever scent the smell of the paradise roses; and it will be hard for you +to die without a single rose d'amour in your pretty breast, poor little +Bébée?" + +"I do not understand. But you frighten me a little." + +He rose and left his easel and threw himself at her feet on the grass; he +took the little wooden shoes in his hands as reverently as he would have +taken the broidered shoes of a duchess; he looked up at her with tender, +smiling eyes. + +"Poor little Bébée!" he said again. "Did I frighten you indeed? Nay, that +was very base of me. We will not spoil our summer holiday. There is no +such thing as a fiend, my dear. There are only men--such as I am. Say the +daisy spell over for me, Bébée. See if I do not love you a little, just +as you love your flowers." + +She smiled, and the happy laughter came again over her face. + +"Oh, I am sure you care for me a little," she said, softly, "or you would +not be so good and get me books and give me pleasure; and I do not want +the daisies to tell me that, because you say it yourself, which is +better." + +"Much better." he answered her dreamily, and lay there in the grass, +holding the little wooden shoes in his hands. + +He was not in love with her. He was in no haste. He preferred to play +with her softly, slowly, as one separates the leaves of a rose, to see +the deep rose of its heart. + +Her own ignorance of what she felt had a charm for him. He liked to lift +the veil from her eyes by gentle degrees, watching each new pulse-beat, +each fresh instinct tremble into life. + +It was an old, old story to him; he knew each chapter and verse to +weariness, though there still was no other story that he still read as +often. But to her it was so new. + +To him it was a long beaten track; he knew every turn of it; he +recognized every wayside blossom; he had passed over a thousand times +each tremulous bridge; he knew so well beforehand where each shadow would +fall, and where each fresh bud would blossom, and where each harvest +would be reaped. + +But to her it was so new. + +She followed him as a blind child a man that guides her through a garden +and reads her a wonder tale. + +He was good to her, that was all she knew. When he touched her ever so +lightly she felt a happiness so perfect, and yet so unintelligible, that +she could have wished to die in it. + +And in her humility and her ignorance she wondered always how he--so +great, so wise, so beautiful--could have thought it ever worth his while +to leave the paradise of Rubes' land to wait with her under her little +rush-thatched roof, and bring her here to see the green leaves and the +living things of the forest. + +As they went, a man was going under the trees with a load of wood upon +his back. Bébée gave a little cry of recognition. + +"Oh, look, that is Jeannot! How he will wonder to see me here!" + +Flamen drew her a little downward, so that the forester passed onward +without perceiving them. + +"Why do you do that?" said Bébée. "Shall I not speak to him?" + +"Why? To have all your neighbors chatter of your feast in the forest? It +is not worth while." + +"Ah, but I always tell them everything," said Bébée. whose imagination +had been already busy with the wonders that she would unfold to Mère +Krebs and the Varnhart children. + +"Then you will see but little of me, my dear. Learn to be silent, Bébée. +It is a woman's first duty, though her hardest." + +"Is it?" + +She did not speak for some time. She could not imagine a state of +things in which she would not narrate the little daily miracles of her +life to the good old garrulous women and the little open-mouthed romps. +And yet--she lifted her eyes to his. + +"I am glad you have told me that," she said. "Though indeed. I do not see +why one should not say what one does, yet--somehow--I do not like to talk +about you. It is like the pictures in the galleries, and the music in +the cathedral, and the great still evenings, when the fields are all +silent, and it is as if Christ walked abroad in them; I do not know how +to talk of those things to the others--only to you--and I do not like to +talk _about_ you to them--do you not know?" + +"Yes, I know. But what affinity have I. Bébée, to your thoughts of your +God walking in His cornfields?" + +Bébée's eyes glanced down through the green aisle of the forests, with +the musing seriousness in them that was like the child-angels of +Botticelli's dreams. + +"I cannot tell you very well. But when I am in the fields at evening and +think of Christ. I feel so happy, and of such good will to all the rest, +and I seem to see heaven quite plain through the beautiful gray air where +the stars are--and so I feel when I am with you--that is all. Only--" + +"Only what?" + +"Only in those evenings, when I was all alone, heaven seemed up there, +where the stars are, and I longed for wings; but now, it is _here_, and I +would only shut my wings if I had them, and not stir." + +He looked at her, and took, her hands and kissed them--but reverently--as +a believer may kiss a shrine. In that moment to Flamen she was sacred; in +that moment he could no more have hurt her with passion than he could +have hurt her with a blow. + +It was an emotion with him, and did not endure. But whilst it lasted, it +was true. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +Then he took her to dine at one of the wooden cafés under the trees. +There was a little sheet of water in front of it and a gay garden around. +There was a balcony and a wooden stairway; there were long trellised +arbors, and little white tables, and great rosebushes like her own at +home. They had an arbor all to themselves; a cool sweet-smelling bower of +green, with a glimpse of scarlet from the flowers of some twisting beans. + +They had a meal, the like of which she had never seen; such a huge melon +in the centre of it, and curious wines, and coffee or cream in silver +pots, or what looked like silver to her--"just like the altar-vases in +the church," she said to herself. + +"If only the Varnhart children were here!" she cried; but he did not echo +the wish. + +It was just sunset. There was a golden glow on the little bit of water. +On the other side of the garden some one was playing a guitar. Under a +lime-tree some girls were swinging, crying, Higher! higher! at each toss. + +In a longer avenue of trellised green, at a long table, there was a noisy +party of students and girls of the city; their laughter was mellowed by +distance as it came over the breadth of the garden, and they sang, with +fresh shrill Flemish voices, songs from an opera bouffe of La Monnaie. + +It was all pretty, and gay, and pleasant. + +There was everywhere about an air of light-hearted enjoyment. Bébée sat +with a wondering look in her wide-opened eyes, and all the natural +instincts of her youth, that were like curled-up fruit buds in her, +unclosed softly to the light of joy. + +"Is life always like this in your Rubes' land?" she asked him; that vague +far-away country of which she never asked him anything more definite, and +which yet was so clear before her fancy. + +"Yes," he made answer to her. "Only--instead of those leaves, flowers and +pomegranates; and in lieu of that tinkling guitar, a voice whose notes +are esteemed like king's jewels; and in place of those little green +arbors, great white palaces, cool and still, with ilex woods and orange +groves and sapphire seas beyond them. Would you like to come there, +Bébée?--and wear laces such as you weave, and hear singing and laughter +all night long, and never work any more in the mould of the garden, or +spin any more at that tiresome wheel, or go any more out in the wind, and +the rain, and the winter mud to the market?" + +Bébée listened, leaning her round elbows on the table, and her warm +cheeks on her hands, as a child gravely listens to a fairy story. But +the sumptuous picture, and the sensuous phrase he had chosen, passed by +her. + +It is of no use to tempt the little chaffinch of the woods with a ruby +instead of a cherry. The bird is made to feed on the brown berries, on +the morning dews, on the scarlet hips of roses, and the blossoms of the +wind-tossed pear boughs; the gem, though it be a monarch's, will only +strike hard and tasteless on its beak. + +"I would like to see it all," said Bébée, musingly trying to follow out +her thoughts. "But as for the garden work and the spinning--that I do not +want to leave, because I have done it all my life; and I do not think I +should care to wear lace--it would tear very soon; one would be afraid to +run; and do you see I know how it is made--all that lace. I know how +blind the eyes get over it, and how the hearts ache; I know how the old +women starve, and the little children cry; I know that there is not a +sprig of it that is not stitched with pain; the great ladies do not +think, I dare say, because they have never worked at it or watched the +others: but I have. And so, you see, I think if I wore it I should feel +sad, and if a nail caught on it I should feel as if it were tearing the +flesh of my friends. Perhaps I say it badly; but that is what I feel." + +"You do not say it badly--you speak well, for you speak from the heart," +he answered her, and felt a tinge of shame that he had tempted her with +the gold and purple of a baser world than any that she knew. + +"And yet you want to see new lands?" he pursued. "What is it you want to +see there?" + +"Ah, quite other things than these," cried Bébée, still leaning her +cheeks on her hands. "That dancing and singing is very pretty and merry, +but it is just as good when old Claude fiddles and the children skip. +This wine, you tell me, is something very great; but fresh milk is much +nicer, I think. It is not these kind of things I want--I want to know all +about the people who lived before us; I want to know what the stars are, +and what the wind is; I want to know where the lark goes when you lose +him out of sight against the sun; I want to know how the old artists got +to see God, that they could paint him and all his angels as they have +done; I want to know how the voices got into the bells, and how they can +make one's heart beat, hanging up there as they do, all alone among the +jackdaws; I want to know what it is when I walk in the fields in the +morning, and it is all gray and soft and still, and the corn-crake cries +in the wheat, and the little mice run home to their holes, that makes +me so glad and yet so sorrowful, as if I were so very near God, and yet +so all alone, and such a little thing; because you see the mouse she +has her hole, and the crake her own people, but I--" + +Her voice faltered a little and stopped: she had never before thought out +into words her own loneliness; from the long green arbor the voices of +the girls and the students sang,-- + +"Ah! le doux son d'un baiser tendre!" + +Flamen was silent. The poet in him--and in an artist there is always more +or less of the poet--kept him back from ridicule, nay, moved him to pity +and respect. + +They were absurdly simple words no doubt, had little wisdom in them, and +were quite childish in their utterance, and yet they moved him curiously +as a man very base and callous may at times be moved by the look in a +dying deer's eyes, or by the sound of a song that some lost love once +sang. + +He rose and drew her hands away, and took her small face between his own +hands instead. + +"Poor little Bébée!" he said gently, looking down on her with a breath +that was almost a sigh. "Poor little Bébée!--to envy the corncrake and +the mouse!" + +She was a little startled; her cheeks grew very warm under his touch, but +her eyes looked still into his without fear. + +He stooped and touched her forehead with his lips, gently and +without passion, almost reverently; she grew rose-hued as the bright +bean-flowers, up to the light gold ripples of her hair; she trembled a +little and drew back, but she was not alarmed nor yet ashamed; she was +too simple of heart to feel the fear that is born of passion and of +consciousness. + +It was as Jeannot kissed his sister Marie, who was fifteen years old and +sold milk for the Krebs people in the villages with a little green cart +and a yellow dog--no more. + +And yet the sunny arbor leaves and the glimpse of the blue sky swam round +her indistinctly, and the sounds of the guitar grew dull upon her ear and +were lost as in a rushing hiss of water, because of the great sudden +unintelligible happiness that seemed to bear her little life away on it +as a sea wave bears a young child off its feet. + +"You do not feel alone now, Bébée?" he whispered to her. + +"No!" she answered him softly under her breath, and sat still, while all +her body quivered like a leaf. + +No; how could she ever be alone now that this sweet, soft, unutterable +touch would always be in memory upon her; how could she wish ever again +now to be the corn-crake in the summer corn or the gray mouse in the +hedge of hawthorn? + +At that moment a student went by past the entrance of the arbor; he had a +sash round his loins and a paper feather in his cap; he was playing a +fife and dancing; he glanced in as he went. + +"It is time to go home, Bébée," said Flamen. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +So it came to pass that Bébée's day in the big forest came and went as +simply almost as any day that she had played away with the Varnhart +children under the beech shadows of Cambre woods. + +And when he took her to her hut at sunset before the pilgrims had +returned there was a great bewildered tumult of happiness in her heart, +but there was no memory with her that prevented her from looking at the +shrine in the wall as she passed it, and saying with a quick gesture of +the cross on brow and bosom,-- + +"Ah, dear Holy Mother, how good you have been! and I am back again, you +see, and I will work harder than ever because of all this joy that you +have given me." + +And she took another moss-rose and changed it for that of the morning, +which was faded, and said to Flamen.-- + +"Look--she sends you this. Now do you know what I mean? One is more +content when She is content." + +He did not answer, but he held her hands against him a moment as they +fastened in the rose bud. + +"Not a word to the pilgrims, Bébée--you remember?" + +"Yes, I will remember. I do not tell them every time I pray--it will be +like being silent about that--it will be no more wrong than that." + +But there was a touch of anxiety in the words; she was not quite certain; +she wanted to be reassured. Instinct moved her not to speak of him; but +habit made it seem wrong to her to have any secret from the people who +had been about her from her birth. + +He did not reassure her; her anxiety was pretty to watch, and he left the +trouble in her heart like a bee in the chalice of a lily. Besides, the +little wicket gate was between them; he was musing whether he would push +it open once more. + +Her fate was in the balance, though she did not dream it: he had dealt +with her tenderly, honestly, sacredly all that day--almost as much so as +stupid Jeannot could have done. He had been touched by her trust in him, +and by the unconscious beauty of her fancies, into a mood that was unlike +all his life and habits. But after all, he said to himself-- + +After all!-- + +Where he stood in the golden evening he saw the rosy curled mouth, the +soft troubled eves, the little brown hands that still tried to fasten +the rosebud, the young peach-like skin where the wind stirred the +bodice;--she was only a little Flemish peasant, this poor little Bébée, a +little thing of the fields and the streets, for all the dreams of God +that abode with her. After all--soon or late--the end would be always the +same. What matter! + +She would weep a little to-morrow, and she would not kneel any more at +the shrine in the garden wall; and then--and then--she would stay here +and marry the good boor Jeannot, just the same after a while; or drift +away after him to Paris, and leave her two little wooden shoes, and her +visions of Christ in the fields at evening, behind her forevermore, and +do as all the others did, and take not only silken stockings but the +Cinderella slipper that is called Gold, which brings all other good +things in its train;--what matter! + +He had meant this from the first, because she was so pretty, and those +little wooden sabots ran so lithely over the stones; though he was not in +love with her, but only idly stretched his hand for her as a child by +instinct stretches to a fruit that hangs in the sun a little rosier and a +little nearer than the rest. + +What matter--he said to himself--she loved him, poor little soul, though +she did not know it; and there would always be Jeannot glad enough of a +handful of bright French gold. + +He pushed the gate gently against her; her hands fastened the rosebud and +drew open the latch themselves. + +"Will you come in a little?" she said, with the happy light in her face. +"You must not stay long, because the flowers must be watered, and then +there are Annémie's patterns--they must be done or she will have no money +and so no food--but if you would come in for a little? And see, if you +wait a minute I will show you the roses that I shall cut to-morrow the +first thing, and take down to St. Guido to Our Lady's altar in +thank-offering for to-day. I should like you to choose them--you +yourself--and if you would just touch them I should feel as if you gave +them to her too. Will you?" + +She spoke with the pretty outspoken frankness of her habitual speech, +just tempered and broken with the happy, timid hesitation, the curious +sense at once of closer nearness and of greater distance, that had come +on her since he had kissed her among the bright beanflowers. + +He turned from her quickly. + +"No, dear, no. Gather your roses alone, Bébée; if I touch them their +leaves will fall." + +Then, with a hurriedly backward glance down the dusky lane to see that +none were looking, he bent his head and kissed her again quickly and with +a sort of shame, and swung the gate behind him and went away through +the boughs and the shadows. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +Bébée looked after him wistfully till his figure was lost in the gloom. + +The village was very quiet; a dog barking afar off and a cow lowing in +the meadow were the only living things that made their presence heard; +the pilgrims had not returned. + +She leaned on the gate a few minutes in that indistinct, dreamy happiness +which is the prerogative of innocent love. + +"How wonderful it is that he should give a thought to me!" she said again +and again to herself. It was as if a king had stooped for a little knot +of daisied grass to set it in his crown where the great diamonds should +be. + +She did not reason. She did not question. She did not look beyond that +hour--such is the privilege of youth. + +"How I will read! How I will learn! How wise I will try to be; and how +good, if I can!" she thought, swaying the little gate lightly under her +weight, and looking with glad eyes at the goats as they frisked with +their young in the pasture on the other side of the big trees, whilst one +by one the stars came out, and an owl hooted from the palace woods, and +the frogs croaked good-nights in the rushes. + +Then, like a little day laborer as she was, with the habit of toil and +the need of the poor upon her from her birth up, she shut down the latch +of the gate, kissed it where his hand had rested, and went to the well to +draw its nightly draught for the dry garden. + +"Oh, dear roses!" she said to them as she rained the silvery showers over +their nodding heads. "Oh, dear roses!--tell me--was ever anybody so happy +as I am? Oh, if you say 'yes' I shall tell you you lie; silly flowers +that were only born yesterday!" + +But the roses shook the water off them in the wind, and said, as she +wished them to say,-- + +"No--no one--ever before, Bébée--no one ever before." + +For roses, like everything else upon earth, only speak what our own heart +puts into them. + +An old man went past up the lane; old Jehan, who was too ailing and aged +to make one of the pilgrimage. He looked at the little quick-moving form, +grayish white in the starlight, with the dark copper vessel balanced on +her head, going to and fro betwixt the well and the garden. + +"You did not go to the pilgrimage, poor little one!" he said across the +sweetbrier hedge. "Nay, that was too bad; work, work, work--thy pretty +back should not be bent double yet. You want a holiday, Bébée; well, +the Fête Dieu is near. Jeannot shall take you, and maybe I can find a few +sous for gingerbread and merry-go-rounds. You sit dull in the market all +day; you want a feast." + +Bébée colored behind the hedge, and ran in and brought three new-laid +eggs that she had left in the flour-bin in the early morning, and thrust +them on him through a break in the brier. It was the first time she had +ever done anything of which she might not speak: she was ashamed, and yet +the secret was so sweet to her. + +"I am very happy, Jehan, thank God!" she murmured, with a tremulous +breath and a shine in her eyes that the old man's ears and sight were too +dull to discern. + +"So was _she_" muttered Jehan, as he thrust the eggs into his old +patched blue blouse,--"so was she. And then a stumble--a blow in the lane +there--a horse's kick--and all was over. All over, my pretty one--for +ever and ever." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +On a sudden impulse Flamen, going through the woodland shadows to the +city, paused and turned back; all his impulses were quick and swayed him +now hither, now thither, in many contrary ways. + +He knew that the hour was come--that he must leave her and spare her, as +to himself he phrased it, or teach her the love words that the daisies +whisper to women. + +And why not?--anyway she would marry Jeannot. + +He, half-way to the town, walked back again and paused a moment at the +gate; an emotion half pitiful, half cynical, stirred in him. + +Anyway he would leave her in a few days: Paris had again opened her arms +to him; his old life awaited him; women who claimed him by imperious, +amorous demands reproached him; and after all this day he had got the +Gretchen of his ideal, a great picture for the future of his fame. + +As he would leave her anyway so soon, he would leave her unscathed--poor +little field flower--he could never take it with him to blossom or wither +in Paris. + +His world would laugh too utterly if he made for himself a mistress out +of a little Fleming in two wooden shoes. Besides-- + +Besides, something that was half weak and half noble moved him not to +lead this child, in her trust and her ignorance, into ways that when she +awakened from her trance would seem to her shameful and full of sorrow. +For he knew that Bébée was not as others are. + +He turned back and knocked at the hut door and opened it. + +Bébée was just beginning to undress herself; she had taken off her white +kerchief and her wooden shoes; her pretty shoulders and her little neck +shone white in the moon; her feet were bare on the mud floor. + +She started with a cry and threw the handkerchief again on her shoulders, +but there was no fear of him; only the unconscious instinct of her +girlhood. + +He thought for a moment that he would not go away until the morrow-- + +"Did you want me?" said Bébée softly, with happy eyes of surprise and yet +a little startled, fearing some evil might have happened to him that he +should have returned thus. + +"No; I do not want you, dear," he said gently; no--he did not want her, +poor little soul; she wanted him, but he--there were so many of these +things in his life, and he liked her too well to love her. + +"No, dear, I did not want you," said Flamen, drawing her arms about him, +and feeling her flutter like a little bird, while the moonlight came in +through the green leaves and fell in fanciful patterns on the floor. "But +I came to say--you have had one happy day. Wholly happy, have you not, +poor little Bébée?" + +"Ah, yes!" she sighed rather than said the answer in her wondrous +gladness; drawn there close to him, with the softness of his lips upon +her. Could he have come back only to ask that? + +"Well, that is something. You will remember it always, Bébée?" he +murmured in his unconscious cruelty. "I did not wish to spoil your +cloudless pleasure, dear--for you care for me a little, do you not?--so I +came back to tell you only now, that I go away for a little while +to-morrow." + +"Go away!" + +She trembled in his arms and turned cold as ice; a great terror and +darkness fell upon her; she had never thought that he would ever go +away. He caressed her, and played with her as a boy may with a bird +before he wrings its neck. + +"You will come back?" + +He kissed her: "Surely." + +"To-morrow?" + +"Nay--not so soon." + +"In a week?" + +"Hardly." + +"In a month, then?" + +"Perhaps." + +"Before winter, anyway?" + +He looked aside from the beseeching, tearful, candid eyes, and kissed her +hair and her throat, and said, "Yes, dear--beyond a doubt." + +She clung to him, crying silently; he wished that women would not weep. + +"Come, Bébée, listen," he said coaxingly, thinking to break the +bitterness to her. "This is not wise, and it gives me pain. There is so +much for you to do. You know so little. There is so much to learn. I will +leave you many books, and you must grow quite learned in my absence. The +Virgin is all very well in her way, but she cannot teach us much, poor +lady. For her kingdom is called Ignorance. You must teach yourself. I +leave you that to do. The days will go by quickly if you are laborious +and patient. Do you love me, little one?" + +For an answer she kissed his hand. + +"You are a busy little Bébée always," he said, with his lips caressing +her soft brown arms that were round his neck. "But you must be busier +than ever whilst I am gone. So you will forget. No, no, I do not mean +that:--I mean so the time will pass quickest. And I shall finish your +picture, Bébée, and all Paris will see you, and the great ladies will +envy the little girl with her two wooden shoes. Ah! that does not +please you?--you care for none of these vanities. No. Poor little Bébée, +why did God make you, or Chance breathe life into you? You are so far +away from us all. It was cruel. What harm has your poor little soul ever +done that, pure as a flower, it should have been sent to the hell of this +world?" + +She clung to him, sobbing without sound. "You will come back? You will +come back?" she moaned, clasping him closer and closer. + +Flamen's own eyes grew dim. But he lied to her: "I will--I promise." + +It was so much easier to say so, and it would break her sorrow. So +he thought. + +For the moment again he was tempted to take her with him--but, he +resisted it--he would tire, and she would cling to him forever. + +There was a long silence. The bleating of the little kid in the shed +without was the only sound; the gray lavender blew to and fro. + +Her arms were close about his throat; he kissed them again, and kissed +her eyes, her cheek, her mouth; then put her from him quickly and went +out. + +She ran to him, and threw herself on the damp ground and held him there, +and leaned her forehead on his feet. But though he looked at her with wet +eyes, he did not yield, and he still said,-- + +"I will come back soon--very soon; be quiet, dear, let me go." + +Then he kissed her once more many times, and put her gently within the +door and closed it. + +A low, sharp, sudden cry reached him, went to his heart, but he did not +turn; he went on through the wet, green little garden, and the curling +leaves, where he had found peace and had left desolation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +"I will let her alone, and she will marry Jeannot," thought Flamen; and +he believed himself a good man for once in his life, and pitied himself +for having become a sentimentalist. + +She would marry Jeannot, and bear many children, as those people always +did; and ruddy little peasants would cling about these pretty, soft, +little breasts of hers; and she would love them after the manner of such +women, and be very content clattering over the stones in her wooden +shoes; and growing brown and stout, and more careful after money, and +ceasing to dream of unknown things, and not seeing God at all in the +fields, but looking low and beholding only the ears of the gleaning wheat +and the feet of the tottering children; and so gaining her bread, and +losing her soul, and stooping nearer and nearer to earth till she dropped +into it like one of her own wind-blown wall-flowers when the bee has +sucked out all its sweetness and the heats have scorched up all its +bloom:--yes, of course, she would marry Jeannot and end so! + +Meanwhile he had his Gretchen, and that was the one great matter. + +So he left the street of Mary of Burgundy, and went on his way out of the +chiming city as its matin bells were rung, and took with him a certain +regret, and the only innocent affection that had ever awakened in him; +and thought of his self-negation with half admiration and half derision; +and so drifted away into the whirlpool of his amorous, cynical, +changeful, passionate, callous, many-colored life, and said to himself as +he saw the last line of the low green plains shine against the sun, "She +will marry Jeannot--of course, she will marry Jeannot. And my Gretchen is +greater than Scheffer's." + +What else mattered very much, after all, except what they would say in +Paris of Gretchen? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +People saw that Bébée 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 hé! 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, Bébée, 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, +Bébée. 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, +Bébée 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, Bébée," said Annémie, 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 Bébée 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +The wheat was reapen in the fields, and the brown earth turned afresh. +The white and purple chrysanthemums bloomed against the flowerless +rose-bushes, and the little gray Michaelmas daisy flourished where the +dead carnations had spread their glories. Leaves began to fall and chilly +winds to sigh among the willows; the squirrels began to store away their +nuts, and the poor to pick up the broken bare boughs. + +"He said he would come before winter," thought Bébée, every day when she +rose and felt each morning cooler and grayer than the one before it; +winter was near. + +Her little feet already were cold in their wooden shoes; and the robin +already sang in the twigs of the sear sweetbrier; but she had the brave +sweet faith which nothing kills, and she did not doubt--oh! no, she did +not doubt, she was only tired. + +Tired of the strange, sleepless, feverish nights; tired of the long, +dull, empty days: tired of watching down the barren, leafless lane: +tired of hearkening breathless to each step on the rustling dead leaves; +tired of looking always, always, always, into the ruddy autumn evenings +and the cold autumn starlight, and never hearing what she listened for, +never seeing what she sought; tired as a child may be lost in a wood, and +wearily wearing its small strength and breaking its young heart in search +of the track forever missed, of the home forever beyond the horizon. + +Still she did her work and kept her courage. + +She took her way into the town with her basket full of the ruby and amber +of the dusky autumn blossoms, and when those failed, and the garden was +quite desolate, except for a promise of haws and of holly, she went, as +she had always done, to the lace-room, and gained her bread and the +chickens' corn each day by winding the thread round the bobbins; and at +nightfall when she had plodded home through the darksome roads and over +the sodden turf, and had lit her rushlight and sat down to her books, +with her hand buried in her hair, and her eyes smarting from the strain +of the lace-work and her heart aching with that new and deadly pain which +never left her now, she would read--read--read--read, and try and store +her brain with knowledge, and try and grasp these vast new meanings of +life that the books opened to her, and try and grow less ignorant against +he should return. + +There was much she could not understand, +bait there was also much she could. + +Her mind was delicate and quick, her intelligence swift and strong; she +bought old books at bookstalls with pence that she saved by going without +her dinner. The keeper of the stall, a shrewd old soul, explained some +hard points to her, and chose good volumes for her, and lent others to +this solitary little student in her wooden shoes and with her pale +child's face. + +So she toiled hard and learned much, and grew taller and very thin, and +got a look in her eyes like a lost dog's, and yet never lost heart or +wandered in the task that he had set her, or in her faith in his return. + +"Burn the books, Bébée," whispered the children again and again, clinging +to her skirts. "Burn the wicked, silent things. Since you have had them +you never sing, or romp, or laugh, and you look so white--so white." + +Bébée kissed them, but kept to her books. + +Jeannot going by from the forest night after night saw the light +twinkling in the hut window, and sometimes crept softly up and looked +through the chinks of the wooden shutter, and saw her leaning over some +big old volume with her pretty brows drawn together, and her mouth shut +close in earnest effort, and he would curse the man who had changed her +so and go away with rage in his breast and tears in his eyes, not daring +to say anything, but knowing that never would Bébée's little brown hand +lie in love within his own. + +Nor even in friendship, for he had rashly spoken rough words against the +stranger from Rubes' land, and Bébée ever since then had passed him by +with a grave, simple greeting, and when he had brought her in timid gifts +a barrow-load of fagots, had thanked him, but had bidden him take the +wood home to his mother. + +"You think evil things of me, Bébée?" good Jeannot had pleaded, with a +sob in his voice; and she had answered gently,-- + +"No; but do not speak to me, that is all." + +Then he had cursed her absent lover, and Bébée gone within and closed her +door. + +She had no idea that the people thought ill of her. They were cold to +her, and such coldness made her heart ache a little more. But the one +great love in her possessed her so strongly that all other things were +half unreal. + +She did her daily housework from sheer habit, and she studied because he +had told her to do it, and because with the sweet, stubborn, credulous +faith of her youth, she never doubted that he would return. + +Otherwise there was no perception of real life in her; she dreamed and +prayed, and prayed and dreamed, and never ceased to do either one or the +other, even when she was scattering potato-peels to the fowls, or shaking +carrots loose of the soil, or sweeping the snow from her hut door, or +going out in the raw dark dawn as the single little sad bell of St. Guido +tolled through the stillness for the first mass. + +For though even Father Francis looked angered at her because he thought +she was stubborn, and hid some truth and some shame from him at +confession, yet she went resolutely and oftener than ever to kneel in the +dusty, dusky, crumbling old church, for it was all she could do for him +who was absent--so she thought--and she did not feel quite so far away +from him when she was beseeching Christ to have care of his soul and of +his body. + +All her pretty dreams were dead. + +She never heard any story in the robin's song, or saw any promise in the +sunset clouds, or fancied that angels came about her in the night--never +now. + +The fields were gray and sad; the birds were little brown things; the +stars were cold and far off; the people she had used to care for were +like mere shadows that went by her meaningless and without interest, and +all she thought of was the one step that never came: all she wanted was +the one touch she never felt. + +"You have done wrong, Bébée, and you will not own it," said the few +neighbors who ever spoke to her. + +Bébée looked at them with wistful, uncomprehending eyes. + +"I have done no wrong," she said gently, but no one believed her. + +A girl did not shut herself up and wane pale and thin for nothing, so +they reasoned. She might have sinned as she had liked if she had been +sensible after it, and married Jeannot. + +But to fret mutely, and shut her lips, and seem as though she had done +nothing,--that was guilt indeed. + +For her village, in its small way, thought as the big world thinks. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +Full winter came. + +The snow was deep, and the winds drove the people with whips of ice along +the dreary country roads and the steep streets of the city. The bells of +the dogs and the mules sounded sadly through the white misty silence of +the Flemish plains, and the weary horses slipped and fell on the frozen +ruts and on the jagged stones in the little frost-shut Flemish towns. +Still the Flemish folk were gay enough in many places. + +There were fairs and kermesses; there were puppet plays and church +feasts; there were sledges on the plains and skates on the canals; there +were warm woollen hoods and ruddy wood fires; there were tales of demons +and saints, and bowls of hot onion soup; sugar images for the little +children, and blessed beads for the maidens clasped on rosy throats with +lovers' kisses; and in the city itself there was the high tide of the +winter pomp and mirth, with festal scenes in the churches, and balls at +the palaces, and all manner of gay things in toys and jewels, and music +playing cheerily under the leafless trees, and flashes of scarlet cloth, +and shining furs, and happy faces, and golden curls, in the carriages +that climbed the Montagne de la Cour, and filled the big place around the +statue of stout Godfrey. + +In the little village above St. Guido, Bébée's neighbors were merry too, +in their simple way. + +The women worked away wearily at their lace in the dim winter light, and +made a wretched living by it, but all the same they got penny playthings +for their babies, and a bit of cake for their Sunday-hearth. They drew +together in homely and cordial friendship, and of an afternoon when dusk +fell wove their lace in company in Mère Krebs's mill-house kitchen with +the children and the dogs at their feet on the bricks, so that one big +fire might serve for all, and all be lighted with one big rush candle, +and all be beguiled by chit-chat and songs, stories of spirits, and +whispers of ghosts, and now and then when the wind howled at its worst, a +paternoster or two said in common for the men toiling in the barges or +drifting up the Scheldt. + +In these gatherings Bébée's face was missed, and the blithe soft sound of +her voice, like a young thrush singing, was never heard. + +The people looked in, and saw her sitting over a great open book; often +her hearth had no fire. + +Then the children grew tired of asking her to play; and their elders +began to shake their heads; she was so pale and so quiet, there must be +some evil in it--so they began to think. + +Little by little people dropped away from her. Who knew, the gossips +said, what shame or sin the child might not have on her sick little soul? + +True, Bébée worked hard just the same, and just the same was seen +trudging to and fro in the dusk of dawns and afternoons in her two little +wooden shoes. She was gentle and laborious, and gave the children her +goat's milk, and the old women the brambles of her garden. + +But they grew afraid of her--afraid of that sad, changeless, far-away +look in her eves, and of the mute weariness that was on her--and, being +perplexed, were sure, like all ignorant creatures, that what was secret +must be also vile. + +So they hung aloof, and let her alone, and by and by scarcely nodded as +they passed her but said to Jeannot,-- + +"You were spared a bad thing, lad: the child was that grand painter's +light-o'-love, that is plain to see. The mischief all comes of the stuff +old Antoine filled her head with--a stray little by-blow of chickweed +that he cockered up like a rare carnation. Oh! do not fly in a rage, +Jeannot; the child is no good, and would have made an honest man rue. +Take heart of grace, and praise the saints, and marry Katto's Lisa." + +But Jeannot would never listen to the slanderers, and would never look at +Lisa, even though the door of the little hut was always closed against +him; and whenever he met Bébée on the highway she never seemed to see +him more than she saw the snow that her sabots were treading. + +One night in the midwinter-time old Annémie died. + +Bébée found her in the twilight with her head against the garret window, +and her left side all shrivelled and useless. She had a little sense +left, and a few fleeting breaths to draw. + +"Look for the brig," she muttered. "You will not see the flag at the +masthead for the fog to-night; but his socks are dry and his pipe is +ready. Keep looking--keep looking--she will be in port to-night." + +But her dead sailor never came into port; she went to him. The poor, +weakened, faithful old body of her was laid in the graveyard of the poor, +and the ships came and went under the empty garret window, and Bébée was +all alone. + +She had no more anything to work for, or any bond with the lives of +others. She could live on the roots of her garden and the sale of her +hens' eggs, and she could change the turnips and carrots that grew in a +little strip of her ground for the quantity of bread that she needed. + +So she gave herself up to the books, and drew herself more and more +within from the outer world. She did not know that the neighbors thought +very evil of her; she had only one idea in her mind--to be more worthy of +him against he should return. + +The winter passed away somehow, she did not know how. + +It was a long, cold, white blank of frozen silence: that was all. She +studied hard, and had got a quaint, strange, deep, scattered knowledge +out of her old books; her face had lost all its roundness and color, but, +instead, the forehead had gained breadth and the eyes had the dim fire of +a student's. + +Every night when she shut her volumes she thought,-- + +"I am a little nearer him. I know a little more." + +Just so every morning, when she bathed her hands in the chilly water, she +thought to herself, "I will make my skin as soft as I can for him, that +it may be like the ladies' he has loved." + +Love to be perfect must be a religion, as well as a passion. Bébée's was +so. Like George Herbert's serving-maiden, she swept no specks of dirt +away from a floor without doing it to the service of her lord. + +Only Bébée's lord was a king of earth, made of earth's dust and vanities. + +But what did she know of that? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +The winter went by, and the snow-drops and crocus and pale hepatica +smiled at her from the black clods. Every other springtime Bébée had run +with fleet feet under the budding trees down into the city, and had sold +sweet little wet bunches of violets and brier before all the snow was +melted from the eaves of the Broodhuis. + +"The winter is gone," the townspeople used to say; "look, there is Bébée +with the flowers." + +But this year they did not see the little figure itself like a rosy +crocus standing against the brown timbers of the Maison de Roi. + +Bébée had not heart to pluck a single blossom of them all. She let them +all live, and tended them so that the little garden should look its best +and brightest to him when his hand should lift its latch. + +Only he was so long coming--so very long; the violets died away, and the +first rosebuds came in their stead, and still Bébée looked every dawn and +every nightfall vainly down the empty road. + +Nothing kills young creatures like the bitterness of waiting. + +Pain they will bear, and privation they will pass through, fire and water +and storm will not appall them, nor wrath of heaven and earth, but +waiting--the long, tedious, sickly, friendless days, that drop one by one +in their eternal sameness into the weary past, these kill slowly +but surely, as the slow dropping of water frets away rock. + +The summer came. + +Nearly a year had gone by. Bébée worked early and late. The garden +bloomed like one big rose, and the neighbors shook their heads to see the +flowers blossom and fall without bringing in a single coin. + +She herself spoke less seldom than ever; and now when old Jehan, who +never had understood the evil thoughts of his neighbors, asked her +what ailed her that she looked so pale and never stirred down to the +city, now her courage failed her, and the tears brimmed over her eyes, +and she could not call up a brave brief word to answer him. For the time +was so long, and she was so tired. + +Still she never doubted that her lover would comeback: he had said he +would come: she was as sure that he would come as she was sure that God +came in the midst of the people when the silver bell rang and the Host +was borne by on high. + +Bébée did not heed much, but she vaguely-felt the isolation she was left +in: as a child too young to reason feels cold and feels hunger. + +"No one wants me here now that Annémie is gone," she thought to herself, +as the sweet green spring days unfolded themselves one by one like the +buds of the brier-rose hedges. + +And now and then even the loyal little soul of her gave way, and sobbing +on her lonely bed in the long dark nights, she would cry out against him, +"Oh, why not have left me alone? I was so happy--so happy!" + +And then she would reproach herself with treason to him and ingratitude, +and hate herself and feel guilty in her own sight to have thus sinned +against him in thought for one single instant. + +For there are natures in which the generosity of love is so strong that +it feels its own just pain to be disloyalty; and Bébée's was one of them. +And if he had killed her she would have died hoping only that no moan had +escaped her under the blow that ever could accuse him. + +These natures, utterly innocent by force of self-accusation and +self-abasement, suffer at once the torment of the victim and the +criminal. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +One day in the May weather she sat within doors with a great book upon +her table, but no sight for it in her aching eyes. The starling hopped to +and fro on the sunny floor; the bees boomed in the porch; the tinkle of +sheep's bells came in on the stillness. All was peaceful and happy except +the little weary, breaking, desolate heart that beat in her like a caged +bird's. + +"He will come; I am sure he will come," she said to herself; but she was +so tired, and it was so long--oh, dear God!--so very long. + +A hand tapped at the lattice. The shrill voice of Reine, the +sabot-maker's wife, broken with anguish, called through the hanging +ivy,-- + +"Bébée, you are a wicked one, they say, but the only one there is at home +in the village this day. Get you to town for the love of Heaven, and send +Doctor Max hither, for my pet, my flower, my child lies dying, and not a +soul near, and she black as a coal with choking--go, go, go!--and Mary +will forgive you your sins. Save the little one, dear Bébée, do you hear? +and I will pray God and speak fair the neighbors for you. Go!" + +Bébée rose up, startled by the now unfamiliar sound of a human voice, and +looked at the breathless mother with eyes of pitying wonder. + +"Surely I will go," she said, gently; "but there is no need to bribe me. +I have not sinned greatly--that I know." + +Then she went out quickly and ran through the lanes and into the city for +the sick child, and found the wise man, and sent him, and did the errand +rather in a sort of sorrowful sympathetic instinct than in any reasoning +consciousness of doing good. + +When she was moving through the once familiar and happy ways as the sun +was setting on the golden fronts of the old houses, and the chimes were +ringing from the many towers, a strange sense of unreality, of +non-existence, fell upon her. + +Could it be she?--she indeed--who had gone there the year before the +gladdest thing that the earth bore, with no care except to shelter her +flowers from the wind, and keep the freshest blossoms for the +burgomaster's housewife? + +She did not think thus to herself; but a vague doubt that she could ever +have been the little gay, laborious, happy Bébée, with troops of friends +and endless joys for every day that dawned, came over her as she went by +the black front of the Broodhuis. + +The strong voice of Lisa, the fruit girl, jarred on her as she passed the +stall under its yellow awning that was flapping sullenly in the evening +wind. + +"Oh hé, little fool," the mocking voice cried, "the rind of the fine pine +is full of prickles, and stings the lips when the taste is gone?--to be +sure--crack common nuts like me and you are never wanting--hazels grow +free in every copse. Prut, tut! your grand lover lies a-dying; so the +students read out of this just now; and you such a simpleton as not to +get a roll of napoleons out of him before he went to rot in Paris. I dare +say he was poor as sparrows, if one knew the truth. He was only a +painter after all." + +Lisa tossed her as she spoke a torn sheet, in which she was wrapping +gentians: it was a piece of newspaper some three weeks old, and in it +there was a single line or so which said that the artist Flamen, whose +Gretchen was the wonder of the Salon of the year, lay sick unto death in +his rooms in Paris. + +Bébée stood and read; the strong ruddy western light upon the type, the +taunting laughter of the fruit girl on her ear. + +A bitter shriek rang from her that made even the cruelty of Lisa's mirth +stop in a sudden terror. + +She stood staring like a thing changed to stone down on the one name that +to her rilled all the universe. + +"Ill--he is ill--do you hear?" she echoed piteously, looking at Lisa; +"and you say he is poor?" + +"Poor? for sure! is he not a painter?" said the fruit girl, roughly. She +judged by her own penniless student lads; and she was angered with +herself for feeling sorrow for this little silly thing that she had loved +to torture. + +"You have been bad and base to me; but now--I bless you, I love you, I +will pray for you," said Bébée, in a swift broken breath, and with a look +upon her face that startled into pain her callous enemy. + +Then without another word, she thrust the paper in her bosom, and ran out +of the square breathless with haste and with a great resolve. + +He was ill--and he was poor! The brave little soul of her leaped at once +to action. He was sick, and far away; and poor they said. All danger and +all difficulty faded to nothing before the vision of his need. + +Bébée was only a little foundling who ran about in wooden shoes; but she +had the "dog's soul" in her--the soul that will follow faithfully though +to receive a curse, that will defend loyally though to meet a blow, and +that will die mutely loving to the last. + +She went home, how she never knew; and without the delay of a moment +packed up a change of linen, and fed the fowls and took the key of the +hut down to old Jehan's cabin. The old man was only half-witted by reason +of his affliction for his dead daughter, but he was shrewd enough to +understand what she wanted of him, and honest enough to do it. + +"I am going into the city," she said to him: "and if I am not back +to-night, will you feed the starling and the hens, and water the flowers +for me?" + +Old Jehan put his head out of his lattice: it was seven in the evening, +and he was going to bed. + +"What are you after, little one?" he asked: going to show the fine +buckles at a students' ball? Nay, fie; that is not like you." + +"I am going to--pray--dear Jehan," she answered, with a sob in her throat +and the first falsehood she ever had told. "Do what I ask you--do for +your dead daughter's sake--or the birds and the flowers will die of +hunger and thirst. Take the key and promise me." + +He took the key, and promised. + +"Do not let them see those buckles shine; they will rob you," he added. + +Bébée ran from him fast; every moment that was lost was so precious and +so terrible. To pause a second for fear's sake never occurred to her. She +went forth as fearlessly as a young swallow, born in northern April days, +flies forth on instinct to new lands and over unknown seas when autumn +falls. + +Necessity and action breathed new life into her. The hardy and brave +peasant ways of her were awoke once more. She had been strong to wait +silently with the young life in her dying out drop by drop in the +heart-sickness of long delay. She was strong now to throw herself into +strange countries and dim perils and immeasurable miseries, on the sole +chance that she might be of service to him. + +A few human souls here and there can love like dogs. Bébée's was one. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +It was dark. The May days are short in the north lands of the Scheldt. + +She had her little winter cloak of frieze and her wooden shoes and her +little white cap with the sunny curls rippling out of it in their pretty +rebellion. She had her little lantern too; and her bundle, and she had +put a few fresh eggs in her basket, with some sweet herbs and the +palm-sheaf that Father Francis had blessed last Easter; for who could +tell, she thought, how ill he might not be, or how poor? + +She hardly gave a look to the hut as she ran by its garden gate; all her +heart was on in front, in the vague far-off country where he lay sick +unto death. + +She ran fast through the familiar lanes into the city. She was not very +sure where Paris was, but she had the name clear and firm, and she knew +that people were always coming and going thence and thither, so that she +had no fear she should not find it. + +She went straight to the big, busy, bewildering place in the Leopold +quarter where the iron horses fumed every day and night along the iron +ways. She had never been there before, but she knew it was by that great +highway that the traffic to Paris was carried on, and she knew that it +would carry people also as well. + +There were bells clanging, lights flashing, and crowds pushing and +shouting, as she ran up--a little gray figure, with the lantern-spark +glimmering like any tiny glow-worm astray in a gas-lit city. + +"To Paris?" she asked, entreatingly, going where she saw others going, to +a little grated wicket in a wall. + +"Twenty-seven francs--quick!" they demanded of her. Bébée gave a great +cry, and stood still, trembling and trying not to sob aloud. She had +never thought of money; she had forgotten that youth and strength and +love and willing feet and piteous prayers,--all went for nothing as this +world is made. + +A hope flashed on her and a glad thought. She loosed the silver buckles, +and held them out. + +"Would you take these? They are worth much more." + +There was a derisive laughter; some one bade her with an oath begone; +rough shoulders jostled her away. She stretched her arms out piteously. + +"Take me--oh, pray take me! I will go with the sheep, with the +cattle--only, only take me!" + +But in the rush and roar none heeded her; some thief snatched the silver +buckles from her hand, and made off with them and was lost in the throng; +a great iron beast rushed by her, snorting flame and bellowing smoke; +there was a roll like thunder, and all was dark; the night express had +passed on its way to Paris. + +Bébée stood still, crushed for a moment with the noise and the cruelty +and the sense of absolute desolation; she scarcely noticed that the +buckles had been stolen; she had only one thought--to get to Paris. + +"Can I never go without money?" she asked at the wicket; the man there +glanced a moment, with a touch of pity, at the little wistful face. + +"The least is twenty francs--surely you must know that?" he said, and +shut his grating with a clang. + +Bébée turned away and went out of the great cruel, tumultuous place; her +heart ached and her brain was giddy, but the sturdy courage of her nature +rose to need. + +"There is no way at all to go without money to Paris, I suppose?" she +asked of an old woman whom she knew a little, who sold nuts and little +pictures of saints and wooden playthings under the trees, in the avenue +hard by. + +The old woman shook her head. + +"Eh?--no, dear. There is nothing to be done anywhere in the world without +money. Look, I cannot get a litre of nuts to sell unless I pay +beforehand." + +"Would it be far to walk?" + +"Far! Holy Jesus! It is right away in the heart of France--over two +hundred miles, they say; straight out through the forest. Not but what my +son did walk it once;--and he a shoemaker, who knows what walking costs; +and he is well-to-do there now--not that he ever writes. When they want +nothing people never write." + +"And he walked into Paris?" + +"Yes, ten years ago. He had nothing but a few sous and an ash stick, and +he had a fancy to try his luck there. And after all our feet were given +us to travel with. If you go there and you see him, tell him to send me +something--I am tired of selling nuts." + +Bébée said nothing, but went on her road; since there was no other way +but to walk, she would take that way; the distance and the hardship did +not appall two little feet that were used to traverse so many miles of +sun-baked summer dust and of frozen winter mud unblenchingly year after +year. + +The time it would take made her heart sink indeed. He was ill. God knew +what might happen. But neither the length of leagues nor the fatigue of +body daunted her. She only saw his eyes dim with pain and his lips burned +with fever. + +She would walk twenty miles a day, and then, perhaps, she might get lifts +here and there on hay wagons or in pedlers' carts; people had always used +to be kind to her. Anyhow she counted she might reach Paris well in +fifteen days. + +She sat under a shrine in a by street a moment, and counted the copper +pieces she had on her; they were few, and the poor pretty buckles that +she might have sold to get money were stolen. + +She had some twenty sous and a dozen eggs; she thought she might live on +that; she had wanted to take the eggs to him, but after all, to keep life +in her until she could reach Paris was the one great thing. + +"What a blessing it is to have been born poor; and to have lived +hardly--one wants so little!" she thought to herself. + +Then she put up the sous in the linen bosom of her gown, and trimmed her +little lantern and knelt down in the quiet darkness and prayed a moment, +with the hot agonized tears rolling down her face, and then rose and +stepped out bravely in the cool of the night, on the great southwest road +towards Paris. + +The thought never once crossed her to turn back, and go again into the +shelter of her own little hut among the flowers. He was sick there, +dying, for anything she knew; that was the only thing she remembered. + +It was a clear, starlit night, and everywhere the fragrance of the spring +was borne in from the wide green plains, and the streams where the rushes +were blowing. + +She walked ten miles easily, the beautiful gray shadow all about her. She +had never been so far from home in all her life, except to that one +Kermesse at Mechlin. But she was not afraid. + +With the movement, and the air, and the sense that she was going to him, +which made her happy even in her misery, something of the old, sweet, +lost fancies came to her. + +She smiled at the stars through her tears, and as the poplars swayed and +murmured in the wind, they looked to her like the wings and the swords +of a host of angels. + +Her way lay out through the forest, and in that sweet green woodland she +was not afraid--no more afraid than the fawns were. + +At Boitsfort she shrank a little, indeed. Here there were the open-air +restaurants, and the café gardens all alight for the pleasure-seekers +from the city; here there were music and laughter, and horses with brass +bells, and bright colors on high in the wooden balconies, and below among +the blossoming hawthorn hedges. She had to go through it all, and +she shuddered a little as she ran, thinking of that one priceless, +deathless forest day when he had kissed her first. + +But the pleasure-people were all busied with their mirth and mischief, +and took no notice of the little gray figure in the starry night. She +went on along the grassy roads, under the high arching trees, with the +hoot of the owls and the cry of the rabbits on the stillness. + +At Groenendael, in the heart of the forest midnight was striking as she +entered the village. Every one was asleep. The lights were all out The +old ruined priory frowned dark under the clouds. + +She shivered a little again, and began to feel chill and tired, yet did +not dare to knock at any one of the closed house doors--she had no money. + +So she walked on her first ten unknown miles, meeting a few people only, +and being altogether unmolested--a small gray figure, trotting in two +little wooden shoes. + +They thought her a peasant going to a fair or a lace mill, and no one did +her more harm than to wish her good night in rough Flemish. + +When the dawn began to whiten above the plains of the east, she saw an +empty cow-shed filled with hay; she was a little tired, and lay down and +rested an hour or two, as a young lamb might have lain on the dried +clover, for she knew that she must keep her strength and husband her +power, or never reach across the dreary length of the foreign land to +Paris. + +But by full sunrise she was on her way again, bathing her face in a brook +and buying a sou's worth of bread and flet-milk at the first cottage that +she passed in bright, leaf-bowered Hoey-laert. + +The forest was still all around her, with its exquisite life of bough and +blossom, and murmur of insect and of bird. She told her beads, praying as +she went, and was almost happy. + +God would not let him die. Oh, no, not till she had kissed him once more, +and could die with him. + +The hares ran across the path, and the blue butterflies flew above-head. +There was purple gloom of pine wood, and sparkling verdure of aspen and +elm. There were distant church carillons ringing, and straight golden +shafts of sunshine streaming. + +She was quite sure God would not let him die. + +She hoped that he might be very poor. At times he had talked as if he +were, and then she might be of so much use. She knew how to deal with +fever and suffering. She had sat up many a night with the children of the +village. The gray sisters had taught her many of their ways of battling +with disease; and she could make fresh cool drinks, and she could brew +beautiful remedies from simple herbs. There was so much that she might +do; her fancy played with it almost happily. And then, only to touch his +hand, only to hear his voice; her heart rose at the thought, as a lark to +its morning song. + +At Rixensart, buried in its greenery, as she went through it in morning +light, some peasants greeted her cheerily, and called to her to rest in a +house porch, and gave her honey and bread. She could not eat much; her +tongue was parched and her throat was dry, but the kindness was precious +to her, and she went on her road the stronger for it. + +"It is a long way to walk to Paris," said the woman, with some curious +wonder. Bébée smiled, though her eyes grew wet. + +"She has the look of the little Gesù," said the Rixensart people; and +they watched her away with a vague timid pity. + +So she went on through Ottignies and La Roche to Villers, and left the +great woods and the city chimes behind her, and came through the green +abbey valleys through Tilly and Ligny, and Fleurus, and so into the coal +and iron fields that lie round Charleroi. + +Here her heart grew sick, and her courage sank under the noise and the +haste, before the blackness and the hideousness. She had never seen +anything like it. She thought it was hell, with the naked, swearing, +fighting people, and the red fires leaping night and day. Nevertheless, +if hell it were, since it lay betwixt her and him, she found force to +brave and cross it. + +The miners and glass-blowers and nail-makers, rough and fierce and hard, +frightened her. The women did not look like women, and the children ran +and yelled at her, and set their dogs upon her. The soil was thick with +dust like soot, and the trees were seared and brown. There was no peace +in the place, and no loveliness. Eighty thousand folks toiled together in +the hopeless Tophet, and swarmed, and struggled, and labored, and +multiplied, in joyless and endless wrestling against hunger and death. + +She got through it somehow, hiding often from the ferocious youngsters, +and going sleepless rather than lie in those dens of filth; but she +seemed so many, many years older when Charleroi lay at last behind +her,--so many, many years older than when she had sat and spun in the +garden at home. + +When she was once in the valley of the Sambre she was more herself again, +only she felt weaker than she had ever done, because she only dared to +spend one of her sous each day, and one sou got so little food. + +In the woods and fields about Alne she began to breathe again, like a +bird loosed to the air after being shut in a wooden trap. Green corn, +green boughs, green turf, mellow chimes of church bells, humming of +golden bees, cradle songs of women spinning, homely odors of little herb +gardens and of orchard trees under cottage walls,--these had been around +her all her life; she only breathed freely among them. + +She often felt tired, and her wooden shoes were wearing so thin that the +hot dust of the road at noonday burnt her feet through them. Sometimes, +too, she felt a curious brief faintness, such as she had never known, for +the lack of food and the long fatigue began to tell even on her hardy +little body. + +But she went on bravely, rarely doing less than her twenty miles a day, +and sometimes more, walking often in the night to save time, and lying +down in cow-sheds or under haystacks in the noontide. + +For the most part people were kind to her; they saw she was so very young +and so poor. + +Women would give her leave to bathe herself in their bedchambers, +and children would ask her to wait on the village bench under the +chestnut-tree, while they brought her their pet lamb or their tumbler +pigeons to look at, but, for the most part--unless she was very, very +tired--she would not wait. It took her so long, and who could tell how it +fared with him in Paris? + +Into the little churches, scattered over the wide countries between +Charleroi and Erquelinnes, she would turn aside, indeed; but, then, +that was only to say a prayer for him; that was not loss to him, but +gain. + +So she walked on until she reached the frontier of France. She began to +get a little giddy; she began to see the blue sky and the green level +always swirling round her as if some one were spinning them to frighten +her, but still she would not be afraid; she went on, and on, and on, till +she set her last step on the soil of Flanders. + +Here a new, strange, terrible, incomprehensible obstacle opposed her: she +had no papers; they thrust her back and spoke to her as if she were a +criminal. She could not understand what they could mean. She had never +heard of these laws and rules. She vaguely comprehended that she must not +enter France, and stunned and heartbroken she dropped down under a tree, +and for the first time sobbed as if her very life would weep itself away. + +She could see nothing, understand nothing. There were the same road, the +same hedges, the same fields, the same white cottages, and peasants in +blue shirts and dun-hued oxen in the wagons. She saw no mark, no +difference, ere they told her where she stood was Belgium, and where they +stood was France, and that she must not pass from one into the other. + +The men took no notice of her. They went back into their guard-house, +and smoked and drank. A cat sunned herself under a scarlet bean. The +white clouds sailed on before a southerly sky. She might die here--he +there--and nothing seemed to care. + +After a while an old hawker came up; he was travelling with wooden clocks +from the Black Forest. He stopped and looked at her, and asked her what +she ailed. + +She knelt down at his feet in the dust. + +"Oh, help me!" she cried to him. "Oh, pray, help me! I have walked all +the way from Brussels--that is my country--and now they will not let me +pass that house where the soldiers are. They say I have no papers. What +papers should I have? I do not know. When one has done no harm, and does +not owe a sou anywhere, and has walked all the way--Is it money that they +want? I have none; and they stole my silver clasps in Brussels; and if +I do not get to Paris I must die--die without seeing him again--ever +again, dear God!" + +She dropped her head upon the dust and crouched and sobbed there, her +courage broken by this new barrier that she had never dreamed would come +between herself and Paris. + +The old hawker looked at her thoughtfully. He had seen much of men and +women, and knew truth from counterfeit, and he was moved by the child's +agony. + +He stooped and whispered in her ear,-- + +"Get up quick, and I will pass you. It is against the law, and I may go +to prison for it. Never mind; one must risk something in this world, or +else be a cur. My daughter has stayed behind in Marbais sweethearting; +her name is on my passport, and her age and face will do for yours. Get +up and follow me close, and I will get you through. Poor little soul! +Whatever your woe is it is real enough, and you are such a young and +pretty thing. Get up, the guards are in their house, they have not seen; +follow me, and you must not speak a word; they must take you for a +German, dumb as wood." + +She got up and obeyed him, not comprehending, but only vaguely seeing +that he was friendly to her, and would pass her over into France. + +The old man made a little comedy at the barrier, and scolded her as +though she were his daughter for losing her way as she came to meet him, +and then crying like a baby. + +The guards looked at her carelessly, joked the hawker on her pretty face, +looked the papers over, and let her through, believing her the child of +the clock-maker of the Hartz. Some lies are blessed as truth. + +"I have done wrong in the law, but not before God, I think, little one," +said the pedler. "Nay, do not thank me, or go on like that; we are in +sight of the customs men still, and if they suspected, it would be the +four walls of a cell only that you and I should see to-night. And now +tell me your story, poor maiden: why are you on foot through a strange +country?" + +But Bébée would not tell him her story: she was confused and dazed still. +She did not know rightly what had happened to her; but she could not talk +of herself, nor of why she travelled thus to Paris. + +The old hawker got cross at her silence, and called her an unthankful +jade, and wished that he had left her to her fate, and parted company +with her at two cross-roads, saying his path did not lie with hers; and +then when he had done that, was sorry, and being a tenderhearted soul, +hobbled back, and would fain press a five-franc piece on her; and Bébée, +refusing it all the while, kissed his old brown hands and blessed him, +and broke away from him, and so went on again solitary towards St. +Quentin. + +The country was very flat and poor, and yet the plains had a likeness in +them to her own wide Brabant downs, where the tall green wheat was +blowing and the barges dropping down the sluggish streams. + +She was very footsore; very weary; very hungry so often; but she was in +France--in his country; and her spirit rose with the sense of that +nearness to him. + +After all, God was so good to her; there were fine bright days and +nights; a few showers had fallen, but merely passing ones; the air was so +cool and so balmy that it served her almost as food; and she seldom found +people so unkind that they refused for her single little sou to give her +a crust of bread and let her lie in an outhouse. + +After all, God was very good; and by the sixteenth or seventeenth day she +would be in the city of Paris. + +She was a little light-headed at times from insufficient nourishment: +especially after waking from strange dreams in unfamiliar places; +sometimes the soil felt tremulous under her, and the sky spun round; but +she struggled against the feeling, and kept a brave heart, and tried to +be afraid of nothing. + +Sometimes at night she thought she saw old Annémie. "But what if I do?" +she said to herself; "Annémie never will hurt me." + +And now, as she grew nearer her goal, her natural buoyancy of spirit +returned as it had never done to her since the evening that he had kissed +and left her. As her body grew lighter and more exhausted, her fancy grew +keener and more dominant. All things of the earth and air spoke to her as +she went along as they had used to do. All that she had learned from the +books in the long cold months came to her clear and wonderful. She was +not so very ignorant now--ignorant, indeed, beside him--but still knowing +something that would make her able to read to him if he liked it, and to +understand if he talked of grave things. + +She had no fixed thought of what she would be to him when she reached +him. + +She fancied she would wait on him, and tend him, and make him well, and +be caressed by him, and get all gracious pretty things of leaf and +blossom about him, and kneel at his feet, and be quite happy if he only +touched her now and then with his lips;--her thoughts went no further +than that;--her love for him was of that intensity and absorption in +which nothing But itself is remembered. + +When a creature loves much, even when it is as little and as simple a +soul as Bébée, the world and all its people and all its laws and ways are +as naught. They cease to exist; they are as though they had never been. + +Whoever recollects an outside world may play with passion, or may idle +with sentiment, but does not love. + +She did not hear what the villagers said to her. She did not see the +streets of the towns as she passed them. She kept herself clean always, +and broke fast now and then by sheer instinct of habit, nothing more. She +had no perception what she did, except of walking--walking--walking +always, and seeing the white road go by like pale ribbons unrolled. + +She got a dreamy, intense, sleepless light in her blue eyes that +frightened some of those she passed. They thought she had been +fever-stricken, and was not in her senses. + +So she went across the dreary lowlands, wearing out her little sabots, +but not wearing out her patience and her courage. + +She was very dusty and jaded. Her woollen skirt was stained with weather +and torn with briers. But she had managed always to wash her cap white in +brook water, and she had managed always to keep her pretty bright curls +soft and silken--for he had liked them so much, and he would soon draw +them through his hand again. So she told herself a thousand times to give +her strength when the mist would come over her sight, and the earth would +seem to tremble as she went. On the fifteenth day from the night when she +had left her hut by the swans' water, Bébée saw Paris. + +Shining away in the sun; white and gold; among woods and gardens she saw +Paris. + +She was so tired--oh, so tired--but she could not rest now. There were +bells ringing always in her ears, and a heavy pain always in her head. +But what of that?--she was so near to him. + +"Are you ill, you little thing?" a woman asked her who was gathering +early cherries in the outskirts of the great city. + +Bébée looked at her and smiled: "I do not know--I am happy." + +And she went onward. + +It was evening. The sun had set. She had not eaten for twenty-four hours. +But she could not pause for anything now. She crossed the gleaming river, +and she heard the cathedral chimes. Paris in all its glory was about her, +but she took no more note of it than a pigeon that flies through it +intent on reaching home. + +No one looked at or stopped her; a little dusty peasant with a bundle on +a stick over her shoulder. + +The click-clack of her wooden shoes on the hot pavements made none look +up; little rustics came up every day like this to make their fortunes in +Paris. Some grew into golden painted silken flowers, the convolvuli of +their brief summer days; and some drifted into the Seine water, rusted, +wind-tossed, fallen leaves, that were wanted of no man. Anyhow it was +so common to see them, pretty but homely things, with their noisy shoes +and their little all in a bundle, that no one even looked once at Bébée. + +She was not bewildered. As she had gone through her own city, only +thinking of the roses in her basket and of old Annémie in her garret, so +she went through Paris, only thinking of him for whose sake she had come +thither. + +Now that she was really in his home she was happy,--happy though her head +ached with that dull odd pain, and all the sunny glare went round and +round like a great gilded humming-top, such as the babies clapped their +hands at, at the Kermesse. + +She was happy: she felt sure now that God would not let him die till she +got to him. She was quite glad that he had left her all that long, +terrible winter, for she had learned so much and was so much more fitted +to be with him. + +Weary as she was, and strange as the pain in her head made her feel, she +was happy, very happy; a warm flush came on her little pale cheeks as she +thought how soon he would kiss them, her whole body thrilled with the old +sweet nameless joy that she had sickened for in vain so long. + +Though she saw nothing else that was around her, she saw some little +knots of moss-roses that a girl was selling on the quay, as she used to +sell them in front of the Maison du Roi. She had only two sous left, but +she stopped and bought two little rosebuds to take to him. He had used to +care for them so much in the summer in Brabant. + +The girl who sold them told her the way to the street he lived in; it was +not very far of the quay. She seemed to float on air, to have wings like +the swallows, to hear beautiful musk all around. She felt for her beads, +and said aves of praise. God was so good. + +It was quite night when she reached the street, and sought the number of +his house. She spoke his name softly, and trembling very much with joy, +not with any fear, but it seemed to her too sacred a thing ever to utter +aloud. + +An old man looked out of a den by the door, and told her to go straight +up the stairs to the third floor, and then turn to the right. The old +man chuckled as he glanced after her, and listened to the wooden shoes +pattering wearily up the broad stone steps. + +Bébée climbed them--ten, twenty, thirty, forty. "He must be very poor!" +she thought, "to live so high"; and yet the place was wide and handsome, +and had a look of riches. Her heart beat so fast, she felt suffocated; +her limbs shook, her eyes had a red blood-like mist floating before them; +but she thanked God each step she climbed; a moment, and she would +look upon the only face she loved. + +"He will be glad; oh, I am sure he will be glad!" she said to herself, as +a fear that had never before come near her touched her for a moment--if +he should not care? + +But even then, what did it matter? Since he was ill she should be there +to watch him night and day; and when he was well again, if he should wish +her to go away--one could always die. + +"But he will be glad--oh, I know he will be glad!" she said to the +rosebuds that she carried to him. "And if God will only let me save his +life, what else do I want more?" + +His name was written on a door before her. The handle of a bell hung +down; she pulled it timidly. The door unclosed; she saw no one, and went +through. There were low lights burning. There were heavy scents that were +strange to her. There was a fantastic gloom from old armor, and old +weapons, and old pictures in the dull rich chambers. The sound of her +wooden shoes was lost in the softness and thickness of the carpets. + +It was not the home of a poor man. A great terror froze her heart,--if +she were not wanted here? + +She went quickly through three rooms, seeing no one and at the end of +the third there were folding doors. + +"It is I--Bébée." she said softly, as she pushed them gently apart; and +she held out the two moss-rosebuds. + +Then the words died on her lips, and a great horror froze her, still and +silent, there. + +She saw the dusky room as in a dream. She saw him stretched on the bed, +leaning on his elbow, laughing, and playing cards upon the lace coverlet. +She saw women with loose shining hair and bare limbs, and rubies and +diamonds glimmering red and white. She saw men lying about upon the +couch, throwing dice and drinking and laughing one with another. + +Beyond all she saw against the pillows of his bed a beautiful brown +wicked looking thing like some velvet snake, who leaned over him as +he threw down the painted cards upon the lace, and who had cast about his +throat her curved bare arm with the great coils of dead gold all +a-glitter on it. + +And above it all there were odors of wines and flowers, clouds of smoke, +shouts of laughter, music of shrill gay voices. + +She stood like a frozen creature and saw--the rosebuds' in her hand. Then +with a great piercing cry she let the little roses fall, and turned and +fled. At the sound he looked up and saw her, and shook his beautiful +brown harlot off him with an oath. + +But Bébée flew down through the empty chambers and the long stairway as a +hare flies from the hounds; her tired feet never paused, her aching limbs +never slackened; she ran on, and on, and on, into the lighted streets, +into the fresh night air; on, and on, and on, straight to the river. + +From its brink some man's strength caught and held her. She struggled +with it. + +"Let me die! let me die!" she shrieked to him, and strained from him to +get at the cool gray silent water that waited for her there. + +Then she lost all consciousness, and saw the stars no more. + +When she came back to any sense of life, the stars were shining still, +and the face of Jeannot was bending over her, wet with tears. + +He had followed her to Paris when they had missed her first, and had come +straight by train to the city, making sure it was thither she had come, +and there had sought her many days, watching for her by the house of +Flamen. + +She shuddered away from him as he held her, and looked at him with blank, +tearless eyes. + +"Do not touch me--take me home." + +That was all she ever said to him. She never asked him or told him +anything. She never noticed that it was strange that he should have been +here upon the river-bank. He let her be, and took her silently in the +cool night back by the iron ways to Brabant. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +She sat quite still and upright in the wagon with the dark lands rushing +by her. She never spoke at all. She had a look that frightened him upon +her face. When he tried to touch her hand, she shivered away from him. + +The charcoal-burner, hardy and strong among forest-reared men, cowered +like a child in a corner, and covered his eyes and wept. + +So the night wore away. + +She had no perception of anything that happened to her until she was led +through her own little garden in the early day, and her starling cried to +her, "Bonjour, Bonjour!" Even then she only looked about her in a +bewildered way, and never spoke. + +Were the sixteen days a dream? + +She did not know. + +The women whom Jeannot summoned, his mother and sisters, and Mère Krebs, +and one or two others, weeping for what had been the hardness of their +hearts against her, undressed her, and laid her down on her little bed, +and opened the shutters to the radiance of the sun. + +She let them do as they liked, only she seemed neither to hear nor speak, +and she never spoke. + +All that Jeannot could tell was that he had found her in Paris, and had +saved her from the river. + +The women were sorrowful, and reproached themselves. Perhaps she had done +wrong, but they had been harsh, and she was so young. + +The two little sabots with the holes worn through the soles touched them; +and they blamed themselves for having shut their hearts and their doors +against her as they saw the fixed blue eyes, without any light in them, +and the pretty mouth closed close against either sob or smile. + +After all she was Bébée--the little bright blithe thing that had danced +with their children, and sung to their singing, and brought them always +the first roses of the year. If she had been led astray, they should have +been gentler with her. + +So they told themselves and each other. + +What had she seen in that terrible Paris to change her like this?--they +could not tell She never spoke. + +The cock crowed gayly to the sun. The lamb bleated in the meadow. The +bees boomed among the pear-tree blossoms. The gray lavender blew in the +open house door. The green leaves threw shifting shadows on the floor. + +All things were just the same as they had been the year before, when she +had woke to the joy of being a girl of sixteen. + +But Bébée now lay quite still and silent on her little bed; as quiet as +the waxen Gesù that they laid in the manger at the Nativity. + +"If she would only speak!" the women and the children wailed, weeping +sorely. + +But she never spoke; nor did she seem to know any one of them. Not even +the starling as he flew on her pillow and called her. + +"Give her rest," they all said; and one by one moved away, being poor +folk and hard working, and unable to lose a whole day. + +Mère Krebs stayed with her, and Jeannot sat in the porch where her little +spinning-wheel stood, and rocked himself to and fro; in vain agony, +powerless. + +He had done all he could, and it was of no avail. + +Then people who had loved her, hearing, came up the green lanes from the +city--the cobbler and the tinman, and the old woman who sold saints' +pictures by the Broodhuis. The Varnhart children hung about the garden +wicket, frightened and sobbing. Old Jehan beat his knees with his hands, +and said only over and over again, "Another dead--another dead!--the red +mill and I see them all dead!" + +The long golden day drifted away, and the swans swayed to and fro, and +the willows grew silver in the sunshine. + +Bébée, only, lay quite still and never spoke. The starling sat above her +head; his wings drooped, and he was silent too. + +Towards sunset Bébée raised herself and called aloud: they ran to her. + +"Get me a rosebud--one with the moss round it," she said to them. + +They went out into the garden, and brought her one wet with dew. + +She kissed it, and laid it in one of her little wooden shoes that stood +upon the bed. + +"Send them to him," she said wearily; "tell him I walked all the way." + +Then her head drooped; then momentary consciousness died out: the old +dull lifeless look crept over her face again like the shadow of death. + +The starling spread his broad black wings above her head. She lay quite +still once more. The women left the rosebud in the wooden shoe, not +knowing what she meant. + +Night fell. Mère Krebs watched beside her. Jeannot went down to the old +church to beseech heaven with all his simple, ignorant, tortured soul. +The villagers hovered about, talking in low sad voices, and wondering, +and dropping one by one into their homes. They were sorry, very sorry; +but what could they do? + +It was quite night. The lights were put out in the lane. Jeannot, with +Father Francis, prayed before the shrine of the Seven Sorrows. Mère Krebs +slumbered in her rush-bottomed chair; she was old and worked hard. The +starling was awake. + +Bébée rose in her bed, and looked around, as she had done when she had +asked for the moss-rosebud. + +A sense of unutterable universal pain ached over all her body. + +She did not see her little home, its four white walls, its lattice +shining in the moon, its wooden bowls and plates, its oaken shelf and +presses, its plain familiar things that once had been so dear,--she did +not see them; she only saw the brown woman with her arm about his throat. + +She sat up in her bed and slipped her feet on to the floor; the pretty +little rosy feet that he had used to want to clothe in silken stockings. + +Poor little feet! she felt a curious compassion for them; they had served +her so well, and they were so tired. + +She sat up a moment with that curious dull agony, aching everywhere in +body and in brain. She kissed the rosebud once more and laid it gently +down in the wooden shoe. She did not see anything that was around her. +She felt a great dulness that closed in on her, a great weight that was +like iron on her head. + +She thought she was in the strange, noisy, cruel city, with' the river +close to her, and all her dead dreams drifting down it like murdered +children, whilst that woman kissed him. + +She slipped her feet on to the floor, and rose and stood upright. There +was a door open to the moonlight--the door where she had sat spinning and +singing in a thousand happy days; the lavender blew; the tall, unbudded +green lilies swayed in the wind; she looked at them, and knew none of +them. + +The night air drifted through her linen dress, and played on her bare +arms, and lifted the curls of her hair; the same air that had played +with her so many times out of mind when she had been a little tottering +thing that measured its height by the red rosebush. But it brought her no +sense of where she was. + +All she saw was the woman who kissed him. + +There was the water beyond; the kindly calm water, all green with the +moss and the nests of the ouzels and the boughs of the hazels and +willows, where the swans were asleep in the reeds, and the broad lilies +spread wide and cool. + +But she did not see any memory in it. She thought it was the cruel gray +river in the strange white city: and she cried to it; and went out +into the old familiar ways, and knew none of them; and ran feebly yet +fleetly through the bushes and flowers, looking up once at the stars with +a helpless broken blind look, like a thing that is dying. + +"He does not want me!" she said to them; "he does not want me!--other +women kiss him there!" + +Then with a low fluttering sound like a bird's when its wings are shot, +and yet it tries to rise, she hovered a moment over the water, and +stretched her arms out to it. + +"He does not want me!" she murmured; "he does not want me--and I am so +tired. Dear God!" + +Then she crept down, as a weary child creeps to its mother, and threw +herself forward, and let the green dark waters take her where they +had found her amidst the lilies, a little laughing yearling thing. + +There she soon lay, quite quiet, with her face turned to the stars, and +the starling poised above to watch her as she slept. + +She had been only Bébée: the ways of God and man had been too hard for +her. + +When the messengers of Flamen came that day, they took him back a dead +moss-rose and a pair of little wooden shoes worn through with walking. + +"One creature loved me once," he says to women who wonder why the wooden +shoes are there. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13912 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f163c66 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13912 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13912) diff --git a/old/13912-8.txt b/old/13912-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..957b53c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13912-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6663 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Bebee, by Ouida + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Bebee + +Author: Ouida + +Release Date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #13912] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEBEE*** + + +E-text prepared by Sara Peattie, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +BÉBÉE + +Or, Two Little Wooden Shoes + +by + +LOUISA DE LA RAMÉE ("OUIDA") + +1896 + + + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Bébée sprang out of bed at daybreak. She was sixteen. + +It seemed a very wonderful thing to be as much as that--sixteen--a woman +quite. + +A cock was crowing under her lattice. He said how old you are!--how old +you are! every time that he sounded his clarion. + +She opened the lattice and wished him good day, with a laugh. It was so +pleasant to be woke by him, and to think that no one in all the world +could ever call one a child any more. + +There was a kid bleating in the shed. There was a thrush singing in the +dusk of the sycamore leaves. There was a calf lowing to its mother away +there beyond the fence. There were dreamy muffled bells ringing in the +distance from many steeples and belfries where the city was; they all +said one thing, "How good it is to be so old as that--how good, how very +good!" + +Bébée was very pretty. + +No one in all Brabant ever denied that. To look at her it seemed as if +she had so lived among the flowers that she had grown like them, and only +looked a bigger blossom--that was all. + +She wore two little wooden shoes and a little cotton cap, and a gray +kirtle--linen in summer, serge in winter; but the little feet in the +shoes were like rose leaves, and the cap was as white as a lily, and the +gray kirtle was like the bark of the bough that the apple-blossom parts, +and peeps out of, to blush in the sun. + +The flowers had been the only godmothers that she had ever had, and fairy +godmothers too. + +The marigolds and the sunflowers had given her their ripe, rich gold to +tint her hair; the lupins and irises had lent their azure to her eyes; +the moss-rosebuds had made her pretty mouth; the arum lilies had uncurled +their softness for her skin; and the lime-blossoms had given her their +frank, fresh, innocent fragrance. + +The winds had blown, and the rains had rained, and the sun had shone on +her, indeed, and had warmed the whiteness of her limbs, but they had only +given to her body and her soul a hardy, breeze-blown freshness like that +of a field cowslip. + +She had never been called anything but Bébée. + +One summer day Antoine Mäes--a French subject, but a Belgian by adoption +and habit, an old man who got his meagre living by tilling the garden +plot about his hut and selling flowers in the city squares--Antoine, +going into Brussels for his day's trade, had seen a gray bundle floating +among the water-lilies in the bit of water near his hut and had hooked +it out to land, and found a year-old child in it, left to drown, no +doubt, but saved by the lilies, and laughing gleefully at fate. + +Some lace-worker, blind with the pain of toil, or some peasant woman +harder of heart than the oxen in her yoke, had left it there to drift +away to death, not reckoning for the inward ripple of the current or the +toughness of the lily leaves and stems. + +Old Antoine took it to his wife, and the wife, a childless and aged soul, +begged leave to keep it; and the two poor lonely, simple folks grew to +care for the homeless, motherless thing, and they and the people about +all called it Bébée--only Bébée. + +The church got at it and added to it a saint's name; but for all its +little world it remained Bébée--Bébée when it trotted no higher than +the red carnation heads;--Bébée when its yellow curls touched as high as +the lavender-bush;--Bébée on this proud day when the thrush's song and +the cock's crow found her sixteen years old. + +Old Antoine's hut stood in a little patch of garden ground with a brier +hedge all round it, in that byway which lies between Laeken and Brussels, +in the heart of flat, green Brabant, where there are beautiful meadows +and tall, flowering hedges, and forest trees, and fern-filled ditches, +and a little piece of water, deep and cool, where the swans sail all day +long, and the silvery willows dip and sway with the wind. + +Turn aside from the highway, and there it lies to-day, and all the place +brims over with grass, and boughs, and blossoms, and flowering beans, and +wild dog-roses; and there are a few cottages and cabins there near the +pretty water, and farther there is an old church, sacred to St. Guido; +and beyond go the green level country and the endless wheat-fields, and +the old mills with their red sails against the sun; and beyond all these +the pale blue, sea-like horizon of the plains of Flanders. + +It was a pretty little hut, pink all over like a sea-shell, in the +fashion that the Netherlanders love; and its two little square lattices +were dark with creeping plants and big rose-bushes, and its roof, so low +that you could touch it, was golden and green with all the lichens and +stoneworts that are known on earth. + +Here Bébée grew from year to year; and soon learned to be big enough and +hardy enough to tie up bunches of stocks and pinks for the market, and +then to carry a basket for herself, trotting by Antoine's side along the +green roadway and into the white, wide streets; and in the market the +buyers--most often of all when they were young mothers--would seek out +the little golden head and the beautiful frank blue eyes, and buy Bébée's +lilies and carnations whether they wanted them or not. So that old Mäes +used to cross himself and say that, thanks to Our Lady, trade was thrice +as stirring since the little one had stretched out her rosy fingers with +the flowers. + +All the same, however stirring trade might be in summer, when the long +winters came and the Montagne de la Cour was a sharp slope of ice, and +the pinnacles of St. Gudule were all frosted white with snow, and the +hot-house flowers alone could fill the market, and the country gardens +were bitter black wind-swept desolations where the chilly roots huddled +themselves together underground like homeless children in a cellar,--then +the money gained in the time of leaf and blossom was all needed to buy a +black loaf and fagot of wood; and many a day in the little pink hut Bébée +rolled herself up in her bed like a dormouse, to forget in sleep that she +was supperless and as cold as a frozen robin. + +So that when Antoine Mäes grew sick and died, more from age and weakness +than any real disease, there were only a few silver crowns in the brown +jug hidden in the thatch; and the hut itself, with its patch of ground, +was all that he could leave to Bébée. + +"Live in it, little one, and take nobody in it to worry you, and be good +to the bird and the goat, and be sure to keep the flowers blowing," said +the old man with his last breath; and sobbing her heart out by his +bedside, Bébée vowed to do his bidding. + +She was not quite fourteen then, and when she had laid her old friend to +rest in the rough green graveyard about St. Guido, she was very sorrowful +and lonely, poor little, bright Bébée, who had never hardly known a worse +woe than to run the thorns of the roses into her fingers, or to cry +because a thrush was found starved to death in the snow. + +Bébée went home, and sat down in a corner and thought. + +The hut was her own, and her own the little green triangle just then +crowded with its Mayday blossom in all the colors of the rainbow. She was +to live in it, and never let the flowers die, so he had said; good, rough +old ugly Antoine Mäes, who had been to her as father, mother, country, +king, and law. + +The sun was shining. + +Through the little square of the lattice she could see the great tulips +opening in the grass and a bough of the apple-tree swaying in the wind. A +chaffinch clung to the bough, and swung to and fro singing. The door +stood open, with the broad, bright day beaming through; and Bébée's +little world came streaming in with it,--the world which dwelt in the +half-dozen cottages that fringed this green lane of hers like beavers' +nests pushed out under the leaves on to the water's edge. + +They came in, six or eight of them, all women; trim, clean, plain Brabant +peasants, hard-working, kindly of nature, and shrewd in their own simple +matters; people who labored in the fields all the day long, or worked +themselves blind over the lace pillows in the city. + +"You are too young to live alone, Bébée," said the first of them. "My old +mother shall come and keep house for you." + +"Nay, better come and live with me, Bébée," said the second. "I will give +you bit and drop, and clothing, too, for the right to your plot of +ground." + +"That is to cheat her," said the third. "Hark, here, Bébée: my sister, +who is a lone woman, as you know well, shall come and bide with you, and +ask you nothing--nothing at all--only you shall just give her a crust, +perhaps, and a few flowers to sell sometimes." + +"No, no," said the fourth; "that will not do. You let me have the garden +and the hut, Bébée, and my sons shall till the place for you; and I will +live with you myself, and leave the boys the cabin, so you will have all +the gain, do you not see, dear little one?" + +"Pooh!" said the fifth, stouter and better clothed than the rest. "You +are all eager for your own good, not for hers. Now I--Father Francis says +we should all do as we would be done by--I will take Bébée to live with +me, all for nothing; and we will root the flowers up and plant it with +good cabbages and potatoes and salad plants. And I will stable my cows in +the hut to sweeten it after a dead man, and I will take my chance of +making money out of it, and no one can speak more fair than that when one +sees what weather is, and thinks what insects do; and all the year round, +winter and summer, Bébée here will want for nothing, and have to take no +care for herself whatever." + +She who spoke, Mère Krebs, was the best-to-do woman in the little lane, +having two cows of her own and ear-rings of solid silver, and a green +cart, and a big dog that took the milk into Brussels. She was heard, +therefore, with respect, and a short silence followed her words. + +But it was very short; and a hubbub of voices crossed each other after it +as the speakers grew hotter against one another and more eager to +convince each other of the disinterestedness and delicacy of their offers +of aid. + +Through it all Bébée sat quite quiet on the edge of the little +truckle-bed, with her eyes fixed on the apple bough and the singing +chaffinch. + +She heard them all patiently. + +They were all her good friends, friends old and true. This one had given +her cherries for many a summer. That other had bought her a little waxen +Jesus at the Kermesse. The old woman in the blue linen skirt had taken +her to her first communion. She who wanted her sister to have the crust +and the flowers, had brought her a beautiful painted book of hours that +had cost a whole franc. Another had given her the solitary wonder, +travel, and foreign feast of her whole life,--a day fifteen miles away at +the fair at Mechlin. The last speaker of all had danced her on her knee a +hundred times in babyhood, and told her legends, and let her ride in the +green cart behind big curly-coated Tambour. + +Bébée did not doubt that these trusty old friends meant well by her, and +yet a certain heavy sense fell on her that in all these counsels there +was not the same whole-hearted and frank goodness that had prompted the +gifts to her of the waxen Jesus, and the Kermesse of Mechlin. + +Bébée did not reason, because she was too little a thing and too +trustful; but she felt, in a vague, sorrowful fashion, that they were all +of them trying to make some benefit out of her poor little heritage, with +small regard for herself at the root of their speculations. + +Bébée was a child, wholly a child; body and soul were both as fresh in +her as a golden crocus just born out of the snows. But she was not a +little fool, though people sometimes called her so because she would sit +in the moments of her leisure with her blue eyes on the far-away clouds +like a thing in a dream. + +She heard them patiently till the cackle of shrill voices had exhausted +itself, and the six women stood on the sunny mud floor of the hut eyeing +each other with venomous glances; for though they were good neighbors at +all times, each, in this matter, was hungry for the advantages to be got +out of old Antoine's plot of ground. They were very poor; they toiled in +the scorched or frozen fields all weathers, or spent from dawn to +nightfall poring over their cobweb lace; and to save a son or gain a +cabbage was of moment to them only second to the keeping of their souls +secure of heaven by Lenten mass and Easter psalm. + +Bébée listened to them all, and the tears dried on her cheeks, and her +pretty rosebud lips curled close in one another. + +"You are very good, no doubt, all of you," she said at last. "But I +cannot tell you that I am thankful, for my heart is like a stone, and I +think it is not so very much for me as it is for the hut that you are +speaking. Perhaps it is wrong in me to say so; yes, I am wrong, I am +sure,--you are all kind, and I am only Bébée. But you see he told me to +live here and take care of the flowers, and I must do it, that is +certain. I will ask Father Francis, if you wish: but if he tells me I am +wrong, as you do. I shall stay here all the same." + +And in answer to their expostulations and condemnation, she only said the +same thing over again always, in different words, but to the same +steadfast purpose. The women clamored about her for an hour in reproach +and rebuke; she was a baby indeed, she was a little fool, she was a +naughty, obstinate child, she was an ungrateful, wilful little creature, +who ought to be beaten till she was blue, if only there was anybody that +had the right to do it! + +"But there is nobody that has the right," said Bébée, getting angry and +standing upright on the floor, with Antoine's old gray cat in her round +arms. "He told me to stay here, and he would not have said so if it had +been wrong; and I am old enough to do for myself, and I am not afraid, +and who is there that would hurt me? Oh, yes; go and tell Father Francis, +if you like! I do not believe he will blame me, but if he do, I must bear +it. Even if he shut the church door on me, I will obey Antoine, and the +flowers will know I am right, and they will let no evil spirits touch me, +for the flowers are strong for that; they talk to the angels in the +night." + +What use was it to argue with a little idiot like this? Indeed, peasants +never do argue; they use abuse. + +It is their only form of logic. + +They used it to Bébée, rating her soundly, as became people who were old +enough to be her grandmothers, and who knew that she had been raked out +of their own pond, and had no more real place in creation than a water +rat, as one might say. + +The women were kindly, and had never thrown this truth against her +before, and in fact, to be a foundling was no sort of disgrace to their +sight; but anger is like wine, and makes the depths of the mind shine +clear, and all the mud that is in the depths stink in the light; and in +their wrath at not sharing Antoine's legacy, the good souls said bitter +things that in calm moments they would no more have uttered than they +would have taken up a knife to slit her throat. + +They talked themselves hoarse with impatience and chagrin, and went +backwards over the threshold, their wooden shoes and their shrill voices +keeping a clattering chorus. By this time it was evening; the sun had +gone off the floor, and the bird had done singing. + +Bébée stood in the same place, hardening her little heart, whilst big and +bitter tears swelled into her eyes, and fell on the soft fur of the +sleeping cat. + +She only very vaguely understood why it was in any sense shameful to have +been raked out of the water-lilies like a drowning field mouse, as they +had said it was. + +She and Antoine had often talked of that summer morning when he had found +her there among the leaves, and Bébée and he had laughed over it gayly, +and she had been quite proud in her innocent fashion that she had had a +fairy and the flowers for her mother and godmothers, which Antoine always +told her was the case beyond any manner of doubt. Even Father Francis, +hearing the pretty harmless fiction, had never deemed it his duty to +disturb her pleasure in it, being a good, cheerful old man, who thought +that woe and wisdom both come soon enough to bow young shoulders and +to silver young curls without his interference. + +Bébée had always thought it quite a fine thing to have been born of +water-lilies, with the sun for her father, and when people in Brussels +had asked her of her parentage, seeing her stand in the market with a +certain look on her that was not like other children, had always gravely +answered in the purest good faith,-- + +"My mother was a flower." + +"You are a flower, at any rate," they would say in return; and Bébée had +been always quite content. + +But now she was doubtful; she was rather perplexed than sorrowful. + +These good friends of hers seemed to see some new sin about her. Perhaps, +after all, thought Bébée, it might have been better to have had a human +mother who would have taken care of her now that old Antoine was dead, +instead of those beautiful, gleaming, cold water-lilies which went to +sleep on their green velvet beds, and did not certainly care when the +thorns ran into her fingers, or the pebbles got in her wooden shoes. + +In some vague way, disgrace and envy--the twin Discords of the +world--touched her innocent cheek with their hot breath, and as the +evening fell, Bébée felt very lonely and a little wistful. + +She had been always used to run out in the pleasant twilight-time among +the flowers and water them, Antoine filling the can from the well; and +the neighbors would come and lean against the little low wall, knitting +and gossiping; and the big dogs, released from harness, would poke their +heads through the wicket for a crust; and the children would dance and +play Colin Maillard on the green by the water; and she, when the flowers +were no longer thirsted, would join them, and romp and dance and sing the +gayest of them all. + +But now the buckets hung at the bottom of the well, and the flowers +hungered in vain, and the neighbors held aloof, and she shut to the hut +door and listened to the rain which began to fall, and cried herself to +sleep all alone in her tiny kingdom. + +When the dawn came the sun rose red and warm; the grass and boughs +sparkled; a lark sang; Bébée awoke sad in heart, indeed, for her lost old +friend, but brighter and braver. + +"Each of them wants to get something out of me," thought the child. +"Well, I will live alone, then, and do my duty, just as he said. The +flowers will never let any real harm come, though they do look so +indifferent and smiling sometimes, and though not one of them hung their +heads when his coffin was carried through them yesterday." + +That want of sympathy in the flower troubled her. + +The old man had loved them so well; and they had all looked as glad as +ever, and had laughed saucily in the sun, and not even a rosebud turned +the paler as the poor still stiffened limbs went by in the wooden shell. + +"I suppose God cares; but I wish they did." said Bébée, to whom the +garden was more intelligible than Providence. + +"Why do you not care?" she asked the pinks, shaking the raindrops off +their curled rosy petals. + +The pinks leaned lazily against their sticks, and seemed to say, "Why +should we care for anything, unless a slug be eating us?--_that_ is +real woe, if you like." + +Bébée, without her sabots on, wandered thoughtfully among the sweet wet +sunlightened labyrinths of blossom, her pretty bare feet treading the +narrow grassy paths with pleasure in their coolness. + +"He was so good to you!" she said reproachfully to the great gaudy +gillyflowers and the painted sweet-peas. "He never let you know heat or +cold, he never let the worm gnaw or the snail harm you; he would get up +in the dark to see after your wants; and when the ice froze over you, he +was there to loosen your chains. Why do you not care, anyone of you?" + +"How silly you are!" said the flowers. "You must be a butterfly or a +poet, Bébée, to be as foolish as that. Some one will do all he did. We +are of market value, you know. Care, indeed! when the sun is so warm, and +there is not an earwig in the place to trouble us." + +The flowers were not always so selfish as this; and perhaps the sorrow in +Bébée's heart made their callousness seem harder than it really was. + +When we suffer very much ourselves, anything that smiles in the sun seems +cruel--a child, a bird, a dragon-fly--nay, even a fluttering ribbon, or a +spear-grass that waves in the wind. + +There was a little shrine at the corner of the garden, set into the wall; +a niche with a bit of glass and a picture of the Virgin, so battered that +no one could trace any feature of it. + +It had been there for centuries, and was held in great veneration; and +old Antoine had always cut the choicest buds of his roses and set them in +a delf pot in front of it, every other morning all the summer long. +Bébée, whose religion was the sweetest, vaguest mingling of Pagan and +Christian myths, and whose faith in fairies and in saints was exactly +equal in strength and in ignorance,--Bébée filled the delf pot anew +carefully, then knelt down on the turf in that little green corner, and +prayed in devout hopeful childish good faith to the awful unknown Powers +who were to her only as gentle guides and kindly playmates. + +Was she too familiar with the Holy Mother? + +She was almost fearful that she was; but then the Holy Mother loved +flowers so well, Bébée would not feel aloof from her, nor be afraid. + +"When one cuts the best blossoms for her, and tries to be good, and never +tells a lie," thought Bébée, "I am quite sure, as she loves the lilies, +that she will never altogether forget me." + +So she said to the Mother of Christ fearlessly, and nothing doubting; and +then rose for her daily work of cutting the flowers for the market in +Brussels. + +By the time her baskets were full, her fowls fed, her goat foddered, her +starling's cage cleaned, her hut door locked, and her wooden shoes +clattering on the sunny road into the city, Bébée was almost content +again, though ever and again, as she trod the familiar ways, the tears +dimmed her eyes as she remembered that old Antoine would never again +hobble over the stones beside her. + +"You are a little wilful one, and too young to live alone," said Father +Francis, meeting her in the lane. + +But he did not scold her seriously, and she kept to her resolve; and the +women, who were good at heart, took her back into favor again; and so +Bébée had her own way, and the fairies, or the saints, or both together, +took care of her; and so it came to pass that all alone she heard the +cock crow whilst it was dark, and woke to the grand and amazing truth +that this warm, fragrant, dusky June morning found her full sixteen years +old. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The two years had not been all playtime any more than they had been all +summer. + +When one has not father, or mother, or brother, and all one's friends +have barely bread enough for themselves, life cannot be very easy, nor +its crusts very many at any time. + +Bébée had a cherub's mouth, and a dreamer's eyes, and a poet's thoughts +sometimes in her own untaught and unconscious fashion. + +But all the same she was a little hard-working Brabant peasant girl; +up whilst the birds twittered in the dark; to bed when the red sun +sank beyond the far blue line of the plains; she hoed, and dug, and +watered, and planted her little plot; she kept her cabin as clean as +a fresh-blossomed primrose; she milked her goat and swept her floor; she +sat, all the warm days, in the town, selling her flowers, and in the +winter time, when her garden yielded her nothing, she strained her sight +over lace-making in the city to get the small bit of food that stood +between her and that hunger which to the poor means death. + +A hard life; very hard when hail and snow made the streets of Brussels +like slopes of ice; a little hard even in the gay summer time when she +sat under the awning fronting the Maison du Roi; but all the time the +child throve on it, and was happy, and dreamed of many graceful and +gracious things whilst she was weeding among her lilies, or tracing the +threads to and fro on her lace pillow. + +Now--when she woke to the full sense of her wonderful sixteen +years--Bébée, standing barefoot on the mud floor, was as pretty a sight +as was to be seen betwixt Scheldt and Rhine. + +The sun had only left a soft warmth like an apricot's on her white skin. +Her limbs, though strong as a mountain pony's, were slender and well +shaped. Her hair curled in shiny crumpled masses, and tumbled about her +shoulders. Her pretty round plump little breast was white as the lilies +in the grass without, and in this blooming time of her little life, +Bébée, in her way, was beautiful as a peach-bloom is beautiful, and her +innocent, courageous, happy eyes had dreams in them underneath their +laughter, dreams that went farther than the green woods of Laeken, +farther even than the white clouds of summer. + +She could not move among them idly as poets and girls love to do; she had +to be active amidst them, else drought and rain, and worm and snail, and +blight and frost, would have made havoc of their fairest hopes. + +The loveliest love is that which dreams high above all storms, unsoiled +by all burdens; but perhaps the strongest love is that which, whilst it +adores, drags its feet through mire, and burns its brow in heat, for the +thing beloved. + +So Bébée dreamed in her garden; but all the time for sake of it hoed and +dug, and hurt her hands, and tired her limbs, and bowed her shoulders +under the great metal pails from the well. + +This wondrous morning, with the bright burden of her sixteen years upon +her, she dressed herself quickly and fed her fowls, and, happy as a bird, +went to sit on her little wooden stool in the doorway. + +There had been fresh rain in the night: the garden was radiant; the smell +of the wet earth was sweeter than all perfumes that are burned in +palaces. + +The dripping rosebuds nodded against her hair as she went out; the +starling called to her, "Bébée, Bébée--bonjour, bonjour." These were all +the words it knew. It said the same words a thousand times a week. But +to Bébée it seemed that the starling most certainly knew that she was +sixteen years old that day. + +Breaking her bread into the milk, she sat in the dawn and thought, +without knowing that she thought it, "How good it is to live when one +is young!" + +Old people say the same thing often, but they sigh when they say it. +Bébée smiled. + +Mère Krebs opened her door in the next cottage, and nodded over the wall. + +"What a fine thing to be sixteen!--a merry year, Bébée." + +Marthe, the carpenter's wife, came out from her gate, broom in hand. + +"The Holy Saints keep you, Bébée; why, you are quite a woman now!" + +The little children of Varnhart, the charcoal-burner, who were as poor as +any mouse in the old churches, rushed out of their little home up the +lane, bringing with them a cake stuck full of sugar and seeds, and tied +round with a blue ribbon, that their mother had made that very week, all +in her honor. + +"Only see, Bébée! Such a grand cake!" they shouted, dancing down the +lane. "Jules picked the plums, and Jeanne washed the almonds, and +Christine took the ribbon off her own communion cap, all for you--all for +you; but you will let us come and eat it too?" + +Old Gran'mère Bishot, who was the oldest woman about Laeken, hobbled +through the grass on her crutches and nodded her white shaking head, and +smiled at Bébée. + +"I have nothing to give you, little one, except my blessing, if you care +for that." + +Bébée ran out, breaking from the children, and knelt down in the wet +grass, and bent her pretty sunny head to the benediction. + +Trine, the miller's wife, the richest woman of them all, called to the +child from the steps of the mill,--' + +"A merry year, and the blessing of Heaven, Bébée! Come up, and here is my +first dish of cherries for you; not tasted one myself; they will make you +a feast with Varnhart's cake, though she should have known better, so +poor as she is. Charity begins at home, and these children's stomachs are +empty." + +Bébée ran up and then down again gleefully, with her lapful of big black +cherries; Tambour, the old white dog, who had used to drag her about in +his milk cart, leaping on her in sympathy and congratulation. + +"What a supper we will have!" she cried to the charcoal-burner's +children, who were turning somersaults in the dock leaves, while the +swans stared and hissed. + +When one is sixteen, cherries and a cake have a flavor of Paradise still, +especially when they are tasted twice, or thrice at most, in all the +year. + +An old man called to her as she went by his door. All these little cabins +lie close together, with only their apple-trees, or their tall beans, or +their hedges of thorn between them; you may ride by and never notice them +if you do not look for them under the leaves closely, as you would for +thrushes' nests. + +He, too, was very old; a lifelong neighbor and gossip of Antoine's; he +had been a day laborer in these same fields all his years, and had never +travelled farther than where the red mill-sails turned among the colza +and the corn. + +"Come in, my pretty one, for a second," he whispered, with an air of +mystery that made Bébée's heart quicken with expectancy. "Come in; I have +something for you. They were my dead daughter's--you have heard me talk +of her--Lisette, who died forty year or more ago, they say; for me I +think it was yesterday. Mère Krebs--she is a hard woman--heard me talking +of my girl. She burst out laughing, 'Lord's sake, fool, why, your girl +would be sixty now an she had lived.' Well, so it may be; you see, the +new mill was put up the week she died, and you call the new mill old; +but, my girl, she is young to me. Always young. Come here, Bébée." + +Bébée went after him a little awed, into the dusky interior, that smelt +of stored apples and of dried herbs that hung from the roof. There was a +walnut-wood press, such as the peasants of France and the low countries +keep their homespun linen in and their old lace that serves for the +nuptials and baptisms of half a score of generations. + +The old man unlocked it with a trembling hand, and there came from it an +odor of dead lavender and of withered rose leaves. + +On the shelves there were a girl's set of clothes, and a girl's sabots, +and a girl's communion veil and wreath. + +"They are all hers," he whispered,--"all hers. And sometimes in the +evening time I see her coming along the lane for them--do you not know? +There is nothing changed; nothing changed; the grass, and the trees, and +the huts, and the pond are all here; why should she only be gone away?" + +"Antoine is gone." + +"Yes. But he was old; my girl is young." + +He stood a moment, with the press door open, a perplexed trouble in his +dim eyes; the divine faith of love and the mule-like stupidity of +ignorance made him cling to this one thought without power of judgment in +it. + +"They say she would be sixty," he said, with a little dreary smile. "But +that is absurd, you know. Why, she had cheeks like yours, and she would +run--no lapwing could fly faster over corn. These are her things, you +see; yes--all of them. That is the sprig of sweetbrier she wore in her +belt the day before the wagon knocked her down and killed her. I have +never touched the things. But look here, Bébée, you are a good child and +true, and like her just a little. I mean to give you her silver clasps. +They were her great-great-great-grandmother's before her. God knows how +old they are not. And a girl should have some little wealth of that sort; +and for Antoine's sake--" + +The old man stayed behind, closing the press door upon the +lavender-scented clothes, and sitting down in the dull shadow of the hut +to think of his daughter, dead forty summers and more. + +Bébée went out with the brave broad silver clasps about her waist, and +the tears wet on her cheeks for a grief not her own. + +To be killed just when one was young, and was loved liked that, and +all the world was in its May-day flower! The silver felt cold to her +touch--as cold as though it were the dead girl's hands that held her. + +The garlands that the children strung of daisies and hung about her had +never chilled her so. + +But little Jeanne, the youngest of the charcoal-burner's little tribe, +running to meet her, screamed with glee, and danced in the gay morning. + +"Oh, Bébée! how you glitter! Did the Virgin send you that off her own +altar? Let me see--let me touch! Is it made of the stars or of the sun?" + +And Bébée danced with the child, and the silver gleamed and sparkled, and +all the people came running out to see, and the milk carts were half an +hour later for town, and the hens cackled loud unfed, and the men even +stopped on their way to the fields and paused, with their scythes on +their shoulders, to stare at the splendid gift. + +"There is not such another set of clasps in Brabant; old work you could +make a fortune of in the curiosity shops in the Montagne," said Trine +Krebs, going up the steps of her mill house. "But, all the same, you +know, Bébée, things off a dead body bring mischance sometimes." + +But Bébée danced with the child, and did not hear. + +Whose fête day had ever begun like this one of hers? + +She was a little poet at heart, and should not have cared for such +vanities; but when one is only sixteen, and has only a little rough +woollen frock, and sits in the market place or the lace-room, with other +girls around, how should one be altogether indifferent to a broad, +embossed, beautiful shield of silver that sparkled with each step one +took? + +A quarter of an hour idle thus was all, however, that Bébée or her +friends could spare at five o'clock on a summer morning, when the city +was waiting for its eggs, its honey, its flowers, its cream, and its +butter, and Tambour was shaking his leather harness in impatience to be +off with his milk-cans. + +So Bébée, all holiday though it was, and heroine though she felt herself, +ran indoors, put up her cakes and cherries, cut her two basketfuls out of +the garden, locked her hut, and went on her quick and happy little feet +along the grassy paths toward the city. + +The sorting and tying up of the flowers she always left until she was +sitting under the awning in front of the Broodhuis; the same awning, +tawny as an autumn pear and weather-blown as an old sail, which had +served to shelter Antoine Mäes from heat and rain through all the years +of his life. + +"Go to the Madeleine; you will make money there, with your pretty blue +eyes, Bébée," people had said to her of late; but Bébée had shaken her +head. + +Where she had sat in her babyhood at Antoine's feet, she would sit so +long as she sold flowers in Brussels,--here, underneath the shadow of the +Gothic towers that saw Egmont die. + +Old Antoine had never gone into the grand market that is fashioned after +the Madeleine of Paris, and where in the cool, wet, sweet-smelling halls, +all the flowers of Brabant are spread in bouquets fit for the bridal of +Una, and large as the shield of the Red-Cross Knight. + +Antoine could not compete with all those treasures of greenhouse and +stove. He had always had his little stall among those which spread their +tawny awnings and their merry hardy blossoms under the shadow of the +Hôtel de Ville, in the midst of the buyings and sellings, the games and +the quarrels, the auctions and the Cheap Johns, the mountebank and the +marriage parties, that daily and hourly throng the Grande Place. + +Here Bébée, from three years old, had been used to sit beside him. By +nature she was as gay as a lark. The people always heard her singing as +they passed the garden. The children never found their games so merry as +when she danced their rounds with them; and though she dreamed so much +out there in the air among the carnations and the roses, or in the long, +low workroom in the town, high against the crocketed pinnacles of the +cathedral, yet her dreams, if vaguely wistful, were all bright of hue and +sunny in their fantasies. Still, Bébée had one sad unsatisfied desire: +she wanted to know so much, and she knew nothing. + +She did not care for the grand gay people. + +When the band played, and the park filled, and the bright little cafés +were thronged with pleasure seekers, and the crowds flocked hither and +thither to the woods, to the theatres, to the galleries, to the +guinguettes, Bébée, going gravely along with her emptied baskets +homeward, envied none of these. + +When at Noël the little children hugged their loads of puppets and +sugar-plums; when at the Fête Dieu the whole people flocked out +be-ribboned and vari-colored like any bed of spring anemones; when in the +merry midsummer the chars-a-bancs trundled away into the forest with +laughing loads of students and maidens; when in the rough winters the +carriages left furred and jewelled women at the doors of the operas or +the palaces,--Bébée, going and coming through the city to her flower +stall or lace work, looked at them all, and never thought of envy or +desire. + +She had her little hut: she could get her bread; she lived with the +flowers; the neighbors were good to her, and now and then, on a saint's +day, she too got her day in the woods; it never occurred to her that her +lot could be better. + +But sometimes sitting, looking at the dark old beauty of the Broodhuis, +or at the wondrous carven fronts of other Spanish houses, or at the +painted stories of the cathedral windows, or at the quaint colors of the +shipping on the quay, or at the long dark aisles of trees that went away +through the forest, where her steps had never wandered,--sometimes Bébée +would get pondering on all this unknown world that lay before and behind +and around her, and a sense of her own utter ignorance would steal on +her; and she would say to herself, "If only I knew a little--just a very +little!" + +But it is not easy to know even a very little when you have to work for +your bread from sunrise to nightfall, and when none of your friends know +how to read or write, and even your old priest is one of a family of +peasants, and can just teach you the alphabet, and that is all. For +Father Francis could do no more than this; and all his spare time was +taken up in digging his cabbage plot and seeing to his beehives; and the +only books that Bébée ever beheld were a few tattered lives of saints +that lay moth-eaten on a shelf of his cottage. + +But Brussels has stones that are sermons, or rather that are quaint, +touching, illuminated legends of the Middle Ages, which those who run may +read. + +Brussels is a gay little city that lies as bright within its girdle of +woodland as any butterfly that rests upon moss. + +The city has its ways and wiles of Paris. It decks itself with white and +gold. It has music under its trees and soldiers in its streets, and +troops marching and countermarching along its sunny avenues. It has blue +and pink, and yellow and green, on its awnings and on its house fronts. +It has a merry open-air life on its pavements at little marble tables +before little gay-colored cafés. It has gilded balconies, and tossing +flags, and comic operas, and leisurely pleasure seekers, and tries always +to believe and make the world believe that it is Paris in very truth. + +But this is only the Brussels of the noblesse and the foreigners. + +There is a Brussels that is better than this--a Brussels that belongs +to the old burgher life, to the artists and the craftsmen, to the +master-masons of the Moyen-âge, to the same spirit and soul that once +filled the free men of Ghent and the citizens of Bruges and the besieged +of Leyden, and the blood of Egmont and of Horn. + +Down there by the water-side, where the old quaint walls lean over the +yellow sluggish stream, and the green barrels of the Antwerp barges swing +against the dusky piles of the crumbling bridges. + +In the gray square desolate courts of the old palaces, where in cobwebbed +galleries and silent chambers the Flemish tapestries drop to pieces. + +In the great populous square, where, above the clamorous and rushing +crowds, the majestic front of the Maison du Roi frowns against the sun, +and the spires and pinnacles of the burgomaster's gathering-halls tower +into the sky in all the fantastic luxuriance of Gothic fancy. + +Under the vast shadowy wings of angels in the stillness of the cathedral, +across whose sunny aisles some little child goes slowly all alone, laden +with lilies for the Feast of the Assumption, till their white glory hides +its curly head. + +In all strange quaint old-world niches withdrawn from men in silent +grass-grown corners, where a twelfth-century corbel holds a pot of roses, +or a Gothic arch yawns beneath a wool warehouse, or a waterspout with a +grinning faun's head laughs in the grim humor of the Moyen-âge above the +bent head of a young lace-worker. + +In all these, Brussels, though more worldly than her sisters of Ghent and +Bruges, and far more worldly yet than her Teuton cousins of Freiburg and +Nürnberg, is still in her own way like as a monkish story mixed up with +the Romaunt of the Rose; or rather like some gay French vaudeville, all +fashion and jest, illustrated in old Missal manner with helm and hauberk, +cope and cowl, praying knights and fighting priests, winged griffins and +nimbused saints, flame-breathing dragons and enamoured princes, all +mingled together in the illuminated colors and the heroical grotesque +romance of the Middle Ages. + +And it was this side of the city that Bébée knew; and she loved it well, +and would not leave it for the market of the Madeleine. + +She had no one to tell her anything, and all Antoine had ever been able +to say to her concerning the Broodhuis was that it had been there in his +father's time; and regarding St. Gudule, that his mother had burned many +a candle before its altars for a dead brother who had been drowned off +the dunes. + +But the child's mind, unled, but not misled, had pondered on these +things, and her heart had grown to love them; and perhaps no student of +Spanish architecture, no antiquary of Moyen-âge relics, loved St. Gudule +and the Broodhuis as little ignorant Bébée did. + +There had been a time when great dark, fierce men had builded these +things, and made the place beautiful. So much she knew; and the little +wistful, untaught brain tried to project itself into those unknown times, +and failed, and yet found pleasure in the effort. And Bébée would say to +herself as she walked the streets, "Perhaps some one will come some day +who will tell me all those things." + +Meanwhile, there were the flowers, and she was quite content. + +Besides, she knew all the people: the old cobbler, who sat next her, and +chattered all day long like a magpie; the tinker, who had come up many a +summer night to drink a-glass with Antoine; the Cheap John, who cheated +everybody else, but who had always given her a toy or a trinket at every +Fête Dieu all the summers she had known; the little old woman, sour as a +crab, who sold rosaries and pictures of saints, and little waxen Christs +upon a tray; the big dogs who pulled the carts in, and lay panting all +day under the rush-bottomed chairs on which the egg-wives and the fruit +sellers sat, and knitted, and chaffered; nay, even the gorgeous huissier +and the frowning gendarme, who marshalled the folks into order as they +went up for municipal registries, or for town misdemeanors,--she knew +them all; had known them all ever since she had first trotted in like +a little dog at Antoine's heels. + +So Bébée stayed there. + +It is, perhaps, the most beautiful square in all Northern Europe, with +its black timbers, and gilded carvings, and blazoned windows, and +majestic scutcheons, and fantastic pinnacles. That Bébée did not know, +but she loved it, and she sat resolutely in front of the Broodhuis, +selling her flowers, smiling, chatting, helping the old woman, counting +her little gains, eating her bit of bread at noonday like any other +market girl, but at times glancing up to the stately towers and the blue +sky, with a look on her face that made the old tinker and cobbler whisper +together, "What does she see there?--the dead people or the angels?" + +The truth was that even Bébée herself did not know very surely what she +saw--something that was still nearer to her than even this kindly crowd +that loved her. That was all she could have said had anybody asked her. + +But none did. + +No one wanted to hear what the dead said; and for the angels, the tinker +and the cobbler were of opinion that one had only too much of them +sculptured about everywhere, and shining on all the casements--in +reverence be it spoken, of course. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"I remembered it was your name-day, child Here are half a dozen eggs," +said one of the hen wives; and the little cross woman with the pedler's +tray added a waxen St. Agnes, colored red and yellow to the very life no +doubt; and the old Cheap John had saved her a cage for the starling; and +the tinker had a cream cheese for her in a vine-leaf, and the sweetmeat +seller brought her a beautiful gilded horn of sugarplums, and the cobbler +had made her actually a pair of shoes--red shoes, beautiful shoes to go +to mass in and be a wonder in to all the neighborhood. And they thronged +round her, and adored the silver waist buckles; and when Bébée got fairly +to her stall, and traffic began, she thought once more that nobody's +feast day had ever dawned like hers. + +When the chimes began to ring all over the city, she could hardly believe +that the carillon was not saying its "Laus Deo" with some special meaning +in its bells of her. + +The morning went by as usual; the noise of the throngs about her like a +driving of angry winds, but no more hurting her than the angels on the +roof of St. Gudule are hurt by the storm when it breaks. + +Hard words, fierce passions, low thoughts, evil deeds, passed by the +child without resting on her; her heart was in her flowers, and was like +one of them with the dew of daybreak on it. + +There were many strangers in the city, and such are always sure to loiter +in the Spanish square; and she sold fast and well her lilacs and her +roses, and her knots of thyme and sweetbrier. + +She was always a little sorry to see them go, her kindly pretty playmates +that, nine times out of ten no doubt, only drooped and died in the hands +that purchased them, as human souls soil and shrivel in the grasp of the +passions that woo them. + +The day was a busy one, and brought in good profit. Bébée had no less +than fifty sous in her leather pouch when it was over,--a sum of +magnitude in the green lane by Laeken. + +A few of her moss-roses were still unsold, that was all, when the Ave +Maria began ringing over the town and the people dispersed to their homes +or their pleasuring. + +It was a warm gray evening: the streets were full; there were blossoms in +all the balconies, and gay colors in all the dresses. The old tinker put +his tools together, and whispered to her,-- + +"Bébée, as it is your feast day, come and stroll in St. Hubert's gallery, +and I will buy you a little gilt heart, or a sugar-apple stick, or a +ribbon, and we can see the puppet show afterwards, eh?" + +But the children were waiting at home: she would not spend the evening in +the city; she only thought she would just kneel a moment in the cathedral +and say a little prayer or two for a minute--the saints were so good in +giving her so many friends. + +There is something very touching in the Flemish peasant's relation with +his Deity. It is all very vague to him: a jumble of veneration and +familiarity, of sanctity and profanity, without any thought of being +familiar, or any idea of being profane. + +There is a homely poetry, an innocent affectionateness in it, +characteristic of the people. He talks to his good angel Michael, and to +his friend that dear little Jesus, much as he would talk to the shoemaker +over the way, or the cooper's child in the doorway. + +It is a very unreasonable, foolish, clumsy sort of religion, this +theology in wooden shoes; it is half grotesque, half pathetic; the +grandmothers pass it on to the grandchildren as they pass the bowl of +potatoes round the stove in the long winter nights; it is as silly as +possible, but it comforts them as they carry fagots over the frozen +canals or wear their eyes blind over the squares of lace; and it has in +it the supreme pathos of any perfect confidence, of any utterly childlike +and undoubting trust. + +This had been taught to Bébée, and she went to sleep every night in the +firm belief that the sixteen little angels of the Flemish prayer kept +watch and ward over her bed. For the rest, being poetical, as these north +folks are not, and having in her--wherever it came from, poor little +soul--a warmth of fancy and a spirituality of vision not at all northern, +she had mixed up her religion with the fairies of Antoine's stories, and +the demons in which the Flemish folks are profound believers, and the +flowers into which she put all manner of sentient life, until her +religion was a fantastic medley, so entangled that poor Father Francis +had given up in despair any attempt to arrange it more correctly. Indeed, +being of the peasantry himself, he was not so very full sure in his own +mind that demons were not bodily presences, quite as real and often much +more tangible than saints. Anyway, he let her alone; and she believed in +the goodness of God as she believed in the shining of the sun. + +People looked after her as she went through the twisting, picture-like +streets, where sunlight fell still between the peaked high roofs, and +lamps were here and there lit in the bric-à-brac shops and the fruit +stalls. + +Her little muslin cap blew back like the wings of a white butterfly. Her +sunny hair caught the last sun-rays. Her feet were fair in the brown +wooden shoes. Under the short woollen skirts the grace of her pretty +limbs moved freely. Her broad silver clasps shone like a shield, and she +was utterly unconscious that any one looked; she was simply and gravely +intent on reaching St. Gudule to say her one prayer and not keep the +children waiting. + +Some one leaning idly over a balcony in the street that is named after +Mary of Burgundy saw her going thus. He left the balcony and went down +his stairs and followed her. + +The sun-dazzle on the silver had first caught his sight; and then he had +looked downward at the pretty feet. + +These are the chances women call Fate. + +Bébée entered the cathedral. It was quite empty. Far away at the west end +there was an old custodian asleep on a bench, and a woman kneeling. That +was all. + +Bébée made her salutations to the high altar, and stole on into the +chapel of the Saint Sacrament; it was the one that she loved best. + +She said her prayer and thanked the saints for all their gifts and +goodness, her clasped hand against her silver shield, her basket on the +pavement by her, abovehead the sunset rays streaming purple and crimson +and golden through the painted windows that are the wonder of the world. + +When her prayer was done she still kneeled there; her head thrown back to +watch the light, her hands clasped still, and on her upturned face the +look that made the people say, "What does she see?--the angels or the +dead?" + +She forgot everything. She forgot the cherries at home, and the children +even. She was looking upward at the stories of the painted panes; she was +listening to the message of the dying sun-rays; she was feeling vaguely, +wistfully, unutterably the tender beauty of the sacred place and the +awful wonder of the world in which she with her sixteen years was all +alone, like a little blue corn-flower among the wheat that goes for grist +and the barley that makes men drunk. + +For she was alone, though she had so many friends. Quite alone sometimes; +for God had been cruel to her, and had made her a lark without song. + +When the sun faded and the beautiful casements lost all glow and +meaning, Bébée rose with a startled look--had she been dreaming?--was it +night?--would the children be sorry, and go supperless to bed? + +"Have you a rosebud left to sell to me?" a man's voice said not far off; +it was low and sweet, as became the Sacrament Chapel. + +Bébée looked up; she did not quite know what she saw: only dark eyes +smiling into hers. + +By the instinct of habit she sought in her basket and found three +moss-roses. She held them out to him. + +"I do not sell flowers here, but I will _give_ them to you," she said, in +her pretty grave childish fashion. + +"I often want flowers," said the stranger, as he took the buds. "Where do +you sell yours?--in the market?" + +"In the Grande Place." + +"Will you tell me your name, pretty one?" + +"I am Bébée." + +There were people coming into the church. The bells were booming +abovehead for vespers. There was a shuffle of chairs and a stir of feet. +Boys in white went to and fro, lighting the candles. Great clouds of +shadow drifted up into the roof and hid the angels. + +She nodded her little head to him. + +"Good night; I cannot stay. I have a cake at home to-night, and the +children are waiting." + +"Ah! that is important, no doubt, indeed. Will you buy some more cakes +for the children from me?" + +He slid a gold piece in her hand. She looked at it in amaze. In the green +lanes by Laeken no one ever saw gold. Then she gave it him back. + +"I will not take money in church, nor anywhere, except what the flowers +are worth. Good night." + +He followed her, and held back the heavy oak door for her, and went out +into the air with her. + +It was dark already, but in the square there was still the cool bright +primrose-colored evening light. + +Bébée's wooden shoes went pattering down the sloping and uneven stones. +Her little gray figure ran quickly through the deep shade cast from the +towers and walls. Her dreams had drifted away. She was thinking of the +children and the cake. + +"You are in such a hurry because of the cake?" said her new customer, as +he followed her. + +Bébée looked back at him with a smile in her blue eyes. + +"Yes, they will be waiting, you know, and there are cherries too." + +"It is a grand day with you, then?" + +"It is my fête day: I am sixteen." + +She was proud of this. She told it to the very dogs in the street. + +"Ah, you feel old, I dare say?" + +"Oh, quite old! They cannot call me a child any more." + +"Of course not, it would be ridiculous. Are those presents in your +basket?" + +"Yes, every one of them." She paused a moment to lift the dead +vine-leaves, and show him the beautiful shining red shoes. "Look! old +Gringoire gave me these. I shall wear them at mass next Sunday. I never +had a pair of shoes in my life." + +"But how will you wear shoes without stockings?" + +It was a snake cast into her Eden. + +She had never thought of it. + +"Perhaps I can save money and buy some," she answered after a sad little +pause. "But that I could not do till next year. They would cost several +francs, I suppose." + +"Unless a good fairy gives them to you?" + +Bébée smiled; fairies were real things to her--relations indeed. She did +not imagine that he spoke in jest. + +"Sometimes I pray very much and things come," she said softly. "When the +Gloire de Dijon was cut back too soon one summer, and never blossomed, +and we all thought it was dead, I prayed all day long for it, and never +thought of anything else; and by autumn it was all in new leaf, and now +its flowers are finer than ever." + +"But you watered it whilst you prayed, I suppose?" + +The sarcasm escaped her. + +She was wondering to herself whether it would be vain and wicked to pray +for a pair of stockings: she thought she would go and ask Father Francis. + +By this time they were in the Rue Royale, and half-way down it. The +lamps were lighted. A regiment was marching up it with a band playing. +The windows were open, and people were laughing and singing in some of +them. The light caught the white and gilded fronts of the houses. The +pleasure-seeking crowds loitered along in the warmth of the evening. + +Bébée, suddenly roused from her thoughts by the loud challenge of the +military music, looked round on the stranger, and motioned him back. + +"Sir,--I do not know you,--why should you come with me? Do not do it, +please. You make me talk, and that makes me late." + +And she pushed her basket farther on her arm, and nodded to him and ran +off--as fleetly as a hare through fern--among the press of the people. + +"To-morrow, little one," he answered her with a careless smile, and let +her go unpursued. Above, from the open casement of a café, some young men +and some painted women leaned out, and threw sweetmeats at him, as in +carnival time. + +"A new model,--that pretty peasant?" they asked him. + +He laughed in answer, and went up the steps to join them; he dropped the +moss-roses as he went, and trod on them, and did not wait. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Bébée ran home as fast as her feet would take her. + +The children were all gathered about her gate in the dusky dewy evening; +they met her with shouts of welcome and reproach intermingled; they had +been watching for her since first the sun had grown low and red, and now +the moon was risen. + +But they forgave her when they saw the splendor of her presents, and she +showered out among them Père Melchior's horn of comfits. + +They dashed into the hut; they dragged the one little table out among the +flowers; the cherries and cake were spread on it; and the miller's wife +had given a big jug of milk, and Father Francis himself had sent some +honeycomb. + +The early roses were full of scent in the dew; the great gillyflowers +breathed\out fragrance in the dusk; the goat came and nibbled the +sweetbrier unrebuked; the children repeated the Flemish bread-grace, with +clasped hands and reverent eyes, "Oh, dear little Jesus, come and sup +with us, and bring your beautiful Mother, too; we will not forget you are +God." Then, that said, they ate, and drank, and laughed, and picked +cherries from each other's mouths like little blackbirds; the big white +dog gnawed a crust at their feet; old Krebs who had a fiddle, and could +play it, came out and trilled them rude and ready Flemish tunes, such as +Teniers or Mieris might have jumped to before an alehouse at the +Kermesse; Bébée and the children joined hands, and danced round together +in the broad white moonlight, on the grass by the water-side; the idlers +came and sat about, the women netting or spinning, and the men smoking a +pipe before bedtime; the rough hearty Flemish bubbled like a brook in +gossip, or rung like a horn over a jest; Bébée and the children, tired of +their play, grew quiet, and chanted together the "Ave Maria Stella +Virginis"; a nightingale among the willows sang to the sleeping swans. + +All was happy, quiet, homely; lovely also in its simple way. + +They went early to their beds, as people must do who rise at dawn. + +Bébée leaned out a moment from her own little casement ere she too went +to rest. + +Through an open lattice there sounded the murmur of some little child's +prayer; the wind sighed among the willows; the nightingales sang on in +the dark--all was still. + +Hard work awaited her on the morrow, and on all the other days of the +year. + +She was only a little peasant--she must sweep, and spin, and dig, and +delve, to get daily her bit of black bread,--but that night she was as +happy as a little princess in a fairy tale; happy in her playmates, in +her flowers, in her sixteen years, in her red shoes, in her silver +buckles, because she was half a woman; happy in the dewy leaves, in the +singing birds, in the hush of the night, in the sense of rest, in the +fragrance of flowers, in the drifting changes of moon and cloud; happy +because she was half a woman, because she was half a poet, because +she was wholly a poet. + +"Oh, dear swans, how good it is to be sixteen!--how good it is to live at +all!--do you not tell the willows so?" said Bébée to the gleam of silver +under the dark leaves by the water's side, which showed her where her +friends were sleeping, with their snowy wings closed over their stately +heads, and the veiled gold and ruby of their eyes. + +The swans did not awake to answer. + +Only the nightingale answered from the willows, with Desdemona's song. + +But Bébée had never heard of Desdemona, and the willows had no sigh for +her. + +"Good night!" she said, softly, to all the green dewy sleeping world, and +then she lay down and slept herself.--The nightingale sang on, and the +willows trembled. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +"If I could save a centime a day, I could buy a pair of stockings this +time next year," thought Bébée, locking her shoes with her other +treasures in her drawer the next morning, and taking her broom and pail +to wash down her little palace. + +But a centime a day is a great deal in Brabant, when one has not always +enough for bare bread, and when, in the long chill winter, one must weave +thread lace all through the short daylight for next to nothing at all; +for there are so many women in Brabant, and every one of them, young or +old, can make lace, and if one do not like the pitiful wage, one may +leave it and go and die, for what the master lacemakers care or know; +there will always be enough, many more than enough, to twist the thread +round the bobbins, and weave the bridal veils, and the trains for the +courts. + +"And besides, if I can save a centime, the Varnhart children ought to +have it," thought Bébée, as she swept the dust together. It was so +selfish of her to be dreaming about a pair of stockings, when those +little things often went for days on a stew of nettles. + +So she looked at her own pretty feet,--pretty and slender, and arched, +rosy, and fair, and uncramped by the pressure of leather,--and resigned +her day-dream with a brave heart, as she put up her broom and went out to +weed, and hoe, and trim, and prune the garden that had been for once +neglected the night before. + +"One could not move half so easily in stockings," she thought with true +philosophy as she worked among the black, fresh, sweet-smelling mould, +and kissed a rose now and then as she passed one. + +When she got into the city that day, her rush-bottomed chair, which was +always left upside down in case rain should fall in the night, was set +ready for her, and on its seat was a gay, gilded box, such as rich people +give away full of bonbons. + +Bébée stood and looked from the box to the Broodhuis, from the Broodhuis +to the box; she glanced around, but no one had come there so early as +she, except the tinker, who was busy quarrelling with his wife and +letting his smelting fire burn a hole in his breeches. + +"The box was certainly for her, since it was set upon her chair?"--Bébée +pondered a moment; then little by little opened the lid. + +Within, on a nest of rose-satin, were two pair of silk stockings!--real +silk!--with the prettiest clocks worked up their sides in color! + +Bébée gave a little scream, and stood still, the blood hot in her cheeks; +no one heard her, the tinker's wife, who alone was near, having just +wished Heaven to send a judgment on her husband, was busy putting out his +smoking smallclothes. It is a way that women and wives have, and they +never see the bathos of it. + +The place filled gradually. + +The customary crowds gathered. The business of the day began underneath +the multitudinous tones of the chiming bells. Bébée's business began too; +she put the box behind her with a beating heart, and tied up her flowers. + +It was the fairies, of course! but they had never set a rush-bottomed +chair on its legs before, and this action of theirs frightened her. + +It was rather an empty morning. She sold little, and there was the more +time to think. + +About an hour after noon a voice addressed her,-- + +"Have you more moss-roses for me?" + +Bébée looked up with a smile, and found some. It was her companion of the +cathedral. She had thought much of the red shoes and the silver clasps, +but she had thought nothing at all of him. + +"You are not too proud to be paid to-day?" he said, giving her a silver +franc; he would not alarm her with any more gold; she thanked him, and +slipped it in her little leathern pouch, and went on sorting some +clove-pinks. + +"You do not seem to remember me?" he said, with a little sadness. + +"Oh, I remember you," said Bébée, lifting her frank eyes. "But you know I +speak to so many people, and they are all nothing to me." + +"Who is anything to you?" It was softly and insidiously spoken, but it +awoke no echo. + +"Varnhart's children," she answered him, instantly. "And old Annémie by +the wharfside--and Tambour--and Antoine's grave--and the starling--and, +of course, above all, the flowers." + +"And the fairies, I suppose?--though they do nothing for you." + +She looked at him eagerly,-- + +"They have done something to-day. I have found a box, and some +stockings--such beautiful stockings! Silk ones! Is it not very odd?" + +"It is more odd they should have forgotten you so long. May I see them?" + +"I cannot show them to you now. Those ladies are going to buy. But you +can see them later--if you wait." + +"I will wait and paint the Broodhuis." + +"So many people do that; you are a painter then?" + +"Yes--in a way." + +He sat down on an edge of the stall, and spread his things there, and +sketched, whilst the traffic went on around them. He was very many years +older than she; handsome, with a dark, and changeful, and listless face; +he wore brown velvet, and had a red ribbon at his throat; he looked a +little as Egmont might have done when wooing Claire. + +Bébée, as she sold the flowers and took the change fifty times in the +hour, glanced at him now and then, and watched the movements of his +hands, she could not have told why. + +Always among men and women, always in the crowds of the streets, people +were nothing to her; she went through them as through a field of standing +corn,--only in the field she would have tarried for poppies, and in the +town she tarried for no one. + +She dealt with men as with women, simply, truthfully, frankly, with the +innocent fearlessness of a child. When they told her she was pretty, she +smiled; it was just as they said that her flowers were sweet. + +But this man's hands moved so swiftly; and as she saw her Broodhuis +growing into color and form beneath them, she could not choose but look +now and then, and twice she gave her change wrong. + +He spoke to her rarely, and sketched on and on in rapid bold strokes the +quaint graces and massive richness of the Maison du Roi. + +There is no crowd so busy in Brabant that it will not find leisure to +stare. The Fleming or the Walloon has nothing of the Frenchman's +courtesy; he is rough and rude; he remains a peasant even when town bred, +and the surly insolence of the "Gueux" is in him still. He is kindly to +his fellows, though not to beasts; he is shrewd, patient, thrifty, +industrious, and good in very many ways, but civil never. + +A good score of them left off their occupations and clustered round the +painter, staring, chattering, pushing, pointing, as though a brush had +never been seen in all the land of Rubens. + +Bébée, ashamed of her people, got up from her chair and rebuked them. + +"Oh, men of Brussels; fie then for shame!" she called to them as +clearly as a robin sings. "Did never you see a drawing before? and are +there not saints and martyrs enough to look at in the galleries? and have +you never some better thing to do than to gape wide-mouthed at a +stranger? What laziness--ah! Just worthy of a people who sleep and smoke +while their dogs work for them! Go away, all of you; look, there comes +the gendarme--it will be the worse for you. Sir, sit under my stall; they +will not dare trouble you then." + +He moved under the awning, thanking her with a smile; and the people, +laughing, shuffled unwillingly aside and let him paint on in peace. It +was only little Bébée, but they had spoilt the child from her infancy, +and were used to obey her. + +The painter took a long time. He set about it with the bold ease of one +used to all the intricacies of form and color, and he had the skill of a +master. But he spent more than half the time looking idly at the humors +of the populace or watching how the treasures of Bébée's garden +went away one by one in the hands of strangers. + +Meanwhile, ever and again, sitting on the edge of her stall, with +his colors and brushes tossed out on the board, he talked to her, and, +with the soft imperceptible skill of long practice in those arts, he drew +out the details of her little simple life. + +There were not always people to buy, and whilst she rested and sheltered +the flowers from the sun, she answered him willingly, and in one of her +longer rests showed him the wonderful stockings. + +"Do you think it _could_ be the fairies?" she asked him a little +doubtfully. + +It was easy to make her believe any fantastical nonsense; but her fairies +were ethereal divinities. She could scarcely believe that they had laid +that box on her chair. + +"Impossible to doubt it!" he replied, unhesitatingly. "Given a belief in +fairies at all, why should there be any limit to what they can do? It is +the same with the saints, is it not?" + +"Yes," said Bébée, thoughtfully. + +The saints were mixed up in her imagination with the fairies in an +intricacy that would have defied the best reasonings of Father +Francis. + +"Well, then, you will wear the stockings, will you not? Only, believe me, +your feet are far prettier without them." + +Bébée laughed happily, and took another peep in the cosy rose-satin nest. +But her little face had a certain perplexity. Suddenly she turned on him. + +"Did not _you_ put them there?" + +"I?--never!" + +"Are you quite sure?" + +"Quite; but why ask?" + +"Because," said Bébée, shutting the box resolutely and pushing it a +little away,--"because I would not take it if you did. You are a +stranger, and a present is a debt, so Antoine always said." + +"Why take a present then from the Varnhart children, or your old friend +who gave you the clasps?" + +"Ah, that is very different. When people are very, very poor, equally +poor, the one with the other, little presents that they save for and +make with such a difficulty are just things that are a pleasure; +sacrifices; like your sitting up with a sick person at night, and then +she sits up with you another year when you want it. Do you not know?" + +"I know you talk very prettily. But why should you not take any one +else's present, though he may not be poor?" + +"Because I could not return it." + +"Could you not?" + +The smile in his eyes dazzled her a little; it was so strange, and yet +had so much light in it; but she did not understand him one whit. + +"No; how could I?" she said earnestly. "If I were to save for two years, +I could not get francs enough to buy anything worth giving back; and I +should be so unhappy, thinking of the debt of it always. Do tell me if +you put those stockings there?" + +"No"; he looked at her, and the trivial lie faltered and died away; the +eyes, clear as crystal, questioned him so innocently. "Well, if I did?" +he said, frankly; "you wished for them; what harm was there? Will you be +so cruel as to refuse them from me?" + +The tears sprang into Bébée's eyes. She was sorry to lose the beautiful +box, but more sorry he had lied to her. + +"It was very kind and good," she said, regretfully. "But I cannot think +why you should have done it, as you had never known me at all. And, +indeed, I could not take them, because Antoine would not let me if he +were alive; and if I gave you a flower every day all the year round I +should not pay you the worth of them, it would be quite impossible; and +why should you tell me falsehoods about such a thing? A falsehood is +never a thing for a man." + +She shut the box and pushed it towards him, and turned to the selling of +her bouquets. Her voice shook a little as she tied up a bunch of +mignonette and told the price of it. + +Those beautiful stockings! why had she ever seen them, and why had he +told her a lie? + +It made her heart heavy. For the first time in her brief life the +Broodhuis seemed to frown between her and the sun. + +Undisturbed, he painted on and did not look at her. + +The day was nearly done. The people began to scatter. The shadows grew +very long. He painted, not glancing once elsewhere than at his study. +Bébée's baskets were quite empty. + +She rose, and lingered, and regarded him wistfully: he was angered; +perhaps she had been rude? Her little heart failed her. + +If he would only look up! + +But he did not look up; he kept his handsome dark face studiously over +the canvas of the Broodhuis. She would have seen a smile in his eyes if +he had lifted them; but he never raised his lids. + +Bébée hesitated: take the stockings she would not; but perhaps she had +refused them too roughly. She wished so that he would look up and save +her speaking first; but he knew what he was about too warily and well to +help her thus. + +She waited awhile, then took one little red moss-rosebud that she had +saved all day in a corner of her basket, and held it out to him frankly, +shyly, as a peace offering. + +"Was I rude? I did not mean to be. But I cannot take the stockings; and +why did you tell me that falsehood?" + +He took the rosebud and rose too, and smiled; but he did not meet her +eyes. + +"Let us forget the whole matter; it is not worth a sou. If you do not +take the box, leave it; it is of no use to me." + +"I cannot take it." + +She knew she was doing right. How was it that he could make her feel as +though she were acting wrongly? + +"Leave it then, I say. You are not the first woman, my dear, who has +quarrelled with a wish fulfilled. It is a way your sex has of rewarding +gods and men.--Here, you old witch, here is a treasure-trove for you. You +can sell it for ten francs in the town anywhere." + +As he spoke he tossed the casket and the stockings in it to an old +decrepit woman, who was passing by with a baker's cart drawn by a dog; +and, not staying to heed her astonishment, gathered his colors and easel +together. + +The tears swam in Bébée's eyes as she saw the box whirled through the +air. + +She had done right; she was sure she had done right. + +He was a stranger, and she could never have repaid him; but he made her +feel herself wayward and ungrateful, and it was hard to see the beautiful +fairy gift borne away forever by the chuckling, hobbling, greedy old +baker's woman. If he had only taken it himself, she would have been glad +then to have been brave and to have done her duty. + +But it was not in his design that she should be glad. + +He saw her tears, but he seemed not to see them. + +"Good night, Bébée," he said carelessly, as he sauntered aside from her. +"Good night, my dear. To-morrow I will finish my painting; but I will not +offend you by any more gifts." + +Bébée lifted her drooped head, and looked him in the eyes eagerly, with a +certain sturdy resolve and timid wistfulness intermingled in her look. + +"Sir, see, you speak to me quite wrongly," she said with a quick +accent, that had pride as well as pain in it. "Say it was kind to +bring me what I wished for; yes, it was kind I know; but you never saw +me till last night, and I cannot tell even your name; and it is very +wrong to lie to any one, even to a little thing like me; and I am only +Bébée, and cannot give you anything back, because I have only just enough +to feed myself and the starling, and not always that in winter. I thank +you very much for what you wished to do; but if I had taken those things, +I think you would have thought me very mean and full of greed; and +Antoine always said, 'Do not take what you cannot pay--not ever what you +cannot pay--that is the way to walk with pure feet.' Perhaps I spoke ill, +because they spoil me, and they say I am too swift to say my mind. But I +am not thankless--not thankless, indeed--it is only I could not take what +I cannot pay. That is all. You are angry still--not now--no?" + +There was, anxiety in the pleading. What did it matter to her what a +stranger thought? + +And yet Bébée's heart was heavy as he laughed a little coldly, and bade +her good day, and left her alone to go out of the city homewards. A sense +of having done wrong weighed on her; of having been rude and ungrateful. + +She had no heart for the children that evening. Mère Krebs was sitting +out before her door shelling peas, and called to her to come in and have +a drop of coffee. Krebs had come in from Vilvöorde fair, and brought a +stock of rare good berries with him. But Bébée thanked her, and went on +to her own garden to work. + +She had always liked to sit out on the quaint wooden steps of the mill +and under the red shadow of the sails, watching the swallows flutter to +and fro in the sunset, and hearing the droll frogs croak in the rushes, +while the old people told her tales of the time of how in their babyhood +they had run out, fearful yet fascinated, to see the beautiful Scots +Grays flash by in the murky night, and the endless line of guns and +caissons crawl black as a snake through the summer dust and the +trampled corn, going out past the woods to Waterloo. + +But to-night she had no fancy for it: she wanted to be alone with the +flowers. + +Though, to be sure, they had been very heartless when Antoine's coffin +had gone past them, still they had sympathy; the daisies smiled at her +with their golden eyes, and the roses dropped tears on her hand, just as +her mood might be; the flowers were closer friends, after all, than any +human souls; and besides, she could say so much to them! + +Flowers belong to fairyland; the flowers and the birds and the +butterflies are all that the world has kept of its Golden Age; the only +perfectly beautiful things on earth, joyous, innocent, half divine, +useless, say they who are wiser than God. + +Bébée went home and worked among her flowers. + +A little laborious figure, with her petticoats twisted high, and her feet +wet with the night dews, and her back bowed to the hoeing and clipping +and raking among the blossoming plants. + +"How late you are working to-night, Bébée!" one or two called out, as +they passed the gate. She looked up and smiled; but went on working while +the white moon rose. + +She did not know what ailed her. + +She went to bed without supper, leaving her bit of bread and bowl of +goat's milk to make a meal for the fowls in the morning. + +"Little ugly, shameful, naked feet!" she said to them, sitting on the +edge of her mattress, and looking at them in the moonlight. They were +very pretty feet, and would not have been half so pretty in silk hose and +satin shoon; but she did not know that: he had told her she wanted those +vanities. + +She sat still a long while, her rosy feet swaying to and fro like two +roses that grow on one stalk and hang down in the wind. The little +lattice was open; the sweet and dusky garden was beyond; there was a +hand's breadth of sky, in which a single star was shining; the leaves +of the vine hid all the rest. + +But for once she saw none of it. + +She only saw the black Broodhuis; the red and gold sunset overhead; the +gray stones, with the fallen rose leaves and crushed fruits; and in the +shadows two dark, reproachful eyes, that looked at hers. + +Had she been ungrateful? + +The little tender, honest heart of her was troubled and oppressed. For +once, that night she slept ill. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +All the next day she sat under the yellow awning, but she sat alone. + +It was market day; there were many strangers. Flowers were in demand. The +copper pieces were ringing against one another all the hours through in +her leathern bag. The cobbler was in such good humor that he forgot to +quarrel with his wife. The fruit was in such plenty that they gave her a +leaf-full of white and red currants for her noonday dinner. And the +people split their sides at the Cheap John's jokes; he was so droll. No +one saw the leaks in his kettles or the hole in his bellows, or the leg +that was lacking to his milking stool. + +Everybody was gay and merry that day. But Bébée's eyes looked wistfully +over the throng, and did not find what they sought. Somehow the day +seemed dull, and the square empty. + +The stones and the timbers around seemed more than ever full of a +thousand stories that they would not tell her because she knew nothing, +and was only Bébée. + +She had never known a dull hour before. She, a little bright, +industrious, gay thing, whose hands were always full of work, and whose +head was always full of fancies, even in the grimmest winter time, when +she wove the lace in the gray, chilly workroom, with the frost on the +casements, and the mice running out in their hunger over the bare brick +floor. + +That bare room was a sad enough place sometimes, when the old women would +bewail how they starved on the pittance they gained, and the young women +sighed for their aching heads and their failing eyesight, and the +children dropped great tears on the bobbins, because they had come out +without a crust to break their fast. + +She had been sad there often for others, but she had never been dull--not +with this unfamiliar, desolate, dreary dulness, that seemed to take all +the mirth out of the busy life around her, and all the color out of the +blue sky above. Why, she had no idea herself. She wondered if she were +going to be ill; she had never been ill in her life, being strong as a +little bird that has never known cage or captivity. + +When the day was done, Bébée gave a quick sigh as she looked across the +square. She had so wanted to tell him that she was not ungrateful; and +she had a little moss-rose ready, with a sprig of sweetbrier, and a tiny +spray of maidenhair fern that grew under the willows, which she had kept +covered up with a leaf of sycamore all the day long. + +No one would have it now. + +The child went out of the place sadly as the carillon rang. There was +only the moss-rose in her basket, and the red and white currants that had +been given her for her dinner. + +She went along the twisting, many-colored, quaintly fashioned streets, +till she came to the water-side. + +It is very ancient there still, there are all manner of old buildings, +black and brown and gray, peaked roofs, gabled windows, arched doors, +crumbling bridges, twisted galleries leaning to touch the dark surface of +the canal, dusky wharves crowded with barrels, and bales, and cattle, and +timber, and all the various freightage that the good ships come and go +with all the year round, to and from the ZuyderZee, and the Baltic water, +and the wild Northumbrian shores, and the iron-bound Scottish headlands, +and the pretty gray Norman seaports, and the white sandy dunes of +Holland, with the toy towns and the straight poplar-trees. + +Bébée was fond of watching the brigs and barges, that looked so big to +her, with their national flags flying, and their tall masts standing +thick as grass, and their tawny sails flapping in the wind, and about +them the sweet, strong smell of that strange, unknown thing, the sea. + +Sometimes the sailors would talk with her; sometimes some old salt, +sitting astride of a cask, would tell her a mariner's tale of far-away +lands and mysteries of the deep; sometimes some curly-headed cabin-boy +would give her a shell or a plume of seaweed, and try and make her +understand what the wonderful wild water was like, which was not quiet +and sluggish and dusky as this canal was, but was forever changing and +moving, and curling and leaping, and making itself now blue as her eyes, +now black as that thunder-cloud, now white as the snow that the winter +wind tossed, now pearl hued and opaline as the convolvulus that blew in +her own garden. + +And Bébée would listen, with the shell in her lap, and try to +understand, and gaze at the ships and then at the sky beyond them, and +try to figure to herself those strange countries to which these ships +were always going, and saw in fancy all the blossoming orchard province +of green France, and all the fir-clothed hills and rushing rivers of the +snow-locked Swedish shore, and saw too, doubtless, many lands that had no +place at all except in dreamland, and were more beautiful even than the +beauty of the earth, as poets' countries are, to their own sorrow, +oftentimes. + +But this dull day Bébée did not go down upon the wharf; she did not want +the sailors' tales; she saw the masts and the bits of bunting that +streamed from them, and they made her restless, which they had never done +before. + +Instead she went in at a dark old door and climbed up a steep staircase +that went up and up, as though she were mounting St. Gudule's belfry +towers; and at the top of it entered a little chamber in the roof, where +one square unglazed hole that served for light looked out upon the canal, +with all its crowded craft, from the dainty schooner yacht, fresh as +gilding and holystone could make her, that was running for pleasure to +the Scheldt, to the rude, clumsy coal barge, black as night, that bore +the rough diamonds of Belgium to the snow-buried roofs of Christiania and +Stromstad. + +In the little dark attic there was a very old woman in a red petticoat +and a high cap, who sat against the window, and pricked out lace patterns +with a pin on thick paper. She was eighty-five years old, and could +hardly keep body and soul together. + +Bébée, running to her, kissed her. "Oh, mother Annémie, look here! +Beautiful red and white currants, and a roll; I saved them for you. They +are the first currants we have seen this year. Me? oh, for me, I have +eaten more than are good! You know I pick fruit like a sparrow, always. +Dear mother Annémie, are you better? Are you quite sure you are better +to-day?" + +The little old withered woman, brown as a walnut and meagre as a rush, +took the currants, and smiled with a childish glee, and began to eat +them, blessing the child with each crumb she broke off the bread. + +"Why had you not a grandmother of your own, my little one?" she mumbled. +"How good you would have been to her, Bébée!" + +"Yes," said Bébée seriously, but her mind could not grasp the idea. It +was easier for her to believe the fanciful lily parentage of Antoine's +stories. "How much work have you done, Annémie? Oh, all that? all that? +But there is enough for a week. You work too early and too late, you dear +Annémie." + +"Nay, Bébée, when one has to get one's bread that cannot be. But I am +afraid my eyes are failing. That rose now, is it well done?" + +"Beautifully done. Would the Baës take them if they were not? You know he +is one that cuts every centime in four pieces." + +"Ah! sharp enough, sharp enough, that is true. But I am always afraid of +my eyes. I do not see the flags out there so well as I used to do." + +"Because the sun is so bright, Annémie; that is all. I myself, when I +have been sitting all day in the place in the light, the flowers look +pale to me. And you know it is not age with _me_, Annémie?" + +The old woman and the young girl laughed together at that droll idea. + +"You have a merry heart, dear little one," said old Annémie. "The saints +keep it to you always." + +"May I tidy the room a little?" + +"To be sure, dear, and thank you too. I have not much time, you see; and +somehow my back aches badly when I stoop." + +"And it is so damp here for you, over all that water!" said Bébée as she +swept and dusted and set to rights the tiny place, and put in a little +broken pot a few sprays of honeysuckle and rosemary that she had brought +with her. "It is so damp here. You should have come and lived in my hut +with me, Annémie, and sat out under the vine all day, and looked after +the chickens for me when I was in the town. They are such mischievous +little souls; as soon as my back is turned one or other is sure to push +through the roof, and get out among the flower-beds. Will you never +change your mind, and live with me, Annémie? I am sure you would be +happy, and the starling says your name quite plain, and he is such a +funny bird to talk to; you never would tire of him. Will you never come? +It is so bright there, and green and sweet smelling; and to think you +never even have seen it!--and the swans and all,--it is a shame." + +"No, dear," said old Annémie, eating her last bunch of currants. +"You have said so so often, and you are good and mean it, that I +know. But I could not leave the water. It would kill me. Out of this +window you know I saw my Jeannot's brig go away--away--away--till the +masts were lost in the mists. Going with iron to Norway; the 'Fleur +d'Epine' of this town, a good ship, and a sure, and her mate; and as +proud as might be, and with a little blest Mary in lead round his throat. +She was to be back in port in eight months, bringing timber. Eight +months--that brought Easter time. But she never came. Never, never, +never, you know. I sat here watching them come and go, and my child +sickened and died, and the summer passed, and the autumn, and all the +while I looked--looked--looked; for the brigs are all much alike; and +only her I always saw as soon as she hove in sight (because he tied a +hank of flax to her mizzen-mast); and when he was home safe and +sound I spun the hank into hose for him; that was a fancy of his, and for +eleven voyages, one on another, he had never missed to tie the flax +nor I to spin the hose. But the hank of flax I never saw this time; nor +the brave brig; nor my good man with his sunny blue eyes. Only one day in +winter, when the great blocks of ice were smashing hither and thither, a +coaster came in and brought tidings of how off in the Danish waters they +had come on a water-logged brig, and had boarded her, and had found her +empty, and her hull riven in two, and her crew all drowned and dead +beyond any manner of doubt. And on her stern there was her name painted +white, the 'Fleur d'Epine,' of Brussels, as plain as name could be; and +that was all we ever knew: what evil had struck her, or how they had +perished, nobody ever told. Only the coaster brought that bit of beam +away, with the 'Fleur d'Epine' writ clear upon it. But you see I never +_know_ my man is dead. Any day--who can say?--any one of those ships may +bring him aboard of her, and he may leap out on the wharf there, and come +running up the stairs as he used to do, and cry, in his merry voice, +'Annémie, Annémie, here is more flax to spin, here is more hose to +weave!' For that was always his homeward word; no matter whether he had +had fair weather or foul, he always knotted the flax to his masthead. So +you see, dear, I could not leave here. For what if he came and found me +away? He would say it was an odd fashion of mourning for him. And I could +not do without the window, you know. I can watch all the brigs come in; +and I can smell the shipping smell that I have loved all the days of my +life; and I can see the lads heaving, and climbing, and furling, and +mending their bits of canvas, and hauling their flags up and down. And +then who can say?--the sea never took him, I think--I think I shall hear +his voice before I die. For they do say that God is good." + +Bébée, sweeping very noiselessly, listened, and her eyes grew wistful and +wondering. She had heard the story a thousand times; always in different +words, but always the same little tale, and she knew how old Annémie was +deaf to all the bells that tolled the time, and blind to all the +whiteness of her hair and all the wrinkles of her face, and only thought +of her sea-slain lover as he had been in the days of her youth. + +But this afternoon the familiar history had a new patheticalness for her, +and as the old soul put aside with her palsied hand the square of canvas +that screened the casement, and looked out, with her old dim sad eyes +strained in the longing that God never answered, Bébée felt a strange +chill at her own heart, and wondered to herself,-- + +"What can it be to care for another creature like that? It must be so +terrible, and yet it must be beautiful too. Does every one suffer like +that?" + +She did not speak at all as she finished sweeping the bricks, and went +down-stairs for a metal cruche full of water, and set over a little +charcoal on the stove the old woman's brass soup kettle with her supper +of stewing cabbage. + +Annémie did not hear or notice; she was still looking out of the hole in +the wall on to the masts, and the sails, and the water. + +It was twilight. + +From the barges and brigs there came the smell of the sea. The sailors +were shouting to each other. The craft were crowded close, and lost in +the growing darkness. On the other side of the canal the belfries were +ringing for vespers. + +"Eleven voyages one and another, and he never forgot to tie the flax +to the mast," Annémie murmured, with her old wrinkled face leaning out +into the gray air. "It used to fly there,--one could see it coming up +half a mile off,--just a pale yellow flake on the wind, like a tress of +my hair, he would say. No, no, I could not go away; he may come to-night, +to-morrow, any time; he is not drowned, not my man; he was all I had, and +God is good, they say." + +Bébée listened and looked; then kissed the old shaking hand and took up +the lace patterns and went softly out of the room without speaking. + +When old Annémie watched at the window it was useless to seek for any +word or sign of her: people said that she had never been quite right in +her brain since that fatal winter noon sixty years before, when the +coaster had brought into port the broken beam of the good brig "Fleur +d'Epine." + +Bébée did not know about that, nor heed whether her wits were right or +not. + +She had known the old creature in the lace-room where Annémie pricked out +designs, and she had conceived a great regard and sorrow for her; and +when Annémie had become too ailing and aged to go herself any longer to +the lace-maker's place, Bébée had begged leave for her to have the +patterns at home, and had carried them to and fro for her for the last +three or four years, doing many other little useful services for the lone +old soul as well,--services which Annémie hardly perceived, she had +grown so used to them, and her feeble intelligence was so sunk in the one +absorbing idea that she must watch all the days through and all the years +through for the coming of the dead man and the lost brig. + +Bébée put the lace patterns in her basket, and trotted home, her sabots +clattering on the stones. + +"What it must be to care for any one like that!" she thought, and by some +vague association of thought that she could not have pursued, she lifted +the leaves and looked at the moss-rosebud. + +It was quite dead. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +As she got clear of the city and out on her country road, a shadow Fell +across her in the evening light. + +"Have you had a good day, little one?" asked a voice that made her stop +with a curious vague expectancy and pleasure. + +"It is you!" she said, with a little cry, as she saw her friend of the +silk stockings leaning on a gate midway in the green and solitary road +that leads to Laeken. + +"Yes, it is I," he answered, as he joined her. "Have you forgiven me, +Bébée?" + +She looked at him with frank, appealing eyes, like those of a child in +fault. + +"Oh, I did not sleep all night!" she said, simply. "I thought I had been +rude and ungrateful, and I could not be sure I had done right, though to +have done otherwise would certainly have been wrong." + +He laughed. + +"Well, that is a clearer deduction than is to be drawn from most moral +uncertainties. Do not think twice about the matter, my dear. I have not, +I assure you." + +"No!" + +She was a little disappointed. It seemed such an immense thing to her; +and she had lain awake all the night, turning it about in her little +brain, and appealing vainly for help in it to the sixteen sleep-angels. + +"No, indeed. And where are you going so fast, as if those wooden shoes of +yours were sandals of Mercury?" + +"Mercury--is that a shoemaker?" + +"No, my dear. He did a terrible bit of cobbling once, when he made +Woman. But he did not shoe her feet with swiftness that I know of; she +only runs away to be run after, and if you do not pursue her, she comes +back--always." + +Bébée did not understand at all. + +"I thought God made women," she said, a little awe-stricken. + +"You call it God. People three thousand years ago called it Mercury or +Hermes. Both mean the same thing,--mere words to designate an unknown +quality. Where are you going? Does your home lie here?" + +"Yes, onward, quite far onward," said Bébée, wondering that he had +forgotten all she had told him the day before about her hut, her garden, +and her neighbors. "You did not come and finish your picture to-day: why +was that? I had a rosebud for you, but it is dead now." + +"I went to Anvers. You looked for me a little, then?" + +"Oh, all day long. For I was so afraid I had been ungrateful." + +"That is very pretty of you. Women are never grateful, my dear, except +when they are very ill-treated. Mercury, whom we were talking of, gave +them, among other gifts, a dog's heart." + +Bébée felt bewildered; she did not reason about it, but the idle, +shallow, cynical tone pained her by its levity and its unlikeness to +the sweet, still, gray summer evening. + +"Why are you in such a hurry?" he pursued. "The night is cool, and it is +only seven o'clock. I will walk part of the way with you." + +"I am in a hurry because I have Annémie's patterns to do," said Bébée, +glad that he spoke of a thing that she knew how to answer. "You see, +Annémie's hand shakes and her eyes are dim, and she pricks the pattern +all awry and never perceives it; it would break her heart if one showed +her so, but the Baës would not take them as they are; they are of no use +at all. So I prick them out myself on fresh paper, and the Baës thinks it +is all her doing, and pays her the same money, and she is quite content. +And as I carry the patterns to and fro for her, because she cannot walk, +it is easy to cheat her like that; and it is no harm to cheat _so_, you +know." He was silent. + +"You are a good little girl, Bébée, I can see." he said at last, with a +graver sound in his voice. "And who is this Annémie for whom you do so +much? an old woman, I suppose." + +"Oh, yes, quite old; incredibly old. Her man was drowned at sea sixty +years ago, and she watches for his brig still, night and morning." + +"The dog's heart. No doubt he beat her, and had a wife in fifty other +ports." + +"Oh, no!" said Bébée, with a little cry, as though the word against the +dead man hurt her. "She has told me so much of him. He was as good as +good could be, and loved her so, and between the voyages they were so +happy. Surely that must have been sixty years now, and she is so sorry +still, and still will not believe that he was drowned." + +He looked down on her with a smile that had a certain pity in it. + +"Well, yes; there are women like that, I believe. But be very sure, my +dear, he beat her. Of the two, one always holds the whip and uses it, the +other crouches." + +"I do not understand," said Bébée. + +"No; but you will." + +"I will?--when?" + +He smiled again. + +"Oh--to-morrow, perhaps, or next year--or when Fate fancies." + +"Or rather, when I choose," he thought to himself, and let his eyes rest +with a certain pleasure on the little feet, that went beside him in the +grass, and the pretty fair bosom that showed ever and again, as the +frills of her linen bodice were blown back by the wind and her own quick +motion. + +Bébée looked also up at him; he was very handsome, and looked so to her, +after the broad, blunt, characterless faces of the Walloon peasantry +around her. He walked with an easy grace, he was clad in picture-like +velvets, he had a beautiful poetic head, and eyes like deep brown waters, +and a face like one of Jordaens' or Rembrandt's cavaliers in the +galleries where she used to steal in of a Sunday, and look up at the +paintings, and dream of what that world could be in which those people +had lived. + +"_You_ are of the people of Rubes' country, are you not?" she asked him. + +"Of what country, my dear?" + +"Of the people that live in the gold frames," said Bébée, quite +seriously. "In the galleries, you know. I know a charwoman that scrubs +the floors of the Arenberg Palace, and she lets me in sometimes to look; +and you are just like those great gentlemen in the gold frames, only you +have not a hawk and a sword, and they always have. I used to wonder where +they came from, for they are not like any of us one bit, and the +charwoman--she is Lisa Dredel, and lives in the street of the Pot +d'Etain--always said. 'Dear heart, they all belong to Rubes' land: we +never see their like nowadays.' But _you_ must come out of Rubes' land; +at least, I think so, do you not?" + +He caught her meaning; he knew that Rubes was the homely abbreviation of +Rubens that all the Netherlanders used, and he guessed the idea that was +reality to this little lonely fanciful mind. + +"Perhaps I do," he answered her with a smile, for it was not worth his +while to disabuse her thoughts of any imagination that glorified him to +her. "Do you not want to see Rubes' world, little one? To see the gold +and the grandeur, and the glitter of it all?--never to toil or get +tired?--always to move in a pageant?--always to live like the hawks in +the paintings you talk of, with silver bells hung round you, and a hood +all sewn with pearls?" + +"No," said Bébée, simply. "I should like to see it, just to see it, as +one looks through a grating into the king's grape-houses here. But I +should not like to live in it. I love my hut, and the starling, and the +chickens, and what would the garden do without me? and the children, and +the old Annémie? I could not anyhow, anywhere, be any happier than I am. +There is only one thing I wish." + +"And what is that?" + +"To know something; not to be so ignorant. Just look--I can read a +Little, it is true: my Hours, and the letters, and when Krebs brings +in a newspaper I can read a little of it, not much. I know French well, +because Antoine was French himself, and never did talk Flemish to me; +and they being Netherlanders, cannot, of course, read the newspapers at +all, and so think it very wonderful indeed in me. But what I want is to +know things, to know all about what _was_ before ever I was living. St. +Gudule now--they say it was built hundreds of years before; and Rubes +again--they say he was a painter king in Antwerpen before the oldest, +oldest woman like Annémie ever began to count time. I am sure books +tell you all those things, because I see the students coming and going +with them; and when I saw once the millions of books in the Rue du Musée, +I asked the keeper what use they were for, and he said, 'To make men +wise, my dear.' But Gringoire Bac, the cobbler, who was with me,--it was +a fête day,--Bac, _he_ said, 'Do not you believe that, Bébée; they +only muddle folks' brains; for one book tells them one thing, and another +book another, and so on, till they are dazed with all the contrary +lying; and if you see a bookish man, be sure you see a very poor creature +who could not hoe a patch, or kill a pig, or stitch an upper-leather, +were it ever so.' But I do not believe that Bac said right. Did he?" + +"I am not sure. On the whole, I think it is the truest remark on +literature I have ever heard, and one that shows great judgment in Bac. +Well?" + +"Well, sometimes, you know," said Bébée, not understanding his answer, +but pursuing her thoughts confidentially,--"sometimes I talk like this to +the neighbors, and they laugh at me. Because Mère Krebs says that when +one knows how to spin and sweep and make bread and say one's prayers and +milk a goat or a cow, it is all a woman wants to know this side of +heaven. But for me, I cannot help it, when I look at those windows in the +cathedral, or at those beautiful twisted little spires that are all over +our Hôtel de Ville, I want to know who the men were that made them,--what +they did and thought,--how they looked and spoke,--how they learned to +shape stone into leaves and grasses like that,--how they could imagine +all those angel faces on the glass. When I go alone in the quite early +morning or at night when it is still--sometimes in winter I have to +stay till it is dark over the lace--I hear their feet come after me, and +they whisper to me close, 'Look what beautiful things we have done, +Bébée, and you all forget us quite. We did what never will die, but our +names are as dead as the stones.' And then I am so sorry for them and +ashamed. And I want to know more. Can you tell me?" + +He looked at her earnestly; her eyes were shining, her cheeks were warm, +her little mouth was tremulous with eagerness. + +"Did any one ever speak to you in that way?" he asked her. + +"No," she answered him. "It comes into my head of itself. Sometimes I +think the cathedral angels put it there. For the angels must be tired, +you know; always pointing to God and always seeing men turn away, I used +to tell Antoine sometimes. But he used to shake his head and say that it +was no use thinking; most likely St. Gudule and St. Michael had set the +church down in the night all ready made, why not? God made the trees, and +they were more wonderful, he thought, for his part. And so perhaps they +are, but that is no answer. And I do _want_ to know. I want some one who +will tell me; and if you come out of Rubes' country as I think, no doubt +you know everything, or remember it?" + +He smiled. + +"The free pass to Rubes' country lies in books, pretty one. Shall I give +you some?--nay, lend them, I mean, since giving you are too wilful to +hear of without offence. You can read, you said?" + +Bébée's eyes glowed as they lifted themselves to his. + +"I can read--not very fast, but that would come with doing it more and +more, I think, just as spinning does; one knots the thread and breaks it +a million times before one learns to spin as fine as cobwebs. I have read +the stories of St. Anne, and of St. Catherine, and of St. Luven fifty +times, but they are all the books that Father Francis has; and no one +else has any among us." + +"Very well. You shall have books of mine. Easy ones first, and then those +that are more serious. But what time will you have? You do so much; you +are like a little golden bee." + +Bébée laughed happily. + +"Oh! give me the books and I will find the time. It is light so early +now. That gives one so many hours. In winter one has so few one must lie +in bed, because to buy a candle you know one cannot afford except, of +course, a taper now and then, as one's duty is, for our Lady or for the +dead. And will you really, really, lend me books?" + +"Really, I will. Yes. I will bring you one to the Grande Place +to-morrow, or meet you on your road there with it. Do you know what +poetry is, Bébée?" + +"No." + +"But your flowers talk to you?" + +"Ah! always. But then no one else hears them ever but me; and so no one +else ever believes." + +"Well, poets are folks who hear the flowers talk as you do, and the +trees, and the seas, and the beasts, and even the stones; but no one +else ever hears these things, and so, when the poets write them out, the +rest of the world say, 'That is very fine, no doubt, but only good for +dreamers; it will bake no bread.' I will give you some poetry; for I +think you care more about dreams than about bread." + +"I do not know," said Bébée; and she did not know, for her dreams, like +her youth, and her innocence, and her simplicity, and her strength, were +all unconscious of themselves, as such things must be to be pure and true +at all. + +Bébée had grown up straight, and clean, and fragrant, and joyous as one +of her own carnations; but she knew herself no more than the carnation +knows its color and its root, + +"No. you do not know," said he, with a sort of pity; and thought within +himself, was it worth while to let her know? + +If she did not know, these vague aspirations and imaginations would drop +off from her with the years of her early youth, as the lime-flowers drop +downwards with the summer heats. She would forget them. They would linger +a little in her head, and, perhaps, always wake at some sunset hour or +some angelus chime, but not to trouble her. Only to make her cradle song +a little sadder and softer than most women's was. Unfed, they would sink +away and bear no blossom. + +She would grow into a simple, hardy, hardworking, God-fearing Flemish +woman like the rest. She would marry, no doubt, some time, and rear +her children honestly and well; and sit in the market stall every day, +and spin and sew, and dig and wash, and sweep, and brave bad weather, +and be content with poor food to the end of her harmless and laborious +days--poor little Bébée! + +He saw her so clearly as she would be--if he let her alone. + +A little taller, a little broader, a little browner, less sweet of voice, +less soft of skin, less flower-like in face; having learned to think only +as her neighbors thought, of price of wood and cost of bread; laboring +cheerily but hardly from daybreak to nightfall to fill hungry mouths: +forgetting all things except the little curly-heads clustered round her +soup-pot, and the year-old lips sucking at her breasts. + +A blameless life, an eventless life, a life as clear as the dewdrop, and +as colorless; a life opening, passing, ending in the little green wooded +lane, by the bit of water where the swans made their nests under the +willows; a life like the life of millions, a little purer, a little +brighter, a little more tender, perhaps, than those lives usually are, +but otherwise as like them as one ear of barley is like another as it +rises from the soil, and blows in the wind, and turns brown in the strong +summer sun, and then goes down to the sod again under the sickle. + +He saw her just as she would be--if he let her alone. + +But should he leave her alone? + +He cared nothing; only her eyes had such a pretty, frank, innocent +look like a bird's in them, and she had been so brave and bold with him +about those silken stockings; and this little ignorant, dreamful mind of +hers was so like a blush rosebud, which looks so close-shut, and so +sweet-smelling, and so tempting fold within fold, that a child will pull +it open, forgetful that he will spoil it forever from being a full-grown +rose, and that he will let the dust, and the sun, and the bee into its +tender bosom--and men are true children, and women are their rosebuds. + +Thinking only of keeping well with this strange and beautiful wayfarer +from that unknown paradise of Rubes' country, Bébée lifted up the +vine-leaves of her basket. + +"I took a flower for you to-day, but it is dead. Look; to-morrow, if you +will be there, you shall have the best in all the garden." + +"You wish to see me again then?" he asked her. Bébée looked at him with +troubled eyes, but with a sweet frank faith that had no hesitation in it. + +"Yes! you are not like anything I ever knew, and if you will only help me +to learn a little. Sometimes I think I am not stupid, only ignorant; but +I cannot be sure unless I try." + +He smiled; he was listlessly amused; the day before he had tempted the +child merely because she was pretty, and to tempt her in that way seemed +the natural course of things, but now there was something in her that +touched him differently; the end would be the same, but he would change +the means. + +The sun had set. There was a low, dull red glow still on the far edge of +the plains--that was all. In the distant cottages little lights were +twinkling. The path grew dark. + +"I will go away and let her alone," he thought. "Poor little soul! it +would give itself lavishly, it would never be bought. I will let it +alone; the mind will go to sleep and the body will keep healthy, and +strong, and pure, as people call it. It would be a pity to play with both +a day, and then throw them away as the boy threw the pear-blossom. She +is a little clod of earth that has field flowers growing in it. I will +let her alone, the flowers under the plough in due course will die, and +she will be content among the other clods,--if I let her alone." + +At that moment there went across the dark fields, against the dusky red +sky, a young man with a pile of brushwood on his back, and a hatchet in +his hand. + +"You are late, Bébée," he called to her in Flemish, and scowled at the +stranger by her side. + +"A good-looking lad; who is it?" said her companion. + +"That is Jeannot, the son of old Sophie," she answered him. "He is so +good--oh, so good, you cannot think; he keeps his mother and three little +sisters, and works so very, very hard in the forest, and yet he often +finds time to dig my garden for me, and he chops all my wood in winter." + +They had come to where the road goes up by the king's summer palace. They +were under great hanging beeches and limes. There was a high gray wall, +and over it the blossoming fruit boughs hung. In a ditch full of long +grass little kids bleated by their mothers. Away on the left went the +green fields of colza, and beetroot, and trefoil, with big forest trees +here and there in their midst, and, against the blue low line of the far +horizon, red mill-sails, and gray church spires; dreamy plaintive bells +far away somewhere were ringing the sad Flemish carillon. + +He paused and looked at her. + +"I must bid you good night, Bébée; you are near your home now." + +She paused too and looked at him. + +"But I shall see you to-morrow?" + +There was the wistful, eager, anxious unconsciousness of appeal as when +the night before she had asked him if he were angry. + +He hesitated a moment. If he said no, and went away out of the city +wherever his listless and changeful whim called him, he knew how it would +be with her; he knew what her life would be as surely as he knew the +peach would come out of the peach-flower rosy on the wall there: life in +the little hut; among the neighbors; sleepy and safe and soulless;--if he +let her alone. + +If he stayed and saw her on the morrow he knew, too, the end as surely as +he knew that the branch of white pear-blossom, which in carelessness he +had knocked down with a stone on the grass yonder, would fade in the +night and would never bring forth its sweet, simple fruit in the +sunshine. + +To leave the peach-flower to come to maturity and be plucked by a +peasant, or to pull down the pear-blossom and rifle the buds? + +Carelessly and languidly he balanced the question with himself, whilst +Bébée, forgetful of the lace patterns and the flight of the hours, stood +looking at him with anxious and pleading eyes, thinking only--was he +angry again, or would he really bring her the books and make her wise, +and let her know the stories of the past? + +"Shall I see you to-morrow?" she said wistfully. + +Should she?--if he left the peach-blossom safe on the wall, Jeannot the +woodcutter would come by and by and gather the fruit. + +If he left the clod of earth in its pasture with all its daisies +untouched, this black-browed young peasant would cut it round with his +hatchet and carry it to his wicker cage, that the homely brown lark of +his love might sing to it some stupid wood note under a cottage eave. + +The sight of the strong young forester going over the darkened fields +against the dull red skies was as a feather that suffices to sway to one +side a balance that hangs on a hair. + +He had been inclined to leave her alone when he saw in his fancy the +clean, simple, mindless, honest life that her fanciful girlhood would +settle down into as time should go on. But when in the figure of the +woodman there was painted visibly on the dusky sky that end for her which +he had foreseen, he was not indifferent to it; he resented it; he was +stirred to a vague desire to render it impossible. + +If Jeannot had not gone by across the fields he would have left her and +let her alone from that night thenceforwards; as it was,-- + +"Good night, Bébée," he said to her. "Tomorrow I will finish the +Broodhuis and bring you your first book. Do not dream too much, or you +will prick your lace patterns all awry. Good night, pretty one." + +Then he turned and went back through the green dim lanes to the city. + +Bébée stood a moment looking after him, with a happy smile; then she +picked up the fallen pear-blossom, and ran home as fast as her feet would +take her. + +That night she worked very late watering her flowers, and trimming them, +and then ironing out a little clean white cap for the morrow; and then +sitting down under the open lattice to prick out all old Annémie's +designs by the strong light of the full moon that flooded her hut with +its radiance. + +But she sang all the time she worked, and the gay, pretty, wordless songs +floated across the water and across the fields, and woke some old people +in their beds as they lay with their windows open, and they turned and +crossed themselves, and said, "Dear heart!--this is the eve of the +Ascension, and the angels are so near we hear them." + +But it was no angel; only the thing that is nearer heaven than anything +else,--a little human heart that is happy and innocent. + +Bébée had only one sorrow that night. The pear-blossoms were all dead; +and no care could call them back even for an hour's blooming. + +"He did not think when he struck them +down," she said to herself, regretfully. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +"Can I do any work for you, Bébée?" said black Jeannot in the daybreak, +pushing her gate open timidly with one hand. + +"There is none to do, Jeannot. They want so little in this time of the +year--the flowers," said she, lifting her head from the sweet-peas she +was tying up to their sticks. + +The woodman did not answer; he leaned over the half-open wicket, and +swayed it backwards and forwards under his bare arm. He was a good, +harmless, gentle fellow, swarthy as charcoal and simple as a child, and +quite ignorant, having spent all his days in the great Soignies forests +making fagots when he was a little lad, and hewing down trees or burning +charcoal as he grew to manhood. + +"Who was that seigneur with you last night, Bébée?" he asked, after a +long silence, watching her as she moved. + +Bébée's eyes grew very soft, but they looked up frankly. + +"I am not sure--I think he is a painter--a great painter prince, I +mean--as Rubes was in Antwerpen; he wanted roses the night before last in +the cathedral." + +"But he was walking with you?" + +"He was in the lane as I came home last night--yes." + +"What does he give you for your roses?" + +"Oh! he pays me well. How is your mother this day, Jeannot?" + +"You do not like to talk of him?" + +"Why should you want to talk of him? He is nothing to you." + +"Did you really see him only two days ago, Bébée?" + +"Oh, Jeannot! did I ever tell a falsehood? You would not say that to one +of your little sisters." + +The forester swayed the gate to and fro drearily under his folded arms. + +Bébée, not regarding him, cut her flowers, and filled her baskets, and +did her other work, and set a ladder against the hut and climbed on its +low roof to seek for eggs, the hens having green tastes sometimes for the +rushes and lichens of its thatch. She found two eggs, which she promised +herself to take to Annémie, and looking round as she sat on the edge of +the roof, with one foot on the highest rung of the ladder, saw that +Jeannot was still at the gate. + +"You will be late in the forest, Jeannot," she cried to him. "It is such +a long, long way in and out. Why do you look so sulky? and you are +kicking the wicket to pieces." + +"I do not like you to talk with strangers," said Jeannot, sullenly and +sadly. + +Bébée laughed as she sat on the edge of the thatch, and looked at the +shining gray skies of the early day, and the dew-wet garden, and the +green fields beyond, with happy eyes that made the familiar scene +transfigured to her. + +"Oh, Jeannot, what nonsense! As if I do not talk to a million strangers +every summer! as if I could ever sell a flower if I did not! You are +cross this morning; that is what it is." + +"Do you know the man's name?" said Jeannot, suddenly. + +Bébée felt her cheeks grow warm as with some noonday heat of sunshine. +She thought it was with anger against blundering Jeannot's curiosity. + +"No! and what would his name be to us, if I did know it? I cannot ask +people's names because they buy my roses." + +"As if it were only roses!" + +There was the length of the garden between them, and Bébée did not hear +as she sat on the edge of her roof with that light dreamful enjoyment +of air and sky and coolness, and all the beauty of the dawning day, which +the sweet vague sense of a personal happiness will bring with it to the +dullest and the coldest. + +"You are cross, Jeannot, that is what it is," she said, after a while. +"You should not be cross; you are too big and strong and good. Go in and +get my bowl of bread and milk for me, and hand it to me up here. It is so +pleasant. It is as nice as being perched on an apple-tree." + +Jeannot went in obediently and handed up her breakfast to her, looking at +her with shy, worshipping eyes. But his face was overcast, and he sighed +heavily as he took up his hatchet and turned away; for he was the sole +support of his mother and sisters, and if he did not do his work in +Soignies they would starve at home. + +"You will be seeing that stranger again?" he asked her. + +"Yes!" she answered with a glad triumph in her eyes; not thinking at all +of him as she spoke. "You ought to go, Jeannot, now; you are so late. I +will come and see your mother to-morrow. And do not be cross, you dear +big Jeannot. Days are too short to snip them up into little bits by bad +temper; it is only a stupid sheep-shearer that spoils the fleece by +snapping at it sharp and hard; that is what Father Francis says." + +Bébée, having delivered her little piece of wisdom, broke her bread into +her milk and ate it, lifting her face to the fresh wind and tossing +crumbs to the wheeling swallows, and watching the rose-bushes nod and +toss below in the breeze, and thinking vaguely how happy a thing it was +to live. + +Jeannot looked up at her, then went on his slow sad way through the wet +lavender-shrubs and the opening buds of the lilies. + +"You will only think of that stranger, Bébée, never of any of us--never +again," he said; and wearily opened the little gate and went through it, +and down the daybreak stillness of the lane. It was a foolish thing to +say; but when were lovers ever wise? + +Bébée did not heed; she did not understand herself or him; she only knew +that she was happy; when one knows that, one does not want to seek much +further. + +She sat on the thatch and took her bread and milk in the gray clear air, +with the swallows circling above her head, and one or two of them even +resting a second on the edge of the bowl to peck at the food from the big +wooden spoon; they had known her all the sixteen summers of her life, and +were her playfellows, only they would never tell her anything of what +they saw in winter over the seas. That was her only quarrel with them. +Swallows do not tell their secrets They have the weird of Procne on +them all. + +The sun came and touched the lichens of the roof into gold. + +Bébée smiled at it gayly as it rose above the tops of the trees, and +shone on all the little villages scattered over the plains. + +"Ah, dear Sun!" she cried to it. "I am going to be wise. I am going into +great Rubes' country. I am going to hear of the Past and the Future. I am +going to listen to what the Poets say. The swallows never would tell me +anything; but now I shall know as much as they know. Are you not glad for +me, O Sun?" + +The Sun came over the trees, and heard and said nothing. If he had +answered at all he must have said,-- + +"The only time when a human soul is either wise or happy is in that one +single moment when the hour of my own shining or of the moon's beaming +seems to that single soul to be past and present and future, to be at +once the creation and the end of all things. Faust knew that; so will +you." + +But the Sun shone on and held his peace. He sees all things ripen and +fall. He can wait. He knows the end. It is always the same. + +He brings the fruit out of the peach-flower, and rounds it and touches it +into ruddiest rose and softest gold: but the sun knows well that the +peach must drop--whether into the basket to be eaten by kings, or on to +the turf to be eaten by ants. What matter which very much after all? + +The Sun is not a cynic; he is only wise because he is Life and he is +Death, the creator and the corrupter of all things. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +But Bébée, who only saw in the sun the sign of daily work, the brightness +of the face of the world, the friend of the flowers, the harvest-man of +the poor, the playmate of the birds and butterflies, the kindly light +that the waking birds and the ringing carillon welcomed,--Bébée, who was +not at all afraid of him, smiled at his rays and saw in them only fairest +promise of a cloudless midsummer day as she gave her last crumb to the +swallows, dropped down off the thatch, and busied herself in making bread +that Mère Krebs would bake for her, until it was time to cut her flowers +and go down into the town. + +When her loaves were made and she had run over with them to the +mill-house and back again, she attired herself with more heed than +usual, and ran to look at her own face in the mirror of the deep +well-water--other glass she had none. + +She was used to hear herself called pretty; bat she had never thought +about it at all till now. The people loved her; she had always believed +that they had only said it as a sort of kindness, as they said, "God keep +you." But now-- + +"He told me I was like a flower," she thought to herself, and hung over +the well to see. She did not know very well what he had meant; but the +sentence stirred in her heart as a little bird under tremulous leaves. + +She waited ten minutes full, leaning and looking down, while her eyes, +that were like the blue iris, smiled back to her from the brown depths +below. Then she went and kneeled down before the old shrine in the wall +of the garden. + +"Dear and holy Mother of Jesus, I do thank you that you made me a little +good to look at," she said, softly. "Keep me as you keep the flowers, and +let my face be always fair, because it is a pleasure to _be_ a pleasure. +Ah, dear Mother, I say it so badly, and it sounds so vain, I know. But I +do not think you will be angry, will you? And I am going to try to be +wise." + +Then she murmured an ave or two, to be in form as it were, and then rose +and ran along the lanes with her baskets, and brushed the dew lightly +over her bare feet, and sang a little Flemish song for very joyousness, +as the birds sing in the apple bough. + +She got the money for Annémie and took it to her with fresh patterns to +prick, and the new-laid eggs. + +"I wonder what he meant by a dog's heart?" she thought to herself, as she +left the old woman sitting by the hole in the roof pricking out the +parchment in all faith that she earned her money, and looking every now +and then through the forests of masts for the brig with the hank of flax +flying,--the brig that had foundered fifty long years before in the +northern seas, and in the days of her youth. + +"What is the dog's heart?" thought Bébée; she had seen a dog she knew--a +dog which all his life long had dragged heavy loads under brutal stripes +along the streets of Brussels--stretch himself on the grave of his +taskmaster and refuse to eat, and persist in lying there until he died, +though he had no memory except of stripes, and no tie to the dead except +pain and sorrow. Was it a heart like this that he meant? + +"Was her sailor, indeed, so good to her?" she asked an old gossip of +Annémie's, as she went down the stairs. + +The old soul stopped to think with difficulty of such a far-off time, and +resting her brass flagon of milk on the steep step. + +"Eh, no; not that I ever saw," she answered at length. "He was fond of +her--very fond; but he was a wilful one, and he beat her sometimes when +he got tired of being on land. But women must not mind that, you know, my +dear, if only a man's heart is right. Things fret them, and then they +belabor what they love best; it is a way they have." + +"But she speaks of him as of an angel nearly!" said Bébée, bewildered. + +The old woman took up her flagon, with a smile flitting across her wintry +face. + +"Ay, dear; when the frost kills your brave rose-bush, root and bud, +do you think of the thorns that pricked you, or only of the fair, +sweet-smelling things that flowered all your summer?" + +Bébée went away thoughtfully out of the old crazy water-washed house by +the quay; life seemed growing very strange and intricate and knotted +about her, like the threads of lace that a bad fairy has entangled in the +night. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Her stranger from Rubes' land was a great man in a certain world. He had +become great when young, which is perhaps a misfortune. It indisposes men +to be great at their maturity. He was famous at twenty, by a picture +hectic in color, perfect in drawing, that made Paris at his feet. He +became more famous by verses, by plays, by political follies, and by +social successes. He was faithful, however, to his first love in art. He +was a great painter, and year by year proved afresh the cunning of his +hand. Purists said his pictures had no soul in them. It was not wonderful +if they had none. He always painted soulless vice; indeed, he saw very +little else. + +One year he had some political trouble. He wrote a witty pamphlet that +hurt where it was perilous to aim. He laughed and crossed the border, +riding into the green Ardennes one sunny evening. He had a name of some +power and sufficient wealth; he did not feel long exile. Meanwhile he +told himself he would go and look at Scheffer's Gretchen. + +The King of Thule is better; but people talk most of the Gretchen. He had +never seen either. + +He went in leisurely, travelling up the bright Meuse River, and across +the monotony of the plains, then green with wheat a foot high, and +musical with the many bells of the Easter kermesses in the quaint +old-world villages. + +There was something so novel, so sleepy, so harmless, so mediaeval, in +the Flemish life, that it soothed him. He had been swimming all his +life in salt sea-fed rapids; this sluggish, dull, canal water, mirroring +between its rushes a life that had scarcely changed for centuries, had a +charm for him. + +He stayed awhile in Antwerpen. The town is ugly and beautiful; it is like +a dull quaint grés de Flandre jug, that has precious stones set inside +its rim. It is a burgher ledger of bales and barrels, of sale and barter, +of loss and gain; but in the heart of it there are illuminated leaves of +missal vellum, all gold and color, and monkish story and heroic ballad, +that could only have been executed in the days when Art was a religion. + +He gazed himself into an homage of Rubens, whom before he had slighted, +never having known (for, unless you have seen Antwerp, it is as absurd to +say that you have seen Rubens, as it is to think that you have seen +Murillo out of Seville, or Raffaelle out of Rome); and he studied the +Gretchen carefully, delicately, sympathetically, for he loved Scheffer; +but though he tried, he failed to care for her. + +"She is only a peasant; she is not a poem," he said to himself; "I will +paint a Gretchen for the Salon of next year." + +But it was hard for him to portray a Gretchen. All his pictures were +Phryne,--Phryne in triumph, in ruin, in a palace, in a poor-house, on a +bed of roses, on a hospital mattress; Phryne laughing with a belt of +jewels about her supple waist; Phryne lying with the stones of the +dead-house under her naked limbs,--but always Phryne. Phryne, who living +had death in her smile; Phryne, who lifeless had blank despair on her +face; Phryne, a thing that lived furiously every second of her days, but +Phryne a thing that once being dead was carrion that never could live +again. + +Phryne has many painters in this school, as many as Catherine and Cecilia +had in the schools of the Renaissance, and he was chief amidst them. + +How could he paint Gretchen if the pure Scheffer missed? Not even if, +like the artist monks of old, he steeped his brushes all Lent through in +holy water. + +And in holy water he did not believe. + +One evening, having left Antwerpen ringing its innumerable bells over the +grave of its dead Art, he leaned out of the casement of an absent +friend's old palace in the Brabant street that is named after Mary of +Burgundy; an old casement crusted with quaint carvings, and gilded round +in Spanish fashion, with many gargoyles and griffins, and illegible +scutcheons. + +Leaning there, wondering with himself whether he would wait awhile and +paint quietly in this dim street, haunted with the shades of Memling and +Maes, and Otto Veneris and Philip de Champagne, or whether he would go +into the East and seek new types, and lie under the red Egyptian heavens +and create a true Cleopatra, which no man has ever done yet,--young +Cleopatra, ankle-deep in roses and fresh from Cæsar's kisses,--leaning +there, he saw a little peasant go by below, with two little white feet in +two wooden shoes, and a face that had the pure and simple radiance of a +flower. + +"There is my Gretchen," he thought to himself, and went down and followed +her into the cathedral. If he could get what was in her face, he would +get what Scheffer could not. + +A little later walking by her in the green lanes, he meditated, "It is +the face of Gretchen, but not the soul--the Red Mouse has never passed +this child's lips. Nevertheless--" + +"Nevertheless--" he said to himself, and smiled. + +For he, the painter all his life long of Phryne living and of Phryne +dead, believed that every daughter of Eve either vomits the Red Mouse +or swallows it. + +It makes so little difference which,--either way the Red Mouse has been +there the evening towards this little rush-covered hut, he forgot the Red +Mouse, and began vaguely to see that there are creatures of his mother's +sex from whom the beast of the Brocken slinks away. + +But he still said to himself, "Nevertheless." "Nevertheless,"--for he +knew well that when the steel cuts the silk, when the hound hunts the +fawn, when the snake wooes the bird, when the king covets the vineyard, +there is only one end possible at any time. It is the strong against the +weak, the fierce against the feeble, the subtle against the simple, the +master against the slave; there is no equality in the contest and no +justice--it is merely inevitable, and the issue of it is written. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +The next day she had her promised book hidden under the vine-leaves of +her empty basket as she went homeward, and though she had not seen him +very long or spoken to him very much, she was happy. + +The golden gates of knowledge had just opened to her; she saw a faint, +far-off glimpse of the Hesperides gardens within; of the dragon she had +never heard, and had no fear. + +"Might I know your name?" she had asked him wistfully, as she had given +him the rosebud, and taken the volume in return that day. + +"They call me Flamen." + +"It is your name?" + +"Yes, for the world. You must call me Victor, as other women do. Why do +you want my name?" + +"Jeannot asked it of me." + +"Oh, Jeannot asked it, did he?" + +"Yes; besides," said Bébée, with her eyes very soft and very serious, and +her happy voice hushed,--"besides, I want to pray for you of course, +every day; and if I do not know your name, how can I make Our Lady +rightly understand? The flowers know you without a name, but she might +not, because so very many are always beseeching her, and you see she has +all the world to look after." + +He had looked at her with a curious look, and had bade her farewell, and +let her go home alone that night. + +Her work was quickly done, and by the light of the moon she spread her +book on her lap in the porch of the hut and began her new delight. + +The children had come and pulled at her skirts and begged her to play. +But Bébée had shaken her head. + +"I am going to learn to be very wise, dear," she told them; "I shall not +have time to dance or to play." + +"But people are not merry when they are wise, Bébée," said Franz, the +biggest boy. + +"Perhaps not," said Bébée: "but one cannot be everything, you know, +Franz." + +"But surely, you would rather be merry than anything else?" + +"I think there is something better, Franz. I am not sure; I want to find +out; I will tell you when I know." + +"Who has put that into your head, Bébée?" + +"The angels in the cathedral," she told them; and the children were awed +and left her, and went away to play blind-man's-buff by themselves, on +the grass by the swan's water. + +"But for all that the angels have said it," said Franz to his sisters, "I +cannot see what good it will be to her to be wise, if she will not care +any longer afterwards for almond gingerbread and currant cake." + +It was the little tale of "Paul and Virginia" that he had given her to +begin her studies with: but it was a grand copy, full of beautiful +drawings nearly at every page. + +It was hard work for her to read at first, but the drawings enticed and +helped her, and she soon sank breathlessly into the charm of the story. +Many words she did not know; many passages were beyond her comprehension; +she was absolutely ignorant, and had nothing but the force of her own +fancy to aid her. + +But though stumbling at every step, as a lame child through a flowery +hillside in summer, she was happy as the child would be, because of the +sweet, strange air that was blowing about her, and the blossoms that she +could gather into her hand, so rare, so wonderful, and yet withal so +familiar, because they _were_ blossoms. + +With her fingers buried in her curls, with her book on her knee, with the +moon rays white and strong on the page, Bébée sat entranced as the hours +went by; the children's play shouts died away; the babble of the gossip +at the house doors ceased; people went by and called good night to her; +the little huts shut up one by one, like the white and purple convolvulus +cups in the hedges. + +Bébée did not stir, nor did she hear them; she was deaf even to the +singing of the nightingales in the willows, where she sat in her little +thatch above, and the wet garden-ways beyond her. + +A heavy step came tramping down the lane. A voice called to her,-- + +"What are you doing, Bébée, there, this time of the night? It is on the +strike of twelve." + +She started as if she were doing some evil thing, and stretched her arms +out, and looked around with blinded, wondering eyes, as if she had been +rudely wakened from her sleep. + +"What are you doing up so late?" asked Jeannot; he was coming from the +forest in the dead of night to bring food for his family; he lost his +sleep thus often, but he never thought that he did anything except his +duty in those long, dark, tiring tramps to and fro between Soignies and +Laeken. + +Bébée shut her book and smiled with dreaming eyes, that saw him not at +all. + +"I was reading--and, Jeannot, his name is Flamen for the world, but I may +call him Victor." + +"What do I care for his name?" + +"You asked it this morning." + +"More fool I. Why do you read? Reading is not for poor folk like you and +me." + +Bébée smiled up at the white clear moon that sailed above the woods. + +She was not awake out of her dream. She +only dimly heard the words he spoke. + +"You are a little peasant," said Jeannot roughly, as he paused at the +gate. "It is all you can do to get your bread. You have no one to stand +between you and hunger. How will it be with you when the slug gets your +roses, and the snail your carnations, and your hens die of damp, and your +lace is all wove awry, because your head runs on reading and folly, and +you are spoilt for all simple pleasures and for all honest work?" + +She smiled, still looking up at the moon, with the dropping ivy touching +her hair. + +"You are cross, dear Jeannot. Good night." + +A moment afterwards the little rickety door was shut, and the rusty bolt +drawn within it; Jeannot stood in the cool summer night all alone, and +knew how stupid he had been in his wrath. + +He leaned on the gate a minute; then crossed the garden as softly as his +wooden shoes would let him. He tapped gently on the shutter of the +lattice. + +"Bébée--Bébée--just listen. I spoke roughly, dear--I know I have no +right. I am sorry. Will you be friends with me again?--do be friends +again." + +She opened the shutter a little way, so that he could see her +pretty mouth speaking, "we are friends--we will always be friends, +of course--only you do not know. Good night." + +He went away with a heavy heart and a long-drawn step. He would have +preferred that she should have been angry with him. + +Bébée, left alone, let the clothes drop off her pretty round shoulders +and her rosy limbs, and shook out her coils of hair, and kissed the book, +and laid it under her head, and went to sleep with a smile on her face. + +Only, as she slept, her ringers moved as if she were counting her beads, +and her lips murmured,-- + +"Oh, dear Holy Mother, you have so much to think of--yes. I know--all the +poor, and all the little children. But take care of _him_; he is called +Flamen, and he lives in the street of Mary of Burgundy; you cannot miss +him; and if you will look for him always, and have a heed that the angels +never leave him, I will give you my great cactus glower--my only one--on +your Feast of Roses this very year. Oh, dear Mother, you will not +forget!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Bébée was a dreamer in her way, and aspired to be a scholar too. But all +the same, she was not a little fool. + +She had been reared in hardy, simple, honest ways of living, and would +have thought it as shameful as a theft to have owed her bread to other +folk. + +So, though she had a wakeful, restless night, full of strange fantasies, +none the less was she out in her garden by daybreak; none the less did +she sweep out her floor and make her mash for the fowls, and wash out her +bit of linen and hang it to dry on a line among the tall, flaunting +hollyhocks that were so proud of themselves because they reached to the +roof. + +"What do you want with books, Bébée?" said Reine, the sabot-maker's wife, +across the privet hedge, as she also hung out her linen. "Franz told me +you were reading last night. It is the silver buckles have done that: one +mischief always begets another." + +"Where is the mischief, good Reine?" said Bébée, who was always prettily +behaved with her elders, though, when pushed to it, she could hold her +own. + +"The mischief will be in discontent," said the sabot-maker's wife. +"People live on their own little patch, and think it is the world; that +is as it should be--everybody within his own, like a nut in its shell. +But when you get reading, you hear of a swarm of things you never saw, +and you fret because you cannot see them, and you dream, and dream, and a +hole is burnt in your soup-pot, and your dough is as heavy as lead. You +are like bees that leave their own clover fields to buzz themselves dead +against the glass of a hothouse." + +Bébée smiled, reaching to spread out her linen. But she said nothing. + +"What good is it talking to them?" she thought; "they do not know." + +Already the neighbors and friends of her infancy seemed so far, far away; +creatures of a distant world, that she had long left; it was no use +talking, they never would understand. + +"Antoine should never have taught you your letters," said Reine, groaning +under the great blue shirts she was hanging on high among the leaves. "I +told him so at the time. I said, 'The child is a good child, and spins, +and sews, and sweeps, rare and fine for her age; why go and spoil her?' +But he was always headstrong. Not a child of mine knows a letter, the +saints be praised! nor a word of any tongue but our own good Flemish. You +should have been brought up the same. You would have come to no trouble +then." + +"I am in no trouble, dear Reine," said Bébée, scattering the potato-peels +to the clacking poultry, and she smiled into the faces of the golden +oxlips that nodded to her back again in sunshiny sympathy. + +"Not yet," said Reine, hanging her last shirt. + +But Bébée was not hearing; she was calling the chickens, and telling the +oxlips how pretty they looked in the borders; and in her heart she was +counting the minutes till the old Dutch cuckoo-clock at Mère Krebs's--the +only clock in the lane--should crow out the hour at which she went down +to the city. + +She loved the hut, the birds, the flowers; but they were little to her +now compared with the dark golden picturesque square, the changing +crowds, the frowning roofs, the gray stones, and colors and shadows of +the throngs for one face and for one smile. + +"He is sure to be there," she thought, and started half an hour earlier +than was her wont. She wanted to tell him all her rapture in the book; no +one else could understand. + +But all the day through he never came. + +Bébée sat with a sick heart and a parched little throat, selling her +flowers and straining her eyes through the tumult of the square. + +The whole day went by, and there was no sign of him. + +The flowers had sold well: it was a feast day; her pouch was full of +pence--what was that to her? + +She went and prayed in the cathedral, but it seemed cold, and desolate, +and empty; even the storied windows seemed dark. + +"Perhaps he is gore out of the city," she thought; and a terror fell on +her that frightened her, it was so unlike any fear that she had ever +known--even the fear when she had seen death on old Antoine's face had +been nothing like this. + +Going home through the streets, she passed the café of the Trois Frères +that looks out on the trees of the park, and that has flowers in its +balconies, and pleasant windows that stand open to let the sounds of the +soldiers' music enter. She saw him in one of the windows. There were +amber and scarlet and black; silks and satins and velvets. There was a +fan painted and jewelled. There were women's faces. There was a heap of +purple fruit and glittering sweetmeats. He laughed there. His beautiful +Murillo head was dark against the white and gold within. + +Bébée looked up,--paused a second,--then went onward, with a thorn in her +heart. + +He Had not seen her. + +"It is natural, of course--he has his world--he does not think often of +me--there is no reason why he should be as good as he is," she said to +herself as she went slowly over the stones. + +She had the dog's soul--only she did not know it. + +But the tears Fell down her cheeks, as she walked. + +It looked so bright in there, so gay, with the sound of the music coming +in through the trees, and those women,--she had seen such women before; +sometimes in the winter nights, going home from the lacework, she had +stopped at the doors of the palaces, or of the opera house, when the +carriages were setting down their brilliant burdens; and sometimes on the +great feast days she had seen the people of the court going out to some +gala at the theatre, or some great review of troops, or some ceremonial +of foreign sovereigns; but she had never thought about them before; she +had never wondered whether velvet was better to wear than woollen serge, +or-diamonds lighter on the head than a little cap of linen. + +But now-- + +Those women seemed to her so dazzling, so wondrously, so superhumanly +beautiful; they seemed like some of those new dahlia flowers, rose and +purple and gold, that outblazed the sun on the south border of her little +garden, and blanched all the soft color out of the homely roses, and +pimpernels, and sweet-williams, and double-stocks, that had bloomed +there ever since the days of Waterloo. + +But the dahlias had no scent; and Bébée wondered if these women had any +heart in them,--they looked all laughter, and glitter, and vanity. To the +child, whose dreams of womanhood were evolved from the face of the Mary +of the Assumption, of the Susannah of Mieris, and of that Angel in the +blue coif whose face has a light as of the sun,--to her who had dreamed +her way into vague perceptions of her own sex's maidenhood and maternity +by help of those great pictures which had been before her sight from +infancy, there was some taint, some artifice, some want, some harshness +in these jewelled women; she could not have reasoned about it, but she +felt it, as she felt that the grand dahlias missed a flower's divinity, +being scentless. + +She was a little bit of wild thyme herself; hardy, fragrant, clean, +tender, flowering by the wayside, full of honey, though only nourished +on the turf and the stones, these gaudy, brilliant, ruby-bright, +scarlet-mantled dahlias hurt her with a dim sense of pain and shame. + +Fasting, next day at sunrise she confessed to Father Francis:-- + +"I saw beautiful rich women, and I envied them; and I could not pray to +Mary last night for thinking of them, for I hated them so much." + +But she did not say,-- + +"I hated them because they were with him." + +Out of the purest little soul, Love entering drives forth Candor. + +"That is not like you at all, Bébée," said the good old man, as she knelt +at his feet on the bricks of his little bare study, where all the books +he ever spelt out were treatises on the art of bee-keeping. + +"My dear, you never were covetous at all, nor did you ever seem to care +for the things of the world. I wish Jehan had not given you those silver +buckles; I think they have set your little soul on vanities." + +"It is not the buckles; I am not covetous," said Bébée; and then her face +grew warm. She did not know why. and she did not hear the rest of Father +Francis's admonitions. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +But the next noon-time brought him to the market stall, and the next +also, and so the summer days slipped away, and Bébée was quite happy if +she saw him in the morning time, to give him a fresh rose, or at evening +by the gates, or under the beech-trees, when he brought her a new book, +and sauntered awhile up the green lane beside her. + +An innocent, unconscious love like Bébée's wants so little food to make +it all content. Such mere trifles are beautiful and sweet to it. Such +slender stray gleams of light suffice to make a broad, bright golden noon +of perfect joy around it. + +All the delirium, and fever, and desire, and despair, that are in maturer +passion, are far away from it: far as is the flash of the meteor across +sultry skies from the blue forget-me-not down in the brown meadow brook. + +It was very wonderful to Bébée that he, this stranger from Rubes' +fairyland, could come at all to keep pace with her little clattering +wooden shoes over the dust and the grass in the dim twilight time. The +days went by in a trance of sweet amaze, and she kept count of the hours +no more by the cuckoo-clock of the mill-house, or the deep chimes of the +Brussels belfries; but only by such moments as brought her a word from +his lips, or even a glimpse of him from afar, across the crowded square. + +She sat up half the nights reading the books he gave her, studying the +long cruel polysyllables, and spelling slowly through the phrases that +seemed to her so cramped and tangled, and which yet were a pleasure to +unravel forsake of the thought they held. + +For Bébée, ignorant little simple soul that she was, had a mind in her +that was eager, observant, quick to acquire, skilful to retain; and it +would happen in certain times that Flamen, speaking to her of the things +which he gave to her to read, would think to himself that this child had +more wisdom than was often to be found in schools. + +Meanwhile he pondered various studies in various stages of a Gretchen, +and made love to Bébée--made love at least by his eyes and by his voice, +not hurrying his pleasant task, but hovering about her softly, and +mindful not to scare her, as a man will gently lower his hand over a +poised butterfly that he seeks to kill, and which one single movement, a +thought too quick, may scare away to safety. + +Bébée knew where he lived in the street of Mary of Burgundy: in an old +palace that belonged to a great Flemish noble, who never dwelt there +himself; but to ask anything about him--why he was there? what his rank +was? why he stayed in the city at all?--was a sort of treason that never +entered her thoughts. + +Psyche, if she had been as simple and loyal as Bébée was, would never +have lighted her own candle; but even Psyche would not have borrowed any +one else's lamp to lighten the love darkness. + +To Bébée he was sacred, unapproachable, unquestionable; he was a +wonderful, perfect happiness that had fallen into her life; he was a +gift of God, as the sun was. + +She took his going and coming as she took that of the sun, never dreaming +of reproaching his absence, never dreaming of asking if in the empty +night he shone on any other worlds than hers. + +It was hardly so much a faith with her as an instinct; faith must reason +ere it know itself to be faith. Bébée never reasoned any more than her +roses did. + +The good folks in the market place watched her a little anxiously; they +thought ill of that little moss-rose that every day found its way to one +wearer only; but after all they did not see much, and the neighbors +nothing at all. For he never went home to her, nor with her, and most of +the time that he spent with Bébée was in the quiet evening shadows, as +she went up with her empty basket through the deserted country roads. + +Bébée was all day long in the city, indeed, as other girls were, but with +her it had always been different. Antoine had always been with her up to +the day of his death; and after his death she had sat in the same place, +surrounded by the people she had known from infancy, and an insult to her +would have been answered by a stroke from the cobbler's strap or from the +tinker's hammer. There was one girl only who ever tried to do her any +harm--a good-looking stout wench, who stood at the corner of the Montagne +de la Cour with a stall of fruit in the summer time, and in winter time +drove a milk cart over the snow. This girl would get at her sometimes, +and talk of the students, and tell her how good it was to get out of the +town on a holiday, and go to any one of the villages where there was +Kermesse and dance, and drink the little blue wine, and have trinkets +bought for one, and come home in the moonlight in a char-à-banc, with the +horns sounding, and the lads singing, and the ribbons flying from the +old horse's ears. + +"She is such a little close sly thing!" thought the fruit girl, sulkily. +To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery. + +"We dance almost every evening, the children and I," Bébée had +answered when urged fifty times by this girl to go to fairs, and balls at +the wine shops. "That does just as well. And I have seen Kermesse once at +Malines--it was beautiful. I went with Mère Dax, but it cost a great deal +I know, though she did not let me pay." + +"You little fool!" the fruit girl would say, and grin, and eat a pear. + +But the good honest old women who sat about in the Grande Place, hearing, +had always taken the fruit girl to task, when they got her by herself. + +"Leave the child alone, you mischievous one," said they. "Be content with +being base yourself. Look you, Lisette; she is not one like you to make +eyes at the law students, and pester the painter lads for a day's outing. +Let her be, or we will tell your mother how you leave the fruit for the +gutter children to pick and thieve, while you are stealing up the stairs +into that young French fellow's chamber. Oh, oh! a fine beating you will +get when she knows!" + +Lisette's mother was a fierce and strong old Brabantoise who exacted +heavy reckoning with her daughter for every single plum and peach +that she sent out of her dark sweet-smelling fruit shop to be sunned in +the streets, and under the students' love-glances. + +So the girl took heed, and left Bébée alone. + +"What should I want her to come with us for?" she reasoned with herself. +"She is twice as pretty as I am; Jules might take to her instead--who +knows?" + +So that she was at once savage and yet triumphant when she saw, as she +thought, Bébée drifting down the high flood of temptation. + +"Oh, oh, you dainty one!" she cried one day to her. "So you would not +take the nuts and mulberries that do for us common folk, because you +had a mind for a fine pine out of the hothouses! That was all, was it? +Eh, well; I do not begrudge you. Only take care; remember, the nuts and +mulberries last through summer and autumn, and there are heaps of them on +every fair-stall and street corner; but the pine, that is eaten in a day, +one springtime, and its like does not grow in the hedges. You will have +your mouth full of sugar an hour,--and then, eh!--you will go famished +all the year." + +"I do not understand," said Bébée, looking up, with her thoughts far +away, and scarcely hearing the words spoken to her. + +"Oh, pretty little fool! you understand well enough," said Lisette, +grinning, as she rubbed up a melon. "Does he give you fine things? You +might let me see." + +"No one gives me anything." + +"Chut! you want me to believe that. Why Jules is only a lad, and his +father is a silk mercer, and only gives him a hundred francs a month, +but Jules buys me all I want--somehow--or do you think I would take +the trouble to set my cap straight when he goes by? He gave me these +ear-rings, look. I wish you would let me see what you get." + +But Bébée had gone away--unheeding--dreaming of Juliet and of Jeanne +d'Arc, of whom he had told her tales. + +He made sketches of her sometimes, but seldom pleased himself. + +It was not so easy as he had imagined that it would prove to portray this +little flower-like face, with the clear eyes and the child's open brow. +He who had painted Phryne so long and faithfully had got a taint on his +brush--he could not paint this pure, bright, rosy dawn--he who had always +painted the glare of midnight gas on rouge or rags. Yet he felt that if +he could transfer to canvas the light that was on Bébée's face he would +get what Scheffer had missed. For a time it eluded him. You shall paint a +gold and glistening brocade, or a fan of peacock's feathers, to +perfection, and yet, perhaps, the dewy whiteness of the humble little +field daisy shall baffle and escape you. + +He felt, too, that he must catch her expression flying as he would do the +flash of a swallow's wing across a blue sky; he knew that Bébée, forced +to studied attitudes in an atelier, would be no longer the ideal that he +wanted. + +More than once he came and filled in more fully his various designs in +the little hut garden, among the sweet gray lavender and the golden disks +of the sunflowers; and more than once Bébée was missed from her place in +the front of the Broodhuis. + +The Varnhart children would gather now and then open-mouthed at the +wicket, and Mère Krebs would shake her head as she went by on her +sheepskin saddle, and mutter that the child's head would be turned by +vanity; and old Jehan would lean on his stick and peer through the +sweetbrier, and wonder stupidly if this strange man who could make +Bébée's face beam over again upon that panel of wood could not give him +back his dead daughter who had been pushed away under the black earth so +long, long before, when the red mill had been brave and new, the red mill +that the boys and girls called old. + +But except these, no one noticed much. + +Painters were no rare sights in Brabant. + +The people were used to see them coming and going, making pictures of mud +and stones, and ducks and sheep, and of all common and silly things. + +"What does he pay you, Bébée?" they used to ask, with the shrewd Flemish +thought after the main chance. + +"Nothing," Bébée would answer, with a quick color in her face; and they +would reply in contemptuous reproof, "Careless little fool; you should +make enough to buy you wood all winter. When the man from Ghent painted +Trine and her cow, he gave her a whole gold bit for standing still so +long in the clover. The Krebs would be sure to lend you her cow, if it +be the cow that makes the difference." + +Bébée was silent, weeding her carnation bed;--what could she tell them +that they would understand? + +She seemed so far away from them all--those good friends of her +childhood--now that this wonderful new world of his giving had opened to +her sight. + +She lived in a dream. + +Whether she sat in the market place taking copper coins, or in the +moonlight with a book on her knees, it was all the same. Her feet ran, +her tongue spoke, her hands worked; she did not neglect her goat or her +garden, she did not forsake her house labor or her good deeds to old +Annémie; but all the while she only heard one voice, she only felt one +touch, she only saw one face. + +Here and there--one in a million--there is a female thing that can love +like this, once and forever. + +Such an one is dedicated, birth upwards, to the Mater Dolorosa. + +He had something nearer akin to affection for her than he had ever had in +his life for anything, but he was never in love with her--no more in +love with her than with the moss-rosebuds that she fastened in his +breast. Yet he played with her, because she was such a little, soft, +tempting female thing; and because, to see her face flush, and her heart +heave, to feel her fresh feelings stir into life, and to watch her +changes from shyness to confidence, and from frankness again into fear, +was a natural pastime in the lazy golden weather. + +That he spared her as far as he did,--when after all she would have +married Jeannot anyhow,--and that he sketched her face in the open air, +and never entered her hut and never beguiled her to his own old palace in +the city, was a new virtue in himself for which he hardly knew whether to +feel respect or ridicule; anyway, it seemed virtue to him. + +So long as he did not seduce the body, it seemed to him that it could +never matter how he slew the soul,--the little, honest, happy, pure, +frank soul, that amidst its poverty and hardships was like a robin's song +to the winter sun. + +"Hoot, toot, pretty innocent, so you are no better than the rest of us," +hissed her enemy, Lisette, the fruit girl, against her as she went by the +stall one evening as the sun set. "Prut! so it was no such purity after +all that made you never look at the student lads and the soldiers, eh? +You were so dainty of taste, you must needs pick and choose, and, Lord's +sake, after all your coyness, to drop at a beckoning finger as one may +say--pong!--in a minute, like an apple over-ripe! Oh hé, you sly one!" + +Bébée flushed red, in a sort of instinct of offence; not sure what her +fault was, but vaguely stung by the brutal words. + +Bébée walked homeward by him, with her empty baskets: looked at him with +grave wondering eyes. + +"What did she mean? I do not understand. I must have done some wrong--or +she thinks so. Do you know?" + +Flamen laughed, and answered her evasively,-- + +"You have done her the wrong of a fair skin when hers is brown, and a +little foot while hers is as big as a trooper's; there is no greater sin, +Bébée, possible in woman to woman." + +"Hold your peace, you shrill jade," he added, in anger to the fruiterer, +flinging at her a crown piece, that the girl caught, and bit with her +teeth with a chuckle. "Do not heed her, Bébée. She is a coarse-tongued +brute, and is jealous, no doubt." + +"Jealous?--of what?" + +The word had no meaning to Bébée. + +"That I am not a student or a soldier, as her lovers are." + +As her lovers were! Bébée felt her face burn again. Was he her lover +then? The child's innocent body and soul thrilled with a hot, sweet +delight and fear commingled. + +Bébée was not quite satisfied until she had knelt down that night and +asked the Master of all poor maidens to see if there were any wickedness +in her heart, hidden there like a bee in a rose, and if there were to +take it out and make her worthier of this wonderful new happiness in her +life. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +The next day, waking with a radiant little soul as a bird in a forest +wakes in summer Bébée was all alone in the lane by the swans' water. In +the gray of the dawn all the good folk except herself and lame old Jehan +had tramped off to a pilgrimage, Liége way, which the bishop of the city +had enjoined on all the faithful as a sacred duty. + +Bébée doing her work, singing, thinking how good God was, and dreaming +over a thousand fancies of the wonderful stories he had told her, and of +the exquisite delight that would lie for her in watching for him all +through the shining hours, Bébée felt her little heart leap like a +squirrel as the voice that was the music of heaven to her called through +the stillness,--"Good day, pretty one! you are as early as the lark, +Bébée. I go to Mayence, so I thought I would look at you one moment as I +pass." + +Bébée ran down through the wet grass in a tumult of joy. She had never +seen him so early in the day--never so early as this, when nobody was up +and stirring except birds and beasts and peasant folk. + +She did not know how pretty she looked herself; like a rain-washed wild +rose; her feet gleaming with dew, her cheeks warm with health and joy; +her sunny clustering hair free from the white cap and tumbling a little +about her throat, because she had been stooping over the carnations. + +Flamen loosed the wicket latch, and thought there might be better ways of +spending the day than in the gray shadows of old Mechlin. + +"Will you give me a draught of water?" he asked her as he crossed the +garden. + +"I will give you breakfast," said Bébée, happy as a bird. She felt no +shame for the smallness of her home; no confusion at the poverty of +her little place; such embarrassments are born of self-consciousness, +and Bébée had no more self-consciousness than her own sweet, gray +lavender-bush blowing against the door. + +The lavender-bush has no splendor like the roses, has no colors like the +hollyhocks; it is a simple, plain, gray thing that the bees love and that +the cottagers cherish, and that keeps the moth from the homespun linen, +and that goes with the dead to their graves. + +It has many virtues and infinite sweetness, but it does not know it or +think of it; and if the village girls ever tell it so, it fancies they +only praise it out of kindness as they put its slender fragrant spears +away in their warm bosoms. Bébée was like her lavender, and now that this +beautiful Purple Emperor butterfly came from the golden sunbeams to find +pleasure for a second in her freshness, she was only very grateful, as +the lavender-bush was to the village girls. + +"I will give you your breakfast," said Bébée, flushing rosily with +pleasure, and putting away the ivy coils that he might enter. + +"I have very little, you know," she added, wistfully. "Only goat's milk +and bread; but if that will do--and there is some honey--and if you would +eat a salad, I would cut one fresh." + +He did enter, and glanced round him with a curious pity and wonder both +in one. + +It was such a little, small, square place; and its floor was of beaten +clay; and its unceiled roof he could have touched; and its absolute +poverty was so plain,--and yet the child looked so happy in it, and was +so like a flower, and was so dainty and fresh, and even so full of grace. + +She stood and looked at him with frank and grateful eyes; she could +hardly believe that he was here; he, the stranger of Rubes' land, in her +own little rush-covered home. + +But she was not embarrassed by it; she was glad and proud. + +There is a dignity of peasants as well as of kings,--the dignity that +comes from all absence of effort, all freedom from pretence. Bébée had +this, and she had more still than this: she had the absolute simplicity +of childhood with her still. + +Some women have it still when they are four-score. + +She could have looked at him forever, she was so happy; she cared +nothing now for those dazzling dahlias--he had left them; he was actually +here--here in her own, little dear home, with the cocks looking in at the +threshold, and the sweet-peas nodding at the lattice, and the starling +crying, "Bonjour! Bonjour!" + +"You are tired, I am sure you must be tired," she said, pulling her +little bed forward for him to sit on, for there were only two wooden +stools in the hut, and no chair at all. + +Then she took his sketching-easel and brushes from his hand, and would +have kneeled and taken the dust off his boots if he would have let her; +and went hither and thither gladly and lightly, bringing him a wooden +bowl of milk and the rest of the slender fare, and cutting as quick as +thought fresh cresses and lettuce from her garden, and bringing him, as +the crown of all, Father Francis's honey-comb on vine-leaves, with some +pretty sprays of box and mignonette scattered about it--doing all this +with a swift, sweet grace that robbed the labor of all look of servitude, +and looking at him ever and again with a smile that said as clearly as +any words, "I cannot do much, but what I do, I do with all my heart." + +There was something in the sight of her going and coming in those simple +household errands, across the sunlit floor, that moved him as some +mountain air sung on an alp by a girl driving her cows to pasture may +move a listener who indifferent has heard the swell of the organ of +La Hague, or the recitative of a great singer in San Carlo. + +The gray lavender blowing at the house door has its charm for those who +are tired of the camellias that float in the porcelain bowls of midnight +suppers. + +This man was not good. He was idle and vain, and amorous and cold, and +had been spoiled by the world in which he had passed his days; but he had +the temper of an artist: he had something, too, of a poet's fancy; he +was vaguely touched and won by this simple soul that looked at him out of +Bébée's eyes with some look that in all its simplicity had a divine gleam +in it that made him half ashamed. + +He had known women by the thousand, good women and bad; women whom he had +dealt ill with and women who had dealt ill with him; but this he had not +known--this frank, fearless, tender, gay, grave, innocent, industrious +little life, helping itself, feeding itself, defending itself, working +for itself and for others, and vaguely seeking all the while some unseen +light, some unknown god, with a blind faith so infinitely ignorant and +yet so infinitely pathetic. + +"All the people are gone on a pilgrimage," she explained to him when he +asked her why her village was so silent this bright morning. "They are +gone to pray for a fine harvest, and that she wants herself as well--it +costs seven francs apiece. They take their food with them; they go and +laugh and eat in the fields. I think it is nonsense. One can say one's +prayers just as well here. Mère Krebs thinks so too, but then she says, +'If I do not go, it will look ill; people will say I am irreligious; and +as we make so much by flour, God would think it odd for me to be absent; +and, besides, it is only seven francs there and back; and if it does +please Heaven, that is cheap, you know. One will get it over and over +again in Paradise.' That is what Mere Krebs says. But, for me, I +think it is nonsense. It cannot please God to go by train and eat galette +and waste a whole day in getting dusty. + +"When I give the Virgin my cactus flower, I do give up a thing I love, +and I let it wither on her altar instead of pleasing me in bloom here +all the week, and then, of course, she sees that I have done it out of +gratitude. But that is different: that I am sorry to do, and yet I am +glad to do it out of love. Do you not know?" + +"Yes, I know very well. But is the Virgin all that you love like this?" + +"No; there is the garden, and there is Antoine--he is dead, I know. But I +think that we should love the dead all the better, not the less, because +they cannot speak or say that they are angry; and perhaps one pains them +very much when one neglects them, and if they are ever so sad, they +cannot rise and rebuke one--that is why I would rather forget the flowers +for the Church than I would the flowers for his grave, because God can +punish me, of course, if he like, but Antoine never can--any more--now." + +"You are logical in your sentiment, my dear," said Flamen, who was more +moved than he cared to feel. "The union is a rare one in your sex. Who +taught you to reason?" + +"No one. And I do not know what to be logical means. Is it that you laugh +at me?" + +"No. I do not laugh. And your pilgrims--they are gone for all day?" + +"Yes. They are gone to the Sacred Heart at St. Marie en Bois. It is on +the way to Liége. They will come back at nightfall. And some of them will +be sure to have drunk too much, and the children will get so cross. +Prosper Bar, who is a Calvinist, always says, 'Do not mix up prayer and +play; you would not cut a gherkin in your honey'; but I do not know why +he called prayer a gherkin, because it is sweet enough--sweeter than +anything, I think. When I pray to the Virgin to let me see you next day, +I go to bed quite happy, because she will do it, I know, if it will be +good for me." + +"But if it were not good for you, Bébée? Would you cease to wish it +then?" + +He rose as he spoke, and went across the floor and drew away her hand +that was parting the flax, and took it in his own and stroked it, +indulgently and carelessly, as a man may stroke the soft fur of a young +cat. + +Leaning against the little lattice and looking down on her with musing +eyes, half smiling, half serious, half amorous, half sad, Bébée looked +up with a sudden and delicious terror that ran through her as the charm +of the snake's gaze runs through the bewildered bird. + +"Would you cease to wish it if it were not good?" he asked again. + +Bébée's face grew pale and troubled. She left her hand in his because she +did not think any shame of his taking it. But the question suddenly flung +the perplexity and darkness of doubt into the clearness of her pure +child's conscience. All her ways had been straight and sunlit before her. + +She had never had a divided duty. + +The religion and the pleasure of her simple little life had always gone +hand-in-hand, greeting one another, and never for an instant in conflict. +In any hesitation of her own she had always gone to Father Francis, and +he had disentangled the web for her and made all plain. + +But here was a difficulty in which she could never go to Father Francis. + +Right and wrong, duty and desire, were for the first time arrayed before +her in their ghastly and unending warfare. + +It frightened her with a certain breathless sense of peril--the peril of +a time when in lieu of that gentle Mother of Roses whom she kneeled +to among the flowers, she would only see a dusky shadow looming between +her and the beauty of life and the light of the sun. + +What he said was quite vague to her. She attached no definite danger to +his words. She only thought--to see him was so great a joy--if Mary +forbade it, would she not take it if she could notwithstanding, always, +always, always? + +He kept her hand in his, and watched with contentment the changing play +of the shade and sorrow, the fear and fascination, on her face. + +"You do not know, Bébée?" he said at length, knowing well himself; so +much better than ever she knew. "Well, dear, that is not flattering to +me. But it is natural. The good Virgin of course gives you all you have, +food, and clothes, and your garden, and your pretty plump chickens; and I +am only a stranger. You could not offend her for me; that is not likely." + +The child was cut to the heart by the sadness and humility of words of +whose studied artifice she had no suspicion. + +She thought that she seemed to him ungrateful and selfish, and yet all +the mooring-ropes that held her little boat of life to the harbor of +its simple religion seemed cut away, and she seemed drifting helpless and +rudderless upon an unknown sea. + +"I never did do wrong--that I know," she said, timidly, and lifted her +eyes to his with an unconscious appeal in them. + +"But--I do not see why it should be wrong to speak with you. You are +good, and you lend me beautiful things out of other men's minds that will +make me less ignorant: Our Lady could not be angry with that--she must +like it." + +"Our Lady?--oh, poor little simpleton!--where will her reign be when +Ignorance has once been cut down root and branch?" he thought to himself: +but he only answered,-- + +"But whether she like it or not, Bébée?--you beg the question, my dear; +you are--you are not so frank as usual--think, and tell me honestly?" + +He knew quite well, but it amused him to see the perplexed trouble that +this, the first divided duty of her short years, brought with it. + +Bébée looked at him, and loosened her hand from his, and sat quite still. +Her lips had a little quiver in them. + +"I think." she said at last, "I think--if it _be_ wrong, still I will +wish it--yes. Only I will not tell myself it is right. I will just say to +Our Lady, 'I am wicked, perhaps, but I cannot help it' So, I will not +deceive her at all; and perhaps in time she may forgive. But I think you +only say it to try me. It cannot, I am sure, be wrong--any more than it +is to talk to Jeannot or to Bac." + +He had driven her into the subtleties of doubt, but the honest little +soul in her found a way out, as a flower in a cellar finds its way +through the stones to light. + +He plucked the ivy leaves and threw them at the chickens on the bricks +without, with a certain impatience in the action. The simplicity and the +directness of the answer disarmed him; he was almost ashamed to use +against her the weapons of his habitual warfare. It was like a maître +d'armes fencing with bare steel against a little naked child armed with a +blest palm-sheaf. + +When she had thus brought him all she had, and he to please her had sat +down to the simple food, she gathered a spray of roses and set it in a +pot beside him, then left him and went and stood at a little distance, +waiting, with her hands lightly crossed on her chest, to see if there +were anything that he might want. + +He ate and drank well to please her, looking at her often as he did so. + +"I break your bread, Bébée," he said, with a tone that seemed strange to +her,--"I break your bread. I must keep Arab faith with you." + +"What is that?" + +"I mean--I must never betray you." + +"Betray me How could you?" + +"Well--hurt you in any way." + +"Ah, I am sure you would never do that." + +He was silent, and looked at the spray of roses. + +"Sit down and spin," he said impatiently. "I am ashamed to see you stand +there, and a woman never looks so well as when she spins. Sit down, and I +will eat the good things you have brought me. But I cannot if you stand +and look." + +"I beg your pardon. I did not know," she said, ashamed lest she should +have seemed rude to him; and she drew out her wheel under the light of +the lattice, and sat down to it, and began to disentangle the threads. + +It was a pretty picture--the low, square casement; the frame of ivy, the +pink and white of the climbing sweet-peas: the girl's head; the cool, wet +leaves: the old wooden spinning-wheel, that purred like a sleepy cat. + +"I want to paint you as Gretchen, only it will be a shame." he said. + +"Who is Gretchen?" + +"You shall read of her by-and-by. And you live here all by yourself?" + +"Since Antoine died--yes." + +"And are never dull?" + +"I have no time, and I do not think I would be if I had time--there is so +much to think of, and one never can understand." + +"But you must be very brave and laborious to do all your work yourself. +Is it possible a child like you can spin, and wash, and bake, and garden, +and do everything?" + +"Oh, many do more than I. Babette's eldest daughter is only twelve, and +she does much more, because she has all the children to look after; and +they are very, very poor; they often have nothing but a stew of nettles +and perhaps a few snails, days together." + +"That is lean, bare, ugly, gruesome poverty; there is plenty of that +everywhere. But you, Bébée--you are an idyll." + +Bébée looked across the hut and smiled, and broke her thread. She did not +know what he meant, but if she were anything that pleased him, it was +well. + +"Who were those beautiful women?" she said suddenly, the color mounting +into her cheeks. + +"What women, my dear?" + +"Those I saw at the window with you, the other night--they had jewels." + +"Oh!--women, tiresome enough. If I had seen you, I would have dropped you +some fruit. Poor little Bébée! Did you go by, and I never knew?" + +"You were laughing--" + +"Was I?" + +"Yes, and they _were_ beautiful." + +"In their own eyes; not in mine." + +"No?" + +She stopped her spinning and gazed at him with wistful, wondering eyes. +Could it be that they were not beautiful to him? those deep red, glowing, +sun-basked dahlia flowers? + +"Do you know," she said very softly, with a flush of penitence that came +and went, "when I saw them, I hated them; I confessed it to Father +Francis next day. You seemed so content with, them, and they looked so +gay and glad there--and then the jewels! Somehow, I seemed to myself such +a little thing, and so ugly and mean. And yet, do you know--" + +"And yet--well?" + +"They did not look to me good--those women," said Bébée, thoughtfully, +looking across at him in deprecation of his possible anger. "They were +great people, I suppose, and they appeared very happy; but though I +seemed nothing to myself after them, still I think I would not change." + +"You are wise without books, Bébée." + +"Oh, no, I am not wise at all. I only feel. And give me books; oh, pray, +give me books! You do not know; I will learn so fast; and I will not +neglect anything, that I promise. The neighbors and Jeannot say that I +shall let the flowers die, and the hut get dirty, and never spin or prick +Annémie's patterns; but that is untrue. I will do all, just as I have +done, and more too, if only you will give me things to read, for I do +think when one is happy, one ought to work more--not less." + +"But will these books make you happy? If you ask me the truth, I must +tell you--no. You are happy as you are, because you know nothing else +than your own little life; for ignorance _is_ happiness, Bébée, let +sages, ancient and modern, say what they will. But when you know a +little, you will want to know more: and when you know much, you will want +to see much also, and then--and then--the thing will grow--you will be no +longer content. That is, you will be unhappy." + +Bébée watched him with wistful eyes. + +"Perhaps that is true. No doubt it is true, if you say it. But you know +all the world seems full of voices that I hear, but that I cannot +understand; it is with me as I should think it is with people who go to +foreign countries and do not know the tongue that is spoken when they +land; and it makes me unhappy, because I cannot comprehend, and so the +books will not make me more so, but less. And as for being content--when +I thought you were gone away out of the city, last night, I thought +I would never be able to pray any more, because I hated myself, and I +almost hated the angels, and I told Mary that she was cruel, and she +turned her face from me--as it seemed, forever." + +She spoke quite quietly and simply, spinning as she spoke, and looking +across at him with earnest eyes, that begged him to believe her. She was +saying the pure truth, but she did not know the force or the meaning of +that truth. + +He listened with a smile; it was not new to him; he knew her heart much +better than she knew it herself, but there was an unconsciousness, and +yet a strength, in the words that touched him though. + +He threw the leaves away, irritably, and told her to leave off her +spinning. + +"Some day I shall paint you with that wheel as I painted the Broodhuis. +Will you let me, Bébée?" + +"Yes." + +She answered him as she would have answered if he had told her to go on +pilgrimage from one end of the Low Countries to the other. + +"What were you going to do to-day?" + +"I am going into the market with the flowers; I go every day." + +"How much will you make?" + +"Two or three francs, if I am lucky." + +"And do you never have a holiday?" + +"Oh, yes; but not often, you know, because it is on the fete days that +the people want the most flowers." + +"But in the winter?" + +"Then I work at the lace." + +"Do you never go into the woods?" + +"I have been once or twice; but it loses a whole day." + +"You are afraid of not earning?" + +"Yes. Because I am afraid of owing people anything." + +"Well, give up this one day, and we will make holiday. The people are +out; they will not know. Come into the forest, and we will dine at a café +in the woods; and we will be as poetic as you like, and I will tell you a +tale of one called Rosalind, who pranked herself in boy's attire, all for +love, in the Ardennes country yonder. Come, it is the very day for the +forest; it will make me a lad again at Meudon, when the lilacs were in +bloom. Poor Paris! Come." + +"Do you mean it?" + +The color was bright in her face, her heart was dancing, her little feet +felt themselves already on the fresh green turf. + +She had no thought that there could be any harm in it. She would have +gone with Jeannot or old Bac. + +"Of course I mean it. Come. I was going to Mayence to see the Magi and +Van Dyck's Christ. We will go to Soignies instead, and study green +leaves. I will paint your face by sunlight. It is the best way to paint +you. You belong to the open air. So should Gretchen; or how else should +she have the blue sky in her eyes?" + +"But I have only wooden shoes!" + +Her face was scarlet as she glanced at her feet; he who had wanted to +give her the silk stockings--how would he like to be seen walking abroad +with those two clumsy, clattering, work-a-day, little sabots? + +"Never mind. My dear, in my time I have had enough of satin shoes and of +silver gilt heels; they click-clack as loud as yours, and cost much more +to those who walk with them, not to mention that they will seldom deign +to walk at all. Your wooden shoes are picturesque. Paganini made a violin +out of a wooden shoe. Who knows what music may lurk in yours, only you +have never heard it. Perhaps I have. It was Bac who gave you the red +shoes that was the barbarian, not I. Come." + +"You really mean it?" + +"Come." + +"But they will miss me at market." + +"They will think you are gone on the pilgrimage: you need never tell them +you have not." + +"But if they ask me?" + +"Does it never happen that you say any other thing than the truth?" + +"Any other thing than the truth! Of course not. People take for granted +that one tells truth; it would be very base to cheat them. Do you really +mean that I may come?--in the forest!--and you will tell me stories +like those you give me to read?" + +"I will tell you a better story. Lock your hut, Bébée, and come." + +"And to think you are not ashamed!" + +"Ashamed?" + +"Yes, because of my wooden shoes." + +Was it possible? Bébée thought, as she ran out into the garden and +locked the door behind her, and pushed the key under the waterbutt as +usual, being quite content with that prudent precaution against robbers +which had served Antoine all his days. Was it possible, this wonderful +joy?--her cheeks were like her roses, her eyes had a brilliance like the +sun; the natural grace and mirth of the child blossomed in a thousand +ways and gestures. + +As she went by the shrine in the wall, she bent her knee a moment and +made the sign of the cross; then she gathered a little moss-rose that +nodded close under the border of the palisade, and turned and gave it to +him. + +"Look, she sends you this. She is not angry, you see, and it is much more +pleasure when she is pleased--do you not know?" + +He shrank a little as her fingers touched him. + +"What a pity you had no mother, Bébée!" he said, on an impulse of +emotion, of which in Paris he would have been more ashamed than +of any guilt. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +In the deserted lane by the swans' water, under the willows, the +horses waited to take him to Mechlin; little, quick, rough horses, with +round brass bells, in the Flemish fashion, and gay harness, and a low +char-à-banc, in which a wolf-skin and red rugs, and all a painter's many +necessities, were tossed together. + +He lifted her in, and the little horses flew fast through the green +country, ringing chimes at each step, till they plunged into the deep +glades of the woods of Cambre and Soignies. + +Bébée sat breathless with delight. + +She had never gone behind horses in all her life, except once or twice +in a wagon when the tired teamsters had dragged a load of corn across +the plains, or when the miller's old gray mare had hobbled wearily before +a cart-load of noisy, happy, mischievous children going home from the +masses and fairs, and flags, and flowers, and church banners, and +puppet-shows, and lighted altars, and whirling merry-go-rounds of the +Fête Dieu. + +She had never known what it was to sail as on the wings of the wind along +broad roads, with yellow wheat-lands, and green hedges, and wayside +trees, and little villages, and reedy canal water, all flying by her to +the sing-song of the joyous bells. + +"Oh, how good it is to live!" she cried, clapping her hands in a very +ecstasy, as the clear morning broadened into gold and the west wind rose +and blew from the sands by the sea. + +"Yes--it is good--if one did not tire so soon," said he, watching her +with a listless pleasure. + +But she did not hear; she was beyond the reach of any power to sadden +her; she was watching the white oxen that stood on the purple brow of +the just reapen lands, and the rosy clouds that blew like a shower of +apple-blossoms across the sky to the south. + +There was a sad darkling Calvary on the edge of the harvest-field that +looked black against the blue sky; its shadow fell across the road, but +she did not see it: she was looking at the sun. + +There is not much change in the great Soignies woods. They are aisles on +aisles of beautiful green trees, crossing and recrossing; tunnels of dark +foliage that look endless; long avenues of beech, of oak, of elm, or of +fir, with the bracken and the brushwood growing dense between; a +delicious forest growth everywhere, shady even at noon, and by a little +past midday dusky as evening; with the forest fragrance, sweet and dewy, +all about, and under the fern the stirring of wild game, and the white +gleam of little rabbits, and the sound of the wings of birds. + +Soignies is not legend-haunted like the Black Forest, nor king-haunted +like Fontainebleau, nor sovereign of two historic streams like the brave +woods of Heidelberg; nor wild and romantic, arid broken with black rocks, +and poetized by the shade of Jaques, and swept through by a perfect +river, like its neighbors of Ardennes; nor throned aloft on mighty +mountains like the majestic oak glades of the Swabian hills of the ivory +carvers. + +Soignies is only a Flemish forest in a plain, throwing its shadows over +corn-fields and cattle pastures, with no panorama beyond it and no +wonders in its depth. But it is a fresh, bold, beautiful forest for all +that. + +It has only green leaves to give,--green leaves always, league after +league; but there is about it that vague mystery which all forests have, +and this universe of leaves seems boundless, and Pan might dwell in it, +and St. Hubert, and John Keats. + +Bébée, in her rare holidays with the Bac children or with Jeannot's +sisters, had never penetrated farther than the glades of the Cambre, +and had never entered the heart of the true forest, which is much still +what it must have been in the old days when the burghers of Brabant cut +their yew bows and their pike staves from it to use against the hosts of +Spain. + +To Bébée it was as an enchanted land, and every play of light and shade, +every hare speeding across the paths, every thrush singing in the leaves, +every little dog-rose or harebell that blossomed in the thickets, was to +her a treasure, a picture, a poem, a delight. + +He had seen girls thus in the woods of Vincennes and of Versailles in the +student days of his youth: little work-girls fresh from châlets of the +Jura or from vine-hung huts of the Loire, who had brought their poor +little charms to perish in Paris; and who dwelt under the hot tiles and +amidst the gilded shop signs till they were as pale and thin as their own +starved balsams; and who, when they saw the green woods, laughed and +cried a little, and thought of the broad sun-swept fields, and wished +that they were back again behind their drove of cows, or weeding among +the green grapes. + +But those little work-girls had been mere homely daisies, and daisies +already with the dust of the pavement and of the dancing-gardens upon +them. + +Bébée was as pure and fresh as these dew-wet dog-roses that she found in +the thickets of thorn. + +He had meant to treat her as he had used to do those work-girls--a little +wine, a little wooing, a little folly and passion, idle as a butterfly +and brief as a rainbow--one midsummer day and night--then a handful of +gold, a caress, a good-morrow, and forgetfulness ever afterwards--that +was what he had meant when he had brought her out to the forest of +Soignies. + +But--she was different, this child. + +He made the great sketch of her for his Gretchen, sitting on a moss-grown +trunk, with marguerites in her hand; he sent for their breakfast far into +the woods, and saw her set her pearly teeth into early peaches and costly +sweetmeats; he wandered with her hither and thither, and told her tales +out of the poets and talked to her in the dreamy, cynical, poetical +manner that was characteristic of him, being half artificial and half +sorrowful, as his temper was. + +But Bébée, all unconscious, intoxicated with happiness, and yet touched +by it into that vague sadness which the summer sun brings with it even to +young things, if they have soul in them,--Bébée said to him what the +work-girls of Paris never had done. + +Beautiful things: things fantastic, ignorant, absurd, very simple, very +unreasonable oftentimes, but things beautiful always, and sometimes even +very wise by a wisdom not of the world; by a certain light divine that +does shine now and then as through an alabaster lamp, through minds that +have no grossness to obscure them. + +Her words were not equal to the burden of her thoughts at times, but he +knew how to take the pearl of the thought from the broken shell and +tangled sea-weed of her simple, untutored speech. + +"If there be a God anywhere," he thought to himself, "this little Fleming +is very near him." + +She was so near that, although he had no belief in any God, he could not +deal with her as he had used to do with the work-girls in the primrose +paths of old Vincennes. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +"To be Gretchen, you must count the leaves of your daisies," he said to +her, as he painted,--painted her just as she was, with her two little +white feet in the wooden shoes, and the thick green leaves behind; the +simplest picture possible, the dress of gray--only cool dark gray--with +white linen bodice, and no color anywhere except in the green of the +foliage; but where he meant the wonder and the charm of it to lie was in +the upraised, serious, child-like face, and the gaze of the grave, +smiling eyes. + +It was Gretchen, spinning, out in the open air among the flowers. +Gretchen, with the tall dog-daisies growing up about her feet, among +the thyme and the roses, before she had had need to gather, one to ask +her future of its parted leaves. + +The Gretchen of Scheffer tells no tale; she is a fair-haired, +hard-working, simple-minded peasant, with whom neither angels nor devils +have anything to do, and whose eyes never can open to either hell or +heaven. But the Gretchen of Flamen said much more than this: looking +at it, men would sigh from shame, and women weep from sorrow. + +"Count the daisies?" echoed Bébée. "Oh, I know what you mean. A +little--much--passionately--until death--not at all. What the girls say +when they want to see if any one loves them? Is that it?" + +She looked at him without any consciousness, except as she loved the +flowers. + +"Do you think the daisies know?" she went on, seriously, parting their +petals with her fingers. "Flowers do know many things--that is certain." + +"Ask them for yourself." + +"Ask them what?" + +"How much--any one--loves you?" + +"Oh, but every one loves me; there is no one that is bad. Antoine used to +say to me. 'Never think of yourself, Bébée; always think of other people, +so every one will love you.' And I always try to do that, and every one +does." + +"But that is not the love the daisy tells of to your sex." + +"No?" + +"No; the girls that you see count the flowers--they are thinking, not of +all the village, but of some one unlike all the rest, whose shadow falls +across theirs in the moonlight! You know that?" + +"Ah, yes--and they marry afterwards--yes." + +She said it softly, musingly, with no embarrassment; it was an unreal, +remote thing to her, and yet it stirred her heart a little with a vague +trouble that was infinitely sweet. + +There is little talk of love in the lives of the poor; they have no space +for it; love to them means more mouths to feed, more wooden shoes to buy, +more hands to dive into the meagre bag of coppers. Now and then a girl +of the commune had been married, and had ploughing in the fields or to +her lace-weaving in the city. Bébée had thought little of it. + +"They marry or they do not marry. That is as it may be," said Flamen, +with a smile. "Bébée, I must paint you as Gretchen before she made a +love-dial of the daisies. What is the story? Oh, I have told you stories +enough. Gretchen's you would not understand, just yet." + +"But what did the daisies say to her?" + +"My dear, the daisies always say the same thing, because daisies always +tell the truth and know men. The daisies always say 'a little'; it is the +girl's ear that tricks her, and makes her hear 'till death,'--a folly and +falsehood of which the daisy is not guilty." + +"But who says it if the daisy does not?" + +"Ah, the devil perhaps--who knows? He has so much to do in these things." + +But Bébée did not smile; she had a look of horror in her blue eyes; she +belonged to a peasantry who believed in exorcising the fiend by the aid +of the cross, and who not so very many generations before had driven him +out of human bodies by rack and flame. + +She looked with a little wistful fear on the white, golden-eyed +marguerites that lay on her lap. + +"Do you think the fiend is in these?" she whispered, with awe in her +voice. + +Flamen smiled. "When you count them he will be there, no doubt." + +Bébée threw them with a shudder on the grass. + +"Have I spoilt your holiday, dear?" he said, with a certain +self-reproach. + +She was silent a minute, then she gathered up the daisies again, and +stroked them and put them to her lips. + +"It is not they that do wrong. You say the girls' ears deceive them. It +is the girls who want a lie and will not believe a truth because it +humbles them; it is the girls that are to blame, not the daisies. As for +me, I will not ask the daisies anything ever, so the fiend will not enter +into them." + +"Nor into you. Poor little Bébée!" + +"Why, you pity me for that?" + +"Yes. Because, if women never see the serpent's face, neither do they +ever scent the smell of the paradise roses; and it will be hard for you +to die without a single rose d'amour in your pretty breast, poor little +Bébée?" + +"I do not understand. But you frighten me a little." + +He rose and left his easel and threw himself at her feet on the grass; he +took the little wooden shoes in his hands as reverently as he would have +taken the broidered shoes of a duchess; he looked up at her with tender, +smiling eyes. + +"Poor little Bébée!" he said again. "Did I frighten you indeed? Nay, that +was very base of me. We will not spoil our summer holiday. There is no +such thing as a fiend, my dear. There are only men--such as I am. Say the +daisy spell over for me, Bébée. See if I do not love you a little, just +as you love your flowers." + +She smiled, and the happy laughter came again over her face. + +"Oh, I am sure you care for me a little," she said, softly, "or you would +not be so good and get me books and give me pleasure; and I do not want +the daisies to tell me that, because you say it yourself, which is +better." + +"Much better." he answered her dreamily, and lay there in the grass, +holding the little wooden shoes in his hands. + +He was not in love with her. He was in no haste. He preferred to play +with her softly, slowly, as one separates the leaves of a rose, to see +the deep rose of its heart. + +Her own ignorance of what she felt had a charm for him. He liked to lift +the veil from her eyes by gentle degrees, watching each new pulse-beat, +each fresh instinct tremble into life. + +It was an old, old story to him; he knew each chapter and verse to +weariness, though there still was no other story that he still read as +often. But to her it was so new. + +To him it was a long beaten track; he knew every turn of it; he +recognized every wayside blossom; he had passed over a thousand times +each tremulous bridge; he knew so well beforehand where each shadow would +fall, and where each fresh bud would blossom, and where each harvest +would be reaped. + +But to her it was so new. + +She followed him as a blind child a man that guides her through a garden +and reads her a wonder tale. + +He was good to her, that was all she knew. When he touched her ever so +lightly she felt a happiness so perfect, and yet so unintelligible, that +she could have wished to die in it. + +And in her humility and her ignorance she wondered always how he--so +great, so wise, so beautiful--could have thought it ever worth his while +to leave the paradise of Rubes' land to wait with her under her little +rush-thatched roof, and bring her here to see the green leaves and the +living things of the forest. + +As they went, a man was going under the trees with a load of wood upon +his back. Bébée gave a little cry of recognition. + +"Oh, look, that is Jeannot! How he will wonder to see me here!" + +Flamen drew her a little downward, so that the forester passed onward +without perceiving them. + +"Why do you do that?" said Bébée. "Shall I not speak to him?" + +"Why? To have all your neighbors chatter of your feast in the forest? It +is not worth while." + +"Ah, but I always tell them everything," said Bébée. whose imagination +had been already busy with the wonders that she would unfold to Mère +Krebs and the Varnhart children. + +"Then you will see but little of me, my dear. Learn to be silent, Bébée. +It is a woman's first duty, though her hardest." + +"Is it?" + +She did not speak for some time. She could not imagine a state of +things in which she would not narrate the little daily miracles of her +life to the good old garrulous women and the little open-mouthed romps. +And yet--she lifted her eyes to his. + +"I am glad you have told me that," she said. "Though indeed. I do not see +why one should not say what one does, yet--somehow--I do not like to talk +about you. It is like the pictures in the galleries, and the music in +the cathedral, and the great still evenings, when the fields are all +silent, and it is as if Christ walked abroad in them; I do not know how +to talk of those things to the others--only to you--and I do not like to +talk _about_ you to them--do you not know?" + +"Yes, I know. But what affinity have I. Bébée, to your thoughts of your +God walking in His cornfields?" + +Bébée's eyes glanced down through the green aisle of the forests, with +the musing seriousness in them that was like the child-angels of +Botticelli's dreams. + +"I cannot tell you very well. But when I am in the fields at evening and +think of Christ. I feel so happy, and of such good will to all the rest, +and I seem to see heaven quite plain through the beautiful gray air where +the stars are--and so I feel when I am with you--that is all. Only--" + +"Only what?" + +"Only in those evenings, when I was all alone, heaven seemed up there, +where the stars are, and I longed for wings; but now, it is _here_, and I +would only shut my wings if I had them, and not stir." + +He looked at her, and took, her hands and kissed them--but reverently--as +a believer may kiss a shrine. In that moment to Flamen she was sacred; in +that moment he could no more have hurt her with passion than he could +have hurt her with a blow. + +It was an emotion with him, and did not endure. But whilst it lasted, it +was true. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +Then he took her to dine at one of the wooden cafés under the trees. +There was a little sheet of water in front of it and a gay garden around. +There was a balcony and a wooden stairway; there were long trellised +arbors, and little white tables, and great rosebushes like her own at +home. They had an arbor all to themselves; a cool sweet-smelling bower of +green, with a glimpse of scarlet from the flowers of some twisting beans. + +They had a meal, the like of which she had never seen; such a huge melon +in the centre of it, and curious wines, and coffee or cream in silver +pots, or what looked like silver to her--"just like the altar-vases in +the church," she said to herself. + +"If only the Varnhart children were here!" she cried; but he did not echo +the wish. + +It was just sunset. There was a golden glow on the little bit of water. +On the other side of the garden some one was playing a guitar. Under a +lime-tree some girls were swinging, crying, Higher! higher! at each toss. + +In a longer avenue of trellised green, at a long table, there was a noisy +party of students and girls of the city; their laughter was mellowed by +distance as it came over the breadth of the garden, and they sang, with +fresh shrill Flemish voices, songs from an opera bouffe of La Monnaie. + +It was all pretty, and gay, and pleasant. + +There was everywhere about an air of light-hearted enjoyment. Bébée sat +with a wondering look in her wide-opened eyes, and all the natural +instincts of her youth, that were like curled-up fruit buds in her, +unclosed softly to the light of joy. + +"Is life always like this in your Rubes' land?" she asked him; that vague +far-away country of which she never asked him anything more definite, and +which yet was so clear before her fancy. + +"Yes," he made answer to her. "Only--instead of those leaves, flowers and +pomegranates; and in lieu of that tinkling guitar, a voice whose notes +are esteemed like king's jewels; and in place of those little green +arbors, great white palaces, cool and still, with ilex woods and orange +groves and sapphire seas beyond them. Would you like to come there, +Bébée?--and wear laces such as you weave, and hear singing and laughter +all night long, and never work any more in the mould of the garden, or +spin any more at that tiresome wheel, or go any more out in the wind, and +the rain, and the winter mud to the market?" + +Bébée listened, leaning her round elbows on the table, and her warm +cheeks on her hands, as a child gravely listens to a fairy story. But +the sumptuous picture, and the sensuous phrase he had chosen, passed by +her. + +It is of no use to tempt the little chaffinch of the woods with a ruby +instead of a cherry. The bird is made to feed on the brown berries, on +the morning dews, on the scarlet hips of roses, and the blossoms of the +wind-tossed pear boughs; the gem, though it be a monarch's, will only +strike hard and tasteless on its beak. + +"I would like to see it all," said Bébée, musingly trying to follow out +her thoughts. "But as for the garden work and the spinning--that I do not +want to leave, because I have done it all my life; and I do not think I +should care to wear lace--it would tear very soon; one would be afraid to +run; and do you see I know how it is made--all that lace. I know how +blind the eyes get over it, and how the hearts ache; I know how the old +women starve, and the little children cry; I know that there is not a +sprig of it that is not stitched with pain; the great ladies do not +think, I dare say, because they have never worked at it or watched the +others: but I have. And so, you see, I think if I wore it I should feel +sad, and if a nail caught on it I should feel as if it were tearing the +flesh of my friends. Perhaps I say it badly; but that is what I feel." + +"You do not say it badly--you speak well, for you speak from the heart," +he answered her, and felt a tinge of shame that he had tempted her with +the gold and purple of a baser world than any that she knew. + +"And yet you want to see new lands?" he pursued. "What is it you want to +see there?" + +"Ah, quite other things than these," cried Bébée, still leaning her +cheeks on her hands. "That dancing and singing is very pretty and merry, +but it is just as good when old Claude fiddles and the children skip. +This wine, you tell me, is something very great; but fresh milk is much +nicer, I think. It is not these kind of things I want--I want to know all +about the people who lived before us; I want to know what the stars are, +and what the wind is; I want to know where the lark goes when you lose +him out of sight against the sun; I want to know how the old artists got +to see God, that they could paint him and all his angels as they have +done; I want to know how the voices got into the bells, and how they can +make one's heart beat, hanging up there as they do, all alone among the +jackdaws; I want to know what it is when I walk in the fields in the +morning, and it is all gray and soft and still, and the corn-crake cries +in the wheat, and the little mice run home to their holes, that makes +me so glad and yet so sorrowful, as if I were so very near God, and yet +so all alone, and such a little thing; because you see the mouse she +has her hole, and the crake her own people, but I--" + +Her voice faltered a little and stopped: she had never before thought out +into words her own loneliness; from the long green arbor the voices of +the girls and the students sang,-- + +"Ah! le doux son d'un baiser tendre!" + +Flamen was silent. The poet in him--and in an artist there is always more +or less of the poet--kept him back from ridicule, nay, moved him to pity +and respect. + +They were absurdly simple words no doubt, had little wisdom in them, and +were quite childish in their utterance, and yet they moved him curiously +as a man very base and callous may at times be moved by the look in a +dying deer's eyes, or by the sound of a song that some lost love once +sang. + +He rose and drew her hands away, and took her small face between his own +hands instead. + +"Poor little Bébée!" he said gently, looking down on her with a breath +that was almost a sigh. "Poor little Bébée!--to envy the corncrake and +the mouse!" + +She was a little startled; her cheeks grew very warm under his touch, but +her eyes looked still into his without fear. + +He stooped and touched her forehead with his lips, gently and +without passion, almost reverently; she grew rose-hued as the bright +bean-flowers, up to the light gold ripples of her hair; she trembled a +little and drew back, but she was not alarmed nor yet ashamed; she was +too simple of heart to feel the fear that is born of passion and of +consciousness. + +It was as Jeannot kissed his sister Marie, who was fifteen years old and +sold milk for the Krebs people in the villages with a little green cart +and a yellow dog--no more. + +And yet the sunny arbor leaves and the glimpse of the blue sky swam round +her indistinctly, and the sounds of the guitar grew dull upon her ear and +were lost as in a rushing hiss of water, because of the great sudden +unintelligible happiness that seemed to bear her little life away on it +as a sea wave bears a young child off its feet. + +"You do not feel alone now, Bébée?" he whispered to her. + +"No!" she answered him softly under her breath, and sat still, while all +her body quivered like a leaf. + +No; how could she ever be alone now that this sweet, soft, unutterable +touch would always be in memory upon her; how could she wish ever again +now to be the corn-crake in the summer corn or the gray mouse in the +hedge of hawthorn? + +At that moment a student went by past the entrance of the arbor; he had a +sash round his loins and a paper feather in his cap; he was playing a +fife and dancing; he glanced in as he went. + +"It is time to go home, Bébée," said Flamen. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +So it came to pass that Bébée's day in the big forest came and went as +simply almost as any day that she had played away with the Varnhart +children under the beech shadows of Cambre woods. + +And when he took her to her hut at sunset before the pilgrims had +returned there was a great bewildered tumult of happiness in her heart, +but there was no memory with her that prevented her from looking at the +shrine in the wall as she passed it, and saying with a quick gesture of +the cross on brow and bosom,-- + +"Ah, dear Holy Mother, how good you have been! and I am back again, you +see, and I will work harder than ever because of all this joy that you +have given me." + +And she took another moss-rose and changed it for that of the morning, +which was faded, and said to Flamen.-- + +"Look--she sends you this. Now do you know what I mean? One is more +content when She is content." + +He did not answer, but he held her hands against him a moment as they +fastened in the rose bud. + +"Not a word to the pilgrims, Bébée--you remember?" + +"Yes, I will remember. I do not tell them every time I pray--it will be +like being silent about that--it will be no more wrong than that." + +But there was a touch of anxiety in the words; she was not quite certain; +she wanted to be reassured. Instinct moved her not to speak of him; but +habit made it seem wrong to her to have any secret from the people who +had been about her from her birth. + +He did not reassure her; her anxiety was pretty to watch, and he left the +trouble in her heart like a bee in the chalice of a lily. Besides, the +little wicket gate was between them; he was musing whether he would push +it open once more. + +Her fate was in the balance, though she did not dream it: he had dealt +with her tenderly, honestly, sacredly all that day--almost as much so as +stupid Jeannot could have done. He had been touched by her trust in him, +and by the unconscious beauty of her fancies, into a mood that was unlike +all his life and habits. But after all, he said to himself-- + +After all!-- + +Where he stood in the golden evening he saw the rosy curled mouth, the +soft troubled eves, the little brown hands that still tried to fasten +the rosebud, the young peach-like skin where the wind stirred the +bodice;--she was only a little Flemish peasant, this poor little Bébée, a +little thing of the fields and the streets, for all the dreams of God +that abode with her. After all--soon or late--the end would be always the +same. What matter! + +She would weep a little to-morrow, and she would not kneel any more at +the shrine in the garden wall; and then--and then--she would stay here +and marry the good boor Jeannot, just the same after a while; or drift +away after him to Paris, and leave her two little wooden shoes, and her +visions of Christ in the fields at evening, behind her forevermore, and +do as all the others did, and take not only silken stockings but the +Cinderella slipper that is called Gold, which brings all other good +things in its train;--what matter! + +He had meant this from the first, because she was so pretty, and those +little wooden sabots ran so lithely over the stones; though he was not in +love with her, but only idly stretched his hand for her as a child by +instinct stretches to a fruit that hangs in the sun a little rosier and a +little nearer than the rest. + +What matter--he said to himself--she loved him, poor little soul, though +she did not know it; and there would always be Jeannot glad enough of a +handful of bright French gold. + +He pushed the gate gently against her; her hands fastened the rosebud and +drew open the latch themselves. + +"Will you come in a little?" she said, with the happy light in her face. +"You must not stay long, because the flowers must be watered, and then +there are Annémie's patterns--they must be done or she will have no money +and so no food--but if you would come in for a little? And see, if you +wait a minute I will show you the roses that I shall cut to-morrow the +first thing, and take down to St. Guido to Our Lady's altar in +thank-offering for to-day. I should like you to choose them--you +yourself--and if you would just touch them I should feel as if you gave +them to her too. Will you?" + +She spoke with the pretty outspoken frankness of her habitual speech, +just tempered and broken with the happy, timid hesitation, the curious +sense at once of closer nearness and of greater distance, that had come +on her since he had kissed her among the bright beanflowers. + +He turned from her quickly. + +"No, dear, no. Gather your roses alone, Bébée; if I touch them their +leaves will fall." + +Then, with a hurriedly backward glance down the dusky lane to see that +none were looking, he bent his head and kissed her again quickly and with +a sort of shame, and swung the gate behind him and went away through +the boughs and the shadows. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +Bébée looked after him wistfully till his figure was lost in the gloom. + +The village was very quiet; a dog barking afar off and a cow lowing in +the meadow were the only living things that made their presence heard; +the pilgrims had not returned. + +She leaned on the gate a few minutes in that indistinct, dreamy happiness +which is the prerogative of innocent love. + +"How wonderful it is that he should give a thought to me!" she said again +and again to herself. It was as if a king had stooped for a little knot +of daisied grass to set it in his crown where the great diamonds should +be. + +She did not reason. She did not question. She did not look beyond that +hour--such is the privilege of youth. + +"How I will read! How I will learn! How wise I will try to be; and how +good, if I can!" she thought, swaying the little gate lightly under her +weight, and looking with glad eyes at the goats as they frisked with +their young in the pasture on the other side of the big trees, whilst one +by one the stars came out, and an owl hooted from the palace woods, and +the frogs croaked good-nights in the rushes. + +Then, like a little day laborer as she was, with the habit of toil and +the need of the poor upon her from her birth up, she shut down the latch +of the gate, kissed it where his hand had rested, and went to the well to +draw its nightly draught for the dry garden. + +"Oh, dear roses!" she said to them as she rained the silvery showers over +their nodding heads. "Oh, dear roses!--tell me--was ever anybody so happy +as I am? Oh, if you say 'yes' I shall tell you you lie; silly flowers +that were only born yesterday!" + +But the roses shook the water off them in the wind, and said, as she +wished them to say,-- + +"No--no one--ever before, Bébée--no one ever before." + +For roses, like everything else upon earth, only speak what our own heart +puts into them. + +An old man went past up the lane; old Jehan, who was too ailing and aged +to make one of the pilgrimage. He looked at the little quick-moving form, +grayish white in the starlight, with the dark copper vessel balanced on +her head, going to and fro betwixt the well and the garden. + +"You did not go to the pilgrimage, poor little one!" he said across the +sweetbrier hedge. "Nay, that was too bad; work, work, work--thy pretty +back should not be bent double yet. You want a holiday, Bébée; well, +the Fête Dieu is near. Jeannot shall take you, and maybe I can find a few +sous for gingerbread and merry-go-rounds. You sit dull in the market all +day; you want a feast." + +Bébée colored behind the hedge, and ran in and brought three new-laid +eggs that she had left in the flour-bin in the early morning, and thrust +them on him through a break in the brier. It was the first time she had +ever done anything of which she might not speak: she was ashamed, and yet +the secret was so sweet to her. + +"I am very happy, Jehan, thank God!" she murmured, with a tremulous +breath and a shine in her eyes that the old man's ears and sight were too +dull to discern. + +"So was _she_" muttered Jehan, as he thrust the eggs into his old +patched blue blouse,--"so was she. And then a stumble--a blow in the lane +there--a horse's kick--and all was over. All over, my pretty one--for +ever and ever." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +On a sudden impulse Flamen, going through the woodland shadows to the +city, paused and turned back; all his impulses were quick and swayed him +now hither, now thither, in many contrary ways. + +He knew that the hour was come--that he must leave her and spare her, as +to himself he phrased it, or teach her the love words that the daisies +whisper to women. + +And why not?--anyway she would marry Jeannot. + +He, half-way to the town, walked back again and paused a moment at the +gate; an emotion half pitiful, half cynical, stirred in him. + +Anyway he would leave her in a few days: Paris had again opened her arms +to him; his old life awaited him; women who claimed him by imperious, +amorous demands reproached him; and after all this day he had got the +Gretchen of his ideal, a great picture for the future of his fame. + +As he would leave her anyway so soon, he would leave her unscathed--poor +little field flower--he could never take it with him to blossom or wither +in Paris. + +His world would laugh too utterly if he made for himself a mistress out +of a little Fleming in two wooden shoes. Besides-- + +Besides, something that was half weak and half noble moved him not to +lead this child, in her trust and her ignorance, into ways that when she +awakened from her trance would seem to her shameful and full of sorrow. +For he knew that Bébée was not as others are. + +He turned back and knocked at the hut door and opened it. + +Bébée was just beginning to undress herself; she had taken off her white +kerchief and her wooden shoes; her pretty shoulders and her little neck +shone white in the moon; her feet were bare on the mud floor. + +She started with a cry and threw the handkerchief again on her shoulders, +but there was no fear of him; only the unconscious instinct of her +girlhood. + +He thought for a moment that he would not go away until the morrow-- + +"Did you want me?" said Bébée softly, with happy eyes of surprise and yet +a little startled, fearing some evil might have happened to him that he +should have returned thus. + +"No; I do not want you, dear," he said gently; no--he did not want her, +poor little soul; she wanted him, but he--there were so many of these +things in his life, and he liked her too well to love her. + +"No, dear, I did not want you," said Flamen, drawing her arms about him, +and feeling her flutter like a little bird, while the moonlight came in +through the green leaves and fell in fanciful patterns on the floor. "But +I came to say--you have had one happy day. Wholly happy, have you not, +poor little Bébée?" + +"Ah, yes!" she sighed rather than said the answer in her wondrous +gladness; drawn there close to him, with the softness of his lips upon +her. Could he have come back only to ask that? + +"Well, that is something. You will remember it always, Bébée?" he +murmured in his unconscious cruelty. "I did not wish to spoil your +cloudless pleasure, dear--for you care for me a little, do you not?--so I +came back to tell you only now, that I go away for a little while +to-morrow." + +"Go away!" + +She trembled in his arms and turned cold as ice; a great terror and +darkness fell upon her; she had never thought that he would ever go +away. He caressed her, and played with her as a boy may with a bird +before he wrings its neck. + +"You will come back?" + +He kissed her: "Surely." + +"To-morrow?" + +"Nay--not so soon." + +"In a week?" + +"Hardly." + +"In a month, then?" + +"Perhaps." + +"Before winter, anyway?" + +He looked aside from the beseeching, tearful, candid eyes, and kissed her +hair and her throat, and said, "Yes, dear--beyond a doubt." + +She clung to him, crying silently; he wished that women would not weep. + +"Come, Bébée, listen," he said coaxingly, thinking to break the +bitterness to her. "This is not wise, and it gives me pain. There is so +much for you to do. You know so little. There is so much to learn. I will +leave you many books, and you must grow quite learned in my absence. The +Virgin is all very well in her way, but she cannot teach us much, poor +lady. For her kingdom is called Ignorance. You must teach yourself. I +leave you that to do. The days will go by quickly if you are laborious +and patient. Do you love me, little one?" + +For an answer she kissed his hand. + +"You are a busy little Bébée always," he said, with his lips caressing +her soft brown arms that were round his neck. "But you must be busier +than ever whilst I am gone. So you will forget. No, no, I do not mean +that:--I mean so the time will pass quickest. And I shall finish your +picture, Bébée, and all Paris will see you, and the great ladies will +envy the little girl with her two wooden shoes. Ah! that does not +please you?--you care for none of these vanities. No. Poor little Bébée, +why did God make you, or Chance breathe life into you? You are so far +away from us all. It was cruel. What harm has your poor little soul ever +done that, pure as a flower, it should have been sent to the hell of this +world?" + +She clung to him, sobbing without sound. "You will come back? You will +come back?" she moaned, clasping him closer and closer. + +Flamen's own eyes grew dim. But he lied to her: "I will--I promise." + +It was so much easier to say so, and it would break her sorrow. So +he thought. + +For the moment again he was tempted to take her with him--but, he +resisted it--he would tire, and she would cling to him forever. + +There was a long silence. The bleating of the little kid in the shed +without was the only sound; the gray lavender blew to and fro. + +Her arms were close about his throat; he kissed them again, and kissed +her eyes, her cheek, her mouth; then put her from him quickly and went +out. + +She ran to him, and threw herself on the damp ground and held him there, +and leaned her forehead on his feet. But though he looked at her with wet +eyes, he did not yield, and he still said,-- + +"I will come back soon--very soon; be quiet, dear, let me go." + +Then he kissed her once more many times, and put her gently within the +door and closed it. + +A low, sharp, sudden cry reached him, went to his heart, but he did not +turn; he went on through the wet, green little garden, and the curling +leaves, where he had found peace and had left desolation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +"I will let her alone, and she will marry Jeannot," thought Flamen; and +he believed himself a good man for once in his life, and pitied himself +for having become a sentimentalist. + +She would marry Jeannot, and bear many children, as those people always +did; and ruddy little peasants would cling about these pretty, soft, +little breasts of hers; and she would love them after the manner of such +women, and be very content clattering over the stones in her wooden +shoes; and growing brown and stout, and more careful after money, and +ceasing to dream of unknown things, and not seeing God at all in the +fields, but looking low and beholding only the ears of the gleaning wheat +and the feet of the tottering children; and so gaining her bread, and +losing her soul, and stooping nearer and nearer to earth till she dropped +into it like one of her own wind-blown wall-flowers when the bee has +sucked out all its sweetness and the heats have scorched up all its +bloom:--yes, of course, she would marry Jeannot and end so! + +Meanwhile he had his Gretchen, and that was the one great matter. + +So he left the street of Mary of Burgundy, and went on his way out of the +chiming city as its matin bells were rung, and took with him a certain +regret, and the only innocent affection that had ever awakened in him; +and thought of his self-negation with half admiration and half derision; +and so drifted away into the whirlpool of his amorous, cynical, +changeful, passionate, callous, many-colored life, and said to himself as +he saw the last line of the low green plains shine against the sun, "She +will marry Jeannot--of course, she will marry Jeannot. And my Gretchen is +greater than Scheffer's." + +What else mattered very much, after all, except what they would say in +Paris of Gretchen? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +People saw that Bébée 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 hé! 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, Bébée, 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, +Bébée. 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, +Bébée 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, Bébée," said Annémie, 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 Bébée 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +The wheat was reapen in the fields, and the brown earth turned afresh. +The white and purple chrysanthemums bloomed against the flowerless +rose-bushes, and the little gray Michaelmas daisy flourished where the +dead carnations had spread their glories. Leaves began to fall and chilly +winds to sigh among the willows; the squirrels began to store away their +nuts, and the poor to pick up the broken bare boughs. + +"He said he would come before winter," thought Bébée, every day when she +rose and felt each morning cooler and grayer than the one before it; +winter was near. + +Her little feet already were cold in their wooden shoes; and the robin +already sang in the twigs of the sear sweetbrier; but she had the brave +sweet faith which nothing kills, and she did not doubt--oh! no, she did +not doubt, she was only tired. + +Tired of the strange, sleepless, feverish nights; tired of the long, +dull, empty days: tired of watching down the barren, leafless lane: +tired of hearkening breathless to each step on the rustling dead leaves; +tired of looking always, always, always, into the ruddy autumn evenings +and the cold autumn starlight, and never hearing what she listened for, +never seeing what she sought; tired as a child may be lost in a wood, and +wearily wearing its small strength and breaking its young heart in search +of the track forever missed, of the home forever beyond the horizon. + +Still she did her work and kept her courage. + +She took her way into the town with her basket full of the ruby and amber +of the dusky autumn blossoms, and when those failed, and the garden was +quite desolate, except for a promise of haws and of holly, she went, as +she had always done, to the lace-room, and gained her bread and the +chickens' corn each day by winding the thread round the bobbins; and at +nightfall when she had plodded home through the darksome roads and over +the sodden turf, and had lit her rushlight and sat down to her books, +with her hand buried in her hair, and her eyes smarting from the strain +of the lace-work and her heart aching with that new and deadly pain which +never left her now, she would read--read--read--read, and try and store +her brain with knowledge, and try and grasp these vast new meanings of +life that the books opened to her, and try and grow less ignorant against +he should return. + +There was much she could not understand, +bait there was also much she could. + +Her mind was delicate and quick, her intelligence swift and strong; she +bought old books at bookstalls with pence that she saved by going without +her dinner. The keeper of the stall, a shrewd old soul, explained some +hard points to her, and chose good volumes for her, and lent others to +this solitary little student in her wooden shoes and with her pale +child's face. + +So she toiled hard and learned much, and grew taller and very thin, and +got a look in her eyes like a lost dog's, and yet never lost heart or +wandered in the task that he had set her, or in her faith in his return. + +"Burn the books, Bébée," whispered the children again and again, clinging +to her skirts. "Burn the wicked, silent things. Since you have had them +you never sing, or romp, or laugh, and you look so white--so white." + +Bébée kissed them, but kept to her books. + +Jeannot going by from the forest night after night saw the light +twinkling in the hut window, and sometimes crept softly up and looked +through the chinks of the wooden shutter, and saw her leaning over some +big old volume with her pretty brows drawn together, and her mouth shut +close in earnest effort, and he would curse the man who had changed her +so and go away with rage in his breast and tears in his eyes, not daring +to say anything, but knowing that never would Bébée's little brown hand +lie in love within his own. + +Nor even in friendship, for he had rashly spoken rough words against the +stranger from Rubes' land, and Bébée ever since then had passed him by +with a grave, simple greeting, and when he had brought her in timid gifts +a barrow-load of fagots, had thanked him, but had bidden him take the +wood home to his mother. + +"You think evil things of me, Bébée?" good Jeannot had pleaded, with a +sob in his voice; and she had answered gently,-- + +"No; but do not speak to me, that is all." + +Then he had cursed her absent lover, and Bébée gone within and closed her +door. + +She had no idea that the people thought ill of her. They were cold to +her, and such coldness made her heart ache a little more. But the one +great love in her possessed her so strongly that all other things were +half unreal. + +She did her daily housework from sheer habit, and she studied because he +had told her to do it, and because with the sweet, stubborn, credulous +faith of her youth, she never doubted that he would return. + +Otherwise there was no perception of real life in her; she dreamed and +prayed, and prayed and dreamed, and never ceased to do either one or the +other, even when she was scattering potato-peels to the fowls, or shaking +carrots loose of the soil, or sweeping the snow from her hut door, or +going out in the raw dark dawn as the single little sad bell of St. Guido +tolled through the stillness for the first mass. + +For though even Father Francis looked angered at her because he thought +she was stubborn, and hid some truth and some shame from him at +confession, yet she went resolutely and oftener than ever to kneel in the +dusty, dusky, crumbling old church, for it was all she could do for him +who was absent--so she thought--and she did not feel quite so far away +from him when she was beseeching Christ to have care of his soul and of +his body. + +All her pretty dreams were dead. + +She never heard any story in the robin's song, or saw any promise in the +sunset clouds, or fancied that angels came about her in the night--never +now. + +The fields were gray and sad; the birds were little brown things; the +stars were cold and far off; the people she had used to care for were +like mere shadows that went by her meaningless and without interest, and +all she thought of was the one step that never came: all she wanted was +the one touch she never felt. + +"You have done wrong, Bébée, and you will not own it," said the few +neighbors who ever spoke to her. + +Bébée looked at them with wistful, uncomprehending eyes. + +"I have done no wrong," she said gently, but no one believed her. + +A girl did not shut herself up and wane pale and thin for nothing, so +they reasoned. She might have sinned as she had liked if she had been +sensible after it, and married Jeannot. + +But to fret mutely, and shut her lips, and seem as though she had done +nothing,--that was guilt indeed. + +For her village, in its small way, thought as the big world thinks. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +Full winter came. + +The snow was deep, and the winds drove the people with whips of ice along +the dreary country roads and the steep streets of the city. The bells of +the dogs and the mules sounded sadly through the white misty silence of +the Flemish plains, and the weary horses slipped and fell on the frozen +ruts and on the jagged stones in the little frost-shut Flemish towns. +Still the Flemish folk were gay enough in many places. + +There were fairs and kermesses; there were puppet plays and church +feasts; there were sledges on the plains and skates on the canals; there +were warm woollen hoods and ruddy wood fires; there were tales of demons +and saints, and bowls of hot onion soup; sugar images for the little +children, and blessed beads for the maidens clasped on rosy throats with +lovers' kisses; and in the city itself there was the high tide of the +winter pomp and mirth, with festal scenes in the churches, and balls at +the palaces, and all manner of gay things in toys and jewels, and music +playing cheerily under the leafless trees, and flashes of scarlet cloth, +and shining furs, and happy faces, and golden curls, in the carriages +that climbed the Montagne de la Cour, and filled the big place around the +statue of stout Godfrey. + +In the little village above St. Guido, Bébée's neighbors were merry too, +in their simple way. + +The women worked away wearily at their lace in the dim winter light, and +made a wretched living by it, but all the same they got penny playthings +for their babies, and a bit of cake for their Sunday-hearth. They drew +together in homely and cordial friendship, and of an afternoon when dusk +fell wove their lace in company in Mère Krebs's mill-house kitchen with +the children and the dogs at their feet on the bricks, so that one big +fire might serve for all, and all be lighted with one big rush candle, +and all be beguiled by chit-chat and songs, stories of spirits, and +whispers of ghosts, and now and then when the wind howled at its worst, a +paternoster or two said in common for the men toiling in the barges or +drifting up the Scheldt. + +In these gatherings Bébée's face was missed, and the blithe soft sound of +her voice, like a young thrush singing, was never heard. + +The people looked in, and saw her sitting over a great open book; often +her hearth had no fire. + +Then the children grew tired of asking her to play; and their elders +began to shake their heads; she was so pale and so quiet, there must be +some evil in it--so they began to think. + +Little by little people dropped away from her. Who knew, the gossips +said, what shame or sin the child might not have on her sick little soul? + +True, Bébée worked hard just the same, and just the same was seen +trudging to and fro in the dusk of dawns and afternoons in her two little +wooden shoes. She was gentle and laborious, and gave the children her +goat's milk, and the old women the brambles of her garden. + +But they grew afraid of her--afraid of that sad, changeless, far-away +look in her eves, and of the mute weariness that was on her--and, being +perplexed, were sure, like all ignorant creatures, that what was secret +must be also vile. + +So they hung aloof, and let her alone, and by and by scarcely nodded as +they passed her but said to Jeannot,-- + +"You were spared a bad thing, lad: the child was that grand painter's +light-o'-love, that is plain to see. The mischief all comes of the stuff +old Antoine filled her head with--a stray little by-blow of chickweed +that he cockered up like a rare carnation. Oh! do not fly in a rage, +Jeannot; the child is no good, and would have made an honest man rue. +Take heart of grace, and praise the saints, and marry Katto's Lisa." + +But Jeannot would never listen to the slanderers, and would never look at +Lisa, even though the door of the little hut was always closed against +him; and whenever he met Bébée on the highway she never seemed to see +him more than she saw the snow that her sabots were treading. + +One night in the midwinter-time old Annémie died. + +Bébée found her in the twilight with her head against the garret window, +and her left side all shrivelled and useless. She had a little sense +left, and a few fleeting breaths to draw. + +"Look for the brig," she muttered. "You will not see the flag at the +masthead for the fog to-night; but his socks are dry and his pipe is +ready. Keep looking--keep looking--she will be in port to-night." + +But her dead sailor never came into port; she went to him. The poor, +weakened, faithful old body of her was laid in the graveyard of the poor, +and the ships came and went under the empty garret window, and Bébée was +all alone. + +She had no more anything to work for, or any bond with the lives of +others. She could live on the roots of her garden and the sale of her +hens' eggs, and she could change the turnips and carrots that grew in a +little strip of her ground for the quantity of bread that she needed. + +So she gave herself up to the books, and drew herself more and more +within from the outer world. She did not know that the neighbors thought +very evil of her; she had only one idea in her mind--to be more worthy of +him against he should return. + +The winter passed away somehow, she did not know how. + +It was a long, cold, white blank of frozen silence: that was all. She +studied hard, and had got a quaint, strange, deep, scattered knowledge +out of her old books; her face had lost all its roundness and color, but, +instead, the forehead had gained breadth and the eyes had the dim fire of +a student's. + +Every night when she shut her volumes she thought,-- + +"I am a little nearer him. I know a little more." + +Just so every morning, when she bathed her hands in the chilly water, she +thought to herself, "I will make my skin as soft as I can for him, that +it may be like the ladies' he has loved." + +Love to be perfect must be a religion, as well as a passion. Bébée's was +so. Like George Herbert's serving-maiden, she swept no specks of dirt +away from a floor without doing it to the service of her lord. + +Only Bébée's lord was a king of earth, made of earth's dust and vanities. + +But what did she know of that? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +The winter went by, and the snow-drops and crocus and pale hepatica +smiled at her from the black clods. Every other springtime Bébée had run +with fleet feet under the budding trees down into the city, and had sold +sweet little wet bunches of violets and brier before all the snow was +melted from the eaves of the Broodhuis. + +"The winter is gone," the townspeople used to say; "look, there is Bébée +with the flowers." + +But this year they did not see the little figure itself like a rosy +crocus standing against the brown timbers of the Maison de Roi. + +Bébée had not heart to pluck a single blossom of them all. She let them +all live, and tended them so that the little garden should look its best +and brightest to him when his hand should lift its latch. + +Only he was so long coming--so very long; the violets died away, and the +first rosebuds came in their stead, and still Bébée looked every dawn and +every nightfall vainly down the empty road. + +Nothing kills young creatures like the bitterness of waiting. + +Pain they will bear, and privation they will pass through, fire and water +and storm will not appall them, nor wrath of heaven and earth, but +waiting--the long, tedious, sickly, friendless days, that drop one by one +in their eternal sameness into the weary past, these kill slowly +but surely, as the slow dropping of water frets away rock. + +The summer came. + +Nearly a year had gone by. Bébée worked early and late. The garden +bloomed like one big rose, and the neighbors shook their heads to see the +flowers blossom and fall without bringing in a single coin. + +She herself spoke less seldom than ever; and now when old Jehan, who +never had understood the evil thoughts of his neighbors, asked her +what ailed her that she looked so pale and never stirred down to the +city, now her courage failed her, and the tears brimmed over her eyes, +and she could not call up a brave brief word to answer him. For the time +was so long, and she was so tired. + +Still she never doubted that her lover would comeback: he had said he +would come: she was as sure that he would come as she was sure that God +came in the midst of the people when the silver bell rang and the Host +was borne by on high. + +Bébée did not heed much, but she vaguely-felt the isolation she was left +in: as a child too young to reason feels cold and feels hunger. + +"No one wants me here now that Annémie is gone," she thought to herself, +as the sweet green spring days unfolded themselves one by one like the +buds of the brier-rose hedges. + +And now and then even the loyal little soul of her gave way, and sobbing +on her lonely bed in the long dark nights, she would cry out against him, +"Oh, why not have left me alone? I was so happy--so happy!" + +And then she would reproach herself with treason to him and ingratitude, +and hate herself and feel guilty in her own sight to have thus sinned +against him in thought for one single instant. + +For there are natures in which the generosity of love is so strong that +it feels its own just pain to be disloyalty; and Bébée's was one of them. +And if he had killed her she would have died hoping only that no moan had +escaped her under the blow that ever could accuse him. + +These natures, utterly innocent by force of self-accusation and +self-abasement, suffer at once the torment of the victim and the +criminal. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +One day in the May weather she sat within doors with a great book upon +her table, but no sight for it in her aching eyes. The starling hopped to +and fro on the sunny floor; the bees boomed in the porch; the tinkle of +sheep's bells came in on the stillness. All was peaceful and happy except +the little weary, breaking, desolate heart that beat in her like a caged +bird's. + +"He will come; I am sure he will come," she said to herself; but she was +so tired, and it was so long--oh, dear God!--so very long. + +A hand tapped at the lattice. The shrill voice of Reine, the +sabot-maker's wife, broken with anguish, called through the hanging +ivy,-- + +"Bébée, you are a wicked one, they say, but the only one there is at home +in the village this day. Get you to town for the love of Heaven, and send +Doctor Max hither, for my pet, my flower, my child lies dying, and not a +soul near, and she black as a coal with choking--go, go, go!--and Mary +will forgive you your sins. Save the little one, dear Bébée, do you hear? +and I will pray God and speak fair the neighbors for you. Go!" + +Bébée rose up, startled by the now unfamiliar sound of a human voice, and +looked at the breathless mother with eyes of pitying wonder. + +"Surely I will go," she said, gently; "but there is no need to bribe me. +I have not sinned greatly--that I know." + +Then she went out quickly and ran through the lanes and into the city for +the sick child, and found the wise man, and sent him, and did the errand +rather in a sort of sorrowful sympathetic instinct than in any reasoning +consciousness of doing good. + +When she was moving through the once familiar and happy ways as the sun +was setting on the golden fronts of the old houses, and the chimes were +ringing from the many towers, a strange sense of unreality, of +non-existence, fell upon her. + +Could it be she?--she indeed--who had gone there the year before the +gladdest thing that the earth bore, with no care except to shelter her +flowers from the wind, and keep the freshest blossoms for the +burgomaster's housewife? + +She did not think thus to herself; but a vague doubt that she could ever +have been the little gay, laborious, happy Bébée, with troops of friends +and endless joys for every day that dawned, came over her as she went by +the black front of the Broodhuis. + +The strong voice of Lisa, the fruit girl, jarred on her as she passed the +stall under its yellow awning that was flapping sullenly in the evening +wind. + +"Oh hé, little fool," the mocking voice cried, "the rind of the fine pine +is full of prickles, and stings the lips when the taste is gone?--to be +sure--crack common nuts like me and you are never wanting--hazels grow +free in every copse. Prut, tut! your grand lover lies a-dying; so the +students read out of this just now; and you such a simpleton as not to +get a roll of napoleons out of him before he went to rot in Paris. I dare +say he was poor as sparrows, if one knew the truth. He was only a +painter after all." + +Lisa tossed her as she spoke a torn sheet, in which she was wrapping +gentians: it was a piece of newspaper some three weeks old, and in it +there was a single line or so which said that the artist Flamen, whose +Gretchen was the wonder of the Salon of the year, lay sick unto death in +his rooms in Paris. + +Bébée stood and read; the strong ruddy western light upon the type, the +taunting laughter of the fruit girl on her ear. + +A bitter shriek rang from her that made even the cruelty of Lisa's mirth +stop in a sudden terror. + +She stood staring like a thing changed to stone down on the one name that +to her rilled all the universe. + +"Ill--he is ill--do you hear?" she echoed piteously, looking at Lisa; +"and you say he is poor?" + +"Poor? for sure! is he not a painter?" said the fruit girl, roughly. She +judged by her own penniless student lads; and she was angered with +herself for feeling sorrow for this little silly thing that she had loved +to torture. + +"You have been bad and base to me; but now--I bless you, I love you, I +will pray for you," said Bébée, in a swift broken breath, and with a look +upon her face that startled into pain her callous enemy. + +Then without another word, she thrust the paper in her bosom, and ran out +of the square breathless with haste and with a great resolve. + +He was ill--and he was poor! The brave little soul of her leaped at once +to action. He was sick, and far away; and poor they said. All danger and +all difficulty faded to nothing before the vision of his need. + +Bébée was only a little foundling who ran about in wooden shoes; but she +had the "dog's soul" in her--the soul that will follow faithfully though +to receive a curse, that will defend loyally though to meet a blow, and +that will die mutely loving to the last. + +She went home, how she never knew; and without the delay of a moment +packed up a change of linen, and fed the fowls and took the key of the +hut down to old Jehan's cabin. The old man was only half-witted by reason +of his affliction for his dead daughter, but he was shrewd enough to +understand what she wanted of him, and honest enough to do it. + +"I am going into the city," she said to him: "and if I am not back +to-night, will you feed the starling and the hens, and water the flowers +for me?" + +Old Jehan put his head out of his lattice: it was seven in the evening, +and he was going to bed. + +"What are you after, little one?" he asked: going to show the fine +buckles at a students' ball? Nay, fie; that is not like you." + +"I am going to--pray--dear Jehan," she answered, with a sob in her throat +and the first falsehood she ever had told. "Do what I ask you--do for +your dead daughter's sake--or the birds and the flowers will die of +hunger and thirst. Take the key and promise me." + +He took the key, and promised. + +"Do not let them see those buckles shine; they will rob you," he added. + +Bébée ran from him fast; every moment that was lost was so precious and +so terrible. To pause a second for fear's sake never occurred to her. She +went forth as fearlessly as a young swallow, born in northern April days, +flies forth on instinct to new lands and over unknown seas when autumn +falls. + +Necessity and action breathed new life into her. The hardy and brave +peasant ways of her were awoke once more. She had been strong to wait +silently with the young life in her dying out drop by drop in the +heart-sickness of long delay. She was strong now to throw herself into +strange countries and dim perils and immeasurable miseries, on the sole +chance that she might be of service to him. + +A few human souls here and there can love like dogs. Bébée's was one. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +It was dark. The May days are short in the north lands of the Scheldt. + +She had her little winter cloak of frieze and her wooden shoes and her +little white cap with the sunny curls rippling out of it in their pretty +rebellion. She had her little lantern too; and her bundle, and she had +put a few fresh eggs in her basket, with some sweet herbs and the +palm-sheaf that Father Francis had blessed last Easter; for who could +tell, she thought, how ill he might not be, or how poor? + +She hardly gave a look to the hut as she ran by its garden gate; all her +heart was on in front, in the vague far-off country where he lay sick +unto death. + +She ran fast through the familiar lanes into the city. She was not very +sure where Paris was, but she had the name clear and firm, and she knew +that people were always coming and going thence and thither, so that she +had no fear she should not find it. + +She went straight to the big, busy, bewildering place in the Leopold +quarter where the iron horses fumed every day and night along the iron +ways. She had never been there before, but she knew it was by that great +highway that the traffic to Paris was carried on, and she knew that it +would carry people also as well. + +There were bells clanging, lights flashing, and crowds pushing and +shouting, as she ran up--a little gray figure, with the lantern-spark +glimmering like any tiny glow-worm astray in a gas-lit city. + +"To Paris?" she asked, entreatingly, going where she saw others going, to +a little grated wicket in a wall. + +"Twenty-seven francs--quick!" they demanded of her. Bébée gave a great +cry, and stood still, trembling and trying not to sob aloud. She had +never thought of money; she had forgotten that youth and strength and +love and willing feet and piteous prayers,--all went for nothing as this +world is made. + +A hope flashed on her and a glad thought. She loosed the silver buckles, +and held them out. + +"Would you take these? They are worth much more." + +There was a derisive laughter; some one bade her with an oath begone; +rough shoulders jostled her away. She stretched her arms out piteously. + +"Take me--oh, pray take me! I will go with the sheep, with the +cattle--only, only take me!" + +But in the rush and roar none heeded her; some thief snatched the silver +buckles from her hand, and made off with them and was lost in the throng; +a great iron beast rushed by her, snorting flame and bellowing smoke; +there was a roll like thunder, and all was dark; the night express had +passed on its way to Paris. + +Bébée stood still, crushed for a moment with the noise and the cruelty +and the sense of absolute desolation; she scarcely noticed that the +buckles had been stolen; she had only one thought--to get to Paris. + +"Can I never go without money?" she asked at the wicket; the man there +glanced a moment, with a touch of pity, at the little wistful face. + +"The least is twenty francs--surely you must know that?" he said, and +shut his grating with a clang. + +Bébée turned away and went out of the great cruel, tumultuous place; her +heart ached and her brain was giddy, but the sturdy courage of her nature +rose to need. + +"There is no way at all to go without money to Paris, I suppose?" she +asked of an old woman whom she knew a little, who sold nuts and little +pictures of saints and wooden playthings under the trees, in the avenue +hard by. + +The old woman shook her head. + +"Eh?--no, dear. There is nothing to be done anywhere in the world without +money. Look, I cannot get a litre of nuts to sell unless I pay +beforehand." + +"Would it be far to walk?" + +"Far! Holy Jesus! It is right away in the heart of France--over two +hundred miles, they say; straight out through the forest. Not but what my +son did walk it once;--and he a shoemaker, who knows what walking costs; +and he is well-to-do there now--not that he ever writes. When they want +nothing people never write." + +"And he walked into Paris?" + +"Yes, ten years ago. He had nothing but a few sous and an ash stick, and +he had a fancy to try his luck there. And after all our feet were given +us to travel with. If you go there and you see him, tell him to send me +something--I am tired of selling nuts." + +Bébée said nothing, but went on her road; since there was no other way +but to walk, she would take that way; the distance and the hardship did +not appall two little feet that were used to traverse so many miles of +sun-baked summer dust and of frozen winter mud unblenchingly year after +year. + +The time it would take made her heart sink indeed. He was ill. God knew +what might happen. But neither the length of leagues nor the fatigue of +body daunted her. She only saw his eyes dim with pain and his lips burned +with fever. + +She would walk twenty miles a day, and then, perhaps, she might get lifts +here and there on hay wagons or in pedlers' carts; people had always used +to be kind to her. Anyhow she counted she might reach Paris well in +fifteen days. + +She sat under a shrine in a by street a moment, and counted the copper +pieces she had on her; they were few, and the poor pretty buckles that +she might have sold to get money were stolen. + +She had some twenty sous and a dozen eggs; she thought she might live on +that; she had wanted to take the eggs to him, but after all, to keep life +in her until she could reach Paris was the one great thing. + +"What a blessing it is to have been born poor; and to have lived +hardly--one wants so little!" she thought to herself. + +Then she put up the sous in the linen bosom of her gown, and trimmed her +little lantern and knelt down in the quiet darkness and prayed a moment, +with the hot agonized tears rolling down her face, and then rose and +stepped out bravely in the cool of the night, on the great southwest road +towards Paris. + +The thought never once crossed her to turn back, and go again into the +shelter of her own little hut among the flowers. He was sick there, +dying, for anything she knew; that was the only thing she remembered. + +It was a clear, starlit night, and everywhere the fragrance of the spring +was borne in from the wide green plains, and the streams where the rushes +were blowing. + +She walked ten miles easily, the beautiful gray shadow all about her. She +had never been so far from home in all her life, except to that one +Kermesse at Mechlin. But she was not afraid. + +With the movement, and the air, and the sense that she was going to him, +which made her happy even in her misery, something of the old, sweet, +lost fancies came to her. + +She smiled at the stars through her tears, and as the poplars swayed and +murmured in the wind, they looked to her like the wings and the swords +of a host of angels. + +Her way lay out through the forest, and in that sweet green woodland she +was not afraid--no more afraid than the fawns were. + +At Boitsfort she shrank a little, indeed. Here there were the open-air +restaurants, and the café gardens all alight for the pleasure-seekers +from the city; here there were music and laughter, and horses with brass +bells, and bright colors on high in the wooden balconies, and below among +the blossoming hawthorn hedges. She had to go through it all, and +she shuddered a little as she ran, thinking of that one priceless, +deathless forest day when he had kissed her first. + +But the pleasure-people were all busied with their mirth and mischief, +and took no notice of the little gray figure in the starry night. She +went on along the grassy roads, under the high arching trees, with the +hoot of the owls and the cry of the rabbits on the stillness. + +At Groenendael, in the heart of the forest midnight was striking as she +entered the village. Every one was asleep. The lights were all out The +old ruined priory frowned dark under the clouds. + +She shivered a little again, and began to feel chill and tired, yet did +not dare to knock at any one of the closed house doors--she had no money. + +So she walked on her first ten unknown miles, meeting a few people only, +and being altogether unmolested--a small gray figure, trotting in two +little wooden shoes. + +They thought her a peasant going to a fair or a lace mill, and no one did +her more harm than to wish her good night in rough Flemish. + +When the dawn began to whiten above the plains of the east, she saw an +empty cow-shed filled with hay; she was a little tired, and lay down and +rested an hour or two, as a young lamb might have lain on the dried +clover, for she knew that she must keep her strength and husband her +power, or never reach across the dreary length of the foreign land to +Paris. + +But by full sunrise she was on her way again, bathing her face in a brook +and buying a sou's worth of bread and flet-milk at the first cottage that +she passed in bright, leaf-bowered Hoey-laert. + +The forest was still all around her, with its exquisite life of bough and +blossom, and murmur of insect and of bird. She told her beads, praying as +she went, and was almost happy. + +God would not let him die. Oh, no, not till she had kissed him once more, +and could die with him. + +The hares ran across the path, and the blue butterflies flew above-head. +There was purple gloom of pine wood, and sparkling verdure of aspen and +elm. There were distant church carillons ringing, and straight golden +shafts of sunshine streaming. + +She was quite sure God would not let him die. + +She hoped that he might be very poor. At times he had talked as if he +were, and then she might be of so much use. She knew how to deal with +fever and suffering. She had sat up many a night with the children of the +village. The gray sisters had taught her many of their ways of battling +with disease; and she could make fresh cool drinks, and she could brew +beautiful remedies from simple herbs. There was so much that she might +do; her fancy played with it almost happily. And then, only to touch his +hand, only to hear his voice; her heart rose at the thought, as a lark to +its morning song. + +At Rixensart, buried in its greenery, as she went through it in morning +light, some peasants greeted her cheerily, and called to her to rest in a +house porch, and gave her honey and bread. She could not eat much; her +tongue was parched and her throat was dry, but the kindness was precious +to her, and she went on her road the stronger for it. + +"It is a long way to walk to Paris," said the woman, with some curious +wonder. Bébée smiled, though her eyes grew wet. + +"She has the look of the little Gesù," said the Rixensart people; and +they watched her away with a vague timid pity. + +So she went on through Ottignies and La Roche to Villers, and left the +great woods and the city chimes behind her, and came through the green +abbey valleys through Tilly and Ligny, and Fleurus, and so into the coal +and iron fields that lie round Charleroi. + +Here her heart grew sick, and her courage sank under the noise and the +haste, before the blackness and the hideousness. She had never seen +anything like it. She thought it was hell, with the naked, swearing, +fighting people, and the red fires leaping night and day. Nevertheless, +if hell it were, since it lay betwixt her and him, she found force to +brave and cross it. + +The miners and glass-blowers and nail-makers, rough and fierce and hard, +frightened her. The women did not look like women, and the children ran +and yelled at her, and set their dogs upon her. The soil was thick with +dust like soot, and the trees were seared and brown. There was no peace +in the place, and no loveliness. Eighty thousand folks toiled together in +the hopeless Tophet, and swarmed, and struggled, and labored, and +multiplied, in joyless and endless wrestling against hunger and death. + +She got through it somehow, hiding often from the ferocious youngsters, +and going sleepless rather than lie in those dens of filth; but she +seemed so many, many years older when Charleroi lay at last behind +her,--so many, many years older than when she had sat and spun in the +garden at home. + +When she was once in the valley of the Sambre she was more herself again, +only she felt weaker than she had ever done, because she only dared to +spend one of her sous each day, and one sou got so little food. + +In the woods and fields about Alne she began to breathe again, like a +bird loosed to the air after being shut in a wooden trap. Green corn, +green boughs, green turf, mellow chimes of church bells, humming of +golden bees, cradle songs of women spinning, homely odors of little herb +gardens and of orchard trees under cottage walls,--these had been around +her all her life; she only breathed freely among them. + +She often felt tired, and her wooden shoes were wearing so thin that the +hot dust of the road at noonday burnt her feet through them. Sometimes, +too, she felt a curious brief faintness, such as she had never known, for +the lack of food and the long fatigue began to tell even on her hardy +little body. + +But she went on bravely, rarely doing less than her twenty miles a day, +and sometimes more, walking often in the night to save time, and lying +down in cow-sheds or under haystacks in the noontide. + +For the most part people were kind to her; they saw she was so very young +and so poor. + +Women would give her leave to bathe herself in their bedchambers, +and children would ask her to wait on the village bench under the +chestnut-tree, while they brought her their pet lamb or their tumbler +pigeons to look at, but, for the most part--unless she was very, very +tired--she would not wait. It took her so long, and who could tell how it +fared with him in Paris? + +Into the little churches, scattered over the wide countries between +Charleroi and Erquelinnes, she would turn aside, indeed; but, then, +that was only to say a prayer for him; that was not loss to him, but +gain. + +So she walked on until she reached the frontier of France. She began to +get a little giddy; she began to see the blue sky and the green level +always swirling round her as if some one were spinning them to frighten +her, but still she would not be afraid; she went on, and on, and on, till +she set her last step on the soil of Flanders. + +Here a new, strange, terrible, incomprehensible obstacle opposed her: she +had no papers; they thrust her back and spoke to her as if she were a +criminal. She could not understand what they could mean. She had never +heard of these laws and rules. She vaguely comprehended that she must not +enter France, and stunned and heartbroken she dropped down under a tree, +and for the first time sobbed as if her very life would weep itself away. + +She could see nothing, understand nothing. There were the same road, the +same hedges, the same fields, the same white cottages, and peasants in +blue shirts and dun-hued oxen in the wagons. She saw no mark, no +difference, ere they told her where she stood was Belgium, and where they +stood was France, and that she must not pass from one into the other. + +The men took no notice of her. They went back into their guard-house, +and smoked and drank. A cat sunned herself under a scarlet bean. The +white clouds sailed on before a southerly sky. She might die here--he +there--and nothing seemed to care. + +After a while an old hawker came up; he was travelling with wooden clocks +from the Black Forest. He stopped and looked at her, and asked her what +she ailed. + +She knelt down at his feet in the dust. + +"Oh, help me!" she cried to him. "Oh, pray, help me! I have walked all +the way from Brussels--that is my country--and now they will not let me +pass that house where the soldiers are. They say I have no papers. What +papers should I have? I do not know. When one has done no harm, and does +not owe a sou anywhere, and has walked all the way--Is it money that they +want? I have none; and they stole my silver clasps in Brussels; and if +I do not get to Paris I must die--die without seeing him again--ever +again, dear God!" + +She dropped her head upon the dust and crouched and sobbed there, her +courage broken by this new barrier that she had never dreamed would come +between herself and Paris. + +The old hawker looked at her thoughtfully. He had seen much of men and +women, and knew truth from counterfeit, and he was moved by the child's +agony. + +He stooped and whispered in her ear,-- + +"Get up quick, and I will pass you. It is against the law, and I may go +to prison for it. Never mind; one must risk something in this world, or +else be a cur. My daughter has stayed behind in Marbais sweethearting; +her name is on my passport, and her age and face will do for yours. Get +up and follow me close, and I will get you through. Poor little soul! +Whatever your woe is it is real enough, and you are such a young and +pretty thing. Get up, the guards are in their house, they have not seen; +follow me, and you must not speak a word; they must take you for a +German, dumb as wood." + +She got up and obeyed him, not comprehending, but only vaguely seeing +that he was friendly to her, and would pass her over into France. + +The old man made a little comedy at the barrier, and scolded her as +though she were his daughter for losing her way as she came to meet him, +and then crying like a baby. + +The guards looked at her carelessly, joked the hawker on her pretty face, +looked the papers over, and let her through, believing her the child of +the clock-maker of the Hartz. Some lies are blessed as truth. + +"I have done wrong in the law, but not before God, I think, little one," +said the pedler. "Nay, do not thank me, or go on like that; we are in +sight of the customs men still, and if they suspected, it would be the +four walls of a cell only that you and I should see to-night. And now +tell me your story, poor maiden: why are you on foot through a strange +country?" + +But Bébée would not tell him her story: she was confused and dazed still. +She did not know rightly what had happened to her; but she could not talk +of herself, nor of why she travelled thus to Paris. + +The old hawker got cross at her silence, and called her an unthankful +jade, and wished that he had left her to her fate, and parted company +with her at two cross-roads, saying his path did not lie with hers; and +then when he had done that, was sorry, and being a tenderhearted soul, +hobbled back, and would fain press a five-franc piece on her; and Bébée, +refusing it all the while, kissed his old brown hands and blessed him, +and broke away from him, and so went on again solitary towards St. +Quentin. + +The country was very flat and poor, and yet the plains had a likeness in +them to her own wide Brabant downs, where the tall green wheat was +blowing and the barges dropping down the sluggish streams. + +She was very footsore; very weary; very hungry so often; but she was in +France--in his country; and her spirit rose with the sense of that +nearness to him. + +After all, God was so good to her; there were fine bright days and +nights; a few showers had fallen, but merely passing ones; the air was so +cool and so balmy that it served her almost as food; and she seldom found +people so unkind that they refused for her single little sou to give her +a crust of bread and let her lie in an outhouse. + +After all, God was very good; and by the sixteenth or seventeenth day she +would be in the city of Paris. + +She was a little light-headed at times from insufficient nourishment: +especially after waking from strange dreams in unfamiliar places; +sometimes the soil felt tremulous under her, and the sky spun round; but +she struggled against the feeling, and kept a brave heart, and tried to +be afraid of nothing. + +Sometimes at night she thought she saw old Annémie. "But what if I do?" +she said to herself; "Annémie never will hurt me." + +And now, as she grew nearer her goal, her natural buoyancy of spirit +returned as it had never done to her since the evening that he had kissed +and left her. As her body grew lighter and more exhausted, her fancy grew +keener and more dominant. All things of the earth and air spoke to her as +she went along as they had used to do. All that she had learned from the +books in the long cold months came to her clear and wonderful. She was +not so very ignorant now--ignorant, indeed, beside him--but still knowing +something that would make her able to read to him if he liked it, and to +understand if he talked of grave things. + +She had no fixed thought of what she would be to him when she reached +him. + +She fancied she would wait on him, and tend him, and make him well, and +be caressed by him, and get all gracious pretty things of leaf and +blossom about him, and kneel at his feet, and be quite happy if he only +touched her now and then with his lips;--her thoughts went no further +than that;--her love for him was of that intensity and absorption in +which nothing But itself is remembered. + +When a creature loves much, even when it is as little and as simple a +soul as Bébée, the world and all its people and all its laws and ways are +as naught. They cease to exist; they are as though they had never been. + +Whoever recollects an outside world may play with passion, or may idle +with sentiment, but does not love. + +She did not hear what the villagers said to her. She did not see the +streets of the towns as she passed them. She kept herself clean always, +and broke fast now and then by sheer instinct of habit, nothing more. She +had no perception what she did, except of walking--walking--walking +always, and seeing the white road go by like pale ribbons unrolled. + +She got a dreamy, intense, sleepless light in her blue eyes that +frightened some of those she passed. They thought she had been +fever-stricken, and was not in her senses. + +So she went across the dreary lowlands, wearing out her little sabots, +but not wearing out her patience and her courage. + +She was very dusty and jaded. Her woollen skirt was stained with weather +and torn with briers. But she had managed always to wash her cap white in +brook water, and she had managed always to keep her pretty bright curls +soft and silken--for he had liked them so much, and he would soon draw +them through his hand again. So she told herself a thousand times to give +her strength when the mist would come over her sight, and the earth would +seem to tremble as she went. On the fifteenth day from the night when she +had left her hut by the swans' water, Bébée saw Paris. + +Shining away in the sun; white and gold; among woods and gardens she saw +Paris. + +She was so tired--oh, so tired--but she could not rest now. There were +bells ringing always in her ears, and a heavy pain always in her head. +But what of that?--she was so near to him. + +"Are you ill, you little thing?" a woman asked her who was gathering +early cherries in the outskirts of the great city. + +Bébée looked at her and smiled: "I do not know--I am happy." + +And she went onward. + +It was evening. The sun had set. She had not eaten for twenty-four hours. +But she could not pause for anything now. She crossed the gleaming river, +and she heard the cathedral chimes. Paris in all its glory was about her, +but she took no more note of it than a pigeon that flies through it +intent on reaching home. + +No one looked at or stopped her; a little dusty peasant with a bundle on +a stick over her shoulder. + +The click-clack of her wooden shoes on the hot pavements made none look +up; little rustics came up every day like this to make their fortunes in +Paris. Some grew into golden painted silken flowers, the convolvuli of +their brief summer days; and some drifted into the Seine water, rusted, +wind-tossed, fallen leaves, that were wanted of no man. Anyhow it was +so common to see them, pretty but homely things, with their noisy shoes +and their little all in a bundle, that no one even looked once at Bébée. + +She was not bewildered. As she had gone through her own city, only +thinking of the roses in her basket and of old Annémie in her garret, so +she went through Paris, only thinking of him for whose sake she had come +thither. + +Now that she was really in his home she was happy,--happy though her head +ached with that dull odd pain, and all the sunny glare went round and +round like a great gilded humming-top, such as the babies clapped their +hands at, at the Kermesse. + +She was happy: she felt sure now that God would not let him die till she +got to him. She was quite glad that he had left her all that long, +terrible winter, for she had learned so much and was so much more fitted +to be with him. + +Weary as she was, and strange as the pain in her head made her feel, she +was happy, very happy; a warm flush came on her little pale cheeks as she +thought how soon he would kiss them, her whole body thrilled with the old +sweet nameless joy that she had sickened for in vain so long. + +Though she saw nothing else that was around her, she saw some little +knots of moss-roses that a girl was selling on the quay, as she used to +sell them in front of the Maison du Roi. She had only two sous left, but +she stopped and bought two little rosebuds to take to him. He had used to +care for them so much in the summer in Brabant. + +The girl who sold them told her the way to the street he lived in; it was +not very far of the quay. She seemed to float on air, to have wings like +the swallows, to hear beautiful musk all around. She felt for her beads, +and said aves of praise. God was so good. + +It was quite night when she reached the street, and sought the number of +his house. She spoke his name softly, and trembling very much with joy, +not with any fear, but it seemed to her too sacred a thing ever to utter +aloud. + +An old man looked out of a den by the door, and told her to go straight +up the stairs to the third floor, and then turn to the right. The old +man chuckled as he glanced after her, and listened to the wooden shoes +pattering wearily up the broad stone steps. + +Bébée climbed them--ten, twenty, thirty, forty. "He must be very poor!" +she thought, "to live so high"; and yet the place was wide and handsome, +and had a look of riches. Her heart beat so fast, she felt suffocated; +her limbs shook, her eyes had a red blood-like mist floating before them; +but she thanked God each step she climbed; a moment, and she would +look upon the only face she loved. + +"He will be glad; oh, I am sure he will be glad!" she said to herself, as +a fear that had never before come near her touched her for a moment--if +he should not care? + +But even then, what did it matter? Since he was ill she should be there +to watch him night and day; and when he was well again, if he should wish +her to go away--one could always die. + +"But he will be glad--oh, I know he will be glad!" she said to the +rosebuds that she carried to him. "And if God will only let me save his +life, what else do I want more?" + +His name was written on a door before her. The handle of a bell hung +down; she pulled it timidly. The door unclosed; she saw no one, and went +through. There were low lights burning. There were heavy scents that were +strange to her. There was a fantastic gloom from old armor, and old +weapons, and old pictures in the dull rich chambers. The sound of her +wooden shoes was lost in the softness and thickness of the carpets. + +It was not the home of a poor man. A great terror froze her heart,--if +she were not wanted here? + +She went quickly through three rooms, seeing no one and at the end of +the third there were folding doors. + +"It is I--Bébée." she said softly, as she pushed them gently apart; and +she held out the two moss-rosebuds. + +Then the words died on her lips, and a great horror froze her, still and +silent, there. + +She saw the dusky room as in a dream. She saw him stretched on the bed, +leaning on his elbow, laughing, and playing cards upon the lace coverlet. +She saw women with loose shining hair and bare limbs, and rubies and +diamonds glimmering red and white. She saw men lying about upon the +couch, throwing dice and drinking and laughing one with another. + +Beyond all she saw against the pillows of his bed a beautiful brown +wicked looking thing like some velvet snake, who leaned over him as +he threw down the painted cards upon the lace, and who had cast about his +throat her curved bare arm with the great coils of dead gold all +a-glitter on it. + +And above it all there were odors of wines and flowers, clouds of smoke, +shouts of laughter, music of shrill gay voices. + +She stood like a frozen creature and saw--the rosebuds' in her hand. Then +with a great piercing cry she let the little roses fall, and turned and +fled. At the sound he looked up and saw her, and shook his beautiful +brown harlot off him with an oath. + +But Bébée flew down through the empty chambers and the long stairway as a +hare flies from the hounds; her tired feet never paused, her aching limbs +never slackened; she ran on, and on, and on, into the lighted streets, +into the fresh night air; on, and on, and on, straight to the river. + +From its brink some man's strength caught and held her. She struggled +with it. + +"Let me die! let me die!" she shrieked to him, and strained from him to +get at the cool gray silent water that waited for her there. + +Then she lost all consciousness, and saw the stars no more. + +When she came back to any sense of life, the stars were shining still, +and the face of Jeannot was bending over her, wet with tears. + +He had followed her to Paris when they had missed her first, and had come +straight by train to the city, making sure it was thither she had come, +and there had sought her many days, watching for her by the house of +Flamen. + +She shuddered away from him as he held her, and looked at him with blank, +tearless eyes. + +"Do not touch me--take me home." + +That was all she ever said to him. She never asked him or told him +anything. She never noticed that it was strange that he should have been +here upon the river-bank. He let her be, and took her silently in the +cool night back by the iron ways to Brabant. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +She sat quite still and upright in the wagon with the dark lands rushing +by her. She never spoke at all. She had a look that frightened him upon +her face. When he tried to touch her hand, she shivered away from him. + +The charcoal-burner, hardy and strong among forest-reared men, cowered +like a child in a corner, and covered his eyes and wept. + +So the night wore away. + +She had no perception of anything that happened to her until she was led +through her own little garden in the early day, and her starling cried to +her, "Bonjour, Bonjour!" Even then she only looked about her in a +bewildered way, and never spoke. + +Were the sixteen days a dream? + +She did not know. + +The women whom Jeannot summoned, his mother and sisters, and Mère Krebs, +and one or two others, weeping for what had been the hardness of their +hearts against her, undressed her, and laid her down on her little bed, +and opened the shutters to the radiance of the sun. + +She let them do as they liked, only she seemed neither to hear nor speak, +and she never spoke. + +All that Jeannot could tell was that he had found her in Paris, and had +saved her from the river. + +The women were sorrowful, and reproached themselves. Perhaps she had done +wrong, but they had been harsh, and she was so young. + +The two little sabots with the holes worn through the soles touched them; +and they blamed themselves for having shut their hearts and their doors +against her as they saw the fixed blue eyes, without any light in them, +and the pretty mouth closed close against either sob or smile. + +After all she was Bébée--the little bright blithe thing that had danced +with their children, and sung to their singing, and brought them always +the first roses of the year. If she had been led astray, they should have +been gentler with her. + +So they told themselves and each other. + +What had she seen in that terrible Paris to change her like this?--they +could not tell She never spoke. + +The cock crowed gayly to the sun. The lamb bleated in the meadow. The +bees boomed among the pear-tree blossoms. The gray lavender blew in the +open house door. The green leaves threw shifting shadows on the floor. + +All things were just the same as they had been the year before, when she +had woke to the joy of being a girl of sixteen. + +But Bébée now lay quite still and silent on her little bed; as quiet as +the waxen Gesù that they laid in the manger at the Nativity. + +"If she would only speak!" the women and the children wailed, weeping +sorely. + +But she never spoke; nor did she seem to know any one of them. Not even +the starling as he flew on her pillow and called her. + +"Give her rest," they all said; and one by one moved away, being poor +folk and hard working, and unable to lose a whole day. + +Mère Krebs stayed with her, and Jeannot sat in the porch where her little +spinning-wheel stood, and rocked himself to and fro; in vain agony, +powerless. + +He had done all he could, and it was of no avail. + +Then people who had loved her, hearing, came up the green lanes from the +city--the cobbler and the tinman, and the old woman who sold saints' +pictures by the Broodhuis. The Varnhart children hung about the garden +wicket, frightened and sobbing. Old Jehan beat his knees with his hands, +and said only over and over again, "Another dead--another dead!--the red +mill and I see them all dead!" + +The long golden day drifted away, and the swans swayed to and fro, and +the willows grew silver in the sunshine. + +Bébée, only, lay quite still and never spoke. The starling sat above her +head; his wings drooped, and he was silent too. + +Towards sunset Bébée raised herself and called aloud: they ran to her. + +"Get me a rosebud--one with the moss round it," she said to them. + +They went out into the garden, and brought her one wet with dew. + +She kissed it, and laid it in one of her little wooden shoes that stood +upon the bed. + +"Send them to him," she said wearily; "tell him I walked all the way." + +Then her head drooped; then momentary consciousness died out: the old +dull lifeless look crept over her face again like the shadow of death. + +The starling spread his broad black wings above her head. She lay quite +still once more. The women left the rosebud in the wooden shoe, not +knowing what she meant. + +Night fell. Mère Krebs watched beside her. Jeannot went down to the old +church to beseech heaven with all his simple, ignorant, tortured soul. +The villagers hovered about, talking in low sad voices, and wondering, +and dropping one by one into their homes. They were sorry, very sorry; +but what could they do? + +It was quite night. The lights were put out in the lane. Jeannot, with +Father Francis, prayed before the shrine of the Seven Sorrows. Mère Krebs +slumbered in her rush-bottomed chair; she was old and worked hard. The +starling was awake. + +Bébée rose in her bed, and looked around, as she had done when she had +asked for the moss-rosebud. + +A sense of unutterable universal pain ached over all her body. + +She did not see her little home, its four white walls, its lattice +shining in the moon, its wooden bowls and plates, its oaken shelf and +presses, its plain familiar things that once had been so dear,--she did +not see them; she only saw the brown woman with her arm about his throat. + +She sat up in her bed and slipped her feet on to the floor; the pretty +little rosy feet that he had used to want to clothe in silken stockings. + +Poor little feet! she felt a curious compassion for them; they had served +her so well, and they were so tired. + +She sat up a moment with that curious dull agony, aching everywhere in +body and in brain. She kissed the rosebud once more and laid it gently +down in the wooden shoe. She did not see anything that was around her. +She felt a great dulness that closed in on her, a great weight that was +like iron on her head. + +She thought she was in the strange, noisy, cruel city, with' the river +close to her, and all her dead dreams drifting down it like murdered +children, whilst that woman kissed him. + +She slipped her feet on to the floor, and rose and stood upright. There +was a door open to the moonlight--the door where she had sat spinning and +singing in a thousand happy days; the lavender blew; the tall, unbudded +green lilies swayed in the wind; she looked at them, and knew none of +them. + +The night air drifted through her linen dress, and played on her bare +arms, and lifted the curls of her hair; the same air that had played +with her so many times out of mind when she had been a little tottering +thing that measured its height by the red rosebush. But it brought her no +sense of where she was. + +All she saw was the woman who kissed him. + +There was the water beyond; the kindly calm water, all green with the +moss and the nests of the ouzels and the boughs of the hazels and +willows, where the swans were asleep in the reeds, and the broad lilies +spread wide and cool. + +But she did not see any memory in it. She thought it was the cruel gray +river in the strange white city: and she cried to it; and went out +into the old familiar ways, and knew none of them; and ran feebly yet +fleetly through the bushes and flowers, looking up once at the stars with +a helpless broken blind look, like a thing that is dying. + +"He does not want me!" she said to them; "he does not want me!--other +women kiss him there!" + +Then with a low fluttering sound like a bird's when its wings are shot, +and yet it tries to rise, she hovered a moment over the water, and +stretched her arms out to it. + +"He does not want me!" she murmured; "he does not want me--and I am so +tired. Dear God!" + +Then she crept down, as a weary child creeps to its mother, and threw +herself forward, and let the green dark waters take her where they +had found her amidst the lilies, a little laughing yearling thing. + +There she soon lay, quite quiet, with her face turned to the stars, and +the starling poised above to watch her as she slept. + +She had been only Bébée: the ways of God and man had been too hard for +her. + +When the messengers of Flamen came that day, they took him back a dead +moss-rose and a pair of little wooden shoes worn through with walking. + +"One creature loved me once," he says to women who wonder why the wooden +shoes are there. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEBEE*** + + +******* This file should be named 13912-8.txt or 13912-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/1/13912 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Bebee + +Author: Ouida + +Release Date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #13912] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEBEE*** + + +E-text prepared by Sara Peattie, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +BEBEE + +Or, Two Little Wooden Shoes + +by + +LOUISA DE LA RAMEE ("OUIDA") + +1896 + + + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Bebee sprang out of bed at daybreak. She was sixteen. + +It seemed a very wonderful thing to be as much as that--sixteen--a woman +quite. + +A cock was crowing under her lattice. He said how old you are!--how old +you are! every time that he sounded his clarion. + +She opened the lattice and wished him good day, with a laugh. It was so +pleasant to be woke by him, and to think that no one in all the world +could ever call one a child any more. + +There was a kid bleating in the shed. There was a thrush singing in the +dusk of the sycamore leaves. There was a calf lowing to its mother away +there beyond the fence. There were dreamy muffled bells ringing in the +distance from many steeples and belfries where the city was; they all +said one thing, "How good it is to be so old as that--how good, how very +good!" + +Bebee was very pretty. + +No one in all Brabant ever denied that. To look at her it seemed as if +she had so lived among the flowers that she had grown like them, and only +looked a bigger blossom--that was all. + +She wore two little wooden shoes and a little cotton cap, and a gray +kirtle--linen in summer, serge in winter; but the little feet in the +shoes were like rose leaves, and the cap was as white as a lily, and the +gray kirtle was like the bark of the bough that the apple-blossom parts, +and peeps out of, to blush in the sun. + +The flowers had been the only godmothers that she had ever had, and fairy +godmothers too. + +The marigolds and the sunflowers had given her their ripe, rich gold to +tint her hair; the lupins and irises had lent their azure to her eyes; +the moss-rosebuds had made her pretty mouth; the arum lilies had uncurled +their softness for her skin; and the lime-blossoms had given her their +frank, fresh, innocent fragrance. + +The winds had blown, and the rains had rained, and the sun had shone on +her, indeed, and had warmed the whiteness of her limbs, but they had only +given to her body and her soul a hardy, breeze-blown freshness like that +of a field cowslip. + +She had never been called anything but Bebee. + +One summer day Antoine Maees--a French subject, but a Belgian by adoption +and habit, an old man who got his meagre living by tilling the garden +plot about his hut and selling flowers in the city squares--Antoine, +going into Brussels for his day's trade, had seen a gray bundle floating +among the water-lilies in the bit of water near his hut and had hooked +it out to land, and found a year-old child in it, left to drown, no +doubt, but saved by the lilies, and laughing gleefully at fate. + +Some lace-worker, blind with the pain of toil, or some peasant woman +harder of heart than the oxen in her yoke, had left it there to drift +away to death, not reckoning for the inward ripple of the current or the +toughness of the lily leaves and stems. + +Old Antoine took it to his wife, and the wife, a childless and aged soul, +begged leave to keep it; and the two poor lonely, simple folks grew to +care for the homeless, motherless thing, and they and the people about +all called it Bebee--only Bebee. + +The church got at it and added to it a saint's name; but for all its +little world it remained Bebee--Bebee when it trotted no higher than +the red carnation heads;--Bebee when its yellow curls touched as high as +the lavender-bush;--Bebee on this proud day when the thrush's song and +the cock's crow found her sixteen years old. + +Old Antoine's hut stood in a little patch of garden ground with a brier +hedge all round it, in that byway which lies between Laeken and Brussels, +in the heart of flat, green Brabant, where there are beautiful meadows +and tall, flowering hedges, and forest trees, and fern-filled ditches, +and a little piece of water, deep and cool, where the swans sail all day +long, and the silvery willows dip and sway with the wind. + +Turn aside from the highway, and there it lies to-day, and all the place +brims over with grass, and boughs, and blossoms, and flowering beans, and +wild dog-roses; and there are a few cottages and cabins there near the +pretty water, and farther there is an old church, sacred to St. Guido; +and beyond go the green level country and the endless wheat-fields, and +the old mills with their red sails against the sun; and beyond all these +the pale blue, sea-like horizon of the plains of Flanders. + +It was a pretty little hut, pink all over like a sea-shell, in the +fashion that the Netherlanders love; and its two little square lattices +were dark with creeping plants and big rose-bushes, and its roof, so low +that you could touch it, was golden and green with all the lichens and +stoneworts that are known on earth. + +Here Bebee grew from year to year; and soon learned to be big enough and +hardy enough to tie up bunches of stocks and pinks for the market, and +then to carry a basket for herself, trotting by Antoine's side along the +green roadway and into the white, wide streets; and in the market the +buyers--most often of all when they were young mothers--would seek out +the little golden head and the beautiful frank blue eyes, and buy Bebee's +lilies and carnations whether they wanted them or not. So that old Maees +used to cross himself and say that, thanks to Our Lady, trade was thrice +as stirring since the little one had stretched out her rosy fingers with +the flowers. + +All the same, however stirring trade might be in summer, when the long +winters came and the Montagne de la Cour was a sharp slope of ice, and +the pinnacles of St. Gudule were all frosted white with snow, and the +hot-house flowers alone could fill the market, and the country gardens +were bitter black wind-swept desolations where the chilly roots huddled +themselves together underground like homeless children in a cellar,--then +the money gained in the time of leaf and blossom was all needed to buy a +black loaf and fagot of wood; and many a day in the little pink hut Bebee +rolled herself up in her bed like a dormouse, to forget in sleep that she +was supperless and as cold as a frozen robin. + +So that when Antoine Maees grew sick and died, more from age and weakness +than any real disease, there were only a few silver crowns in the brown +jug hidden in the thatch; and the hut itself, with its patch of ground, +was all that he could leave to Bebee. + +"Live in it, little one, and take nobody in it to worry you, and be good +to the bird and the goat, and be sure to keep the flowers blowing," said +the old man with his last breath; and sobbing her heart out by his +bedside, Bebee vowed to do his bidding. + +She was not quite fourteen then, and when she had laid her old friend to +rest in the rough green graveyard about St. Guido, she was very sorrowful +and lonely, poor little, bright Bebee, who had never hardly known a worse +woe than to run the thorns of the roses into her fingers, or to cry +because a thrush was found starved to death in the snow. + +Bebee went home, and sat down in a corner and thought. + +The hut was her own, and her own the little green triangle just then +crowded with its Mayday blossom in all the colors of the rainbow. She was +to live in it, and never let the flowers die, so he had said; good, rough +old ugly Antoine Maees, who had been to her as father, mother, country, +king, and law. + +The sun was shining. + +Through the little square of the lattice she could see the great tulips +opening in the grass and a bough of the apple-tree swaying in the wind. A +chaffinch clung to the bough, and swung to and fro singing. The door +stood open, with the broad, bright day beaming through; and Bebee's +little world came streaming in with it,--the world which dwelt in the +half-dozen cottages that fringed this green lane of hers like beavers' +nests pushed out under the leaves on to the water's edge. + +They came in, six or eight of them, all women; trim, clean, plain Brabant +peasants, hard-working, kindly of nature, and shrewd in their own simple +matters; people who labored in the fields all the day long, or worked +themselves blind over the lace pillows in the city. + +"You are too young to live alone, Bebee," said the first of them. "My old +mother shall come and keep house for you." + +"Nay, better come and live with me, Bebee," said the second. "I will give +you bit and drop, and clothing, too, for the right to your plot of +ground." + +"That is to cheat her," said the third. "Hark, here, Bebee: my sister, +who is a lone woman, as you know well, shall come and bide with you, and +ask you nothing--nothing at all--only you shall just give her a crust, +perhaps, and a few flowers to sell sometimes." + +"No, no," said the fourth; "that will not do. You let me have the garden +and the hut, Bebee, and my sons shall till the place for you; and I will +live with you myself, and leave the boys the cabin, so you will have all +the gain, do you not see, dear little one?" + +"Pooh!" said the fifth, stouter and better clothed than the rest. "You +are all eager for your own good, not for hers. Now I--Father Francis says +we should all do as we would be done by--I will take Bebee to live with +me, all for nothing; and we will root the flowers up and plant it with +good cabbages and potatoes and salad plants. And I will stable my cows in +the hut to sweeten it after a dead man, and I will take my chance of +making money out of it, and no one can speak more fair than that when one +sees what weather is, and thinks what insects do; and all the year round, +winter and summer, Bebee here will want for nothing, and have to take no +care for herself whatever." + +She who spoke, Mere Krebs, was the best-to-do woman in the little lane, +having two cows of her own and ear-rings of solid silver, and a green +cart, and a big dog that took the milk into Brussels. She was heard, +therefore, with respect, and a short silence followed her words. + +But it was very short; and a hubbub of voices crossed each other after it +as the speakers grew hotter against one another and more eager to +convince each other of the disinterestedness and delicacy of their offers +of aid. + +Through it all Bebee sat quite quiet on the edge of the little +truckle-bed, with her eyes fixed on the apple bough and the singing +chaffinch. + +She heard them all patiently. + +They were all her good friends, friends old and true. This one had given +her cherries for many a summer. That other had bought her a little waxen +Jesus at the Kermesse. The old woman in the blue linen skirt had taken +her to her first communion. She who wanted her sister to have the crust +and the flowers, had brought her a beautiful painted book of hours that +had cost a whole franc. Another had given her the solitary wonder, +travel, and foreign feast of her whole life,--a day fifteen miles away at +the fair at Mechlin. The last speaker of all had danced her on her knee a +hundred times in babyhood, and told her legends, and let her ride in the +green cart behind big curly-coated Tambour. + +Bebee did not doubt that these trusty old friends meant well by her, and +yet a certain heavy sense fell on her that in all these counsels there +was not the same whole-hearted and frank goodness that had prompted the +gifts to her of the waxen Jesus, and the Kermesse of Mechlin. + +Bebee did not reason, because she was too little a thing and too +trustful; but she felt, in a vague, sorrowful fashion, that they were all +of them trying to make some benefit out of her poor little heritage, with +small regard for herself at the root of their speculations. + +Bebee was a child, wholly a child; body and soul were both as fresh in +her as a golden crocus just born out of the snows. But she was not a +little fool, though people sometimes called her so because she would sit +in the moments of her leisure with her blue eyes on the far-away clouds +like a thing in a dream. + +She heard them patiently till the cackle of shrill voices had exhausted +itself, and the six women stood on the sunny mud floor of the hut eyeing +each other with venomous glances; for though they were good neighbors at +all times, each, in this matter, was hungry for the advantages to be got +out of old Antoine's plot of ground. They were very poor; they toiled in +the scorched or frozen fields all weathers, or spent from dawn to +nightfall poring over their cobweb lace; and to save a son or gain a +cabbage was of moment to them only second to the keeping of their souls +secure of heaven by Lenten mass and Easter psalm. + +Bebee listened to them all, and the tears dried on her cheeks, and her +pretty rosebud lips curled close in one another. + +"You are very good, no doubt, all of you," she said at last. "But I +cannot tell you that I am thankful, for my heart is like a stone, and I +think it is not so very much for me as it is for the hut that you are +speaking. Perhaps it is wrong in me to say so; yes, I am wrong, I am +sure,--you are all kind, and I am only Bebee. But you see he told me to +live here and take care of the flowers, and I must do it, that is +certain. I will ask Father Francis, if you wish: but if he tells me I am +wrong, as you do. I shall stay here all the same." + +And in answer to their expostulations and condemnation, she only said the +same thing over again always, in different words, but to the same +steadfast purpose. The women clamored about her for an hour in reproach +and rebuke; she was a baby indeed, she was a little fool, she was a +naughty, obstinate child, she was an ungrateful, wilful little creature, +who ought to be beaten till she was blue, if only there was anybody that +had the right to do it! + +"But there is nobody that has the right," said Bebee, getting angry and +standing upright on the floor, with Antoine's old gray cat in her round +arms. "He told me to stay here, and he would not have said so if it had +been wrong; and I am old enough to do for myself, and I am not afraid, +and who is there that would hurt me? Oh, yes; go and tell Father Francis, +if you like! I do not believe he will blame me, but if he do, I must bear +it. Even if he shut the church door on me, I will obey Antoine, and the +flowers will know I am right, and they will let no evil spirits touch me, +for the flowers are strong for that; they talk to the angels in the +night." + +What use was it to argue with a little idiot like this? Indeed, peasants +never do argue; they use abuse. + +It is their only form of logic. + +They used it to Bebee, rating her soundly, as became people who were old +enough to be her grandmothers, and who knew that she had been raked out +of their own pond, and had no more real place in creation than a water +rat, as one might say. + +The women were kindly, and had never thrown this truth against her +before, and in fact, to be a foundling was no sort of disgrace to their +sight; but anger is like wine, and makes the depths of the mind shine +clear, and all the mud that is in the depths stink in the light; and in +their wrath at not sharing Antoine's legacy, the good souls said bitter +things that in calm moments they would no more have uttered than they +would have taken up a knife to slit her throat. + +They talked themselves hoarse with impatience and chagrin, and went +backwards over the threshold, their wooden shoes and their shrill voices +keeping a clattering chorus. By this time it was evening; the sun had +gone off the floor, and the bird had done singing. + +Bebee stood in the same place, hardening her little heart, whilst big and +bitter tears swelled into her eyes, and fell on the soft fur of the +sleeping cat. + +She only very vaguely understood why it was in any sense shameful to have +been raked out of the water-lilies like a drowning field mouse, as they +had said it was. + +She and Antoine had often talked of that summer morning when he had found +her there among the leaves, and Bebee and he had laughed over it gayly, +and she had been quite proud in her innocent fashion that she had had a +fairy and the flowers for her mother and godmothers, which Antoine always +told her was the case beyond any manner of doubt. Even Father Francis, +hearing the pretty harmless fiction, had never deemed it his duty to +disturb her pleasure in it, being a good, cheerful old man, who thought +that woe and wisdom both come soon enough to bow young shoulders and +to silver young curls without his interference. + +Bebee had always thought it quite a fine thing to have been born of +water-lilies, with the sun for her father, and when people in Brussels +had asked her of her parentage, seeing her stand in the market with a +certain look on her that was not like other children, had always gravely +answered in the purest good faith,-- + +"My mother was a flower." + +"You are a flower, at any rate," they would say in return; and Bebee had +been always quite content. + +But now she was doubtful; she was rather perplexed than sorrowful. + +These good friends of hers seemed to see some new sin about her. Perhaps, +after all, thought Bebee, it might have been better to have had a human +mother who would have taken care of her now that old Antoine was dead, +instead of those beautiful, gleaming, cold water-lilies which went to +sleep on their green velvet beds, and did not certainly care when the +thorns ran into her fingers, or the pebbles got in her wooden shoes. + +In some vague way, disgrace and envy--the twin Discords of the +world--touched her innocent cheek with their hot breath, and as the +evening fell, Bebee felt very lonely and a little wistful. + +She had been always used to run out in the pleasant twilight-time among +the flowers and water them, Antoine filling the can from the well; and +the neighbors would come and lean against the little low wall, knitting +and gossiping; and the big dogs, released from harness, would poke their +heads through the wicket for a crust; and the children would dance and +play Colin Maillard on the green by the water; and she, when the flowers +were no longer thirsted, would join them, and romp and dance and sing the +gayest of them all. + +But now the buckets hung at the bottom of the well, and the flowers +hungered in vain, and the neighbors held aloof, and she shut to the hut +door and listened to the rain which began to fall, and cried herself to +sleep all alone in her tiny kingdom. + +When the dawn came the sun rose red and warm; the grass and boughs +sparkled; a lark sang; Bebee awoke sad in heart, indeed, for her lost old +friend, but brighter and braver. + +"Each of them wants to get something out of me," thought the child. +"Well, I will live alone, then, and do my duty, just as he said. The +flowers will never let any real harm come, though they do look so +indifferent and smiling sometimes, and though not one of them hung their +heads when his coffin was carried through them yesterday." + +That want of sympathy in the flower troubled her. + +The old man had loved them so well; and they had all looked as glad as +ever, and had laughed saucily in the sun, and not even a rosebud turned +the paler as the poor still stiffened limbs went by in the wooden shell. + +"I suppose God cares; but I wish they did." said Bebee, to whom the +garden was more intelligible than Providence. + +"Why do you not care?" she asked the pinks, shaking the raindrops off +their curled rosy petals. + +The pinks leaned lazily against their sticks, and seemed to say, "Why +should we care for anything, unless a slug be eating us?--_that_ is +real woe, if you like." + +Bebee, without her sabots on, wandered thoughtfully among the sweet wet +sunlightened labyrinths of blossom, her pretty bare feet treading the +narrow grassy paths with pleasure in their coolness. + +"He was so good to you!" she said reproachfully to the great gaudy +gillyflowers and the painted sweet-peas. "He never let you know heat or +cold, he never let the worm gnaw or the snail harm you; he would get up +in the dark to see after your wants; and when the ice froze over you, he +was there to loosen your chains. Why do you not care, anyone of you?" + +"How silly you are!" said the flowers. "You must be a butterfly or a +poet, Bebee, to be as foolish as that. Some one will do all he did. We +are of market value, you know. Care, indeed! when the sun is so warm, and +there is not an earwig in the place to trouble us." + +The flowers were not always so selfish as this; and perhaps the sorrow in +Bebee's heart made their callousness seem harder than it really was. + +When we suffer very much ourselves, anything that smiles in the sun seems +cruel--a child, a bird, a dragon-fly--nay, even a fluttering ribbon, or a +spear-grass that waves in the wind. + +There was a little shrine at the corner of the garden, set into the wall; +a niche with a bit of glass and a picture of the Virgin, so battered that +no one could trace any feature of it. + +It had been there for centuries, and was held in great veneration; and +old Antoine had always cut the choicest buds of his roses and set them in +a delf pot in front of it, every other morning all the summer long. +Bebee, whose religion was the sweetest, vaguest mingling of Pagan and +Christian myths, and whose faith in fairies and in saints was exactly +equal in strength and in ignorance,--Bebee filled the delf pot anew +carefully, then knelt down on the turf in that little green corner, and +prayed in devout hopeful childish good faith to the awful unknown Powers +who were to her only as gentle guides and kindly playmates. + +Was she too familiar with the Holy Mother? + +She was almost fearful that she was; but then the Holy Mother loved +flowers so well, Bebee would not feel aloof from her, nor be afraid. + +"When one cuts the best blossoms for her, and tries to be good, and never +tells a lie," thought Bebee, "I am quite sure, as she loves the lilies, +that she will never altogether forget me." + +So she said to the Mother of Christ fearlessly, and nothing doubting; and +then rose for her daily work of cutting the flowers for the market in +Brussels. + +By the time her baskets were full, her fowls fed, her goat foddered, her +starling's cage cleaned, her hut door locked, and her wooden shoes +clattering on the sunny road into the city, Bebee was almost content +again, though ever and again, as she trod the familiar ways, the tears +dimmed her eyes as she remembered that old Antoine would never again +hobble over the stones beside her. + +"You are a little wilful one, and too young to live alone," said Father +Francis, meeting her in the lane. + +But he did not scold her seriously, and she kept to her resolve; and the +women, who were good at heart, took her back into favor again; and so +Bebee had her own way, and the fairies, or the saints, or both together, +took care of her; and so it came to pass that all alone she heard the +cock crow whilst it was dark, and woke to the grand and amazing truth +that this warm, fragrant, dusky June morning found her full sixteen years +old. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The two years had not been all playtime any more than they had been all +summer. + +When one has not father, or mother, or brother, and all one's friends +have barely bread enough for themselves, life cannot be very easy, nor +its crusts very many at any time. + +Bebee had a cherub's mouth, and a dreamer's eyes, and a poet's thoughts +sometimes in her own untaught and unconscious fashion. + +But all the same she was a little hard-working Brabant peasant girl; +up whilst the birds twittered in the dark; to bed when the red sun +sank beyond the far blue line of the plains; she hoed, and dug, and +watered, and planted her little plot; she kept her cabin as clean as +a fresh-blossomed primrose; she milked her goat and swept her floor; she +sat, all the warm days, in the town, selling her flowers, and in the +winter time, when her garden yielded her nothing, she strained her sight +over lace-making in the city to get the small bit of food that stood +between her and that hunger which to the poor means death. + +A hard life; very hard when hail and snow made the streets of Brussels +like slopes of ice; a little hard even in the gay summer time when she +sat under the awning fronting the Maison du Roi; but all the time the +child throve on it, and was happy, and dreamed of many graceful and +gracious things whilst she was weeding among her lilies, or tracing the +threads to and fro on her lace pillow. + +Now--when she woke to the full sense of her wonderful sixteen +years--Bebee, standing barefoot on the mud floor, was as pretty a sight +as was to be seen betwixt Scheldt and Rhine. + +The sun had only left a soft warmth like an apricot's on her white skin. +Her limbs, though strong as a mountain pony's, were slender and well +shaped. Her hair curled in shiny crumpled masses, and tumbled about her +shoulders. Her pretty round plump little breast was white as the lilies +in the grass without, and in this blooming time of her little life, +Bebee, in her way, was beautiful as a peach-bloom is beautiful, and her +innocent, courageous, happy eyes had dreams in them underneath their +laughter, dreams that went farther than the green woods of Laeken, +farther even than the white clouds of summer. + +She could not move among them idly as poets and girls love to do; she had +to be active amidst them, else drought and rain, and worm and snail, and +blight and frost, would have made havoc of their fairest hopes. + +The loveliest love is that which dreams high above all storms, unsoiled +by all burdens; but perhaps the strongest love is that which, whilst it +adores, drags its feet through mire, and burns its brow in heat, for the +thing beloved. + +So Bebee dreamed in her garden; but all the time for sake of it hoed and +dug, and hurt her hands, and tired her limbs, and bowed her shoulders +under the great metal pails from the well. + +This wondrous morning, with the bright burden of her sixteen years upon +her, she dressed herself quickly and fed her fowls, and, happy as a bird, +went to sit on her little wooden stool in the doorway. + +There had been fresh rain in the night: the garden was radiant; the smell +of the wet earth was sweeter than all perfumes that are burned in +palaces. + +The dripping rosebuds nodded against her hair as she went out; the +starling called to her, "Bebee, Bebee--bonjour, bonjour." These were all +the words it knew. It said the same words a thousand times a week. But +to Bebee it seemed that the starling most certainly knew that she was +sixteen years old that day. + +Breaking her bread into the milk, she sat in the dawn and thought, +without knowing that she thought it, "How good it is to live when one +is young!" + +Old people say the same thing often, but they sigh when they say it. +Bebee smiled. + +Mere Krebs opened her door in the next cottage, and nodded over the wall. + +"What a fine thing to be sixteen!--a merry year, Bebee." + +Marthe, the carpenter's wife, came out from her gate, broom in hand. + +"The Holy Saints keep you, Bebee; why, you are quite a woman now!" + +The little children of Varnhart, the charcoal-burner, who were as poor as +any mouse in the old churches, rushed out of their little home up the +lane, bringing with them a cake stuck full of sugar and seeds, and tied +round with a blue ribbon, that their mother had made that very week, all +in her honor. + +"Only see, Bebee! Such a grand cake!" they shouted, dancing down the +lane. "Jules picked the plums, and Jeanne washed the almonds, and +Christine took the ribbon off her own communion cap, all for you--all for +you; but you will let us come and eat it too?" + +Old Gran'mere Bishot, who was the oldest woman about Laeken, hobbled +through the grass on her crutches and nodded her white shaking head, and +smiled at Bebee. + +"I have nothing to give you, little one, except my blessing, if you care +for that." + +Bebee ran out, breaking from the children, and knelt down in the wet +grass, and bent her pretty sunny head to the benediction. + +Trine, the miller's wife, the richest woman of them all, called to the +child from the steps of the mill,--' + +"A merry year, and the blessing of Heaven, Bebee! Come up, and here is my +first dish of cherries for you; not tasted one myself; they will make you +a feast with Varnhart's cake, though she should have known better, so +poor as she is. Charity begins at home, and these children's stomachs are +empty." + +Bebee ran up and then down again gleefully, with her lapful of big black +cherries; Tambour, the old white dog, who had used to drag her about in +his milk cart, leaping on her in sympathy and congratulation. + +"What a supper we will have!" she cried to the charcoal-burner's +children, who were turning somersaults in the dock leaves, while the +swans stared and hissed. + +When one is sixteen, cherries and a cake have a flavor of Paradise still, +especially when they are tasted twice, or thrice at most, in all the +year. + +An old man called to her as she went by his door. All these little cabins +lie close together, with only their apple-trees, or their tall beans, or +their hedges of thorn between them; you may ride by and never notice them +if you do not look for them under the leaves closely, as you would for +thrushes' nests. + +He, too, was very old; a lifelong neighbor and gossip of Antoine's; he +had been a day laborer in these same fields all his years, and had never +travelled farther than where the red mill-sails turned among the colza +and the corn. + +"Come in, my pretty one, for a second," he whispered, with an air of +mystery that made Bebee's heart quicken with expectancy. "Come in; I have +something for you. They were my dead daughter's--you have heard me talk +of her--Lisette, who died forty year or more ago, they say; for me I +think it was yesterday. Mere Krebs--she is a hard woman--heard me talking +of my girl. She burst out laughing, 'Lord's sake, fool, why, your girl +would be sixty now an she had lived.' Well, so it may be; you see, the +new mill was put up the week she died, and you call the new mill old; +but, my girl, she is young to me. Always young. Come here, Bebee." + +Bebee went after him a little awed, into the dusky interior, that smelt +of stored apples and of dried herbs that hung from the roof. There was a +walnut-wood press, such as the peasants of France and the low countries +keep their homespun linen in and their old lace that serves for the +nuptials and baptisms of half a score of generations. + +The old man unlocked it with a trembling hand, and there came from it an +odor of dead lavender and of withered rose leaves. + +On the shelves there were a girl's set of clothes, and a girl's sabots, +and a girl's communion veil and wreath. + +"They are all hers," he whispered,--"all hers. And sometimes in the +evening time I see her coming along the lane for them--do you not know? +There is nothing changed; nothing changed; the grass, and the trees, and +the huts, and the pond are all here; why should she only be gone away?" + +"Antoine is gone." + +"Yes. But he was old; my girl is young." + +He stood a moment, with the press door open, a perplexed trouble in his +dim eyes; the divine faith of love and the mule-like stupidity of +ignorance made him cling to this one thought without power of judgment in +it. + +"They say she would be sixty," he said, with a little dreary smile. "But +that is absurd, you know. Why, she had cheeks like yours, and she would +run--no lapwing could fly faster over corn. These are her things, you +see; yes--all of them. That is the sprig of sweetbrier she wore in her +belt the day before the wagon knocked her down and killed her. I have +never touched the things. But look here, Bebee, you are a good child and +true, and like her just a little. I mean to give you her silver clasps. +They were her great-great-great-grandmother's before her. God knows how +old they are not. And a girl should have some little wealth of that sort; +and for Antoine's sake--" + +The old man stayed behind, closing the press door upon the +lavender-scented clothes, and sitting down in the dull shadow of the hut +to think of his daughter, dead forty summers and more. + +Bebee went out with the brave broad silver clasps about her waist, and +the tears wet on her cheeks for a grief not her own. + +To be killed just when one was young, and was loved liked that, and +all the world was in its May-day flower! The silver felt cold to her +touch--as cold as though it were the dead girl's hands that held her. + +The garlands that the children strung of daisies and hung about her had +never chilled her so. + +But little Jeanne, the youngest of the charcoal-burner's little tribe, +running to meet her, screamed with glee, and danced in the gay morning. + +"Oh, Bebee! how you glitter! Did the Virgin send you that off her own +altar? Let me see--let me touch! Is it made of the stars or of the sun?" + +And Bebee danced with the child, and the silver gleamed and sparkled, and +all the people came running out to see, and the milk carts were half an +hour later for town, and the hens cackled loud unfed, and the men even +stopped on their way to the fields and paused, with their scythes on +their shoulders, to stare at the splendid gift. + +"There is not such another set of clasps in Brabant; old work you could +make a fortune of in the curiosity shops in the Montagne," said Trine +Krebs, going up the steps of her mill house. "But, all the same, you +know, Bebee, things off a dead body bring mischance sometimes." + +But Bebee danced with the child, and did not hear. + +Whose fete day had ever begun like this one of hers? + +She was a little poet at heart, and should not have cared for such +vanities; but when one is only sixteen, and has only a little rough +woollen frock, and sits in the market place or the lace-room, with other +girls around, how should one be altogether indifferent to a broad, +embossed, beautiful shield of silver that sparkled with each step one +took? + +A quarter of an hour idle thus was all, however, that Bebee or her +friends could spare at five o'clock on a summer morning, when the city +was waiting for its eggs, its honey, its flowers, its cream, and its +butter, and Tambour was shaking his leather harness in impatience to be +off with his milk-cans. + +So Bebee, all holiday though it was, and heroine though she felt herself, +ran indoors, put up her cakes and cherries, cut her two basketfuls out of +the garden, locked her hut, and went on her quick and happy little feet +along the grassy paths toward the city. + +The sorting and tying up of the flowers she always left until she was +sitting under the awning in front of the Broodhuis; the same awning, +tawny as an autumn pear and weather-blown as an old sail, which had +served to shelter Antoine Maees from heat and rain through all the years +of his life. + +"Go to the Madeleine; you will make money there, with your pretty blue +eyes, Bebee," people had said to her of late; but Bebee had shaken her +head. + +Where she had sat in her babyhood at Antoine's feet, she would sit so +long as she sold flowers in Brussels,--here, underneath the shadow of the +Gothic towers that saw Egmont die. + +Old Antoine had never gone into the grand market that is fashioned after +the Madeleine of Paris, and where in the cool, wet, sweet-smelling halls, +all the flowers of Brabant are spread in bouquets fit for the bridal of +Una, and large as the shield of the Red-Cross Knight. + +Antoine could not compete with all those treasures of greenhouse and +stove. He had always had his little stall among those which spread their +tawny awnings and their merry hardy blossoms under the shadow of the +Hotel de Ville, in the midst of the buyings and sellings, the games and +the quarrels, the auctions and the Cheap Johns, the mountebank and the +marriage parties, that daily and hourly throng the Grande Place. + +Here Bebee, from three years old, had been used to sit beside him. By +nature she was as gay as a lark. The people always heard her singing as +they passed the garden. The children never found their games so merry as +when she danced their rounds with them; and though she dreamed so much +out there in the air among the carnations and the roses, or in the long, +low workroom in the town, high against the crocketed pinnacles of the +cathedral, yet her dreams, if vaguely wistful, were all bright of hue and +sunny in their fantasies. Still, Bebee had one sad unsatisfied desire: +she wanted to know so much, and she knew nothing. + +She did not care for the grand gay people. + +When the band played, and the park filled, and the bright little cafes +were thronged with pleasure seekers, and the crowds flocked hither and +thither to the woods, to the theatres, to the galleries, to the +guinguettes, Bebee, going gravely along with her emptied baskets +homeward, envied none of these. + +When at Noel the little children hugged their loads of puppets and +sugar-plums; when at the Fete Dieu the whole people flocked out +be-ribboned and vari-colored like any bed of spring anemones; when in the +merry midsummer the chars-a-bancs trundled away into the forest with +laughing loads of students and maidens; when in the rough winters the +carriages left furred and jewelled women at the doors of the operas or +the palaces,--Bebee, going and coming through the city to her flower +stall or lace work, looked at them all, and never thought of envy or +desire. + +She had her little hut: she could get her bread; she lived with the +flowers; the neighbors were good to her, and now and then, on a saint's +day, she too got her day in the woods; it never occurred to her that her +lot could be better. + +But sometimes sitting, looking at the dark old beauty of the Broodhuis, +or at the wondrous carven fronts of other Spanish houses, or at the +painted stories of the cathedral windows, or at the quaint colors of the +shipping on the quay, or at the long dark aisles of trees that went away +through the forest, where her steps had never wandered,--sometimes Bebee +would get pondering on all this unknown world that lay before and behind +and around her, and a sense of her own utter ignorance would steal on +her; and she would say to herself, "If only I knew a little--just a very +little!" + +But it is not easy to know even a very little when you have to work for +your bread from sunrise to nightfall, and when none of your friends know +how to read or write, and even your old priest is one of a family of +peasants, and can just teach you the alphabet, and that is all. For +Father Francis could do no more than this; and all his spare time was +taken up in digging his cabbage plot and seeing to his beehives; and the +only books that Bebee ever beheld were a few tattered lives of saints +that lay moth-eaten on a shelf of his cottage. + +But Brussels has stones that are sermons, or rather that are quaint, +touching, illuminated legends of the Middle Ages, which those who run may +read. + +Brussels is a gay little city that lies as bright within its girdle of +woodland as any butterfly that rests upon moss. + +The city has its ways and wiles of Paris. It decks itself with white and +gold. It has music under its trees and soldiers in its streets, and +troops marching and countermarching along its sunny avenues. It has blue +and pink, and yellow and green, on its awnings and on its house fronts. +It has a merry open-air life on its pavements at little marble tables +before little gay-colored cafes. It has gilded balconies, and tossing +flags, and comic operas, and leisurely pleasure seekers, and tries always +to believe and make the world believe that it is Paris in very truth. + +But this is only the Brussels of the noblesse and the foreigners. + +There is a Brussels that is better than this--a Brussels that belongs +to the old burgher life, to the artists and the craftsmen, to the +master-masons of the Moyen-age, to the same spirit and soul that once +filled the free men of Ghent and the citizens of Bruges and the besieged +of Leyden, and the blood of Egmont and of Horn. + +Down there by the water-side, where the old quaint walls lean over the +yellow sluggish stream, and the green barrels of the Antwerp barges swing +against the dusky piles of the crumbling bridges. + +In the gray square desolate courts of the old palaces, where in cobwebbed +galleries and silent chambers the Flemish tapestries drop to pieces. + +In the great populous square, where, above the clamorous and rushing +crowds, the majestic front of the Maison du Roi frowns against the sun, +and the spires and pinnacles of the burgomaster's gathering-halls tower +into the sky in all the fantastic luxuriance of Gothic fancy. + +Under the vast shadowy wings of angels in the stillness of the cathedral, +across whose sunny aisles some little child goes slowly all alone, laden +with lilies for the Feast of the Assumption, till their white glory hides +its curly head. + +In all strange quaint old-world niches withdrawn from men in silent +grass-grown corners, where a twelfth-century corbel holds a pot of roses, +or a Gothic arch yawns beneath a wool warehouse, or a waterspout with a +grinning faun's head laughs in the grim humor of the Moyen-age above the +bent head of a young lace-worker. + +In all these, Brussels, though more worldly than her sisters of Ghent and +Bruges, and far more worldly yet than her Teuton cousins of Freiburg and +Nuernberg, is still in her own way like as a monkish story mixed up with +the Romaunt of the Rose; or rather like some gay French vaudeville, all +fashion and jest, illustrated in old Missal manner with helm and hauberk, +cope and cowl, praying knights and fighting priests, winged griffins and +nimbused saints, flame-breathing dragons and enamoured princes, all +mingled together in the illuminated colors and the heroical grotesque +romance of the Middle Ages. + +And it was this side of the city that Bebee knew; and she loved it well, +and would not leave it for the market of the Madeleine. + +She had no one to tell her anything, and all Antoine had ever been able +to say to her concerning the Broodhuis was that it had been there in his +father's time; and regarding St. Gudule, that his mother had burned many +a candle before its altars for a dead brother who had been drowned off +the dunes. + +But the child's mind, unled, but not misled, had pondered on these +things, and her heart had grown to love them; and perhaps no student of +Spanish architecture, no antiquary of Moyen-age relics, loved St. Gudule +and the Broodhuis as little ignorant Bebee did. + +There had been a time when great dark, fierce men had builded these +things, and made the place beautiful. So much she knew; and the little +wistful, untaught brain tried to project itself into those unknown times, +and failed, and yet found pleasure in the effort. And Bebee would say to +herself as she walked the streets, "Perhaps some one will come some day +who will tell me all those things." + +Meanwhile, there were the flowers, and she was quite content. + +Besides, she knew all the people: the old cobbler, who sat next her, and +chattered all day long like a magpie; the tinker, who had come up many a +summer night to drink a-glass with Antoine; the Cheap John, who cheated +everybody else, but who had always given her a toy or a trinket at every +Fete Dieu all the summers she had known; the little old woman, sour as a +crab, who sold rosaries and pictures of saints, and little waxen Christs +upon a tray; the big dogs who pulled the carts in, and lay panting all +day under the rush-bottomed chairs on which the egg-wives and the fruit +sellers sat, and knitted, and chaffered; nay, even the gorgeous huissier +and the frowning gendarme, who marshalled the folks into order as they +went up for municipal registries, or for town misdemeanors,--she knew +them all; had known them all ever since she had first trotted in like +a little dog at Antoine's heels. + +So Bebee stayed there. + +It is, perhaps, the most beautiful square in all Northern Europe, with +its black timbers, and gilded carvings, and blazoned windows, and +majestic scutcheons, and fantastic pinnacles. That Bebee did not know, +but she loved it, and she sat resolutely in front of the Broodhuis, +selling her flowers, smiling, chatting, helping the old woman, counting +her little gains, eating her bit of bread at noonday like any other +market girl, but at times glancing up to the stately towers and the blue +sky, with a look on her face that made the old tinker and cobbler whisper +together, "What does she see there?--the dead people or the angels?" + +The truth was that even Bebee herself did not know very surely what she +saw--something that was still nearer to her than even this kindly crowd +that loved her. That was all she could have said had anybody asked her. + +But none did. + +No one wanted to hear what the dead said; and for the angels, the tinker +and the cobbler were of opinion that one had only too much of them +sculptured about everywhere, and shining on all the casements--in +reverence be it spoken, of course. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"I remembered it was your name-day, child Here are half a dozen eggs," +said one of the hen wives; and the little cross woman with the pedler's +tray added a waxen St. Agnes, colored red and yellow to the very life no +doubt; and the old Cheap John had saved her a cage for the starling; and +the tinker had a cream cheese for her in a vine-leaf, and the sweetmeat +seller brought her a beautiful gilded horn of sugarplums, and the cobbler +had made her actually a pair of shoes--red shoes, beautiful shoes to go +to mass in and be a wonder in to all the neighborhood. And they thronged +round her, and adored the silver waist buckles; and when Bebee got fairly +to her stall, and traffic began, she thought once more that nobody's +feast day had ever dawned like hers. + +When the chimes began to ring all over the city, she could hardly believe +that the carillon was not saying its "Laus Deo" with some special meaning +in its bells of her. + +The morning went by as usual; the noise of the throngs about her like a +driving of angry winds, but no more hurting her than the angels on the +roof of St. Gudule are hurt by the storm when it breaks. + +Hard words, fierce passions, low thoughts, evil deeds, passed by the +child without resting on her; her heart was in her flowers, and was like +one of them with the dew of daybreak on it. + +There were many strangers in the city, and such are always sure to loiter +in the Spanish square; and she sold fast and well her lilacs and her +roses, and her knots of thyme and sweetbrier. + +She was always a little sorry to see them go, her kindly pretty playmates +that, nine times out of ten no doubt, only drooped and died in the hands +that purchased them, as human souls soil and shrivel in the grasp of the +passions that woo them. + +The day was a busy one, and brought in good profit. Bebee had no less +than fifty sous in her leather pouch when it was over,--a sum of +magnitude in the green lane by Laeken. + +A few of her moss-roses were still unsold, that was all, when the Ave +Maria began ringing over the town and the people dispersed to their homes +or their pleasuring. + +It was a warm gray evening: the streets were full; there were blossoms in +all the balconies, and gay colors in all the dresses. The old tinker put +his tools together, and whispered to her,-- + +"Bebee, as it is your feast day, come and stroll in St. Hubert's gallery, +and I will buy you a little gilt heart, or a sugar-apple stick, or a +ribbon, and we can see the puppet show afterwards, eh?" + +But the children were waiting at home: she would not spend the evening in +the city; she only thought she would just kneel a moment in the cathedral +and say a little prayer or two for a minute--the saints were so good in +giving her so many friends. + +There is something very touching in the Flemish peasant's relation with +his Deity. It is all very vague to him: a jumble of veneration and +familiarity, of sanctity and profanity, without any thought of being +familiar, or any idea of being profane. + +There is a homely poetry, an innocent affectionateness in it, +characteristic of the people. He talks to his good angel Michael, and to +his friend that dear little Jesus, much as he would talk to the shoemaker +over the way, or the cooper's child in the doorway. + +It is a very unreasonable, foolish, clumsy sort of religion, this +theology in wooden shoes; it is half grotesque, half pathetic; the +grandmothers pass it on to the grandchildren as they pass the bowl of +potatoes round the stove in the long winter nights; it is as silly as +possible, but it comforts them as they carry fagots over the frozen +canals or wear their eyes blind over the squares of lace; and it has in +it the supreme pathos of any perfect confidence, of any utterly childlike +and undoubting trust. + +This had been taught to Bebee, and she went to sleep every night in the +firm belief that the sixteen little angels of the Flemish prayer kept +watch and ward over her bed. For the rest, being poetical, as these north +folks are not, and having in her--wherever it came from, poor little +soul--a warmth of fancy and a spirituality of vision not at all northern, +she had mixed up her religion with the fairies of Antoine's stories, and +the demons in which the Flemish folks are profound believers, and the +flowers into which she put all manner of sentient life, until her +religion was a fantastic medley, so entangled that poor Father Francis +had given up in despair any attempt to arrange it more correctly. Indeed, +being of the peasantry himself, he was not so very full sure in his own +mind that demons were not bodily presences, quite as real and often much +more tangible than saints. Anyway, he let her alone; and she believed in +the goodness of God as she believed in the shining of the sun. + +People looked after her as she went through the twisting, picture-like +streets, where sunlight fell still between the peaked high roofs, and +lamps were here and there lit in the bric-a-brac shops and the fruit +stalls. + +Her little muslin cap blew back like the wings of a white butterfly. Her +sunny hair caught the last sun-rays. Her feet were fair in the brown +wooden shoes. Under the short woollen skirts the grace of her pretty +limbs moved freely. Her broad silver clasps shone like a shield, and she +was utterly unconscious that any one looked; she was simply and gravely +intent on reaching St. Gudule to say her one prayer and not keep the +children waiting. + +Some one leaning idly over a balcony in the street that is named after +Mary of Burgundy saw her going thus. He left the balcony and went down +his stairs and followed her. + +The sun-dazzle on the silver had first caught his sight; and then he had +looked downward at the pretty feet. + +These are the chances women call Fate. + +Bebee entered the cathedral. It was quite empty. Far away at the west end +there was an old custodian asleep on a bench, and a woman kneeling. That +was all. + +Bebee made her salutations to the high altar, and stole on into the +chapel of the Saint Sacrament; it was the one that she loved best. + +She said her prayer and thanked the saints for all their gifts and +goodness, her clasped hand against her silver shield, her basket on the +pavement by her, abovehead the sunset rays streaming purple and crimson +and golden through the painted windows that are the wonder of the world. + +When her prayer was done she still kneeled there; her head thrown back to +watch the light, her hands clasped still, and on her upturned face the +look that made the people say, "What does she see?--the angels or the +dead?" + +She forgot everything. She forgot the cherries at home, and the children +even. She was looking upward at the stories of the painted panes; she was +listening to the message of the dying sun-rays; she was feeling vaguely, +wistfully, unutterably the tender beauty of the sacred place and the +awful wonder of the world in which she with her sixteen years was all +alone, like a little blue corn-flower among the wheat that goes for grist +and the barley that makes men drunk. + +For she was alone, though she had so many friends. Quite alone sometimes; +for God had been cruel to her, and had made her a lark without song. + +When the sun faded and the beautiful casements lost all glow and +meaning, Bebee rose with a startled look--had she been dreaming?--was it +night?--would the children be sorry, and go supperless to bed? + +"Have you a rosebud left to sell to me?" a man's voice said not far off; +it was low and sweet, as became the Sacrament Chapel. + +Bebee looked up; she did not quite know what she saw: only dark eyes +smiling into hers. + +By the instinct of habit she sought in her basket and found three +moss-roses. She held them out to him. + +"I do not sell flowers here, but I will _give_ them to you," she said, in +her pretty grave childish fashion. + +"I often want flowers," said the stranger, as he took the buds. "Where do +you sell yours?--in the market?" + +"In the Grande Place." + +"Will you tell me your name, pretty one?" + +"I am Bebee." + +There were people coming into the church. The bells were booming +abovehead for vespers. There was a shuffle of chairs and a stir of feet. +Boys in white went to and fro, lighting the candles. Great clouds of +shadow drifted up into the roof and hid the angels. + +She nodded her little head to him. + +"Good night; I cannot stay. I have a cake at home to-night, and the +children are waiting." + +"Ah! that is important, no doubt, indeed. Will you buy some more cakes +for the children from me?" + +He slid a gold piece in her hand. She looked at it in amaze. In the green +lanes by Laeken no one ever saw gold. Then she gave it him back. + +"I will not take money in church, nor anywhere, except what the flowers +are worth. Good night." + +He followed her, and held back the heavy oak door for her, and went out +into the air with her. + +It was dark already, but in the square there was still the cool bright +primrose-colored evening light. + +Bebee's wooden shoes went pattering down the sloping and uneven stones. +Her little gray figure ran quickly through the deep shade cast from the +towers and walls. Her dreams had drifted away. She was thinking of the +children and the cake. + +"You are in such a hurry because of the cake?" said her new customer, as +he followed her. + +Bebee looked back at him with a smile in her blue eyes. + +"Yes, they will be waiting, you know, and there are cherries too." + +"It is a grand day with you, then?" + +"It is my fete day: I am sixteen." + +She was proud of this. She told it to the very dogs in the street. + +"Ah, you feel old, I dare say?" + +"Oh, quite old! They cannot call me a child any more." + +"Of course not, it would be ridiculous. Are those presents in your +basket?" + +"Yes, every one of them." She paused a moment to lift the dead +vine-leaves, and show him the beautiful shining red shoes. "Look! old +Gringoire gave me these. I shall wear them at mass next Sunday. I never +had a pair of shoes in my life." + +"But how will you wear shoes without stockings?" + +It was a snake cast into her Eden. + +She had never thought of it. + +"Perhaps I can save money and buy some," she answered after a sad little +pause. "But that I could not do till next year. They would cost several +francs, I suppose." + +"Unless a good fairy gives them to you?" + +Bebee smiled; fairies were real things to her--relations indeed. She did +not imagine that he spoke in jest. + +"Sometimes I pray very much and things come," she said softly. "When the +Gloire de Dijon was cut back too soon one summer, and never blossomed, +and we all thought it was dead, I prayed all day long for it, and never +thought of anything else; and by autumn it was all in new leaf, and now +its flowers are finer than ever." + +"But you watered it whilst you prayed, I suppose?" + +The sarcasm escaped her. + +She was wondering to herself whether it would be vain and wicked to pray +for a pair of stockings: she thought she would go and ask Father Francis. + +By this time they were in the Rue Royale, and half-way down it. The +lamps were lighted. A regiment was marching up it with a band playing. +The windows were open, and people were laughing and singing in some of +them. The light caught the white and gilded fronts of the houses. The +pleasure-seeking crowds loitered along in the warmth of the evening. + +Bebee, suddenly roused from her thoughts by the loud challenge of the +military music, looked round on the stranger, and motioned him back. + +"Sir,--I do not know you,--why should you come with me? Do not do it, +please. You make me talk, and that makes me late." + +And she pushed her basket farther on her arm, and nodded to him and ran +off--as fleetly as a hare through fern--among the press of the people. + +"To-morrow, little one," he answered her with a careless smile, and let +her go unpursued. Above, from the open casement of a cafe, some young men +and some painted women leaned out, and threw sweetmeats at him, as in +carnival time. + +"A new model,--that pretty peasant?" they asked him. + +He laughed in answer, and went up the steps to join them; he dropped the +moss-roses as he went, and trod on them, and did not wait. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Bebee ran home as fast as her feet would take her. + +The children were all gathered about her gate in the dusky dewy evening; +they met her with shouts of welcome and reproach intermingled; they had +been watching for her since first the sun had grown low and red, and now +the moon was risen. + +But they forgave her when they saw the splendor of her presents, and she +showered out among them Pere Melchior's horn of comfits. + +They dashed into the hut; they dragged the one little table out among the +flowers; the cherries and cake were spread on it; and the miller's wife +had given a big jug of milk, and Father Francis himself had sent some +honeycomb. + +The early roses were full of scent in the dew; the great gillyflowers +breathed\out fragrance in the dusk; the goat came and nibbled the +sweetbrier unrebuked; the children repeated the Flemish bread-grace, with +clasped hands and reverent eyes, "Oh, dear little Jesus, come and sup +with us, and bring your beautiful Mother, too; we will not forget you are +God." Then, that said, they ate, and drank, and laughed, and picked +cherries from each other's mouths like little blackbirds; the big white +dog gnawed a crust at their feet; old Krebs who had a fiddle, and could +play it, came out and trilled them rude and ready Flemish tunes, such as +Teniers or Mieris might have jumped to before an alehouse at the +Kermesse; Bebee and the children joined hands, and danced round together +in the broad white moonlight, on the grass by the water-side; the idlers +came and sat about, the women netting or spinning, and the men smoking a +pipe before bedtime; the rough hearty Flemish bubbled like a brook in +gossip, or rung like a horn over a jest; Bebee and the children, tired of +their play, grew quiet, and chanted together the "Ave Maria Stella +Virginis"; a nightingale among the willows sang to the sleeping swans. + +All was happy, quiet, homely; lovely also in its simple way. + +They went early to their beds, as people must do who rise at dawn. + +Bebee leaned out a moment from her own little casement ere she too went +to rest. + +Through an open lattice there sounded the murmur of some little child's +prayer; the wind sighed among the willows; the nightingales sang on in +the dark--all was still. + +Hard work awaited her on the morrow, and on all the other days of the +year. + +She was only a little peasant--she must sweep, and spin, and dig, and +delve, to get daily her bit of black bread,--but that night she was as +happy as a little princess in a fairy tale; happy in her playmates, in +her flowers, in her sixteen years, in her red shoes, in her silver +buckles, because she was half a woman; happy in the dewy leaves, in the +singing birds, in the hush of the night, in the sense of rest, in the +fragrance of flowers, in the drifting changes of moon and cloud; happy +because she was half a woman, because she was half a poet, because +she was wholly a poet. + +"Oh, dear swans, how good it is to be sixteen!--how good it is to live at +all!--do you not tell the willows so?" said Bebee to the gleam of silver +under the dark leaves by the water's side, which showed her where her +friends were sleeping, with their snowy wings closed over their stately +heads, and the veiled gold and ruby of their eyes. + +The swans did not awake to answer. + +Only the nightingale answered from the willows, with Desdemona's song. + +But Bebee had never heard of Desdemona, and the willows had no sigh for +her. + +"Good night!" she said, softly, to all the green dewy sleeping world, and +then she lay down and slept herself.--The nightingale sang on, and the +willows trembled. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +"If I could save a centime a day, I could buy a pair of stockings this +time next year," thought Bebee, locking her shoes with her other +treasures in her drawer the next morning, and taking her broom and pail +to wash down her little palace. + +But a centime a day is a great deal in Brabant, when one has not always +enough for bare bread, and when, in the long chill winter, one must weave +thread lace all through the short daylight for next to nothing at all; +for there are so many women in Brabant, and every one of them, young or +old, can make lace, and if one do not like the pitiful wage, one may +leave it and go and die, for what the master lacemakers care or know; +there will always be enough, many more than enough, to twist the thread +round the bobbins, and weave the bridal veils, and the trains for the +courts. + +"And besides, if I can save a centime, the Varnhart children ought to +have it," thought Bebee, as she swept the dust together. It was so +selfish of her to be dreaming about a pair of stockings, when those +little things often went for days on a stew of nettles. + +So she looked at her own pretty feet,--pretty and slender, and arched, +rosy, and fair, and uncramped by the pressure of leather,--and resigned +her day-dream with a brave heart, as she put up her broom and went out to +weed, and hoe, and trim, and prune the garden that had been for once +neglected the night before. + +"One could not move half so easily in stockings," she thought with true +philosophy as she worked among the black, fresh, sweet-smelling mould, +and kissed a rose now and then as she passed one. + +When she got into the city that day, her rush-bottomed chair, which was +always left upside down in case rain should fall in the night, was set +ready for her, and on its seat was a gay, gilded box, such as rich people +give away full of bonbons. + +Bebee stood and looked from the box to the Broodhuis, from the Broodhuis +to the box; she glanced around, but no one had come there so early as +she, except the tinker, who was busy quarrelling with his wife and +letting his smelting fire burn a hole in his breeches. + +"The box was certainly for her, since it was set upon her chair?"--Bebee +pondered a moment; then little by little opened the lid. + +Within, on a nest of rose-satin, were two pair of silk stockings!--real +silk!--with the prettiest clocks worked up their sides in color! + +Bebee gave a little scream, and stood still, the blood hot in her cheeks; +no one heard her, the tinker's wife, who alone was near, having just +wished Heaven to send a judgment on her husband, was busy putting out his +smoking smallclothes. It is a way that women and wives have, and they +never see the bathos of it. + +The place filled gradually. + +The customary crowds gathered. The business of the day began underneath +the multitudinous tones of the chiming bells. Bebee's business began too; +she put the box behind her with a beating heart, and tied up her flowers. + +It was the fairies, of course! but they had never set a rush-bottomed +chair on its legs before, and this action of theirs frightened her. + +It was rather an empty morning. She sold little, and there was the more +time to think. + +About an hour after noon a voice addressed her,-- + +"Have you more moss-roses for me?" + +Bebee looked up with a smile, and found some. It was her companion of the +cathedral. She had thought much of the red shoes and the silver clasps, +but she had thought nothing at all of him. + +"You are not too proud to be paid to-day?" he said, giving her a silver +franc; he would not alarm her with any more gold; she thanked him, and +slipped it in her little leathern pouch, and went on sorting some +clove-pinks. + +"You do not seem to remember me?" he said, with a little sadness. + +"Oh, I remember you," said Bebee, lifting her frank eyes. "But you know I +speak to so many people, and they are all nothing to me." + +"Who is anything to you?" It was softly and insidiously spoken, but it +awoke no echo. + +"Varnhart's children," she answered him, instantly. "And old Annemie by +the wharfside--and Tambour--and Antoine's grave--and the starling--and, +of course, above all, the flowers." + +"And the fairies, I suppose?--though they do nothing for you." + +She looked at him eagerly,-- + +"They have done something to-day. I have found a box, and some +stockings--such beautiful stockings! Silk ones! Is it not very odd?" + +"It is more odd they should have forgotten you so long. May I see them?" + +"I cannot show them to you now. Those ladies are going to buy. But you +can see them later--if you wait." + +"I will wait and paint the Broodhuis." + +"So many people do that; you are a painter then?" + +"Yes--in a way." + +He sat down on an edge of the stall, and spread his things there, and +sketched, whilst the traffic went on around them. He was very many years +older than she; handsome, with a dark, and changeful, and listless face; +he wore brown velvet, and had a red ribbon at his throat; he looked a +little as Egmont might have done when wooing Claire. + +Bebee, as she sold the flowers and took the change fifty times in the +hour, glanced at him now and then, and watched the movements of his +hands, she could not have told why. + +Always among men and women, always in the crowds of the streets, people +were nothing to her; she went through them as through a field of standing +corn,--only in the field she would have tarried for poppies, and in the +town she tarried for no one. + +She dealt with men as with women, simply, truthfully, frankly, with the +innocent fearlessness of a child. When they told her she was pretty, she +smiled; it was just as they said that her flowers were sweet. + +But this man's hands moved so swiftly; and as she saw her Broodhuis +growing into color and form beneath them, she could not choose but look +now and then, and twice she gave her change wrong. + +He spoke to her rarely, and sketched on and on in rapid bold strokes the +quaint graces and massive richness of the Maison du Roi. + +There is no crowd so busy in Brabant that it will not find leisure to +stare. The Fleming or the Walloon has nothing of the Frenchman's +courtesy; he is rough and rude; he remains a peasant even when town bred, +and the surly insolence of the "Gueux" is in him still. He is kindly to +his fellows, though not to beasts; he is shrewd, patient, thrifty, +industrious, and good in very many ways, but civil never. + +A good score of them left off their occupations and clustered round the +painter, staring, chattering, pushing, pointing, as though a brush had +never been seen in all the land of Rubens. + +Bebee, ashamed of her people, got up from her chair and rebuked them. + +"Oh, men of Brussels; fie then for shame!" she called to them as +clearly as a robin sings. "Did never you see a drawing before? and are +there not saints and martyrs enough to look at in the galleries? and have +you never some better thing to do than to gape wide-mouthed at a +stranger? What laziness--ah! Just worthy of a people who sleep and smoke +while their dogs work for them! Go away, all of you; look, there comes +the gendarme--it will be the worse for you. Sir, sit under my stall; they +will not dare trouble you then." + +He moved under the awning, thanking her with a smile; and the people, +laughing, shuffled unwillingly aside and let him paint on in peace. It +was only little Bebee, but they had spoilt the child from her infancy, +and were used to obey her. + +The painter took a long time. He set about it with the bold ease of one +used to all the intricacies of form and color, and he had the skill of a +master. But he spent more than half the time looking idly at the humors +of the populace or watching how the treasures of Bebee's garden +went away one by one in the hands of strangers. + +Meanwhile, ever and again, sitting on the edge of her stall, with +his colors and brushes tossed out on the board, he talked to her, and, +with the soft imperceptible skill of long practice in those arts, he drew +out the details of her little simple life. + +There were not always people to buy, and whilst she rested and sheltered +the flowers from the sun, she answered him willingly, and in one of her +longer rests showed him the wonderful stockings. + +"Do you think it _could_ be the fairies?" she asked him a little +doubtfully. + +It was easy to make her believe any fantastical nonsense; but her fairies +were ethereal divinities. She could scarcely believe that they had laid +that box on her chair. + +"Impossible to doubt it!" he replied, unhesitatingly. "Given a belief in +fairies at all, why should there be any limit to what they can do? It is +the same with the saints, is it not?" + +"Yes," said Bebee, thoughtfully. + +The saints were mixed up in her imagination with the fairies in an +intricacy that would have defied the best reasonings of Father +Francis. + +"Well, then, you will wear the stockings, will you not? Only, believe me, +your feet are far prettier without them." + +Bebee laughed happily, and took another peep in the cosy rose-satin nest. +But her little face had a certain perplexity. Suddenly she turned on him. + +"Did not _you_ put them there?" + +"I?--never!" + +"Are you quite sure?" + +"Quite; but why ask?" + +"Because," said Bebee, shutting the box resolutely and pushing it a +little away,--"because I would not take it if you did. You are a +stranger, and a present is a debt, so Antoine always said." + +"Why take a present then from the Varnhart children, or your old friend +who gave you the clasps?" + +"Ah, that is very different. When people are very, very poor, equally +poor, the one with the other, little presents that they save for and +make with such a difficulty are just things that are a pleasure; +sacrifices; like your sitting up with a sick person at night, and then +she sits up with you another year when you want it. Do you not know?" + +"I know you talk very prettily. But why should you not take any one +else's present, though he may not be poor?" + +"Because I could not return it." + +"Could you not?" + +The smile in his eyes dazzled her a little; it was so strange, and yet +had so much light in it; but she did not understand him one whit. + +"No; how could I?" she said earnestly. "If I were to save for two years, +I could not get francs enough to buy anything worth giving back; and I +should be so unhappy, thinking of the debt of it always. Do tell me if +you put those stockings there?" + +"No"; he looked at her, and the trivial lie faltered and died away; the +eyes, clear as crystal, questioned him so innocently. "Well, if I did?" +he said, frankly; "you wished for them; what harm was there? Will you be +so cruel as to refuse them from me?" + +The tears sprang into Bebee's eyes. She was sorry to lose the beautiful +box, but more sorry he had lied to her. + +"It was very kind and good," she said, regretfully. "But I cannot think +why you should have done it, as you had never known me at all. And, +indeed, I could not take them, because Antoine would not let me if he +were alive; and if I gave you a flower every day all the year round I +should not pay you the worth of them, it would be quite impossible; and +why should you tell me falsehoods about such a thing? A falsehood is +never a thing for a man." + +She shut the box and pushed it towards him, and turned to the selling of +her bouquets. Her voice shook a little as she tied up a bunch of +mignonette and told the price of it. + +Those beautiful stockings! why had she ever seen them, and why had he +told her a lie? + +It made her heart heavy. For the first time in her brief life the +Broodhuis seemed to frown between her and the sun. + +Undisturbed, he painted on and did not look at her. + +The day was nearly done. The people began to scatter. The shadows grew +very long. He painted, not glancing once elsewhere than at his study. +Bebee's baskets were quite empty. + +She rose, and lingered, and regarded him wistfully: he was angered; +perhaps she had been rude? Her little heart failed her. + +If he would only look up! + +But he did not look up; he kept his handsome dark face studiously over +the canvas of the Broodhuis. She would have seen a smile in his eyes if +he had lifted them; but he never raised his lids. + +Bebee hesitated: take the stockings she would not; but perhaps she had +refused them too roughly. She wished so that he would look up and save +her speaking first; but he knew what he was about too warily and well to +help her thus. + +She waited awhile, then took one little red moss-rosebud that she had +saved all day in a corner of her basket, and held it out to him frankly, +shyly, as a peace offering. + +"Was I rude? I did not mean to be. But I cannot take the stockings; and +why did you tell me that falsehood?" + +He took the rosebud and rose too, and smiled; but he did not meet her +eyes. + +"Let us forget the whole matter; it is not worth a sou. If you do not +take the box, leave it; it is of no use to me." + +"I cannot take it." + +She knew she was doing right. How was it that he could make her feel as +though she were acting wrongly? + +"Leave it then, I say. You are not the first woman, my dear, who has +quarrelled with a wish fulfilled. It is a way your sex has of rewarding +gods and men.--Here, you old witch, here is a treasure-trove for you. You +can sell it for ten francs in the town anywhere." + +As he spoke he tossed the casket and the stockings in it to an old +decrepit woman, who was passing by with a baker's cart drawn by a dog; +and, not staying to heed her astonishment, gathered his colors and easel +together. + +The tears swam in Bebee's eyes as she saw the box whirled through the +air. + +She had done right; she was sure she had done right. + +He was a stranger, and she could never have repaid him; but he made her +feel herself wayward and ungrateful, and it was hard to see the beautiful +fairy gift borne away forever by the chuckling, hobbling, greedy old +baker's woman. If he had only taken it himself, she would have been glad +then to have been brave and to have done her duty. + +But it was not in his design that she should be glad. + +He saw her tears, but he seemed not to see them. + +"Good night, Bebee," he said carelessly, as he sauntered aside from her. +"Good night, my dear. To-morrow I will finish my painting; but I will not +offend you by any more gifts." + +Bebee lifted her drooped head, and looked him in the eyes eagerly, with a +certain sturdy resolve and timid wistfulness intermingled in her look. + +"Sir, see, you speak to me quite wrongly," she said with a quick +accent, that had pride as well as pain in it. "Say it was kind to +bring me what I wished for; yes, it was kind I know; but you never saw +me till last night, and I cannot tell even your name; and it is very +wrong to lie to any one, even to a little thing like me; and I am only +Bebee, and cannot give you anything back, because I have only just enough +to feed myself and the starling, and not always that in winter. I thank +you very much for what you wished to do; but if I had taken those things, +I think you would have thought me very mean and full of greed; and +Antoine always said, 'Do not take what you cannot pay--not ever what you +cannot pay--that is the way to walk with pure feet.' Perhaps I spoke ill, +because they spoil me, and they say I am too swift to say my mind. But I +am not thankless--not thankless, indeed--it is only I could not take what +I cannot pay. That is all. You are angry still--not now--no?" + +There was, anxiety in the pleading. What did it matter to her what a +stranger thought? + +And yet Bebee's heart was heavy as he laughed a little coldly, and bade +her good day, and left her alone to go out of the city homewards. A sense +of having done wrong weighed on her; of having been rude and ungrateful. + +She had no heart for the children that evening. Mere Krebs was sitting +out before her door shelling peas, and called to her to come in and have +a drop of coffee. Krebs had come in from Vilvoeorde fair, and brought a +stock of rare good berries with him. But Bebee thanked her, and went on +to her own garden to work. + +She had always liked to sit out on the quaint wooden steps of the mill +and under the red shadow of the sails, watching the swallows flutter to +and fro in the sunset, and hearing the droll frogs croak in the rushes, +while the old people told her tales of the time of how in their babyhood +they had run out, fearful yet fascinated, to see the beautiful Scots +Grays flash by in the murky night, and the endless line of guns and +caissons crawl black as a snake through the summer dust and the +trampled corn, going out past the woods to Waterloo. + +But to-night she had no fancy for it: she wanted to be alone with the +flowers. + +Though, to be sure, they had been very heartless when Antoine's coffin +had gone past them, still they had sympathy; the daisies smiled at her +with their golden eyes, and the roses dropped tears on her hand, just as +her mood might be; the flowers were closer friends, after all, than any +human souls; and besides, she could say so much to them! + +Flowers belong to fairyland; the flowers and the birds and the +butterflies are all that the world has kept of its Golden Age; the only +perfectly beautiful things on earth, joyous, innocent, half divine, +useless, say they who are wiser than God. + +Bebee went home and worked among her flowers. + +A little laborious figure, with her petticoats twisted high, and her feet +wet with the night dews, and her back bowed to the hoeing and clipping +and raking among the blossoming plants. + +"How late you are working to-night, Bebee!" one or two called out, as +they passed the gate. She looked up and smiled; but went on working while +the white moon rose. + +She did not know what ailed her. + +She went to bed without supper, leaving her bit of bread and bowl of +goat's milk to make a meal for the fowls in the morning. + +"Little ugly, shameful, naked feet!" she said to them, sitting on the +edge of her mattress, and looking at them in the moonlight. They were +very pretty feet, and would not have been half so pretty in silk hose and +satin shoon; but she did not know that: he had told her she wanted those +vanities. + +She sat still a long while, her rosy feet swaying to and fro like two +roses that grow on one stalk and hang down in the wind. The little +lattice was open; the sweet and dusky garden was beyond; there was a +hand's breadth of sky, in which a single star was shining; the leaves +of the vine hid all the rest. + +But for once she saw none of it. + +She only saw the black Broodhuis; the red and gold sunset overhead; the +gray stones, with the fallen rose leaves and crushed fruits; and in the +shadows two dark, reproachful eyes, that looked at hers. + +Had she been ungrateful? + +The little tender, honest heart of her was troubled and oppressed. For +once, that night she slept ill. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +All the next day she sat under the yellow awning, but she sat alone. + +It was market day; there were many strangers. Flowers were in demand. The +copper pieces were ringing against one another all the hours through in +her leathern bag. The cobbler was in such good humor that he forgot to +quarrel with his wife. The fruit was in such plenty that they gave her a +leaf-full of white and red currants for her noonday dinner. And the +people split their sides at the Cheap John's jokes; he was so droll. No +one saw the leaks in his kettles or the hole in his bellows, or the leg +that was lacking to his milking stool. + +Everybody was gay and merry that day. But Bebee's eyes looked wistfully +over the throng, and did not find what they sought. Somehow the day +seemed dull, and the square empty. + +The stones and the timbers around seemed more than ever full of a +thousand stories that they would not tell her because she knew nothing, +and was only Bebee. + +She had never known a dull hour before. She, a little bright, +industrious, gay thing, whose hands were always full of work, and whose +head was always full of fancies, even in the grimmest winter time, when +she wove the lace in the gray, chilly workroom, with the frost on the +casements, and the mice running out in their hunger over the bare brick +floor. + +That bare room was a sad enough place sometimes, when the old women would +bewail how they starved on the pittance they gained, and the young women +sighed for their aching heads and their failing eyesight, and the +children dropped great tears on the bobbins, because they had come out +without a crust to break their fast. + +She had been sad there often for others, but she had never been dull--not +with this unfamiliar, desolate, dreary dulness, that seemed to take all +the mirth out of the busy life around her, and all the color out of the +blue sky above. Why, she had no idea herself. She wondered if she were +going to be ill; she had never been ill in her life, being strong as a +little bird that has never known cage or captivity. + +When the day was done, Bebee gave a quick sigh as she looked across the +square. She had so wanted to tell him that she was not ungrateful; and +she had a little moss-rose ready, with a sprig of sweetbrier, and a tiny +spray of maidenhair fern that grew under the willows, which she had kept +covered up with a leaf of sycamore all the day long. + +No one would have it now. + +The child went out of the place sadly as the carillon rang. There was +only the moss-rose in her basket, and the red and white currants that had +been given her for her dinner. + +She went along the twisting, many-colored, quaintly fashioned streets, +till she came to the water-side. + +It is very ancient there still, there are all manner of old buildings, +black and brown and gray, peaked roofs, gabled windows, arched doors, +crumbling bridges, twisted galleries leaning to touch the dark surface of +the canal, dusky wharves crowded with barrels, and bales, and cattle, and +timber, and all the various freightage that the good ships come and go +with all the year round, to and from the ZuyderZee, and the Baltic water, +and the wild Northumbrian shores, and the iron-bound Scottish headlands, +and the pretty gray Norman seaports, and the white sandy dunes of +Holland, with the toy towns and the straight poplar-trees. + +Bebee was fond of watching the brigs and barges, that looked so big to +her, with their national flags flying, and their tall masts standing +thick as grass, and their tawny sails flapping in the wind, and about +them the sweet, strong smell of that strange, unknown thing, the sea. + +Sometimes the sailors would talk with her; sometimes some old salt, +sitting astride of a cask, would tell her a mariner's tale of far-away +lands and mysteries of the deep; sometimes some curly-headed cabin-boy +would give her a shell or a plume of seaweed, and try and make her +understand what the wonderful wild water was like, which was not quiet +and sluggish and dusky as this canal was, but was forever changing and +moving, and curling and leaping, and making itself now blue as her eyes, +now black as that thunder-cloud, now white as the snow that the winter +wind tossed, now pearl hued and opaline as the convolvulus that blew in +her own garden. + +And Bebee would listen, with the shell in her lap, and try to +understand, and gaze at the ships and then at the sky beyond them, and +try to figure to herself those strange countries to which these ships +were always going, and saw in fancy all the blossoming orchard province +of green France, and all the fir-clothed hills and rushing rivers of the +snow-locked Swedish shore, and saw too, doubtless, many lands that had no +place at all except in dreamland, and were more beautiful even than the +beauty of the earth, as poets' countries are, to their own sorrow, +oftentimes. + +But this dull day Bebee did not go down upon the wharf; she did not want +the sailors' tales; she saw the masts and the bits of bunting that +streamed from them, and they made her restless, which they had never done +before. + +Instead she went in at a dark old door and climbed up a steep staircase +that went up and up, as though she were mounting St. Gudule's belfry +towers; and at the top of it entered a little chamber in the roof, where +one square unglazed hole that served for light looked out upon the canal, +with all its crowded craft, from the dainty schooner yacht, fresh as +gilding and holystone could make her, that was running for pleasure to +the Scheldt, to the rude, clumsy coal barge, black as night, that bore +the rough diamonds of Belgium to the snow-buried roofs of Christiania and +Stromstad. + +In the little dark attic there was a very old woman in a red petticoat +and a high cap, who sat against the window, and pricked out lace patterns +with a pin on thick paper. She was eighty-five years old, and could +hardly keep body and soul together. + +Bebee, running to her, kissed her. "Oh, mother Annemie, look here! +Beautiful red and white currants, and a roll; I saved them for you. They +are the first currants we have seen this year. Me? oh, for me, I have +eaten more than are good! You know I pick fruit like a sparrow, always. +Dear mother Annemie, are you better? Are you quite sure you are better +to-day?" + +The little old withered woman, brown as a walnut and meagre as a rush, +took the currants, and smiled with a childish glee, and began to eat +them, blessing the child with each crumb she broke off the bread. + +"Why had you not a grandmother of your own, my little one?" she mumbled. +"How good you would have been to her, Bebee!" + +"Yes," said Bebee seriously, but her mind could not grasp the idea. It +was easier for her to believe the fanciful lily parentage of Antoine's +stories. "How much work have you done, Annemie? Oh, all that? all that? +But there is enough for a week. You work too early and too late, you dear +Annemie." + +"Nay, Bebee, when one has to get one's bread that cannot be. But I am +afraid my eyes are failing. That rose now, is it well done?" + +"Beautifully done. Would the Baes take them if they were not? You know he +is one that cuts every centime in four pieces." + +"Ah! sharp enough, sharp enough, that is true. But I am always afraid of +my eyes. I do not see the flags out there so well as I used to do." + +"Because the sun is so bright, Annemie; that is all. I myself, when I +have been sitting all day in the place in the light, the flowers look +pale to me. And you know it is not age with _me_, Annemie?" + +The old woman and the young girl laughed together at that droll idea. + +"You have a merry heart, dear little one," said old Annemie. "The saints +keep it to you always." + +"May I tidy the room a little?" + +"To be sure, dear, and thank you too. I have not much time, you see; and +somehow my back aches badly when I stoop." + +"And it is so damp here for you, over all that water!" said Bebee as she +swept and dusted and set to rights the tiny place, and put in a little +broken pot a few sprays of honeysuckle and rosemary that she had brought +with her. "It is so damp here. You should have come and lived in my hut +with me, Annemie, and sat out under the vine all day, and looked after +the chickens for me when I was in the town. They are such mischievous +little souls; as soon as my back is turned one or other is sure to push +through the roof, and get out among the flower-beds. Will you never +change your mind, and live with me, Annemie? I am sure you would be +happy, and the starling says your name quite plain, and he is such a +funny bird to talk to; you never would tire of him. Will you never come? +It is so bright there, and green and sweet smelling; and to think you +never even have seen it!--and the swans and all,--it is a shame." + +"No, dear," said old Annemie, eating her last bunch of currants. +"You have said so so often, and you are good and mean it, that I +know. But I could not leave the water. It would kill me. Out of this +window you know I saw my Jeannot's brig go away--away--away--till the +masts were lost in the mists. Going with iron to Norway; the 'Fleur +d'Epine' of this town, a good ship, and a sure, and her mate; and as +proud as might be, and with a little blest Mary in lead round his throat. +She was to be back in port in eight months, bringing timber. Eight +months--that brought Easter time. But she never came. Never, never, +never, you know. I sat here watching them come and go, and my child +sickened and died, and the summer passed, and the autumn, and all the +while I looked--looked--looked; for the brigs are all much alike; and +only her I always saw as soon as she hove in sight (because he tied a +hank of flax to her mizzen-mast); and when he was home safe and +sound I spun the hank into hose for him; that was a fancy of his, and for +eleven voyages, one on another, he had never missed to tie the flax +nor I to spin the hose. But the hank of flax I never saw this time; nor +the brave brig; nor my good man with his sunny blue eyes. Only one day in +winter, when the great blocks of ice were smashing hither and thither, a +coaster came in and brought tidings of how off in the Danish waters they +had come on a water-logged brig, and had boarded her, and had found her +empty, and her hull riven in two, and her crew all drowned and dead +beyond any manner of doubt. And on her stern there was her name painted +white, the 'Fleur d'Epine,' of Brussels, as plain as name could be; and +that was all we ever knew: what evil had struck her, or how they had +perished, nobody ever told. Only the coaster brought that bit of beam +away, with the 'Fleur d'Epine' writ clear upon it. But you see I never +_know_ my man is dead. Any day--who can say?--any one of those ships may +bring him aboard of her, and he may leap out on the wharf there, and come +running up the stairs as he used to do, and cry, in his merry voice, +'Annemie, Annemie, here is more flax to spin, here is more hose to +weave!' For that was always his homeward word; no matter whether he had +had fair weather or foul, he always knotted the flax to his masthead. So +you see, dear, I could not leave here. For what if he came and found me +away? He would say it was an odd fashion of mourning for him. And I could +not do without the window, you know. I can watch all the brigs come in; +and I can smell the shipping smell that I have loved all the days of my +life; and I can see the lads heaving, and climbing, and furling, and +mending their bits of canvas, and hauling their flags up and down. And +then who can say?--the sea never took him, I think--I think I shall hear +his voice before I die. For they do say that God is good." + +Bebee, sweeping very noiselessly, listened, and her eyes grew wistful and +wondering. She had heard the story a thousand times; always in different +words, but always the same little tale, and she knew how old Annemie was +deaf to all the bells that tolled the time, and blind to all the +whiteness of her hair and all the wrinkles of her face, and only thought +of her sea-slain lover as he had been in the days of her youth. + +But this afternoon the familiar history had a new patheticalness for her, +and as the old soul put aside with her palsied hand the square of canvas +that screened the casement, and looked out, with her old dim sad eyes +strained in the longing that God never answered, Bebee felt a strange +chill at her own heart, and wondered to herself,-- + +"What can it be to care for another creature like that? It must be so +terrible, and yet it must be beautiful too. Does every one suffer like +that?" + +She did not speak at all as she finished sweeping the bricks, and went +down-stairs for a metal cruche full of water, and set over a little +charcoal on the stove the old woman's brass soup kettle with her supper +of stewing cabbage. + +Annemie did not hear or notice; she was still looking out of the hole in +the wall on to the masts, and the sails, and the water. + +It was twilight. + +From the barges and brigs there came the smell of the sea. The sailors +were shouting to each other. The craft were crowded close, and lost in +the growing darkness. On the other side of the canal the belfries were +ringing for vespers. + +"Eleven voyages one and another, and he never forgot to tie the flax +to the mast," Annemie murmured, with her old wrinkled face leaning out +into the gray air. "It used to fly there,--one could see it coming up +half a mile off,--just a pale yellow flake on the wind, like a tress of +my hair, he would say. No, no, I could not go away; he may come to-night, +to-morrow, any time; he is not drowned, not my man; he was all I had, and +God is good, they say." + +Bebee listened and looked; then kissed the old shaking hand and took up +the lace patterns and went softly out of the room without speaking. + +When old Annemie watched at the window it was useless to seek for any +word or sign of her: people said that she had never been quite right in +her brain since that fatal winter noon sixty years before, when the +coaster had brought into port the broken beam of the good brig "Fleur +d'Epine." + +Bebee did not know about that, nor heed whether her wits were right or +not. + +She had known the old creature in the lace-room where Annemie pricked out +designs, and she had conceived a great regard and sorrow for her; and +when Annemie had become too ailing and aged to go herself any longer to +the lace-maker's place, Bebee had begged leave for her to have the +patterns at home, and had carried them to and fro for her for the last +three or four years, doing many other little useful services for the lone +old soul as well,--services which Annemie hardly perceived, she had +grown so used to them, and her feeble intelligence was so sunk in the one +absorbing idea that she must watch all the days through and all the years +through for the coming of the dead man and the lost brig. + +Bebee put the lace patterns in her basket, and trotted home, her sabots +clattering on the stones. + +"What it must be to care for any one like that!" she thought, and by some +vague association of thought that she could not have pursued, she lifted +the leaves and looked at the moss-rosebud. + +It was quite dead. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +As she got clear of the city and out on her country road, a shadow Fell +across her in the evening light. + +"Have you had a good day, little one?" asked a voice that made her stop +with a curious vague expectancy and pleasure. + +"It is you!" she said, with a little cry, as she saw her friend of the +silk stockings leaning on a gate midway in the green and solitary road +that leads to Laeken. + +"Yes, it is I," he answered, as he joined her. "Have you forgiven me, +Bebee?" + +She looked at him with frank, appealing eyes, like those of a child in +fault. + +"Oh, I did not sleep all night!" she said, simply. "I thought I had been +rude and ungrateful, and I could not be sure I had done right, though to +have done otherwise would certainly have been wrong." + +He laughed. + +"Well, that is a clearer deduction than is to be drawn from most moral +uncertainties. Do not think twice about the matter, my dear. I have not, +I assure you." + +"No!" + +She was a little disappointed. It seemed such an immense thing to her; +and she had lain awake all the night, turning it about in her little +brain, and appealing vainly for help in it to the sixteen sleep-angels. + +"No, indeed. And where are you going so fast, as if those wooden shoes of +yours were sandals of Mercury?" + +"Mercury--is that a shoemaker?" + +"No, my dear. He did a terrible bit of cobbling once, when he made +Woman. But he did not shoe her feet with swiftness that I know of; she +only runs away to be run after, and if you do not pursue her, she comes +back--always." + +Bebee did not understand at all. + +"I thought God made women," she said, a little awe-stricken. + +"You call it God. People three thousand years ago called it Mercury or +Hermes. Both mean the same thing,--mere words to designate an unknown +quality. Where are you going? Does your home lie here?" + +"Yes, onward, quite far onward," said Bebee, wondering that he had +forgotten all she had told him the day before about her hut, her garden, +and her neighbors. "You did not come and finish your picture to-day: why +was that? I had a rosebud for you, but it is dead now." + +"I went to Anvers. You looked for me a little, then?" + +"Oh, all day long. For I was so afraid I had been ungrateful." + +"That is very pretty of you. Women are never grateful, my dear, except +when they are very ill-treated. Mercury, whom we were talking of, gave +them, among other gifts, a dog's heart." + +Bebee felt bewildered; she did not reason about it, but the idle, +shallow, cynical tone pained her by its levity and its unlikeness to +the sweet, still, gray summer evening. + +"Why are you in such a hurry?" he pursued. "The night is cool, and it is +only seven o'clock. I will walk part of the way with you." + +"I am in a hurry because I have Annemie's patterns to do," said Bebee, +glad that he spoke of a thing that she knew how to answer. "You see, +Annemie's hand shakes and her eyes are dim, and she pricks the pattern +all awry and never perceives it; it would break her heart if one showed +her so, but the Baes would not take them as they are; they are of no use +at all. So I prick them out myself on fresh paper, and the Baes thinks it +is all her doing, and pays her the same money, and she is quite content. +And as I carry the patterns to and fro for her, because she cannot walk, +it is easy to cheat her like that; and it is no harm to cheat _so_, you +know." He was silent. + +"You are a good little girl, Bebee, I can see." he said at last, with a +graver sound in his voice. "And who is this Annemie for whom you do so +much? an old woman, I suppose." + +"Oh, yes, quite old; incredibly old. Her man was drowned at sea sixty +years ago, and she watches for his brig still, night and morning." + +"The dog's heart. No doubt he beat her, and had a wife in fifty other +ports." + +"Oh, no!" said Bebee, with a little cry, as though the word against the +dead man hurt her. "She has told me so much of him. He was as good as +good could be, and loved her so, and between the voyages they were so +happy. Surely that must have been sixty years now, and she is so sorry +still, and still will not believe that he was drowned." + +He looked down on her with a smile that had a certain pity in it. + +"Well, yes; there are women like that, I believe. But be very sure, my +dear, he beat her. Of the two, one always holds the whip and uses it, the +other crouches." + +"I do not understand," said Bebee. + +"No; but you will." + +"I will?--when?" + +He smiled again. + +"Oh--to-morrow, perhaps, or next year--or when Fate fancies." + +"Or rather, when I choose," he thought to himself, and let his eyes rest +with a certain pleasure on the little feet, that went beside him in the +grass, and the pretty fair bosom that showed ever and again, as the +frills of her linen bodice were blown back by the wind and her own quick +motion. + +Bebee looked also up at him; he was very handsome, and looked so to her, +after the broad, blunt, characterless faces of the Walloon peasantry +around her. He walked with an easy grace, he was clad in picture-like +velvets, he had a beautiful poetic head, and eyes like deep brown waters, +and a face like one of Jordaens' or Rembrandt's cavaliers in the +galleries where she used to steal in of a Sunday, and look up at the +paintings, and dream of what that world could be in which those people +had lived. + +"_You_ are of the people of Rubes' country, are you not?" she asked him. + +"Of what country, my dear?" + +"Of the people that live in the gold frames," said Bebee, quite +seriously. "In the galleries, you know. I know a charwoman that scrubs +the floors of the Arenberg Palace, and she lets me in sometimes to look; +and you are just like those great gentlemen in the gold frames, only you +have not a hawk and a sword, and they always have. I used to wonder where +they came from, for they are not like any of us one bit, and the +charwoman--she is Lisa Dredel, and lives in the street of the Pot +d'Etain--always said. 'Dear heart, they all belong to Rubes' land: we +never see their like nowadays.' But _you_ must come out of Rubes' land; +at least, I think so, do you not?" + +He caught her meaning; he knew that Rubes was the homely abbreviation of +Rubens that all the Netherlanders used, and he guessed the idea that was +reality to this little lonely fanciful mind. + +"Perhaps I do," he answered her with a smile, for it was not worth his +while to disabuse her thoughts of any imagination that glorified him to +her. "Do you not want to see Rubes' world, little one? To see the gold +and the grandeur, and the glitter of it all?--never to toil or get +tired?--always to move in a pageant?--always to live like the hawks in +the paintings you talk of, with silver bells hung round you, and a hood +all sewn with pearls?" + +"No," said Bebee, simply. "I should like to see it, just to see it, as +one looks through a grating into the king's grape-houses here. But I +should not like to live in it. I love my hut, and the starling, and the +chickens, and what would the garden do without me? and the children, and +the old Annemie? I could not anyhow, anywhere, be any happier than I am. +There is only one thing I wish." + +"And what is that?" + +"To know something; not to be so ignorant. Just look--I can read a +Little, it is true: my Hours, and the letters, and when Krebs brings +in a newspaper I can read a little of it, not much. I know French well, +because Antoine was French himself, and never did talk Flemish to me; +and they being Netherlanders, cannot, of course, read the newspapers at +all, and so think it very wonderful indeed in me. But what I want is to +know things, to know all about what _was_ before ever I was living. St. +Gudule now--they say it was built hundreds of years before; and Rubes +again--they say he was a painter king in Antwerpen before the oldest, +oldest woman like Annemie ever began to count time. I am sure books +tell you all those things, because I see the students coming and going +with them; and when I saw once the millions of books in the Rue du Musee, +I asked the keeper what use they were for, and he said, 'To make men +wise, my dear.' But Gringoire Bac, the cobbler, who was with me,--it was +a fete day,--Bac, _he_ said, 'Do not you believe that, Bebee; they +only muddle folks' brains; for one book tells them one thing, and another +book another, and so on, till they are dazed with all the contrary +lying; and if you see a bookish man, be sure you see a very poor creature +who could not hoe a patch, or kill a pig, or stitch an upper-leather, +were it ever so.' But I do not believe that Bac said right. Did he?" + +"I am not sure. On the whole, I think it is the truest remark on +literature I have ever heard, and one that shows great judgment in Bac. +Well?" + +"Well, sometimes, you know," said Bebee, not understanding his answer, +but pursuing her thoughts confidentially,--"sometimes I talk like this to +the neighbors, and they laugh at me. Because Mere Krebs says that when +one knows how to spin and sweep and make bread and say one's prayers and +milk a goat or a cow, it is all a woman wants to know this side of +heaven. But for me, I cannot help it, when I look at those windows in the +cathedral, or at those beautiful twisted little spires that are all over +our Hotel de Ville, I want to know who the men were that made them,--what +they did and thought,--how they looked and spoke,--how they learned to +shape stone into leaves and grasses like that,--how they could imagine +all those angel faces on the glass. When I go alone in the quite early +morning or at night when it is still--sometimes in winter I have to +stay till it is dark over the lace--I hear their feet come after me, and +they whisper to me close, 'Look what beautiful things we have done, +Bebee, and you all forget us quite. We did what never will die, but our +names are as dead as the stones.' And then I am so sorry for them and +ashamed. And I want to know more. Can you tell me?" + +He looked at her earnestly; her eyes were shining, her cheeks were warm, +her little mouth was tremulous with eagerness. + +"Did any one ever speak to you in that way?" he asked her. + +"No," she answered him. "It comes into my head of itself. Sometimes I +think the cathedral angels put it there. For the angels must be tired, +you know; always pointing to God and always seeing men turn away, I used +to tell Antoine sometimes. But he used to shake his head and say that it +was no use thinking; most likely St. Gudule and St. Michael had set the +church down in the night all ready made, why not? God made the trees, and +they were more wonderful, he thought, for his part. And so perhaps they +are, but that is no answer. And I do _want_ to know. I want some one who +will tell me; and if you come out of Rubes' country as I think, no doubt +you know everything, or remember it?" + +He smiled. + +"The free pass to Rubes' country lies in books, pretty one. Shall I give +you some?--nay, lend them, I mean, since giving you are too wilful to +hear of without offence. You can read, you said?" + +Bebee's eyes glowed as they lifted themselves to his. + +"I can read--not very fast, but that would come with doing it more and +more, I think, just as spinning does; one knots the thread and breaks it +a million times before one learns to spin as fine as cobwebs. I have read +the stories of St. Anne, and of St. Catherine, and of St. Luven fifty +times, but they are all the books that Father Francis has; and no one +else has any among us." + +"Very well. You shall have books of mine. Easy ones first, and then those +that are more serious. But what time will you have? You do so much; you +are like a little golden bee." + +Bebee laughed happily. + +"Oh! give me the books and I will find the time. It is light so early +now. That gives one so many hours. In winter one has so few one must lie +in bed, because to buy a candle you know one cannot afford except, of +course, a taper now and then, as one's duty is, for our Lady or for the +dead. And will you really, really, lend me books?" + +"Really, I will. Yes. I will bring you one to the Grande Place +to-morrow, or meet you on your road there with it. Do you know what +poetry is, Bebee?" + +"No." + +"But your flowers talk to you?" + +"Ah! always. But then no one else hears them ever but me; and so no one +else ever believes." + +"Well, poets are folks who hear the flowers talk as you do, and the +trees, and the seas, and the beasts, and even the stones; but no one +else ever hears these things, and so, when the poets write them out, the +rest of the world say, 'That is very fine, no doubt, but only good for +dreamers; it will bake no bread.' I will give you some poetry; for I +think you care more about dreams than about bread." + +"I do not know," said Bebee; and she did not know, for her dreams, like +her youth, and her innocence, and her simplicity, and her strength, were +all unconscious of themselves, as such things must be to be pure and true +at all. + +Bebee had grown up straight, and clean, and fragrant, and joyous as one +of her own carnations; but she knew herself no more than the carnation +knows its color and its root, + +"No. you do not know," said he, with a sort of pity; and thought within +himself, was it worth while to let her know? + +If she did not know, these vague aspirations and imaginations would drop +off from her with the years of her early youth, as the lime-flowers drop +downwards with the summer heats. She would forget them. They would linger +a little in her head, and, perhaps, always wake at some sunset hour or +some angelus chime, but not to trouble her. Only to make her cradle song +a little sadder and softer than most women's was. Unfed, they would sink +away and bear no blossom. + +She would grow into a simple, hardy, hardworking, God-fearing Flemish +woman like the rest. She would marry, no doubt, some time, and rear +her children honestly and well; and sit in the market stall every day, +and spin and sew, and dig and wash, and sweep, and brave bad weather, +and be content with poor food to the end of her harmless and laborious +days--poor little Bebee! + +He saw her so clearly as she would be--if he let her alone. + +A little taller, a little broader, a little browner, less sweet of voice, +less soft of skin, less flower-like in face; having learned to think only +as her neighbors thought, of price of wood and cost of bread; laboring +cheerily but hardly from daybreak to nightfall to fill hungry mouths: +forgetting all things except the little curly-heads clustered round her +soup-pot, and the year-old lips sucking at her breasts. + +A blameless life, an eventless life, a life as clear as the dewdrop, and +as colorless; a life opening, passing, ending in the little green wooded +lane, by the bit of water where the swans made their nests under the +willows; a life like the life of millions, a little purer, a little +brighter, a little more tender, perhaps, than those lives usually are, +but otherwise as like them as one ear of barley is like another as it +rises from the soil, and blows in the wind, and turns brown in the strong +summer sun, and then goes down to the sod again under the sickle. + +He saw her just as she would be--if he let her alone. + +But should he leave her alone? + +He cared nothing; only her eyes had such a pretty, frank, innocent +look like a bird's in them, and she had been so brave and bold with him +about those silken stockings; and this little ignorant, dreamful mind of +hers was so like a blush rosebud, which looks so close-shut, and so +sweet-smelling, and so tempting fold within fold, that a child will pull +it open, forgetful that he will spoil it forever from being a full-grown +rose, and that he will let the dust, and the sun, and the bee into its +tender bosom--and men are true children, and women are their rosebuds. + +Thinking only of keeping well with this strange and beautiful wayfarer +from that unknown paradise of Rubes' country, Bebee lifted up the +vine-leaves of her basket. + +"I took a flower for you to-day, but it is dead. Look; to-morrow, if you +will be there, you shall have the best in all the garden." + +"You wish to see me again then?" he asked her. Bebee looked at him with +troubled eyes, but with a sweet frank faith that had no hesitation in it. + +"Yes! you are not like anything I ever knew, and if you will only help me +to learn a little. Sometimes I think I am not stupid, only ignorant; but +I cannot be sure unless I try." + +He smiled; he was listlessly amused; the day before he had tempted the +child merely because she was pretty, and to tempt her in that way seemed +the natural course of things, but now there was something in her that +touched him differently; the end would be the same, but he would change +the means. + +The sun had set. There was a low, dull red glow still on the far edge of +the plains--that was all. In the distant cottages little lights were +twinkling. The path grew dark. + +"I will go away and let her alone," he thought. "Poor little soul! it +would give itself lavishly, it would never be bought. I will let it +alone; the mind will go to sleep and the body will keep healthy, and +strong, and pure, as people call it. It would be a pity to play with both +a day, and then throw them away as the boy threw the pear-blossom. She +is a little clod of earth that has field flowers growing in it. I will +let her alone, the flowers under the plough in due course will die, and +she will be content among the other clods,--if I let her alone." + +At that moment there went across the dark fields, against the dusky red +sky, a young man with a pile of brushwood on his back, and a hatchet in +his hand. + +"You are late, Bebee," he called to her in Flemish, and scowled at the +stranger by her side. + +"A good-looking lad; who is it?" said her companion. + +"That is Jeannot, the son of old Sophie," she answered him. "He is so +good--oh, so good, you cannot think; he keeps his mother and three little +sisters, and works so very, very hard in the forest, and yet he often +finds time to dig my garden for me, and he chops all my wood in winter." + +They had come to where the road goes up by the king's summer palace. They +were under great hanging beeches and limes. There was a high gray wall, +and over it the blossoming fruit boughs hung. In a ditch full of long +grass little kids bleated by their mothers. Away on the left went the +green fields of colza, and beetroot, and trefoil, with big forest trees +here and there in their midst, and, against the blue low line of the far +horizon, red mill-sails, and gray church spires; dreamy plaintive bells +far away somewhere were ringing the sad Flemish carillon. + +He paused and looked at her. + +"I must bid you good night, Bebee; you are near your home now." + +She paused too and looked at him. + +"But I shall see you to-morrow?" + +There was the wistful, eager, anxious unconsciousness of appeal as when +the night before she had asked him if he were angry. + +He hesitated a moment. If he said no, and went away out of the city +wherever his listless and changeful whim called him, he knew how it would +be with her; he knew what her life would be as surely as he knew the +peach would come out of the peach-flower rosy on the wall there: life in +the little hut; among the neighbors; sleepy and safe and soulless;--if he +let her alone. + +If he stayed and saw her on the morrow he knew, too, the end as surely as +he knew that the branch of white pear-blossom, which in carelessness he +had knocked down with a stone on the grass yonder, would fade in the +night and would never bring forth its sweet, simple fruit in the +sunshine. + +To leave the peach-flower to come to maturity and be plucked by a +peasant, or to pull down the pear-blossom and rifle the buds? + +Carelessly and languidly he balanced the question with himself, whilst +Bebee, forgetful of the lace patterns and the flight of the hours, stood +looking at him with anxious and pleading eyes, thinking only--was he +angry again, or would he really bring her the books and make her wise, +and let her know the stories of the past? + +"Shall I see you to-morrow?" she said wistfully. + +Should she?--if he left the peach-blossom safe on the wall, Jeannot the +woodcutter would come by and by and gather the fruit. + +If he left the clod of earth in its pasture with all its daisies +untouched, this black-browed young peasant would cut it round with his +hatchet and carry it to his wicker cage, that the homely brown lark of +his love might sing to it some stupid wood note under a cottage eave. + +The sight of the strong young forester going over the darkened fields +against the dull red skies was as a feather that suffices to sway to one +side a balance that hangs on a hair. + +He had been inclined to leave her alone when he saw in his fancy the +clean, simple, mindless, honest life that her fanciful girlhood would +settle down into as time should go on. But when in the figure of the +woodman there was painted visibly on the dusky sky that end for her which +he had foreseen, he was not indifferent to it; he resented it; he was +stirred to a vague desire to render it impossible. + +If Jeannot had not gone by across the fields he would have left her and +let her alone from that night thenceforwards; as it was,-- + +"Good night, Bebee," he said to her. "Tomorrow I will finish the +Broodhuis and bring you your first book. Do not dream too much, or you +will prick your lace patterns all awry. Good night, pretty one." + +Then he turned and went back through the green dim lanes to the city. + +Bebee stood a moment looking after him, with a happy smile; then she +picked up the fallen pear-blossom, and ran home as fast as her feet would +take her. + +That night she worked very late watering her flowers, and trimming them, +and then ironing out a little clean white cap for the morrow; and then +sitting down under the open lattice to prick out all old Annemie's +designs by the strong light of the full moon that flooded her hut with +its radiance. + +But she sang all the time she worked, and the gay, pretty, wordless songs +floated across the water and across the fields, and woke some old people +in their beds as they lay with their windows open, and they turned and +crossed themselves, and said, "Dear heart!--this is the eve of the +Ascension, and the angels are so near we hear them." + +But it was no angel; only the thing that is nearer heaven than anything +else,--a little human heart that is happy and innocent. + +Bebee had only one sorrow that night. The pear-blossoms were all dead; +and no care could call them back even for an hour's blooming. + +"He did not think when he struck them +down," she said to herself, regretfully. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +"Can I do any work for you, Bebee?" said black Jeannot in the daybreak, +pushing her gate open timidly with one hand. + +"There is none to do, Jeannot. They want so little in this time of the +year--the flowers," said she, lifting her head from the sweet-peas she +was tying up to their sticks. + +The woodman did not answer; he leaned over the half-open wicket, and +swayed it backwards and forwards under his bare arm. He was a good, +harmless, gentle fellow, swarthy as charcoal and simple as a child, and +quite ignorant, having spent all his days in the great Soignies forests +making fagots when he was a little lad, and hewing down trees or burning +charcoal as he grew to manhood. + +"Who was that seigneur with you last night, Bebee?" he asked, after a +long silence, watching her as she moved. + +Bebee's eyes grew very soft, but they looked up frankly. + +"I am not sure--I think he is a painter--a great painter prince, I +mean--as Rubes was in Antwerpen; he wanted roses the night before last in +the cathedral." + +"But he was walking with you?" + +"He was in the lane as I came home last night--yes." + +"What does he give you for your roses?" + +"Oh! he pays me well. How is your mother this day, Jeannot?" + +"You do not like to talk of him?" + +"Why should you want to talk of him? He is nothing to you." + +"Did you really see him only two days ago, Bebee?" + +"Oh, Jeannot! did I ever tell a falsehood? You would not say that to one +of your little sisters." + +The forester swayed the gate to and fro drearily under his folded arms. + +Bebee, not regarding him, cut her flowers, and filled her baskets, and +did her other work, and set a ladder against the hut and climbed on its +low roof to seek for eggs, the hens having green tastes sometimes for the +rushes and lichens of its thatch. She found two eggs, which she promised +herself to take to Annemie, and looking round as she sat on the edge of +the roof, with one foot on the highest rung of the ladder, saw that +Jeannot was still at the gate. + +"You will be late in the forest, Jeannot," she cried to him. "It is such +a long, long way in and out. Why do you look so sulky? and you are +kicking the wicket to pieces." + +"I do not like you to talk with strangers," said Jeannot, sullenly and +sadly. + +Bebee laughed as she sat on the edge of the thatch, and looked at the +shining gray skies of the early day, and the dew-wet garden, and the +green fields beyond, with happy eyes that made the familiar scene +transfigured to her. + +"Oh, Jeannot, what nonsense! As if I do not talk to a million strangers +every summer! as if I could ever sell a flower if I did not! You are +cross this morning; that is what it is." + +"Do you know the man's name?" said Jeannot, suddenly. + +Bebee felt her cheeks grow warm as with some noonday heat of sunshine. +She thought it was with anger against blundering Jeannot's curiosity. + +"No! and what would his name be to us, if I did know it? I cannot ask +people's names because they buy my roses." + +"As if it were only roses!" + +There was the length of the garden between them, and Bebee did not hear +as she sat on the edge of her roof with that light dreamful enjoyment +of air and sky and coolness, and all the beauty of the dawning day, which +the sweet vague sense of a personal happiness will bring with it to the +dullest and the coldest. + +"You are cross, Jeannot, that is what it is," she said, after a while. +"You should not be cross; you are too big and strong and good. Go in and +get my bowl of bread and milk for me, and hand it to me up here. It is so +pleasant. It is as nice as being perched on an apple-tree." + +Jeannot went in obediently and handed up her breakfast to her, looking at +her with shy, worshipping eyes. But his face was overcast, and he sighed +heavily as he took up his hatchet and turned away; for he was the sole +support of his mother and sisters, and if he did not do his work in +Soignies they would starve at home. + +"You will be seeing that stranger again?" he asked her. + +"Yes!" she answered with a glad triumph in her eyes; not thinking at all +of him as she spoke. "You ought to go, Jeannot, now; you are so late. I +will come and see your mother to-morrow. And do not be cross, you dear +big Jeannot. Days are too short to snip them up into little bits by bad +temper; it is only a stupid sheep-shearer that spoils the fleece by +snapping at it sharp and hard; that is what Father Francis says." + +Bebee, having delivered her little piece of wisdom, broke her bread into +her milk and ate it, lifting her face to the fresh wind and tossing +crumbs to the wheeling swallows, and watching the rose-bushes nod and +toss below in the breeze, and thinking vaguely how happy a thing it was +to live. + +Jeannot looked up at her, then went on his slow sad way through the wet +lavender-shrubs and the opening buds of the lilies. + +"You will only think of that stranger, Bebee, never of any of us--never +again," he said; and wearily opened the little gate and went through it, +and down the daybreak stillness of the lane. It was a foolish thing to +say; but when were lovers ever wise? + +Bebee did not heed; she did not understand herself or him; she only knew +that she was happy; when one knows that, one does not want to seek much +further. + +She sat on the thatch and took her bread and milk in the gray clear air, +with the swallows circling above her head, and one or two of them even +resting a second on the edge of the bowl to peck at the food from the big +wooden spoon; they had known her all the sixteen summers of her life, and +were her playfellows, only they would never tell her anything of what +they saw in winter over the seas. That was her only quarrel with them. +Swallows do not tell their secrets They have the weird of Procne on +them all. + +The sun came and touched the lichens of the roof into gold. + +Bebee smiled at it gayly as it rose above the tops of the trees, and +shone on all the little villages scattered over the plains. + +"Ah, dear Sun!" she cried to it. "I am going to be wise. I am going into +great Rubes' country. I am going to hear of the Past and the Future. I am +going to listen to what the Poets say. The swallows never would tell me +anything; but now I shall know as much as they know. Are you not glad for +me, O Sun?" + +The Sun came over the trees, and heard and said nothing. If he had +answered at all he must have said,-- + +"The only time when a human soul is either wise or happy is in that one +single moment when the hour of my own shining or of the moon's beaming +seems to that single soul to be past and present and future, to be at +once the creation and the end of all things. Faust knew that; so will +you." + +But the Sun shone on and held his peace. He sees all things ripen and +fall. He can wait. He knows the end. It is always the same. + +He brings the fruit out of the peach-flower, and rounds it and touches it +into ruddiest rose and softest gold: but the sun knows well that the +peach must drop--whether into the basket to be eaten by kings, or on to +the turf to be eaten by ants. What matter which very much after all? + +The Sun is not a cynic; he is only wise because he is Life and he is +Death, the creator and the corrupter of all things. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +But Bebee, who only saw in the sun the sign of daily work, the brightness +of the face of the world, the friend of the flowers, the harvest-man of +the poor, the playmate of the birds and butterflies, the kindly light +that the waking birds and the ringing carillon welcomed,--Bebee, who was +not at all afraid of him, smiled at his rays and saw in them only fairest +promise of a cloudless midsummer day as she gave her last crumb to the +swallows, dropped down off the thatch, and busied herself in making bread +that Mere Krebs would bake for her, until it was time to cut her flowers +and go down into the town. + +When her loaves were made and she had run over with them to the +mill-house and back again, she attired herself with more heed than +usual, and ran to look at her own face in the mirror of the deep +well-water--other glass she had none. + +She was used to hear herself called pretty; bat she had never thought +about it at all till now. The people loved her; she had always believed +that they had only said it as a sort of kindness, as they said, "God keep +you." But now-- + +"He told me I was like a flower," she thought to herself, and hung over +the well to see. She did not know very well what he had meant; but the +sentence stirred in her heart as a little bird under tremulous leaves. + +She waited ten minutes full, leaning and looking down, while her eyes, +that were like the blue iris, smiled back to her from the brown depths +below. Then she went and kneeled down before the old shrine in the wall +of the garden. + +"Dear and holy Mother of Jesus, I do thank you that you made me a little +good to look at," she said, softly. "Keep me as you keep the flowers, and +let my face be always fair, because it is a pleasure to _be_ a pleasure. +Ah, dear Mother, I say it so badly, and it sounds so vain, I know. But I +do not think you will be angry, will you? And I am going to try to be +wise." + +Then she murmured an ave or two, to be in form as it were, and then rose +and ran along the lanes with her baskets, and brushed the dew lightly +over her bare feet, and sang a little Flemish song for very joyousness, +as the birds sing in the apple bough. + +She got the money for Annemie and took it to her with fresh patterns to +prick, and the new-laid eggs. + +"I wonder what he meant by a dog's heart?" she thought to herself, as she +left the old woman sitting by the hole in the roof pricking out the +parchment in all faith that she earned her money, and looking every now +and then through the forests of masts for the brig with the hank of flax +flying,--the brig that had foundered fifty long years before in the +northern seas, and in the days of her youth. + +"What is the dog's heart?" thought Bebee; she had seen a dog she knew--a +dog which all his life long had dragged heavy loads under brutal stripes +along the streets of Brussels--stretch himself on the grave of his +taskmaster and refuse to eat, and persist in lying there until he died, +though he had no memory except of stripes, and no tie to the dead except +pain and sorrow. Was it a heart like this that he meant? + +"Was her sailor, indeed, so good to her?" she asked an old gossip of +Annemie's, as she went down the stairs. + +The old soul stopped to think with difficulty of such a far-off time, and +resting her brass flagon of milk on the steep step. + +"Eh, no; not that I ever saw," she answered at length. "He was fond of +her--very fond; but he was a wilful one, and he beat her sometimes when +he got tired of being on land. But women must not mind that, you know, my +dear, if only a man's heart is right. Things fret them, and then they +belabor what they love best; it is a way they have." + +"But she speaks of him as of an angel nearly!" said Bebee, bewildered. + +The old woman took up her flagon, with a smile flitting across her wintry +face. + +"Ay, dear; when the frost kills your brave rose-bush, root and bud, +do you think of the thorns that pricked you, or only of the fair, +sweet-smelling things that flowered all your summer?" + +Bebee went away thoughtfully out of the old crazy water-washed house by +the quay; life seemed growing very strange and intricate and knotted +about her, like the threads of lace that a bad fairy has entangled in the +night. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Her stranger from Rubes' land was a great man in a certain world. He had +become great when young, which is perhaps a misfortune. It indisposes men +to be great at their maturity. He was famous at twenty, by a picture +hectic in color, perfect in drawing, that made Paris at his feet. He +became more famous by verses, by plays, by political follies, and by +social successes. He was faithful, however, to his first love in art. He +was a great painter, and year by year proved afresh the cunning of his +hand. Purists said his pictures had no soul in them. It was not wonderful +if they had none. He always painted soulless vice; indeed, he saw very +little else. + +One year he had some political trouble. He wrote a witty pamphlet that +hurt where it was perilous to aim. He laughed and crossed the border, +riding into the green Ardennes one sunny evening. He had a name of some +power and sufficient wealth; he did not feel long exile. Meanwhile he +told himself he would go and look at Scheffer's Gretchen. + +The King of Thule is better; but people talk most of the Gretchen. He had +never seen either. + +He went in leisurely, travelling up the bright Meuse River, and across +the monotony of the plains, then green with wheat a foot high, and +musical with the many bells of the Easter kermesses in the quaint +old-world villages. + +There was something so novel, so sleepy, so harmless, so mediaeval, in +the Flemish life, that it soothed him. He had been swimming all his +life in salt sea-fed rapids; this sluggish, dull, canal water, mirroring +between its rushes a life that had scarcely changed for centuries, had a +charm for him. + +He stayed awhile in Antwerpen. The town is ugly and beautiful; it is like +a dull quaint gres de Flandre jug, that has precious stones set inside +its rim. It is a burgher ledger of bales and barrels, of sale and barter, +of loss and gain; but in the heart of it there are illuminated leaves of +missal vellum, all gold and color, and monkish story and heroic ballad, +that could only have been executed in the days when Art was a religion. + +He gazed himself into an homage of Rubens, whom before he had slighted, +never having known (for, unless you have seen Antwerp, it is as absurd to +say that you have seen Rubens, as it is to think that you have seen +Murillo out of Seville, or Raffaelle out of Rome); and he studied the +Gretchen carefully, delicately, sympathetically, for he loved Scheffer; +but though he tried, he failed to care for her. + +"She is only a peasant; she is not a poem," he said to himself; "I will +paint a Gretchen for the Salon of next year." + +But it was hard for him to portray a Gretchen. All his pictures were +Phryne,--Phryne in triumph, in ruin, in a palace, in a poor-house, on a +bed of roses, on a hospital mattress; Phryne laughing with a belt of +jewels about her supple waist; Phryne lying with the stones of the +dead-house under her naked limbs,--but always Phryne. Phryne, who living +had death in her smile; Phryne, who lifeless had blank despair on her +face; Phryne, a thing that lived furiously every second of her days, but +Phryne a thing that once being dead was carrion that never could live +again. + +Phryne has many painters in this school, as many as Catherine and Cecilia +had in the schools of the Renaissance, and he was chief amidst them. + +How could he paint Gretchen if the pure Scheffer missed? Not even if, +like the artist monks of old, he steeped his brushes all Lent through in +holy water. + +And in holy water he did not believe. + +One evening, having left Antwerpen ringing its innumerable bells over the +grave of its dead Art, he leaned out of the casement of an absent +friend's old palace in the Brabant street that is named after Mary of +Burgundy; an old casement crusted with quaint carvings, and gilded round +in Spanish fashion, with many gargoyles and griffins, and illegible +scutcheons. + +Leaning there, wondering with himself whether he would wait awhile and +paint quietly in this dim street, haunted with the shades of Memling and +Maes, and Otto Veneris and Philip de Champagne, or whether he would go +into the East and seek new types, and lie under the red Egyptian heavens +and create a true Cleopatra, which no man has ever done yet,--young +Cleopatra, ankle-deep in roses and fresh from Caesar's kisses,--leaning +there, he saw a little peasant go by below, with two little white feet in +two wooden shoes, and a face that had the pure and simple radiance of a +flower. + +"There is my Gretchen," he thought to himself, and went down and followed +her into the cathedral. If he could get what was in her face, he would +get what Scheffer could not. + +A little later walking by her in the green lanes, he meditated, "It is +the face of Gretchen, but not the soul--the Red Mouse has never passed +this child's lips. Nevertheless--" + +"Nevertheless--" he said to himself, and smiled. + +For he, the painter all his life long of Phryne living and of Phryne +dead, believed that every daughter of Eve either vomits the Red Mouse +or swallows it. + +It makes so little difference which,--either way the Red Mouse has been +there the evening towards this little rush-covered hut, he forgot the Red +Mouse, and began vaguely to see that there are creatures of his mother's +sex from whom the beast of the Brocken slinks away. + +But he still said to himself, "Nevertheless." "Nevertheless,"--for he +knew well that when the steel cuts the silk, when the hound hunts the +fawn, when the snake wooes the bird, when the king covets the vineyard, +there is only one end possible at any time. It is the strong against the +weak, the fierce against the feeble, the subtle against the simple, the +master against the slave; there is no equality in the contest and no +justice--it is merely inevitable, and the issue of it is written. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +The next day she had her promised book hidden under the vine-leaves of +her empty basket as she went homeward, and though she had not seen him +very long or spoken to him very much, she was happy. + +The golden gates of knowledge had just opened to her; she saw a faint, +far-off glimpse of the Hesperides gardens within; of the dragon she had +never heard, and had no fear. + +"Might I know your name?" she had asked him wistfully, as she had given +him the rosebud, and taken the volume in return that day. + +"They call me Flamen." + +"It is your name?" + +"Yes, for the world. You must call me Victor, as other women do. Why do +you want my name?" + +"Jeannot asked it of me." + +"Oh, Jeannot asked it, did he?" + +"Yes; besides," said Bebee, with her eyes very soft and very serious, and +her happy voice hushed,--"besides, I want to pray for you of course, +every day; and if I do not know your name, how can I make Our Lady +rightly understand? The flowers know you without a name, but she might +not, because so very many are always beseeching her, and you see she has +all the world to look after." + +He had looked at her with a curious look, and had bade her farewell, and +let her go home alone that night. + +Her work was quickly done, and by the light of the moon she spread her +book on her lap in the porch of the hut and began her new delight. + +The children had come and pulled at her skirts and begged her to play. +But Bebee had shaken her head. + +"I am going to learn to be very wise, dear," she told them; "I shall not +have time to dance or to play." + +"But people are not merry when they are wise, Bebee," said Franz, the +biggest boy. + +"Perhaps not," said Bebee: "but one cannot be everything, you know, +Franz." + +"But surely, you would rather be merry than anything else?" + +"I think there is something better, Franz. I am not sure; I want to find +out; I will tell you when I know." + +"Who has put that into your head, Bebee?" + +"The angels in the cathedral," she told them; and the children were awed +and left her, and went away to play blind-man's-buff by themselves, on +the grass by the swan's water. + +"But for all that the angels have said it," said Franz to his sisters, "I +cannot see what good it will be to her to be wise, if she will not care +any longer afterwards for almond gingerbread and currant cake." + +It was the little tale of "Paul and Virginia" that he had given her to +begin her studies with: but it was a grand copy, full of beautiful +drawings nearly at every page. + +It was hard work for her to read at first, but the drawings enticed and +helped her, and she soon sank breathlessly into the charm of the story. +Many words she did not know; many passages were beyond her comprehension; +she was absolutely ignorant, and had nothing but the force of her own +fancy to aid her. + +But though stumbling at every step, as a lame child through a flowery +hillside in summer, she was happy as the child would be, because of the +sweet, strange air that was blowing about her, and the blossoms that she +could gather into her hand, so rare, so wonderful, and yet withal so +familiar, because they _were_ blossoms. + +With her fingers buried in her curls, with her book on her knee, with the +moon rays white and strong on the page, Bebee sat entranced as the hours +went by; the children's play shouts died away; the babble of the gossip +at the house doors ceased; people went by and called good night to her; +the little huts shut up one by one, like the white and purple convolvulus +cups in the hedges. + +Bebee did not stir, nor did she hear them; she was deaf even to the +singing of the nightingales in the willows, where she sat in her little +thatch above, and the wet garden-ways beyond her. + +A heavy step came tramping down the lane. A voice called to her,-- + +"What are you doing, Bebee, there, this time of the night? It is on the +strike of twelve." + +She started as if she were doing some evil thing, and stretched her arms +out, and looked around with blinded, wondering eyes, as if she had been +rudely wakened from her sleep. + +"What are you doing up so late?" asked Jeannot; he was coming from the +forest in the dead of night to bring food for his family; he lost his +sleep thus often, but he never thought that he did anything except his +duty in those long, dark, tiring tramps to and fro between Soignies and +Laeken. + +Bebee shut her book and smiled with dreaming eyes, that saw him not at +all. + +"I was reading--and, Jeannot, his name is Flamen for the world, but I may +call him Victor." + +"What do I care for his name?" + +"You asked it this morning." + +"More fool I. Why do you read? Reading is not for poor folk like you and +me." + +Bebee smiled up at the white clear moon that sailed above the woods. + +She was not awake out of her dream. She +only dimly heard the words he spoke. + +"You are a little peasant," said Jeannot roughly, as he paused at the +gate. "It is all you can do to get your bread. You have no one to stand +between you and hunger. How will it be with you when the slug gets your +roses, and the snail your carnations, and your hens die of damp, and your +lace is all wove awry, because your head runs on reading and folly, and +you are spoilt for all simple pleasures and for all honest work?" + +She smiled, still looking up at the moon, with the dropping ivy touching +her hair. + +"You are cross, dear Jeannot. Good night." + +A moment afterwards the little rickety door was shut, and the rusty bolt +drawn within it; Jeannot stood in the cool summer night all alone, and +knew how stupid he had been in his wrath. + +He leaned on the gate a minute; then crossed the garden as softly as his +wooden shoes would let him. He tapped gently on the shutter of the +lattice. + +"Bebee--Bebee--just listen. I spoke roughly, dear--I know I have no +right. I am sorry. Will you be friends with me again?--do be friends +again." + +She opened the shutter a little way, so that he could see her +pretty mouth speaking, "we are friends--we will always be friends, +of course--only you do not know. Good night." + +He went away with a heavy heart and a long-drawn step. He would have +preferred that she should have been angry with him. + +Bebee, left alone, let the clothes drop off her pretty round shoulders +and her rosy limbs, and shook out her coils of hair, and kissed the book, +and laid it under her head, and went to sleep with a smile on her face. + +Only, as she slept, her ringers moved as if she were counting her beads, +and her lips murmured,-- + +"Oh, dear Holy Mother, you have so much to think of--yes. I know--all the +poor, and all the little children. But take care of _him_; he is called +Flamen, and he lives in the street of Mary of Burgundy; you cannot miss +him; and if you will look for him always, and have a heed that the angels +never leave him, I will give you my great cactus glower--my only one--on +your Feast of Roses this very year. Oh, dear Mother, you will not +forget!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Bebee was a dreamer in her way, and aspired to be a scholar too. But all +the same, she was not a little fool. + +She had been reared in hardy, simple, honest ways of living, and would +have thought it as shameful as a theft to have owed her bread to other +folk. + +So, though she had a wakeful, restless night, full of strange fantasies, +none the less was she out in her garden by daybreak; none the less did +she sweep out her floor and make her mash for the fowls, and wash out her +bit of linen and hang it to dry on a line among the tall, flaunting +hollyhocks that were so proud of themselves because they reached to the +roof. + +"What do you want with books, Bebee?" said Reine, the sabot-maker's wife, +across the privet hedge, as she also hung out her linen. "Franz told me +you were reading last night. It is the silver buckles have done that: one +mischief always begets another." + +"Where is the mischief, good Reine?" said Bebee, who was always prettily +behaved with her elders, though, when pushed to it, she could hold her +own. + +"The mischief will be in discontent," said the sabot-maker's wife. +"People live on their own little patch, and think it is the world; that +is as it should be--everybody within his own, like a nut in its shell. +But when you get reading, you hear of a swarm of things you never saw, +and you fret because you cannot see them, and you dream, and dream, and a +hole is burnt in your soup-pot, and your dough is as heavy as lead. You +are like bees that leave their own clover fields to buzz themselves dead +against the glass of a hothouse." + +Bebee smiled, reaching to spread out her linen. But she said nothing. + +"What good is it talking to them?" she thought; "they do not know." + +Already the neighbors and friends of her infancy seemed so far, far away; +creatures of a distant world, that she had long left; it was no use +talking, they never would understand. + +"Antoine should never have taught you your letters," said Reine, groaning +under the great blue shirts she was hanging on high among the leaves. "I +told him so at the time. I said, 'The child is a good child, and spins, +and sews, and sweeps, rare and fine for her age; why go and spoil her?' +But he was always headstrong. Not a child of mine knows a letter, the +saints be praised! nor a word of any tongue but our own good Flemish. You +should have been brought up the same. You would have come to no trouble +then." + +"I am in no trouble, dear Reine," said Bebee, scattering the potato-peels +to the clacking poultry, and she smiled into the faces of the golden +oxlips that nodded to her back again in sunshiny sympathy. + +"Not yet," said Reine, hanging her last shirt. + +But Bebee was not hearing; she was calling the chickens, and telling the +oxlips how pretty they looked in the borders; and in her heart she was +counting the minutes till the old Dutch cuckoo-clock at Mere Krebs's--the +only clock in the lane--should crow out the hour at which she went down +to the city. + +She loved the hut, the birds, the flowers; but they were little to her +now compared with the dark golden picturesque square, the changing +crowds, the frowning roofs, the gray stones, and colors and shadows of +the throngs for one face and for one smile. + +"He is sure to be there," she thought, and started half an hour earlier +than was her wont. She wanted to tell him all her rapture in the book; no +one else could understand. + +But all the day through he never came. + +Bebee sat with a sick heart and a parched little throat, selling her +flowers and straining her eyes through the tumult of the square. + +The whole day went by, and there was no sign of him. + +The flowers had sold well: it was a feast day; her pouch was full of +pence--what was that to her? + +She went and prayed in the cathedral, but it seemed cold, and desolate, +and empty; even the storied windows seemed dark. + +"Perhaps he is gore out of the city," she thought; and a terror fell on +her that frightened her, it was so unlike any fear that she had ever +known--even the fear when she had seen death on old Antoine's face had +been nothing like this. + +Going home through the streets, she passed the cafe of the Trois Freres +that looks out on the trees of the park, and that has flowers in its +balconies, and pleasant windows that stand open to let the sounds of the +soldiers' music enter. She saw him in one of the windows. There were +amber and scarlet and black; silks and satins and velvets. There was a +fan painted and jewelled. There were women's faces. There was a heap of +purple fruit and glittering sweetmeats. He laughed there. His beautiful +Murillo head was dark against the white and gold within. + +Bebee looked up,--paused a second,--then went onward, with a thorn in her +heart. + +He Had not seen her. + +"It is natural, of course--he has his world--he does not think often of +me--there is no reason why he should be as good as he is," she said to +herself as she went slowly over the stones. + +She had the dog's soul--only she did not know it. + +But the tears Fell down her cheeks, as she walked. + +It looked so bright in there, so gay, with the sound of the music coming +in through the trees, and those women,--she had seen such women before; +sometimes in the winter nights, going home from the lacework, she had +stopped at the doors of the palaces, or of the opera house, when the +carriages were setting down their brilliant burdens; and sometimes on the +great feast days she had seen the people of the court going out to some +gala at the theatre, or some great review of troops, or some ceremonial +of foreign sovereigns; but she had never thought about them before; she +had never wondered whether velvet was better to wear than woollen serge, +or-diamonds lighter on the head than a little cap of linen. + +But now-- + +Those women seemed to her so dazzling, so wondrously, so superhumanly +beautiful; they seemed like some of those new dahlia flowers, rose and +purple and gold, that outblazed the sun on the south border of her little +garden, and blanched all the soft color out of the homely roses, and +pimpernels, and sweet-williams, and double-stocks, that had bloomed +there ever since the days of Waterloo. + +But the dahlias had no scent; and Bebee wondered if these women had any +heart in them,--they looked all laughter, and glitter, and vanity. To the +child, whose dreams of womanhood were evolved from the face of the Mary +of the Assumption, of the Susannah of Mieris, and of that Angel in the +blue coif whose face has a light as of the sun,--to her who had dreamed +her way into vague perceptions of her own sex's maidenhood and maternity +by help of those great pictures which had been before her sight from +infancy, there was some taint, some artifice, some want, some harshness +in these jewelled women; she could not have reasoned about it, but she +felt it, as she felt that the grand dahlias missed a flower's divinity, +being scentless. + +She was a little bit of wild thyme herself; hardy, fragrant, clean, +tender, flowering by the wayside, full of honey, though only nourished +on the turf and the stones, these gaudy, brilliant, ruby-bright, +scarlet-mantled dahlias hurt her with a dim sense of pain and shame. + +Fasting, next day at sunrise she confessed to Father Francis:-- + +"I saw beautiful rich women, and I envied them; and I could not pray to +Mary last night for thinking of them, for I hated them so much." + +But she did not say,-- + +"I hated them because they were with him." + +Out of the purest little soul, Love entering drives forth Candor. + +"That is not like you at all, Bebee," said the good old man, as she knelt +at his feet on the bricks of his little bare study, where all the books +he ever spelt out were treatises on the art of bee-keeping. + +"My dear, you never were covetous at all, nor did you ever seem to care +for the things of the world. I wish Jehan had not given you those silver +buckles; I think they have set your little soul on vanities." + +"It is not the buckles; I am not covetous," said Bebee; and then her face +grew warm. She did not know why. and she did not hear the rest of Father +Francis's admonitions. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +But the next noon-time brought him to the market stall, and the next +also, and so the summer days slipped away, and Bebee was quite happy if +she saw him in the morning time, to give him a fresh rose, or at evening +by the gates, or under the beech-trees, when he brought her a new book, +and sauntered awhile up the green lane beside her. + +An innocent, unconscious love like Bebee's wants so little food to make +it all content. Such mere trifles are beautiful and sweet to it. Such +slender stray gleams of light suffice to make a broad, bright golden noon +of perfect joy around it. + +All the delirium, and fever, and desire, and despair, that are in maturer +passion, are far away from it: far as is the flash of the meteor across +sultry skies from the blue forget-me-not down in the brown meadow brook. + +It was very wonderful to Bebee that he, this stranger from Rubes' +fairyland, could come at all to keep pace with her little clattering +wooden shoes over the dust and the grass in the dim twilight time. The +days went by in a trance of sweet amaze, and she kept count of the hours +no more by the cuckoo-clock of the mill-house, or the deep chimes of the +Brussels belfries; but only by such moments as brought her a word from +his lips, or even a glimpse of him from afar, across the crowded square. + +She sat up half the nights reading the books he gave her, studying the +long cruel polysyllables, and spelling slowly through the phrases that +seemed to her so cramped and tangled, and which yet were a pleasure to +unravel forsake of the thought they held. + +For Bebee, ignorant little simple soul that she was, had a mind in her +that was eager, observant, quick to acquire, skilful to retain; and it +would happen in certain times that Flamen, speaking to her of the things +which he gave to her to read, would think to himself that this child had +more wisdom than was often to be found in schools. + +Meanwhile he pondered various studies in various stages of a Gretchen, +and made love to Bebee--made love at least by his eyes and by his voice, +not hurrying his pleasant task, but hovering about her softly, and +mindful not to scare her, as a man will gently lower his hand over a +poised butterfly that he seeks to kill, and which one single movement, a +thought too quick, may scare away to safety. + +Bebee knew where he lived in the street of Mary of Burgundy: in an old +palace that belonged to a great Flemish noble, who never dwelt there +himself; but to ask anything about him--why he was there? what his rank +was? why he stayed in the city at all?--was a sort of treason that never +entered her thoughts. + +Psyche, if she had been as simple and loyal as Bebee was, would never +have lighted her own candle; but even Psyche would not have borrowed any +one else's lamp to lighten the love darkness. + +To Bebee he was sacred, unapproachable, unquestionable; he was a +wonderful, perfect happiness that had fallen into her life; he was a +gift of God, as the sun was. + +She took his going and coming as she took that of the sun, never dreaming +of reproaching his absence, never dreaming of asking if in the empty +night he shone on any other worlds than hers. + +It was hardly so much a faith with her as an instinct; faith must reason +ere it know itself to be faith. Bebee never reasoned any more than her +roses did. + +The good folks in the market place watched her a little anxiously; they +thought ill of that little moss-rose that every day found its way to one +wearer only; but after all they did not see much, and the neighbors +nothing at all. For he never went home to her, nor with her, and most of +the time that he spent with Bebee was in the quiet evening shadows, as +she went up with her empty basket through the deserted country roads. + +Bebee was all day long in the city, indeed, as other girls were, but with +her it had always been different. Antoine had always been with her up to +the day of his death; and after his death she had sat in the same place, +surrounded by the people she had known from infancy, and an insult to her +would have been answered by a stroke from the cobbler's strap or from the +tinker's hammer. There was one girl only who ever tried to do her any +harm--a good-looking stout wench, who stood at the corner of the Montagne +de la Cour with a stall of fruit in the summer time, and in winter time +drove a milk cart over the snow. This girl would get at her sometimes, +and talk of the students, and tell her how good it was to get out of the +town on a holiday, and go to any one of the villages where there was +Kermesse and dance, and drink the little blue wine, and have trinkets +bought for one, and come home in the moonlight in a char-a-banc, with the +horns sounding, and the lads singing, and the ribbons flying from the +old horse's ears. + +"She is such a little close sly thing!" thought the fruit girl, sulkily. +To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery. + +"We dance almost every evening, the children and I," Bebee had +answered when urged fifty times by this girl to go to fairs, and balls at +the wine shops. "That does just as well. And I have seen Kermesse once at +Malines--it was beautiful. I went with Mere Dax, but it cost a great deal +I know, though she did not let me pay." + +"You little fool!" the fruit girl would say, and grin, and eat a pear. + +But the good honest old women who sat about in the Grande Place, hearing, +had always taken the fruit girl to task, when they got her by herself. + +"Leave the child alone, you mischievous one," said they. "Be content with +being base yourself. Look you, Lisette; she is not one like you to make +eyes at the law students, and pester the painter lads for a day's outing. +Let her be, or we will tell your mother how you leave the fruit for the +gutter children to pick and thieve, while you are stealing up the stairs +into that young French fellow's chamber. Oh, oh! a fine beating you will +get when she knows!" + +Lisette's mother was a fierce and strong old Brabantoise who exacted +heavy reckoning with her daughter for every single plum and peach +that she sent out of her dark sweet-smelling fruit shop to be sunned in +the streets, and under the students' love-glances. + +So the girl took heed, and left Bebee alone. + +"What should I want her to come with us for?" she reasoned with herself. +"She is twice as pretty as I am; Jules might take to her instead--who +knows?" + +So that she was at once savage and yet triumphant when she saw, as she +thought, Bebee drifting down the high flood of temptation. + +"Oh, oh, you dainty one!" she cried one day to her. "So you would not +take the nuts and mulberries that do for us common folk, because you +had a mind for a fine pine out of the hothouses! That was all, was it? +Eh, well; I do not begrudge you. Only take care; remember, the nuts and +mulberries last through summer and autumn, and there are heaps of them on +every fair-stall and street corner; but the pine, that is eaten in a day, +one springtime, and its like does not grow in the hedges. You will have +your mouth full of sugar an hour,--and then, eh!--you will go famished +all the year." + +"I do not understand," said Bebee, looking up, with her thoughts far +away, and scarcely hearing the words spoken to her. + +"Oh, pretty little fool! you understand well enough," said Lisette, +grinning, as she rubbed up a melon. "Does he give you fine things? You +might let me see." + +"No one gives me anything." + +"Chut! you want me to believe that. Why Jules is only a lad, and his +father is a silk mercer, and only gives him a hundred francs a month, +but Jules buys me all I want--somehow--or do you think I would take +the trouble to set my cap straight when he goes by? He gave me these +ear-rings, look. I wish you would let me see what you get." + +But Bebee had gone away--unheeding--dreaming of Juliet and of Jeanne +d'Arc, of whom he had told her tales. + +He made sketches of her sometimes, but seldom pleased himself. + +It was not so easy as he had imagined that it would prove to portray this +little flower-like face, with the clear eyes and the child's open brow. +He who had painted Phryne so long and faithfully had got a taint on his +brush--he could not paint this pure, bright, rosy dawn--he who had always +painted the glare of midnight gas on rouge or rags. Yet he felt that if +he could transfer to canvas the light that was on Bebee's face he would +get what Scheffer had missed. For a time it eluded him. You shall paint a +gold and glistening brocade, or a fan of peacock's feathers, to +perfection, and yet, perhaps, the dewy whiteness of the humble little +field daisy shall baffle and escape you. + +He felt, too, that he must catch her expression flying as he would do the +flash of a swallow's wing across a blue sky; he knew that Bebee, forced +to studied attitudes in an atelier, would be no longer the ideal that he +wanted. + +More than once he came and filled in more fully his various designs in +the little hut garden, among the sweet gray lavender and the golden disks +of the sunflowers; and more than once Bebee was missed from her place in +the front of the Broodhuis. + +The Varnhart children would gather now and then open-mouthed at the +wicket, and Mere Krebs would shake her head as she went by on her +sheepskin saddle, and mutter that the child's head would be turned by +vanity; and old Jehan would lean on his stick and peer through the +sweetbrier, and wonder stupidly if this strange man who could make +Bebee's face beam over again upon that panel of wood could not give him +back his dead daughter who had been pushed away under the black earth so +long, long before, when the red mill had been brave and new, the red mill +that the boys and girls called old. + +But except these, no one noticed much. + +Painters were no rare sights in Brabant. + +The people were used to see them coming and going, making pictures of mud +and stones, and ducks and sheep, and of all common and silly things. + +"What does he pay you, Bebee?" they used to ask, with the shrewd Flemish +thought after the main chance. + +"Nothing," Bebee would answer, with a quick color in her face; and they +would reply in contemptuous reproof, "Careless little fool; you should +make enough to buy you wood all winter. When the man from Ghent painted +Trine and her cow, he gave her a whole gold bit for standing still so +long in the clover. The Krebs would be sure to lend you her cow, if it +be the cow that makes the difference." + +Bebee was silent, weeding her carnation bed;--what could she tell them +that they would understand? + +She seemed so far away from them all--those good friends of her +childhood--now that this wonderful new world of his giving had opened to +her sight. + +She lived in a dream. + +Whether she sat in the market place taking copper coins, or in the +moonlight with a book on her knees, it was all the same. Her feet ran, +her tongue spoke, her hands worked; she did not neglect her goat or her +garden, she did not forsake her house labor or her good deeds to old +Annemie; but all the while she only heard one voice, she only felt one +touch, she only saw one face. + +Here and there--one in a million--there is a female thing that can love +like this, once and forever. + +Such an one is dedicated, birth upwards, to the Mater Dolorosa. + +He had something nearer akin to affection for her than he had ever had in +his life for anything, but he was never in love with her--no more in +love with her than with the moss-rosebuds that she fastened in his +breast. Yet he played with her, because she was such a little, soft, +tempting female thing; and because, to see her face flush, and her heart +heave, to feel her fresh feelings stir into life, and to watch her +changes from shyness to confidence, and from frankness again into fear, +was a natural pastime in the lazy golden weather. + +That he spared her as far as he did,--when after all she would have +married Jeannot anyhow,--and that he sketched her face in the open air, +and never entered her hut and never beguiled her to his own old palace in +the city, was a new virtue in himself for which he hardly knew whether to +feel respect or ridicule; anyway, it seemed virtue to him. + +So long as he did not seduce the body, it seemed to him that it could +never matter how he slew the soul,--the little, honest, happy, pure, +frank soul, that amidst its poverty and hardships was like a robin's song +to the winter sun. + +"Hoot, toot, pretty innocent, so you are no better than the rest of us," +hissed her enemy, Lisette, the fruit girl, against her as she went by the +stall one evening as the sun set. "Prut! so it was no such purity after +all that made you never look at the student lads and the soldiers, eh? +You were so dainty of taste, you must needs pick and choose, and, Lord's +sake, after all your coyness, to drop at a beckoning finger as one may +say--pong!--in a minute, like an apple over-ripe! Oh he, you sly one!" + +Bebee flushed red, in a sort of instinct of offence; not sure what her +fault was, but vaguely stung by the brutal words. + +Bebee walked homeward by him, with her empty baskets: looked at him with +grave wondering eyes. + +"What did she mean? I do not understand. I must have done some wrong--or +she thinks so. Do you know?" + +Flamen laughed, and answered her evasively,-- + +"You have done her the wrong of a fair skin when hers is brown, and a +little foot while hers is as big as a trooper's; there is no greater sin, +Bebee, possible in woman to woman." + +"Hold your peace, you shrill jade," he added, in anger to the fruiterer, +flinging at her a crown piece, that the girl caught, and bit with her +teeth with a chuckle. "Do not heed her, Bebee. She is a coarse-tongued +brute, and is jealous, no doubt." + +"Jealous?--of what?" + +The word had no meaning to Bebee. + +"That I am not a student or a soldier, as her lovers are." + +As her lovers were! Bebee felt her face burn again. Was he her lover +then? The child's innocent body and soul thrilled with a hot, sweet +delight and fear commingled. + +Bebee was not quite satisfied until she had knelt down that night and +asked the Master of all poor maidens to see if there were any wickedness +in her heart, hidden there like a bee in a rose, and if there were to +take it out and make her worthier of this wonderful new happiness in her +life. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +The next day, waking with a radiant little soul as a bird in a forest +wakes in summer Bebee was all alone in the lane by the swans' water. In +the gray of the dawn all the good folk except herself and lame old Jehan +had tramped off to a pilgrimage, Liege way, which the bishop of the city +had enjoined on all the faithful as a sacred duty. + +Bebee doing her work, singing, thinking how good God was, and dreaming +over a thousand fancies of the wonderful stories he had told her, and of +the exquisite delight that would lie for her in watching for him all +through the shining hours, Bebee felt her little heart leap like a +squirrel as the voice that was the music of heaven to her called through +the stillness,--"Good day, pretty one! you are as early as the lark, +Bebee. I go to Mayence, so I thought I would look at you one moment as I +pass." + +Bebee ran down through the wet grass in a tumult of joy. She had never +seen him so early in the day--never so early as this, when nobody was up +and stirring except birds and beasts and peasant folk. + +She did not know how pretty she looked herself; like a rain-washed wild +rose; her feet gleaming with dew, her cheeks warm with health and joy; +her sunny clustering hair free from the white cap and tumbling a little +about her throat, because she had been stooping over the carnations. + +Flamen loosed the wicket latch, and thought there might be better ways of +spending the day than in the gray shadows of old Mechlin. + +"Will you give me a draught of water?" he asked her as he crossed the +garden. + +"I will give you breakfast," said Bebee, happy as a bird. She felt no +shame for the smallness of her home; no confusion at the poverty of +her little place; such embarrassments are born of self-consciousness, +and Bebee had no more self-consciousness than her own sweet, gray +lavender-bush blowing against the door. + +The lavender-bush has no splendor like the roses, has no colors like the +hollyhocks; it is a simple, plain, gray thing that the bees love and that +the cottagers cherish, and that keeps the moth from the homespun linen, +and that goes with the dead to their graves. + +It has many virtues and infinite sweetness, but it does not know it or +think of it; and if the village girls ever tell it so, it fancies they +only praise it out of kindness as they put its slender fragrant spears +away in their warm bosoms. Bebee was like her lavender, and now that this +beautiful Purple Emperor butterfly came from the golden sunbeams to find +pleasure for a second in her freshness, she was only very grateful, as +the lavender-bush was to the village girls. + +"I will give you your breakfast," said Bebee, flushing rosily with +pleasure, and putting away the ivy coils that he might enter. + +"I have very little, you know," she added, wistfully. "Only goat's milk +and bread; but if that will do--and there is some honey--and if you would +eat a salad, I would cut one fresh." + +He did enter, and glanced round him with a curious pity and wonder both +in one. + +It was such a little, small, square place; and its floor was of beaten +clay; and its unceiled roof he could have touched; and its absolute +poverty was so plain,--and yet the child looked so happy in it, and was +so like a flower, and was so dainty and fresh, and even so full of grace. + +She stood and looked at him with frank and grateful eyes; she could +hardly believe that he was here; he, the stranger of Rubes' land, in her +own little rush-covered home. + +But she was not embarrassed by it; she was glad and proud. + +There is a dignity of peasants as well as of kings,--the dignity that +comes from all absence of effort, all freedom from pretence. Bebee had +this, and she had more still than this: she had the absolute simplicity +of childhood with her still. + +Some women have it still when they are four-score. + +She could have looked at him forever, she was so happy; she cared +nothing now for those dazzling dahlias--he had left them; he was actually +here--here in her own, little dear home, with the cocks looking in at the +threshold, and the sweet-peas nodding at the lattice, and the starling +crying, "Bonjour! Bonjour!" + +"You are tired, I am sure you must be tired," she said, pulling her +little bed forward for him to sit on, for there were only two wooden +stools in the hut, and no chair at all. + +Then she took his sketching-easel and brushes from his hand, and would +have kneeled and taken the dust off his boots if he would have let her; +and went hither and thither gladly and lightly, bringing him a wooden +bowl of milk and the rest of the slender fare, and cutting as quick as +thought fresh cresses and lettuce from her garden, and bringing him, as +the crown of all, Father Francis's honey-comb on vine-leaves, with some +pretty sprays of box and mignonette scattered about it--doing all this +with a swift, sweet grace that robbed the labor of all look of servitude, +and looking at him ever and again with a smile that said as clearly as +any words, "I cannot do much, but what I do, I do with all my heart." + +There was something in the sight of her going and coming in those simple +household errands, across the sunlit floor, that moved him as some +mountain air sung on an alp by a girl driving her cows to pasture may +move a listener who indifferent has heard the swell of the organ of +La Hague, or the recitative of a great singer in San Carlo. + +The gray lavender blowing at the house door has its charm for those who +are tired of the camellias that float in the porcelain bowls of midnight +suppers. + +This man was not good. He was idle and vain, and amorous and cold, and +had been spoiled by the world in which he had passed his days; but he had +the temper of an artist: he had something, too, of a poet's fancy; he +was vaguely touched and won by this simple soul that looked at him out of +Bebee's eyes with some look that in all its simplicity had a divine gleam +in it that made him half ashamed. + +He had known women by the thousand, good women and bad; women whom he had +dealt ill with and women who had dealt ill with him; but this he had not +known--this frank, fearless, tender, gay, grave, innocent, industrious +little life, helping itself, feeding itself, defending itself, working +for itself and for others, and vaguely seeking all the while some unseen +light, some unknown god, with a blind faith so infinitely ignorant and +yet so infinitely pathetic. + +"All the people are gone on a pilgrimage," she explained to him when he +asked her why her village was so silent this bright morning. "They are +gone to pray for a fine harvest, and that she wants herself as well--it +costs seven francs apiece. They take their food with them; they go and +laugh and eat in the fields. I think it is nonsense. One can say one's +prayers just as well here. Mere Krebs thinks so too, but then she says, +'If I do not go, it will look ill; people will say I am irreligious; and +as we make so much by flour, God would think it odd for me to be absent; +and, besides, it is only seven francs there and back; and if it does +please Heaven, that is cheap, you know. One will get it over and over +again in Paradise.' That is what Mere Krebs says. But, for me, I +think it is nonsense. It cannot please God to go by train and eat galette +and waste a whole day in getting dusty. + +"When I give the Virgin my cactus flower, I do give up a thing I love, +and I let it wither on her altar instead of pleasing me in bloom here +all the week, and then, of course, she sees that I have done it out of +gratitude. But that is different: that I am sorry to do, and yet I am +glad to do it out of love. Do you not know?" + +"Yes, I know very well. But is the Virgin all that you love like this?" + +"No; there is the garden, and there is Antoine--he is dead, I know. But I +think that we should love the dead all the better, not the less, because +they cannot speak or say that they are angry; and perhaps one pains them +very much when one neglects them, and if they are ever so sad, they +cannot rise and rebuke one--that is why I would rather forget the flowers +for the Church than I would the flowers for his grave, because God can +punish me, of course, if he like, but Antoine never can--any more--now." + +"You are logical in your sentiment, my dear," said Flamen, who was more +moved than he cared to feel. "The union is a rare one in your sex. Who +taught you to reason?" + +"No one. And I do not know what to be logical means. Is it that you laugh +at me?" + +"No. I do not laugh. And your pilgrims--they are gone for all day?" + +"Yes. They are gone to the Sacred Heart at St. Marie en Bois. It is on +the way to Liege. They will come back at nightfall. And some of them will +be sure to have drunk too much, and the children will get so cross. +Prosper Bar, who is a Calvinist, always says, 'Do not mix up prayer and +play; you would not cut a gherkin in your honey'; but I do not know why +he called prayer a gherkin, because it is sweet enough--sweeter than +anything, I think. When I pray to the Virgin to let me see you next day, +I go to bed quite happy, because she will do it, I know, if it will be +good for me." + +"But if it were not good for you, Bebee? Would you cease to wish it +then?" + +He rose as he spoke, and went across the floor and drew away her hand +that was parting the flax, and took it in his own and stroked it, +indulgently and carelessly, as a man may stroke the soft fur of a young +cat. + +Leaning against the little lattice and looking down on her with musing +eyes, half smiling, half serious, half amorous, half sad, Bebee looked +up with a sudden and delicious terror that ran through her as the charm +of the snake's gaze runs through the bewildered bird. + +"Would you cease to wish it if it were not good?" he asked again. + +Bebee's face grew pale and troubled. She left her hand in his because she +did not think any shame of his taking it. But the question suddenly flung +the perplexity and darkness of doubt into the clearness of her pure +child's conscience. All her ways had been straight and sunlit before her. + +She had never had a divided duty. + +The religion and the pleasure of her simple little life had always gone +hand-in-hand, greeting one another, and never for an instant in conflict. +In any hesitation of her own she had always gone to Father Francis, and +he had disentangled the web for her and made all plain. + +But here was a difficulty in which she could never go to Father Francis. + +Right and wrong, duty and desire, were for the first time arrayed before +her in their ghastly and unending warfare. + +It frightened her with a certain breathless sense of peril--the peril of +a time when in lieu of that gentle Mother of Roses whom she kneeled +to among the flowers, she would only see a dusky shadow looming between +her and the beauty of life and the light of the sun. + +What he said was quite vague to her. She attached no definite danger to +his words. She only thought--to see him was so great a joy--if Mary +forbade it, would she not take it if she could notwithstanding, always, +always, always? + +He kept her hand in his, and watched with contentment the changing play +of the shade and sorrow, the fear and fascination, on her face. + +"You do not know, Bebee?" he said at length, knowing well himself; so +much better than ever she knew. "Well, dear, that is not flattering to +me. But it is natural. The good Virgin of course gives you all you have, +food, and clothes, and your garden, and your pretty plump chickens; and I +am only a stranger. You could not offend her for me; that is not likely." + +The child was cut to the heart by the sadness and humility of words of +whose studied artifice she had no suspicion. + +She thought that she seemed to him ungrateful and selfish, and yet all +the mooring-ropes that held her little boat of life to the harbor of +its simple religion seemed cut away, and she seemed drifting helpless and +rudderless upon an unknown sea. + +"I never did do wrong--that I know," she said, timidly, and lifted her +eyes to his with an unconscious appeal in them. + +"But--I do not see why it should be wrong to speak with you. You are +good, and you lend me beautiful things out of other men's minds that will +make me less ignorant: Our Lady could not be angry with that--she must +like it." + +"Our Lady?--oh, poor little simpleton!--where will her reign be when +Ignorance has once been cut down root and branch?" he thought to himself: +but he only answered,-- + +"But whether she like it or not, Bebee?--you beg the question, my dear; +you are--you are not so frank as usual--think, and tell me honestly?" + +He knew quite well, but it amused him to see the perplexed trouble that +this, the first divided duty of her short years, brought with it. + +Bebee looked at him, and loosened her hand from his, and sat quite still. +Her lips had a little quiver in them. + +"I think." she said at last, "I think--if it _be_ wrong, still I will +wish it--yes. Only I will not tell myself it is right. I will just say to +Our Lady, 'I am wicked, perhaps, but I cannot help it' So, I will not +deceive her at all; and perhaps in time she may forgive. But I think you +only say it to try me. It cannot, I am sure, be wrong--any more than it +is to talk to Jeannot or to Bac." + +He had driven her into the subtleties of doubt, but the honest little +soul in her found a way out, as a flower in a cellar finds its way +through the stones to light. + +He plucked the ivy leaves and threw them at the chickens on the bricks +without, with a certain impatience in the action. The simplicity and the +directness of the answer disarmed him; he was almost ashamed to use +against her the weapons of his habitual warfare. It was like a maitre +d'armes fencing with bare steel against a little naked child armed with a +blest palm-sheaf. + +When she had thus brought him all she had, and he to please her had sat +down to the simple food, she gathered a spray of roses and set it in a +pot beside him, then left him and went and stood at a little distance, +waiting, with her hands lightly crossed on her chest, to see if there +were anything that he might want. + +He ate and drank well to please her, looking at her often as he did so. + +"I break your bread, Bebee," he said, with a tone that seemed strange to +her,--"I break your bread. I must keep Arab faith with you." + +"What is that?" + +"I mean--I must never betray you." + +"Betray me How could you?" + +"Well--hurt you in any way." + +"Ah, I am sure you would never do that." + +He was silent, and looked at the spray of roses. + +"Sit down and spin," he said impatiently. "I am ashamed to see you stand +there, and a woman never looks so well as when she spins. Sit down, and I +will eat the good things you have brought me. But I cannot if you stand +and look." + +"I beg your pardon. I did not know," she said, ashamed lest she should +have seemed rude to him; and she drew out her wheel under the light of +the lattice, and sat down to it, and began to disentangle the threads. + +It was a pretty picture--the low, square casement; the frame of ivy, the +pink and white of the climbing sweet-peas: the girl's head; the cool, wet +leaves: the old wooden spinning-wheel, that purred like a sleepy cat. + +"I want to paint you as Gretchen, only it will be a shame." he said. + +"Who is Gretchen?" + +"You shall read of her by-and-by. And you live here all by yourself?" + +"Since Antoine died--yes." + +"And are never dull?" + +"I have no time, and I do not think I would be if I had time--there is so +much to think of, and one never can understand." + +"But you must be very brave and laborious to do all your work yourself. +Is it possible a child like you can spin, and wash, and bake, and garden, +and do everything?" + +"Oh, many do more than I. Babette's eldest daughter is only twelve, and +she does much more, because she has all the children to look after; and +they are very, very poor; they often have nothing but a stew of nettles +and perhaps a few snails, days together." + +"That is lean, bare, ugly, gruesome poverty; there is plenty of that +everywhere. But you, Bebee--you are an idyll." + +Bebee looked across the hut and smiled, and broke her thread. She did not +know what he meant, but if she were anything that pleased him, it was +well. + +"Who were those beautiful women?" she said suddenly, the color mounting +into her cheeks. + +"What women, my dear?" + +"Those I saw at the window with you, the other night--they had jewels." + +"Oh!--women, tiresome enough. If I had seen you, I would have dropped you +some fruit. Poor little Bebee! Did you go by, and I never knew?" + +"You were laughing--" + +"Was I?" + +"Yes, and they _were_ beautiful." + +"In their own eyes; not in mine." + +"No?" + +She stopped her spinning and gazed at him with wistful, wondering eyes. +Could it be that they were not beautiful to him? those deep red, glowing, +sun-basked dahlia flowers? + +"Do you know," she said very softly, with a flush of penitence that came +and went, "when I saw them, I hated them; I confessed it to Father +Francis next day. You seemed so content with, them, and they looked so +gay and glad there--and then the jewels! Somehow, I seemed to myself such +a little thing, and so ugly and mean. And yet, do you know--" + +"And yet--well?" + +"They did not look to me good--those women," said Bebee, thoughtfully, +looking across at him in deprecation of his possible anger. "They were +great people, I suppose, and they appeared very happy; but though I +seemed nothing to myself after them, still I think I would not change." + +"You are wise without books, Bebee." + +"Oh, no, I am not wise at all. I only feel. And give me books; oh, pray, +give me books! You do not know; I will learn so fast; and I will not +neglect anything, that I promise. The neighbors and Jeannot say that I +shall let the flowers die, and the hut get dirty, and never spin or prick +Annemie's patterns; but that is untrue. I will do all, just as I have +done, and more too, if only you will give me things to read, for I do +think when one is happy, one ought to work more--not less." + +"But will these books make you happy? If you ask me the truth, I must +tell you--no. You are happy as you are, because you know nothing else +than your own little life; for ignorance _is_ happiness, Bebee, let +sages, ancient and modern, say what they will. But when you know a +little, you will want to know more: and when you know much, you will want +to see much also, and then--and then--the thing will grow--you will be no +longer content. That is, you will be unhappy." + +Bebee watched him with wistful eyes. + +"Perhaps that is true. No doubt it is true, if you say it. But you know +all the world seems full of voices that I hear, but that I cannot +understand; it is with me as I should think it is with people who go to +foreign countries and do not know the tongue that is spoken when they +land; and it makes me unhappy, because I cannot comprehend, and so the +books will not make me more so, but less. And as for being content--when +I thought you were gone away out of the city, last night, I thought +I would never be able to pray any more, because I hated myself, and I +almost hated the angels, and I told Mary that she was cruel, and she +turned her face from me--as it seemed, forever." + +She spoke quite quietly and simply, spinning as she spoke, and looking +across at him with earnest eyes, that begged him to believe her. She was +saying the pure truth, but she did not know the force or the meaning of +that truth. + +He listened with a smile; it was not new to him; he knew her heart much +better than she knew it herself, but there was an unconsciousness, and +yet a strength, in the words that touched him though. + +He threw the leaves away, irritably, and told her to leave off her +spinning. + +"Some day I shall paint you with that wheel as I painted the Broodhuis. +Will you let me, Bebee?" + +"Yes." + +She answered him as she would have answered if he had told her to go on +pilgrimage from one end of the Low Countries to the other. + +"What were you going to do to-day?" + +"I am going into the market with the flowers; I go every day." + +"How much will you make?" + +"Two or three francs, if I am lucky." + +"And do you never have a holiday?" + +"Oh, yes; but not often, you know, because it is on the fete days that +the people want the most flowers." + +"But in the winter?" + +"Then I work at the lace." + +"Do you never go into the woods?" + +"I have been once or twice; but it loses a whole day." + +"You are afraid of not earning?" + +"Yes. Because I am afraid of owing people anything." + +"Well, give up this one day, and we will make holiday. The people are +out; they will not know. Come into the forest, and we will dine at a cafe +in the woods; and we will be as poetic as you like, and I will tell you a +tale of one called Rosalind, who pranked herself in boy's attire, all for +love, in the Ardennes country yonder. Come, it is the very day for the +forest; it will make me a lad again at Meudon, when the lilacs were in +bloom. Poor Paris! Come." + +"Do you mean it?" + +The color was bright in her face, her heart was dancing, her little feet +felt themselves already on the fresh green turf. + +She had no thought that there could be any harm in it. She would have +gone with Jeannot or old Bac. + +"Of course I mean it. Come. I was going to Mayence to see the Magi and +Van Dyck's Christ. We will go to Soignies instead, and study green +leaves. I will paint your face by sunlight. It is the best way to paint +you. You belong to the open air. So should Gretchen; or how else should +she have the blue sky in her eyes?" + +"But I have only wooden shoes!" + +Her face was scarlet as she glanced at her feet; he who had wanted to +give her the silk stockings--how would he like to be seen walking abroad +with those two clumsy, clattering, work-a-day, little sabots? + +"Never mind. My dear, in my time I have had enough of satin shoes and of +silver gilt heels; they click-clack as loud as yours, and cost much more +to those who walk with them, not to mention that they will seldom deign +to walk at all. Your wooden shoes are picturesque. Paganini made a violin +out of a wooden shoe. Who knows what music may lurk in yours, only you +have never heard it. Perhaps I have. It was Bac who gave you the red +shoes that was the barbarian, not I. Come." + +"You really mean it?" + +"Come." + +"But they will miss me at market." + +"They will think you are gone on the pilgrimage: you need never tell them +you have not." + +"But if they ask me?" + +"Does it never happen that you say any other thing than the truth?" + +"Any other thing than the truth! Of course not. People take for granted +that one tells truth; it would be very base to cheat them. Do you really +mean that I may come?--in the forest!--and you will tell me stories +like those you give me to read?" + +"I will tell you a better story. Lock your hut, Bebee, and come." + +"And to think you are not ashamed!" + +"Ashamed?" + +"Yes, because of my wooden shoes." + +Was it possible? Bebee thought, as she ran out into the garden and +locked the door behind her, and pushed the key under the waterbutt as +usual, being quite content with that prudent precaution against robbers +which had served Antoine all his days. Was it possible, this wonderful +joy?--her cheeks were like her roses, her eyes had a brilliance like the +sun; the natural grace and mirth of the child blossomed in a thousand +ways and gestures. + +As she went by the shrine in the wall, she bent her knee a moment and +made the sign of the cross; then she gathered a little moss-rose that +nodded close under the border of the palisade, and turned and gave it to +him. + +"Look, she sends you this. She is not angry, you see, and it is much more +pleasure when she is pleased--do you not know?" + +He shrank a little as her fingers touched him. + +"What a pity you had no mother, Bebee!" he said, on an impulse of +emotion, of which in Paris he would have been more ashamed than +of any guilt. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +In the deserted lane by the swans' water, under the willows, the +horses waited to take him to Mechlin; little, quick, rough horses, with +round brass bells, in the Flemish fashion, and gay harness, and a low +char-a-banc, in which a wolf-skin and red rugs, and all a painter's many +necessities, were tossed together. + +He lifted her in, and the little horses flew fast through the green +country, ringing chimes at each step, till they plunged into the deep +glades of the woods of Cambre and Soignies. + +Bebee sat breathless with delight. + +She had never gone behind horses in all her life, except once or twice +in a wagon when the tired teamsters had dragged a load of corn across +the plains, or when the miller's old gray mare had hobbled wearily before +a cart-load of noisy, happy, mischievous children going home from the +masses and fairs, and flags, and flowers, and church banners, and +puppet-shows, and lighted altars, and whirling merry-go-rounds of the +Fete Dieu. + +She had never known what it was to sail as on the wings of the wind along +broad roads, with yellow wheat-lands, and green hedges, and wayside +trees, and little villages, and reedy canal water, all flying by her to +the sing-song of the joyous bells. + +"Oh, how good it is to live!" she cried, clapping her hands in a very +ecstasy, as the clear morning broadened into gold and the west wind rose +and blew from the sands by the sea. + +"Yes--it is good--if one did not tire so soon," said he, watching her +with a listless pleasure. + +But she did not hear; she was beyond the reach of any power to sadden +her; she was watching the white oxen that stood on the purple brow of +the just reapen lands, and the rosy clouds that blew like a shower of +apple-blossoms across the sky to the south. + +There was a sad darkling Calvary on the edge of the harvest-field that +looked black against the blue sky; its shadow fell across the road, but +she did not see it: she was looking at the sun. + +There is not much change in the great Soignies woods. They are aisles on +aisles of beautiful green trees, crossing and recrossing; tunnels of dark +foliage that look endless; long avenues of beech, of oak, of elm, or of +fir, with the bracken and the brushwood growing dense between; a +delicious forest growth everywhere, shady even at noon, and by a little +past midday dusky as evening; with the forest fragrance, sweet and dewy, +all about, and under the fern the stirring of wild game, and the white +gleam of little rabbits, and the sound of the wings of birds. + +Soignies is not legend-haunted like the Black Forest, nor king-haunted +like Fontainebleau, nor sovereign of two historic streams like the brave +woods of Heidelberg; nor wild and romantic, arid broken with black rocks, +and poetized by the shade of Jaques, and swept through by a perfect +river, like its neighbors of Ardennes; nor throned aloft on mighty +mountains like the majestic oak glades of the Swabian hills of the ivory +carvers. + +Soignies is only a Flemish forest in a plain, throwing its shadows over +corn-fields and cattle pastures, with no panorama beyond it and no +wonders in its depth. But it is a fresh, bold, beautiful forest for all +that. + +It has only green leaves to give,--green leaves always, league after +league; but there is about it that vague mystery which all forests have, +and this universe of leaves seems boundless, and Pan might dwell in it, +and St. Hubert, and John Keats. + +Bebee, in her rare holidays with the Bac children or with Jeannot's +sisters, had never penetrated farther than the glades of the Cambre, +and had never entered the heart of the true forest, which is much still +what it must have been in the old days when the burghers of Brabant cut +their yew bows and their pike staves from it to use against the hosts of +Spain. + +To Bebee it was as an enchanted land, and every play of light and shade, +every hare speeding across the paths, every thrush singing in the leaves, +every little dog-rose or harebell that blossomed in the thickets, was to +her a treasure, a picture, a poem, a delight. + +He had seen girls thus in the woods of Vincennes and of Versailles in the +student days of his youth: little work-girls fresh from chalets of the +Jura or from vine-hung huts of the Loire, who had brought their poor +little charms to perish in Paris; and who dwelt under the hot tiles and +amidst the gilded shop signs till they were as pale and thin as their own +starved balsams; and who, when they saw the green woods, laughed and +cried a little, and thought of the broad sun-swept fields, and wished +that they were back again behind their drove of cows, or weeding among +the green grapes. + +But those little work-girls had been mere homely daisies, and daisies +already with the dust of the pavement and of the dancing-gardens upon +them. + +Bebee was as pure and fresh as these dew-wet dog-roses that she found in +the thickets of thorn. + +He had meant to treat her as he had used to do those work-girls--a little +wine, a little wooing, a little folly and passion, idle as a butterfly +and brief as a rainbow--one midsummer day and night--then a handful of +gold, a caress, a good-morrow, and forgetfulness ever afterwards--that +was what he had meant when he had brought her out to the forest of +Soignies. + +But--she was different, this child. + +He made the great sketch of her for his Gretchen, sitting on a moss-grown +trunk, with marguerites in her hand; he sent for their breakfast far into +the woods, and saw her set her pearly teeth into early peaches and costly +sweetmeats; he wandered with her hither and thither, and told her tales +out of the poets and talked to her in the dreamy, cynical, poetical +manner that was characteristic of him, being half artificial and half +sorrowful, as his temper was. + +But Bebee, all unconscious, intoxicated with happiness, and yet touched +by it into that vague sadness which the summer sun brings with it even to +young things, if they have soul in them,--Bebee said to him what the +work-girls of Paris never had done. + +Beautiful things: things fantastic, ignorant, absurd, very simple, very +unreasonable oftentimes, but things beautiful always, and sometimes even +very wise by a wisdom not of the world; by a certain light divine that +does shine now and then as through an alabaster lamp, through minds that +have no grossness to obscure them. + +Her words were not equal to the burden of her thoughts at times, but he +knew how to take the pearl of the thought from the broken shell and +tangled sea-weed of her simple, untutored speech. + +"If there be a God anywhere," he thought to himself, "this little Fleming +is very near him." + +She was so near that, although he had no belief in any God, he could not +deal with her as he had used to do with the work-girls in the primrose +paths of old Vincennes. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +"To be Gretchen, you must count the leaves of your daisies," he said to +her, as he painted,--painted her just as she was, with her two little +white feet in the wooden shoes, and the thick green leaves behind; the +simplest picture possible, the dress of gray--only cool dark gray--with +white linen bodice, and no color anywhere except in the green of the +foliage; but where he meant the wonder and the charm of it to lie was in +the upraised, serious, child-like face, and the gaze of the grave, +smiling eyes. + +It was Gretchen, spinning, out in the open air among the flowers. +Gretchen, with the tall dog-daisies growing up about her feet, among +the thyme and the roses, before she had had need to gather, one to ask +her future of its parted leaves. + +The Gretchen of Scheffer tells no tale; she is a fair-haired, +hard-working, simple-minded peasant, with whom neither angels nor devils +have anything to do, and whose eyes never can open to either hell or +heaven. But the Gretchen of Flamen said much more than this: looking +at it, men would sigh from shame, and women weep from sorrow. + +"Count the daisies?" echoed Bebee. "Oh, I know what you mean. A +little--much--passionately--until death--not at all. What the girls say +when they want to see if any one loves them? Is that it?" + +She looked at him without any consciousness, except as she loved the +flowers. + +"Do you think the daisies know?" she went on, seriously, parting their +petals with her fingers. "Flowers do know many things--that is certain." + +"Ask them for yourself." + +"Ask them what?" + +"How much--any one--loves you?" + +"Oh, but every one loves me; there is no one that is bad. Antoine used to +say to me. 'Never think of yourself, Bebee; always think of other people, +so every one will love you.' And I always try to do that, and every one +does." + +"But that is not the love the daisy tells of to your sex." + +"No?" + +"No; the girls that you see count the flowers--they are thinking, not of +all the village, but of some one unlike all the rest, whose shadow falls +across theirs in the moonlight! You know that?" + +"Ah, yes--and they marry afterwards--yes." + +She said it softly, musingly, with no embarrassment; it was an unreal, +remote thing to her, and yet it stirred her heart a little with a vague +trouble that was infinitely sweet. + +There is little talk of love in the lives of the poor; they have no space +for it; love to them means more mouths to feed, more wooden shoes to buy, +more hands to dive into the meagre bag of coppers. Now and then a girl +of the commune had been married, and had ploughing in the fields or to +her lace-weaving in the city. Bebee had thought little of it. + +"They marry or they do not marry. That is as it may be," said Flamen, +with a smile. "Bebee, I must paint you as Gretchen before she made a +love-dial of the daisies. What is the story? Oh, I have told you stories +enough. Gretchen's you would not understand, just yet." + +"But what did the daisies say to her?" + +"My dear, the daisies always say the same thing, because daisies always +tell the truth and know men. The daisies always say 'a little'; it is the +girl's ear that tricks her, and makes her hear 'till death,'--a folly and +falsehood of which the daisy is not guilty." + +"But who says it if the daisy does not?" + +"Ah, the devil perhaps--who knows? He has so much to do in these things." + +But Bebee did not smile; she had a look of horror in her blue eyes; she +belonged to a peasantry who believed in exorcising the fiend by the aid +of the cross, and who not so very many generations before had driven him +out of human bodies by rack and flame. + +She looked with a little wistful fear on the white, golden-eyed +marguerites that lay on her lap. + +"Do you think the fiend is in these?" she whispered, with awe in her +voice. + +Flamen smiled. "When you count them he will be there, no doubt." + +Bebee threw them with a shudder on the grass. + +"Have I spoilt your holiday, dear?" he said, with a certain +self-reproach. + +She was silent a minute, then she gathered up the daisies again, and +stroked them and put them to her lips. + +"It is not they that do wrong. You say the girls' ears deceive them. It +is the girls who want a lie and will not believe a truth because it +humbles them; it is the girls that are to blame, not the daisies. As for +me, I will not ask the daisies anything ever, so the fiend will not enter +into them." + +"Nor into you. Poor little Bebee!" + +"Why, you pity me for that?" + +"Yes. Because, if women never see the serpent's face, neither do they +ever scent the smell of the paradise roses; and it will be hard for you +to die without a single rose d'amour in your pretty breast, poor little +Bebee?" + +"I do not understand. But you frighten me a little." + +He rose and left his easel and threw himself at her feet on the grass; he +took the little wooden shoes in his hands as reverently as he would have +taken the broidered shoes of a duchess; he looked up at her with tender, +smiling eyes. + +"Poor little Bebee!" he said again. "Did I frighten you indeed? Nay, that +was very base of me. We will not spoil our summer holiday. There is no +such thing as a fiend, my dear. There are only men--such as I am. Say the +daisy spell over for me, Bebee. See if I do not love you a little, just +as you love your flowers." + +She smiled, and the happy laughter came again over her face. + +"Oh, I am sure you care for me a little," she said, softly, "or you would +not be so good and get me books and give me pleasure; and I do not want +the daisies to tell me that, because you say it yourself, which is +better." + +"Much better." he answered her dreamily, and lay there in the grass, +holding the little wooden shoes in his hands. + +He was not in love with her. He was in no haste. He preferred to play +with her softly, slowly, as one separates the leaves of a rose, to see +the deep rose of its heart. + +Her own ignorance of what she felt had a charm for him. He liked to lift +the veil from her eyes by gentle degrees, watching each new pulse-beat, +each fresh instinct tremble into life. + +It was an old, old story to him; he knew each chapter and verse to +weariness, though there still was no other story that he still read as +often. But to her it was so new. + +To him it was a long beaten track; he knew every turn of it; he +recognized every wayside blossom; he had passed over a thousand times +each tremulous bridge; he knew so well beforehand where each shadow would +fall, and where each fresh bud would blossom, and where each harvest +would be reaped. + +But to her it was so new. + +She followed him as a blind child a man that guides her through a garden +and reads her a wonder tale. + +He was good to her, that was all she knew. When he touched her ever so +lightly she felt a happiness so perfect, and yet so unintelligible, that +she could have wished to die in it. + +And in her humility and her ignorance she wondered always how he--so +great, so wise, so beautiful--could have thought it ever worth his while +to leave the paradise of Rubes' land to wait with her under her little +rush-thatched roof, and bring her here to see the green leaves and the +living things of the forest. + +As they went, a man was going under the trees with a load of wood upon +his back. Bebee gave a little cry of recognition. + +"Oh, look, that is Jeannot! How he will wonder to see me here!" + +Flamen drew her a little downward, so that the forester passed onward +without perceiving them. + +"Why do you do that?" said Bebee. "Shall I not speak to him?" + +"Why? To have all your neighbors chatter of your feast in the forest? It +is not worth while." + +"Ah, but I always tell them everything," said Bebee. whose imagination +had been already busy with the wonders that she would unfold to Mere +Krebs and the Varnhart children. + +"Then you will see but little of me, my dear. Learn to be silent, Bebee. +It is a woman's first duty, though her hardest." + +"Is it?" + +She did not speak for some time. She could not imagine a state of +things in which she would not narrate the little daily miracles of her +life to the good old garrulous women and the little open-mouthed romps. +And yet--she lifted her eyes to his. + +"I am glad you have told me that," she said. "Though indeed. I do not see +why one should not say what one does, yet--somehow--I do not like to talk +about you. It is like the pictures in the galleries, and the music in +the cathedral, and the great still evenings, when the fields are all +silent, and it is as if Christ walked abroad in them; I do not know how +to talk of those things to the others--only to you--and I do not like to +talk _about_ you to them--do you not know?" + +"Yes, I know. But what affinity have I. Bebee, to your thoughts of your +God walking in His cornfields?" + +Bebee's eyes glanced down through the green aisle of the forests, with +the musing seriousness in them that was like the child-angels of +Botticelli's dreams. + +"I cannot tell you very well. But when I am in the fields at evening and +think of Christ. I feel so happy, and of such good will to all the rest, +and I seem to see heaven quite plain through the beautiful gray air where +the stars are--and so I feel when I am with you--that is all. Only--" + +"Only what?" + +"Only in those evenings, when I was all alone, heaven seemed up there, +where the stars are, and I longed for wings; but now, it is _here_, and I +would only shut my wings if I had them, and not stir." + +He looked at her, and took, her hands and kissed them--but reverently--as +a believer may kiss a shrine. In that moment to Flamen she was sacred; in +that moment he could no more have hurt her with passion than he could +have hurt her with a blow. + +It was an emotion with him, and did not endure. But whilst it lasted, it +was true. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +Then he took her to dine at one of the wooden cafes under the trees. +There was a little sheet of water in front of it and a gay garden around. +There was a balcony and a wooden stairway; there were long trellised +arbors, and little white tables, and great rosebushes like her own at +home. They had an arbor all to themselves; a cool sweet-smelling bower of +green, with a glimpse of scarlet from the flowers of some twisting beans. + +They had a meal, the like of which she had never seen; such a huge melon +in the centre of it, and curious wines, and coffee or cream in silver +pots, or what looked like silver to her--"just like the altar-vases in +the church," she said to herself. + +"If only the Varnhart children were here!" she cried; but he did not echo +the wish. + +It was just sunset. There was a golden glow on the little bit of water. +On the other side of the garden some one was playing a guitar. Under a +lime-tree some girls were swinging, crying, Higher! higher! at each toss. + +In a longer avenue of trellised green, at a long table, there was a noisy +party of students and girls of the city; their laughter was mellowed by +distance as it came over the breadth of the garden, and they sang, with +fresh shrill Flemish voices, songs from an opera bouffe of La Monnaie. + +It was all pretty, and gay, and pleasant. + +There was everywhere about an air of light-hearted enjoyment. Bebee sat +with a wondering look in her wide-opened eyes, and all the natural +instincts of her youth, that were like curled-up fruit buds in her, +unclosed softly to the light of joy. + +"Is life always like this in your Rubes' land?" she asked him; that vague +far-away country of which she never asked him anything more definite, and +which yet was so clear before her fancy. + +"Yes," he made answer to her. "Only--instead of those leaves, flowers and +pomegranates; and in lieu of that tinkling guitar, a voice whose notes +are esteemed like king's jewels; and in place of those little green +arbors, great white palaces, cool and still, with ilex woods and orange +groves and sapphire seas beyond them. Would you like to come there, +Bebee?--and wear laces such as you weave, and hear singing and laughter +all night long, and never work any more in the mould of the garden, or +spin any more at that tiresome wheel, or go any more out in the wind, and +the rain, and the winter mud to the market?" + +Bebee listened, leaning her round elbows on the table, and her warm +cheeks on her hands, as a child gravely listens to a fairy story. But +the sumptuous picture, and the sensuous phrase he had chosen, passed by +her. + +It is of no use to tempt the little chaffinch of the woods with a ruby +instead of a cherry. The bird is made to feed on the brown berries, on +the morning dews, on the scarlet hips of roses, and the blossoms of the +wind-tossed pear boughs; the gem, though it be a monarch's, will only +strike hard and tasteless on its beak. + +"I would like to see it all," said Bebee, musingly trying to follow out +her thoughts. "But as for the garden work and the spinning--that I do not +want to leave, because I have done it all my life; and I do not think I +should care to wear lace--it would tear very soon; one would be afraid to +run; and do you see I know how it is made--all that lace. I know how +blind the eyes get over it, and how the hearts ache; I know how the old +women starve, and the little children cry; I know that there is not a +sprig of it that is not stitched with pain; the great ladies do not +think, I dare say, because they have never worked at it or watched the +others: but I have. And so, you see, I think if I wore it I should feel +sad, and if a nail caught on it I should feel as if it were tearing the +flesh of my friends. Perhaps I say it badly; but that is what I feel." + +"You do not say it badly--you speak well, for you speak from the heart," +he answered her, and felt a tinge of shame that he had tempted her with +the gold and purple of a baser world than any that she knew. + +"And yet you want to see new lands?" he pursued. "What is it you want to +see there?" + +"Ah, quite other things than these," cried Bebee, still leaning her +cheeks on her hands. "That dancing and singing is very pretty and merry, +but it is just as good when old Claude fiddles and the children skip. +This wine, you tell me, is something very great; but fresh milk is much +nicer, I think. It is not these kind of things I want--I want to know all +about the people who lived before us; I want to know what the stars are, +and what the wind is; I want to know where the lark goes when you lose +him out of sight against the sun; I want to know how the old artists got +to see God, that they could paint him and all his angels as they have +done; I want to know how the voices got into the bells, and how they can +make one's heart beat, hanging up there as they do, all alone among the +jackdaws; I want to know what it is when I walk in the fields in the +morning, and it is all gray and soft and still, and the corn-crake cries +in the wheat, and the little mice run home to their holes, that makes +me so glad and yet so sorrowful, as if I were so very near God, and yet +so all alone, and such a little thing; because you see the mouse she +has her hole, and the crake her own people, but I--" + +Her voice faltered a little and stopped: she had never before thought out +into words her own loneliness; from the long green arbor the voices of +the girls and the students sang,-- + +"Ah! le doux son d'un baiser tendre!" + +Flamen was silent. The poet in him--and in an artist there is always more +or less of the poet--kept him back from ridicule, nay, moved him to pity +and respect. + +They were absurdly simple words no doubt, had little wisdom in them, and +were quite childish in their utterance, and yet they moved him curiously +as a man very base and callous may at times be moved by the look in a +dying deer's eyes, or by the sound of a song that some lost love once +sang. + +He rose and drew her hands away, and took her small face between his own +hands instead. + +"Poor little Bebee!" he said gently, looking down on her with a breath +that was almost a sigh. "Poor little Bebee!--to envy the corncrake and +the mouse!" + +She was a little startled; her cheeks grew very warm under his touch, but +her eyes looked still into his without fear. + +He stooped and touched her forehead with his lips, gently and +without passion, almost reverently; she grew rose-hued as the bright +bean-flowers, up to the light gold ripples of her hair; she trembled a +little and drew back, but she was not alarmed nor yet ashamed; she was +too simple of heart to feel the fear that is born of passion and of +consciousness. + +It was as Jeannot kissed his sister Marie, who was fifteen years old and +sold milk for the Krebs people in the villages with a little green cart +and a yellow dog--no more. + +And yet the sunny arbor leaves and the glimpse of the blue sky swam round +her indistinctly, and the sounds of the guitar grew dull upon her ear and +were lost as in a rushing hiss of water, because of the great sudden +unintelligible happiness that seemed to bear her little life away on it +as a sea wave bears a young child off its feet. + +"You do not feel alone now, Bebee?" he whispered to her. + +"No!" she answered him softly under her breath, and sat still, while all +her body quivered like a leaf. + +No; how could she ever be alone now that this sweet, soft, unutterable +touch would always be in memory upon her; how could she wish ever again +now to be the corn-crake in the summer corn or the gray mouse in the +hedge of hawthorn? + +At that moment a student went by past the entrance of the arbor; he had a +sash round his loins and a paper feather in his cap; he was playing a +fife and dancing; he glanced in as he went. + +"It is time to go home, Bebee," said Flamen. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +So it came to pass that Bebee's day in the big forest came and went as +simply almost as any day that she had played away with the Varnhart +children under the beech shadows of Cambre woods. + +And when he took her to her hut at sunset before the pilgrims had +returned there was a great bewildered tumult of happiness in her heart, +but there was no memory with her that prevented her from looking at the +shrine in the wall as she passed it, and saying with a quick gesture of +the cross on brow and bosom,-- + +"Ah, dear Holy Mother, how good you have been! and I am back again, you +see, and I will work harder than ever because of all this joy that you +have given me." + +And she took another moss-rose and changed it for that of the morning, +which was faded, and said to Flamen.-- + +"Look--she sends you this. Now do you know what I mean? One is more +content when She is content." + +He did not answer, but he held her hands against him a moment as they +fastened in the rose bud. + +"Not a word to the pilgrims, Bebee--you remember?" + +"Yes, I will remember. I do not tell them every time I pray--it will be +like being silent about that--it will be no more wrong than that." + +But there was a touch of anxiety in the words; she was not quite certain; +she wanted to be reassured. Instinct moved her not to speak of him; but +habit made it seem wrong to her to have any secret from the people who +had been about her from her birth. + +He did not reassure her; her anxiety was pretty to watch, and he left the +trouble in her heart like a bee in the chalice of a lily. Besides, the +little wicket gate was between them; he was musing whether he would push +it open once more. + +Her fate was in the balance, though she did not dream it: he had dealt +with her tenderly, honestly, sacredly all that day--almost as much so as +stupid Jeannot could have done. He had been touched by her trust in him, +and by the unconscious beauty of her fancies, into a mood that was unlike +all his life and habits. But after all, he said to himself-- + +After all!-- + +Where he stood in the golden evening he saw the rosy curled mouth, the +soft troubled eves, the little brown hands that still tried to fasten +the rosebud, the young peach-like skin where the wind stirred the +bodice;--she was only a little Flemish peasant, this poor little Bebee, a +little thing of the fields and the streets, for all the dreams of God +that abode with her. After all--soon or late--the end would be always the +same. What matter! + +She would weep a little to-morrow, and she would not kneel any more at +the shrine in the garden wall; and then--and then--she would stay here +and marry the good boor Jeannot, just the same after a while; or drift +away after him to Paris, and leave her two little wooden shoes, and her +visions of Christ in the fields at evening, behind her forevermore, and +do as all the others did, and take not only silken stockings but the +Cinderella slipper that is called Gold, which brings all other good +things in its train;--what matter! + +He had meant this from the first, because she was so pretty, and those +little wooden sabots ran so lithely over the stones; though he was not in +love with her, but only idly stretched his hand for her as a child by +instinct stretches to a fruit that hangs in the sun a little rosier and a +little nearer than the rest. + +What matter--he said to himself--she loved him, poor little soul, though +she did not know it; and there would always be Jeannot glad enough of a +handful of bright French gold. + +He pushed the gate gently against her; her hands fastened the rosebud and +drew open the latch themselves. + +"Will you come in a little?" she said, with the happy light in her face. +"You must not stay long, because the flowers must be watered, and then +there are Annemie's patterns--they must be done or she will have no money +and so no food--but if you would come in for a little? And see, if you +wait a minute I will show you the roses that I shall cut to-morrow the +first thing, and take down to St. Guido to Our Lady's altar in +thank-offering for to-day. I should like you to choose them--you +yourself--and if you would just touch them I should feel as if you gave +them to her too. Will you?" + +She spoke with the pretty outspoken frankness of her habitual speech, +just tempered and broken with the happy, timid hesitation, the curious +sense at once of closer nearness and of greater distance, that had come +on her since he had kissed her among the bright beanflowers. + +He turned from her quickly. + +"No, dear, no. Gather your roses alone, Bebee; if I touch them their +leaves will fall." + +Then, with a hurriedly backward glance down the dusky lane to see that +none were looking, he bent his head and kissed her again quickly and with +a sort of shame, and swung the gate behind him and went away through +the boughs and the shadows. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +Bebee looked after him wistfully till his figure was lost in the gloom. + +The village was very quiet; a dog barking afar off and a cow lowing in +the meadow were the only living things that made their presence heard; +the pilgrims had not returned. + +She leaned on the gate a few minutes in that indistinct, dreamy happiness +which is the prerogative of innocent love. + +"How wonderful it is that he should give a thought to me!" she said again +and again to herself. It was as if a king had stooped for a little knot +of daisied grass to set it in his crown where the great diamonds should +be. + +She did not reason. She did not question. She did not look beyond that +hour--such is the privilege of youth. + +"How I will read! How I will learn! How wise I will try to be; and how +good, if I can!" she thought, swaying the little gate lightly under her +weight, and looking with glad eyes at the goats as they frisked with +their young in the pasture on the other side of the big trees, whilst one +by one the stars came out, and an owl hooted from the palace woods, and +the frogs croaked good-nights in the rushes. + +Then, like a little day laborer as she was, with the habit of toil and +the need of the poor upon her from her birth up, she shut down the latch +of the gate, kissed it where his hand had rested, and went to the well to +draw its nightly draught for the dry garden. + +"Oh, dear roses!" she said to them as she rained the silvery showers over +their nodding heads. "Oh, dear roses!--tell me--was ever anybody so happy +as I am? Oh, if you say 'yes' I shall tell you you lie; silly flowers +that were only born yesterday!" + +But the roses shook the water off them in the wind, and said, as she +wished them to say,-- + +"No--no one--ever before, Bebee--no one ever before." + +For roses, like everything else upon earth, only speak what our own heart +puts into them. + +An old man went past up the lane; old Jehan, who was too ailing and aged +to make one of the pilgrimage. He looked at the little quick-moving form, +grayish white in the starlight, with the dark copper vessel balanced on +her head, going to and fro betwixt the well and the garden. + +"You did not go to the pilgrimage, poor little one!" he said across the +sweetbrier hedge. "Nay, that was too bad; work, work, work--thy pretty +back should not be bent double yet. You want a holiday, Bebee; well, +the Fete Dieu is near. Jeannot shall take you, and maybe I can find a few +sous for gingerbread and merry-go-rounds. You sit dull in the market all +day; you want a feast." + +Bebee colored behind the hedge, and ran in and brought three new-laid +eggs that she had left in the flour-bin in the early morning, and thrust +them on him through a break in the brier. It was the first time she had +ever done anything of which she might not speak: she was ashamed, and yet +the secret was so sweet to her. + +"I am very happy, Jehan, thank God!" she murmured, with a tremulous +breath and a shine in her eyes that the old man's ears and sight were too +dull to discern. + +"So was _she_" muttered Jehan, as he thrust the eggs into his old +patched blue blouse,--"so was she. And then a stumble--a blow in the lane +there--a horse's kick--and all was over. All over, my pretty one--for +ever and ever." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +On a sudden impulse Flamen, going through the woodland shadows to the +city, paused and turned back; all his impulses were quick and swayed him +now hither, now thither, in many contrary ways. + +He knew that the hour was come--that he must leave her and spare her, as +to himself he phrased it, or teach her the love words that the daisies +whisper to women. + +And why not?--anyway she would marry Jeannot. + +He, half-way to the town, walked back again and paused a moment at the +gate; an emotion half pitiful, half cynical, stirred in him. + +Anyway he would leave her in a few days: Paris had again opened her arms +to him; his old life awaited him; women who claimed him by imperious, +amorous demands reproached him; and after all this day he had got the +Gretchen of his ideal, a great picture for the future of his fame. + +As he would leave her anyway so soon, he would leave her unscathed--poor +little field flower--he could never take it with him to blossom or wither +in Paris. + +His world would laugh too utterly if he made for himself a mistress out +of a little Fleming in two wooden shoes. Besides-- + +Besides, something that was half weak and half noble moved him not to +lead this child, in her trust and her ignorance, into ways that when she +awakened from her trance would seem to her shameful and full of sorrow. +For he knew that Bebee was not as others are. + +He turned back and knocked at the hut door and opened it. + +Bebee was just beginning to undress herself; she had taken off her white +kerchief and her wooden shoes; her pretty shoulders and her little neck +shone white in the moon; her feet were bare on the mud floor. + +She started with a cry and threw the handkerchief again on her shoulders, +but there was no fear of him; only the unconscious instinct of her +girlhood. + +He thought for a moment that he would not go away until the morrow-- + +"Did you want me?" said Bebee softly, with happy eyes of surprise and yet +a little startled, fearing some evil might have happened to him that he +should have returned thus. + +"No; I do not want you, dear," he said gently; no--he did not want her, +poor little soul; she wanted him, but he--there were so many of these +things in his life, and he liked her too well to love her. + +"No, dear, I did not want you," said Flamen, drawing her arms about him, +and feeling her flutter like a little bird, while the moonlight came in +through the green leaves and fell in fanciful patterns on the floor. "But +I came to say--you have had one happy day. Wholly happy, have you not, +poor little Bebee?" + +"Ah, yes!" she sighed rather than said the answer in her wondrous +gladness; drawn there close to him, with the softness of his lips upon +her. Could he have come back only to ask that? + +"Well, that is something. You will remember it always, Bebee?" he +murmured in his unconscious cruelty. "I did not wish to spoil your +cloudless pleasure, dear--for you care for me a little, do you not?--so I +came back to tell you only now, that I go away for a little while +to-morrow." + +"Go away!" + +She trembled in his arms and turned cold as ice; a great terror and +darkness fell upon her; she had never thought that he would ever go +away. He caressed her, and played with her as a boy may with a bird +before he wrings its neck. + +"You will come back?" + +He kissed her: "Surely." + +"To-morrow?" + +"Nay--not so soon." + +"In a week?" + +"Hardly." + +"In a month, then?" + +"Perhaps." + +"Before winter, anyway?" + +He looked aside from the beseeching, tearful, candid eyes, and kissed her +hair and her throat, and said, "Yes, dear--beyond a doubt." + +She clung to him, crying silently; he wished that women would not weep. + +"Come, Bebee, listen," he said coaxingly, thinking to break the +bitterness to her. "This is not wise, and it gives me pain. There is so +much for you to do. You know so little. There is so much to learn. I will +leave you many books, and you must grow quite learned in my absence. The +Virgin is all very well in her way, but she cannot teach us much, poor +lady. For her kingdom is called Ignorance. You must teach yourself. I +leave you that to do. The days will go by quickly if you are laborious +and patient. Do you love me, little one?" + +For an answer she kissed his hand. + +"You are a busy little Bebee always," he said, with his lips caressing +her soft brown arms that were round his neck. "But you must be busier +than ever whilst I am gone. So you will forget. No, no, I do not mean +that:--I mean so the time will pass quickest. And I shall finish your +picture, Bebee, and all Paris will see you, and the great ladies will +envy the little girl with her two wooden shoes. Ah! that does not +please you?--you care for none of these vanities. No. Poor little Bebee, +why did God make you, or Chance breathe life into you? You are so far +away from us all. It was cruel. What harm has your poor little soul ever +done that, pure as a flower, it should have been sent to the hell of this +world?" + +She clung to him, sobbing without sound. "You will come back? You will +come back?" she moaned, clasping him closer and closer. + +Flamen's own eyes grew dim. But he lied to her: "I will--I promise." + +It was so much easier to say so, and it would break her sorrow. So +he thought. + +For the moment again he was tempted to take her with him--but, he +resisted it--he would tire, and she would cling to him forever. + +There was a long silence. The bleating of the little kid in the shed +without was the only sound; the gray lavender blew to and fro. + +Her arms were close about his throat; he kissed them again, and kissed +her eyes, her cheek, her mouth; then put her from him quickly and went +out. + +She ran to him, and threw herself on the damp ground and held him there, +and leaned her forehead on his feet. But though he looked at her with wet +eyes, he did not yield, and he still said,-- + +"I will come back soon--very soon; be quiet, dear, let me go." + +Then he kissed her once more many times, and put her gently within the +door and closed it. + +A low, sharp, sudden cry reached him, went to his heart, but he did not +turn; he went on through the wet, green little garden, and the curling +leaves, where he had found peace and had left desolation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +"I will let her alone, and she will marry Jeannot," thought Flamen; and +he believed himself a good man for once in his life, and pitied himself +for having become a sentimentalist. + +She would marry Jeannot, and bear many children, as those people always +did; and ruddy little peasants would cling about these pretty, soft, +little breasts of hers; and she would love them after the manner of such +women, and be very content clattering over the stones in her wooden +shoes; and growing brown and stout, and more careful after money, and +ceasing to dream of unknown things, and not seeing God at all in the +fields, but looking low and beholding only the ears of the gleaning wheat +and the feet of the tottering children; and so gaining her bread, and +losing her soul, and stooping nearer and nearer to earth till she dropped +into it like one of her own wind-blown wall-flowers when the bee has +sucked out all its sweetness and the heats have scorched up all its +bloom:--yes, of course, she would marry Jeannot and end so! + +Meanwhile he had his Gretchen, and that was the one great matter. + +So he left the street of Mary of Burgundy, and went on his way out of the +chiming city as its matin bells were rung, and took with him a certain +regret, and the only innocent affection that had ever awakened in him; +and thought of his self-negation with half admiration and half derision; +and so drifted away into the whirlpool of his amorous, cynical, +changeful, passionate, callous, many-colored life, and said to himself as +he saw the last line of the low green plains shine against the sun, "She +will marry Jeannot--of course, she will marry Jeannot. And my Gretchen is +greater than Scheffer's." + +What else mattered very much, after all, except what they would say in +Paris of Gretchen? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +The wheat was reapen in the fields, and the brown earth turned afresh. +The white and purple chrysanthemums bloomed against the flowerless +rose-bushes, and the little gray Michaelmas daisy flourished where the +dead carnations had spread their glories. Leaves began to fall and chilly +winds to sigh among the willows; the squirrels began to store away their +nuts, and the poor to pick up the broken bare boughs. + +"He said he would come before winter," thought Bebee, every day when she +rose and felt each morning cooler and grayer than the one before it; +winter was near. + +Her little feet already were cold in their wooden shoes; and the robin +already sang in the twigs of the sear sweetbrier; but she had the brave +sweet faith which nothing kills, and she did not doubt--oh! no, she did +not doubt, she was only tired. + +Tired of the strange, sleepless, feverish nights; tired of the long, +dull, empty days: tired of watching down the barren, leafless lane: +tired of hearkening breathless to each step on the rustling dead leaves; +tired of looking always, always, always, into the ruddy autumn evenings +and the cold autumn starlight, and never hearing what she listened for, +never seeing what she sought; tired as a child may be lost in a wood, and +wearily wearing its small strength and breaking its young heart in search +of the track forever missed, of the home forever beyond the horizon. + +Still she did her work and kept her courage. + +She took her way into the town with her basket full of the ruby and amber +of the dusky autumn blossoms, and when those failed, and the garden was +quite desolate, except for a promise of haws and of holly, she went, as +she had always done, to the lace-room, and gained her bread and the +chickens' corn each day by winding the thread round the bobbins; and at +nightfall when she had plodded home through the darksome roads and over +the sodden turf, and had lit her rushlight and sat down to her books, +with her hand buried in her hair, and her eyes smarting from the strain +of the lace-work and her heart aching with that new and deadly pain which +never left her now, she would read--read--read--read, and try and store +her brain with knowledge, and try and grasp these vast new meanings of +life that the books opened to her, and try and grow less ignorant against +he should return. + +There was much she could not understand, +bait there was also much she could. + +Her mind was delicate and quick, her intelligence swift and strong; she +bought old books at bookstalls with pence that she saved by going without +her dinner. The keeper of the stall, a shrewd old soul, explained some +hard points to her, and chose good volumes for her, and lent others to +this solitary little student in her wooden shoes and with her pale +child's face. + +So she toiled hard and learned much, and grew taller and very thin, and +got a look in her eyes like a lost dog's, and yet never lost heart or +wandered in the task that he had set her, or in her faith in his return. + +"Burn the books, Bebee," whispered the children again and again, clinging +to her skirts. "Burn the wicked, silent things. Since you have had them +you never sing, or romp, or laugh, and you look so white--so white." + +Bebee kissed them, but kept to her books. + +Jeannot going by from the forest night after night saw the light +twinkling in the hut window, and sometimes crept softly up and looked +through the chinks of the wooden shutter, and saw her leaning over some +big old volume with her pretty brows drawn together, and her mouth shut +close in earnest effort, and he would curse the man who had changed her +so and go away with rage in his breast and tears in his eyes, not daring +to say anything, but knowing that never would Bebee's little brown hand +lie in love within his own. + +Nor even in friendship, for he had rashly spoken rough words against the +stranger from Rubes' land, and Bebee ever since then had passed him by +with a grave, simple greeting, and when he had brought her in timid gifts +a barrow-load of fagots, had thanked him, but had bidden him take the +wood home to his mother. + +"You think evil things of me, Bebee?" good Jeannot had pleaded, with a +sob in his voice; and she had answered gently,-- + +"No; but do not speak to me, that is all." + +Then he had cursed her absent lover, and Bebee gone within and closed her +door. + +She had no idea that the people thought ill of her. They were cold to +her, and such coldness made her heart ache a little more. But the one +great love in her possessed her so strongly that all other things were +half unreal. + +She did her daily housework from sheer habit, and she studied because he +had told her to do it, and because with the sweet, stubborn, credulous +faith of her youth, she never doubted that he would return. + +Otherwise there was no perception of real life in her; she dreamed and +prayed, and prayed and dreamed, and never ceased to do either one or the +other, even when she was scattering potato-peels to the fowls, or shaking +carrots loose of the soil, or sweeping the snow from her hut door, or +going out in the raw dark dawn as the single little sad bell of St. Guido +tolled through the stillness for the first mass. + +For though even Father Francis looked angered at her because he thought +she was stubborn, and hid some truth and some shame from him at +confession, yet she went resolutely and oftener than ever to kneel in the +dusty, dusky, crumbling old church, for it was all she could do for him +who was absent--so she thought--and she did not feel quite so far away +from him when she was beseeching Christ to have care of his soul and of +his body. + +All her pretty dreams were dead. + +She never heard any story in the robin's song, or saw any promise in the +sunset clouds, or fancied that angels came about her in the night--never +now. + +The fields were gray and sad; the birds were little brown things; the +stars were cold and far off; the people she had used to care for were +like mere shadows that went by her meaningless and without interest, and +all she thought of was the one step that never came: all she wanted was +the one touch she never felt. + +"You have done wrong, Bebee, and you will not own it," said the few +neighbors who ever spoke to her. + +Bebee looked at them with wistful, uncomprehending eyes. + +"I have done no wrong," she said gently, but no one believed her. + +A girl did not shut herself up and wane pale and thin for nothing, so +they reasoned. She might have sinned as she had liked if she had been +sensible after it, and married Jeannot. + +But to fret mutely, and shut her lips, and seem as though she had done +nothing,--that was guilt indeed. + +For her village, in its small way, thought as the big world thinks. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +Full winter came. + +The snow was deep, and the winds drove the people with whips of ice along +the dreary country roads and the steep streets of the city. The bells of +the dogs and the mules sounded sadly through the white misty silence of +the Flemish plains, and the weary horses slipped and fell on the frozen +ruts and on the jagged stones in the little frost-shut Flemish towns. +Still the Flemish folk were gay enough in many places. + +There were fairs and kermesses; there were puppet plays and church +feasts; there were sledges on the plains and skates on the canals; there +were warm woollen hoods and ruddy wood fires; there were tales of demons +and saints, and bowls of hot onion soup; sugar images for the little +children, and blessed beads for the maidens clasped on rosy throats with +lovers' kisses; and in the city itself there was the high tide of the +winter pomp and mirth, with festal scenes in the churches, and balls at +the palaces, and all manner of gay things in toys and jewels, and music +playing cheerily under the leafless trees, and flashes of scarlet cloth, +and shining furs, and happy faces, and golden curls, in the carriages +that climbed the Montagne de la Cour, and filled the big place around the +statue of stout Godfrey. + +In the little village above St. Guido, Bebee's neighbors were merry too, +in their simple way. + +The women worked away wearily at their lace in the dim winter light, and +made a wretched living by it, but all the same they got penny playthings +for their babies, and a bit of cake for their Sunday-hearth. They drew +together in homely and cordial friendship, and of an afternoon when dusk +fell wove their lace in company in Mere Krebs's mill-house kitchen with +the children and the dogs at their feet on the bricks, so that one big +fire might serve for all, and all be lighted with one big rush candle, +and all be beguiled by chit-chat and songs, stories of spirits, and +whispers of ghosts, and now and then when the wind howled at its worst, a +paternoster or two said in common for the men toiling in the barges or +drifting up the Scheldt. + +In these gatherings Bebee's face was missed, and the blithe soft sound of +her voice, like a young thrush singing, was never heard. + +The people looked in, and saw her sitting over a great open book; often +her hearth had no fire. + +Then the children grew tired of asking her to play; and their elders +began to shake their heads; she was so pale and so quiet, there must be +some evil in it--so they began to think. + +Little by little people dropped away from her. Who knew, the gossips +said, what shame or sin the child might not have on her sick little soul? + +True, Bebee worked hard just the same, and just the same was seen +trudging to and fro in the dusk of dawns and afternoons in her two little +wooden shoes. She was gentle and laborious, and gave the children her +goat's milk, and the old women the brambles of her garden. + +But they grew afraid of her--afraid of that sad, changeless, far-away +look in her eves, and of the mute weariness that was on her--and, being +perplexed, were sure, like all ignorant creatures, that what was secret +must be also vile. + +So they hung aloof, and let her alone, and by and by scarcely nodded as +they passed her but said to Jeannot,-- + +"You were spared a bad thing, lad: the child was that grand painter's +light-o'-love, that is plain to see. The mischief all comes of the stuff +old Antoine filled her head with--a stray little by-blow of chickweed +that he cockered up like a rare carnation. Oh! do not fly in a rage, +Jeannot; the child is no good, and would have made an honest man rue. +Take heart of grace, and praise the saints, and marry Katto's Lisa." + +But Jeannot would never listen to the slanderers, and would never look at +Lisa, even though the door of the little hut was always closed against +him; and whenever he met Bebee on the highway she never seemed to see +him more than she saw the snow that her sabots were treading. + +One night in the midwinter-time old Annemie died. + +Bebee found her in the twilight with her head against the garret window, +and her left side all shrivelled and useless. She had a little sense +left, and a few fleeting breaths to draw. + +"Look for the brig," she muttered. "You will not see the flag at the +masthead for the fog to-night; but his socks are dry and his pipe is +ready. Keep looking--keep looking--she will be in port to-night." + +But her dead sailor never came into port; she went to him. The poor, +weakened, faithful old body of her was laid in the graveyard of the poor, +and the ships came and went under the empty garret window, and Bebee was +all alone. + +She had no more anything to work for, or any bond with the lives of +others. She could live on the roots of her garden and the sale of her +hens' eggs, and she could change the turnips and carrots that grew in a +little strip of her ground for the quantity of bread that she needed. + +So she gave herself up to the books, and drew herself more and more +within from the outer world. She did not know that the neighbors thought +very evil of her; she had only one idea in her mind--to be more worthy of +him against he should return. + +The winter passed away somehow, she did not know how. + +It was a long, cold, white blank of frozen silence: that was all. She +studied hard, and had got a quaint, strange, deep, scattered knowledge +out of her old books; her face had lost all its roundness and color, but, +instead, the forehead had gained breadth and the eyes had the dim fire of +a student's. + +Every night when she shut her volumes she thought,-- + +"I am a little nearer him. I know a little more." + +Just so every morning, when she bathed her hands in the chilly water, she +thought to herself, "I will make my skin as soft as I can for him, that +it may be like the ladies' he has loved." + +Love to be perfect must be a religion, as well as a passion. Bebee's was +so. Like George Herbert's serving-maiden, she swept no specks of dirt +away from a floor without doing it to the service of her lord. + +Only Bebee's lord was a king of earth, made of earth's dust and vanities. + +But what did she know of that? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +The winter went by, and the snow-drops and crocus and pale hepatica +smiled at her from the black clods. Every other springtime Bebee had run +with fleet feet under the budding trees down into the city, and had sold +sweet little wet bunches of violets and brier before all the snow was +melted from the eaves of the Broodhuis. + +"The winter is gone," the townspeople used to say; "look, there is Bebee +with the flowers." + +But this year they did not see the little figure itself like a rosy +crocus standing against the brown timbers of the Maison de Roi. + +Bebee had not heart to pluck a single blossom of them all. She let them +all live, and tended them so that the little garden should look its best +and brightest to him when his hand should lift its latch. + +Only he was so long coming--so very long; the violets died away, and the +first rosebuds came in their stead, and still Bebee looked every dawn and +every nightfall vainly down the empty road. + +Nothing kills young creatures like the bitterness of waiting. + +Pain they will bear, and privation they will pass through, fire and water +and storm will not appall them, nor wrath of heaven and earth, but +waiting--the long, tedious, sickly, friendless days, that drop one by one +in their eternal sameness into the weary past, these kill slowly +but surely, as the slow dropping of water frets away rock. + +The summer came. + +Nearly a year had gone by. Bebee worked early and late. The garden +bloomed like one big rose, and the neighbors shook their heads to see the +flowers blossom and fall without bringing in a single coin. + +She herself spoke less seldom than ever; and now when old Jehan, who +never had understood the evil thoughts of his neighbors, asked her +what ailed her that she looked so pale and never stirred down to the +city, now her courage failed her, and the tears brimmed over her eyes, +and she could not call up a brave brief word to answer him. For the time +was so long, and she was so tired. + +Still she never doubted that her lover would comeback: he had said he +would come: she was as sure that he would come as she was sure that God +came in the midst of the people when the silver bell rang and the Host +was borne by on high. + +Bebee did not heed much, but she vaguely-felt the isolation she was left +in: as a child too young to reason feels cold and feels hunger. + +"No one wants me here now that Annemie is gone," she thought to herself, +as the sweet green spring days unfolded themselves one by one like the +buds of the brier-rose hedges. + +And now and then even the loyal little soul of her gave way, and sobbing +on her lonely bed in the long dark nights, she would cry out against him, +"Oh, why not have left me alone? I was so happy--so happy!" + +And then she would reproach herself with treason to him and ingratitude, +and hate herself and feel guilty in her own sight to have thus sinned +against him in thought for one single instant. + +For there are natures in which the generosity of love is so strong that +it feels its own just pain to be disloyalty; and Bebee's was one of them. +And if he had killed her she would have died hoping only that no moan had +escaped her under the blow that ever could accuse him. + +These natures, utterly innocent by force of self-accusation and +self-abasement, suffer at once the torment of the victim and the +criminal. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +One day in the May weather she sat within doors with a great book upon +her table, but no sight for it in her aching eyes. The starling hopped to +and fro on the sunny floor; the bees boomed in the porch; the tinkle of +sheep's bells came in on the stillness. All was peaceful and happy except +the little weary, breaking, desolate heart that beat in her like a caged +bird's. + +"He will come; I am sure he will come," she said to herself; but she was +so tired, and it was so long--oh, dear God!--so very long. + +A hand tapped at the lattice. The shrill voice of Reine, the +sabot-maker's wife, broken with anguish, called through the hanging +ivy,-- + +"Bebee, you are a wicked one, they say, but the only one there is at home +in the village this day. Get you to town for the love of Heaven, and send +Doctor Max hither, for my pet, my flower, my child lies dying, and not a +soul near, and she black as a coal with choking--go, go, go!--and Mary +will forgive you your sins. Save the little one, dear Bebee, do you hear? +and I will pray God and speak fair the neighbors for you. Go!" + +Bebee rose up, startled by the now unfamiliar sound of a human voice, and +looked at the breathless mother with eyes of pitying wonder. + +"Surely I will go," she said, gently; "but there is no need to bribe me. +I have not sinned greatly--that I know." + +Then she went out quickly and ran through the lanes and into the city for +the sick child, and found the wise man, and sent him, and did the errand +rather in a sort of sorrowful sympathetic instinct than in any reasoning +consciousness of doing good. + +When she was moving through the once familiar and happy ways as the sun +was setting on the golden fronts of the old houses, and the chimes were +ringing from the many towers, a strange sense of unreality, of +non-existence, fell upon her. + +Could it be she?--she indeed--who had gone there the year before the +gladdest thing that the earth bore, with no care except to shelter her +flowers from the wind, and keep the freshest blossoms for the +burgomaster's housewife? + +She did not think thus to herself; but a vague doubt that she could ever +have been the little gay, laborious, happy Bebee, with troops of friends +and endless joys for every day that dawned, came over her as she went by +the black front of the Broodhuis. + +The strong voice of Lisa, the fruit girl, jarred on her as she passed the +stall under its yellow awning that was flapping sullenly in the evening +wind. + +"Oh he, little fool," the mocking voice cried, "the rind of the fine pine +is full of prickles, and stings the lips when the taste is gone?--to be +sure--crack common nuts like me and you are never wanting--hazels grow +free in every copse. Prut, tut! your grand lover lies a-dying; so the +students read out of this just now; and you such a simpleton as not to +get a roll of napoleons out of him before he went to rot in Paris. I dare +say he was poor as sparrows, if one knew the truth. He was only a +painter after all." + +Lisa tossed her as she spoke a torn sheet, in which she was wrapping +gentians: it was a piece of newspaper some three weeks old, and in it +there was a single line or so which said that the artist Flamen, whose +Gretchen was the wonder of the Salon of the year, lay sick unto death in +his rooms in Paris. + +Bebee stood and read; the strong ruddy western light upon the type, the +taunting laughter of the fruit girl on her ear. + +A bitter shriek rang from her that made even the cruelty of Lisa's mirth +stop in a sudden terror. + +She stood staring like a thing changed to stone down on the one name that +to her rilled all the universe. + +"Ill--he is ill--do you hear?" she echoed piteously, looking at Lisa; +"and you say he is poor?" + +"Poor? for sure! is he not a painter?" said the fruit girl, roughly. She +judged by her own penniless student lads; and she was angered with +herself for feeling sorrow for this little silly thing that she had loved +to torture. + +"You have been bad and base to me; but now--I bless you, I love you, I +will pray for you," said Bebee, in a swift broken breath, and with a look +upon her face that startled into pain her callous enemy. + +Then without another word, she thrust the paper in her bosom, and ran out +of the square breathless with haste and with a great resolve. + +He was ill--and he was poor! The brave little soul of her leaped at once +to action. He was sick, and far away; and poor they said. All danger and +all difficulty faded to nothing before the vision of his need. + +Bebee was only a little foundling who ran about in wooden shoes; but she +had the "dog's soul" in her--the soul that will follow faithfully though +to receive a curse, that will defend loyally though to meet a blow, and +that will die mutely loving to the last. + +She went home, how she never knew; and without the delay of a moment +packed up a change of linen, and fed the fowls and took the key of the +hut down to old Jehan's cabin. The old man was only half-witted by reason +of his affliction for his dead daughter, but he was shrewd enough to +understand what she wanted of him, and honest enough to do it. + +"I am going into the city," she said to him: "and if I am not back +to-night, will you feed the starling and the hens, and water the flowers +for me?" + +Old Jehan put his head out of his lattice: it was seven in the evening, +and he was going to bed. + +"What are you after, little one?" he asked: going to show the fine +buckles at a students' ball? Nay, fie; that is not like you." + +"I am going to--pray--dear Jehan," she answered, with a sob in her throat +and the first falsehood she ever had told. "Do what I ask you--do for +your dead daughter's sake--or the birds and the flowers will die of +hunger and thirst. Take the key and promise me." + +He took the key, and promised. + +"Do not let them see those buckles shine; they will rob you," he added. + +Bebee ran from him fast; every moment that was lost was so precious and +so terrible. To pause a second for fear's sake never occurred to her. She +went forth as fearlessly as a young swallow, born in northern April days, +flies forth on instinct to new lands and over unknown seas when autumn +falls. + +Necessity and action breathed new life into her. The hardy and brave +peasant ways of her were awoke once more. She had been strong to wait +silently with the young life in her dying out drop by drop in the +heart-sickness of long delay. She was strong now to throw herself into +strange countries and dim perils and immeasurable miseries, on the sole +chance that she might be of service to him. + +A few human souls here and there can love like dogs. Bebee's was one. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +It was dark. The May days are short in the north lands of the Scheldt. + +She had her little winter cloak of frieze and her wooden shoes and her +little white cap with the sunny curls rippling out of it in their pretty +rebellion. She had her little lantern too; and her bundle, and she had +put a few fresh eggs in her basket, with some sweet herbs and the +palm-sheaf that Father Francis had blessed last Easter; for who could +tell, she thought, how ill he might not be, or how poor? + +She hardly gave a look to the hut as she ran by its garden gate; all her +heart was on in front, in the vague far-off country where he lay sick +unto death. + +She ran fast through the familiar lanes into the city. She was not very +sure where Paris was, but she had the name clear and firm, and she knew +that people were always coming and going thence and thither, so that she +had no fear she should not find it. + +She went straight to the big, busy, bewildering place in the Leopold +quarter where the iron horses fumed every day and night along the iron +ways. She had never been there before, but she knew it was by that great +highway that the traffic to Paris was carried on, and she knew that it +would carry people also as well. + +There were bells clanging, lights flashing, and crowds pushing and +shouting, as she ran up--a little gray figure, with the lantern-spark +glimmering like any tiny glow-worm astray in a gas-lit city. + +"To Paris?" she asked, entreatingly, going where she saw others going, to +a little grated wicket in a wall. + +"Twenty-seven francs--quick!" they demanded of her. Bebee gave a great +cry, and stood still, trembling and trying not to sob aloud. She had +never thought of money; she had forgotten that youth and strength and +love and willing feet and piteous prayers,--all went for nothing as this +world is made. + +A hope flashed on her and a glad thought. She loosed the silver buckles, +and held them out. + +"Would you take these? They are worth much more." + +There was a derisive laughter; some one bade her with an oath begone; +rough shoulders jostled her away. She stretched her arms out piteously. + +"Take me--oh, pray take me! I will go with the sheep, with the +cattle--only, only take me!" + +But in the rush and roar none heeded her; some thief snatched the silver +buckles from her hand, and made off with them and was lost in the throng; +a great iron beast rushed by her, snorting flame and bellowing smoke; +there was a roll like thunder, and all was dark; the night express had +passed on its way to Paris. + +Bebee stood still, crushed for a moment with the noise and the cruelty +and the sense of absolute desolation; she scarcely noticed that the +buckles had been stolen; she had only one thought--to get to Paris. + +"Can I never go without money?" she asked at the wicket; the man there +glanced a moment, with a touch of pity, at the little wistful face. + +"The least is twenty francs--surely you must know that?" he said, and +shut his grating with a clang. + +Bebee turned away and went out of the great cruel, tumultuous place; her +heart ached and her brain was giddy, but the sturdy courage of her nature +rose to need. + +"There is no way at all to go without money to Paris, I suppose?" she +asked of an old woman whom she knew a little, who sold nuts and little +pictures of saints and wooden playthings under the trees, in the avenue +hard by. + +The old woman shook her head. + +"Eh?--no, dear. There is nothing to be done anywhere in the world without +money. Look, I cannot get a litre of nuts to sell unless I pay +beforehand." + +"Would it be far to walk?" + +"Far! Holy Jesus! It is right away in the heart of France--over two +hundred miles, they say; straight out through the forest. Not but what my +son did walk it once;--and he a shoemaker, who knows what walking costs; +and he is well-to-do there now--not that he ever writes. When they want +nothing people never write." + +"And he walked into Paris?" + +"Yes, ten years ago. He had nothing but a few sous and an ash stick, and +he had a fancy to try his luck there. And after all our feet were given +us to travel with. If you go there and you see him, tell him to send me +something--I am tired of selling nuts." + +Bebee said nothing, but went on her road; since there was no other way +but to walk, she would take that way; the distance and the hardship did +not appall two little feet that were used to traverse so many miles of +sun-baked summer dust and of frozen winter mud unblenchingly year after +year. + +The time it would take made her heart sink indeed. He was ill. God knew +what might happen. But neither the length of leagues nor the fatigue of +body daunted her. She only saw his eyes dim with pain and his lips burned +with fever. + +She would walk twenty miles a day, and then, perhaps, she might get lifts +here and there on hay wagons or in pedlers' carts; people had always used +to be kind to her. Anyhow she counted she might reach Paris well in +fifteen days. + +She sat under a shrine in a by street a moment, and counted the copper +pieces she had on her; they were few, and the poor pretty buckles that +she might have sold to get money were stolen. + +She had some twenty sous and a dozen eggs; she thought she might live on +that; she had wanted to take the eggs to him, but after all, to keep life +in her until she could reach Paris was the one great thing. + +"What a blessing it is to have been born poor; and to have lived +hardly--one wants so little!" she thought to herself. + +Then she put up the sous in the linen bosom of her gown, and trimmed her +little lantern and knelt down in the quiet darkness and prayed a moment, +with the hot agonized tears rolling down her face, and then rose and +stepped out bravely in the cool of the night, on the great southwest road +towards Paris. + +The thought never once crossed her to turn back, and go again into the +shelter of her own little hut among the flowers. He was sick there, +dying, for anything she knew; that was the only thing she remembered. + +It was a clear, starlit night, and everywhere the fragrance of the spring +was borne in from the wide green plains, and the streams where the rushes +were blowing. + +She walked ten miles easily, the beautiful gray shadow all about her. She +had never been so far from home in all her life, except to that one +Kermesse at Mechlin. But she was not afraid. + +With the movement, and the air, and the sense that she was going to him, +which made her happy even in her misery, something of the old, sweet, +lost fancies came to her. + +She smiled at the stars through her tears, and as the poplars swayed and +murmured in the wind, they looked to her like the wings and the swords +of a host of angels. + +Her way lay out through the forest, and in that sweet green woodland she +was not afraid--no more afraid than the fawns were. + +At Boitsfort she shrank a little, indeed. Here there were the open-air +restaurants, and the cafe gardens all alight for the pleasure-seekers +from the city; here there were music and laughter, and horses with brass +bells, and bright colors on high in the wooden balconies, and below among +the blossoming hawthorn hedges. She had to go through it all, and +she shuddered a little as she ran, thinking of that one priceless, +deathless forest day when he had kissed her first. + +But the pleasure-people were all busied with their mirth and mischief, +and took no notice of the little gray figure in the starry night. She +went on along the grassy roads, under the high arching trees, with the +hoot of the owls and the cry of the rabbits on the stillness. + +At Groenendael, in the heart of the forest midnight was striking as she +entered the village. Every one was asleep. The lights were all out The +old ruined priory frowned dark under the clouds. + +She shivered a little again, and began to feel chill and tired, yet did +not dare to knock at any one of the closed house doors--she had no money. + +So she walked on her first ten unknown miles, meeting a few people only, +and being altogether unmolested--a small gray figure, trotting in two +little wooden shoes. + +They thought her a peasant going to a fair or a lace mill, and no one did +her more harm than to wish her good night in rough Flemish. + +When the dawn began to whiten above the plains of the east, she saw an +empty cow-shed filled with hay; she was a little tired, and lay down and +rested an hour or two, as a young lamb might have lain on the dried +clover, for she knew that she must keep her strength and husband her +power, or never reach across the dreary length of the foreign land to +Paris. + +But by full sunrise she was on her way again, bathing her face in a brook +and buying a sou's worth of bread and flet-milk at the first cottage that +she passed in bright, leaf-bowered Hoey-laert. + +The forest was still all around her, with its exquisite life of bough and +blossom, and murmur of insect and of bird. She told her beads, praying as +she went, and was almost happy. + +God would not let him die. Oh, no, not till she had kissed him once more, +and could die with him. + +The hares ran across the path, and the blue butterflies flew above-head. +There was purple gloom of pine wood, and sparkling verdure of aspen and +elm. There were distant church carillons ringing, and straight golden +shafts of sunshine streaming. + +She was quite sure God would not let him die. + +She hoped that he might be very poor. At times he had talked as if he +were, and then she might be of so much use. She knew how to deal with +fever and suffering. She had sat up many a night with the children of the +village. The gray sisters had taught her many of their ways of battling +with disease; and she could make fresh cool drinks, and she could brew +beautiful remedies from simple herbs. There was so much that she might +do; her fancy played with it almost happily. And then, only to touch his +hand, only to hear his voice; her heart rose at the thought, as a lark to +its morning song. + +At Rixensart, buried in its greenery, as she went through it in morning +light, some peasants greeted her cheerily, and called to her to rest in a +house porch, and gave her honey and bread. She could not eat much; her +tongue was parched and her throat was dry, but the kindness was precious +to her, and she went on her road the stronger for it. + +"It is a long way to walk to Paris," said the woman, with some curious +wonder. Bebee smiled, though her eyes grew wet. + +"She has the look of the little Gesu," said the Rixensart people; and +they watched her away with a vague timid pity. + +So she went on through Ottignies and La Roche to Villers, and left the +great woods and the city chimes behind her, and came through the green +abbey valleys through Tilly and Ligny, and Fleurus, and so into the coal +and iron fields that lie round Charleroi. + +Here her heart grew sick, and her courage sank under the noise and the +haste, before the blackness and the hideousness. She had never seen +anything like it. She thought it was hell, with the naked, swearing, +fighting people, and the red fires leaping night and day. Nevertheless, +if hell it were, since it lay betwixt her and him, she found force to +brave and cross it. + +The miners and glass-blowers and nail-makers, rough and fierce and hard, +frightened her. The women did not look like women, and the children ran +and yelled at her, and set their dogs upon her. The soil was thick with +dust like soot, and the trees were seared and brown. There was no peace +in the place, and no loveliness. Eighty thousand folks toiled together in +the hopeless Tophet, and swarmed, and struggled, and labored, and +multiplied, in joyless and endless wrestling against hunger and death. + +She got through it somehow, hiding often from the ferocious youngsters, +and going sleepless rather than lie in those dens of filth; but she +seemed so many, many years older when Charleroi lay at last behind +her,--so many, many years older than when she had sat and spun in the +garden at home. + +When she was once in the valley of the Sambre she was more herself again, +only she felt weaker than she had ever done, because she only dared to +spend one of her sous each day, and one sou got so little food. + +In the woods and fields about Alne she began to breathe again, like a +bird loosed to the air after being shut in a wooden trap. Green corn, +green boughs, green turf, mellow chimes of church bells, humming of +golden bees, cradle songs of women spinning, homely odors of little herb +gardens and of orchard trees under cottage walls,--these had been around +her all her life; she only breathed freely among them. + +She often felt tired, and her wooden shoes were wearing so thin that the +hot dust of the road at noonday burnt her feet through them. Sometimes, +too, she felt a curious brief faintness, such as she had never known, for +the lack of food and the long fatigue began to tell even on her hardy +little body. + +But she went on bravely, rarely doing less than her twenty miles a day, +and sometimes more, walking often in the night to save time, and lying +down in cow-sheds or under haystacks in the noontide. + +For the most part people were kind to her; they saw she was so very young +and so poor. + +Women would give her leave to bathe herself in their bedchambers, +and children would ask her to wait on the village bench under the +chestnut-tree, while they brought her their pet lamb or their tumbler +pigeons to look at, but, for the most part--unless she was very, very +tired--she would not wait. It took her so long, and who could tell how it +fared with him in Paris? + +Into the little churches, scattered over the wide countries between +Charleroi and Erquelinnes, she would turn aside, indeed; but, then, +that was only to say a prayer for him; that was not loss to him, but +gain. + +So she walked on until she reached the frontier of France. She began to +get a little giddy; she began to see the blue sky and the green level +always swirling round her as if some one were spinning them to frighten +her, but still she would not be afraid; she went on, and on, and on, till +she set her last step on the soil of Flanders. + +Here a new, strange, terrible, incomprehensible obstacle opposed her: she +had no papers; they thrust her back and spoke to her as if she were a +criminal. She could not understand what they could mean. She had never +heard of these laws and rules. She vaguely comprehended that she must not +enter France, and stunned and heartbroken she dropped down under a tree, +and for the first time sobbed as if her very life would weep itself away. + +She could see nothing, understand nothing. There were the same road, the +same hedges, the same fields, the same white cottages, and peasants in +blue shirts and dun-hued oxen in the wagons. She saw no mark, no +difference, ere they told her where she stood was Belgium, and where they +stood was France, and that she must not pass from one into the other. + +The men took no notice of her. They went back into their guard-house, +and smoked and drank. A cat sunned herself under a scarlet bean. The +white clouds sailed on before a southerly sky. She might die here--he +there--and nothing seemed to care. + +After a while an old hawker came up; he was travelling with wooden clocks +from the Black Forest. He stopped and looked at her, and asked her what +she ailed. + +She knelt down at his feet in the dust. + +"Oh, help me!" she cried to him. "Oh, pray, help me! I have walked all +the way from Brussels--that is my country--and now they will not let me +pass that house where the soldiers are. They say I have no papers. What +papers should I have? I do not know. When one has done no harm, and does +not owe a sou anywhere, and has walked all the way--Is it money that they +want? I have none; and they stole my silver clasps in Brussels; and if +I do not get to Paris I must die--die without seeing him again--ever +again, dear God!" + +She dropped her head upon the dust and crouched and sobbed there, her +courage broken by this new barrier that she had never dreamed would come +between herself and Paris. + +The old hawker looked at her thoughtfully. He had seen much of men and +women, and knew truth from counterfeit, and he was moved by the child's +agony. + +He stooped and whispered in her ear,-- + +"Get up quick, and I will pass you. It is against the law, and I may go +to prison for it. Never mind; one must risk something in this world, or +else be a cur. My daughter has stayed behind in Marbais sweethearting; +her name is on my passport, and her age and face will do for yours. Get +up and follow me close, and I will get you through. Poor little soul! +Whatever your woe is it is real enough, and you are such a young and +pretty thing. Get up, the guards are in their house, they have not seen; +follow me, and you must not speak a word; they must take you for a +German, dumb as wood." + +She got up and obeyed him, not comprehending, but only vaguely seeing +that he was friendly to her, and would pass her over into France. + +The old man made a little comedy at the barrier, and scolded her as +though she were his daughter for losing her way as she came to meet him, +and then crying like a baby. + +The guards looked at her carelessly, joked the hawker on her pretty face, +looked the papers over, and let her through, believing her the child of +the clock-maker of the Hartz. Some lies are blessed as truth. + +"I have done wrong in the law, but not before God, I think, little one," +said the pedler. "Nay, do not thank me, or go on like that; we are in +sight of the customs men still, and if they suspected, it would be the +four walls of a cell only that you and I should see to-night. And now +tell me your story, poor maiden: why are you on foot through a strange +country?" + +But Bebee would not tell him her story: she was confused and dazed still. +She did not know rightly what had happened to her; but she could not talk +of herself, nor of why she travelled thus to Paris. + +The old hawker got cross at her silence, and called her an unthankful +jade, and wished that he had left her to her fate, and parted company +with her at two cross-roads, saying his path did not lie with hers; and +then when he had done that, was sorry, and being a tenderhearted soul, +hobbled back, and would fain press a five-franc piece on her; and Bebee, +refusing it all the while, kissed his old brown hands and blessed him, +and broke away from him, and so went on again solitary towards St. +Quentin. + +The country was very flat and poor, and yet the plains had a likeness in +them to her own wide Brabant downs, where the tall green wheat was +blowing and the barges dropping down the sluggish streams. + +She was very footsore; very weary; very hungry so often; but she was in +France--in his country; and her spirit rose with the sense of that +nearness to him. + +After all, God was so good to her; there were fine bright days and +nights; a few showers had fallen, but merely passing ones; the air was so +cool and so balmy that it served her almost as food; and she seldom found +people so unkind that they refused for her single little sou to give her +a crust of bread and let her lie in an outhouse. + +After all, God was very good; and by the sixteenth or seventeenth day she +would be in the city of Paris. + +She was a little light-headed at times from insufficient nourishment: +especially after waking from strange dreams in unfamiliar places; +sometimes the soil felt tremulous under her, and the sky spun round; but +she struggled against the feeling, and kept a brave heart, and tried to +be afraid of nothing. + +Sometimes at night she thought she saw old Annemie. "But what if I do?" +she said to herself; "Annemie never will hurt me." + +And now, as she grew nearer her goal, her natural buoyancy of spirit +returned as it had never done to her since the evening that he had kissed +and left her. As her body grew lighter and more exhausted, her fancy grew +keener and more dominant. All things of the earth and air spoke to her as +she went along as they had used to do. All that she had learned from the +books in the long cold months came to her clear and wonderful. She was +not so very ignorant now--ignorant, indeed, beside him--but still knowing +something that would make her able to read to him if he liked it, and to +understand if he talked of grave things. + +She had no fixed thought of what she would be to him when she reached +him. + +She fancied she would wait on him, and tend him, and make him well, and +be caressed by him, and get all gracious pretty things of leaf and +blossom about him, and kneel at his feet, and be quite happy if he only +touched her now and then with his lips;--her thoughts went no further +than that;--her love for him was of that intensity and absorption in +which nothing But itself is remembered. + +When a creature loves much, even when it is as little and as simple a +soul as Bebee, the world and all its people and all its laws and ways are +as naught. They cease to exist; they are as though they had never been. + +Whoever recollects an outside world may play with passion, or may idle +with sentiment, but does not love. + +She did not hear what the villagers said to her. She did not see the +streets of the towns as she passed them. She kept herself clean always, +and broke fast now and then by sheer instinct of habit, nothing more. She +had no perception what she did, except of walking--walking--walking +always, and seeing the white road go by like pale ribbons unrolled. + +She got a dreamy, intense, sleepless light in her blue eyes that +frightened some of those she passed. They thought she had been +fever-stricken, and was not in her senses. + +So she went across the dreary lowlands, wearing out her little sabots, +but not wearing out her patience and her courage. + +She was very dusty and jaded. Her woollen skirt was stained with weather +and torn with briers. But she had managed always to wash her cap white in +brook water, and she had managed always to keep her pretty bright curls +soft and silken--for he had liked them so much, and he would soon draw +them through his hand again. So she told herself a thousand times to give +her strength when the mist would come over her sight, and the earth would +seem to tremble as she went. On the fifteenth day from the night when she +had left her hut by the swans' water, Bebee saw Paris. + +Shining away in the sun; white and gold; among woods and gardens she saw +Paris. + +She was so tired--oh, so tired--but she could not rest now. There were +bells ringing always in her ears, and a heavy pain always in her head. +But what of that?--she was so near to him. + +"Are you ill, you little thing?" a woman asked her who was gathering +early cherries in the outskirts of the great city. + +Bebee looked at her and smiled: "I do not know--I am happy." + +And she went onward. + +It was evening. The sun had set. She had not eaten for twenty-four hours. +But she could not pause for anything now. She crossed the gleaming river, +and she heard the cathedral chimes. Paris in all its glory was about her, +but she took no more note of it than a pigeon that flies through it +intent on reaching home. + +No one looked at or stopped her; a little dusty peasant with a bundle on +a stick over her shoulder. + +The click-clack of her wooden shoes on the hot pavements made none look +up; little rustics came up every day like this to make their fortunes in +Paris. Some grew into golden painted silken flowers, the convolvuli of +their brief summer days; and some drifted into the Seine water, rusted, +wind-tossed, fallen leaves, that were wanted of no man. Anyhow it was +so common to see them, pretty but homely things, with their noisy shoes +and their little all in a bundle, that no one even looked once at Bebee. + +She was not bewildered. As she had gone through her own city, only +thinking of the roses in her basket and of old Annemie in her garret, so +she went through Paris, only thinking of him for whose sake she had come +thither. + +Now that she was really in his home she was happy,--happy though her head +ached with that dull odd pain, and all the sunny glare went round and +round like a great gilded humming-top, such as the babies clapped their +hands at, at the Kermesse. + +She was happy: she felt sure now that God would not let him die till she +got to him. She was quite glad that he had left her all that long, +terrible winter, for she had learned so much and was so much more fitted +to be with him. + +Weary as she was, and strange as the pain in her head made her feel, she +was happy, very happy; a warm flush came on her little pale cheeks as she +thought how soon he would kiss them, her whole body thrilled with the old +sweet nameless joy that she had sickened for in vain so long. + +Though she saw nothing else that was around her, she saw some little +knots of moss-roses that a girl was selling on the quay, as she used to +sell them in front of the Maison du Roi. She had only two sous left, but +she stopped and bought two little rosebuds to take to him. He had used to +care for them so much in the summer in Brabant. + +The girl who sold them told her the way to the street he lived in; it was +not very far of the quay. She seemed to float on air, to have wings like +the swallows, to hear beautiful musk all around. She felt for her beads, +and said aves of praise. God was so good. + +It was quite night when she reached the street, and sought the number of +his house. She spoke his name softly, and trembling very much with joy, +not with any fear, but it seemed to her too sacred a thing ever to utter +aloud. + +An old man looked out of a den by the door, and told her to go straight +up the stairs to the third floor, and then turn to the right. The old +man chuckled as he glanced after her, and listened to the wooden shoes +pattering wearily up the broad stone steps. + +Bebee climbed them--ten, twenty, thirty, forty. "He must be very poor!" +she thought, "to live so high"; and yet the place was wide and handsome, +and had a look of riches. Her heart beat so fast, she felt suffocated; +her limbs shook, her eyes had a red blood-like mist floating before them; +but she thanked God each step she climbed; a moment, and she would +look upon the only face she loved. + +"He will be glad; oh, I am sure he will be glad!" she said to herself, as +a fear that had never before come near her touched her for a moment--if +he should not care? + +But even then, what did it matter? Since he was ill she should be there +to watch him night and day; and when he was well again, if he should wish +her to go away--one could always die. + +"But he will be glad--oh, I know he will be glad!" she said to the +rosebuds that she carried to him. "And if God will only let me save his +life, what else do I want more?" + +His name was written on a door before her. The handle of a bell hung +down; she pulled it timidly. The door unclosed; she saw no one, and went +through. There were low lights burning. There were heavy scents that were +strange to her. There was a fantastic gloom from old armor, and old +weapons, and old pictures in the dull rich chambers. The sound of her +wooden shoes was lost in the softness and thickness of the carpets. + +It was not the home of a poor man. A great terror froze her heart,--if +she were not wanted here? + +She went quickly through three rooms, seeing no one and at the end of +the third there were folding doors. + +"It is I--Bebee." she said softly, as she pushed them gently apart; and +she held out the two moss-rosebuds. + +Then the words died on her lips, and a great horror froze her, still and +silent, there. + +She saw the dusky room as in a dream. She saw him stretched on the bed, +leaning on his elbow, laughing, and playing cards upon the lace coverlet. +She saw women with loose shining hair and bare limbs, and rubies and +diamonds glimmering red and white. She saw men lying about upon the +couch, throwing dice and drinking and laughing one with another. + +Beyond all she saw against the pillows of his bed a beautiful brown +wicked looking thing like some velvet snake, who leaned over him as +he threw down the painted cards upon the lace, and who had cast about his +throat her curved bare arm with the great coils of dead gold all +a-glitter on it. + +And above it all there were odors of wines and flowers, clouds of smoke, +shouts of laughter, music of shrill gay voices. + +She stood like a frozen creature and saw--the rosebuds' in her hand. Then +with a great piercing cry she let the little roses fall, and turned and +fled. At the sound he looked up and saw her, and shook his beautiful +brown harlot off him with an oath. + +But Bebee flew down through the empty chambers and the long stairway as a +hare flies from the hounds; her tired feet never paused, her aching limbs +never slackened; she ran on, and on, and on, into the lighted streets, +into the fresh night air; on, and on, and on, straight to the river. + +From its brink some man's strength caught and held her. She struggled +with it. + +"Let me die! let me die!" she shrieked to him, and strained from him to +get at the cool gray silent water that waited for her there. + +Then she lost all consciousness, and saw the stars no more. + +When she came back to any sense of life, the stars were shining still, +and the face of Jeannot was bending over her, wet with tears. + +He had followed her to Paris when they had missed her first, and had come +straight by train to the city, making sure it was thither she had come, +and there had sought her many days, watching for her by the house of +Flamen. + +She shuddered away from him as he held her, and looked at him with blank, +tearless eyes. + +"Do not touch me--take me home." + +That was all she ever said to him. She never asked him or told him +anything. She never noticed that it was strange that he should have been +here upon the river-bank. He let her be, and took her silently in the +cool night back by the iron ways to Brabant. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +She sat quite still and upright in the wagon with the dark lands rushing +by her. She never spoke at all. She had a look that frightened him upon +her face. When he tried to touch her hand, she shivered away from him. + +The charcoal-burner, hardy and strong among forest-reared men, cowered +like a child in a corner, and covered his eyes and wept. + +So the night wore away. + +She had no perception of anything that happened to her until she was led +through her own little garden in the early day, and her starling cried to +her, "Bonjour, Bonjour!" Even then she only looked about her in a +bewildered way, and never spoke. + +Were the sixteen days a dream? + +She did not know. + +The women whom Jeannot summoned, his mother and sisters, and Mere Krebs, +and one or two others, weeping for what had been the hardness of their +hearts against her, undressed her, and laid her down on her little bed, +and opened the shutters to the radiance of the sun. + +She let them do as they liked, only she seemed neither to hear nor speak, +and she never spoke. + +All that Jeannot could tell was that he had found her in Paris, and had +saved her from the river. + +The women were sorrowful, and reproached themselves. Perhaps she had done +wrong, but they had been harsh, and she was so young. + +The two little sabots with the holes worn through the soles touched them; +and they blamed themselves for having shut their hearts and their doors +against her as they saw the fixed blue eyes, without any light in them, +and the pretty mouth closed close against either sob or smile. + +After all she was Bebee--the little bright blithe thing that had danced +with their children, and sung to their singing, and brought them always +the first roses of the year. If she had been led astray, they should have +been gentler with her. + +So they told themselves and each other. + +What had she seen in that terrible Paris to change her like this?--they +could not tell She never spoke. + +The cock crowed gayly to the sun. The lamb bleated in the meadow. The +bees boomed among the pear-tree blossoms. The gray lavender blew in the +open house door. The green leaves threw shifting shadows on the floor. + +All things were just the same as they had been the year before, when she +had woke to the joy of being a girl of sixteen. + +But Bebee now lay quite still and silent on her little bed; as quiet as +the waxen Gesu that they laid in the manger at the Nativity. + +"If she would only speak!" the women and the children wailed, weeping +sorely. + +But she never spoke; nor did she seem to know any one of them. Not even +the starling as he flew on her pillow and called her. + +"Give her rest," they all said; and one by one moved away, being poor +folk and hard working, and unable to lose a whole day. + +Mere Krebs stayed with her, and Jeannot sat in the porch where her little +spinning-wheel stood, and rocked himself to and fro; in vain agony, +powerless. + +He had done all he could, and it was of no avail. + +Then people who had loved her, hearing, came up the green lanes from the +city--the cobbler and the tinman, and the old woman who sold saints' +pictures by the Broodhuis. The Varnhart children hung about the garden +wicket, frightened and sobbing. Old Jehan beat his knees with his hands, +and said only over and over again, "Another dead--another dead!--the red +mill and I see them all dead!" + +The long golden day drifted away, and the swans swayed to and fro, and +the willows grew silver in the sunshine. + +Bebee, only, lay quite still and never spoke. The starling sat above her +head; his wings drooped, and he was silent too. + +Towards sunset Bebee raised herself and called aloud: they ran to her. + +"Get me a rosebud--one with the moss round it," she said to them. + +They went out into the garden, and brought her one wet with dew. + +She kissed it, and laid it in one of her little wooden shoes that stood +upon the bed. + +"Send them to him," she said wearily; "tell him I walked all the way." + +Then her head drooped; then momentary consciousness died out: the old +dull lifeless look crept over her face again like the shadow of death. + +The starling spread his broad black wings above her head. She lay quite +still once more. The women left the rosebud in the wooden shoe, not +knowing what she meant. + +Night fell. Mere Krebs watched beside her. Jeannot went down to the old +church to beseech heaven with all his simple, ignorant, tortured soul. +The villagers hovered about, talking in low sad voices, and wondering, +and dropping one by one into their homes. They were sorry, very sorry; +but what could they do? + +It was quite night. The lights were put out in the lane. Jeannot, with +Father Francis, prayed before the shrine of the Seven Sorrows. Mere Krebs +slumbered in her rush-bottomed chair; she was old and worked hard. The +starling was awake. + +Bebee rose in her bed, and looked around, as she had done when she had +asked for the moss-rosebud. + +A sense of unutterable universal pain ached over all her body. + +She did not see her little home, its four white walls, its lattice +shining in the moon, its wooden bowls and plates, its oaken shelf and +presses, its plain familiar things that once had been so dear,--she did +not see them; she only saw the brown woman with her arm about his throat. + +She sat up in her bed and slipped her feet on to the floor; the pretty +little rosy feet that he had used to want to clothe in silken stockings. + +Poor little feet! she felt a curious compassion for them; they had served +her so well, and they were so tired. + +She sat up a moment with that curious dull agony, aching everywhere in +body and in brain. She kissed the rosebud once more and laid it gently +down in the wooden shoe. She did not see anything that was around her. +She felt a great dulness that closed in on her, a great weight that was +like iron on her head. + +She thought she was in the strange, noisy, cruel city, with' the river +close to her, and all her dead dreams drifting down it like murdered +children, whilst that woman kissed him. + +She slipped her feet on to the floor, and rose and stood upright. There +was a door open to the moonlight--the door where she had sat spinning and +singing in a thousand happy days; the lavender blew; the tall, unbudded +green lilies swayed in the wind; she looked at them, and knew none of +them. + +The night air drifted through her linen dress, and played on her bare +arms, and lifted the curls of her hair; the same air that had played +with her so many times out of mind when she had been a little tottering +thing that measured its height by the red rosebush. But it brought her no +sense of where she was. + +All she saw was the woman who kissed him. + +There was the water beyond; the kindly calm water, all green with the +moss and the nests of the ouzels and the boughs of the hazels and +willows, where the swans were asleep in the reeds, and the broad lilies +spread wide and cool. + +But she did not see any memory in it. She thought it was the cruel gray +river in the strange white city: and she cried to it; and went out +into the old familiar ways, and knew none of them; and ran feebly yet +fleetly through the bushes and flowers, looking up once at the stars with +a helpless broken blind look, like a thing that is dying. + +"He does not want me!" she said to them; "he does not want me!--other +women kiss him there!" + +Then with a low fluttering sound like a bird's when its wings are shot, +and yet it tries to rise, she hovered a moment over the water, and +stretched her arms out to it. + +"He does not want me!" she murmured; "he does not want me--and I am so +tired. Dear God!" + +Then she crept down, as a weary child creeps to its mother, and threw +herself forward, and let the green dark waters take her where they +had found her amidst the lilies, a little laughing yearling thing. + +There she soon lay, quite quiet, with her face turned to the stars, and +the starling poised above to watch her as she slept. + +She had been only Bebee: the ways of God and man had been too hard for +her. + +When the messengers of Flamen came that day, they took him back a dead +moss-rose and a pair of little wooden shoes worn through with walking. + +"One creature loved me once," he says to women who wonder why the wooden +shoes are there. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEBEE*** + + +******* This file should be named 13912.txt or 13912.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/1/13912 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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