The Hour and the Man Part 37

"It is very prettily worked, my dear. And whom is it for? Some very elegant lady. Is it for the First Consul's lady? They say she is the most elegant lady in the world--though she is a Creole, like you, my darling. Is your pretty handkerchief for her?"

"No, grandpapa. I dare say she has all the ladies in France to work for her. I should like, if you have no objection, to send this to Madame L'Ouverture!"

"To Madame L'Ouverture. Why? Has not she daughters to work handkerchiefs for her, and plenty of money to buy them? Why should you p.r.i.c.k your fingers in her service?"

"I should like that L'Ouverture himself should observe, some day, that she has a beautiful handkerchief; and then, if he should ask, he would find out that there is a little Creole girl who is very grateful to him for his generosity to her colour."

"Do not speak of colour, child. What expressions you pick up from Afra, and such people! It is our distinction that we have no colour--that we are white."

"That is the distinction of the nuns, I know; but I hoped it was not mine yet. I do not forget how you pinch my cheek sometimes, and talk about roses."

"What is there? What do I see?" cried the old man, whose mind seemed open to everything agreeable that met his observation, on his return home. "Are those the same little birds that you were wooing the other morning? No creature that has ever seen you, my dear, ever forgets you.

Nothing that you have spoken to ever deserts you. Shy creatures, that are afraid of everybody else, haunt you."

"Oh! you are thinking of the little spotted fawn."

"Spotted fawn or squirrel--baby or humming-bird--it is always the same, child. They all come to you. I dare say these little creatures have been flitting about the balcony and these rooms, ever since we went away. Now they have found you."

"They do not seem to care much about me, now we have met," said Euphrosyne. She followed them softly to the balcony, and along it, as far as the window of Monsieur Revel's room. There she found, stuck in the bars of the balcony, a rather fresh branch of orange-blossoms.

While she was examining this, in some surprise, old Raphael spoke to her from below. He said he had made bold to climb up by his ladder, twice a day, with something to entice the birds to that window; as he supposed that, was what she wished, if she had been at home. The abbess had given him leave to take this liberty.

"There!" said Monsieur Revel, when she, flew to tell him, "there is another follower to add to your fawns and kittens. Old Raphael is considered a crusty fellow everywhere; and you see how different he is with you!"

"I am very glad," declared Euphrosyne. "It is a pretty sight to amuse you with, every morning when you wake. It is kind of Raphael; and of the abbess too."

"I am pleased that the abbess and you should be good friends, Euphrosyne, because--Ah! that is the way," he said, in a mortified tone, and throwing himself back in his chair, as he followed with his eyes the flittings of the girl about the room, after her birds. "You have got your own way with everybody, and we have spoiled you; and there is no speaking to you upon a subject that you do not like. You will not hear, though it is a thing that lies heavy at the heart of a dying old man."

"I will hear you, if you talk to me all my life," said Euphrosyne, with br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes, seating herself on a low stool at the old man's knees.

"And if you hear me, you will not give me a grave, steady answer."

"Try me," said she, brus.h.i.+ng away the gathering tears. "I am not crying about anything you are going to say; but only because--Oh, grandpapa!

how could you think I would not listen to you?"

"Well, well, my love! I see that you are willing now. You remember your promise to enter the convent, if I desired it."

"Yes."

"You talk of nothing being changed by our alarm, two days ago, because this table stands in the middle of the room, and the ants and beetles have not carried off your pretty work. Hey!"

"May I speak, grandpapa?"

"Speak."

"I said so because n.o.body's house is burnt, or even robbed; and n.o.body has been killed, or even hurt."

"But, nevertheless, there is a great change. Our friends, my old friends, all whom I feel I could rely upon in case of need, are gone to France with Hedouville."

"Oh, grandpapa! very few whites are gone--they were chiefly mulattoes who went with Hedouville; and so many whites remain! And though they are not, except, perhaps, Monsieur Critois, exactly our friends, yet we can easily make acquaintance with them."

"No, no, child. If they were not upstarts, as some of them are, and others returned emigrants, of whom I know nothing, it is too late now for me to make now friends. My old companions are gone, and the place is a desert to me."

His hands hung listlessly, as he rested on the arms of his chair.

Euphrosyne looked up in his face, while she said, as well as she could for tears, "If you feel it so now, what will it be when I am shut up in the convent, and you will hardly ever see me?"

"That is no affair of yours, child. I choose that you should go."

"Whose affair is it, if it is not mine? I am your grandchild--your only one; and it is my business, and the greatest pleasure I have in the world, to be with you, and wait upon you. If I leave you, I shall hear my poor mother reproaching me all day long. Every morning at my lessons, every night at my prayers, I shall hear her saying, 'Where is your grandfather? How dare you desert him when he has only you left?'

Grandpapa, I shall be afraid to sleep alone. I shall learn to be afraid of my blessed mother."

"It is time you were sent somewhere to learn your duty, I think. We are at a bad pa.s.s enough; but there must be some one in the colony who can tell you that it is your duty to obey your grandfather--that it is your duty to perform what you promised him."

"I can preach that myself, grandpapa, when there is n.o.body else who can do it better. It is just what I have been teaching little Babet, this month past. I have no more to learn about that; but I will tell you what I do want to learn--whether you are most afraid of my growing up ignorant, or--(do just let me finish, and then we shall agree charmingly, I dare say)--whether you are most afraid of my growing up ignorant, or unsteady, or ill-mannered, or wicked, or what? As for being unsafe, I do not believe a word of that."

"Everything--all these things, child. I am afraid of them all."

"What, all! What a dreadfully unpromising creature I must be!"

"You know you must be very ignorant. You have had no one to teach you anything."

"Then I will go to the convent to study for four, six, eight, twelve hours a day. I shall soon have learned everything in the world at that rate: and yet I can go on singing to you in the evenings, and bringing your coffee in the mornings. Twelve hours' study a day may perhaps make me steady, too. That was the next thing, was it not?"

"Now have done. Say only one thing more--that you will perform your promise."

"That is a thing of course; so I may just ask one other thing. Who is to wait upon you in my place? Ah! I see you have not fixed upon any one yet; and, let me tell you, it will be no easy matter to find one who makes coffee as I do. Then, you have been waited upon by a slave all your life. Yes, you have; and you have a slave now sitting at your knee. People do not like being slaves now-a-days--n.o.body but me. Now I like it of all things. So, what a pity to change!"

"I know," said the old man, sighing, "that I am apt to be peremptory. I know it is difficult to please me sometimes. It is very late in life--I am very old to set about improving: but I will try not to hurt any one who will wait upon me, as I am afraid I have often hurt you, my dear. I will make any effort, if I can only feel that you are safe. Some one has been telling you stories of old times, I see. Perhaps you can ask any servant that we may engage--you may make it your request that she will bear with me."

"Oh, grandpapa! Stop, grandpapa! I cannot bear it," cried the sobbing girl. "I never will joke again, if you do not see that it is because I love you so, that I will venture anything rather than leave you. We all love you dearly. Pierre would not for the world live with anybody else.

You know he would not. And that is just what I feel. But I will do everything you wish. I will never refuse again--I will never jest, or try, even for your own sake, to prevent your having all your own way.

Only be so kind, grandpapa, as never to say anything against yourself again. n.o.body else would dare to do such a thing to me, and I cannot bear it."

"Well, well, love! I see now that no one has been babbling to you. We will never quarrel any more. You will do as I wish, and we will have no more disputing. Are they bringing our coffee?"

When Euphrosyne came out from placing her grandfather's pillows, and bidding him good-night, she found Pierre lingering about, as if wanting to speak to her.

"Have you anything to say to me. Pierre?"

"Only just to take the liberty of asking, Mademoiselle, whether you could not possibly gratify my master in the thing he has set his heart upon. If you could, Mademoiselle, you may rely on it, I would take every care of him in your absence."

"I have no doubt, Pierre, of your doing your part."

"Your part and mine are not the same, I know, Mademoiselle. But he is so persuaded of there being danger for you here, that everything you do for him goes to his heart."

"Have _you_ that idea, Pierre?"

"Indeed, Mademoiselle, I know nothing about it--more than that it takes a long time for people in a town, or an island, to live comfortably together, on equal terms, after having all their lives looked upon one another as tyrants and low revengeful servants."