while this conversation was going on, toni, who had seen lucie go chasing after the butterfly, watched captain and madame ravenel. paul had told him there was something mysterious about the pair, and toni was vaguely conscious of this strangeness, and felt in his childish, ignorant way, like paul, the charm of madame ravenel’s touching beauty. he heard madame ravenel say:
“what can have become of the child?” and captain ravenel got up at once to look for her, going a little way along the path down which lucie had disappeared. and then a strange thing happened before toni’s eyes. a young officer coming by, with a waxed mustache and his cap set jauntily on the side of his head, stopped directly in front of madame ravenel, and looked at her with a smile which toni did not at all understand, but which made madame ravenel’s pale face flush to the roots of her dark hair. then the officer said, in an insolent yet insinuating voice:
“may i be permitted, madame, to admire your beauty a little closer?”—and sat down on the bench without any invitation, throwing his arm around the back of it so as almost to embrace madame ravenel, who started up with a cry. at that moment, captain ravenel appeared at the back of the bench. he was not so big a man as the young officer, but, catching him by his collar, he threw him sprawling on the ground, and then deliberately stamped upon him as he lay prostrate. madame ravenel stood as still as a statue. the officer sprang from the ground and would have flown at captain ravenel’s throat, but two other officers passing ran toward them and separated them, and pinioned the arms of the officer to his side. toni heard captain ravenel say, as he handed his card to one of the officers:
“i saw this man grossly insult this lady, and he shall pay for it with his life,”—and then madame ravenel swayed a minute or two and fell over in a dead faint. the two officers hurried their comrade off, leaving captain ravenel alone with madame ravenel, who lay prone on the grass, quite insensible.
toni remembered having once seen a lady faint in the park, and that some one fetched water from the fountain close by, and dashed it on her face, but he had nothing to fetch it in, having no hat on his head—a hat being a useless incumbrance which he only wore on those rare sundays when his mother dragged him to church against his earnest protests. but there was paul verney’s hat. toni scampered down the path and in two minutes had found paul. lucie was just leaving him, and toni, mysteriously beckoning to him, whispered:
“fill your cap with water and take it to madame ravenel. she is lying on the grass fainting like i saw a lady once, and somebody at that time threw water on the lady.”
paul, with the true lover’s instinct to serve those loved by his adored one, ran to the fountain and filled his cap with water, and then flew as fast as his legs would carry him to the place where madame ravenel still lay. most of the water was spilled over his white linen suit, but there was enough left to revive madame ravenel.
“thank you, my boy,” said captain ravenel, as he dashed the water on madame ravenel’s face. then she opened her eyes and tried to stand up. paul ran for more water, and came back with about a tablespoonful left in his cap, while he himself was dripping like a water spaniel. but madame ravenel, by that time, was sitting up on the bench, pale, with her dark hair disheveled, and her hat still lying on the ground. captain ravenel was supporting her.
paul verney, being a gentleman at twelve years of age, felt instinctively that having done a service it was his place to retire. he received a tremulous “thank you” from madame ravenel, who then asked anxiously of captain ravenel:
“where is lucie—what has become of the child?”
but lucie at that moment appeared, and paul, longing to remain and hear more interesting stories about grown people from lucie’s cherry lips, still felt bound to retire, which he did.
toni, on the contrary, making no pretensions to being a gentleman, had to see the whole thing played through. he concealed himself behind the shrubbery, and saw with pain, but with deep interest, madame ravenel weep a little—tears which captain ravenel tried to check. then, in a moment, harper appeared and lucie went off, her usually sparkling, dimpling little face quite sorrowful; and then madame ravenel, leaning on captain ravenel’s arm, walked away.
toni stood and pondered these things to himself. what queer creatures grown people were after all! still they were very interesting if one got rid of all their scrapes and muddles. what did that dashing-looking officer want to put his arm around madame ravenel for? toni, reflecting on these things, took jacques out and asked him about them, but jacques replied that he knew no more about them than toni did.
that night toni, not being made to go to bed at eight o’clock like paul verney and all other well-conducted boys, was prowling around the garden of the commandant’s house, of which the back was toward the little street in which madame marcel lived. the garden gate was open, and toni sneaked in and seated himself on the grass, just outside the window on the ground floor which looked into a room that was colonel duquesne’s study.
toni had an object in this. there was a great clump of gooseberry bushes under this window, and toni loved to gorge himself on colonel duquesne’s gooseberries. true, he could have had all the gooseberries he wished from his mother, but they did not have the delicious flavor of those surreptitiously confiscated from colonel duquesne’s garden. toni was afraid of the commandant, as he was afraid of the monument in the public square and of old marie, and of everybody, in fact, except his mother, and paul verney, and little denise, and jacques. but he knew the garden much better than the commandant did, and his short legs were quick enough to save him in case any one should come out of the house.
toni saw, through the window, the two officers, who had separated the other officer and captain ravenel, sitting in grave conversation with the colonel.
“it is most unfortunate!” said the colonel, a grave-looking, gray-mustached man. “what could have induced ravenel to come to bienville to live? it would seem to be the last place on earth that he and madame ravenel would select.”
then one of the other officers said to the colonel:
“i understand that they came here principally on account of madame ravenel’s health, and besides, ravenel owns the house in which they live. it isn’t much of a house, but i hear that delorme spent every franc of madame ravenel’s money, and they have nothing but this house and ravenel’s half-pay to live on, which probably accounts for their being in bienville. but i must say that they have kept themselves as much out of sight as possible.”
“i knew delorme,” said the colonel, “and a more unprincipled scoundrel never lived. it is a great pity that ravenel didn’t knock the fellow’s brains out on the day when madame delorme left delorme. nobody would have been sorry for it. i have known both ravenel and madame ravenel for years, and they are the last people living that i should expect to commit the folly they did, going off together and remaining two or three weeks before they separated. it was a species of madness, but they have paid dearly for it. i understand that madame ravenel is tormented by religious scruples about her divorce.”
the colonel got up from his chair and walked up and down two or three times. the vision of sophie ravenel in her triumphant beauty ten years before, and the pale conscience-stricken sophie of to-day, overwhelmed him. he remembered ravenel, spirited, gay, and caring for no other than a soldier’s life, and now cut off from all comrades, his life-work ended. surely these two had paid the full price for their three weeks’ desperate folly, of love, shame, rapture and despair. then awakening suddenly to the madness of what they had done, they had separated, not to see each other again until delorme had obtained a divorce; and sophie, after having been branded as a wife who had dishonored her husband, was married to ravenel, who, for her sake, had sacrificed all his worldly prospects. the colonel was a strict moralist, but in his heart he reckoned that there were many worse people in the world than sophie and ravenel. the two officers sat silent while the colonel took a couple of turns about the room, and then he sat down and spoke again:
“but the question is—what are we to do about creci?”
“creci swears,” said the older of the two officers, “that madame ravenel smiled at him as he passed and gave him an invitation to come and sit by her.”
“i am afraid,” said the colonel, in a very cold voice, as he shook the ash from his cigar, “that creci is mistaken.”
“mistaken!” thought toni to himself, “creci was lying, pure and simple.” that toni knew, for he had seen the whole transaction.
“we are bound, under the circumstances,” said captain merrilat, “to take lieutenant creci’s word for it. naturally madame ravenel’s word can not be taken.”
colonel duquesne pondered for a while, stroking his mustache, and then said:
“come to me in two days—i will see what can be done,”—and then, after a little more talk, the two officers got up and went away, and colonel duquesne strolled out in the garden where toni was still behind the gooseberry bushes.
the colonel knew the widow marcel’s boy and disapproved of him on general principles, but did not suspect the little scamp was hidden behind the gooseberry bushes which the colonel passed as he walked up and down the dark path. as he turned to pass the third time, he heard tom’s shrill, boyish voice piping out:
“you know, jacques, i saw it all—i was watching captain and madame ravenel, and i saw captain ravenel when he got up and went away—and then the young officer came along, and madame ravenel wasn’t looking his way at all—she was looking down with her hands in her lap, and i don’t think she even saw the lieutenant until he came up to her quite close and said something impudent to her, and then madame ravenel’s face got as red as red could be, and the lieutenant plumped himself down as close to her as he could and threw his arm around the back of the bench, and madame ravenel looked scared to death and jumped up, and then captain ravenel came and caught the lieutenant by the collar and threw him on the ground and wiped his foot on him, and you know, jacques, you saw that just as i did.”
the colonel stopped suddenly in his walk, and looking about, saw toni’s little black head among the gooseberry bushes. he did not see the other boy with whom toni was talking, but he understood well enough what toni meant. then toni kept on:
“jacques, i tell you, madame ravenel wasn’t even looking at the lieutenant, and i know she hates him by the way she pushed him off when he sat down by her.”
the colonel walked around the gooseberry bushes and there sat toni on the ground, but jacques, whom the colonel innocently supposed to be another boy, was not in sight, being then in toni’s pocket.
“so, my lad,” said the colonel, “you saw the fight between captain ravenel and lieutenant creci?”
but toni, looking up at the colonel’s short, soldierly figure and determined air, was seized with one of those sudden panics which often overcame him. he could not have said a word to save his life, with the colonel’s keen eyes fixed on him. so, jumping up and seizing hold of jacques in his pocket, toni ran as fast as his legs would take him to the garden gate, through the narrow street, and up into his own little attic room, and did not feel safe until he was tucked in his own bed with jacques under the pillow to keep him company.
it was the habit of the colonel to take a walk in the park very early every morning directly after his breakfast coffee, and it was also captain ravenel’s practice to pass through the park at the same hour. his, however, was not a pleasure stroll, but was for the purpose of taking to the post-office some hundreds of envelopes which he addressed every day for a pittance, with which to eke out his half-pay. the two men had been friends in past days, although the colonel was much older and higher in rank than ravenel, but they passed each other morning after morning without a word being exchanged, ravenel gravely saluting the colonel, and the colonel slightly returning the bow, and each man felt a tug at his heart for the other man.
colonel duquesne was a great stickler for the moralities, and ravenel’s fall had been to him a terrible shock. he understood what little lucie, and paul verney, and toni did not understand in the least, the particular thing which had befallen madame ravenel. it was the old, sad story of a villainous husband to a sensitive and dependent woman, of a man a thousand times better than the husband loving the wife silently, of hearing her unjustly accused in his presence, and even suffering the indignity of a blow. that blow drove sophie delorme into ravenel’s arms. it seemed to her, in the horror and shock of the moment, as if there were no other place for her. she could not go to her grandmother, madame bernard, who had arranged the match between sophie and delorme and who had shut her eyes stubbornly to the wretchedness of the marriage. apart from madame bernard, sophie was singularly alone in the world. her small fortune had been squandered by delorme. she loved ravenel because she could not help it, and so these two poor souls, like goodly ships driven against each other by storms and hurricanes, to their destruction, this man and this woman were driven together, driven to transgress the moral law, driven by the iron hand of fate into a position, the last on earth that would have been expected of them.
the victory of passion and despair over honor had been brief. in three weeks they recoiled from what they had done. delorme had promptly begun proceedings for a divorce and ravenel had besought sophie to repair their fault as far as possible in the eyes of the world by marrying him as soon as the decree of divorce should be granted. but sophie was a deeply religious woman and it seemed to her an increase of wrong-doing to marry ravenel. there was but one way out of it and ravenel, by employing one of the best ecclesiastical lawyers in france, discovered that there were certain technicalities in the religious marriage that delorme had not complied with, and it was possible to have the marriage, religious as well as civil, annulled. only then did sophie consent to marry him. for her he had sacrificed his position in the army, his standing in the world and his modest fortune, and had done it as if it were a privilege instead of a sacrifice.
no woman of sophie ravenel’s lofty ideals could fail to appreciate this, but neither could she forget that she had fallen from her high estate. however she might strive to be happy, ravenel could not but see that she would live and die a conscience-stricken woman. she made no moan, however, but secretly took on herself the whole sin. ravenel did the same, taking on himself all the blame. and so their married life, although sad and colorless, was one of exquisite harmony. they led a most retired life, rarely leaving their house except for sophie’s early visit to the church and the walk in the park in the afternoons. whenever she appeared on the street, as paul often had noticed, ravenel was never far away, and sophie, had any affront been offered her, had his protection close at hand. to them one place was the same as another and, as colonel duquesne had imagined, necessity had much to do with their settling in bienville. an officer on half-pay has not much choice of residence, and the little old house in bienville at least gave them a shelter. so they had come, bringing their remorse with them, likewise their love.
the wages of sin in their case was not luxury. they lived as poorly as gentle people could live and exist. they kept no servant, and as it was painful for them to have to dine at the cafés, sophie, with the assistance of one old woman who was still active at seventy-five, prepared all their meals. with her own hands she made those cheap and simple black gowns whose fit and style were the despair and admiration of the professional dressmakers in bienville. in this matter of her dress and appearance, sophie retained all the pride which had ever been hers when she was, as little lucie said, the gayest and best-dressed woman in châlons. it was a part of a duty that she owed ravenel, for with the fine generosity of a woman she reckoned herself much in ravenel’s debt, and felt she should lose as few as possible of those charms that had won him to his downfall. she never lost her appearance of elegance, by dint of an ingenuity, little short of miraculous. she uttered no complaining word, and no day passed over her head that she did not tell ravenel he was the best man in the world.
there was a wheezy old piano in the little house, and on this she played to him the airs that had charmed him in the days at châlons. she was externally the most modest and reserved woman in bienville,—and who shall say that she was not the same in her soul? be not too free, you virtuous people, to condemn this poor lady; there are sinners and sinners, if you please.
as for captain ravenel, his wrong-doing had placed on him, according to his way of thinking, an obligation of a life most spotless. he had always been, as colonel duquesne had said, a man of high character, but when love and misery and fate had made him, in a way, the destroyer of the woman he loved and respected most on earth, it raised him to a pitch of heroic virtue. like sophie, no drudgery was too great for him and when she was preparing their modest dinner, captain ravenel was digging in the garden. by the labor of his own hands, he raised the most beautiful pease, potatoes and melons that had ever been seen. he would have worked every hour of the day, except that he felt as sophie did with regard to him, that he must not lose all of those graces and habits of a gentleman which had first made her love him. in the afternoon he dressed himself in his well-brushed frock coat and together he and sophie took a walk, and sat and listened to the band playing in the park. this was their chief recreation. at night he sat up many hours addressing those envelopes and circulars which he took to the post-office early in the morning and for which he was paid a pittance. like sophie, no complaint escaped him, and for every protestation of love and gratitude she made to him, he returned in twofold. they were not happy—life had no happiness to give two souls like theirs, situated as they were—but they would have died if they had been torn apart.
it was a portion of sophie’s self-imposed punishment that she should never go fully into a church, halting, as paul verney had noticed, just within the door, and, like the publican, not daring so much as to lift her eyes to the altar, but calling herself a sinner and feeling herself to be the greatest sinner on earth. another part of her punishment was the separation from lucie, the little half-sister whom she had attended from the hour of her birth with a mother’s care, and toward whom she had taken a mother’s place. but she made no complaint of this, nor of anything else; and when lucie, by her own ingenuity, had contrived to come back to her, it brought a gleam of joy into sophie’s life such as she had never expected to feel again.
madame bernard remained unforgiving. as lucie had truly said, although as stern and uncompromising in looks as the monument in the public square at bienville and old marie who sat on the bench and knitted sternly, madame bernard was, at heart, a greater coward about people than little toni. she knew if she once saw sophie everything would be forgiven, and so she avoided seeing her, and dared not even write to her. little lucie had had no real difficulty in accomplishing her object of seeing sophie by the means she had retailed to paul, and otherwise wrapped the stately madame bernard around her little finger.
lucie, who was accustomed to luxury, adapted herself with ingenuous perversity to the plain way of living of the ravenels. she even learned to make omelettes herself, and with her little lace-trimmed gown tucked up around her waist, to the horror of harper, the nursery governess, actually learned to broil a chop as well as sophie could.
lucie was a child of many passions. her attachment to sophie was one of the strongest, and sophie alone, of everybody on earth, could bend [pg 53]lucie to her will,—that is, as long as they were together, for, childlike, lucie forgot all the gentle commands and recommendations laid upon her by sophie when they separated, and remembered few of the admirable things which sophie asked her to do. but she loved sophie with a determined constancy that none of madame bernard’s blandishments nor all the bonbons in paris could change.
