Frances Waldeaux

CHAPTER XV

When the sun was well up the women who had been at mass gathered down by the little river which runs through the old city, to wash their clothes. They knelt on the broad stones by the edge of the water, chattering and singing, tossing the soap from one to another.

There was a sudden silence. "Here she is again," they whispered, as a slight, delicate woman crossed the bridge with steady steps.

"She is blind and deaf," said old Barbe. "I met her an hour ago and asked her whom she sought. She did not see nor hear me, but walked straight on."

Oliver Bauzy was lounging near, as usual, watching his wife work.

"She is English. What does she know of your Breton talk? I speak English and French—I!" he bragged, and walking up to Mrs. Waldeaux, he flourished his ragged hat, smiling. "Is madame ill? She has walked far," he said kindly.

The English words seemed to waken her. "It is always the town," looking around bewildered. "The people—houses. I think I am not well. If I could find the woods–"

Bauzy had but a hazy idea of her meaning, but he nodded gravely. "She is a tourist. She wants to go out of Vannes—to see the chateaux, the dolmens. I'm her man. I'll drive her to Larmor Baden," he said to his wife. "I have to go there to-day, and I may as well make a franc or two. Keep her until I bring the voiture."

But Frances stood motionless until the old wagon rattled up to the water's edge.

"She has a dear old face," Bauzy's wife whispered.

"She is blind and deaf, I tell you," old Barbe grumbled, peering up at her. "Make her pay, Oliver, before you go."

Bauzy nodded, and when Frances was seated held out his hand.

"Twenty francs," he said.

She opened her bag and gave them to him.

"She must be folle!" he said uneasily. "I feel like a thief. Away with you, Babette!" as a pretty baby ran up to him. "You want to ride? That is impossible. Unless, indeed, madame desires it?" lifting the child to place her on the seat. Babette laughed and held out her hands.

But Mrs. Waldeaux shrank back, shuddering. "Take her away," she whispered. "She must not touch me!"

The mother seized the child, and the women all talked vehemently at once. Oliver climbed into the voiture and drove off in silence. When he looked around presently he saw that the woman's face was bloodless, and a cold sweat stood on it. He considered a while. "You want food," he said, and brought out some hard bread and a jug of Normandy cider.

Frances shook her head. She only spoke once during the morning, and then told him something about a woman "whom no child could touch. No man or woman could touch her as long as she lived. Not even her son."

As Bauzy could make nothing of this, he could only nod and laugh civilly. But presently he, too, grew silent, glancing at her uncomfortably from time to time.

They drove through great red fields of sarasson, hedged by long banks of earth, which were masses of golden gorse and bronzed and crimson ferns. The sun shone, the clover-scented air was full of the joyous buzzing of bees and chirp of birds.

"It is a gay, blessed day!" Bauzy said, "thanks to the good God!" He waited anxiously for her reply, but she stared into the sunshine and said nothing.

Larmor Baden is a lonely little cluster of gray stone huts on the shore of the Morbihan sea. Some of Bauzy's friends lounged smiling up to welcome him, waving their wide black hats with velvet streamers, and bowing low to the lady. Oliver alighted with decision. One thing he knew: He would not drive back with her. Something was amiss. He would wash his hands of her.

"Here, madame, is Vincent Selo, paysageur," he said rapidly in French. "He has a good boat. He will take you where you desire. Sail with her to Gavr' Inis," he said to Selo, "and bring her back at her pleasure. Somebody can drive her back to Vannes, and don't overcharge her, you robbers!"

"Gavr' Inis?" Frances repeated.

"It is an island in the sea yonder, madame. A quiet place of trees. When there was not a man in the world, evil spirits built there an altar for the worship of the devil. No men could have built it. There are huge stones carried there from the mountains far inland, that no engine could lift. It is a great mystery."

"It is the one place in the world, people say," interrupted Selo, lowering his voice, "where God never has been. A dreadful place, madame!"

Frances laughed. "That is the place for me," she said to Selo. "Take me there."

The old man looked at her with shrewd, friendly eyes, and then beckoned Bauzy aside.

"Who is she? She has the bearing of a great lady, but her face hurts me. What harm has come to her?"

"How do I know?" said Bauzy. "Go for your boat. The sea is rising."

Late in the afternoon M. Selo landed his strange passenger upon the pebbly beach of the accursed island. He led her up on the rocks, talking, and pointing across the sea.

"Beyond is the Atlantic, and on yonder headland are the great menhirs of Carnac—thirty thousand of them, brought there before Christ was born. But the Evil One loves this island best of all places. It has in it the mystery of the world. Come," he said, in an awed voice. "It is here."

He crossed to the hill, stooped, and entered a dark cave about forty feet long, which was wholly lined with huge flat rocks carved with countless writhing serpents. As Frances passed they seemed to stir and breathe beside her, at her feet, overhead. The cave opened into a sacrificial chamber. The reptiles grew gigantic here, and crowded closer. Through some rift a beam of melancholy light crept in; a smell of death hung in the thick, unclean air.

Selo pointed to a stone altar. "It was there they killed their victims," he whispered, and began to pray anxiously, half-aloud. When he had finished, he hurried back, beckoning to her to come out.

"Go," she said. "I will stay here."

"Then I will wait outside. This is no place for Christian souls. But we must return soon, madame. My little girl will be watching now for me."

When he was gone she stood by the altar. This island of Gavr' Inis was one of the places to which she and George had long ago planned to come. She remembered the very day on which they had read the legend that on this altar men before the Flood had sacrificed to the god of Murder.

"I am the murderer now, and George knows it," she said quietly. But she was cold and faint, and presently began to tremble weakly.

She went out of the cave and stood on the beach. "I want to go home, George," she said aloud. "I want to be Frances Waldeaux again. I'm sure I didn't know it was in me to do that thing."

There was no answer. She was alone in the great space of sky and sea. The world was so big and empty, and she alone and degraded in it!

"I never shall see George again. He will think of me only as the woman who killed his wife," she thought.

She went on blindly toward the water, and stood there a long time.

Then, in the strait of her agony, there came to Frances Waldeaux, for the first time in her life, a perception that there was help for her in the world, outside of her own strength. Her poor tortured wits discerned One, more real than her crime, or George, or the woman that she had killed. It was an old, hackneyed story, that He knew every man and woman in the world, that He could help them. She had heard it often.

Was there any thing in it? Could He help her?

Slowly, the nervous twitching of her body quieted, her dulled eyes cleared as if a new power of sight were coming to them.

After a long time she heard steps, and Selo calling. She rose.

The murder was known. They were coming to arrest her.

What did it matter? She had found help.

Selo came up excitedly.

"It is another boat, English folk also, that comes to arrive."

She turned and waited.

And then, coming up the hill, she saw George, and with him—Lisa! Lisa, smiling as she talked.

They ran to meet her with cries of amazement. She staggered back on the rock.

"You are not dead? Lisa–"

"Dead? Poor lady!" catching her in her arms. "Some water, George! It is her head. She has been too much alone."

When Frances opened her eyes she was lying on the grass, her children kneeling beside her. She caught Lisa's arm in both hands and felt it: then she sat up.

"I must tell you what I did—before you speak to me."

"Not now," said Lisa. "You are not well. I am going to be your nurse. The baby has made me a very good nurse," and she stooped again over Frances, with kind, smiling eyes.

Selo came to wile George up to the mysterious cave, but Lisa impatiently hurried them to the beach. "Caves and serpent worshippers truly!" she cried. "Why, she has not seen Jacques!" and when, in the boat, George, who was greatly alarmed, tried to rouse his mother from her silent stupor, Lisa said gayly, "She will be herself again as soon as she sees HIM."

When they reached Larmor Baden, she despatched George in search of Colette and the child, and she went into the church. It was late, and the village women sat on the steps gossipping in the slanting sunlight. There is nothing in their lives but work and the church; and when, each day, they have finished with one they go to the other.

Frances followed her. The sombre little church was vacant. She touched Lisa on the shoulder.

"There is something I must tell you," she said. "You would not let me touch the child, if you knew it."

She stooped and spoke a few sentences in a vehement whisper, and then leaned back, exhausted, against the wall.

Lisa drew back. Her lips were white with sudden fright, but she scanned Mrs. Waldeaux's face keenly.

"You were in Vannes last night? You tried– My God, I remember! The tisane tasted queerly, and I threw it out." She walked away for a moment, and then turning, said, "You called my mother a vile woman once. But SHE would not have done that thing!

"No," said Frances, not raising her head. "No."

Lisa stood looking at her as she crouched against the wall. The fierce scorn slowly died out of her eyes. She was a coarse, but a good-natured, woman. An awful presence, too, walked with her always now, step by step, and in that dread shadow she saw the things of life more justly than we do. She took Frances by the hand at last. "You were not quite yourself, I think," she said quietly. "I have pushed you too hard. George has told me so much about you! If we could be together for a while, perhaps we should love each other a little. But there is no time now–" She turned hastily, and threw herself down before a crucifix.

After a long time she went out to the vestibule, where she found Frances, and said, with an effort to be cheerful and matter-of-fact, "Come, now, let us talk like reasonable people. A thing is coming to me which comes to every-body. I'm not one to whine. But it's the child—I don't think any baby ever was as much to a woman as Jacques is to me. I suppose God does not think I am fit to bring him up. Sit down and let me tell you all about it."

They sat on the steps, talking in a low tone. Frances cried, but Lisa's eyes were quite dry and bright. She rose at last.

"You see, there will be no woman to care for him, if you do not. There he is with Colette." She ran down, took the baby from the bonne, and laid him in Frances's arms.

Mrs. Waldeaux looked down at him. "George's son," she whispered, "George's boy!"

"He is very like George and you," Lisa answered. "He is a Waldeaux."

"Yes, I see."

She held him close to her breast as they drove back to Vannes. George whistled and sang on the box. He was very light of heart to have her with him again.

He looked impatiently at an ancient village through which they passed, with its towers, and peasants in strange garbs, like the pictures in some crusading tale.

"Now that we have mother, Lisa," he said, "we'll go straight back home. I am tired of mediaeval times. I must get to work for this youngster."

Lisa did not speak for a moment. "I should like to stay in Vannes a little longer," she said. "I did not tell you, but—my mother is buried there. That was why I came; I should like to be with her."

"Why, of course, dear. As long as you like," he said affectionately. "I will not detain you long. Perhaps only a week or two," she said.

He nodded, and began to whistle cheerfully again. Frances looked at Lisa, and her eyes filled with tears. It was a pitiful tragedy!

But the poor girl was quite right not to worry George until the last moment. She was blocking his way—ruining his life, and God was taking her away so that she could no longer harm him.

And yet—poor Lisa!

They drove on. The sun warmed the crimson fields, and the birds chirped, and this was George's child creeping close to her breast. It stirred there a keen pang of joy.

Surely He had forgiven her.

A month later a group of passengers in deep mourning stood apart on the deck of the Paris as she left the dock at Liverpool. It was George Waldeaux, his mother, and little Jacques with his nurse. Mrs. Waldeaux was looking at Clara and her girls, who were watching her from the dock. They had come to Vannes when Lisa died, and had taken care of her and the baby until now. Frances had cried at leaving them, but George stood with his back to them moodily, looking down into the black water.

"It seems but a few days since we sailed from New York on the Kaiser Wilhelm," he said, "and yet I have lived out all my life in that time."

"All? Is there nothing left, George?" his mother said gently.

"Oh, of course, you are always a good companion, and there is the child–" He paused. The fierce passions, the storms of delight and pain of his life with Lisa rushed back on him. "I will work for others, and wear out the days as I can," he said. "But life is over for me. The story is told. There are only blank pages now to the end."

He turned his dim eyes toward the French coast. She knew that they saw the little bare grave on the hill in Vannes. "I wish I could have seen something green growing on it before I left her there alone!" he muttered.

"Her mother's grave was covered with roses–" Frances answered quickly. "They will creep over to her. She is not alone, George. I am glad she was laid by her mother. She loved her dearly."

"Yes. Better than any thing on earth," he responded gloomily.

A few moments later the ship swung heavily around.

"We are going!" Mrs. Waldeaux cried, waving her hand. "Won't you look at Clara and Lucy, George? They have been so good to us. If Lucy had been my own child, she could not have been kinder to me."

Mr. Waldeaux turned and raised his crepe-bound hat, looking at Lucy in her soft gray gown vaguely, as he might at a white gull dropped on the shore.

"I suppose I never shall see her again," said his mother. "Clara tells me she is besieged by lovers. She is going to marry a German prince, probably."

"That would be a pity," George said, with a startled glance back at the girl.

"Good-by, my dear!" Mrs. Waldeaux leaned over the bulwark. "She is beautiful as an angel! Good-by, Lucy! God bless you!" she sobbed, kissing her hand.

Mr. Waldeaux looked steadily at Lucy. "How clean she is!" he said.

When the shore was gone he walked down the deck, conscious of a sudden change in himself. He was wakening out of an ugly dream. The sight of the healthy little girl, with her dewy freshness and blue eyes, full of affection and common sense, cheered and heartened him. He did not know what was doing it, but he threw up his head and walked vigorously. The sun shone and the cold wind swept him out into a dim future to begin a new life.

CHAPTER XVI

George Waldeaux took his mother and boy back to the old homestead in Delaware. They arrived at night, and early the next morning he rowed away in his bateau to some of his old haunts in the woods on the bay, and was seen no more that day.

"He is inconsolable!" his mother told some of her old neighbors who crowded to welcome her. "His heart is in that grave in Vannes." The women listened in surprise, for Frances was not in the habit of exploiting her emotions in words.

"We understood," said one of them, with a sympathetic shake of the head, "that it was a pure love match. Mrs. George Waldeaux, we heard, was a French artist of remarkable beauty?"

Frances moved uneasily. "I never thought her—but I can't discuss Lisa!" She was silent a moment. "But as for her social position"—she drew herself up stiffly, fixing cold defiant eyes on her questioner—"as for her social position," she went on resolutely, "she was descended on one side from an excellent American family, and on the other from one of the noblest houses in Europe."

When they were gone she hugged little Jacques passionately as he lay on her lap. "That is settled for you!" she said.

When George came back in the evening, he found her walking with the boy in her arms on the broad piazzas.

"I really think he knows that he has come home, George!" she exclaimed. "See how he laughs! And he liked the dogs and horses just as Lisa thought he would. I am glad it is such a beautiful home for him. Look at that slope to the bay! There is no nobler park in England! And the house is as big as most of their palaces, and much more comfortable!"

"Give the child to Colette, mother, and listen to me. Now that I have settled you and him here, I must go and earn your living."

"Yes."

She followed him into the hall.

"I leave you to-morrow. There is no time to be lost."

"You are going back to art, George?"

"No! Never!"

Frances grew pale. She thought she had torn open his gaping wound.

"I did not mean to remind you of—of–"

"No, it isn't that!"

He scowled at the fire. Art meant for him his own countless daubs, and the sickening smell of oily paints and musk, and soiled silk tea gowns, and the whole slovenly, disreputable scramble of Bohemian life in Paris.

"I loathe art!" he said, with a furious blow at the smouldering log in the fireplace, as if he struck these things all down into the ashes with it.

"Will you go back into the Church, dear?" his mother ventured timidly.

"Most certainly, no!" he said vehemently. "Of all mean frauds the perfunctory priest is the meanest. If I could be like one of the old holy gospellers—then indeed!"

He was silent a moment, and then began to stride up and down the long hall, his head thrown back, his chest inflated.

"I have a message for the world, mother."

"I am sure of it," she interrupted eagerly.

"But I must deliver it in my own way. I have lost two years. I am going to put in big strokes of work now. In the next two years I intend to take my proper place in my own country. I will find standing room for George Waldeaux," with a complacent smile. "And in the meantime, of course, I must make money enough to support you and the boy handsomely. So you see, mother," he ended, laughing, "I have no time to lose."

"No, George!" It was the proudest moment of her life. How heroic and generous he was!

She filled his pocket-book the next day, when he went to New York to take the world by the throat. It was really not George Waldeaux's fault that she filled it.

Nor was it his fault that during the next two years the world was in no hurry to run to his feet, either to learn of him, or to bring him its bags of gold. The little man did his best; he put his "message," as he called it, into poems, into essays, into a novel. Publishers thanked him effusively for the pleasure of reading them, and—sent them back. The only word of his which reached the public was a review of the work of a successful author. It was so personal, so malignant, that George, when he read it, writhed with shame and humiliation. He tore the paper into fragments.

"Am I so envious and small as that! Before God, no words of mine shall ever go into print again!" he said, and he kept his word.

He came down every month or two to his mother.

"Why not try teaching, George?" she said anxiously. "These great scholars and scientific men have places and reputations which even you need not despise."

He laughed bitterly. "I tried for a place as tutor in a third-class school, and could not pass the examinations. I know nothing accurately. Nothing."

It occurred to him to go into politics and help reform the world by routing a certain Irish boss. He made a speech at a ward meeting, and broke down in the middle of it before the storm of gibes and hootings.

"What was the matter?" he asked a friend, whose face was red with laughter.

"My dear fellow, you shouldn't lecture them! You're not the parson. They resent your air of enormous superiority. For Heaven's sake, don't speak again—in this campaign."

It is a wretched story. There is no need of going into the details. There was no room for him. He tried in desperation to get some foothold in business. The times were hard that winter, which of course was against him. Besides, his critical, haughty air naturally did not prepossess employers in his favor when he came to ask for a job.

At the end of the second year the man broke down.

"The work of the world," he told Frances, "belongs to specialists. Even a bootblack knows his trade. I know nothing. I can do nothing. I am a mass of flabby pretences."

Every month she filled his pocket-book. She found at last that he did not touch the money. He sold his clothes and his jewelry to keep himself alive while he tramped the streets of New York looking for work. He starved himself to make this money last. His flesh was lead-colored from want of proper food, and he staggered from weakness. "'He that will not work neither let him eat,'" he said grimly.

It was about this time that Miss Vance came home. Mrs. Waldeaux in a moment of weakness gave her a hint of his defeat.

"Is the world blind," she cried, "to deny work to a man of George's capacity? What does it mean?"

Clara heard of George's sufferings with equanimity. "The truth is," she said, when she told the story to Miss Dunbar, "Frances brought that boy up to believe that he was a Grand Llama among men. There is no work for Grand Llamas in this country, and when he understands that he is made of very ordinary clay indeed, he will probably be of some use in the world."

Lucy was watering her roses. "It is a matter of indifference to me," she said, "what the people of New York think of Mr. Waldeaux."

Clara looked at her quickly. "I do not quite catch your meaning?" she said.

But Lucy filled her can, and forgot to answer.