Rough-Hewn/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
I
It was Mlle. Hasparren who found them so, Mlle. Hasparren with her shabby coat buttoned crookedly, who ran up the stairs as the sergents de ville went down, who came in without a word of explanation to take charge of things.
She expressed no surprise at finding Marise where she was, nor at Jeanne's condition. She acted as if nothing she found could have surprised her. She lifted Marise up with strong loving arms, led her into her own room and made her lie down with a handkerchief soaked in smelling salts under her nose, and a cold bandage across her forehead, while Isabelle stayed with Jeanne. She did not pet Marise or kiss her, but from all her quiet presence breathed an assurance that she was there to take care of her, and when she said, "I'll stay right here, dear, till your father comes," Marise fell into a fit of quiet thankful weeping that washed away the nervous trembling of her hands and lips. She lay, turned on her side, sobbing, the tears running fast from her eyes, and thought of nothing, except the steady look on Mlle. Hasparren's face. "Now I must leave you here, dear child. I will send Isabelle for the doctor, and I will stay with Jeanne."
Presently Mlle. Hasparren came back and sat down again by the bed. She looked perfectly self-possessed and exactly as usual, which gave Marise the most inexpressible comfort. She said that the doctor was there, had seen Jeanne and that she was not dying at all, not likely to, but had simply had a partial stroke of paralysis, such as often happened to people of her age—nothing in the least unusual about it. Jeanne was so old, that any little thing might bring on a stroke of this sort and she had worked so valiantly all her life, she was really older than her age. She and Isabelle and the doctor had got Jeanne undressed and in her own bed, and now she would be all right, only she had made them understand that she wanted to see Marise. The doctor had told her that she mustn't see any one, but she had become so agitated that he thought it best to humor her. "Only, of course, poor thing, she can't say a word that any one can understand. It's just an old woman's whim." Marise thought to herself that it might be more than an old woman's whim, and getting up at once went with Mlle. Hasparren into the room where Jeanne lay on the bed. The doctor was on one side; on the other was Isabelle, half frightened and half delighted with the excitement; a visit from gallant sergents de ville, and from the doctor all in one day!
Jeanne motioned them all out with her one arm, and only when the door had closed after them, did she beckon Marise to her. She did not try to speak now. She only looked at the girl, with a terrible concentration, and put her finger to her lips.
"Do you mean, Jeanne?" whispered Marise, her lips trembling, "that I am not to tell any one?"
Jeanne closed her eyes rapidly in assent.
"Oh, no, no, no," cried the poor child. "Of course not, never, never, never!"
But the old woman was not satisfied. She reached out for Marise's hand and drew her close, her eyes burning in her disfigured face. She struck her lips repeatedly with her fingers, as though, try as she might, she could not express the urgency of her command.
"No one—no one at all?" asked Marise, and then with a gasp, "Not even Papa?"
At this Jeanne's eyes leaped up to a hotter flame of intensity.
"No! no! no!" they cried to Marise. "No!"
Marise thought she understood, and hanging her head she said in a low shamed voice, "Oh, no, of course, I see."
With the words and the acceptance of their meaning which Jeanne's passionate eyes thrust upon her, Marise sank for many years into another plane of feeling and saw all the world in another perspective, very ugly and grim. That was the way Jeanne saw things. With all her immature personality, with the pitiably insufficient weapons of a little girl, Marise had fought not to accept Jeanne's way of seeing things. That had been the real cause of their quarrels. But now the weapons were struck from her hands. Jeanne had been right all the time it seemed. That was the way things really were. Now she knew. With a long breath she admitted her defeat.
"No, specially not Papa," she whispered.
II
It was four o'clock that afternoon. They had had something to eat, talking quietly about indifferent things, and they had found Papa's address in Bordeaux and sent a telegram to him, before Marise thought to ask, "But, Mademoiselle, how is it you can be out of your class-room to-day?" She had ofteE known the teacher to drag herself to work when she was scarcely able to stand, and knew how the stern discipline of her profession frowned on an absence from duty.
"Oh, I arranged this morning to have a substitute come. I heard—I heard your maman was not well, and I knew your papa was not here, and I wasn't sure that any of your maman's friends might be able to come to look out for you."
As a matter of fact, Marise never saw one of her mother's callers again.
That evening, Anna brought up a blue telegram from Papa, which since it had been sent in English, as Papa always insisted on doing, was perfectly unintelligible, reading:
"Com inga nmorninjtrain ta kigo adca rof Maman."
Papa.
Marise who had with Maman puzzled over many other similar telegrams from Papa, made out "morning-train" and that was enough.
The doctor had sent in a nursing sister to take care of Jeanne during the night, and Isabelle had gone off to a tenement near the Porte d'Espagne where some relations of hers lived and had brought back an old cousin to help her with the work and marketing and to sleep with her in the other apartment.
Mlle. Hasparren slept in the folding-bed beside Marise's so that every time Marise, with a great scared start, realized anew that what had happened was not a bad dream, she felt the other's hand reaching for hers in the dark, and holding firm. She said very little and Marise was glad of that, but the clasp of her muscular musician's hand pulled Marise out of the black pit many times that night.
Later on Marise fell into a real sleep, deep and unbroken, and when She woke up, much later than usual, to find Mlle. Hasparren all dressed, the folding-bed put away, the window open and the sunshine coming in, she found that she seemed to have grown stronger since yesterday, that the black pit was not so fathomless. She felt infinitely older and as though she would never laugh again. She lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling, thinking fixedly about what had happened, and found that she could endure it now without crying out or bursting into tears as she had done yesterday. She could stand up xmder her burden, because there was no other way. But she felt her shoulders bowed and aching with the weight.
Mlle. Hasparren heard her stir in bed, and sensed the awakened quality of the movement. She came to look anxiously down at her. Marise looked back and remembering that, so far as she knew. Mlle. Hasparren knew nothing beyond the surface of the happenings of yesterday and so might expect her to be able to smile, she produced a faint smile.
"I overslept," she said, in order to say something. "Has somebody brought your breakfast?"
"No, I waited for you," answered Mile. Hasparren. "I'll ring for Isabelle now."
When Isabelle came, very self-important at taking Jeanne's place, she reported that the Sister said Jeanne had passed a very good night and was perfectly comfortable, with no complications. "She says Jeanne may get all over it and be as good as ever. All old people have these seizures, she says," chattered Isabelle, setting down the tray and pouring out Marise's café-au-lait. She was full of her new dignity, and bustled off to give orders to her assistant, leaving Marise and Mlle. Hasparren to eat their breakfast. Mlle. Hasparren did not seem to feel like talking much, and neither did Marise. She was trying to think what it was she was to tell Papa. She must remember now just what it was that everybody was to be told
An hour later, as they went down the hall, on their way to the station to meet the morning train, they saw the salon as usual at that hour, the chairs pushed about, the rugs hanging over the window-sills, the fresh, clean, new morning sun streaming in through the wide-open windows on the familiar spectacle of Isabelle on her knees, a brush-broom in her hand reaching under the piano for dust. The alcove curtains were drawn back, the cheerful sunshine poured in, glittering on the dark polished wood of the desk, on the yellow-covered books, on the pretty little inlaid chair which stood beside the desk.
Was it only yesterday that Jeanne had flung her into that chair? She stood in the door, as she put on her hat, looking steadily at the alcove. No, that had been somebody else … a little girl, a lucky, lucky little girl, who had no idea what things were like.
"Come, dear," said Mile. Hasparren, looking at her watch.
It had been agreed since there were so few trains in and out of Bayonne and since as yet no news had been sent to Jeanne's family, that if Marise's father did come on the train from the north, Mlle. Hasparren would board it as he left it, and go on down to Midassoa to tell the Amigorenas about their mother's illness. "But do tell them, Mademoiselle," Marise said over and over, anxiously, "that we will take care of Jeanne, that we will do everything for her that anybody could, that they needn't worry. I know Papa will see that she's taken care of. I know he will, if I ask him." But really she was not as sure as she said. She did not know Papa so very well, after all. She had very little idea what he would feel or say about anything. And then everything depended on the way things turned out …!
They stood there in the smoky dusk of the station, a long ray of sunshine thick with golden motes striking the ground at their feet. They still said very little, Marise not daring to talk for fear of making a mistake, for fear that she would not remember just what and how much Mlle. Hasparren knew. The music-teacher held the girl's slim fingers close. Marise answered their pressure with a nervous fervor, inexpressibly grateful to the other, loving everything about her from her steady face and kind, shadowed eyes, to her heavy, badly-cut shoes, dusty now, which would be dustier later after they had trudged along the hot white road at Midassoa. Never, so long as she lived, was she able to forget how Mlle. Hasparren had looked to her, when she came quietly into the salon and lifted her up from Jeanne and said in a plain matter-of-fact way as though nothing were the matter but Jeanne's sickness, that they must get a doctor and probably Jeanne wasn't as sick as she looked. She had just taken Marise by the hand and showed her how to go on living … when it seemed to Marise that she had come to the end.
They heard the train whistle shriekingly in the distance, and the somnolent porters roused themselves. Marise tightened her hold on the strong fingers which held hers. Her heart ached with longing, with confusion. Suppose Papa did not come … what would she do? But suppose he did … wouldn't it be impossible not to make mistakes, not to forget what you were to say and what you weren't?
But when the train came in, and Marise saw at the other end of the long platform her father's massive bulk heavily descending from a compartment, and saw his eyes begin to search the crowd for her face, all her confusion melted away in a great burst of relief.… Papa was there, something of her very own in the midst of all those strangers! Her heart almost broke with its release from tension.
And yet before she ran to meet him, she put her arms around the music-teacher and kissed her hard on both swarthy cheeks.
III
Then she ran with all the speed of her long legs, and flung herself upon Papa's broad chest and tried to put her arms around him, as she had around Mile. Hasparren, and began to cry on Papa's great shoulder. How good it was to feel him, to feel him so entirely as Papa always felt! It would not have seemed like Papa if there were not more of him than she could get her arms around.
Her tears, her agitation gave Papa such a turn that he set his satchels down hastily and looking alarmed, shook her a little, and asked what had happened to Maman.
In the hurry and noise and bustle of the crowd it was easier than Marise had feared to get over that first moment when Papa must be told. It all came out straight, just what she had planned to tell him, that nothing had really happened to Maman, she wasn't sick or anything only she had had a terrible nervous shock, had seen somebody killed right before her eyes, and it had pretty nearly driven her wild.
"Oh!" said Papa, evidently relieved, and caring as little as Marise had about the person who had been killed. He picked up his satchels again (by this time the porters at the Bayonne station were resigned to his strange mania for carrying his own hand-baggage), and said, "Well, yes, that's too bad! I remember I saw a brakeman killed once, and it made me pretty sick, too."
They walked out of the station together. Not two minutes had passed since his arrival, and already Marise's joy that he had come, had faded to a frightened sense that he had not come at all, that he was still very far away, that he would never really come, as he used to.
And yet Jeanne had been right of course; whatever else she did, she must not tell Papa.
"When did it happen?" asked Papa now, as they turned the corner and were finally escaped from the last of the clamorous cab-drivers, who had not yet accepted, as the porters had, the eccentricities of the American gentleman.
As they crossed the bridge, Marise told him the version she had prepared, the version Jeanne had presented. She had had a good deal of practice in saying something different from what she thought, and she got through this without any hesitation or mistake. But every word of it set her further away from Papa, raised a wall between them, the wall of things she knew and Papa must never know.
"Well, to be sure," said Papa, when she finished, "you certainly have had goings-on, for sure."
"Oh, Papa," went on Marise earnestly, "you will have Jeanne taken care of! It was when she was working for us, she got her paralysis. Don't you feel we ought to—for always, for always? It was for us.…"
"Oh, as to that," said Papa, "anybody of Jeanne's age, who rustles around as Jeanne does, is apt to get a stroke, whether she was working for us or not. It might have happened just as easily in her own home."
Marise's heart went down.
Papa added, with a change of tone, "I don't like her lying very well, but the old woman has been awfully good to you, Molly, awfully good, more like your grandmother than the cook, and I guess we'll see that she's taken care of, all right."
Marise squeezed his arm hard, and said nothing. After all, wall or no wall, Papa was there, good old Papa, so broad and solid, her very own Papa; somebody who, even if he didn't understand much of what went on, would look out for them all, Maman, Jeanne, herself.
IV
Papa went in at once to see Jeanne and told her through Marise—for Jeanne had never learned to understand his brand of French—that he would see that she was well taken care of till she recovered. Jeanne contrived with her one living hand and her eyes, to convey her respectful thanks, and to conceal everything else which Marise knew she must be thinking.
Then Papa wanted to go at once to the convent, and bring Maman home. What had he come back for, if not for that? As a matter of fact, Marise was not very sure why he had come back, or why she had felt it so necessary to get word to him at once. Now that she had had time to think about it, she realized that she dreaded very much having Maman see Papa just now, right after … after all that. It would have been better for her to have had a little time to get over it, and like Marise, to think what to say.
But, of course, this was one of the things she could not speak to Papa about. All she could do was to find out that lunch was nearly ready and they would better eat that before they wait to the convent.
Isabelle, her head turned with the sudden removal of Jeanne's heavy-handed authority, had prepared a gala luncheon with the best silver and linen, and "What a pretty bunch of flowers," remarked Papa.
Marise looked silently at the white rose-buds, now opening into roses. Was it only yesterday morning that Jeanne had given her those? Was it only two days before, that she had been walking along with the Garniers, with nothing in her head but mockery of Madame Garnier's shoes and hat? No, that must have been somebody else, some one she had distantly known, that girl who had laughed with the others so, over their foolishness behind the scenes.
"Let me see," remarked Papa, "you must be almost fifteen, aren't you, Molly?"
"Yesterday was my birthday."
"Funny kind of celebration."
Marise looked at him across an immense chasm, and said nothing. She couldn't ever remember having a meal at a table alone with Papa before.
"Don't you want to go with me?" he asked later, as the dessert was served. "I don't know how to find my way around a convent—of all places! Whatever possessed your Mama to go there anyhow?"
"She and Sœur Ste. Lucie are such good friends," explained Marise. She decided not to say anything about the old monk, because she didn't know whether Papa knew about Maman's going to see him before; but after thinking for an instant she decided that it would do no harm to add, "Sœur Ste. Lucie wants Mama to be a Catholic, you know."
Papa said quickly, "What's that?"
Marise was surprised at his tone. Perhaps that was one of the things she oughtn't to tell about. "Why, would you mind if she did?" she asked.
Papa thought for a moment, and dropped back into his usual slow casual comment, "Oh, no, I guess not, if she wants to." There was a silence broken by Papa's saying something else, in an earnest tone as though this time he really wanted Marise to listen to him. "All I ever want, Molly, is for Mama to have things the way she wants them."
Marise's heart was nervously sensitive that day, in a sick responsiveness to the faintest indication of what was in other people's hearts.
She could not put another morsel of food to her lips. She sat looking down at her plate, trying to master or at least understand the surge of feeling within her. "All I ever want is for Mama to have things the way she wants them." There was so much to think of in that, that she was still lost in thinking, when Papa pushed back his chair and got up, pulling down his vest, with his usual after-dinner gesture.
"I'll have a look at the mail while you get your things on," he suggested. Evidently he was still set on going at once to see Maman. Perhaps more than he admitted, he really didn't like her being in a convent.
Marise went to get her hat, and with it in her hand, went to join her father, standing by her mother's writing-desk in the alcove. He had an American newspaper in his hand, his forefinger inserted in the wrapper.
He tore it open and stood looking at the head-lines, while Marise put on her broad-brimmed sailor-hat and, tilting her head forward, slipped the rubber under her hair behind. "All ready?" said Papa, and they set out.
How much less exciting everything was, now that Papa was home. But would it be—if he—but he never would! Who would tell him? Not Maman certainly, although Marise wished that poor Maman could have had a few days more without seeing Papa, to get over being excited so she could be surer of what she was saying. Not Jeanne. Not herself. Nobody else knew him well enough to tell him anything. If Maman could only get through to-day all right.…
At the convent they waited in the usual bare, white-washed convent parlor with the shutters drawn, with the usual little rush-bottomed chairs, so light that the one Papa sat down on, groaned and creaked under his great weight. The usual black-walnut book-case displayed the usual Lives of the Saints. Through an open door they could look down a long, long, gray stone corridor, very empty, till they saw Sœur Ste. Lucie hurrying noiselessly down it towards them.
As she came near, Marise saw that her sweet face looked anxious and worried. She told them at once that Madame Allen had been taken very ill, that they had been up all night with her and had sent for the doctor early that morning.
Papa was startled by this unexpected news, and apparently never dreamed of what occurred to Marise at once, that this was just something they had made up to prevent anybody's talking to her. Marise thought it a good idea. She had hoped something like that could be arranged … in case those horrible sergents de ville came back again. She was not alarmed by Sœur Ste. Lucie's worried face, because this was by no means the first time that she had observed how easy it was for people's faces to look anything they wished to have them.
Papa was asking rather sharply, "What is the matter? What did the doctor say? Is it the effect of nervous shock?"
All the same, it was too bad, thought Marise to have Papa worried for nothing.
Sœur Ste. Lucie shook her head hurriedly, "Oh, no, something much more acute than that, a terrible, terrible chill which has gone to her lungs. The poor lady must have been in soaking wet clothes, for nobody knows how long. Monsieur has been told of the …" She hesitated and paused.
"Yes, yes, I know she was with some one who fell into a river somewhere and was drowned. But did she fall in, too? How did she get wet? Why weren't her clothes changed?" His voice rose as he asked the questions.
Sœur Ste. Lucie explained in a low, hurried, agitated voice. "Nobody knows of course just what happened. Perhaps she tried to save the poor fellow. Perhaps she slipped as he did. In any case she was too distraught to think of herself or to realize the danger of going so long in wet clothes. And every one there was so absorbed in the tragedy.…! She was all alone among strangers, the poor lady. She must have sat in her dripping garments in the cold train all the way to Lourdes, and then half the night in the unheated station there, waiting for the train. It was terrible. The doctor said it was terrible to think of—weakened with the shock, as she was, and no food!"
Papa now said ungently and impatiently, yet as though he were restraining himself, "Well, we must get her home at once, where we can take care of her!" Marise could see that he believed every word that Sœur Ste. Lucie said.
But of course Sœur Ste. Lucie hadn't the least intention of letting Papa take Maman away. "I'm afraid that is impossible," she said, "the doctor came back this afternoon, is here now in fact, and says"—her voice broke—"he says she is much too ill to be moved."
At this Papa burst out angrily, his face very red, "Why under the heavens didn't you send word of this to her own home? Here I have been there, ever since the morning train, eating my lunch … with no idea that …"
The nun defended herself reasonably, sadly, showing no resentment at his anger, "No one knew you were come back, Monsieur, and I was just starting to fetch our dear little Marie."
Marise saw over the nun's shoulder a gentleman with a bald head, a great brown beard and very white hands coming down the corridor, "Here is the doctor, now," said Sœur Ste. Lucie, drawing in her breath quickly. Taking Papa and motioning Marise to stay where she was, she stepped down the corridor. Marise watched them, her eyes on the doctor's serious, spectacled eyes. Something about the way he looked at Papa made Marise for the first time wonder if Maman really were a little sick after all.
They all came back to where Marise stood. Papa's face was no longer red. He said to Marise in a queer voice, "The doctor says that Maman must not be disturbed, but we may go in to see her for a moment if we will be quiet and not talk."
They turned, all of them, and started down the long, gray stone corridor. Marise tip-toed along beside her father. She was a little frightened in spite of herself, at a loss to know what to think or feel or believe. The emptiness of the corridor echoed around them. Marise's ears rang with the emptiness of it! And how long it was. It took them forever to walk through it. Marise looked up at the small windows set high in the wall, and wondered when they would ever come to a door that opened out.
But the only door was at the very end, and that opened into the white-washed room where Maman lay in a narrow bed.
As soon as she saw her mother, Marise was sure again that she was not really sick because she looked even better than usual, with a deep shell-pink in her cheeks. She did seem a little tired and sleepy, however, for her eyelids looked heavy and kept dropping down over her eyes. They stood there for a moment, looking at her, till she should open them again.
When she did, and saw Papa there, she flung out her arms towards him. As he stooped over her she clung to him with all her might just as Marise had at the station.
She did not look at Marise at all, only at Papa. He patted her shoulder, and smiled at her, and Marise saw the tears run out of Maman's eyes in a gush.
Papa sat down on the little chair by the bed which creaked under his weight, and leaned forward, his arms around Maman, his cheek against hers. She said to him in a hurried, frightened whisper, "Horace, I want to go home. I want to go home."
He answered steadily, "It's all right. Flora … we'll have you home in a few days."
She closed her eyes again, all the expression dropping out of her face. The doctor stepped to the other side of the bed, and his fingers on her wrist, his eyes on his watch, motioned them silently to leave, with a sideways jerk of his head.
They tip-toed out and down the long, gray, empty corridor.
Marise's mother died that night, without seeing them again.