Читать книгу The Peasant and the Prince - Harriet Martineau - Страница 6

The boys were wakened in the morning by a rap on the door, like that of the preceding evening. When they had rubbed their eyes and got up, they found that their mother was speaking with no less a person than the bailiff from the chateau. It took little time to slip on the only day garment each had: and then, as their mother stood in the doorway, one looked out under each of her arms, to see what was going on.

“Ah! You little fellows,” said the bailiff, “I have some business with you. What have you to do with pigeons, when you know ’tis against the law for you to keep them? Come, no excuses; I saw a brood of pigeons on the ridge of the roof, as I came.”

“How are we to help the Count’s pigeons lighting on our ridge, if they choose, please sir!” said Marc.

“Nay, Marc, no tricks!” said his mother. “The pigeons are theirs, sir; got from the wood, and a present for their sister: but you see, sir, how trickery and falsehood come. If there were no reasons why my boys should not do such an innocent thing as bring up a brood of pigeons, the thought of an untruth would not enter their heads; but you see what you tempt them to, by driving them so very hard about almost the only pleasure they have.”

“It is not I, good woman,” said the bailiff. “Do not say I drive them hard—I did not make the laws; but it is my business to see that the laws are regarded between the Count and his people, that is all. Come! While your daughter puts on her gayest ribbon, I will go round, and see about these pigeons.”

Marie had no gay ribbon to put on, though she must go immediately with her father before the Count. It was the bailiffs errand to say this. While she made herself as neat as she could, and her father was called in from the field (to which he had gone straight from the ponds, because he knew there was no meal ready for him at home), the bailiff examined the premises, followed at a distance by the boys, in terror for their rabbit-hutch. Of course, the rabbits were found; and of course, they were carried off. Robin rolled upon the ground in his grief, and Marc looked as if his heart was bursting. The bailiff was so sorry for what he felt it his duty to do, that against all rule he offered the boys one young rabbit and one young pigeon to keep. At first, these were accepted; but Robin was sure that Marc’s rabbit would pine alone; and Marc was certain Robin’s pigeon could never live solitary; and they gave up these last remains of their treasures. To do it with a good grace was more than they were equal to; and when Marie and her father set off for the chateau, they left the boys crying bitterly.

It did not make Marie the more easy to see her lover skulking at a distance, all the way they went. The bailiff was close at hand; and she believed that his quick eyes would note all Charles’s doings. Every time he spoke, which he did frequently and civilly, she dreaded his asking what business that man had, watching them from under the shade of the wood; but each time she was relieved by hearing some question or remark about the reception of the Dauphiness in the village. She had to say all that must be said to the bailiff; for her father was busy thinking. He was glad when they were left alone, so that he could tell Marie what was in his mind. There was time enough to do this. When the great iron gates of the avenue closed behind them, the bailiff told them to go straight on by the broad road. He was going by a side path, but would meet them farther on, and take them to the Count.

This was the opportunity Randolphe wanted, to tell his daughter that he thought it best now to ask the Count’s consent to her marriage with Charles, formally and properly. Marie trembled, and grew sick at heart as she heard this, and implored her father not to mention Charles—so sure was she that her marriage would be prevented if Charles were spoken of. Her father declared, however, that he knew the Count and his ways, and was certain that, his notice being attracted, nothing could now prevent his becoming acquainted with the minutest of their family circumstances; and that the most politic course would be to appear to desire his consent, and only to have waited his arrival at the chateau to request it. Randolphe had decided upon his plan, and Marie had only to submit.

The bailiff met them at the head of the avenue, and led them to the morning apartment of the Count, which he entered first, after being announced, leaving his companions in the hall. The door was presently opened, and he beckoned them in.

The Count was sitting in his morning gown beside a table, on which stood a small silver tray, with his coffee-cup upon it. His valet was dressing his hair. Two of his sons were in the room; one playing with his dogs in a recess of the window, and the other reading the newspaper.

“Come closer,” said the Count, in answer to Randolphe’s bow. “Nearer—come close up to the table.”

The truth was, he could not otherwise see them well while his hair was in the hands of his valet.

“Is it possible?” he said, as if to himself, while he looked at the peasant and his daughter. “Are you Randolphe? I had heard your name for so long and so often, among my people, that I had imagined you one of the principal of them. But you appear wretchedly poor, eh?” he continued, looking into the sallow, unshaven face before him. “I am afraid you are very poor, eh?”

“Well-nigh heart-broken with poverty, my lord.”

“There is some mistake,” resumed the Count. “How is this?” said he, looking towards the bailiff; and then, calling to his son in the window, “Casimir, how is this?”

The bailiff answered first:—

“Randolphe is wretchedly poor, my lord, as you say; but there is no one of your people hereabouts who is less so.”

The youth’s reply was, that in the question of arrangements for receiving the Dauphiness, he supposed the principal peasants belonging to the chateau would be spoken to; and he had mentioned Randolphe, understanding him to be one of them.

Marie saw that this youth was the one who had stared her out of countenance at the stile, the afternoon before: the same who had talked with her brothers on the verge of the wood.

The Count was for dismissing his visitors at once, saying that they would not answer his purpose for the arrangements of which he had meant to speak with them. They were not, however, let off so easily as they had now begun to hope. The young man asked some questions from the window, which put it into the Count’s head to ask more, till Randolphe thought it prudent not to keep back his story, but to request the Count’s consent to Marie’s marriage, as if that had been his own part of his errand this morning.

The Count evidently cared nothing about the matter, and would have given his consent as a matter of course, if his son Casimir had been anywhere but in the room. As it was, there were so many questions, the inquiries about Charles were so minute, that Marie grew vexed and angry, and by a look invited her father to say something about the Count’s time and be gone. The youth who was reading certainly pitied her, for he said, without raising his eyes from his newspaper—

“Be quiet, Casimir. Casimir, how can you? Do leave these poor people to make themselves happy their own way. It is no concern of yours.”

“It is my father’s concern that his people should not live on his land when they cannot do service for it. Why, it appears they have not anything like a cottage to go to. My father cannot look to them for anything. You see, sir, you can depend upon them for nothing, in their present circumstances: and I do not see how you can consent to their marrying yet. If this fellow Charles, now, would do his duty, and serve for three years, there would be some chance for their settling comfortably afterwards. They would lose nothing by waiting, if they settled comfortably at last.”

“Please your lordship,” said Randolphe, in a hoarse voice, “they have waited so very long already, and there is no prospect—”

He glanced at Marie to see how she bore this. She seemed to be just falling; and he drew her arm within his, to keep her up.

“We will take care that there is a prospect,” said Casimir. “We do not intend to lose sight of you. We may do some kind things for Marie.”

Marie tried to speak; but before she could utter a sentence, the Count discovered that the valet had arrived at the last bow of the pig-tail, and that he must make a decision, and conclude this interview. He therefore pronounced that Charles should be sent on military service for three years, and gave orders to the bailiff to see that the young man was brought in for the purpose, in the course of the morning. He then bade good-day to his peasant dependent, and hoped he would see better times, and do the best he could for the young people before their wedding-day, as he would now have a considerable interval in which to meditate his duty as a parent to so pretty a daughter.

While the Count was saying this, Casimir slipped round towards the door, and, as Marie passed near him, thrust a piece of gold into her hand. Marie had never had a piece of gold in her hand before, and she did not like it now. She looked at Casimir with such a look as he had never before met from human eyes, and threw his gift between his two dogs in the window.

The Count did not see nor heed this. Randolphe thought his graver son did; for there was a sudden crackle of the newspaper, and the reader’s face was crimson to the temples.

“We have one friend there, I fancy,” muttered the unhappy father, as he went out. “But for that, I think you and I had better drown ourselves in the ponds between this and home.”

“Charles!” gasped Marie in his ear. “Send Charles away! I can get home alone.”

Her father took the hint. They parted in the shade of the avenue, as soon as they could suppose themselves unwatched from the chateau. Randolphe cut across into the wood where he had seen Charles half an hour before, while Marie went homewards with tottering steps, looking away from the ponds, from a feeling that her state of mind was too desperate for her to trust herself on the brink of deep waters.