Mrs. Molesworth - The Little Old Portrait

”‘Warm yourself, my child,’ she said at last to the weeping girl. ‘Keep up your heart, for Louis’ sake, as well as you can. Have you a bit of fire in there?’

“Marguerite shook her head. Madelon went to a corner of the cottage, and came back with some twigs.

”‘I will try to make it up for you,’ she said; ‘come back with me. This wood is dry.’

”‘But, Madelon, you have so little for yourself,’ said Marguerite. ‘I had meant to try to find some this morning, though there is scarcely any now, but my fears for Louis, have stopped my doing anything.’

“They had coaxed the miserable fire into a more promising condition when the sound of voices on the road made Marguerite start nervously, and rush to the door. At first she thought that her worst fears were fulfilled. Two men were carrying something on a plank, while beside walked a boy – a boy of about ten or eleven, whom she did not know by sight, who from time to time as they came along stooped over the plank and looked anxiously at the motionless figure extended on it. With a fearful scream Marguerite rushed out.

”‘My Louis! my Louis!’ she cried. ‘Is he dead?’

“The two men tramped on into the cottage stolidly, and laid down the plank.

”‘Dead? – I know not,’ said one, with a sort of indifference that was not heartlessness. ‘Would you wish him alive, you foolish child?’

“But the little boy touched her gently.

”‘He is not dead,’ he said softly; ‘he has only fainted,’ and he drew a small bottle out of the inside of his jacket.

”‘I have a little wine here,’ he said, ‘mother gave it me before I left home. He is opening his eyes – give him a spoonful.’

“The girl did as he said. Poor Louis swallowed with difficulty, and a very little colour came into his face. He tried to sit up, but sank back again, murmuring —

”‘My back – oh, my back!’

”‘He has strained it,’ said the second man. ‘No wonder. He must lie down; have you no mattress?’

“Marguerite gazed round her stupidly. Madelon touched her.

”‘Rouse yourself, my girl,’ she said; ‘he looks nothing like as bad as Jean when they brought him home,’ and Marguerite turned to drag out of its corner the heap of straw on which, covered with what had once been a woman’s skirt, Louis spent the night. The little boy darted forward to help her.

”‘Who are you?’ she said, looking at him wish the quick suspicion with which these poor creatures looked at every new face. ‘I don’t know you – you don’t belong here.’

”‘No,’ said he; ‘I come from Valmont. I came in the carriage that has been sent to fetch my lord, who has been staying here with my lady’s brother. The coachman brought me to help him, as the groom who generally comes is ill.’

”‘And how did you – how came you to see Louis?’

”‘I was strolling about the woods when I met them driving him,’ said the boy, in a low voice of distress and horror. ‘I saw him fall – and I was so sorry for him,’ he added simply, ‘I thought I would come to see how he was. But I must not stay; the Count is returning home to-day – I must not stay. But see here,’ and from his pocket he drew a little bag containing a few copper coins and one small silver piece.

”‘These are my own – my very own. It is all I have, but take it, to get some food for poor Louis.’

“Marguerite seized his hand and kissed it.

”‘Tell me your name, that I may pray for you.’

”‘I am Pierre – Pierre Germain, the son of the forester at Valmont,’ he said, as he ran off.

“It was in very different circumstances that these two met again.”

That was a terrible journey back from Sarinet to Valmont-les-Roses. Little Pierre Germain never forgot it. The first day they got on well enough, and perched up on his seat beside the coachman, the boy enjoyed the driving along the wintry roads, where the snow had hardened sufficiently to enable them to make their way with great difficulty. They stopped for the night at a village midway between châteaux, and despite some warnings, started again the next morning, for the Count was eager to get home, feeling sure that any delay would make the Countess very anxious. But long before they reached Valmont the snow came on again, more heavily than it had yet fallen that winter. For many hours it was absolutely impossible to go on, and they were thankful even for the refuge of a miserable cabin, inhabited by an old road mender and his wife, two poor creatures looking a hundred at least, whom they found cowering over a wretched fire, and who were at first too frightened at the sight of them to let them in. The name of the Count de Valmont reassured them, and they did their best to find shelter, both for the human beings and the horses, though their best was miserably insufficient. And the night in that poor hovel laid the seeds of the severe illness with which Edmée’s father was prostrated but a few hours after reaching home.

“For some weeks he was so ill that the doctors scarcely hoped he would live through the winter. The pretty young Countess grew thin and careworn with sorrow and anxiety and nursing, for she scarcely ever left his bedside, day or night. It was little Edmée’s first meeting with trouble. The Marquis de Sarinet deferred going to Paris till he saw how his brother-in-law’s illness was to end, and he came two or three times to Valmont. For if he had a tender spot in his cold selfish heart it was love for the young sister who had when but a child been confided to his care, and though he scarcely understood it he pitied her distress. Madame, his wife, the Marquise, did not come, and I do not think her absence was regretted. She must, by all accounts, have been a most unloveable woman, as cold and proud to the full as her husband, and with no thought but her own amusement and adornment. As to their only child, Edmond, you will hear more as I proceed with my narrative of events.

“To the delight, almost to the amazement, of all about him, the Count by degrees began to show signs of improvement. As at last the cold gave way to the milder days of spring, his strength slowly returned, and he would now and then allude to the possibility of recovering his health to a certain extent. It had been a most trying winter for many besides the invalid. Exceedingly rigorous weather is always a terrible aggravation of the sufferings of the poor, and even at Valmont, in so many ways an unusually happy and prosperous village, many had suffered; and some perhaps more than was suspected, for now that the Count and Countess were unable to go amongst their people as usual, and to see for themselves where their help was called for, a natural feeling of pride prevented many from complaining until actually forced to do so, though the Countess did her best. She intrusted Pierre’s mother with many a kindly mission, and whenever the weather was fit for so tender a creature to face it, little Edmée might have been seen, trotting along by the kind woman, often herself carrying a basket with gifts for some little child or old person whom they had heard of as ill or suffering in some way.

”‘I don’t like winter now,’ she said one day, when, with Pierre on one side and his mother on the other, she was on her way to a poor family a little out of the village. ‘I used to think it was so pretty to see the snow and to slide on the ice. Put I don’t like it now. It made dear papa ill, and the poor people are so cold, and I think they’re so much happier in summer.’

”‘Yes,’ said Madame Germain. ‘Hunger is bad to bear, but I fear cold is still worse. It has been a sad winter,’ and the kind woman sighed.

”‘And if sad here in Valmont, what must it have been in other places?’ said Pierre, his thoughts returning to what he had seen at Sarinet.