The Little Old Portrait. Molesworth Mrs.
had no brothers or sisters, and Pierre’s mother had been for some time her nurse when she was a tiny baby. The kind woman had left her own little boy to come to the château to take care of the Countess’s baby, who was so delicate that no one thought she would live, and by her devotion Madame Germain had helped to make her the bright, healthy little girl that she now, at five years old, had become. So, as one always loves those to whom one has been of great service, Madame Germain loved little Edmée dearly, and Edmée loved her. There was nowhere in the village she so much liked to go as to the Germains’ little cottage, and no child she cared to play with as much as Pierre, who was only four years older than she, but so gentle and careful with her that no one felt any anxiety when they knew that the little lady, ‘Mademoiselle,’ as she was called, was with Pierre Germain.
“Tired with running and laughing, Edmée called to Pierre to help her down the steep stone steps at one end of the terrace, and the two children settled themselves comfortably under the shade of a wide-spreading beech tree.
”‘Now Pierrot, good pretty Pierrot,’ said Edmée coaxingly, ‘tell Edmée a story – a pretty story.’
”‘What about? My little lady has heard all the stories I know, so often,’ said Pierre, gently stroking the pretty fair hair tumbling over his arm, as she leant her head against him.
”‘Never mind, I like them again – only not about Red Riding Hood,’ said Edmée; ‘that frightens me so, Pierre; I fancy I am little Red Riding Hood, only then I always think my Pierrot would come running, running so fast, so that the naughty wolf shouldn’t eat me. Wouldn’t my Pierrot do that? He wouldn’t let the naughty wolf eat poor little Edmée?’
”‘No, indeed —indeed! I wouldn’t,’ said Pierre eagerly.
”‘I’d get the old sword – you know it, Edmée: father has it hanging up over the door in our cottage; it’s rather rusty, but it would be good enough for a wolf – and I’d run at him with it before he could touch you. If he had to eat up somebody, I’d let him eat me first.’
”‘Oh, don’t! don’t, Pierrot,’ said Edmée, trembling and clinging to him, ‘I don’t say that; don’t let us speak about things like that! There are no wolves here, are there? and don’t you think, Pierrot dear, if people were very, very kind to all the wolves, and never hunted them, or anything like that – don’t you think perhaps the wolves would get kind?’ Pierre smiled.
”‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, ‘but there are no wolves about here.’
”‘No, no,’ repeated Edmée, ‘no wolves and no naughty people at Valmont. Don’t you wish there were no naughty people anywhere, Pierrot?’
”‘Indeed, I do,’ said the boy, and then he sat silent. ‘What makes you talk about naughty people, Edmée?’
”‘I don’t know,’ said Edmée; ‘sometimes I hear things, Pierrot, that frighten me. I hear the servants talking – they say that some lords like papa are so naughty and unkind. Is it true, Pierrot?’
”‘I’m afraid all rich men are not so kind as the Count,’ said Pierre. ‘But don’t trouble yourself about it, dear; we won’t let naughty unkind people come here.’
“Somehow Edmée had grown silent; she sat there quite still, leaning her little head on the boy’s shoulder. And he did not talk either; Edmée’s innocent words had reminded him of things he too had heard – of talk between his father and mother, which, young as he was, he already understood a good deal of. Even to quiet Valmont growlings of the yet distant storm, which ere long was to overwhelm the country, had begun to penetrate. Now and then peasants from other villages would make their way to this peaceful corner, with tales of cruelties and indignities from which they were suffering, which could not but rouse the sympathy of their more fortunate compatriots. And more than once Pierre had seen his quiet and serious father strangely excited.
”‘It cannot go on for ever,’ he would say to his wife; ‘we may not live to see, but our children will, some terrible retribution on this unhappy land. Ah, if all masters were like ours! But I fear there are but few, even in his own family, think of the difference.’
“But when Pierre eagerly asked what he meant, he would say no more – he would say nothing to sow prejudice in the child’s heart. But from others the boy learnt something of what his father was thinking of, and as he grew older and understand still more, his heart ached sometimes with vague fear and anxiety, though not for himself.
”‘It would be a bad day for us all – a bad day for our poor mistress and the dear little lady – if the good Count were taken from us,’ he heard now and then, and the words always struck a cold chill to his heart; for the Count was by no means in good health – he had always been somewhat delicate, unable to take part much in field sports, and such amusement as absorbed the time of most of his country neighbours. He read much and thought much, and in many ways he was different from those among whom he lived. And though somewhat cold in manner, it was evident he was not so in heart, for all the little children in the village loved him as well as his beautiful and loveable young wife, and their dear little daughter, and beyond the limits even of his own domain he was spoken of as the good Count of Valmont.
“Suddenly, as the two children sat there in silence, a voice was heard calling —
”‘Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! wherever can the child have hidden herself? Mademoiselle, you are wanted at once in the drawing-room.’
“And as Edmée rose slowly, and perhaps rather unwillingly, to her feet, she saw coming along the terrace her mother’s new maid Victorine, to whom, it must be confessed, she was not partial.
”‘I am not hidden, Victorine,’ she said; ‘it is easy to see if one looks.’
”‘If one looks in proper places,’ said the maid pertly, ‘I never before saw a young lady always playing with a clodhopper!’ and she came forward as if about to take Edmée by the hand and lead her away. But she reckoned without her host.”
Chapter Three
Edmée drew herself away.
”‘Naughty Victorine!’ she said. ‘You shall not call my Pierrot ugly names. Come away, Pierrot; we won’t go with her.’
”‘But you must come, Mademoiselle Edmée; your lady mamma has sent for you,’ said Victorine, by no means pleased, but a little afraid of getting into some trouble with this determined young lady.
”‘Mamma has sent for me? Oh, then I will come. Come, Pierrot, mamma wants us in the drawing-room. You need not wait, Victorine; Pierre will bring me.’
“Victorine’s face grew very red.
”‘Nobody wants him,’ she said. ‘However, do as you please. Thank goodness, I am not that child’s nurse,’ she muttered as she walked off with her head in the air. She was in hopes that Pierre, and perhaps Edmée too, would get a good scolding if the boy made his appearance with her in the drawing-room; but she was much mistaken. The children entered the house together, crossing the large cool hall, paved with black and white marble, and then making their way down a side passage of red tiles. Here Pierre stopped: it was the way to the Countess’s own rooms, which opened into the large drawing-room by a side door.
”‘I will wait here,’ he said; ‘if my lady wants me you will come and tell me, will you not, Mademoiselle?’
“For it was not often that Pierre returned to the village without some message for his mother from the Countess, who considered her as one of her best and trustiest friends.
“Edmée ran into her mother’s room – there was no one there, but the doors, one at each side of a tiny anteroom, which led into the big drawing-room, were both open, and voices, those of her father and mother and of another person, reached her ears. She ran gaily in.
”‘Here you are at last, my pet!’ said her mother. ‘How long you have been! This gentleman has been waiting to see you; he has come all the way from Tours