The Peasant and the Prince. Harriet Martineau
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.
Volume One—Chapter Four.
Holiday Indeed.
It was a comfort to Marie, on reaching home, to find that no soldiers were there. The guests of the preceding night had been summoned to their duty, as the royal train might be certainly expected in the course of the morning. The good-natured Jérome’s heart had been touched by the lamentations of the boys for their lost favourites; and he had told them that, if they would leave off crying, so as to make their faces fit to be seen by the train of nobles, they might look out for him on the roadside, and he would try to place them where they might see the Dauphiness. They had made every effort to look cheerful, and were thinking more about the Princess than of pigeons and rabbits when their sister returned; but when they witnessed her burst of weeping on her mother’s bosom—when they heard that Charles was to be carried off for a soldier for three years, and that there was to be no hut in the wood, and no new brother-in-law for them, they cried more bitterly than ever.
In the midst of this scene, Jérome came by on horseback. He could not stop; but he called out that the band had been heard already, and pointed to the place where the boys should go and take their stand. They did not now care anything about the procession,