CHAPTER XXXIII.
‘_Enfin, chère Sibylle_,’ said Madame de Frontignac when Mary came outof the room with her cheeks glowing and her eyes flashing with a stillunsubdued light. ‘_Te voilà encore!_ What did he say, _mimi_? did heask for me?’
‘Yes,’ said Mary, ‘he asked for you.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him that you wished me to excuse you.’
‘How did he look then? Did he look surprised?’
‘A good deal so, I thought,’ said Mary.
‘_Allons, mimi_, tell me all you said and all he said.’
‘Oh,’ said Mary, ‘I am the worst person in the world; in fact, I cannotremember anything that I have said; but I told him that he must leaveyou and never see you any more.’
‘Oh, _mimi_! never!’
Madame de Frontignac sat down on the side of the bed with such a lookof utter despair as went to Mary’s heart.
‘You know that that is best, Verginie, do you not?’
‘Oh! yes, I know it; but it is like death to me! Ah, well, what shallVerginie do now?’
‘You have your husband,’ said Mary.
‘I do not love him,’ said Madame de Frontignac.
‘Yes; but he is a good and honourable man, and you should love him.’
‘Love is not in our power,’ said Madame de Frontignac.
‘Not _every kind_ of love,’ said Mary, ‘but _some_ kinds. If you havean indulgent friend who protects you, and cares for you, you can begrateful to him; you can try to make him happy, and in time you maycome to love him very much. He is a thousand times nobler man, if whatyou say is true, than the one who has injured you so.’
‘Oh, Mary,’ said Madame de Frontignac, ‘there are some cases where wefind it too easy to love our enemies.’
‘More than that,’ said Mary; ‘I believe that if you were to go onpatiently in the way of duty, and pray daily to God, that at last Hewill take out of your heart this painful love, and give you a true andhealthy one. As you say, such feelings are very sweet and noble; butthey are not the only ones we have to live by. We can find happiness induty, in self-sacrifice, in calm, sincere, honest friendship. That iswhat you can feel for your husband.’
‘Your words cool me,’ said Madame de Frontignac. ‘Thou art a sweetsnow-maiden, and my heart is hot and tired. I like to feel thee in myarms,’ she said, putting her arms around Mary, and resting her headupon her shoulder. ‘Talk to me so every day, and read me good, coolverses out of that beautiful book, and perhaps by-and-by I shall growstill and quiet like you.’
Thus Mary soothed her friend; but every few days this soothing had tobe done over, as long as Burr remained in Newport. When he was finallygone, she grew more calm. The simple, homely ways of the cottage, thehealthful routine of daily domestic toils, into which she delighted toenter, brought refreshment to her spirits. That fine tact and exquisitesocial sympathy which distinguishes the French above other nations,caused her at once to enter into the spirit of the life in which shemoved; so that she no longer shocked any one’s religious feelings byacts forbidden to the Puritan idea of the sabbath, or failed in any ofthe exterior proprieties of religious life.
She also read and studied with avidity the English Bible, which came toher with the novelty of a wholly new book, and in a new language; norwas she without a certain artistic valuation of the austere precisionand gravity of the religious life by which she was surrounded.
‘It is sublime, but a little “glaciale,” like the Alps,’ she sometimessaid to Mary and Mrs. Marvyn, when speaking of it; ‘but then,’ sheadded, playfully, ‘there are the flowers—_les roses des Alpes_; and theair is very strengthening, and it is near to heaven—_il faut avouer_.’
We have shown how she appeared to the eye of New England life; it maynot be uninteresting to give a letter to one of her friends, whichshowed how the same appeared to her.
It was not a friend with whom she felt on such terms that her intimacywith Burr would furnish any allusions to her correspondence.
‘You behold me, my charming Gabrielle, quite pastoral; recruiting fromthe dissipations of my Philadelphia life in a lovely, quiet cottage,with most worthy, excellent people, whom I have learnt to love verymuch. They are good and true, as pious as the saints themselves,although they do not belong to the true Church, a thing which I amsorry for; but then let us hope that if the world is wide, heaven iswider, and that all worthy and religious people will find room at last.This is Verginie’s own little pet private heresy, and when I tell it tothe Abbé, he only smiles; and so I think, somehow, that it is not sovery bad as it might be.
‘We have had a very gay life in Philadelphia, and now I am growingtired of the world, and think I shall retire to my cheese, like LaFontaine’s rat. These people in the country here in America have acharacter quite their own; very different from the life of cities,where one sees, for the most part, only a continuation of the forms ofgood society which exist in the old world.
‘In the country these people seem simple, grave, severe; alwaysindustrious; cold and reserved in their manners towards each other,but with great warmth of heart. They are all obedient to the word oftheir priest, whom they call a minister, and who lives among themjust like any other man, and marries and has children. Everythingin their worship is plain and austere. Their churches are perfectlydesolate; they have no chants, no pictures, no carvings; only a mostdisconsolate, bare building, where they meet together and sing one ortwo hymns, and the minister makes one or two prayers all out of hisown thoughts; and then gives them a long, long discourse about thingswhich I cannot understand English enough to comprehend.
‘There is a very beautiful, charming young girl here, the daughter ofmy hostess, who is as lovely and as saintly as St. Catharine, and hassuch a genius for religion that if she had been in our Church she wouldcertainly have made a saint. Her mother is a respectable and worthymatron, and the good priest lives in the family. I think he is a man ofvery sublime religion, as much above this world as a great mountain;but he has the true sense of liberty and fraternity, for he has daredto oppose with all his might this detestable and cruel trade in poornegroes; which makes us, who are so proud of the example of America inasserting the rights of man, so ashamed for her inconsistencies.
‘Well, now, there is a little romance getting up in the cottage;for the good priest has fixed his eyes on the pretty saint, and hasdiscovered, what he must be blind not to see, that she is very lovely.And so, as he can marry, he wants to make her his wife; and her mamma,who adores him as if he were God, is quite set upon it. The sweetMarie, however, has had a lover of her own in her little heart, abeautiful young man who went to sea, as heroes always do, to seekhis fortune. And the cruel sea has drowned him, and the poor littlesaint has wept and prayed her very life out on his grave; till she isso thin, and sweet, and mournful, that it makes one’s heart ache tosee her smile. In our Church, Gabrielle, she would have gone into aconvent; but she makes a vocation of her daily life, and goes roundthe house so sweetly, doing all the little work that is to be done,as sacredly as the nuns pray at the altar. For you must know, here inNew England the people for the most part keep no servants, but performall the household work themselves, with no end of spinning and sewingbesides. It is the true Arcadia, where you find refined and cultivatednatures busying themselves with the simplest toils. For these peopleare well-read and well-bred, and truly ladies in all things. And so,my little Marie and I, we feed the hens and chickens together, and wesearch for eggs in the hay in the barn; and they have taught me tospin at their great wheel, and a little one, too, which makes a noiselike the humming of a bee. But where am I? Oh, I was telling aboutthe romance. Well, so the good priest has proposed for my Marie, andthe dear soul has accepted him, as the nun accepts the veil; for sheonly loves him filially and religiously. And now they are going on, intheir way, with preparations for the wedding. They had what they call“a quilting” here the other night, to prepare the bride’s quilt, andall the friends in t
he neighbourhood came—it was very amusing to see.The morals of this people are so austere that young men and girls areallowed the greatest freedom. They associate and talk freely together,and the young men walk home alone with the girls after evening parties.And most generally the young people, I am told, arrange their marriagesamong themselves before the consent of the parents is asked. This isvery strange to us. I must not weary you, however, with the details.I watch my little romance daily, and will let you hear further as itprogresses.
‘With a thousand kisses, I am ever your loving
‘VERGINIE.’