“To church, my dear sir. Has not D’Argenton told you that I have an especial duty to perform there this morning? Come with us, will you not?”
It was Assumption Day, and Charlotte had been much flattered by being asked to distribute the bread. She, with her child, took the seats reserved for them on a bench close to the choir. The church was adorned with flowers. The choir-boys were in surplices freshly ironed, and on a rustic table the loaves of bread were piled high. To complete the picture, all the foresters, in their green costumes, with their knives in their belts and their carbines in their hands, had come to join in the Te Deum of this official fête.
Ida de Barancy would have been certainly much astonished had some one told her a year before, that she would one day assist at a religious festival in a village church, under the name of the Vicomtesse D’Argenton, and that she would have all the consideration and prestige of a married woman. This new rôle amused and interested her. She corrected Jack, turned the pages of her prayer-book, and shook out her rustling silk skirts in the most edifying fashion.
When it was time for the offertory, the tall Swiss, armed with a halberd, came for Jack, and bending low whispered in his mother’s ear a question as to what little girl should be chosen to assist him; Charlotte hesitated, for “she knew so few persons in the church. Then the Swiss suggested Dr. Rivals’ grandchild—a little girl on the opposite side sitting next an old lady in black. The two children walked slowly behind the majestic official, Cécile carrying a velvet bag much too large for her little fingers, and Jack bearing an enormous wax candle ornamented with floating ribbons and artificial flowers. They were both charming: he in his Scotch costume, and she simply dressed, with waves of soft brown hair parted on her childish brow, and her face illuminated by large gray eyes. The breath of fresh flowers mingled with the fumes of incense that hung in clouds throughout the church. Cécile presented her bag with a gentle, imploring smile. Jack was very grave. The little fluttering hand in its thread glove, which he held in his own, reminded him of a bird that he had once taken from its nest in the forest. Did he dream that the little girl would be his best friend, and that, later, all that was most precious in life for him would come from her?
“They would make a pretty pair,” said an old woman, as the children passed her, and in a lower voice added, “Poor little soul, I hope she will be more fortunate than her mother!”
Their duties over, Jack returned to his place, still under the influence of the hand he had so lightly held. But additional pleasure was in store for him. As they left the church, Madame Rivals approached Madame D’Argenton and asked permission to take Jack home with her to breakfast. Charlotte colored high with gratification, straightened the boy’s necktie, and, kissing him, whispered, “Be a good child!”
From this day forth, when Jack was not at home he was at the old doctor’s, who lived in a house in no degree better than that of his neighbors, and only distinguished from them by the words Night-Bell on a brass plate above a small button at the side of the door. The walls were black with age. Here and there, however, an observant eye could see that some attempts had been made to rejuvenate the mansion; but everything of that nature had been interrupted on the day of their great sorrow, and the old people had never had the heart to go on with their improvements since; an unfinished summer-house seemed to say, with a discouraged air, “What is the use?” The garden was in a complete state of neglect. Grass grew over the walks, and weeds choked the fountain. The human beings in the house had much the same air. From Madame Rivals, who, eight years after her daughter’s death, still wore the deepest of black, down to little Cécile, whose childish face had a precocious expression of sorrow, and the old servant who for a quarter of a century had shared the griefs and sorrows of the family,—all seemed to live in an atmosphere of eternal regret. The doctor, who kept up a certain intercourse with the outer world, was the only one who was ever cheerful.
To Madame Rivals, Cécile was at once a blessing and a sorrow, for the child was a perpetual reminder of the daughter she had lost. To the doctor, on the contrary, it seemed that the little girl had taken her mother’s place, and sometimes, when he was with her alone, he would give way to a loud and merry laugh, which would be quickly silenced on meeting his wife’s sad eyes, full of astonished reproach.
Little Cécile’s life was by no means a gay one. She lived in the garden, or in a large room where a door, that was always closed, led to the apartment that had once been her mother’s, and which was full of the souvenirs of that short life. Madame Rivals alone ever entered this room, but little Cécile often stood on the threshold, awed and silent. The child had never been sent to school, and this isolation was very bad for her; she needed the association of other children. “Let us ask little D’Argenton here,” said her grandfather: “the boy is charming!”
“Yes; but who knows anything about these people? Whence do they come?” answered his wife. “Who knows them?”