One Year, or a Story of Three Homes. By F. M. P, Author of 'Tales of the South of France' [i.e. Frances Mary Peard] . With ... illustrations

Front matter

ONE YEAR; OR A STORY OF THREE HOMES Ursuh and her Favourites. P. Front. A One Year; OR, STORY OF THREE HOMES By F. M. P., AUTHOR OF 'TALES OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE ' 1 Our life has not one link to cast away. ' J. E. BROWN. WITH ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON : Frederick Warne and Co., BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN. New York: SCRIBNER, WELFORD, AND CO. 1869. So simple a story as that contained in the following pages would scarcely require the conventional Preface, were it not, perhaps, necessary to remark, in connection with a fact incidentally referred to, that Carrier's barbarous fusillade of children on the plains of Nantes, although now partially forgotten, ranks among the most atrocious of the deeds committed by the ' Mountain ' party during the excesses of the French Revolution. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. PACE Ursule .......... i Chapter II. Louis .......... 16 Chapter III. On the Quai ......... 35 Chapter IV. A Quarrel and its Result . . . . . .52 Chapter V The Claytons . . . . . . . . 71 Chapter VI. Every-day Dust . 89 Chapter VII. A new Friendship . . . . . . . .106 Chapter VIII. The Accident . .126 Chapter IX. Rest 147 Chapter X. 'Adieu, done, belle France' CONTENTS. Chapter XI. page Madam Blunt's Will 186 Chapter XII. Ursule's Welcome 203 Chapter XIII. The Rectory and its World 221 Chapter XIV. Shut Out 240 Chapter XV. The TJiree Sisters . . . . . . . .261 Chapter XVI. The Spring-tide . . . . . . . .276 Chapter XVII. Bella .......... 295 Chapter XVIII. More Questions than One . . . . . 316 Chapter XIX. Breaking the Lee . . . . . . . -335 Chapter XX. The Dinner-party . . . . . . . -355 Chapter XXI.

Proved .......... 374 Chapter XXII. Cross Purposes . . . . . . . .391 Chapter XXIII. The Wind and the Sun. . . . . . .410 Chapter XXIV. What Joyce said ........ 424 Chapter XXV. Under the Cedars ........

Chapter I. Ursule

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laughed _ A rosebud set with little wilful thorns. ' The Princess.- This time the name was repeated with an impatient tap upon the floor, and overhead there was a sudden rush of hasty steps, a door opened, and a young voice called down the stairs, 'In one little moment, Madame; I only wait to give Louis his soup.' ' His soup ! At this hour ? AVhat foolishness ! ' ' No foolishness at all, Madame,' cried the voice angrily; 'the poor boy is half fainting.' 'Then I am to understand you do not descend to-day, Ma demoiselle Ursule?' ' I cannot say, Madame ; it must depend upon Louis.' 'Upon Louis? By all means. Bonjour, Mademoiselle.' 'Bonjour, Madame.' This little conference took place upon the staircase of an old dilapidated sombre house in Dieppe. It stood in the midst of the street, with shops on either side, and a dark archway for an entrance ; the pavement was broken and painfully uneven, and on the north side of the archway a little door conducted you into the house.

Nothing about the place excited the imagina tion, or brought up fanciful pictures of what might once have been there ; — it was a common-place house, fallen into common place decay; the passages were narrow and dismal, the rooms bare, the glass in the windows tinged with green. And yet, by some strange freak of the architect, it possessed one magnificent feature in a wonderful old oak staircase, ascending from a little flagged court, round which the house was built, so that its sides, protected by heavy black balustrades, were open to the air. The steps were broad and shallow ; the oak panelling and mas sive rails, black with age and rubbing, were carved with all manner of quaint, almost uncouth devices; and each flight ended with a little landing from whence, over the railing, you might look up or down as the fancy seized you.

Up, if you loved to follow the grotesque windings of the black staircase, on which the sunlights became golden, the shadows almost terrible in their gloom, — the solid balustrade at the top, the slightly overhanging roof, and then, with all its exquisite colouring condensed and deepened by this preparation, a few square yards of sky, of a blue too tender to dazzle, too intense to weary, too heavenly for anything on earth to be compared to it. Very often there were pigeons flying about the opening; sometimes they would perch upon the edge of the roof, and URSULE. 3 Ursule, standing upon her landing — the highest — would coax them out of their stately graces to come and pick up the crumbs she scattered for them. There was a pretty picture to look at then. The young girl leaning over the carved black railings, half in shadow, half in light, her slender throat curved back, her smiling face raised to watch the birds fluttering round the open ing ; over all, the unfathomable depth of sunlit blue.

A few more shy advances, and with a soft rustle of wings the first grey pigeon flies down upon the balustrade, another lights on the girl's shoulder, a third follows, and, babbling and cooing to each other, Ursule and her favourites flit in and out among the deep shadows overhead. This, if you were fortunate, was what you might not unfre quently see, ifyou stood upon the landing of Madame d'Aurigny's floor and looked upwards for a little while. But, for those who cared to keep their eyes and their thoughts in the world below, there was another point of view in the contemplation of which they would probably be joined by Madame d'Aurigny herself. For while Ursule loved to gaze up at the sky, and the flickering lights, and her pearl-coloured pigeons, Madame d'Aurigny, when she stopped on her landing to take breath after the ascent, as instinctively cast down her eyes towards the glazed corner of the little room beneath, which served Sanson and his wife, the master and mistress of the house, for kitchen, salon, and bed chamber in one : whence arose — Monsieur being in his way a gourmand— savoury whiffs of seasoned compounds which caused poor Madame d'Aurigny to close her eyes, shake her head, and inveigh somewhat bitterly to Ursule against those greedy lovers of self who care for nothing higher than the miserable pleasures of the table. ' Never be like such,' she would say with half-pathetic eager- 1 — ness, ' never so degrade yourself.

Imitate me, who have always resisted selfish indulgences, always sacrificed the flesh. And yet I have had my temptations in those bygone days. AVhat pfots /—what fricandeaux ! You, with your eternal soups and vegetables, and only an occasional chocolate bon-bon for consolation, know absolutely nothing of what a fricandeau may be. But it is vanity ; it must all be renounced, child.' Upon which Ursule, who had no fricandeaux to renounce, would look at Madame and wonder vaguely whether by sacri ficing the flesh it must grow so wrinkled and colourless as the wizened face before her. Threescore years and upwards set their mark more unmistakably upon a French than an English woman, to which must be added that Madame d'Aurigny had not only known many sorrows and some reverse of fortune, but had lived alone with her sad memories until she unconsciously multiplied them, and actually revelled in troubles which she had never experienced.

She had her fits of vivacity, and her fits of Jepression. In the former she employed herself by going out to visit the little circle of acquaintances with whom she still kept up a ceremonious intercourse, or by bargaining in the market : in the latter she sat drearily at home, bewailed herself to Ursule, and inveighed with particular fervour against the odour of Monsieur Sanson's little stews. Madame was tall, gaunt, untidy-looking. Her white frizzly hair was arranged round her face in tiers of short horizontal curls. AVhen she spoke, her eyes still sparkled keenly, but her eyebrows listed her forehead into long ridged lines. She had lived in the old house fifteen years ; Ursule, her father and her brother, nine — more than half the girl's lifetime, for she was only seventeen, and they came to the Sansons' a short time before her mother died.

Madame was au premier ; the Lafons, au second. Madame, al- URSULE. 5 though, as she would tell you, by many heartrending circum stances reduced to poverty, had never dropped the aristocratic de which preceded her name and lifted her above the level of ordinary mortals. Jean Lafon, although calling himself artist, cared little in what level he found himself. Madame could not possibly know the family. Madame never once in all those long years had ascended au second. Madame shut her eyes to the fact that there were other lodgers in the house. But when a little brown sprite came dancing down the stairs at all manner of unexpected times, and, with the undaunted confidence of childhood, wished Madame a smiling 'Bonjour? it was impossible to ignore her existence or to avoid making friends. Ursule was soon free of the first floor ; and since that period Madame had alternately petted, scolded, entreated, quarrelled with, and in vain attempted to tyrannize over her.

The girl was loving and compassionate, but of too wilful a spirit to succumb to her dominion, and utterly and immeasurably scornful over the su periority conferred by a de. It was not therefore to be wondered at that quarrels between the oddly assorted pair were frequent, and that Ursule was in the habit of keeping angrily away from Madame's room, to the extreme discomfort of the latter, until, scolded into propriety by Louis, or smitten with sudden com punction at the idea of the desolation below, she would fly down the staircase into the cold bare room, always carefully designated by Madame d'Aurigny the salon, sure of the same scene meeting her eyes — the red brick floor partially hidden by little strips of carpet — the bed in its cupboard-like recess, curtained off from view — the great gilt clock, with fat Cupids supporting it, ticking monotonously on the chimney-piece — two pieces of modern French china on either side — and Madame, with a rigid and melancholy face, sitting sadly at the window, seeking distraction by watching the hairdresser's shop opposite, and the little crowd continually passing out and in.

On the evening of the day when the short conversation al ready related took place, Ursule found it thus. She received no greeting or notice of any kind, not so much as a look ; but she knew Madame too well to expect it, nor, to tell the truth, was her penitence deep. She only shrugged her shoul ders impatiently, began to hum a merry country chanson, and, snatching a brush from its hiding-place, energetically attacked the corners of the room, and presently raised a dust which was certainly set flying rather more extensively than was necessary. Madame was quite conscious of her enemy's tactics, and struggled hard to preserve her dignity. It was in vain. Fairly driven to desperation by the cloud that enveloped her, she rose up, and angrily shaking her skirts, exclaimed, ' Have done, then, with folly, Ursule ! this is not a time to disturb me thus !

In the morning, when I was absent, it would have been a suitable attention; but I desire that I may at least be permitted to pass my evenings in peace.' ' Ah, pardon!' answered Ursule, pausing in her labour, and looking a pretty roguish picture, as she daintily turned back her cuffs, and stole a glance at Madame with sparkling eyes. ' I am grieved to disarrange Madame, but she sees the state of the room ; it is really a disgrace ' ' It should have been done this morning.' ' This morning ? ah, yes ! But I had so much to occupy me this morning; Madame Paul sent for me, and Louis — poor Louis ! — has been so suffering.' The mischievous expression faded out of her eyes, her voice became unconsciously sorrowful, her figure drooped : Madame grew interested in the change. URSULE. 7 ' I know the reason,' said she, decidedly. ' Yesterday he sat too long in the balcony.

The sun was scorching, and I heard your voices there for hours.' ' It may have been so,' Ursule said wearily, letting the brush drop, the dust subside into fresh lodgments, and seating herself upon the low window-sill in her favourite attitude, her hands clasped round one knee. ' But sometimes I think tliere always is something ; and it is so little, so little that does it.' Madame was too sensible of the relief of having her young opponent at her feet, dejected, softened, requiring only sympathy to be completely subdued, to dare to push her advantage far ; but she could not refrain from one slap. 'The young persons of this day have no prudence. They adopt their own ways, their own plans. They reject their elders' •counsel.' ci am sure we reject no one's counsel,' said Ursule, still sad; "'on the contrary, it seems to me that we follow everybody's by aim.

But vesterday Louis was so restless and uneasy in the room '-' . at least it gave him a change to have the air in the balcony, and I remembered that you had warned me last week that the evening air was evil. What can one do ? If one has not the sun, one must have the dew; if one has not the dew, one mus: have the sun ! There is always something. And he seemed better; he had quite an appetite for the little cake good Madame Sanson brought up to him.' ' Oh ! ' said Madame sententiously, ' I am satisfied. That explains all. If you will allow the Sansons to overwhelm him with theicoarse cookery, no wonder that the poor boy is suf fering.' Madane pulled some knitting out of a capacious pocket, and applied lerself to its intricacies with an air of having satisfactorily disposed of the subject. Ursule bioke into a merry laugh, her buoyant spirit in a moment shaking off the depression which had clouded it. ' Their coarse cookery is very fine to us; we have had no experience to make us dainty in our tastes.

You shake your head : ah, well, what would you have ? One must taste to know. Besides which, to me Madame's dishes are delicious ; only I cannot bear so much as to touch them when it is so good for Louis to have a change. But I must return to him directly,' she exclaimed, springing up from her low seat ; ' and after all the room is not finished, Madame. AVould you rather I waited until to-morrow? Really, the dust is as thick as all that,' raising one hand above the other to show an appalling depth. ' Bah, bah ! ' returned the old lady, with impatience ; ' what has done will do ; the dust makes no mischief, if only you will let it alone. However, if you must, to-morrow — yes, to-morrow, when I go to market. That old cochon, Michael, sold me eggs yesterday that were not fresh. To-morrow, child, dust every thing, and make it tidy.

Thursday is the Fete Dieu, and Madame Grignon and Madame Larousse come to me to see the spectacle from my salon. Ciel, what a fete it will be ! All the newly confirmed in their fresh white toilettes — soldiers, music, everything that can inspire us. Ah, you poor Protes tants, what a dull religion they give you, who are called your priests ! AVe shall sit on the balcony, and Madame Grignon, who is connected distantly with Monsieur l'Abbe' d'O., assures me on the best authority that one of the stations will be exactly in front of this house, so that all the procession will be stopped, and we shall see it to perfection. It is not every one, after all, who has the advantage of living au premier; thepositicn assists one to endure much— even the smell of Sanson's bad cookin °- URSULE. 9 Of what are you thinking, Ursule ? ' Madame d'Aurigny added, patting her hand with unusual graciousness. ' Some day, who knows ? you too may live au premier! ' It was not of that I was thinking,' Ursule answered ab stractedly, ' but of the fete.

For the other, I do not wish it ; I like the second best. It is nearer the sky.' ' Nearer the sky ! Is it possible ! — do I dream ! Do you talk of the sky, which is so common that everybody can see it ! And this, after all the care, the pains, I have taken to form, to give ideas. I can do no more — I yield — I wash my hands of you.' ' But you cannot dust your room without me,' interrupted Ursule, merrily. ' Bon soir, Madame ; I undertake that everything shall be as you like it for your friends, and I will bring down the great oak chair which stands in our room, so that you shall receive them like a princess.' ' Ah ! ' said Madame d'Aurigny, mollified ; ' stay, Ursule ' But the girl was already gone. She ran gladly up the stairs — she was always glad when going back to Louis — and at the door she stopped, smiling.

To ordinary eyes there was not much to smile over in the room itself; while not so formal in arrangement, it was even more shabbily furnished than Madame's down below ; only the most necessary articles remained in it, and these — with the exception of one very handsome high-backed oak chair, which seemed to belong to the same date as the staircase — were of the roughest, plainest description. A curtain portioned off the little recess where Ursule slept, it is true ; but, long ago, the last vestige of colour had been washed out of the flowered chintz which com posed it. The glass in the windows was so green and uneven, that nothing looked natural which was viewed through its medium ; and as to the floor, there was no attempt at cover ing the red bricks except at one spot, where reposed a tiny square of faded carpet.

Yet the room was far prettier and more interesting than Madame's salon, and contained certain points on which the eye rested with pleasure. Leaning against the wall were a few pictures, one or two mere sketches daubed in with bright dashes of colour, but all in theh way significant and powerful. One there was in particular which arrested the fancy, a long low painting of a sea view, wild and gloomy, as if it repre sented the gradual rising ofa storm. There was no land, no ship, no human interest, and yet the picture was a poem. Piles of heavy clouds gathered ominously together ; fierce sunset lights broke luridly out from the increasing darkness ; the sea, answering to the movements overhead, was lashing itself into fury. But perhaps the chief strength of the painting lay in the feeling it conveyed of repression, as if, through all the visible stir, there was a holding back of worse things : the sun set lights had not yet died out, hope was not over ; how would it end?

Had Jean Lafon unconsciously pictured his own life? AVho knows ? A heap of large waxy yellow and red bigarreau cherries wer<! temptingly arranged in a green leaf upon the table which was drawn near a little low couch — Louis' resting-place. It was there that Ursule's eyes dwelt with a look of infinite tender ness. She thought her brother was asleep, for he lay quite still, this boy of sixteen, who, born a cripple, had passed through childhood without tasting the joyousness of a child's existence, and now was lengthening out — not growing up — to manhood, the same helpless burden as ever. His eyes were closed, his face turned towards the door ; one hand was under his cheek. URSULE. 11 Though the hazel eyes were hidden, you could see that the face was beautiful, the nose short and straight, the lips rather full, the chin round.

Brown hair lifted itself a little from the forehead, and the long curved eyelashes were darker than the hah. Only the colouring and roundness of health was want ing, and even now the usual suffering look was veiled by a half smile flickering tremulously round the mouth. The next instant it broke out unrestrainedly, his eyes opened, and Ursule darted to his side. She knelt down, and laid her cheek against his. ' Thou hast had a good sleep, my Louis ; I am so glad !' ' Not a sleep, but a day-dream. I have been a hundred leagues away.' ' And left me behind ? ' Ursule said, with a little quick re proachful gesture. She could not endure that he should separate himself from her even in his dreams. ' We shall see. At all events, I have come back now, and I want to hear how you and Madame got on. Have you been good?

Is she still angry with my poor soup ?' ' No — yes — no ; that is to say, she was angry, but I brought her round in a cloud of dust, and then it was all nearly un done again because I said I liked to look at the sky. How ever, do not be troubled ; she is not really vexed. I have promised to lend her the big chair. Oh, Louis ! ' Ursule jumped up and clapped her hands delightedly, ' I have some thing to tell.' 'Ah? And I too.' ' Thou ? Has Madame Sanson been up ?' 'No.' ' Not Monsieur, I know : Monsieur is too fat. Pierre Renait?' ' Not a creature.' Ursule pondered. ' Tiens, I have it ! ' she exclaimed, presently ; ' a letter has come from our father.' 'When he left us but yesterday, and I told you no one had been up ! Do letters come of themselves, little wise head?' Ursule pretended to pout. ' I don't like secrets,' said she. ' Eh bien ! find it out.

Guess again. No ? There, I give you warning I shall make my own bargain ; you shall tell me your news, and perhaps I will tell you mine.' His sister pinched his arm, and called him a usurer. 'I have a more generous spirit, and care not for conditions. The day after to-morrow is the great June fete; the principal stations will be in this street, and you will see everything to perfection. There ! Last year — do you remember ? — you were ill, and it was all lost on us.' ' So the big chair is for Madame ? ' ' Yes ; she has friends who will sit solemnly in the balcony and behold everything.' ' Has she invited you ? ' ' How, I ! To meet her friends ! She called me a little Protestant. To tell you the truth, Louis,' said the girl, drawing up her head proudly, ' I care not greatly for being a Pro testant except when they mock me for it, and then — I would not be anything else for the world.' 'Madame has Protestant relations of her own?' said Louis, letting Ursule's doctrinal opinions pass for once without com ment ; ' you have often told me so.' ' Yes, there is her sister, and her sister's English son, Mon sieur Clement Blunt.

She talks of them so much ; she hopes, I URSULE. 13 think, continually, that they will come and see her. Poor Madame ! she says no good thing that ever she hopes for comes. That is terrible, Louis, is it not? Now, to me, it seems that so many good things come just when one wants them most, and does not expect to have them — when matters are at their worst, sometimes; and my father has been tiresome and horrid for ever so long — you need not shake your head, Louis, I must say it to somebody — then, all of a sudden, he takes a turn and works at a picture, sells it, gives me some of the money, and we can go on again. And when you are ill, and I am fretting because I have nothing nice to give you, up comes dear old Madame Sanson with her good-natured face, and just the very thing I want pops out from under her apron.

Oh, it is wonderful ! One has so many nice surprises in the world ! ' Her brightness infected Louis ; his eyes sparkled. ' Have you forgotten that it is I who am to give you a sur prise this time?' said he, blithely. ' No, no, I have not forgotten that your secret is coming ; I am wondering and wondering to myself while I talk. But it is to be very charming, remember. It is to be the best of all, because it comes from you.' Louis smiled gravely, and a little nervously. He put his hand under his pillow, and slowly drew out something which he placed in Ursule's hand. She looked at it in an ecstasy of wonder and delight. It was a little picture, delicately painted in water-colours, of a young girl caressing her pigeons. One she clasped, and smoothed the soft feathers, while her head was turned towards another, which had just fluttered on her shoulder.

It was not difficult to see who had been Louis' model. Shall I describe Ursule ? It is time to do so ; and yet hers was just one of those faces which it is almost impossible to realise by description, for the interest lay entirely in expression. She was not even pretty, yet she looked so as she stood with the flush of delighted pride upon her face, her lips slightly parted, her grey eyes sparkling and tender; her whole countenance lit with sweet unselfish sympathy. It was pleasant to see the deep love evidently existing between the young brother and sister: she so entirely wrapped in him that no consciousness of who was represented in the little painting crossed her mind, only wonder at Louis' surprising genius ; and he showing his affection in the care with which he had fashioned every fold of her simple dark dress, the wave in her hair, the ribbon bound round her head, the graceful poise of her slender figure, the little prettinesses which no stranger would have recognized.

Ursule's voice trembled almost into a sob as she laid her hands upon his shoulders, and looked full into his eyes : ' Oh, Louis, is it your doing ? Your very, very own ? ' For answer he drew down her head and kissed her, and the two whispered gleefully to one another like a pah of little children. ' How clever ! How beautiful ! ' ' Do you really like it?' ' Like it ! Why, Louis, who could have done it better ? ' ' Ah, you see, who knows? I may do something yet.' ' Has Pierre seen it ? ' ' No, no ! ' 'What will he say?' And Ursule drew herself back once more to look at it, and said, after a long scrutiny, quite naively, ' She has such a pretty face !' whereupon Louis broke into a peal of laughter so joyous URSULE. 15 and hearty, and unlike his usual quiet amusement, that good Madame Sanson downstairs stopped in her work, smiled for sympathy, and said to her husband, ' Listen, Jules, mon ami, that is all your little cake.' Monsieur Sanson sighed. ' It was delicate,' he said, ' the flavour was ravishing, and — it was the last.1

Chapter II. Louis

And I know full well, though I cannot see, How the calmness falls over meadow and tree ; And the carven pinnacles, clear and high, How still they stand in the quiet sky. Der Tod als Freund, p_JHll,"_^jEAN LAFON was an artist ; that is to say. when fe^l W>% ne was a 'le displayed a talent for painting. feg EtE which, unfortunately, was sufficiently marked to prove an excuse for idleness. His mother loved him very dearly, and it is easy to build visionary castles for those we love. He used to talk grandly of the things he would do some day, and of it being not worth while to attend to little things meanwhile. Madame Lafon was ready to believe that she had in her son a great painter, who could leap, whenever he liked, to the highest point of fame. So also thought Marie Laget when she married him.

When she died — eight years afterwards — she was content to pray passionately that her children might be kept from starvation. Dreams of fame fade quickly if want stands gaunt and grim before the door, and Marie grew bitter when she lost trust in her husband. Had he LOULS. 17 honestly tried and failed, she would have comforted, and loved, and believed in him the more; but when success was in his power — when he used it sufficiently to gratify his own wants, his wishes, his pleasures, leaving her and the children to struggle on as they might — when selfishness was the only motive that stung him to exertion, Marie's love drifted away from him and centered in the children. For them she toiled day and night, caring nothing for her own suffering and failing health; and just when it seemed as if they could least do without her, she died — died, raising herself upon her elbow to give Louis one long, last, yearning kiss.