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قراءة كتاب The Little Old Portrait Later: Edmee, A Tale of the French Revolution
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The Little Old Portrait Later: Edmee, A Tale of the French Revolution
class="narrative">”‘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 on purpose to—can Edmée guess what he has come for?’
“Edmée looked up in the stranger’s face with a half-puzzled, half-roguish expression, very pretty to see.
”‘All!’ exclaimed the young man, hastily; ‘excuse me, Madame—if the young lady could but be taken as she is now, it would be admirable.’
”‘All in disorder!’ exclaimed the countess, laughing. ‘Why I was just going to send her to have her hair brushed, and to have a clean white, frock put on; she is all tossed and tumbled.’
”‘All the better—nothing could be better,’ said the artist, for such he was, and the Count agreed with him. But it was not so easily done as said. Edmée could not at all see why she was to sit still on a stiff-backed chair when she so much preferred running about, and though she had jerked one dimpled shoulder out of the strap of her frock, she had by no means intended to keep it there, as the stranger insisted. Furthermore, she objected to looking up at him as he desired, and was on the point of telling him that he was not pretty enough to look at so much, when happily another idea struck her.
”‘Let Pierrot come in,’ she said; ‘Pierrot can come and tell me a story, and then I’ll sit still. Edmée always sits still when Pierrot tells her stories.’
”‘But how are we to get hold of him?’ said the Count, whose patience was rather tried by her fidgetiness. ‘There is not time to send to the village, the light will be failing’—for it was already advanced in the afternoon—‘and Mr Denis is so anxious to make the first sketch to-day.’
”‘Pierrot is not in the village; he is here at the door. Send for him and tell him to come in, and then Edmée will be so good—oh so good, and will sit so still!’
“The Countess rang a little bell which stood on a side table; an old man servant soon came to see what was wanted.