XV
THE END OF MY HOLIDAY
MARGUERITE was appointed to show me the environs of Chivres. I put on my pretty frock, and for a week, the harvest being over, seated on my friend Roussot’s back, I roamed over the lovely valley through which runs the river Aisne. I saw the whole country between Soissons and Chivres, and around Chivres itself.
Marguerite took me to see the Dolmens, the Druid stones, of which aunt Sophie had told me the history and legends. On the evening when I returned from my visit to the Dolmens, I refused to wear my peasant clothes, and appeared at table in a white frock, with a wreath of mistletoe and laurel-leaves on my head, dressed as a Druid priestess of my Gauls.
Grandmother and my father did not write to me for fear of tiring me. Had they known that aunt Sophie was teaching me Latin and other things beyond my age, they would have grieved at having been parted from me for so long a time and for no benefit to my health, as they would have thought.
Now, I was in perfect health because I worked in the fields for hours every day; because I went to bed and got up early, and because I slept alone in a large room, where a distant window, protected by a screen, was left open all night; whereas at Chauny I slept in grandmother’s room, and she had the habit of reading in her bed, by the light of a great lamp, which she often forgot to blow out, and which many times smoked all night.
I had recovered all my strength; my recent “growing” fever had left no trace whatever, except a slight increase added to my height. I looked fully ten years old, and was exceedingly pleased at the fact.
I was almost perfectly happy. To the success of my mission this pleasure was added: that, although I had been sent to please my aunts, it was they who had pleased me.
My mind was more at work during the time I spent with my beloved relatives than at any other moment of my life, insomuch that I asked questions on every subject, and that I pondered over all the “whys and wherefores,” and all the answers given me. What a happy holiday, and what perfect rest as well!
Ah! if only grandmother and my father were living at Chivres with my aunts and great-grandmother and Marguerite, not forgetting Roussot, the cow and the calf, etc., etc., I should then be perfectly happy!
I was certainly very fond of grandfather, and my mother’s beauty, as I looked at her, effaced any trace of unjust scoldings and of the sadness I felt at seeing her so frequently pain both my father and grandmother; but I could not but think that my mother and grandfather could very well live at Chauny quite contentedly, while my four aunts, my great-grandmother, Marguerite, father, grandmother and I would be so unspeakably happy living at Chivres.
The time for departure, however, drew near. I had only a few days left. Grandfather had written (grandmother not being as yet in harmony with her sisters) that he would come for me on the following Monday, at the same place where he had given me into Marguerite’s care. This was Friday.
Neither my aunts nor myself dreamt of prolonging my stay. We felt that it might compromise the possibility of any future visits.
At my age, a year seemed a century. With their gentle philosophy and their equal tempers, my aunts told me that July and August would come quickly around again, and that now that they knew me, they could both think of and talk of me.
“You will leave us with perhaps more pain than we shall feel at losing you, Juliette,” said my teasing aunt Constance, when I was lamenting our separation, “but you will as certainly sooner forget the pleasure of our society than we shall forget the pleasure of yours.”
“You are naughty,” I answered. “You know very well it is just the other way. Have I left off thinking of my father and grandmother, and wishing they were here? I have, perhaps, talked of them too much; well, that is how I shall talk of you.”
Tears were shed at my departure, and aunt Constance was not the least sad of them all; but I was too grieved to bring it up to her notice.
Aunt Sophie had prepared some short exercises which she made me promise to go over for a quarter of an hour every day. On every Sunday I was to know seven new Latin words, without forgetting a single one of those learned before. I was to return to Chivres with two hundred and fifty Latin words in my mind, placing them as I chose, as all the first Latin words aunt Sophie had taught me were words in common use.
The day I showed my father the exercises prepared for me by my aunt, he exclaimed:
“Why! this is a bright thought! Your seven words put together have a general meaning. They form a little story, and each word is necessary in daily life.”
“Good-bye, good-bye, dear aunts!” I waved kisses to them until I was out of sight, for, a fact commented on by the whole of Chivres, my three aunts and great-grandmother were standing outside the big gate, so as to watch me as far as the end of the village.
Marguerite was crying and blowing her nose; Roussot most certainly understood the situation, for he held his head low and made a noise resembling a moan.
I tried to console Marguerite by talking fast, but did not succeed.
“There’s nothing to be done, Mamzelle Juliette, you are going away, and I can think of nothing else. The only thing that will help me to bear it until next summer, when you are coming back, is that now that the ladies have told me that the money is to be yours, I shall work harder and economise more than ever.”
I again found myself in full popularity on entering Marguerite’s village. The whole band of children was waiting for me.
Alas! I had no more sugar-plums. Why, yes, I had! my dear grandfather had brought me a large parcel of them. His joy at seeing me look so full of health quite touched Marguerite. I thanked the dear woman for all her care of me, and begged her so warmly to assure my aunts of all my gratitude, that she said:
“Perhaps, after all, you do love us as much as we love you.”
And she added, turning to my grandfather: “you will take great care of her, Monsieur?”
From Marguerite’s tone, when she said these words, you might have supposed that it was she and my aunts who were giving me to grandfather, and not he who was taking me home.
After we had eaten some luncheon at Marguerite’s home, I kissed and kissed the old servant, I kissed Roussot, who I thought moaned more sadly under my embrace, and jumped into grandfather’s carriage.
I turned around to look back as long as I could. Marguerite waved her arms, the children shouted: “Come back soon!” and Roussot went on braying.