15 Snowball’s Hero

HIGH noon. A sunny, breezy, July day–hop vines and scarlet runners fluttering outside the muslin curtains of the open window, a sweet, salt, strong sea-wind coming in, and it is his own iron bed in which he lies, his own attic room in which he rests–it is Isle Perdrix–it is home–it is Weesy whose shrill tones he hears down-stairs, and it is–it is his father, whose face bends above him, as he awakes.

”Papa!” he cries out.

Two thin arms uplift, a great sob chokes him, then there is a long, long, long silence.

“My boy! my boy! my Johnny!” Dr. Macdonald says, and then there is silence again.

But Johnny recovers, and his first distinct thought is–that he is awfully hungry! His hollow, but always beautiful eyes, look at his father, then, around the room.

“Papa.”

“My son.”

“I want something to eat.”

Dr. Macdonald laughs, but a trifle huskily. Instantly a china bowl and a silver spoon are in Johnny’s hands.

“What is this, papa?”

“Weesy’s very best, very strongest broth. Eat and fear not. A chicken is preparing, Johnny–such a fine, fat fellow–all for you! You shall have a breast and a liver wing in an hour. And a glass of such old port as, you never tasted!”

Johnny rolls his eyes up in one rapturous glance, but pauses not for idle speech. There is no time. All at once he pauses.

“Oh-h! papa–Rene!”

“Is doing well, thanks to the good God and the untiring care of my good Paul Farrar. I have but this moment left his bedside. I am now going back. You can spare me, my dear?”

“Oh, yes, papa,” briskly re-attacking the bowl, “I can spare you.”

Silence again for a space–the bowl very near the bottom by this time, and Dr. Macdonald, smiling down on his son. Johnny looks up.

“And Snowball, papa?”

“Very well–very well, I am happy to say. My sweet little Snowball! Johnny! Johnny! how can we ever be thankful enough?”

No response from Johnny–the spoon and the bottom of the bowl clinking by this time.

“Rene will not be ill?”

“We do not know–we hope not. He speaks little he is too far spent, but he takes what we give him, and sleeps a great deal. In that, and in his youth, we hope. If Heaven had not sent Paul Farrar, and my very good friend, M. Desereaux, last night, Rene would never have seen morning.”

Dr. Macdonald’s voice breaks–he turns and walks to the window. He is a tall, stooping, gentle-looking old man, with silvery hair, and beard, and face, and eyes soft, gray, and wistful, exactly like Johnny’s.

“Rene is a brick, papa,” cries Johnny, warmly; “an out-and-out trump! You would not think he had it in him. He starved himself to look after Snowball; he told us stories, he read to us while he could speak. Papa; may I get up?”

“If you feel able, my son; but I would advise—-”

“Oh! I feel all right–a giant refreshed. I can’t lie here, you know, like a mollycoddle, and have Ma’am Weesy coming in and—-” “Kissing me every minute,” is his disgusted thought, but he restrains it, “Please, may I get up, papa, and go down? I’ll be as careful of myself as if I were eggs.”

His father smiles.

“Very well, my lad; dress and go down. Take your time about it, Johnny. M. Paul will come to you and amuse you.”

“Papa, may I–I should like to see Snowball?”

“Presently, laddie, presently; let her sleep. She will be down, I think, before night.”

“And Rene–”

“Ah! Rene–who knows? he will not be down. You may see him to-morrow. We shall have to take great care of Rene. I am going to him now.”

Dr. Macdonald goes, and Johnny, very gingerly, and with many pauses, and a surprising sense of weakness, proceeds to dress himself and travel down-stairs.

It is rather more like a ghost of Johnny, than that brisk young gentleman himself, this wan lad, with the hollow eyes and pallid face.

Weesy shrieks with delight at sight of him, and makes a rush to clasp him precipitately to her breast, but Johnny jumps behind a table, with unexpected rapidity and alarm.

“No, you don’t!” he says; “keep off! I’ve had enough of that. First, some brute with whiskers, last night, and then you, and now again–but you sha’n’t if I die for it. Let a fellow alone, can’t you, Weesy?”

And Weesy laughs, and cries, and yields. The misfortunes of her children have covered, for the time, their multitude of sins.

Johnny sits by the breezy window, and looks out over the little rocky garden, the rough path beyond, the beach below, the sea spreading away into the sky, and sighs a sigh of infinite content.

One might fancy he had had enough of the sea, but not so. John Macdonald will never have enough of the bright, watery world he loves. If only the Boule-de-neige–but he must not think of her–there may be other batteaux in time.

He is at home–they are all safe; that is enough for one day. And presently comes Ma’am Weesy, with the chicken, and wine, and a book of sea-stories, and Johnny slowly munches, and reads, and time passes, and at last—–

He starts up with a weak shout, for there is M. Paul supporting Snowball, looking pallid and pathetic, but otherwise not so much the worse for her week on the barren furze of Chapeau Dieu. Her blue eyes look like azure moons, in her white small face.

“Oh. Johnny!” she solemnly says.

It is an adjuration with which Johnny is tolerably familiar, emotion of any sort evoking it some sixty times, on an average, per day. He laughs in response, and looks shyly at her escort.

“Johnny, dear old chap,” that gentleman says, and gives his hand a cordial grasp, “don’t stop. Peg away at the chicken, and give some to Snowball. It does me good to see you.”

“How does Rene get on, sir?”

“Ah, not so well; Rene is hot and feverish, and a trifle light-headed. Fancy his giving in, while this little, yellow-haired lassie holds out so well.”

“It was my fault,” says Snowball, in penitent tears. “I know now he starved himself for me. And he made me mind him. I didn’t want to–now, did I, Johnny?”

“Rene is a young gentleman who will always make people mind him. There is nothing to cry for, Petite–he is not going to die, not a bit of it. Eat your chicken and dry your eyes–he may have rather a hard bout of it for a week or so, but he will come round like the hero he is.”

1. Paul Farrar proves a true prophet, only the “bout” is rather harder than even he anticipates. Rene is quite delirious at times, and talks wildly of Chapeau Dieu, and the storm, and the bower, and the berries, and gathers more in his heated imagination of that luscious fruit than he ever did in reality, and sings scraps of the evening hymn, and quotes Shakespeare, and conducts himself altogether in a noisy and objectionable manner. But at no time is there much real danger, and he is so faithfully nursed, so devotedly attended, that he must perforce turn the sharp corner of the fever, and come around, all cool and clear-headed, but deplorably weak and helpless, at the end of seven or eight days.

“And you and Johnny look as well as if it had never happened,” he says languidly, with a resentful sense of injury upon him. “What a muff I must be!”

They do, indeed, look as well, as bright, as fresh, as plump, as though these six days on the desolate mountain side were but a dream. Johnny by this time is decidedly proud of his performance, though a trifle bored, too, by the questions with which he is plied whenever he appears at St. Gildas. The Boule-de-neige is safe at her moorings, none the worse for her playful little escapade; Rene is all right, M. Paul is here, and Johnny is happy.

All these feverish and flighty days Snowball has devoted herself to the patient with a meekness, a docility, a sweetness almost alarming in its self-abnegation.

She reads to him, sings to him, brings him his beef–teas, and chicken broths, and toast, and water, and other nastiness, as Rene calls it, and watches him eat and drink, and recover, with the devotedness of a mother! Rene submits to be petted, and cuddled, and made much of for a few days–she keeps Weesy out, and that is a great point–accepts her society, listens with languid graciousness to her gossip, lets her read him to sleep, lets her fan off the flies, and adorn his chamber with flowers, and then–all in a moment–turns round, and flatly declares he will have no more of it! Strength and his normal state are returning, and this phase of super-natural goodness and calm comes as might be expected; to a sudden and violent end. He isn’t a baby–he won’t swallow gruel and disgusting beef-tea; he won’t be tucked in o’nights and have Snowball popping in and out of his room like a Jack-in-a-box whenever she pleases! Let her go with Johnny, as she used to, she would rather, he knows–she needn’t victimize herself because he picked a few raspberries for her there on the mountain! And she isn’t much of a companion, anyway–he would far and away rather talk to M. Paul! Which is ungrateful, to say the least, after the superhuman efforts she has been making to amuse him during the past seven days. And Snowball, deeply hurt, but relieved all the same, does give it up, does resume the society of Johnny, and is prepared, the instant Rene is strong enough for battle, to resume war to the knife as of yore.

1. Paul is a prime favorite in the household. Dr. Macdonald beams in his presence–he is the idol of Ma’am Weesy’s heart; the boys look upon him with eyes of envy and admiration–a man who has been everywhere, and seen every thing, and place, and people.

Snowball falls in love with him, of course–that goes without saying–and is never out of his presence a moment, when she can be in it. Even old Tim succumbs to the spell of the charmer, yields to the fascination of M. Paul’s glance, and laugh, and voice, and old Tim’s battered heart is not over susceptible. He has never, within mortal ken, been known to invite a man into his domicile to partake of a dhrop of dhrink before.

They sit together, one sleepy August afternoon, M. Paul and Snowball, down on the sands, he reclining his long length upon the rank reeds, and warm waving sea side grasses, his straw hat pulled half over his eyes. A golden haze rests on the bay, sails come and go through it as through a glory–fishing-boats take on a nimbus around their brown rails. There is the faintest breeze–little wavelets lap upon the white sand, the beautiful sea looks as though it could never be cruel.

By chance they are alone. Johnny has just left them. Old Tim is crooning to himself up in the light-house near, as he polishes his lamps. It is full three weeks since the rescue. Rene is himself again, and happy among his beloved books. Snowball sits on a rocky seat, her sailor hat well on the back of her head as usual, her face frankly and fearlessly exposed to sea-side sun and wind. Vanity is not one of this young person’s many failings; freckles and blisters, and sunburn are matters of profoundest unconcern, at this period of her career. He has been telling her of some of his travels and adventures in far-off lands, thrilling enough and narrow enough some of them. No romance ever written, it seems to this small girl, as she listens, could be half so wonderful, no hero half so heroic.

But gradually silence has fallen, and M. Paul, from under his wide straw hat, looks with dark, dreaming eyes out over that yellow light on the sea.

Snowball steaIs a glance at him. Of what is he thinking, she wonders. How very handsome he is! How brown, how strong, how big, how manly! Of what, of whom is he thinking, as he lies here, with that grave, steady glance? And what is he to her–he who brought her here, all those years ago? Why, in all this romance of wandering and strange adventures, has there never been a heroine? Or has there been one, and he will not tell the story to a little girl of twelve? There is some thing she longs to ask him–has often longed of late, but she is shy with him; somehow, in spite of his gentleness, he is formidable in her eyes. She makes one or two efforts–now is the time or never!–stops, blushes, and tries again.

“M. Paul!”

“Petite?”

He wakes from his dream with a start, and then smiles slowly to see the rosy tide mounting to her eyebrows.

“I–I want. to ask you something. You will not mind?”

“Mind?” still smiling amusedly. “How? I don’t understand.”

“You will not be–mad ?”

“Mad?” he laughs. “Offended with you, Petite? No; that could not be.”

“M. Paul “–a pause. “You–you brought me here.”

“Nine–more than nine, years ago. Ma foi!  how time flies! Yes.”

Another pause. Snowball pulls up the rank, flame-colored sedge-flowers waving in the wind, and finds going on hard work. The dark, amused eyes smile up at her, and intimidate her.

“I wish–I wish you would tell me something about myself. I don’t know anything. I think sometimes it is not fair to me. I think a great deal, M. Paul, about it, and it makes me unhappy.”

Her voice falters; she stops.

“Unhappy, Snowball? Ah! I am sorry for that.”

“I am not like other girls–I feel it–they know it. They ask me questions over there at school that I can’t answer. They whisper about it, and tell all the new girls–that I have no father or mother, or home of my own, or relations at all. And I think it is too bad. Every one is kind enough, but still it is hard. And I want to know who I am, M. Paul, please.”

Silence.

The steady glance of M. Paul, out of which all amusement has died, turns from her and goes back once more to that amber glory of sea and sky. The grave, bronzed face looks as it looked before she spoke at all, thoughtful, and a little sad.

She has asked a harder question, it may be, than she knows. He is silent so long that she breaks out again herself:

“Dr. Macdonald can tell me nothing–he would, if he could. Everybody is good to me, but–oh, M. Paul, tell me–tell me if you can!”

“Snowball, my dear little one, what shall I tell you?”

“Have I a name–a father–a mother? What is the reason I am hidden away here–as if the people who pay for me were ashamed of me? What have I done? They never write, they never send or come to see me. No one seems to know or care anything about me in all the whole world!”

A sob, but Snowball checks it by a great effort. She has thought this all out, and will not distress M. Paul by crying.

“Dear child, we all love you–you know that.”

“Yes–here. You are all good. But there–who are they? Why do they cast me off and disown me? Oh, I cannot tell you all I feel, or ask questions as I ought, but won’t you tell me all the same, please? I have no one in all the world to ask but you, and you are—going–away,” another sudden break, “and–I may never see you again.”

He reaches up, and takes her hand, and holds it in his large, warm clasp. He looks surprised. Who would have dreamed of so much thought and feeling under that child-like, gay, girl nature? He looks grieved, puzzled, at a loss.

“Little one,” he says, slowly, “I hardly know how to answer. Some of your questions cannot be answered now–some–what is it you want to know most ?”

“Tell me my name. Snowball is no name. Mère Maddelena will not call me by it; she says it is no name for a Christian child.”

“It is no saint’s name, certainly,” he says, smiling. “I should fancy it would shock the good mother. She should give you another.”

“She has; but what was I called before I came here?”

“Snowball–nothing but Snowball, that I ever heard. And you looked it, such a little, white, flaxen-haired girlie! It was the name your mother called you by.”

“My mother–oh!” with a quick breath. “M. Paul, tell me of my mother.”

He knits his brows abruptly, drops her hand, and stares straight before him, very hard, into space.

“Your mother?” a cold inflection of which he is quite unconscious, in his voice, “what is there to tell? When I saw her, just before I brought you here, she was on her death-bed. She met with an accident,” very slowly; “she did not speak to me or any one. You and she were alone.”

An older inquisitor than little Mlle. Snowball would have seen, it may be, something suspicious–a great deal held back, in this slow and careful selection of words. But Snowball takes the statement at the face of it.

“Then it was not my mother who asked you to take care of me?”

“It was not.”

“M. Paul–what was she like?”

“Like you–very like yon in all but expression. Eyes, hair, features, smile–almost the very same.”

A pause. Snowball sits with fast-locked hands, an intense look upon her small pale face. M. Paul lies back in his former recumbent attitude, his hat again shading his eyes, and makes his responses in a rather reluctant sounding voice.

“You do not want to tell!” she cries out, after a little, in a faint tone. “You would not make me ask so many questions if you did. But I must know more. Some one pays for me here; Dr. Macdonald gets money every six months. Who is that?”

“Her name is Madam Valentine.”

“Who is Madam Valentine? What am I to her?”

“Madam Valentine is an elderly lady, and very rich–richer, my Snowball, than you or I will ever be, our whole lives long. Her son married your mother–her only son. She is very proud as well as rich, and it was a low marriage. Do you know what a low marriage is, my little one? She cast him off–this proud lady. He was drowned, it appears, a few years after, in a storm, about the time you were born, I should think. That is the history, in brief, of Madam Valentine.”

“Then my father is dead, too–drowned. My father drowned in a storm–my mother killed by an accident! Oh! M. Paul. And my grandmother casts me off–a little thing like that! She is a cruel, cruel woman, M. Paul!”

No reply.

“Where does she live?” resentfully, “this proud, hard Madam Valentine?”

“Everywhere; nowhere in particular. She is nearly always traveling about. She is of a restless temperament, it would seem.”

“Does she wander about alone?”

“No,” smiling at the scornful tone, “she is in keeping. Her nephew–also her heir–one Mr. Vane Valentine, accompanies her. It was from him I received you.”

And then, still smiling at the angry, mystified face, he tells her, easily enough, his part. How, knowing Vane Valentine, and seeing him at a loss how to dispose of her, he had volunteered to bring her here, knowing Madam Macdonald would rejoice in her coming, and Mr. Valentine had at once closed with the offer.

“I knew you would grow up happy and healthful here, Petite, loved by all, and loving all. And I was not mistaken, was I? You are happy, in spite of this?”

“Happy?” she echoes. “Oh! yes, M. Paul, I am happy—happy as the day is long. Only sometimes–but I should never be happy with people like that–I should just hate them. I do now. I love everybody here—-”

“Except Rene?” laughing. “You give Johnny his own share and Rene’s too–eh, Petite ? Although when we found you, that night, on Chapeau Dieu, it was Rene you were holding in your arms, not Johnny.”

“Well,” Snowball admits, “I do like Johnny best–no one could help that. It is not my fault if Rene is so stiff, and contrary, and so fond of his own way—-”

“By no means,” still laughing. “I will say for you, Snowball, you do your duty by Rene, and never miss a chance of snubbing him–for his good, of course–always for his good! It is very bad, very bad indeed, for big fellows, nearly seventeen, to have their own way–and you never spoil Rene in that manner, if you can help it. Well, Petite, is this all? Shall we drop this biographical subject here, and forever? It is not one I care to talk about, for reasons of my own. You are safe and happy, you love all here, and are beloved. What more can you want ? All your life long, Mademoiselle Snowball, you will find it easy enough to win love–more than you may well know what to do with, one day. What more, I repeat, do you want?”

“Nothing more. Thank you, M. Paul, for telling me this much.”

“And you are not sorry that, nine years ago, I brought you here? Rene is coming, with a big book under his arm, to call us to supper, I fancy. Answer, before we go.”

He takes her hand again; his dark, kindly, but keen eyes search her face, her pretty, blonde, bright face–so like that other fair face laid under the turf in the distant New England town.

” Sorry! M. Paul, I owe all the happiness of my life to you! I thank you with my whole heart!”

She stoops, with a quick, childlike grace, and kisses the big, brown hand that clasps her own. This is the tableau that meets the gaze of Rene, and petrifies the gazer.

“Sacr-r-re bleu!” he exclaims. “Do these eyes deceive me? Snowball, trained in the way she should go (but doesn’t) by Mère Maddelena, making love to M. Paul, here, all unprotected and alone. I did come to call you to supper, but—-”

“But me no buts!” commands M. Paul, laughingly, springing to his legs; ” and cease these jealous and censorious remarks. Has Weesy anything particularly good, do you know, Rene?”

Any Greek or Latin roots fricassee, Rene?” impatiently puts in Snowball.

Side by side they turn their backs upon the amber glitter of sea and sky, and ascend to the cottage, and though M. Paul talks much as usual, Rene wonders what has come to loquacious Snowball, so silent, so thoughtful, so serious is she. For somehow, now that the long desired explanation is over, she feels dissatisfied still things are not much clearer than before, and M. Paul has reasons of his own for never talking of this any more. He has said so. It is not until long after that she knows, and then the knowledge is fraught with keenest pain, of these secret reasons of M. Paul Farrar.