16 Villa Des Agnes
THE summer days come, and the summer days go; twenty more are counted off, and it is the end of August, the close of the long vacation—a never-to-be-forgotten time, since M. Paul has passed it here. But with the going of this last week M. Paul goes too, and a strange blank is left in the doctor’s home, and in these three youthful hearts.
“You and I, at least, will meet again before long,” he says to Rene at parting; ” remember when the time comes to call upon me—if I live I will not fail you.”
For in the long and confidential hours of his convalescence, Rene, the reticent, has opened his whole heart to this sympathetic M. Paul, and told him of hopes, and dreams, and longings, and ambitions buried deep in his own heart up to this hour. He is a modest lad, and shy, and glances with dark, wistful eyes at the silent friend who sits beside him.
“Does it all sound very foolish and impossible to you, M. Paul?” he asks. “Sometimes it does to me. Sometimes I despair, buried here in this out-of-the-world place. And my father, you know, sir, wishes me to be a doctor. But that can never be, I am sure of it.”
“Still you might study medicine,” M. Farrar responds, thoughtfully; ” it will please your father, and a knowledge of anatomy is absolutely essential, you know, if your aspirations are ever carried out. And they will be—you have it in you, Rene, lad. Foolish and impossible! Not at all; I always knew you had a spark of the divine fire of genius somewhere behind those level black brows of yours, only I did not know the particular direction in which it was bent. Wait, all things are possible to him who knows how to wait. Please your father for the present; keep your own counsel; I will send you books, and in every possible way in which I can further your condition, it shall be my great pleasure to do it. Abroad, you see, I may have opportunities. When the time comes, you shall go to Italy, to Rome, the city of dead and living art. I am proud of your confidence. I shall not fail you, believe me.”
Rene’s deep eyes glow, he is not expansive by nature, but he grasps the friendly hand held out to him in both hands, and his eloquent face speaks for him. His whole heart overflows with gratitude. Ah! this is friendship! Indeed, the whole household, with Weesy and Tim, are in despair at this desertion. Snowball weeps her blue eyes all red and swollen, for days before, and will not be comforted.
“If I see Mr. Vane Valentine before I leave the country,” he says to her, a mischievous gleam in his eyes, “your benefactor, you know, what shall I say to him from you?”
“Say I hate him!” answers Mistress Snowball, viciously. “I always hated benefactors! I owe it to you, not to him, that I am here. I never want to see him, or her, as long as I live.”
The day comes, and Paul Farrar goes. Old Tim rows him over to St. Gildas, to take train from thence to the world without. Dr. Macdonald and Rene accompany him, in this first stage of his long journey; Johnny, and Snowball, and Weesy stand on the island beach, and wave good-by. As the boat touches the St. Gildas shore he looks back. Johnny and Weesy have gone, but Snowball still stands where they left her, a slight, fluttering figure, her bright hair blowing, gazing after through tear-dimmed eyes still.
But life goes on, though dear ones depart. September comes, cool and breezy; her convent school re-opens, and Snowball’s freedom is at an end. No more long sails in the batteau, no more dangerous excursions to Chapeau Dieu, no more long rainy days of romance reading up in her attic chamber. The dull routine of lessons recommences, grammar and history, and Noel et Chapsel and fine needle-work, take the place of gypsy outdoor life, and the seventy-five boarders of Villa des Anges are her daily companions instead of the boys. Old Tim rows her over every morning, and back every afternoon. Life, as Johnny pathetically puts it, is no longer “all beer and skittles;” even he has to throw aside his beloved Captain Marryatt, and recommence mathematics and Latin, and Rene—but Rene dreams his own dreams in these days with a steady aim and purpose in view, absorbs himself in his studies, writes long letters to M. Paul, and is mute to all the world beside.
Villa des Anges is a stately establishment, set in spacious grounds, on a breezy height overlooking town and bay. It is a boarding-school, and has within its vestal walls youthful angels from nearly every quarter of the globe. There are a dozen or more day-pupils, besides the pensionnaires—among these latter Snowball Trillon, although as a matter of fact there is no such name down on the school-roll. There is a Dolores Macdonald, and—Dolores of all names to Mère Maddelena, and her good sisters, Snowball is. This is how:
When the child first came to Isle Perdrix at three and a half, the doctor’s wife took her training and education under her exclusive charge. For five years her two boys were hardly more to her than this little stray waif, dropped, as it seemed, from the skies. Then came a sad and sudden death. The good old doctor was almost in despair. The sight of the little girl in her black dress intensified his grief and remembrance so painfully, that Ma’am Weesy prevailed upon him to send her over for a year or two to Villa des Anges. So, at nine years old, Snowball went, rebelliously and loudly protesting, a, pensionnaire to the convent, full of direst anguish and wrath, at being thus forcibly wrenched from the society of her beloved Johnny. As a lamb to the shearers, she is led into the parlor by grim old Weesy, and there, in tears and trembling, awaits the coming of the dread Lady Abbess. But when there enters a tall and stately lady, whose pale, serene face the snowy coif becomes, with sweet, smiling eyes, and sweeter broken English, a great calm falls on the little damsel’s perturbed spirit. She lays her flaxen head on Mère Maddelena’s black serge shoulder, with a sigh of vast relief, and submits to be kissed on both tear-wet cheeks, and to be asked her name.
“Snowball Trillon, madame.”
Now Mère Maddelena, having baptismals of every sort and size in her villa, should not have been surprised at the odd sound of any cognomen, but she decidedly is, shocked even, at this. She gives a little cry of dismay, essays to repeat the name, and lamentably fails.
“But dat is not a nem,” she says. “What you call it in French—Boule-de-neige? You hear, Sœur lgnatia? Dat is no nem. Was you christen dat, my chile?”
Snowball does not know—does not remember ever being christened. Has been called Snowball, nothing but Snowball, all her life.
Mère Maddelena listens in ever-growing dismay. Does not know if she has ever been christened! Has no father or mother! This must be seen to before she is admitted as pupil into Villa des Anges. Mère Maddelena does not want children of doubtful antecedents. Dr. Macdonald must be questioned about this.”
“It is imposs dat chile shall keep de so foolish nem,” she says, with some indignation, to the attendant Sister. “I am shem of it.”
“I zink it is ze moze fonny nem I ever hear,” replies, smiling, Sr. Ignatia; “it mek Pere Louis ye so great laugh last time he come. We must baptize her anozzer de nem of some saint.”
Snowball is admitted on sufferance; Mère Maddelena calls her “dat chile,” and utterly ignores the obnoxious “Snowball.” The girls adopt it with glee, and “Snowball ” and “Boule-de-neige ” are shouted over the playground amid noisy laughter until its poor little owner is as much “shem of it” as the good mother herself. But the novelty wears off—Snowball sounds no longer oddly, and the little girl herself becomes a prime favorite with the pensionnaires.
Dr. Macdonald is sent for, and comes, and appears before the tribunal of Mère Maddelena, who there and then demands an unvarnished history of her new boarder. The doctor has little to tell, he hardly realizes himself, how meager is the information Paul Farrar has given him, until called upon to retail it thus. The child is an orphan, her friends are wealthy and most respectable, but do not wish to have charge of her personally.
Snowball Trillon—which does not sound like a real name, he admits—is the only one he knows her by. Valentine is the name of her friends, he believes. As to whether she has ever been baptized or not—Dr. Macdonald shrugs his shoulders. What will the good mother? He knows nothing.
The good mother, with calm but inflexible resolution, wills that he finds out. Otherwise Snowball Trillon cannot be admitted as a pensionnaire into exclusive Villa des Anges. And if it is discovered that she is unbaptized, the omission must be at once set right—if she is to remain here. It is the rule. Meanwhile she can remain, and run about the play-ground with the rest.
Dr. Macdonald writes to M. Paul Farrar at Fayal. M. Paul Farrar writes to Mr. Vane Valentine, spending the winter in Florida with his aunt. Mr. Vane Valentine reads that letter, twirls it into a cigar-light, ignites his weed, and sets his heel on its ashes.
He scrawls a line in reply. He knows nothing about it, and cares less. They may call her what they please, or not call her at all, if they prefer it.
It is about as roughly insolent as scrawl can be; he hates the very thought of the trapeze woman’s child. He does not lay the matter before Madam Valentine, as M. Farrar has suggested—the sooner Madam Valentine, obliterates from her memory the circus brat the better.
She seems to be doing so, she never asks any questions—he is not likely to revive her memory. In due course this reply reaches Fayal—M. Farrar forwards it in turn to Dr. Macdonald. If poor little Snowball were a princess incognito, there could hardly be more round-about correspondence concerning her. The upshot is, Mère Maddelena is at liberty to do as she pleases, and christen her what she likes, and as soon as she sees fit.
Mère Maddelena, full of vigor and zeal, sets to work at once. Next week is the feast of Our Lady of Dolors—could anything fall out more opportunely?—the child shall be baptized Marie Dolores. And so it is. The convent chapel, sparkling with wax-lights, fragrant with flowers, is thrown open; the ceremony has been announced, and quite a congregation of the ladies of St. Gildas, all the pupils, and the sisters attend. The pensionnaires, in their white dresses, the nuns in their black serge and great coifs, make a very effective picture. Pere Louis is there to admit this stray lambkin into the fold. There is organ music, and chants, and litanies. And down at the baptismal font, in white Swiss, and a long tulle veil, and snowy wreath, like a fairy bride, wonderfully pretty, and exceedingly full of her own importance, stands Snowball, with her sponsors. Her boys are there in a corner; she glances at them complacently, and nearly has her gravity upset by an affectionate and sympathetic wink from Johnny. And then and there she becomes Marie Dolores for all time.
If Mère Maddelena had striven of set purpose, she could hardly have selected a seemingly more inappropriate name. Felicia, Letitia, Lucilla—anything meaning happiness, joy, light, would have seemed in keeping; but Dolores—sorrowful—for that radiant-looking little one! It strikes even the spectators—even Pere Louis.
“Your new name does not seem to fit, Mademoiselle Dolores,” he says, pulling her by one of her long curls. “Let us hope it never may. It seems a pity notre mère cannot reconcile herself to the other one—it suits you, I think.”
But little girls can tolerate it, and decline to change it; thus while she is Dolores from thenceforth to the sisters, she remains Snowball to the boarders.
And the months slip by, and the seasons come and go, and the years are counted off on the long bead roll of Old Time, and her twelfth birthday is a thing of the past. M. Paul has come and gone, and school, and German exercises, and piano practice, and drawing lessons, and Italian singing, all recommence, and the sharp edge of parting has worn off somehow before she knows it. She is busy and happy—a bright, joyous, fun-loving, mischief-making, truthful, loving, clever, and fairly studious girl—healthful, and handsome, and high-spirited a granddaughter even haughty Madam Valentine might be proud of. Of the big, busy world outside St. Gildas she knows nothing, and cares very little; she has her own world here, her “boys” the center of her orbit, and hosts of friends whom she dearly loves. Wild wintry storms howl around Isle Perdrix, and the big waves rise in their majesty and might, and thunder all about them; white, whirling storms of snow fall for days, and even the little world of St. Gildas is shut out. Those are seasons of bliss never to be forgotten, when, with huge red fires in every room, they three sit and devour together the “thrilling ” novel, the “delicious” poem. Like the little boy in the primer, Snowball’s cry is, “Oh, that winter would last forever!”
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—the birthdays tread on each other’s heels, it seems to her sometimes, so rapidly do the months slip round, and they surprise her, by coming again.
And now it is another September, and she is quite sixteen—a tall, slim, pale girl, with only a faint wild rose tint in either cheek, but a tint that is ready to flutter into carnation, at a word, a look.
“Our Snowball wouldn’t be half bad-looking,” Johnny is wont to remark, altogether seriously, “if she wasn’t so much on the hop-pole patterns. There is nothing of her but arms and legs, and a lot of light hair.”
Johnny’s taste leans to the dark, the plump, the rosy, as exemplified in Mlle. Innocente Desereaux.
It is her last year at Villa des Anges. Next commencement she will graduate, and after that——
Ah! after that life is not very clear. The boys are going away. Rene, indeed, has already gone to New York, as a preliminary step in the study of sculpture, which, it appears, is to be his vocation in life. He is over twenty now, and has made his final decision. It is a question she ponders over with knitted brows and anxious mind very often.
She will be qualified to go out as a governess, she supposes, or a teacher of music and languages, probably in Montreal.
Except for this perplexity, the girl’s life is absolutely serene and free from care, and in after years—in the after years so full of strange bitterness and pain, she looks back to this peaceful time with an aching sense of wonder, that she could ever have wished it over, or thought it dull.
But changes are at hand, and suddenly, when change is expected least, it comes, and Isle Perdrix and St. Gildas, and Villa des Anges vanish out of her existence like the figures of a dream.
