Mrs. Lang
The Strange Story Book
The three years passed by Aurore in the Couvent des Anglaises were, she tells us, happy ones for her, though almost without exception her schoolfellows were pining, or thought they were, for their homes and their mothers. But after the free life and country air of Nohant the confinement and lack of change tried her, and for a while she grew weak and languid. Twice in every month the girls were allowed to spend the day with their friends, and on New Year's Day they might sleep at home. Of course, in the summer there were regular holidays, but Madame Dupin decided that Aurore had better stay at school and learn all she could, so by that means she might finish the regular course earlier than usual, and save money. It was then the custom of all schools both in England and France to keep the girls under strict watch, and never permit them to be one moment alone. The garden was very large, and Aurore at least would have been perfectly content to remain in it, had not such elaborate precautions been taken to prevent the girls even seeing through the door when it was opened, into the dull street outside. These precautions enraged the others, and only made them eager for glimpses of a passing cab or a horse and cart, though on their days of freedom they would walk through the most brilliant parts of Paris with their parents, and never trouble to turn their heads. But Aurore was only amused at what irritated them, and felt, for her part, that
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.
It was foolish, she thought, to make so much fuss about nothing; but after all, what did it matter?
Now both the big and little classes had divided themselves into three camps: the 'good' girls, who would probably one day become nuns; the 'demons,' or rebels, who were always inventing some new kind of mischief; and the 'idiots,' who were afraid to take sides. These profoundly despised by the rest, would shake with laughter over the pranks of the 'demons,' but put on a solemn face at the appearance of one of the mistresses, and hastened to cry at the approach of danger: 'It was not I!' 'It was not I!' unless they went further and exclaimed, 'It was Dupin,' or 'it was G.' 'Dupin' was Aurore, and 'G.' a wild Irish girl of eleven, tall and strong and truthful and clever, but utterly unruly, and the terror of the 'idiots' of the younger class.
As soon as Mary G. discovered that Aurore did not mind being teased or being thumped on the shoulder by a hand which might have felled an ox, she felt that she had found a friend who would join in her maddest tricks. Aurore's education in this respect was not long in beginning. The very next day as the mistress was handing round books and slates to the class, Mary quietly walked out, followed in two or three minutes by Aurore. Both girls went to the empty cloister, and began to talk:
'I am glad you came,' said Mary. 'The others are always making excuses for getting away, and declaring their noses are bleeding or they want to practise, or some stupid old story like that. I never tell lies; it is so cowardly. If they ask me where I have been, I don't answer. If they punish me – well, let them! I just do as I like.'
'That would just suit me.'
'You are a demon then!'
'I should like to be.'
'As much as I am?'
'Neither more nor less.'
'Accepted,' answered Mary, giving Aurore a shake of the hand. 'Now we will go back and behave quite properly to Mother Alippe. She is a good old thing. We will reserve ourselves for Mother D. Ah, you don't know her yet! Every evening outside the class-room. Do you understand?'
'No. What do you mean by "outside the class-room"?'
'Well, the games after supper under the superintendence of Mother D. are dreadfully dull. So when we come out of the dining-room we will slip away, and not come back till it is time for prayers. Sometimes Mother D. does not miss us, but generally she is enchanted that we should run away, because then she can have the pleasure of punishing us when we come in. The punishment is to wear your nightcap all the next day, even in chapel. In this kind of weather it is very pleasant and good for the health, and though the nuns you meet cry 'Shame! shame!' that hurts nobody. If in the course of a fortnight you have worn many nightcaps, the Superior threatens not to allow you to go out on the next holiday, but she either forgets or forgives you at the request of your parents. When you have worn the nightcap so long that it seems to have grown on your head, you are locked up for a day. But after all, it is better to give up amusing yourself for a single day than to bore yourself perpetually of your own freewill.'
Aurore quite agreed with Mary's reasoning, and found the time very long till supper. The whole school had meals together, and then came the hour of play before prayers and bed. The older ones went to their large and beautiful study, but the rest had only quite a little room where there was no space to play, so that they were thankful when the evening was over. In leaving the refectory there was always a certain confusion, and it was easy for both big and little demons to slip away down the ill-lighted passages to the dark side of the cloisters.
Here Aurore, with Irish Mary for her guide, found a number of girls assembled, each with something in her hand. One held a stick, another a pair of tongs, a third a poker. What could they be going to do? 'Dupin' asked herself. Something exciting, of course; but she never guessed that it would be her favourite game of 'pretending.' For all these strange weapons were intended for the deliverance of a prisoner who was hidden in a dungeon somewhere under the convent.
Certainly it would have been impossible to have invented a better place in which to hide any number of prisoners than the immense cellars and vaults and dark holes of all sorts, that ran underneath. The building itself was more like a village than a house, and, since its foundation, had been constantly added to and altered, so that it was full of irregularities and steps up and down and roofs at different heights, and passages which once led to something but were now blocked up. On one side of the garden, whose magnificent chestnut trees were the pride of the nuns, stood small houses in which lived noble ladies retired from the world, but free from vows. There was besides a very large vegetable garden for the use of the convent, which at this time contained about a hundred and thirty people. It was possible, if you stood on tiptoe, to snatch a glimpse through the grating of melons or grapes or feathery pinks, but the door was not easy to climb, and only two or three of the bolder girls had ever managed to penetrate into the enclosure and taste these forbidden joys.
The legend of the concealed prisoner had been handed on from generation to generation of school girls, as well as the terrors which were half a joy, that thrilled through them as they crept along the narrow passages, ending no one knew where – perhaps in the Catacombs, perhaps in the baths of Julian, perhaps outside Paris itself! Who could tell? Could life have any feeling more exciting in store than the sensation that at any moment your feet might meet the empty air, and that you might fall into one of those terrible pits common in castles of the Middle Ages, known by the evil name of oubliettes or holes of forgetfulness? And many of these dangers were not at all imaginary, whatever the 'prisoner' might be.
It was the knowledge of the heavy punishments that would fall on their heads in case of discovery that made it a point of honour with the demons to risk everything in order to explore this underground world. Very few, however, gained an entrance to these vaults during their school lives, and only then after years of patience and perseverance. The memory of these heroines was kept green, and their names whispered reverently 'to encourage the rest.'
In Aurore's day the question had come up again – the burning question of how to get into the underground world. Not by the main door which led to it, that was clear; for close by were the kitchens, where nuns passed continually! But if the main door was barred, there must be a hundred other doors or walled-up staircases, by which you could get there; and if these failed, there was always the roof.
Now, the very last thought that would occur to most people, if they want to penetrate into an underground passage, is to go first on to the roof; but then they are not school girls, and have forgotten all about these things, if, indeed, they ever knew them. To Aurore and her friends it was a matter of everyday knowledge that 'the longest way round is the shortest way home.' Had not Aurore sat breathless for days together over Mrs. Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, and her companions lain awake trembling at the recollections of Scotch or Irish ancestral ghosts?
Why, even in the convent, where the great dormitories were filled with girls and the terrors of loneliness were unknown, did they not shudder sometimes in the dark in the certainty that they caught the echo of the sighs, the groans, the clanking of chains of the victim?
As to whether it was always the same victim who had to be rescued, or whether in every generation a fresh victim was somehow mysteriously supplied, nobody inquired and nobody minded.
On the never-to-be-forgotten evening of Aurore's initiation into the company of the demons, she was conducted by the rest of the band into the oldest and most irregular part of the convent. At length they found themselves standing on a gangway with a wooden railing, ending in a little room, from which there was no outlet. By the light of their single taper they beheld a staircase below them, also with a wooden railing, and protected at the top by a strong oaken door. In order to get on to the staircase it was necessary to drop from one balustrade to the other – and the more experienced of the explorers strongly suspected that both of them were worm-eaten – while the staircase hung over black depths which no eye could penetrate.
It was an adventure which required a good deal of courage, but not one of the girls flinched. Isabelle, one of the oldest of the demons, claimed her right to go first, and accomplished her dangerous feat with the resolution of a heroine. Mary followed with the calm of a gymnastic professor, the remainder as best they could, but somehow or other they all managed to arrive safely on the staircase. At the foot was another little hall or room, without door or window or issue of any kind; but this, for some strange reason, caused the girls more joy than regret.
'Certainly,' they said, 'nobody would make a staircase which went nowhere! There must be some way out and we have got to find it.'
So the little taper was divided into several parts and each girl began a careful examination of the walls, pressing the plaster, which they hoped might conceal a ring or a button that, if touched, would reveal an opening. What would have happened if a sudden blast had blown out their candles, they never thought, for they had no means of lighting them again; and, of course, none of the Sisters had the slightest idea where they might be. Happily this did not occur, and though the surface of the walls was perfectly smooth, Isabelle declared that when she tapped the part under the staircase it sounded hollow.
This discovery threw the whole party into a state of wild excitement.
'We have found it at last!' they cried; 'this staircase leads down to the cell where living victims have been buried.' They jostled each other so as to place their ears against the wall, but strange to say, in spite of their fervent wish, they were compelled to confess that they heard nothing. All, that is except Isabelle, who persisted in declaring that they must every one of them be deaf, as the sounds of groans and clanking chains were quite plain.
'Then we must break down the wall,' said Mary, 'and the sooner we begin the better.'
In an instant the wall was attacked by the collection of arms the girls had brought with them. Tongs, pokers, shovels were all brought into play, but luckily without making any impression on the stones, which otherwise might have come rattling about their heads. Besides, the demons dared not make too much noise, for they were afraid of being heard, as they did not know exactly in which part of the convent they might happen to be.
Only a few pieces of plaster had fallen when the warning bell for prayers clanged through the building. How they contrived the upward climb from one balustrade to another, they never knew, and that they were able to do it at all was almost a miracle. Down they dashed along the passages, brushing the plaster from their dresses as they ran, and arrived breathless as the two classes were forming to enter the chapel.
During the whole winter they worked at the wall, but, persevering though they were, the obstacles encountered were so many that at length they decided it was sheer folly to waste more time on it, and they had better try to force an entrance by some other way.
There was a little room – one of many under the roof – which contained one of the thirty pianos of the convent, and there Aurore was accustomed to practise for an hour daily. From its window could be seen a whole world of roofs, penthouses, sheds, and buildings of all sorts, covered with mossy tiles, and most tempting to the adventurous. It seemed quite reasonable that somewhere amongst the buildings should exist a staircase leading to the underground passages, and one fine, starlight night the demons met in the little music-room, and in a few minutes they had all scrambled from the window on to the roof six feet below them. From there they climbed over gables, jumped from one incline to another, and behaved in fact as if they were cats, taking care to hide behind a chimney or crouch in a gutter whenever they caught sight of a nun in the garden or courtyard beneath them.
They had managed to get a long way downwards when prayer-time drew near, and they knew they must begin their return journey. As the Latin proverb tells you, it is easy enough to go down, but what about getting back again? And to make matters worse, the demons had not the slightest idea where they were. Still, they contrived to retrace some of their footsteps and at last recognised to their joy the window of Sidonie Macdonald, daughter of the general. But to reach this window it was necessary to spring upwards a considerable distance, and the chances of hitting exactly the right spot were very few. Aurore, at any rate, almost lost her life in the attempt. She jumped in too great a hurry, and very nearly fell thirty feet through a skylight into a gallery where the little class were playing. As it was, her heel struck against the glass, and several panes went crashing in their midst. Clinging to the window-sill, with her knees scratched and bleeding, Aurore heard the voice of Sister Thérèse below accusing Whisky, Mother Alippe's big black cat, of fighting with his neighbours on the roof and breaking all the windows in the convent. Mother Alippe warmly denied that her cat ever quarrelled with anyone, and in spite of her wounds and her danger, Aurore burst into fits of laughter at the hot dispute, in which she was joined by Fanelly stretched in the gutter, and Mary lying in a 'spread-eagle' on the tiles, feeling about for her comb. They heard the nuns mounting the stairs, and discovery seemed inevitable.
Nothing of the sort, however, occurred. The overhanging gables preserved them from being seen, and as soon as they felt they were safe, the young demons began to mew loudly, so that Sister Thérèse proved triumphantly that she was right, and that the mischief had been caused by Whisky and his friends!
This being happily settled, the girls climbed at their leisure into the window where Sidonie was quietly practising her scales, undisturbed by the noise in the cat-world. She was a gentle, nervous child, who had no sympathy with a passion for roofs, and when a procession of demons entered her room she hid her face in her hands and screamed loudly. But before the nuns could hurry to the spot, the girls had dispersed in all directions, and, up to the end, the blame of the broken window was laid upon Whisky.
HOW AURORE LEARNT TO RIDE
When Aurore was old enough to leave the convent she went back to Nohant to live with her grandmother, who was failing fast and died the following year. Aurore was sixteen now, and things looked very different from what they did three years earlier. The trees were not so tall nor the garden so big as she remembered them; that was disappointing, no doubt. But on the other hand, what joy to do your hair as you liked without being told that no nice girl ever let her temples be seen; to wear a pink cotton frock instead of one of yellow serge, and to have as many cakes and sweet things as you wanted! Of course it had been terrible to part from your friends at the convent, but then at Nohant there were all those of long ago – and the dogs almost better than any friend! Then, too, it was delightful to be so changed that even M. Deschartres did not know you, and to be called 'Mademoiselle' by him and everyone else. At least it was delightful just at first, but soon it began to be tiresome to find the girls with whom you had climbed trees and played blind man's buff treating you very much as they treated your grandmother. No; decidedly there were some drawbacks to being 'grown up'!
For a few days Aurore ran about the country nearly as much as she had done in former years, but after a while she made plans for study, and drew up a time-table. History, drawing, music, English and Italian, had each its hour; but somehow when that hour struck there was always something else to be done, and Aurore's books were still unopened when, at the end of a month, Madame de Pontcarré and Pauline arrived on a visit.
Pauline was just the same as she had always been; 'growing up' had worked no transformation in her. She was pretty, pleasant, gentle as ever, and quite as indifferent to everybody. Indeed, she was still exactly the opposite of her mother, who had played with Aurore's father when she was a child, and in consequence was a great favourite with Madame Dupin. And now that Madame de Pontcarré was there, there was no more dreaming for Aurore. Instead, they all three took walks twice a day and studied music together. When they came in the evenings, they would sing airs from Gluck's beautiful old operas 'Armida' and 'Iphigenia' to Madame Dupin, whose criticisms and judgment were as good as of old. They even acted a play or, rather, a proverb to amuse the old lady, who was nevertheless a little shocked to see her granddaughter dressed as a boy. After that the Pontcarrés went away, and perhaps it was as well, for Madame Dupin was getting jealous of Aurore being so much with them.
Aurore would have been very dull without her friends had not Hippolyte, now a hussar, come back to spend his leave at Nohant. He was such a splendid person, rolling his r's, making fun of everybody, riding horses which no one else would go near, that at first Aurore was quite afraid of him. But this soon wore off, and they were speedily on the old footing, taking long walks across country, and going off into fits of laughter at the silliest jokes.
'Now I am going to teach you to ride,' he said one day. 'Of course, I might give you the book of instructions that I am obliged to read to the poor young soldiers in the barracks, who don't understand a word; but it all comes to this – you either fall off or you don't. And as one must be prepared for a fall, we will pick out a place for your lesson where you can't hurt yourself much.' So saying he led the way to a field of soft grass, mounted on General Pépé, and holding Colette by the bridle.
Pépé was a grandson of the horse which had killed Maurice Dupin, and Colette (who was occasionally known as Mademoiselle Deschartres) had been trained – or supposed to be – by the tutor; she had only lately been brought into the stable, and had never yet felt a human being on her back. Of course it was nothing short of madness on the part of Hippolyte to dream of mounting his sister upon her, but the mare seemed very gentle, and after taking her two or three times round the field he declared she was all right, and swung Aurore into the saddle. Then, without giving either mare or rider time to think what was happening, he struck Colette a smart cut with his whip, and off she started on a wild gallop, shying and leaping and bounding out of pure gaiety of heart.
'Sit up straight,' shouted Hippolyte. 'Hold on to her mane if you like, but don't drop the bridle, and stick on. To fall or not to fall – that is the whole thing.'
Aurore heard and obeyed with all her might. Five or six times she was jerked upwards out of the saddle, but she always returned to it again, and at the end of an hour – breathless, untidy, and intoxicated with delight – she guided Colette to the stable, feeling that she was capable of managing all the horses of the French Army. As to Colette, who was as new to the business as her mistress, she also had experienced a fresh joy, and from that day till her death she was Aurore's faithful companion.
'Lean, big and ugly when standing,' writes Aurore, 'when moving she became beautiful by force of grace and suppleness. I have ridden many splendid horses admirably trained, but for cleverness and intelligence I have never found the equal of Colette. I have had falls, of course, but they were always the result of my own carelessness, for she never shied nor made a false step. She would suffer nobody else to mount her, but from the first moment she and I understood each other absolutely. At the end of a week we jumped hedges and ditches and swam rivers, for I was suddenly transformed into something bolder than a hussar, and more robust than a peasant.'
Curiously enough, Madame Dupin, so little given to exercise herself, was not in the least nervous as to Aurore's adventures, while Madame Maurice never beheld her on a horse's back without hiding her face in her hands and declaring she would die like her father. One day Aurore heard some visitors inquiring why Madame Dupin allowed her granddaughter to do such wild things, and the old lady in reply quoted with rather a sad smile the well-known story of the sailor and the citizen.
'What, sir! Do you tell me that your father and your grandfather both died at sea, and yet you are a sailor? In your place, I would never have set foot in a boat!'
'And your parents, sir? How did they die?'
'In their beds, I am thankful to say!'
'Then, in your place, I would never set foot in a bed.'
After Hippolyte's leave was over, and he had rejoined his regiment, Aurore was obliged to ride with M. Deschartres, which was not nearly so amusing; still, it was a great deal better than not riding at all. And as the months went on, the poor girl grew more and more dependent on the hours that she and Colette spent together, for it was quite plain that Madame Dupin's life was fast drawing to a close. She lost her memory, and though she was never really awake, she was never really asleep either. Her maid Julie, Aurore, or M. Deschartres were with her always, and as Aurore did not find the four hours of sleep which fell to her share enough to carry her through the day, she tried the plan of going to bed every other night only, and watching her grandmother on alternate ones. Very soon she got used to this mode of life, although sometimes even the nights spent in bed were broken. Her grandmother would insist on Aurore coming to assure her that it was really two o'clock, as Julie had told her, for she did not believe it; or whether the cat was in the room, as she was sure she heard it. The girl's presence always soothed her, and the old lady would murmur a few tender words and send her back to bed. If this only happened once in the night it did not so much matter; but when Madame Dupin had a restless fit, Aurore would be summoned two or three times over. Then she gave up the idea of sleep, and passed the night with a book by the side of her grandmother.
It was a sad and lonely existence for a girl not seventeen, and Aurore soon fell into melancholy ways, and had strange fancies. The companions she might have sought seemed years younger than herself at this time, and she was out of tune for their gaiety. In these days she had grown to have more sympathy with Deschartres than she could have believed possible, and she was very grateful for his devotion to her grandmother. So it came to pass that when one of the other maids could be spared to help Julie, Aurore and her old tutor might be met riding on the commons or fields that surrounded Nohant.
They were returning one afternoon after paying a visit to a sick man and took a road which ran along the banks of the river Indre. Suddenly Deschartres stopped.
'We must cross here,' he said. 'But be careful. The ford is very dangerous, for if you go the least bit too much to the right, you will find yourself in twenty feet of water. I will go first, and you must follow me exactly.'
'I think I would rather not try it,' answered Aurore, seized with a fit of nervousness. 'You cross by yourself, and I will take the bridge below the mill.'
This was so unlike the Aurore he knew that Deschartres turned in his saddle and stared at her in surprise.
'Why, when did you begin to be a coward!' asked he. 'We have been over worse places twenty times, and you never dreamed of being frightened! Come along! If we are not home by five we shall keep your grandmother waiting for her dinner.'
Feeling much ashamed of herself, Aurore said no more and guided Colette into the water. But in the very middle of the ford a sudden giddiness attacked her: her eyes grew dim, and there was a rushing sound in her ears. Pulling the right rein she turned Colette into the deep water, against which Deschartres had warned her.
If Colette had plunged or struggled, nothing could have saved either of them, but happily she was a beast who took things quietly, and at once began to swim towards the opposite bank. Deschartres, seeing the girl's danger, screamed loudly, and his agitation brought back Aurore's presence of mind.
'Stay where you are! I am all right,' she cried, as he was about to put his horse into the river for her rescue, which was the more courageous of him, as he was a bad rider and his steed was ill-trained. He would certainly be drowned, she knew, and in spite of her words she was not very certain that she would not be drowned also, as it is not easy to sit on a swimming horse. The rider is uplifted by the water, and at the same time the animal is pressed down by his weight. Luckily Aurore was very light, and Colette was both brave and strong, and everything went well till they reached the opposite bank, which was very steep. Here Deschartres in an agony of terror, was awaiting her.
'Catch hold of that branch of willow and draw yourself up,' he cried, and she managed to do as he told her. But when she saw the frantic efforts of Colette to obtain a footing, she forgot all about her own danger and thought only of her friend's. She was about to drop back again into the water, which would not have helped Colette and would have caused her own death, when Deschartres seized her arm; and at the same moment Colette remembered the ford and swam back to it.
Once they were all safe on land again, Deschartres' fright showed itself in the abuse which he heaped upon his pupil, but Aurore understood the reason of his anger, and threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.
When her grandmother died, as she did during that year, and Aurore went to live with some relations, Colette went with her. They remained together till Colette died of old age, friends to the last.
