by Ouida
CHAPTER XI.
The next day she had her promised book hidden under the vine-leaves ofher empty basket as she went homeward, and though she had not seen himvery long or spoken to him very much, she was happy.
The golden gates of knowledge had just opened to her; she saw a faint,far-off glimpse of the Hesperides gardens within; of the dragon she hadnever heard, and had no fear.
"Might I know your name?" she had asked him wistfully, as she had givenhim the rosebud, and taken the volume in return that day.
"They call me Flamen."
"It is your name?"
"Yes, for the world. You must call me Victor, as other women do. Why doyou want my name?"
"Jeannot asked it of me."
"Oh, Jeannot asked it, did he?"
"Yes; besides," said Bebee, with her eyes very soft and very serious, andher happy voice hushed,--"besides, I want to pray for you of course,every day; and if I do not know your name, how can I make Our Ladyrightly understand? The flowers know you without a name, but she mightnot, because so very many are always beseeching her, and you see she hasall the world to look after."
He had looked at her with a curious look, and had bade her farewell, andlet her go home alone that night.
Her work was quickly done, and by the light of the moon she spread herbook on her lap in the porch of the hut and began her new delight.
The children had come and pulled at her skirts and begged her to play.But Bebee had shaken her head.
"I am going to learn to be very wise, dear," she told them; "I shall nothave time to dance or to play."
"But people are not merry when they are wise, Bebee," said Franz, thebiggest boy.
"Perhaps not," said Bebee: "but one cannot be everything, you know,Franz."
"But surely, you would rather be merry than anything else?"
"I think there is something better, Franz. I am not sure; I want to findout; I will tell you when I know."
"Who has put that into your head, Bebee?"
"The angels in the cathedral," she told them; and the children were awedand left her, and went away to play blind-man's-buff by themselves, onthe grass by the swan's water.
"But for all that the angels have said it," said Franz to his sisters, "Icannot see what good it will be to her to be wise, if she will not careany longer afterwards for almond gingerbread and currant cake."
It was the little tale of "Paul and Virginia" that he had given her tobegin her studies with: but it was a grand copy, full of beautifuldrawings nearly at every page.
It was hard work for her to read at first, but the drawings enticed andhelped her, and she soon sank breathlessly into the charm of the story.Many words she did not know; many passages were beyond her comprehension;she was absolutely ignorant, and had nothing but the force of her ownfancy to aid her.
But though stumbling at every step, as a lame child through a floweryhillside in summer, she was happy as the child would be, because of thesweet, strange air that was blowing about her, and the blossoms that shecould gather into her hand, so rare, so wonderful, and yet withal sofamiliar, because they _were_ blossoms.
With her fingers buried in her curls, with her book on her knee, with themoon rays white and strong on the page, Bebee sat entranced as the hourswent by; the children's play shouts died away; the babble of the gossipat the house doors ceased; people went by and called good night to her;the little huts shut up one by one, like the white and purple convolvuluscups in the hedges.
Bebee did not stir, nor did she hear them; she was deaf even to thesinging of the nightingales in the willows, where she sat in her littlethatch above, and the wet garden-ways beyond her.
A heavy step came tramping down the lane. A voice called to her,--
"What are you doing, Bebee, there, this time of the night? It is on thestrike of twelve."
She started as if she were doing some evil thing, and stretched her armsout, and looked around with blinded, wondering eyes, as if she had beenrudely wakened from her sleep.
"What are you doing up so late?" asked Jeannot; he was coming from theforest in the dead of night to bring food for his family; he lost hissleep thus often, but he never thought that he did anything except hisduty in those long, dark, tiring tramps to and fro between Soignies andLaeken.
Bebee shut her book and smiled with dreaming eyes, that saw him not atall.
"I was reading--and, Jeannot, his name is Flamen for the world, but I maycall him Victor."
"What do I care for his name?"
"You asked it this morning."
"More fool I. Why do you read? Reading is not for poor folk like you andme."
Bebee smiled up at the white clear moon that sailed above the woods.
She was not awake out of her dream. Sheonly dimly heard the words he spoke.
"You are a little peasant," said Jeannot roughly, as he paused at thegate. "It is all you can do to get your bread. You have no one to standbetween you and hunger. How will it be with you when the slug gets yourroses, and the snail your carnations, and your hens die of damp, and yourlace is all wove awry, because your head runs on reading and folly, andyou are spoilt for all simple pleasures and for all honest work?"
She smiled, still looking up at the moon, with the dropping ivy touchingher hair.
"You are cross, dear Jeannot. Good night."
A moment afterwards the little rickety door was shut, and the rusty boltdrawn within it; Jeannot stood in the cool summer night all alone, andknew how stupid he had been in his wrath.
He leaned on the gate a minute; then crossed the garden as softly as hiswooden shoes would let him. He tapped gently on the shutter of thelattice.
"Bebee--Bebee--just listen. I spoke roughly, dear--I know I have noright. I am sorry. Will you be friends with me again?--do be friendsagain."
She opened the shutter a little way, so that he could see herpretty mouth speaking, "we are friends--we will always be friends,of course--only you do not know. Good night."
He went away with a heavy heart and a long-drawn step. He would havepreferred that she should have been angry with him.
Bebee, left alone, let the clothes drop off her pretty round shouldersand her rosy limbs, and shook out her coils of hair, and kissed the book,and laid it under her head, and went to sleep with a smile on her face.
Only, as she slept, her ringers moved as if she were counting her beads,and her lips murmured,--
"Oh, dear Holy Mother, you have so much to think of--yes. I know--all thepoor, and all the little children. But take care of _him_; he is calledFlamen, and he lives in the street of Mary of Burgundy; you cannot misshim; and if you will look for him always, and have a heed that the angelsnever leave him, I will give you my great cactus glower--my only one--onyour Feast of Roses this very year. Oh, dear Mother, you will notforget!"