by Ouida
CHAPTER XXIV.
Full winter came.
The snow was deep, and the winds drove the people with whips of ice alongthe dreary country roads and the steep streets of the city. The bells ofthe dogs and the mules sounded sadly through the white misty silence ofthe Flemish plains, and the weary horses slipped and fell on the frozenruts and on the jagged stones in the little frost-shut Flemish towns.Still the Flemish folk were gay enough in many places.
There were fairs and kermesses; there were puppet plays and churchfeasts; there were sledges on the plains and skates on the canals; therewere warm woollen hoods and ruddy wood fires; there were tales of demonsand saints, and bowls of hot onion soup; sugar images for the littlechildren, and blessed beads for the maidens clasped on rosy throats withlovers' kisses; and in the city itself there was the high tide of thewinter pomp and mirth, with festal scenes in the churches, and balls atthe palaces, and all manner of gay things in toys and jewels, and musicplaying cheerily under the leafless trees, and flashes of scarlet cloth,and shining furs, and happy faces, and golden curls, in the carriagesthat climbed the Montagne de la Cour, and filled the big place around thestatue of stout Godfrey.
In the little village above St. Guido, Bebee's neighbors were merry too,in their simple way.
The women worked away wearily at their lace in the dim winter light, andmade a wretched living by it, but all the same they got penny playthingsfor their babies, and a bit of cake for their Sunday-hearth. They drewtogether in homely and cordial friendship, and of an afternoon when duskfell wove their lace in company in Mere Krebs's mill-house kitchen withthe children and the dogs at their feet on the bricks, so that one bigfire might serve for all, and all be lighted with one big rush candle,and all be beguiled by chit-chat and songs, stories of spirits, andwhispers of ghosts, and now and then when the wind howled at its worst, apaternoster or two said in common for the men toiling in the barges ordrifting up the Scheldt.
In these gatherings Bebee's face was missed, and the blithe soft sound ofher voice, like a young thrush singing, was never heard.
The people looked in, and saw her sitting over a great open book; oftenher hearth had no fire.
Then the children grew tired of asking her to play; and their eldersbegan to shake their heads; she was so pale and so quiet, there must besome evil in it--so they began to think.
Little by little people dropped away from her. Who knew, the gossipssaid, what shame or sin the child might not have on her sick little soul?
True, Bebee worked hard just the same, and just the same was seentrudging to and fro in the dusk of dawns and afternoons in her two littlewooden shoes. She was gentle and laborious, and gave the children hergoat's milk, and the old women the brambles of her garden.
But they grew afraid of her--afraid of that sad, changeless, far-awaylook in her eves, and of the mute weariness that was on her--and, beingperplexed, were sure, like all ignorant creatures, that what was secretmust be also vile.
So they hung aloof, and let her alone, and by and by scarcely nodded asthey passed her but said to Jeannot,--
"You were spared a bad thing, lad: the child was that grand painter'slight-o'-love, that is plain to see. The mischief all comes of the stuffold Antoine filled her head with--a stray little by-blow of chickweedthat he cockered up like a rare carnation. Oh! do not fly in a rage,Jeannot; the child is no good, and would have made an honest man rue.Take heart of grace, and praise the saints, and marry Katto's Lisa."
But Jeannot would never listen to the slanderers, and would never look atLisa, even though the door of the little hut was always closed againsthim; and whenever he met Bebee on the highway she never seemed to seehim more than she saw the snow that her sabots were treading.
One night in the midwinter-time old Annemie died.
Bebee found her in the twilight with her head against the garret window,and her left side all shrivelled and useless. She had a little senseleft, and a few fleeting breaths to draw.
"Look for the brig," she muttered. "You will not see the flag at themasthead for the fog to-night; but his socks are dry and his pipe isready. Keep looking--keep looking--she will be in port to-night."
But her dead sailor never came into port; she went to him. The poor,weakened, faithful old body of her was laid in the graveyard of the poor,and the ships came and went under the empty garret window, and Bebee wasall alone.
She had no more anything to work for, or any bond with the lives ofothers. She could live on the roots of her garden and the sale of herhens' eggs, and she could change the turnips and carrots that grew in alittle strip of her ground for the quantity of bread that she needed.
So she gave herself up to the books, and drew herself more and morewithin from the outer world. She did not know that the neighbors thoughtvery evil of her; she had only one idea in her mind--to be more worthy ofhim against he should return.
The winter passed away somehow, she did not know how.
It was a long, cold, white blank of frozen silence: that was all. Shestudied hard, and had got a quaint, strange, deep, scattered knowledgeout of her old books; her face had lost all its roundness and color, but,instead, the forehead had gained breadth and the eyes had the dim fire ofa student's.
Every night when she shut her volumes she thought,--
"I am a little nearer him. I know a little more."
Just so every morning, when she bathed her hands in the chilly water, shethought to herself, "I will make my skin as soft as I can for him, thatit may be like the ladies' he has loved."
Love to be perfect must be a religion, as well as a passion. Bebee's wasso. Like George Herbert's serving-maiden, she swept no specks of dirtaway from a floor without doing it to the service of her lord.
Only Bebee's lord was a king of earth, made of earth's dust and vanities.
But what did she know of that?