Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  The owner of this fair paradise — Monsieur de Beaussire — had mixed much in the gay and great world. An earnest politician, he had espoused certain Utopian views heart and soul on which his happiness and ambition depended. They failed, and in the disappointment of the moment he threw up everything, closed his house in Paris, and withdrew, with his wife and children, to his remote Savoie estate. His wife, a woman in ten thousand, submitted without a murmur to the exile.

  “I thought it best not to oppose him,” she confided one day to Mrs. Henry Wood. “Opposition only makes people more determined, and the reaction was bound to come. He has really too great a mind to bury it here for ever; but it tarries long. We have now spent five years without change of scene. I scarcely remember Paris, and my best friends are beginning to forget me. The summers are charming; but the winters are beyond imagination.”

  “You have had great patience and wisdom,” said Mrs. Wood. “Do you see no signs of a wish to return to life and politics — all his heart holds dear, though he tries to persuade himself to the contrary?”

  “I do,” was the answer. “I see things which tell me his mind is working round to its old desires. His views are altered, though he would hardly admit it, and when he goes back to politics he will succeed where before he failed. But the time is not quite yet. I give him two more years; we shall then have been here seven years, and every seven years, they say, brings a change. Seven years! To me it has been more like seventy.”

  The patient wife was correct in all she foresaw. Two years from that time her husband was again the centre of the political world of France. Their hotel in Paris was reopened and the brilliant life resumed. Years rolled on, and changes crept over the face of the country; the revolution of 1848 broke out; the King fled; and amongst those who remained and lost their lives was Monsieur de Beaussire.

  His wife, good, patient, courageous, had died the previous year, removed from the evil to come; and in his last hour what he had looked upon as the great sorrow of his life he declared to have become his greatest blessing. The thought of rejoining his wife reconciled him to death. A rare nature in a Frenchman; for the men of France then, as now, troubled themselves very little about religion, which they left to women and the priesthood.

  Meanwhile we have said that life at the Chateau de Beaussire was a pastoral symphony, and a whole week would be passed amidst all the famous spots of the neighbourhood. The house where St. Bernard was born; ruined monasteries unknown to the world, but reposing in dreams of sylvan beauty; more distant excursions to the hills and the ice-caves of Parmelan; the whole family sometimes setting out on horseback. But on these occasions Mrs. Wood, ever too delicate and timid to ride, remained at home.

  A charming and happy week; and the hours would pass quickly, as only hours and days can pass spent amongst friends who are absolutely congenial to each other.

  Monsieur de Beaussire was a brilliant conversationalist, and far from turning misanthrope with his self-imposed banishment, he seemed to have thrown off all the weight of a political life for the light-heartedness almost of childhood. It was, indeed, this happy temperament which had enabled his wife to bear her exile. She saw nothing of the world, but infinitely more of her husband’s society, and admirable as had been their mutual relations in the busy Capital, it was as nothing compared with the mutual devotion which sprang up during these years of retirement: a devotion never relaxed when they returned to a more active life.

  All their spare hours were given to each other; and to friends less faithfully constituted they became almost an amusement and a proverb. But their happiness was short-lived. Monsieur and Madame de Beaussire were both comparatively young when they were called upon to renounce life and all the pomps and pleasures they had used so well and wisely.

  The week’s visit of which we are writing extended itself to ten days, and then Mr and Mrs. Wood bade a reluctant goodbye to their friends, returning home by the way they had come. But there were times when they would vary their route — pass through the lovely mountainous country into Switzerland, linger by the Lake of Geneva, and glide about its fair waters. Geneva, Lausanne, Ouchy, the whole neighbourhood was sacred to romance and history. Rousseau and Voltaire, Byron with his charm, and Shelley with his dreams, all had left their impression and influence behind them. Here Gibbon had finished his Decline and Fall; here Madame de Stael had lived with her father; here Byron wrote his Prisoner of Chillon and immortalised the spot in Childe Harold. Near Chillon Rousseau had placed his scene in Heloise, and they loved to gaze on its frowning walls, where Bonivard lingered out six years of his life, then to regain freedom, turn Protestant, and become the brave husband of four wives. Passing over the Jura, from the summit they beheld the blue waters of the lake spread out far beneath them, whilst Mont Blanc — first seen from the heights of Fourviere as a distant dream — rose near at hand in all its glory. From the lake flowed the first waters of the Rhone, blue and transparent, but to become turbid and troubled as the river passed through Lyons on its way to the Mediterranean. In after years Mrs. Wood loved to talk of these bygone days and experiences.

  But on the visit to which we have referred they had engagements at home, and returned quickly, staying one night only at Aix-les-Bains. We may be sure the little family we have described was not forgotten. It was a week nearer the Ducasse, the village wedding a week nearer its fulfilment, Jeanne a week happier. Even Jacqueline, the wife of Marius, had become more reconciled, and professed to have some hope of the bridegroom.

  What has become of them all, one wonders. The French peasantry sometimes live to a great age, and it is just possible that Jeanne and Francis are a bowed and bent grandfather and grandmother, waiting their hour. More probably both are at rest beneath two little wooden crosses. In the chances and changes of the world, they may even have been sleeping side by side in death for the last half-century.

  CHAPTER XII

  “Be near me when I fade away,

  To point the term of human strife,

  And on the low dark verge of life

  The twilight of eternal day.”

  ANOTHER journey — everything was a journey in those days — may be recorded, because it had in it something of the adventurous, and was of a nature no one on earth but Mr. Henry Wood would have thought of or attempted. Nothing daunted him; an idea entering his head was sufficient reason for its being acted upon. No matter how impossible, his sanguine temperament saw nothing not easily accomplished. Nothing was an effort. His thoughts were too rapid; he had unlimited confidence in himself; and he seldom paused to weigh his ideas. He saw in a moment what he considered ought to be done, and it was done without thought of results.

  We linger over this period of Mrs. Henry Wood’s career, as we have said, because it was her first introduction to foreign life, and made a vivid impression upon her, colouring her after days: a time ever much in her thoughts, and of which she was ever ready to talk to those who loved to listen. And it was that enchanting and romantic period — early married life — when, as a rule, everything is bright, the world all couleur de rose, one’s home an enchanted castle, of which the two principal beings are magicians. Troubles are as yet unseen, unrealised, and in every individual case the magic pair think they will prove the one exception to the rule: cares and anxieties are not for them, no clouds will come between — just as it is said that we think every one mortal but ourselves.

  We also linger because of Mrs. Henry Wood’s after career very little can be written. The life so fair in the beginning was presently to drink deeply of the waters of affliction. Dark clouds rolled over her brilliant sky and for a time obscured the sunshine.

  But meanwhile all was bright; it was spring weather, with skies and verdure only found in climes where everything is beautified by a sparkling atmosphere. It was a very forward year, and the leafy freshness was in full glory. One morning Mr. Henry Wood came up to his wife, who was reclining in her drawing-room. “I have an idea,” he said, “and only want your consent to
put it into execution.”

  “What is it?” she returned, smiling; for her husband had many ideas, and some of them had to be reduced to ordinary proportions by common - sense. “Have you found the elixir of life, or the philosopher’s stone, or Aladdin’s lamp?”

  “Better than all,” he laughed. “My idea has been suggested by this splendid weather. I have a few spare days, and it is a sin to waste them here. I should like to take you to the Grande Chartreuse, and acquaint you with all the beauties of that wonderful drive.”

  “The Grande Chartreuse!” exclaimed. Mrs. Wood. “But that is a monastery. I might as well offer to conduct you to that far-off Convent where my cousin gave up life and became Sceur Marie-Ursule, dead to the world. You would not be admitted beyond a salle de reception; I should not even be admitted to so much at the Grande Chartreuse.”

  “But we should spend a week amidst some of the wonders of nature — a week to remember all our lives,” urged her husband.

  “That I grant,” was the reply; “and if you wish it, I am ready to go with you. But you may have to spend a night at the monastery, and what will become of poor me during the time?”

  “That is serious,” he laughed; “but not so serious as it appears. If I do have to spend a night there — I don’t think it will be necessary — an establishment close by, inhabited by nuns, I believe, would receive you, and you would be as safe as you are at home.”

  “You make me feel nervous,” returned Mrs. Wood, laughing also. “They might refuse to give me up again. One has heard of such things.”

  “Are you willing to run the risk?”

  “Quite willing. I think they will probably be only too glad to get rid of me; for in their eyes I suppose I am an unhappy heretic.”

  “And then, as to your not seeing the inside of the monastery, I am not so sure upon the point,” continued Mr. Wood. “I think I can promise that at least you shall visit the refectory and cloisters.”

  “But I thought women were not admitted over the threshold? What Open Sesame would unbar the doors to me?”

  “Ah!” he laughed. “The impossible in life often becomes possible if we only know how to go to work. I will tell you my secret The Brother who is doorkeeper at present, and often accompanies people over the monastery, was not always a monk. He has, indeed, not very long been a monk; and he is not a full-fledged monk now. He was a gentleman and a man who always interested me. It was once in my power to render him a service for which I earned his undying gratitude. There is nothing on earth he would not do for me, even to risking his present position, which of course I would never permit. But I am acquainted with the ways of the monastery, which I have often visited, and know where there is risk and where there is none. But the future shall decide. When shall we start? Can you be ready to-morrow morning?”

  “Quite ready,” replied Mrs. Wood, who always made a point of yielding to her husband’s wishes when it was possible and of falling in with his plans, as good wives do. And on the following morning they started — a morning as bright and fair and full of promise as many of the days that had gone before.

  The air was fresh and clear — that wonderful clearness only to be found amongst mountains. These same mountains rose majestically on all sides, many of their summits still snow-capped; a cold, strange contrast to the warm sunshine and brilliant sky. The fair river ran silently towards the far-off sea; and the travellers, crossing it by an old bridge, no doubt still standing, passed out of sight and sound of the town.

  They made a long round of their journey for the sake of the magnificent scenery that everywhere abounded. Here, too, the roads were excellent; but occasionally a small mountain pass had to be climbed with difficulty and descended with care. Pine-trees grew far up the mountain sides, dark and sombre but ever charming, scenting the air, a delicious repose to the eye; and where pine forests were not, often the hill-sides were covered with vegetation of soft luxuriance — vines growing like currant bushes, still rather bare and wintry-looking, but soon to burst into leaf. The mulberry tree stood in profusion in the plains for the sake of the industrious silkworm, here cultivated by millions; its lovely cocoons spun into silk and presently woven into the rich material for which Lyons in France and Spitalfields in England were so famous in those days.

  Journeying, they often heard the sound of the loom issuing from an open cottage door; and sometimes would stop the carriage and alight, pay the weaver a visit, and bring a gleam of sunshine into his quiet existence. These visits would break for a moment the monotony of constant movement, and rest the travellers. Often they came upon an unexpected village tragedy or romance, as they had come upon the little group near Aix-les-Bains; and the simple villagers were ready with their confidences. Now it was a hard winter which made it difficult to keep the pot au feu boiling; now a lonely grave in the churchyard, on which the turf had not yet had time to grow, and the sound of the mother’s voice still echoed in the chaumiere, and the little wide-eyed children ran about neglected; again it was the gayer subject of a wedding a week old, and the new wife stood blushing and happy at the chimney comer, young and blooming; and the young and handsome husband, dividing his time between weaving and the cultivation of his garden, had not yet put on the pale look of middle-age.

  There was an abundant study of human nature in its humbler forms in these journeys; material for many a village pastoral, such as George Sand so vividly describes in La Petite Fadette, Francois le Champs and those wonderful idylls which charm by their simplicity and faithfulness. But George Sand writes of a very different part of the country, where also the loom is sometimes heard with its whir, and the shuttle flies to and fro; where one room often does duty for everything, and in a corner there shines out a magnificent carved oak press worth its weight in gold, and the people to this day have kept their first primitiveness, and often their dress. Yet the Morbihan could never produce such magnificent and romantic scenery as that through which our travellers journeyed on their way to the Grande Chartreuse. The peasants on the road were few — the women wearing the enormous straw bonnets still occasionally seen in the Dauphine. The waggons were generally drawn by oxen.

  At length they approached the end of their journey, and entered St. Laurent du Pont. The place was little more than a hamlet in those days, with a very primitive inn, but shelter and accommodation were fairly good, and travellers not infrequently put up there on their way to the famous monastery. It seemed that Mr. Wood had slightly changed his plans, for here, he announced, and not at the Grande Chartreuse, they would pass the night.

  They had entered St. Laurent about eleven in the morning, their journey that day having been a very short one. After a simple dejeuner, they returned to the carriage, and began to ascend the wonderful pass.

  Immediately after leaving the village the narrow gorge was entered — a gorge wild and beautiful. The monastery was about ten miles distant, the ascent almost continual. They had left the world behind them, and were journeying into the solitary mountains. Nothing but a small, noisy running stream and the road separated the two ranges. The water was of transparent emerald, clear as crystal. Great boulders of rock stood out, the stones worn into quaint forms by the ever-flowing stream. Small cascades ran down the mountain sides, shining through the pine-trees like silver threads.

  At Fourvoirie they passed a forge romantically situated near the torrent, a most picturesque object. In front the mountains appeared to close in; a wealth of verdure overhung the water, here spanned by an old gray stone bridge. To all this the forge gave life and colouring: as forges always do, no matter where, for they are a remnant of barbarism pregnant with mystery. Hard by there was a charming waterfall, and beyond this the ruined bridge of the old road, used by the monks in the days of their first estate: who certainly were determined to place a barrier between themselves and the world when they built their parent institution in this almost inaccessible spot.

  But what a wonderful eye for beauty they had, those monks; what an appreciation of natu
re; how invariably they found out where the best trout-streams ran, so that they might not only possess an innocent pastime, but an abundant supply of wholesome and unforbidden food. When St. Bruno wandered into this wilderness and there pitched his tent and built him a small chapel, he must have had some prejudice against the world, some terrible disappointment which caused him to choose this remote spot; but he must also have felt the solemn grandeur of the mountains a never-ending source of consolation and delight. An appalling solitude, nevertheless.

  At length the pass widened a little; the snow-capped mountains receded and formed an amphitheatre; the perpendicular rocks passed away, and sloping hill-sides, covered with pine-trees, gave the scene a less wild and desolate aspect. In the midst of this wonderful amphitheatre Mr. Henry Wood presently pointed out to his wife the huge, quaint, ugly pile of the monastery, with its straggling buildings and dependencies — its slanting roofs and small turrets; a high dead wall encircling an immense area, within which the monks walked on ordinary days.

  The carriage stopped not very far from the front entrance, and Mr. Wood, getting out alone, went up to the huge door, and the sound of a bell echoed through the building. Soon the door opened cautiously, and the pale, refined, singularly handsome face of a Frere Procureur looked out upon the world.

  (5n recognising the new arrival, rapture took the place of the resigned expression which characterises most of the monks, as if there were nothing more to hope for from life; the door was thrown wide; the visitors hand was seized with every token of grateful affection. Then he passed in, and the door closed upon him. In five minutes’ time he came out again; and Mrs. Wood afterwards knew that this was part of the conversation that had taken place.