The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886

THE CHATEAU AFTER THE LOSS OF THE BABY.

As the baron had conjectured, the housemaid whom he had called out of the nursery to look for Leon's cane, on finding her master had gone without it, did not hurry back, but stopped talking to some of the other servants for perhaps a quarter of an hour, when she returned to the nursery, and to her amazement found the baby was gone. She was not alarmed at first, except she supposed she should get a scolding from the nurse, who she imagined had come in and taken the child to another room; however, having the excellent excuse that her master had called her away she went in search of the nurse, but now not finding her anywhere, and hearing from the footman that she was not expected back till very late, Marie became seriously alarmed.

"Perhaps madame has taken it into her room; she might have heard it crying, and fetched it," suggested the footman, and Marie, very much against her will, felt she was in duty bound to go and see.

So, knocking at her mistress's door, she called out, "Madame, has she taken the baby?"

The poor little baroness, who was asleep, started up, and called to the servant to come in.

"Madame, has she the baby?" repeated the girl.

"The baby? No, what do you mean? Where is it, and where is nurse?" cried the baroness, jumping up and slipping on a dressing-gown and slippers.

Marie began to cry, and to pour forth such a volley of words, excuses, fears, alarms, and wonders that the baroness could make out nothing, and rushed to the nursery to see for herself what had happened. The empty cradle did not, however, throw much light upon it, and the servants who answered the bell, which the baroness clashed wildly, looked as scared as the sobbing Marie to find the baby had disappeared. A search from attic to basement was at once instituted, the men-servants were sent into the grounds with lanterns, the whole house was turned topsy-turvy, in the midst of which the nurse returned, and finding her baby was gone, went into violent hysterics, while the young baroness, with flying hair and dilated eyes, rushed about, wringing her hands, and looking, as she felt, distracted with grief.

The search was, of course, in vain, and they were just coming to the conclusion that the baby had been stolen, when the baron returned from seeing Leon off.

The moment the baroness heard his voice in the hall she flew down the wide oak staircase, crying, "Arnaud! Arnaud! My precious baby is gone, it is stolen; find her, find her, or I shall go mad." And a glance at her wild eyes almost testified she spoke the truth.

"She is not stolen, she is safe enough," said the baron, sulkily.

"Safe? Where? Where? Take me to her, my precious one; where is she?" cried the baroness, with a loud burst of hysteric laughter on hearing her child was safe.

"Silence, Mathilde, don't behave in this ridiculous style. Come with me," said the baron, in a tone his wife had never heard him use to her before, and which had the effect of reducing her to tears; and, sobbing wildly, she hung on her husband's arm as he half led, half carried her upstairs, and laid her on a sofa in her own room.

"Now, Mathilde, if you will try and compose yourself, I will tell you what I have done with the baby. For some time I have felt sure that you were ruining the child's health by the absurd way in which you coddle it up, and, moreover, making yourself a perfect slave to it, neglecting all your other duties," began the baron, as he seated himself on the edge of the sofa by the side of his sobbing wife, who was, however, much too anxious about her baby to be able to listen patiently to the marital lecture to which the baron was about to treat her.

"But Arnaud! Arnaud! where is the baby? Oh, do tell me; it is cruel to keep me in this suspense," sobbed the baroness.

Now, to be cruel to his wife was the very last thing the baron intended; it was only out of the extremity of his jealous love for her that he had sent the baby away. Thoughtless and selfish he might have been, but surely no one could say he had been guilty of cruelty to this wife, whom he loved so madly that even her love for her child had raised the demon of jealousy within his breast. The word "cruel" stung him to the quick; it was a new phase of his conduct, one that had never struck him before, and as he glanced at the poor little baroness, who had half risen on the sofa, and was looking at him with an agonised look on her pretty face, he was seized with remorse, and felt it impossible to go on with the role he had attempted to play of the wise father and husband, who had only acted for the good of his wife and child. Already he was beginning to repent of his rash act, and if it had been possible to go after the yacht the chances are the baron would have started at once, and brought back the baby for the pleasure of seeing its mother smile again. As it was impossible, the next best thing was to make the best of it, and if Mathilde could not be comforted in any other way, why he must promise to let her have it back again. He decided all this as he petted the baroness, and tried to comfort her by whispering fond nothings into her ear; but he soon found all his caresses were useless, unless he yielded to her entreaties and told her where the baby was, and as all he knew about it was that it was on board Leon's yacht, on which it was being taken, he believed, to England, though he was by no means sure, this did not tend to allay the poor mother's anxious fears.

Her baby confided to the wild Leon's charge, tossed about in a yacht with not a woman on board to take care of it, her fragile little daughter, on whom the wind had never been allowed to blow, now at the mercy of wind and waves for days, and then, supposing the child was alive, which in her present mood the baroness declared to be impossible, even if it were, not to know where it was till Leon came back, perhaps for a week or more, for the baron dare not tell her it would probably be a month before he returned--oh, it was unbearable! She was sure she could neither eat nor sleep until she had her baby back. Life until then would be a burden to her. What could she do without it? Already she was sure it knew her; and oh, how happy she had been watching by its cradle! If Arnaud only knew how she delighted in nursing and playing with it, even to gaze on it while it slept was a joy to her! Oh, if he only understood, he would never have been so cruel as to send it away.

All the baron's arguments as to the advantages to the baby which were to be derived from his scheme, and the wonderful health and strength it was to derive from leading a less luxurious life, failed to reassure the baroness, and she passed a sleepless night, and looked so ill and miserable the next morning that the baron was angry with her for looking ill, and with himself for being the cause. No one in the house but the baroness had been told the night before what had become of the baby, the general opinion being that it had been taken or sent to some woman in the neighbourhood to look after; but when it became known that it was sent away in Leon's charge no one knew where, the sympathy with the baroness was universal, and the baron found himself looked upon as a jealous tyrant, with no real love for either his wife or child.

"A nice father you are," cried his brother Jacques.

"The idea of trusting Leon with a baby. Why, he will pitch it overboard if it cries," said little Louis, a remark which so annoyed the baron that he promptly seized Louis by the collar and turned him out of the room.

"You really must have been mad, Arnaud, to dream of such a thing as entrusting Leon, of all people in the world, with an infant," said the old baroness, for once taking the part of her daughter-in-law against her son.

Pere Yvon said nothing just then; it would not have been wise to have done so while the baron's temper was ruffled by the criticisms of his family or in their presence, but when he was alone with Arnaud, Pere Yvon spoke his mind pretty freely, and read the baron a severer lecture than he had ever done all the years he was under his tuition.

It was nothing but jealousy which had prompted such a mad, cruel act, and jealousy of the most unreasonable--he might almost say unpardonable--kind: a father to be jealous of his wife's love for his own child! There was a German saying, excellent in the original, but which lost the double play upon the words in the translation which Pere Yvon quoted to the baron--

"Die Eifersucht ist eine Leidenschaft, Der mit Eifer sucht muss Leiden schaffen,"

which means, freely translated, that jealousy is a passion which brings misery to him who indulges in it; and Pere Yvon impressed upon Arnaud that if any misfortune happened to the baby, he would have no one to blame but himself, for though all sins bring their own punishment, jealousy is undoubtedly one that can never be indulged in with impunity. This, and much more to the same effect, Pere Yvon said, and the baron, lying in an easy chair, listened patiently enough, partly because he was very fond of the chaplain, and partly because he was so angry with himself now for his folly that it was a relief to him to be blamed roundly for it.

All that day the baroness wandered about the house in a vague, restless way, unable to settle to anything, and trying to amuse herself by consulting with the nurse as to how they should go and fetch the baby back when they discovered where it was. She ate little or nothing, and after another sleepless night looked so worn and ill that the baron sent for a doctor, who came and urged strongly that the baby should be sent for at once, or he would not be answerable for the consequences; the suspense and anxiety were telling so on the baroness that if the strain lasted much longer he feared she would have an attack of brain fever.

On hearing this the baron was dreadfully alarmed, and telegraphed to Leon's agent at Havre to let him know immediately he heard from M. Leon de Thorens, who had sailed two nights before in the Hirondelle for a cruise in the Channel. The agent telegraphed back that he knew no more than M. le Baron at present, but so soon as he received any further information he would let the baron know. This did not reassure the baroness, who had taken it into her head that something had happened to the yacht, and not all Arnaud's promises that the moment he knew where the child was he would go himself and bring her back could comfort the poor, anxious little mother, who, with pale cheeks and black marks round her great brown eyes, which were always large but looked bigger than ever now that they had not been closed since the baby left, wandered about the chateau, looking like a picture of despair.

This lasted for nearly a week, and then came a telegram from the agent to say the Hirondelle was lost in a fog off the east coast of England with all hands drowned. The baron was alone when the telegram was handed to him, and the news was such a shock to him that he read the message over again and again before the words, though they were burnt indelibly into his brain, conveyed their full meaning to his mind. Slowly he grasped the terrible truth; poor Leon, the life of the house, wild, handsome Leon was drowned, and his own poor innocent baby as well, drowned, and by his fault. He was little better than a murderer, he thought, in the first outburst of his grief, and he must tell Mathilde, and perhaps kill her too. How should he ever have the courage to do this? Strange to say, though perhaps, after all, it was not strange, the baron was far more cut up at the sad fate of his little girl, whom, a few days ago, he had been so anxious to get rid of, for a while, at least, than he was at the news of poor Leon's death. So much hung on the baby; Mathilde's life might almost be said to depend upon its recovery, and now he must go and strike the blow which would perhaps kill her. Pere Yvon was indeed right; his jealousy was truly bringing a terrible punishment in its train, and the baron buried his face in his hands, and sobs of bitterest grief shook his whole frame. At last, rousing himself, he went to the door of the study where the chaplain was engaged teaching the younger boys, and beckoned him out. Pere Yvon saw at a glance by the baron's pale, scared face, as well as by the telegram he held in his hand, that something terrible had happened, and drawing Arnaud into the nearest room, he asked eagerly what was the matter. The baron answered by placing the telegram in his hands, and paced the room in a frenzy while Pere Yvon read it. The chaplain's first thought was for the poor widowed mother, whose darling son was thus cut off in the beauty of his youth. He had known her so many years, and had comforted her in so many sorrows, it was natural he should think of her first, before the other mother, who had her husband to comfort her, and whose child was only an infant of a few months old.