CHAPTER XI

FAREWELL TO THE CHÂLET

At fourteen, conditions establish themselves quickly, and become--to the fourteen-year-old mind--permanent. Honor had been a short week at the _Châlet des Rochers_, and it seemed her home; Vevay, the Pension Madeleine, the girls, even dear Madame Madeleine and Soeur Séraphine, were like a dream. A pleasant dream--some day, she supposed, she must go back, for a time at least; she was not yet old enough or strong enough to be a sennerin of the Alps, she realized that. How surprised they would be when she told them--

To the outward eye, on this beautiful June morning, Honor appeared an extremely pretty, red-haired child in a blue dress, curled up comfortably in the barn doorway with bright musing eyes looking out over the mountains. In reality--_her_ reality--she was a woman, tall, grave and beautiful, dressed in full Swiss costume, velvet bodice, embroidered apron, silver earrings and all the rest of it. She was receiving with dignified cordiality her former friends, the friends of her childhood: the Lady of Virelai with her lordly husband; Stephanie, Patricia and the rest; was answering their eager questions with simple grace and candor. Yes, she was happy, very, very happy. This was the life she had chosen. Gay cities had beckoned to her, throngs of knights and heroes bold had sighed to do her homage. “The mountains called me and I came. My brother Zitli and I dwell apart, in the sanctuary of Nature, at peace with all men!”

Then she would bid them be seated, and would bring them cream and honey and _biscuits des Rochers_, and they would marvel at the exquisite daintiness of all her surroundings; “the simplicity which is perfection!” as Soeur Séraphine said; at the calm majesty of her mien and carriage. Her magnificent hair was braided now, and hung in two heavy dark ropes--

“Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle Honor! where art thou? Come, my child, and see who is here!”

Alas! the dignified sennerin vanished; not even a strand of her magnificent hair, not even a twinkle of her silver earrings remained. Only little Honor in her blue dress, her curly gold mane tossing about her shoulders, pulled herself up by the barn door, and limped across the green (no need of crutches now!) to meet--Fate, in the person of Margoton!

Not an unkindly Fate, it would appear. Margoton’s massive face was radiant, Margoton’s columnar arms were outstretched; she was altogether a pleasant figure in her neat Sunday dress, with the pink ribbon in her snowy cap.

“Ah, my little mademoiselle! Ah, but it is good to see thee again. We have missed thee--ah, for example! my faith, it seemed to us all a year that thou hast been away. Thou art all pale, little cherished one! _Tiens!_ thou regardest me with great eyes, as if I were a wolf! How, then! Thou art not glad to see Margoton?”

“I--I was startled!” faltered Honor. “I--didn’t know--dear Margoton, forgive me! but--have you come--”

She could not say it. She could smile through her tears on the kind giantess, could press her hand in genuine affection, but she could not speak.

Margoton replied with a shower of nods. But yes, assuredly, she was come for mademoiselle, to take her home; what else?

“Has the time seemed long to thee also, my little cabbage? Ah! Mademoiselle Stephanie, for example, has been a fountain of tears, desiring thee. A fête awaits thee _là-bas_--but--chut! that is not to tell. Gretli has been good to thee, yes? She is not all bad, our Gretli!”

The sisters beamed on each other affectionately.

“One does one’s possible!” said Gretli.

“She has been an angel,” cried Honor. “A perfect angel, Margoton! I never can tell--”

“_Tiens!_” said Gretli cheerfully. “The holy angels are probably less solid than I, Mademoiselle. For example! it would take a strong pair of wings to sustain me, is it not so? You are to tell my honored Ladies, sister, that M’lle Honor has been good as--bread, I do not say! _galette_ could not be better. And the ankle--naturally it is not yet of like strength with the other, that comes slowly; but it marches, it marches. A little week or so more, and Mademoiselle will be running and leaping like--but like that evil-disposed Séraphine, whom behold yonder, annoying poor Nanni as of custom!”

Good Gretli! she had seen the tears in Honor’s eyes, had marked the tremor in her voice; she talked on easily, giving the child time to recover from the surprise. To leave the mountains, thought Gretli, even after a short week; naturally that rent the heart. Margoton had lived so long down there, she had forgotten--though never ceasing to love the mountains--how desolating it was to leave them. Ah, yes! and the little one had a mountain heart, that was to say a heart of gold.

“Figure to thyself what Mademoiselle has done this morning!” she cried, as they walked slowly toward the châlet, the sisters regulating their powerful stride by Honor’s limping little steps. “She has made a cheese!”

“My faith!” cried Margoton. “For example! that was well done.”

“Well done indeed!” Gretli nodded sagaciously. “When I tell thee that it is a cream cheese of the most perfect! Had she passed her life on the Alp, it could have been no better.”

“You helped me, Gretli!” said downright Honor. “I couldn’t have done it by myself.”

“Naturally! that understands itself. A little advice here or there, what is that? I tell thee, sister, friend Gruyère has no better cheese in his shop this day; and were it not that my honored Ladies might like it for their supper, I would send it to him, demanding a fancy price, my faith!”

M. Gruyère was the cheese merchant to whom Margoton was betrothed. Honor knew him well by sight, a little dried-up, snuff-colored man, who might go into Margoton’s pocket, she thought.

“He goes always well, this good Gruyère?” asked Gretli.

Margoton shook her head. Not too well, it appeared. He had been assassinated by rheumatism this past week; in the legs it seized him, in the arms, everywhere. To hear his cries, that lacerated the heart.

“He needs a wife, that one!” said Gretli slyly.

Margoton assented calmly. It was true, she said. He had no sense. Another year or so, when the garden had so to speak grown up a little more, understood itself as it were, one might begin to think about that. At present, with the cabbages what they were, and the snails devastating the cauliflowers, and the peas annihilated by a malediction of black rust, it was out of the question.

“Mademoiselle asks nothing about the _pension_?” Margoton dismissed the unfortunate Gruyère with a wave of the hand, and turned smiling to Honor. “These other demoiselles are in a despair till they behold her; as I said. M. le Professeur, when he came yesterday--for the lesson of French history, as Mademoiselle knows--actually his venerable countenance was to make weep when he found no M’lle. Honor. ‘Where is my Fair One with golden locks?’ demands that poor gentleman. ‘I have prepared a genealogy of the Merovingians for her; she has the historical sense, that young person.’ I heard it with my ears, Mademoiselle.”

“What is that, Merovingian?” asked Gretli. “It sounds like a cheese, but I know of no such.”

“They were early kings of France!” said Honor, brightening a little. “First the Merovingians, then the Carlovingians, then the Capets. St. Louis was a Capet, you know.”

Both sisters nodded vigorously. “That was a very holy saint!” said Gretli. “His goodness to the poor was well known. He also washed the feet of holy pilgrims. Also there was Louis XVI, a martyr, as every child knows. Ah! that unhappy France! what terrible histories! To be Swiss,” she added; “that is to pray for, if these things were in our hands, which the good God has in nowise permitted. M’lle Stephanie found herself not too ill, Margoton, after the attack of that thoughtless animal?”

“Oh, yes!” Honor’s heart smote her. What a selfish creature she was! she had not thought of poor Stephanie all these days.

“Do tell us how Stephanie is, Margoton! I hope she was not really hurt.”

It was Gretli who answered, a shade of asperity in her kind voice.

“She was hurt, Mademoiselle, as much as a flea is hurt that falls on a featherbed. Precisely so much, and no more. Did she not knock you down and descend upon your prostrate form? I ask you! Not of her free will, I grant you, but so it was. She was frightened, she rent the air with her shrieks, the mountains rang with them; but of injury--ah! for example! not one particle of that, believe me!”

Margoton demurred; was not her sister perhaps a trifle severe? There was a bruise on the child’s forehead, that was visible to the eye. There was no doubt that Bimbo was an evil beast. To attack from behind like that; Margoton asked you, was that well-conducted?

“He had provocation!” cried Gretli. “I do not wholly defend our Bimbo; he has the faults of youth, and of his nature. A goat, that is not a philosopher, _hein_? But, it is a fact that he had provocation. Who in her senses would bring a scarlet parasol to a châlet of the Alps? No! my faith, that was not well done. A bruise on the forehead? That is a small matter indeed; while behold our little Mademoiselle here a prisoner for a whole week, deprived of her studies, of her companions, of--”

“But yet,” added Gretli quickly, seeing Honor’s eyes starry with tears again, “she has not been altogether unhappy, _hein_, M’lle Honor? And to stay once at the _Châlet des Rochers_, that is to stay again; it is like that. Mademoiselle will come again in the autumn, is it not so, to see the homecoming of the herd? That is another festival of our mountains, dear to our hearts. Now--a little _goûter_, is it not so? Before making the descent; a glass of cream, a little honey, a biscuit--hold! that I bring them on the instant!”

There was little packing to do. M’me Madeleine had sent a few necessaries by post, and these were all too quickly made into a neat roll. A basket must be packed, with Honor’s cream cheese for the Ladies’ supper, a bottle of whey and a packet of biscuits in case of hunger or thirst during the journey. While Gretli was bustling about on these matters, chatting the while with her sister of affairs here at the châlet, there at the Maison Madeleine, Honor stole into her little room to say good-by. How homelike it had grown! how she loved the little bed with its four faces smiling from the posts! Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, she named them; they had certainly blessed the bed that she lay on. The carvings on the narrow shelf, Zitli’s work, as she now knew; the windows through which the mountains greeted her so kindly morning, noon and evening, with a new glory for every time of day or night; even the bare walls, with their fresh rough plaster, white as snow, were dearer to her than any imaginable hangings or tapestries of queens’ palaces.

“Good-by!” said Honor softly. “Good-by, dear room! good-by, dear little châlet, and all the tiny cows and goats! I’ll come back to you some day!”

“On the Alp the grass is sweetest, Li-u-o, my Queen!”

Zitli’s voice sounded clear and sweet from the garden patch where he was working. Honor leaned out of the window. “Zitli, wait!” she cried. “I am going! I am coming!”

Zitli looked up with a twinkle. “How then, Mademoiselle? Coming and going, both at once?”

In another moment Honor had joined him, and with trembling voice and brimming eyes was telling her sad little story. Margoton had come for her. As soon as Atli came from the Alp, she must go; must leave the _Châlet des Rochers_ and go back to the hot, dusty town, to schoolbooks and school talk. How could she bear it?

Zitli’s bright face grew sober; he pondered a moment, leaning on his hoe.

“_Sapperli poppette!_” he murmured. “This is an apoplexy for us indeed, Mademoiselle.”

“Say ‘Honor,’” cried the girl. “We are friends, Zitli. Why should you call me Mademoiselle?”

Zitli shook his head decidedly. As to the why, he was not altogether clear. To begin with, that did not say itself in his tongue; not, at least, with any degree of comfort. And besides, the sisters and brother called her Mademoiselle, doubtless because it was fitting; he would prefer to do as they did, with Honor’s permission.

“And for the departure,--” the boy looked up, and his face was bright again,-- “My brother and sister,” he announced, “have instructed me thus, Mademoiselle. That which we do ourselves, for that we may be glad or sorry, according as it is done well or ill. That which the good God sends, for that we are to be thankful, whatever it is, since He sends nothing without reason. It was thus my revered grandmother instructed them, and they me in turn. So, though--” he made a quaint grimace,--“though it is very grievous for me to have Mademoiselle go away, still I say to myself, ‘She goes to school,’ to learn wonderful things out of books. Ah! Mademoiselle, what happiness! hold! but when I am apprenticed to the maker of musical boxes, I, too, shall have some schooling, he has promised it. Not, of course, such as Mademoiselle has with the holy Ladies, but in some measure, yes! Books! ah, my faith! that is to dream of, _hein_?”

Honor looked at him, wondering. His face was like a lamp. Books? Of course, one always had books; some of them were good, but others were dull.

“But--but you have the mountains, Zitli,” she cried.

A perfect shower of nods responded. “Ah! yes! I return to the mountains, that understands itself. But with a little learning, too, all I can get, my faith! I shall love my mountains the better for it, and they also will understand. They are not ignorant fellows, those!”

He nodded toward the grave giants, who seemed to watch them kindly. “And--who knows, Mademoiselle? We may meet some day in Vevay. I might even sell Mademoiselle a cheese, if old Gruyère would permit it. My faith! if my sister Margoton waits too long, that one will dry up and blow away. Better might she marry a cockchafer, to my thinking. But he is a kind man, and a sober,” he added hastily. Honor knew he was thinking of Uncle Kissel.

Now Gretli was heard calling.

“I must go!” cried Honor. “We will surely meet in Vevay, Zitli. You will come to see me, won’t you? And you’ll tell me--”

Both were hobbling as fast as they could, for Gretli sounded imperative, though cheerful. Sure enough, when they reached the front of the châlet, there was Atli, smiling his broadest (which was very broad!) and holding in his hands a curious kind of chair; canvas seat, wooden arms, with an arrangement of straps and buckles fastened to the top. These straps, he explained, went round his neck and waist; one even encircled his head. As thus!

Suiting the action to the word, with Gretli’s help he assumed the harness, shifting a strap here, a buckle there, till, he said, it was easy enough to sleep in.

“Now if Mademoiselle will take her seat, she will find herself as if in the pocket of Ste. Gêneviève!” he declared, as Gretli had declared a week ago. Ah! a week ago!

Honor flung herself into Gretli’s arms, murmuring in a half-choked voice her good-by, thanks, love, many things that at fourteen one feels as never before or after. The good giantess was quite overcome, and returned the caress heartily.

“Au revoir, my little Mademoiselle,” she cried. “Till thou comest again, my cabbage! ah! for example! thou takest our hearts with thee, little one!”

“Good-by, Zitli!” said Honor, making a brave effort to steady her voice. She _would not_ cry any more!

“Don’t forget me, Zitli!”

“_Sapperli poppette!_” Zitli’s own eyes were suspiciously bright, and he was blinking hard. “Does one forget the sunshine, Mademoiselle? And--and remember the cheese I am to sell you!”

“All ready, Atli! oh, yes, as comfy as can be, thank you! Good-by, dear, dear châlet! Good-by, Gretli! good-by, Zitli! don’t forget me! Oh! there are the goats! good-by, Nanni, Séraphine, Moufflon! where--oh, there is Bimbo! Good-by, dear Bimbo! and thank you, oh, thank you a hundred thousand times, for knocking me down!”

A waving hand; a bright head turning ever backward for a last look; a clear voice calling, faint and fainter as the big shepherd strode down the mountain path; so Honor left her Alps, and went back to her other world.