CHAPTER II.

At home in the grand castle, dressed, no longer like a vivandiere, but like a real young lady, sat Marie. She was not happy, but she cannot be said to have been utterly miserable--that sparkling young girl could not be utterly miserable; but she was half way on the journey to utter misery, and she, erst vivandiere, did not like the road.

To be dressed in the fashion--to learn lessons--to make curtseys to grand folks--all these things want an early apprenticeship. If you go into the business after you have gone out of pinafores, you are pretty sure to fail.

And Marie failed signally. Every day there arose a series of contentions between Marie and the marquise; and when the young lady was seated amongst the grand people of an evening, listening to vapid songs about Venus, and Phillis, and all the rest of the delicately-finger-topped crowd, she longed to get up, bang a drum, sing the rataplan, and show them all how they marched in the brave eleventh. But she did not at any time carry such a wish into practice, or the young duke, whose name it is perfectly needless to know, would certainly not have proposed for her hand and heart, as the young duke certainly did, to Marie’s great concern.

When, some little time after, Marie had become a lady, the war broke out again--when again the old regiment was near “my Castle of Berkenfelt”--and when the grizzly Serjeant Sulpice was wounded, the marquise could not refuse Marie’s request that the sergeant should remain at the castle till he could again fight in the field. So, rash with mild gratitude, the marquise let this tempter into her fold.

Tempter he was--for, from the day he made his appearance, pale as to his face, and his arm in a sling, he never lost an opportunity of praising up the regiment camped not half-a-score of miles away, and depreciating the value of the castle.

But at no time did he so asperse the castle, the marquise, and all their surroundings, as on that terrible day when it was understood that at 6 P.M., the duke, the duke’s mother, the duke’s brother, and all the duke’s noble friends would come to assist at the signing of the marriage contract.

On that particular morning the sergeant was more indignant than ever; for, from the great drawing-room, where he had to sit, per command, he looked into an adjoining room, and saw the little vivandiere, who could trip you a measure so that you could hardly see her feet, the little vivandiere trying to slide through a solemn minuet and signally failing in the attempt.

For four mortal hours did the indignant sergeant mark this saltatory misery, and he was meditating an assault and crash upon the extorting dancing-master, when that unlucky professional withdrew, and Marie came running in to Sulpice.

“Oh, I could have slipped about no more, if I had died for it; like a dead march, only not so brisk.”

“Patience, patience, daughter.”

“Patience, indeed--how’s the arm by this time?”

“O! great deal better.”

“Well--I’m very glad to hear _that_--still you need not leave us directly.”

“What--what? A vivandiere counsel a sergeant of the grand army to desert!”

“Oh--no--no, leave of absence, sergeant.”

“Ah, it seems _you_ have leave of absence from your aunt.”

“Not for long, she’s coming here. Now the dancing is over, the word is ‘singing.’ Such slow singing, I want to dash my hands down on the keys to make just a little stir, you know. And she says I shall sing to-night before the company, but he is wrong. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.”

“Or-r-r-r-der.”

“I say I won’t--I won’t--I won’t! And I won’t marry the duke, and I won’t marry anybody but Tony.”

“Ah, Marie, how can you help yourself?”

“If I don’t help myself, I’m sure nobody else will, not even Sergeant Sulpice.”

“Hush!--here she comes--full dress parade.”

“And in stalked the marquise.”

“Thank the chances I have found it--this superb romance. Hem--hem!--’Tis a beautiful romance. Come, Marie--there you stand like a simpleton. Come to the piano this moment.”

“Yes--aunt.”

“There--now begin.”

“Ve-e-e-nus.”

“Very good.”

“Venus--the goddess of love.”

“Enchanting, my dear--go on. I will play slowly.”

“Venus--Venus--descends fr-r-ra-rom above.”

“Quite admirable--now, go on.”

“Marie!” this was the sergeant, creeping up behind the chaste back of the marquise, and whispering to the vivandiere. “Marie--rata--”

“Rataplan--rataplan--rataplan. Rataplan--plan--plan--plan--plan--plan-n-n. Rub-a-dub. Dub-a-rub.”

“My DEAR--what are you singing there?”

“Oh--certainly--aunt.”

“Ve-e-enus--Venus--comes down to dark earth.”

“Ve-_he-he_-nus appears--to light she gives birth.”

“Ra-ta--PLAN--Marie!”

“Each soldier says it--each soldier vows.”

“MADEMOISELLE! I _beg_. Now pray begin all over again--and when you come down at the end of the sixth line--to ‘sigh’--mind you sigh just like Venus.”

“Oh--I can’t. Oh--I won’t. I like the sound of the drum better. There! Rub-a-dub-dub-dub--Rataplan--rataplan.”

“How dare you?”

“Rataplan--rataplan--rataplan.”

Useless was it that the marquise stepped with dignity after the vivandiere at this declaration of war.

“Now, fall in there. Right about face. Ma-r-r-rch.”

“Girl!”

“Rataplan--rataplan!”

Tramp, tramp, up and down the room went the soldier and the girl, the marquise continually following and expostulating.

At last she could bear it no longer, so she took advantage of marching right to the door-post with them, not to wheel, but to keep straight on through the doorway, and to fluster up to her own apartments.

And very apropos had she retreated, for barely had she gone when the military manœuvres were brought to a close by an announcement of the steward, as he stood judiciously outside the door, prepared to run in case of military assault--an announcement to the effect that one of the brave eleventh was at the door.

Whereat the steward flew on one side to make room for a charge on the part of both sergeant and lady, who both rushed to the door to welcome the visitor.

And who was that visitor from the brave eleventh?

Tony! and a score more, who came storming the place as though they had a right to do so. And when they reached the grand drawing-room, where the duke was to be received, they set up such a shout as almost paralyzed the marquise, who, as she did not come to ascertain the cause of the uproar was, perhaps, temporarily deprived of the power of action or remonstrance.

“Hurrah! Marie--Marie!”

And there was to be seen the spectacle of “a young lady in fashionable attire,” shaking the hands of a score of common soldiers, and giving to special favorites a friendly dig in the ribs with her fair little fingers.

Common soldiers, all but one--Tony!

Hopeless despair is sometimes success. Tony, fighting madly for welcome death, lived throughout all to be Captain Tony, and to wear a cross of valor.

She immediately, after a few confidential words with the captain, proposed comfort of an ardent kind to the soldiers. “Aye! Aye,” said they “where’s your keg, Marie?” And then and there the vivandiere’s keg appeared in the person of the butler, who came to the door trembling.

And the next moment he was borne off in trembling triumph to the assault of his own cellars.

Marie was not the girl to give way to much sentiment, so the next moment or so she was talking briskly with her old comrades.

“So, here we three are again, eh!”

“Yes, Marie, as in the old days.”

“How long ago they seem, Sulpice. And so you are a captain, Tony.”

“Yes, and a very brave captain too.” This was not the remark of the captain himself, but of his sergeant.

“Now Sulpice, sit down there. Good: now the captain will sit on one side of you and I will sit on the other. There. And now I must begin. Sergeant Sulpice, you must help us!”

“Help whom, Vivandiere?”

“Marie, and Marie’s captain.”

“How?”

“Speak to the marquise.”

“I’d rather storm a fort.”

“Sergeant Sulpice, you must help us. I say it--you must speak of our troth.”

“Yes--and we did pledge our troth, Marie--did we not?”

“Surely; but I am speaking to the sergeant. You see, sergeant, the poor captain is deeply in love with me; and--yes--I think I am deeply in love with the captain. Well, sergeant, you must help us?”

“Yes, sergeant--I, your captain, tell you--you must help us.”

“Confound you both.”

And the sergeant moved his chair--but Marie moved hers, as also did the captain his.

“Yes--yes--yes,” said the sergeant. And barely had he registered the promise in a strong bass voice, when the marquise entered the room. She was almost paralyzed again at the sight of the third party.

“Aunt--aunt--this is he who once saved my life; and--and I love him.”

“Love! To use the word openly, like that!”

“But, marquise, this is Tony--her husband!”

“Silence, sir--the Duke of Krakentorp is Marie’s husband. Love, indeed! A soldier--a common soldier!”

“Pardon me, marquise--but Tony is a captain now.”

“Then, if he is an officer, he knows, I presume, the laws of good breeding; and when I tell him his presence is distasteful,”--here the grand lady curtseyed, for the captain, without another word, retired, but not without a certain look from Sulpice, who, having given the promise, was proceeding to keep it. He looked Tony from the presence of the marquise, and then he looked Marie also from her presence.

“Ah, I would speak to you alone, Sulpice.”

“And I have a precisely similar desire, marquise.”

“You know I am determined on her marrying the duke.”

“Ah!”

“And I depend on _you_ to bring Marie to reason.”

“Ah!”

“And I think when you have heard me, you _will_ bring Marie to reason. If you do not--no one will--for she loves you better than me--though I’m ... her ... aunt.”

“Ah!”

“Did you ever fall in love?”

“Par-r-r-rbleu.”

“_I_ have fallen in love. _I_, ridiculous and fantastic as you think me.”

“Not at all, marquise--not at all.”

“And I have been married--and to a soldier!”

“Cor-r-r-r-rbleu.”

“And knowing the misery I suffered from that marriage--knowing the misery which _must_ follow all such matches--”

“I don’t see it.”

“You don’t see as the wife, sergeant--I would not wish such a marriage for my daughter--if I had a daughter.”

“Ah!”

“And--and I have a daughter.”

“Par-r-r-rbleu!--what’s her name?”

“Marie!--Yes. She is my daughter. And now, sergeant--if you would oppose the aunt, you will not oppose the mother. I tell you a marriage with the captain would be misery. So you will persuade her to marry the duke--a man of high character, I assure you, sergeant.”

“I--yes--certainly.”

“Then go at once to her, for I hear a carriage at the door.”

Away went the sergeant--as dejected as though the brave eleventh had been signally defeated and cut to shreds.

“Ting--ting”--went the castle bell. The visitors came pouring in, and amongst them the duke and his mother, the duchess; with the inevitable notary.

When Marie came in with the sergeant, she ran to the marquise, and embraced her with more warmth than she had ever shown. In one dismal word or two she promised to obey her newly-found mother.

Then the preparations went on for signing the unavoidable contract.

Meanwhile, the high-flown marquise was asking herself whether the duke was altogether so admirable a party, and she was beginning to see it more clearly than she had seen for many years, the joys of that early martial life of hers, and the happy, loving husband _her_ captain made.

And while she sat recalling that old time there was a great whirr from without. The next moment twenty common soldiers of the brave eleventh had burst into the room, headed by the Captain Tony. For love _will_ make cowards of us, as he will, at his capricious pleasure, make us heroes of bravery.

And then, and there, before all that fine company, they called out in a loud voice to the marquise’s daughter, addressed her as Marie, reminded her of vivandiering days, and recommended her to desert.

The grand ladies were immensely shocked at this awful exposition; for it is needless to say that the story of Marie’s discovery had not, at any time, formed part of the marquise’s aristocratic confidences; and, indeed, the marquise herself was ready to shrink into the ground; but when she remembered the old dare-devil time--the spirit which had prompted her to marry the dead captain, now rose against the shocked indignation of the grand people present; and then Marie’s tears--and then a rather strong fear that the duke would cry off; why all those reasons were as good as a crack advocate speaking for Captain Tony. And the consequence was, that when the notary respectfully asked for the name of the bridegroom--as though he did not know it--the marquise gave judgment in Tony’s favor, and surprised the notary, and the whole aristocratic company, by turning to the captain, and leading him up to a quill-pen dipped in ink.

And so Marie was given away before, at all events, a portion of the brave eleventh, and certainly with that portion’s full approbation.

The aristocratic ladies were shocked; but the marquise, by the lightness of her own heart, and the brightness of Marie’s eyes, knew she had judged wisely; and so she fearlessly looked the grand ladies full in the face.

* * * * *

Rataplan! Rataplan! Marie is the Daughter of the Regiment still!

NORMA. (BELLINI.)