Chapter XIII: Home Again

On the 10th of September, 1849, two days after General Plouernel brought to Marik Lebrenn his pardon and complete restitution to civic and political rights, the merchant's family was gathered in a modest apartment on the second floor of their house.

The shop had been closed two hours before. A lamp, placed upon a large round center table, lighted the several personages who sat around it.

Madam Lebrenn was busy with the mercantile books of the establishment; her daughter, dressed in mourning, gently rocked on her knees a babe asleep; while George, also in mourning, like his wife, on account of the death of his grandfather Morin a few months previous, sketched on a sheet of paper the draft of a wainscot. Immediately upon his marriage, and agreeable to the wishes of Lebrenn, George had established upon the profit-sharing principle a large joiner's shop on the ground floor of a house contiguous to that of his father-in-law.

Sacrovir Lebrenn was reading a treatise on the mechanics of cloth weaving, and from time to time inserted some notes in the margin of his book.

Jeanike was busy ironing some napkins, while Gildas, who sat before a little table with a heap of articles of linen belonging to the shop, was labeling and folding them in shape for exhibition in the show window.

Madam Lebrenn's face was pensive and sad. So also would surely have been the expression on the face of her daughter, then in the full bloom of her beauty, had she not at that moment exchanged a sweet smile with her babe, which stretched out its arms to her.

His mind drawn for a moment from his work by the gurgling laughter of the child, George turned his eyes to, and completed the group with inexpressible joy.

It was obvious that a settled grief weighed every instant, so to speak, upon this family, otherwise so tenderly and happily united. Indeed, not an hour seemed to pass without the sad thought embittering the minds of all, that the so-much-beloved, so-much-venerated head was absent from the family hearth.

During the first week of the insurrectionary month of June, 1848, Madam Lebrenn took a trip to Brittany in order to make some purchases of linen and visit several members of her family. She took her daughter and son-in-law with her. To the young couple the journey was a pleasure trip. On his part, Sacrovir had gone to Lille on a business errand for his father. He was due back in Paris before his mother's departure. Being, however, detained on the road longer than was expected, he only learned upon his return to Paris of the imprisonment of his father, who was at first sent to the dungeons of the Tuileries as an insurgent.

So soon as tidings of this shocking event reached them, Madam Lebrenn, her daughter and George returned from Brittany in all haste.

Needless to say that Monsieur Lebrenn received in his prison all the consolation that the love and devotion of his family could bestow upon him. After his sentence his wife and children wished to follow him to Rochefort, in order, at least, to live in the same city as he, and see him often. He, however, firmly opposed the plan on several grounds, both of family comfort, and interests. Moreover, the merchant's principal objection to such an inconvenient transplantation of the whole household was--and in this his otherwise good judgment this time deceived him--his positive conviction that a general amnesty would sooner or later be decreed. He caused his family to share his belief, and they, in their turn, were but too anxious to hug so bright a hope to their hearts. Thus days, and weeks and months flowed by vainly hoping, and the hope ever rising anew.

Every day the prisoner at Rochefort received a long collective letter from his wife and children; he, likewise, answered them every day. Thanks to these daily unbosomings, as much as to his own so firmly steeled character, Lebrenn had sustained without faltering the horrible ordeal from which his political enemy, the Count of Plouernel, was at last able to secure his release.

The merchant's household continued to attend to their several pursuits in silence. Presently Madam Lebrenn stopped writing for a moment and leaned her head upon her left hand, while her right remained motionless, holding the pen.

Noticing the preoccupation of his mother-in-law, George Duchene made a sign to Velleda. The two looked at Madam Lebrenn in silence. Presently her daughter said to her lovingly:

"Mother, something seems to be troubling you! What is on your mind?"

"This is the first day, children, during the last thirteen months," answered the merchant's wife, "that we have had no word from your father."

"If Monsieur Lebrenn were ill, mother," observed George, "and unable to write to us, he would have let you know through some one else, sooner than alarm you by silence. As we were saying a minute ago, it is probable his letter miscarried this time, through some accident or other."

"George is right, mother," put in the young woman, "you must not yield so readily to fears for father's safety."

"Besides, who knows," suggested Sacrovir bitterly, "the police regulations are becoming so exacting and despotic that maybe they decided to deprive father of his only consolation. The present administration of the country hates the republicans with such bitter hatred! Oh, we have relapsed into sad times."

"After imagining the future so beautiful!" exclaimed George with a sigh. "And now to see it look so black, almost desperate! There is Monsieur Lebrenn--he!--he!--sentenced to the galleys! Oh, such a sight is enough to make one despair of the triumph of justice and right--except as an accidental and transitory incident!"

"Oh, brother, brother! I feel as if a frightful ferment of hatred and vengeance were gathering and rising in my breast!" exclaimed the merchant's son in a hollow voice. "If I could have one day--one single day--to pay back for all this--even if I were to spend the rest of my life in torment."

"Patience, brother!" answered George. "Everyone has his turn--patience!"

"Children," interposed Madam Lebrenn in a grave and melancholy voice, "you speak of justice--do not mix words of vengeance or of hatred with it. Were your father here--and he is ever with us in the spirit--he would tell you that the right does not hate--does not revenge itself. Hatred and vengeance make the head giddy. Those who persecuted your father and his party with such ferocity are a proof of what I say. Pity them--do not follow their example."

"And yet to see what we see, mother!" cried the youth. "To think that father, our dear father, a man of such integrity and courage, of such tried patriotism, finds himself at this hour in a convict's prison! To know that our enemies derive an insane joy from the prolongation of his undeserved sufferings!"

"In what way does that affect the honor, courage or patriotism of your father, my child?" suggested Madam Lebrenn. "Is it in the power of anybody in the world to stain that which is pure? to disgrace what is great? to turn an honest man into a felon? Do you imagine your father is honored less by his unjust sentence and the mark of the chain that he is now made to drag than by the wounds that he received in 1830? Will he not, when the hour of justice shall have sounded, step out of prison even more beloved, even more venerated than ever before? Oh, my children! We may weep over your father's absence, but let us never forget that every day of his martyrdom exalts and does him honor!"

"You are right, mother," replied Sacrovir, sighing heavily. "Thoughts of hatred and vengeance injure the heart."

"Oh!" exclaimed Velleda sadly. "Poor father! He looked forward to to-morrow's date with so much impatience!"

"To to-morrow?" George asked his wife. "Why so?"

"To-morrow is my son's birthday," explained Madam Lebrenn. "To-morrow, September 11, he will be twenty-one years of age. For several reasons that anniversary was to be a family holiday to us."

Hardly had Madam Lebrenn uttered these words when the street door bell was heard to ring.

"Who can it be, so late? It is nearly midnight," observed Madam Lebrenn. "Go and see who it is, Jeanike."

"I shall go, madam!" cried Gildas heroically, rising from his seat. "There may be some danger."

"I do not think so," replied Madam Lebrenn; "but you may go."

A few minutes later Gildas returned holding in his hand a letter that he delivered to Madam Lebrenn, saying:

"Madam, a messenger brought this--there is no answer."

Hardly had the merchant's wife cast her eyes upon the envelope when she cried:

"Children--a letter from your father!"

George, Sacrovir and Velleda rose together and drew near their mother.

"Singular," she pondered aloud and not without some signs of uneasiness as she examined the envelope which she was unsealing. "This letter must come from Rochefort, like all the others, and yet it is not stamped."

"Perhaps," observed George, "Monsieur Lebrenn commissioned someone who was leaving Rochefort to bring it to you."

"And that must have been the cause of the delay," added Sacrovir. "That is the explanation."

Feeling not a little alarmed at the unusual occurrence, Madam Lebrenn hastened to open the letter, which she proceeded to read aloud to her children:

"Dearly beloved friend, embrace our children in the name of a bit
of good news, that will surprise you as much as it will make you
happy--I have hopes of seeing you soon--"

When the merchant's wife uttered these words it became impossible for her to continue reading. Her children gathered around her and threw their arms about her neck with shouts of joy, too many and loud to reproduce, while George and Jeanike, standing at a respectful distance, shared the general family glee.

"Dear children, be sensible--do not let us rejoice too soon," cautioned Madam Lebrenn. "Your father only expresses a hope to us. God knows how often our hopes of an amnesty have been dashed!"

"Oh, mother! Mother! Quick! Read on! finish the letter!" exclaimed the children in all keys of impatience. "We shall soon see whether the hope is well founded."

Madam Lebrenn proceeded to read her husband's letter:

"I have hopes of seeing you soon again--sooner perhaps than you may
imagine--"

"Do you see, mother, do you see!" cried the children, trembling with joy and clasping their hands as if in prayer.

"Good God! Good God! Is it possible! We are to see him soon again!" exclaimed Madam Lebrenn, wiping from her eyes the tears that darkened them, and she proceeded reading:

"When I say I _hope_, my dearly beloved friend, I mean more than a
mere hope; it is in fact a certainty. I should, perhaps, have begun
my letter by giving you this assurance; but, however well aware I
am of your self-possession, I feared lest too sudden a surprise
might hurt you and our children. By this time, I consider, your
minds are quite familiarized with the idea of seeing me soon, very
soon, not so? Accordingly, I now feel free to promise you--"

"Why, mother," broke in George interrupting the reading of the letter, "Monsieur Lebrenn must be in Paris!"

"In Paris!" the family cried in chorus.

"The letter bears no stamp," proceeded George excitedly. "Monsieur Lebrenn has arrived--and he sent the letter ahead with a messenger."

"There can be no doubt! George is right," put in Madam Lebrenn.

And she read rapidly the rest of the missive:

"Accordingly, I now feel free to promise you that we shall all
celebrate together our son's anniversary. That day begins to-night
after twelve o'clock; at that hour, or, perhaps, even sooner, I
shall be with you. Just so soon as the messenger who takes my
letter to you, leaves the house, I shall run upstairs and
wait--yes, I shall wait behind the door, there, near you."

No sooner were these last words read than Madam Lebrenn and her children precipitated themselves upon the door.

It opened.

Indeed, Monsieur Lebrenn was there.

Futile to describe the transports of joy of this family when once again they had their adored father in their midst!