Honor Bright

Laura Richards

Laura E. Richards

Honor Bright / A Story for Girls

CHAPTER I

AT PENSION MADELEINE

Honor Bright was twelve years old when her parents died, and left her alone in the world. (Only, as Soeur Séraphine said, Honor would never be wholly alone so long as the earth was inhabited.) Six of the twelve years had been spent at school in Vevay, at the Pension Madeleine, the only home she knew. She was too little to remember the big New York house where she was born, and where her toddling years were spent. She was only two when her father accepted the high scientific mission which banished him to the far East for an indefinite time. Of the years there she retained only a few vague memories; one of a dark woman with tinkling ornaments, who sang strange old songs, and whom she called “Amma”; one of an old man-servant, bent and withered like a monkey, who carried her on his shoulder, and bowed to the ground when she stamped her little foot. All beside was a dim mist with curious people and animals moving through it. Long robes, floating veils, shawls and turbans; camels and buffaloes, with here and there an elephant, or a tiger (stuffed, this, with glaring eyes, frightening her at first, till Amma bade her be proud that Papa Sahib had shot so great a beast); ringing of bells, smell of incense and musk and flowers, stifling dust and drowning rain; all part of her, in some mysterious dream-way.

When the child was six, the climate began to tell upon her, as it does on all white children, and her parents were warned that she must leave India. They brought her to Switzerland, to Vevay, the paradise of schoolgirls, and left her there with many tears. Since then she had seen them only twice or thrice; the journey was long and hard; her mother delicate.

The last time they came, it was a festival for the whole school. Mrs. Bright, beautiful and gentle, “like a jasmine-flower,” as Stephanie Langolles said; Mr. Bright, kind and bluff, his pockets always full of chocolate, his eyes twinkling with friendliness; they were in and out of the Pension constantly, during the month they spent at the Grand Hotel in Vevay. It was destructive to school routine, but as Madame Madeleine said to Soeur Séraphine, what would you? The case was exceptional. How to deny anything to these parents, so tender, and so desolated at parting from their cherished infant? Happily another year would, under the Providence of God, see this so affectionate family happily and permanently united.

“One more little year,” said Mrs. Bright, as she embraced Honor at parting. “Then Papa’s long task is done, and we shall go home, and take you with us. Home to our own dear country, my little one, where children can live and be well. No more pensions for you, no more strange lands for us. Home, for all three; home and happiness!”

“And now,” sighed Soeur Séraphine. “At twelve years old, an orphan! Our poor little one! And she has seen them so seldom; what tragedy!”

Madame Madeleine shook her head sorrowfully. “As for that, my sister,” she said, “it appears to me less tragic than if these so-honored parents had surrounded, as it were, the daily life of the child. Tiens! She has been with us four years, is it not so? In that period she has seen her parents thrice, a week each time. What would you? A child is a child. Honor weeps to-day; to-morrow she will dry her tears; after to-morrow she will smile; in a month she will forget. And there, if you will, is tragedy!”

Madame Madeleine was right. A week after the sad news came, Honor was telling Stephanie (who had been away for a fortnight) all about it: I must not say with enjoyment, for that would be untrue: but with a dramatic interest more thrilling than sorrowful.

“Figure to yourself!” she said. “We are in the classroom: it is arithmetic, and I am breaking my head over a problem wholly frightful. On the estrade is Madame, calm as a statue, her little white shawl over her shoulders, comme ça. Vivette is making signs to