Itis curious with what ease we adapt ourselves to the completest change in the very foundations of life; a little difference is vexatious and irritating, while a revolution which carries us away from our own identity, substituting a new routine, an entirely altered existence, is comparatively easy. Mr Goulburn, whose affairs had been of the vastest, who had been in the full turmoil of life, in the midst of society and excitement, held at the highest strain, and running the most tremendous risks, fell into the life of the village with an ease which bewildered himself. He could not comprehend the soothing influencesof the calm and good order, the silence and dulness which all at once enveloped him like a cloud. Even Montdard was farther off from Latour than any part of the civilised world is from London. Amid the woods of the Haute Bourgogne it was more difficult to realise what went on ten leagues off, than it was in England to understand how all the great affairs of the world were going. He had bought that clump of pine-trees in a momentary sympathy with the excitement of the country, and with a notion brought from the old life which he had abandoned, that it was a good thing to have something to occupy him. But he was not so keen even about his fir-trees as he had expected to be. The leisurely habits of the country got possession of him. He walked to the woods and looked at them, then came home to breakfast, then amused himself with calculating the profit to be made of them, and all that could be done.
Never before in his active life had he been out of the world. He was so now, and the distance confused all his faculties. He had lost sight of everything he knew, of all that he had calculated upon, of all the influences which had affected him before. The people about, in thecabarets, by the roadside, talked politics indeed, but their discussions seemed so fantastic and unreal to the constitutional Englishman, that they rather increased than lessened his sense that he was out of the world altogether, drifted into some other life. Those wild theories of universal right, broken lights of communism, all the more lurid because of the passion of proprietorship with which they were mixed; the hatred of the aristocrats; the fear of the Church; all those prejudices which were so extraordinary to hismind, looked to him like something got up for his admiration and bewilderment,—scenes at the theatre, which not even the players themselves could believe in. They amused him greatly, being all sham as he thought, dramatic exhibitions natural to the French character; he for one was not taken in by them; but they convinced him more and more of the unreality of this life. He had got into some enchanter’s cave, some lotus island; he did not know at all what was going on outside. Was he a man for whom there was search being made, and with a price upon his head? Or had he dropped out of all agitations whatsoever, out of knowledge of the world? He could not tell; he had not seen a ‘Times’ since he had left London. One terrible fit of alarm he had gone through at Sainte-Barbe. But Charley Ashton certainly could not have known anything, or he would have let itsomehow appear in his looks, even if he had taken no ulterior steps. And how could any one, however great an offender, however well known to the world, be found in this place, which was not in the world? The idea seemed absurd. Then Mr Goulburn amused himself with his calculations about the wood. He was not in any danger from Antoine. A peasant and poacher of the rudest French type was not very likely to take in a man of the world; and he had no more intention of leaving the wood-cutting in Antoine’s hands than of doing it himself.
As for little Janey, she was as happy as the day was long, with little Marie from the cottage next door, and Petit-Jean. Her French bubbled up like a little fountain, all mingled with laughter. It was so funny to talk like the little French children, Janey thought; and no doubt they too could talk English like her if they wouldtake the trouble. Helen, too, settled down as if she had been to the manner born. She, who had scarcely ever threaded a needle for herself, mended the rents in Janey’s frocks, and took pleasure in it. She learned from Blanchette how to knit, and began to make warm stockings for her little sister. She taught Janey her letters every morning. She had a great deal to do, to supplement Margot’s exertions with the featherbrush, and arrange everything as well as she could, the meals and all the details of the house. And by-and-by Helen began to forget the strange way in which this change had been accomplished. She forgot that midnight flight, the dismal journey, the fugitives’ career from place to place. She could scarcely have told any one what it was that had brought them to Latour. Had they meant to come to Latour when they left England?Helen could not tell. She was embarrassed, bewildered by the question, though it was she who put it to herself. She had lived a life so retired and quiet at home, that she had nobody to regret except Miss Temple, who had married Mr Ashton; but this marriage had happened nearly a year ago, and Helen had spent all the summer alone. The time we spend alone goes so slowly. She had lived like a young hermit in the great house; even Janey she had only seen when Nurse thought proper. She had nothing to do, nothing to live by, nobody to think of. She had been awoke all at once from that feeble dream of existence by the thunder-clap of the sudden flight. And now she found herself like one who has fallen from a great height, or recovered from a severe illness, or been picked up out of the sea—living, and thankful to be living, accustoming herself to this surprising reality of existence, so true after so much that was not true. Helen’s intellect had not very many requirements, and such as it had could be supplied by that perennial fountain of dreams which makes up for so much that is lacking in youth. She had no books to read, but she told herself a long and endless fable through all the silent hours, so much the more enthralling that she was always in it, the doer, or the cause of the doing, present in all its succeeding scenes.
The ruddy October weather had come to an end, and November had begun to close in, dark and heavy, when the next incident occurred in Helen’s life. This was when she made the acquaintance of the young ladies at thechâteau, who had looked very wistfully at her for a long time when they met her, before they finally broke the ice. Helen herself hadthought it was “her place” to await overtures, not to make any attempt at a beginning, which ought to come from the other side. It was the morning after the first snow, when everything was white around Latour, the trees hanging heavy with a load of crystals, the path sparkling underneath their feet. Very few, indeed, were the people who were out to brave it. Most of the villagers had got in their stock of wood, and collected their potatoes, their winter supply of vegetables: no improvident buying from day to day, except by the poorest and least respectable of the population, was known at Latour. Those who had gardens, or little farms, had stored up all their treasures for the severe season. A great number of the men were busy in the woods; the women kept indoors. Till evening, when the men came home, there was scarcely a soul visible in the village;then there was a little stir, a sound of heavy feet, and all was quiet again. Blanchette shivered when she saw that Helen had prepared to go out—“Mademoiselle will die of the cold,” she said; “andla petite! it is to kill her.”
“But Ursule has been at Mass as usual,” said Helen, with a little triumph, seeing the prints of a little pair ofsabotsin the snow.
“That is a different thing, that isobligatoire,” Blanchette said, with great gravity. “Mademoiselle knows that my sister is almost a religious; and when it is so, what does it matter? cold or wet, is there not thebon Dieuto take care of you?”
“Thebon Dieutakes care of us all,” said Helen.
She was a Protestant, which, though no one knew what it was, was certainly not a Christian, and therefore had no particular right to be cared for by God. Still Blanchette did not object to this supernatural shield for Helen. She only shook her head as they left the door. These uncovenanted mercies, though always to be hoped for, are risky; whereas in the case of Ursule, there could be no doubt, on all sides, of the perfect security of the guarantees. Janey was delighted to feel the crisp and dazzling snow under her little feet; she ran and danced upon it, stamping on the hard shining surface. “It is like a big, big cake,” said Janey, “and me the little lady on it. Don’t you know, Helen, the little lady with the stick?”
It was a Twelfth-Day cake of which Janey was thinking, and Helen could not help recollecting the very cake which had kept a tender place in her little sister’s thoughts. It was one which had figured at the school treat organised by Miss Temple, before she went away and married.
“Do you remember the little lady, Janey?”
“She turned round and round,” said the child; “she had a stick and pointed. Let me get a stick and point too.”
What a different scene came before Helen’s eyes! the schoolroom at Fareham all decked with holly, the great white cake sparkling like the snow, the eager children drawing their characters,—and in the midst of the party a splendid, shy little person wrapped in furs, who was the giver of the feast, and to whom everybody looked with so much desire that she should be pleased. She thought she could hear the horses pawing with impatience at the door, and see little Janey flushed with excitement, wrapped in the softest satin-quilted mantle, carried out by the biggest of footmen to the most luxurious of carriages. Helen laughed softly to herself—was it a dream? She thought of it as Cinderellamight have thought of her ball had there been no young prince in it, nothing to make the episode of special importance. Was it really true? And it was at this moment, while Janey was pirouetting round and round with the wand in her hand, and when Helen had just laughed to herself at the strange recollection of the past, which was so unlike the present—that the two Demoiselles de Vieux-bois came suddenly round the corner and met them. There was a little pause on both sides. An “Oh!” of startled expectation came to Helen’s Britannic lips, and the two young Frenchwomen swerved for a moment, then stopped and held a hurried consultation. Then one of them advanced with pretty hesitation, a blush and a smile.
“Pardon, mademoiselle,” she said; then added in very passable English, “we have wished to call, but our mamma has been sick, and we were doubtful to come alone.Perhaps you will let us make friends now?”
“Oh, I shall be so glad!” cried Helen, putting out her hands shyly, with a sudden flash of light and colour coming to her face. They had thought the English miss, like all English misses, pale and cold.
“I told you so,” said the one to the other. “I am Cécile de Vieux-bois, and my sister is Thérèse. We have wanted so much to speak to you. You are English, and we have such dear friends in England.”
“She has herfiancéthere,” said the other, laughing. “She is going to be English herself.”
“Et peut-être toi aussi,” said Cécile, half reproachfully, in an undertone.
“Crois pas,” said the younger, shaking her head. She caught Janey up and gave her a sudden kiss. “This little one is delicious,” she said, translating her native idiom into English. “We have so muchremarked her in church, everywhere; and you too, Miss——” she added anxiously, lest Helen’s feelings should be hurt. “How shall we call you? Miss——”
Helen’s face grew scarlet. She had never been brought face to face before with this terrible difficulty. Her name had been of no importance in Latour. If her father called himself by one name or another, she knew nothing of it. Mademoiselle was enough for everything.
“Please do not say Miss at all,” she said, the tears (and how sharp they were, like fire more than water!) coming to her eyes. “I am Helen, and she is little Janey. Will you call us so?”
“But it will not becomme il fautto call you Helen the first time we see you, without either Miss or Mademoiselle.”
“We don’t say Miss in England,” said Helen stoutly; “no one says it who iscomme il faut,—only the servants.”
The two French girls looked at each other with a little surprise—perhaps they did not like to be supposed ignorant on this point; or perhaps the fervour of Helen’s protest struck them, though they could not tell what it meant. But they were too well bred to make any further difficulty. “Do you like our poor little Latour?” said Cécile. “It is so strange to us to see any new faces here. We shall be so happy to have you all the long winter—that is, if you are going to stay.”
It was Cécile who spoke the best English. The younger one was playing with Janey, and chattering in a mixture of languages which amused and suited them both. Cécile and Helen walked on demurely side by side.
“We shall stay if—if papa likes it,” she said.
“Monsieur your father is not strong?” said Cécile, with a sympathetic look. “Isaid so when I saw him first. I told mamma that there was something here——” She put her hand to her lips, and the tears filled her eyes. “We lost our dear father all in one moment,” she said; “thus we know what it is to be unquiet. But at least you are warned. You can watch over him, and if there is nocrisethat goes on for a long time.”
“Oh, there is nothing the matter—I mean, papa is not ill,” cried Helen, half alarmed, half amazed. “At least, it is only——”
“That is what we said,” said Cécile, gently; “it is only—a little want of breath, a little palpitation. And we might have taken more care perhaps to avoid emotion—to avoid danger; but who can say?Le bon Dieuknows best.”
“I assure you,” said Helen, “I am not alarmed at all about papa. We arenot so well off as we were, and he wishes to be quiet, that is all. I think he likes Latour, and I like it. Yes, I think we shall stay all the winter. Perhaps we shall stay always. Janey will not remember any other place.”
“But you—were you not sorry to leave your home?”
“Sorry?” said Helen, meditating. “I ought to have been. I do not quite know, it was so strange. Before I knew that we had left home we were here, or, at all events, at Sainte-Barbe,” she said, with a smile.
“Sainte-Barbe? that is a long way off, beyond Dijon. But tell me, is it not very gloomy in England, more gloomy than here? Thérèse was quite right, I amfiancé, and I shall live in England. Tell me a little about your home.”
“I was thinking of it when I saw you,” said Helen. “Little Janey said the snowwas like a great white cake—like the cake we had on Twelfth Night, and that made me think. I thought I saw the room all dressed with holly—we do that in England at Christmas; and all the children from all the parish—they came from miles round—and the great huge cake. The children all came and curtseyed to us when they had their slice of cake, and stared at Janey. She looked like a little fairy princess,” said Helen, with a smile and a sigh. Her new acquaintance looked at her very closely, then gave a glance at the child, who was very simply dressed, not like a princess at all.
“The people loved you very much?” said Cécile; “they do so in England; they do not hate you as aristocrats. I shall be very glad of that. Why should they hate us in France? We try to do what good we can, but there is alwayssuspicion. They think we have no right to differ from them. But how can we help it? It is so, it is not our doing. They have not that feeling in England. They loved you, the people? Oh, how happy I shall be!”
“They were always very nice,” said Helen. “Loved—I don’t know that they loved us. We do not say that word in England except when—except when it is very strong indeed;—but they were always very nice. Though Miss Temple used to say papa was too good—a great deal too liberal, giving them too much—almost everything they wanted.”
“Miss Temple was——?”
“My governess,” said Helen—“my very dear friend; she went away from me and married. I never had a mother, nor Janey either,” she said, in a low tone.
“But it was very good, very kind ofmonsieur your father to be so good to the poor.”
“I thought so too; but Miss Temple said it was wrong to give so much,” said Helen, simply. She did not understand the wonder that was rising in the mind of her new acquaintance. What Helen innocently revealed seemed to Cécile the condition of a grand seigneur in the old days when a grand seigneur was a prince in rural France. And it was very extraordinary to think of a great English nobleman or gentleman—words of which she partially understood the meaning—living in Latour! She looked at Helen again, examining her very closely; and Cécile knew that her dress, which was the dress she had brought from Fareham, was costly and fine, though so simple. They had wondered, gazed at the English family in church, and wherever they met them.But it was still more extraordinary now. The only thing was that they were English. That accounts for so much! for every kind of eccentricity, Cécile thought.
“Some friends, some people whom we know—indeed,” said Cécile with pretty dignity, “why should I not say it?—the gentleman who is myfiancéis coming soon to see us. You will like to meet your compatriots? But I hope you will come before that time—oh, long before! as soon as you will—to-morrow! I should like to show you thechâteau. It is very old and curious. You will forgive us for not going sooner to see you. We hoped mamma would have been well; but now they tell us that she must not go out all the winter. She who loves the air so much and to be active. She will like to see you, Miss——”
“You promised to call me Helen.” Helen had forgotten her own horror about the name, and said this with a mischievous sense of amusement, her pleasure in her new friend and in the prospect thus offered to her opening up all the closed doors in her heart. She laughed as she spoke. It had gone out of her mind that for the moment she had no name.
“It seems too familiar,” said Cécile, gravely, “for the first time; but if it is so that in England one does not say Miss—but they do say it, or why should the word exist?—I will willingly call you Helen. Do you thus pronounce the ‘h’? In France we say (H)élène.”
“Is it that mademoiselle will come to thechâteauto-morrow?” said Thérèse, coming up. “The little one will come. She has told me a great many things. Oh, how it is pleasant to have some one new to talk to! She is delicious,” criedthe young Frenchwoman. “And mademoiselle, I hope she too finds it pleasant to have friends.”
“We are to say Helen,” said Cécile, with her air of dignity. They had reached M. Goudron’s house as she spoke, where he was standing with an old shawl wrapped about his shoulders. He was not susceptible about his personal appearance. But the sight of Helen’s companions made a change in his looks. He grinned, but he scowled as well. His countenance became diabolical between hatred and mockery. Thérèse caught her sister by the arm.
“He is like the demons in the pictures. I dare not go any nearer. Cécile, come! he will do thee some harm. Me, I am notfiancé, nothing is going to happen to me; but he will bewitch thee, he will do thee harm.”
“I am not afraid,” said Cécile, thoughshe trembled a little; “there are no people in England who hate you because you are aristocrats, that makes me very happy. And you will come to-morrow to thechâteau? At one o’clock, after thedéjeuner, will that do? and we will come to meet you. Then good-bye,à demain, au revoir,” both the girls cried, turning hastily away. M. Goudron had put them to flight. The frown disappeared from his face as they turned, and the grin became more diabolical than ever.
“What a pity,” he said, “mesdemoiselles, that your fine friends, those magnificent young ladies from thechâteau, the young princesses, the great personages, should run away from a poor old man.”
Little Janey had no restraints of politeness upon her. She pulled at the end of his eccentric old tartan shawl. “C’est parce que vous êtes si méchant,” shecried. “C’est parce que you are a fright—a horrible, nasty, old man. I hate you too,” cried Janey—“vous êtes méchant, méchant! Personne vous aime; vous êtes an old, old, wicked! a horror! a fright! all wrapped in a shawl like an old vieille fille; nobody loves you—they all hate you,” she cried.
M. Goudron was dismayed by this sudden attack: he had a weakness—he loved children. He cried in a querulous tone, “Petite, vous n’en savez rien,” loudly, as if defying the world. At the window up-stairs Blanchette and Ursule were secretly kissing the tips of their fingers, waving anxious salutations to the departing ladies of thechâteau. As for Helen, she held her dress close to her, not to touch him as she brushed past into her own room. She was not so outspoken as Janey, neither did she think, like her father, that these extraordinaryantipathies and political extravagances were fictitious like the politics of avaudeville. But the horror was evanescent, and how delightful was the reflection that she had found a pair of friends!
Afterthis a new life began for Helen. Cécile and Thérèse de Vieux-bois were much more highly educated than she was; they were far more fluent in conversation; they knew a great deal more than Helen. She, poor, solitary child, in her luxurious rural palace, had read nothing but novels; whereas they had read scarcely any novels at all, but a great many better things, and still continued their studies with a conscientiousness and energy at which she gazed with wonder. Nothing could have been more different from their carefully guardedand sedulously instructed life than the secluded existence of the millionaire’s daughter, broken sometimes by the noisy brilliancy of a great dinner-party, at which, perhaps, she and her governess were the only ladies present, or by the arrival of the huge box of light literature which her father substituted when she was seventeen for the cakes and toys, and dainties of all kinds, with which he had overwhelmed her at an earlier age. This was Mr Goulburn’s idea of what was best for girls—cakes and sweetmeats, then novels, with as many balls and amusements as could be procured. He had intended that Helen should be fully supplied with these later pleasures; but he had not succeeded, as has been said, in introducing her to the county, and all his plans for town had been mysteriously cut short.
But the Count de Vieux-bois had gone upon a very different plan; and itis quite possible that just as Helen found it much more lifelike and real to mend Janey’s frocks and teach her her letters, so the demoiselles Cécile and Thérèse might have found more satisfaction in the abortive balls and dinner-parties, which might not have come to nothing in their hands. But the life of which Helen became a spectator at thechâteaufilled her with admiration and awe. She could only look with respectful alarm at the volumes which the others worked steadily through, morning after morning, with the most noble devotion. No one so much as saw the young ladies at thechâteautill twelve o’clock, when the big bell rang, and they all came out of their rooms to the first common meal. “When do you work?” Cécile had said almost severely when Helen told her of the breakfasts in England. “If it is so, I shall not like that at all. When can one work?—and if one does not read, andread much, how shall one be a companion to one’s husband?” the young lady asked with great gravity. We have already said that domestic virtue and duty is, in France, for the time being, the highest fashion, the finestcachetof supreme aristocracy. Helen made the most simple, but, to this highly educated young Frenchwoman, the most bewildering reply.
“Oh! perhaps he will not read very much either. Gentlemen never do; they read the ‘Times’ and the ‘Field’—and; have I said anything wrong?”
(“Elle est folle donc,” said Thérèse to Cécile. “C’est que son père est un homme desport,” said Cécile in an undertone to Thérèse.)
“You deceive yourself,chèreHélène,” said the elder sister with a smile. “The journals are nothing; one must know what is going on. But if you knew how difficult it is to keep up with the readingof gentlemen—our dear father, for example. Mamma did not try. She said, ‘It is useless at my age. I cannot do it; my daughters, I leave it to you.’ And we tried, but never succeeded. Nevertheless, papa was very kind. He always recognised that there were difficulties. But I am resolved to be a companion to my husband. I will not leave it to my daughters,” said Cécile. “I have read your great writers, and a great deal of the constitutional history. And now I shall be ready to take up anything that John is doing.”
“Is his name John?” said Helen, with rising interest.
“It is a very pretty name,” said Cécile; “there are a great many in England. It is something like our Jean in France, but moredistingué.”
“Oh, much, much more distinguished,” said Thérèse.
“He had not any title at first,” Cécilecontinued. “They say that in England that, too, is more distinguished. I thought I should be called Mistress. It is droll.”
“We do not say Mistress in England,” said Helen. “Is he in the law, or in the Church, or a merchant, or only a gentleman? Papa was a very great, great merchant,” she continued, her cheeks colouring warmly. Though she was very quiet and gentle, yet in some things Helen had her pride too.
“And what is it to be only a djentleman?” Thérèse said.
“That is when youquitebelong to the county,” said Helen—“when you have been always there, when the estate goes from father to son. There was a gentleman near Fareham, where we lived, a gentleman called Rashleigh——”
“I have heard those names,” said Cécile with a little cry. “John has talked to me—I am sure I have heard them.”
A mischievous light glanced over Thérèse’s face. She made a sign to her sister. “All the names in England resemble each other.Tu te trompes, Cécile. And here is mamma.”
The entrance of Madame la Comtesse put a stop to all the chatter. She herself talked steadily without intermission. She was a handsome, middle-aged woman, threatened, as she told everybody, with abronchite. “I who never had so much as a cold in my life!” The talk of the girls was extinguished, as tapers are extinguished in the light of the day, by the conversation of their mother. She spoke a little English badly, but a great deal of French very well.
“So monsieur your father is ill, mademoiselle. I am grieved to hear it. Where there is but one parent, it is then that life becomes precious;though evensans cela—— Do not send for the doctor here; it is a good-for-nothing; in medicinebien entendu, not in life. For his life,mon Dieu!I know nothing of it,” the Comtesse said, shrugging her shoulders. “He is not of ourmonde. But monsieur your father, mademoiselle, you can do the most for him yourself. You can keep him from emotion; that is the great thing—from emotion. To do that, one must take a great deal of trouble, one must be always watchful; but for so dear a father one does not think of trouble. Were I allowed to go out I should see him; you should have the benefit of my experience; and indeed, when he does me the honour to come here I shall spare no trouble; I shall observe him closely. It is my duty. I should be barbarous, I should not be Christian, did I not endeavour to be of use to you, so young, and a stranger.”
“But indeed, madame!” cried Helen in despair, “my father——”
“I know what you would say,” said the too sympathetic lady. “He will not allow that he is ill; it is what they all do. Ah me! to whom do you tell it? Have we not made the experience, my children and I? They are made like that; they will not be advised, they will not take care. Then the only thing, my child, is for you to take so much the more care. Let there be no emotion. That is the chief thing—no emotion. It would be well, perhaps, that you see his letters before they are given to him, and if any is of a character to cause excitement, keep it back. Ah, how much do I regret that I neglected some of these precautions! But,mon enfant, you must profit by our sorrow,” said the Comtesse, with tears in her eyes.
These advices were addressed to her continually, altogether unaltered by the fact that Helen protested, whenever shehad a moment given her in which she could do so, against the supposed illness they had attributed to her father. She protested that he was not ill; but it made no difference. The Comtesse paid no attention, but entered with enthusiasm into the minutiæ of care-taking, recollecting now one thing, now another, that Helen could do—surtout point a’émotion!They were so sure they were right that she came at last to listen without any protestation. Thechâteaugave Helen an altogether enlarged and widened life. She was there almost every day, leading them into the wintry woods, at which they shivered, but which Cécile boldly braved now and then, on the strong argument that in England, whether it was winter or summer, everybody went out; or sitting with them near the ugly stove which kept their rooms so warm, discoursing now and then in her turn about the English lifewhich, to them, was so unknown. Helen, to tell the truth, did not know very much more about it than the two admiring girls who, on this point, believed all that she said. But she collected all her broken reminiscences, and all that she had heard from Miss Temple, and even, it must be added, some things which she had found in her novels, to instruct the eager mind of Cécile in her new duties. That she would have to walk out every day, whether it rained or snowed or blew a tempest; that she would have to be fully dressed by nine o’clock, in norobe de chambre, however pretty, ornégligéof loosely knotted hair,point device, and ready to receive visitors; that she would have to carry puddings to the cottagers, and take a class in the Sunday-school; and that the people would adore her. All this Cécile received with unbounded faith; though she was much disturbed by theSunday-school, which had not been in her programme.
“But they will know I am a Catholic,” she said.
“All the ladies do it,” said Helen, with steady dogmatism; and the two girls looked at each other with a gasp of dismay, but could not doubt what was so unhesitatingly given forth. There was great trembling about these Sunday-schools, so unnecessarily and boldly introduced, and the Curé was consulted, and even the Vicaire, and Cécile herself wrote to the superior of the convent in which she had been brought up. The Comtesse was of opinion that John should be written to at once, and the thing declared impossible; but Cécile would not consent to this. He would not wish her to do anything against her conscience, she knew; but, nevertheless, her dutiful soul was troubled. Thus Helen had her revenge.
And thus the winter stole on. Mr Goulburn was with difficulty persuaded to pay a visit at thechâteau, where he was very silent, and bowed and listened to all that Madame la Comtesse had to say. He did not protest at all, as Helen did. But he excused himself when it was proposed that he should go again. Excitement was bad for him, he said, with a gravity that filled Helen with the utmost amazement; and when the evening of the weekly dinner-party came, Helen went with M. le Précepteur and his wife, making apologies for her father, which were received in very good part.
“He is right,” said Madame la Comtesse; “excitement is the worst thing in the world for him. I am glad he perceives that it is necessary to guard against it.”
All this confounded Helen, who did not know what to think. Was it truethat her father was ill? Was there really anything to fear?
But he did not appear ill, or at all different from his usual condition. He began to get his pines cut at last, confiding the business to the husband of Margot, not to Antoine, with whom, nevertheless, he did not quarrel, employing him in various odd jobs with an impulse of liberality which was very unlike anything to be found in Latour. Mr Goulburn could not forget the habits of a man through whose hands money had streamed in large floods, and who had never had time to be economical. He gave employment with a freedom unknown in the locality, where everybody looked a great many times even at asoubefore spending it. He was a new species to the thrifty villagers. He went daily and superintended the wood-cutting, and enjoyed the walk, however cold itwas, a thing equally incomprehensible to them; but he would not carry even his own overcoat, calling the first idle lad he could find to do it for him, and throwing him fifty centimes for work which was not worth onesou. He saw everything done to the long straight pine-trunks; and at last, early in the spring, concluded the whole little enterprise, which had given him much satisfaction. They had been sold to an agent who had been at Latour during the winter, and who was as much pleased with his bargain as Mr Goulburn was with his. He came home one day holding in his hand the letter which had contained this agent’s remittances. It was the first letter he had received for months—the first sign of communication with the world which lay outside of Latour. “I have set up in business,” he said; “there is no saying what it may come to. It is a pity thereare no shops; I should have bought something for you girls. I have been making money even out here. By the by, it makes my heart beat. I am not framed for excitement, as your old Comtesse says.”
“Do you always make money, papa?” said little Janey. “What do you do it with? I should like to make some nice new money, like the newsousCécile gave me.” She had forgotten all about other coinage, and now knew nothing but thesous.
“This time, you know, I made it in the wood,” he said. “Don’t you recollect the gold among the trees?”
“That was only sunshine,” said Janey. “I see that often; but you cannot put it in your pocket. Did you dig till you came to it, papa? Was it in a big box or in a jar deep down under the trees? Margot says there is some there, if weknew where to find it. Will you show me how you got yours, papa?”
“No, no, my little girl,” he said; “you shall never soil your pretty fingers with it. There will be plenty for my Janey when I am dead.”
“I don’t want to have plenty when you are dead!” cried the child. “I don’t want to have anything when you are dead. I should like then to be dead too.”
“No, no, my little love. No, no, my Janey; you will live long, and you will be happy, and you will be kind to the poor, and think sometimes of your old father.” He had taken her on his knee, and now leaned his head upon hers. “You will never believe any harm of your father, my little girl. Whatever they say of him, you will always remember that he was very fond of you.”
“You do not feel ill, papa?” criedHelen, alarmed; while Janey, not understanding, but frightened too, peered up in his face with a pair of widely opened eyes.
“I believe it is that old witch at thechâteau,” he said, and laughed. “I must beware of excitement, you know. To dine in her company being too much for me, how should I be able to bear the maddening delight of making a few francs in Latour? It will go off presently,” he added, setting Janey down from his knee. And so it did, to all appearance; there was nothing wonderful in it. But the profit he had made amused him beyond description. It did him good—or harm. It set him thinking of the outside world, and wondering what was going on there. A thirst for a newspaper suddenly came upon him. What were they doing in the world? And he himself, what had been done about him? Had he been allowed to drop withoutany attempt at pursuit? Had things not turned out so badly as he thought? When a man feels himself pursued, the sense of getting into a place of safety, a close cover, is sweet; but after the pleasure of the security has penetrated into every vein, what man is there who can refrain from poking his head out of the cover to look for his pursuers, and from feeling a kind of disappointment at their total disappearance? To hear them strutting about, poking at every bush, calling to each other, now here, now there, foiled yet pursuing, is more flattering, more consolatory to the fugitive. But there had been nothing of this in Mr Goulburn’s case; he had slipped through their fingers; and after he had been pleased for a long time, now he began to be almost disappointed—he wanted the excitement. He was tired of the too complete safety of his life.
That night there was great news at thechâteau. John was coming. The wedding was to be at Easter; but he could not remain so long without visiting his bride; and with him was coming a relation, a gentleman. “Listen, Hélène,” said Cécile—“we have no secrets for you. This gentleman, Monsieur Charles, istrès comme il faut. I cannot say it in English. What words are there in English that say all that? He is not very rich; but mamma seeks to marry Thérèse, and in every other respect he is everything we could desire. John has often spoken of it. He has been in India, like so many of your young Englishmen. But if Thérèse and he please to each other, why should he go back? John says that if some one who is clever, a true man of affairs, an Englishman, were to manage our woods, we should be twice more rich; and if hepleases to Thérèse! Hush! it is a little family arrangement; nothing is to be said of it. But we watch for the eventualities. You will open your English eyes,chère petite, and you will give me your opinion upon him for Thérèse.”
Helen felt a little chill at her heart; she could not tell why. A Monsieur Charles who had been in India! No doubt there were hundreds of them in England. “But,” she said—and probably in any case she would have objected, for she had begun to be very British since she lived in France—“but an Englishman does not understand family arrangements like this. Does he know that he is coming for Thérèse?”
“That is what we cannot tell. We know that the English are very peculiar—very strange in their ideas.”
“I think it is the French who are strange in their ideas,” said Helen, withall the fervour of English prejudice. She was almost pleased to think that if M. Charles was a party to any such arrangement he was not at all socomme il fautas Cécile thought. “ArightEnglishman would not do it. Come to be looked at, as if he were applying for a situation as a servant!” Helen said to herself indignantly, that these were not English ways. She did not enjoy the evening. She was not herself. She contradicted everybody, even Madame la Comtesse. What was the matter with her?
“Tiens” said the Comtesse, “these English are so droll; it does not please them to meet each other. We others, we love our compatriots. When you are in England it is afêteto see a Frenchman. But the English are different; they will not encounter each other if they can help it. You will see that Djohn will be equally discontentedto hear that there is an English family at Latour.” This appeared both to Cécile and Thérèse a very likely solution of the question.
But Helen went home displeased and uncomfortable—displeased with herself: for what did it matter to her if some Englishman, whose very name she had never heard, should adapt himself to the special point in which French domestic arrangements are repugnant to the English mind? It was nothing to her. If he pleased Thérèse and Thérèse pleased him, and everybody else was pleased, what had Helen to do with it? But it is astonishing how determined we often are to annoy ourselves about things with which we have nothing to do. “No doubt it would be a most excellent arrangement,” she said to herself with a smile, which she felt must be very much like a sneer. In England people wouldbe very much surprised; but Latour was not England, and probably Monsieur Charles had learned different fashions in India, which was not England either. She wondered what sort of person he could be, impatiently disengaging from her mind the shadow that would thrust itself forward of the Monsieur Charles who had been in India, and who had also been in Sainte-Barbe. Whoever it might be, it could certainly not be he. And yet how he would thrust himself into her imagination, poke himself forward, with his light hair and sun-burned countenance! She wondered—if it should happen to be he after all—would Thérèse like him? and what would he think, to find her, Helen, established there? and would he look in the same way and speak in the same way as he had done at the Lion d’Or? “In what way?” she said to herself sternly, and herselfreplied, “Oh, in no way at all!” with an impatient fling of the head. It was lucky that her companions chattered all the way, for Helen made no addition to the conversation. And it was not a very long way. Thechâteauhad no lengthened avenue, no seclusion of lawns and trees between it and the village, but stood close to the road with patriarchal bareness and simplicity. It was a moonlight night, and the softening of spring was in the air. There was a little commotion, too, unusual to it, in Latour. The young men of the village were about in groups, thecabaretswere more full than was usual, except on Sundays. Helen recalled to herself with a little effort a thing which in her preoccupation she had forgotten. The next day was the day on which the lots were to be drawn for the conscription. Poor little Blanchette’s heart was full of trembling, andthere was many an ache of anxiety in the village. With all her homely neighbours in such suspense, to think that she should be able to make herself almost unhappy about this Monsieur Charles from beyond the sea!
Helenhad meant to go to Mass on the morning of the day when the young men of the village were to draw for the conscription, but she was late, as the interested and distressed young spectator so often is at the critical moment. Ursule had gone to the early Mass before break of day, and had stayed in church till the numbers were drawn, and the youngconscritscoming out of the Mairie with their number, bad or good, in their caps. Madame Dupré would have liked to do the same, but she was afraid of the ridicule of her neighbours, who certainly would have taunted her with trying to curry favourwith thebon Dieuat the moment when she was in need of His help. Not being able to do this, she began a special “cleaning out,” such as, in all regions, is soothing to the female mind perturbed. As the moment approached, the poor woman grew more and more cross, snapping at every one who approached her. M. Goudron, who liked to watch a dramatic situation, came in about ten minutes before thetiragebegan. “My house is all upside-down!” he said with keen enjoyment. “Nobody can pay any attention. One is praying and the other weeping, instead of awaiting with placidity whatever may have happened. I say to myself, Madame Dupré is anesprit fort. She will consider that a man must have his coffee, were the skies to fall. That is a thing that girls cannot be taught. I tell that little fool Blanchette, ‘If thou wilt take an example, look at hismother, our good neighbour of the Lion d’Or!’”
“If I were thou, Jean Goudron, I would hold my peace. I would not meddle with what concerns thee not,” said Madame Dupré, pushing against him with her great broom in her hand.
“Comment!my coffee? Does not that concern me?” cried old Goudron, with his grin.
Madame Dupré made no reply. Her round face was red as the embers on the hearth. She swept the dust out of all the corners, knocking her brush against the wall, making a great noise, and sweeping everything towards him. He got a mouthful of this dust, which, as it had not been stirred for some time, was of a piquant kind, and coughed.
“Suffocate me not,ma bonne femme,” he said. “I have done thee no harm!”
“How can I tell that?” cried the poormother, in a frenzy of suspense and passion. “How do I know that thou hast not thrown an ill lot on my boy? That little saint Ursule, thou hast done thy best to keep her from praying for us; and it is thou, and such as thou, that make us ashamed to pray for ourselves! Get thee out of my sight, with thy devil’s grin! Thou shalt have no coffee here.”
“Bravo!” cried old Goudron. “Because thy son has gone totirer, the whole world must stand still. There must be some one,n’est-ce pas, to cheat the others, to put the good number into his hands? Yes, yes; there must be abon Dieuwherever there’s a woman!” said the old man. But he did not go much further, for suddenly, before he was aware, Madame Dupré and her vigorous broom were upon him. She did not condescend to strike or push, buttaking the lean old sceptic at unawares, swept him forth like a piece of rubbish. “Va, canaille!” she said. Old Goudron sprawled and stumbled forth, saving himself only from a prostration on the threshold by grasping at the first prop that presented itself. Theconscritswere beginning to appear in the street with cockades in their caps, singing and shouting. They stopped to give him a rude salutation. They were all safe; they had drawn good numbers; they were wild with joy. “Look at old Jean Goudron! he isivre-mort! Thebonne mèrehas swept him out of the house!” “Pauvre Mère Dupré!” said one among them, with a sob of excitement. Madame Dupré recognised the meaning of his tone. She came out, her broom in her hand, a paleness stealing over the red in her cheeks, and leant against the lintel of her door. She did not see the oldman scowling and grinning at her, though he stood close by, waiting for the event. All was mist and darkness to her, save one thing. In the middle of the street was a figure alone, walking down slowly, looking at no one. His step, the sight of his folded arms and bent head, the stumble he made now and then, as he came over the rough stones, were enough, without words. Her eyes, too, were full of the giddiness of the calamity. She could see nothing but figures moving confusedly; faces looking out of the houses on the different sides of the village street all peering at him. It was Baptiste, with the ribbons of theconscrithanging sadly over his ear, and a big 3 in the front of his cap.
Helen looked out from her window just as this sad sight appeared. She felt a pang of guilt, as if it had been her fault. Oh! why had she not gone tothe early Mass to pray that he might have a good number? It did not occur to Helen that some one else must then have got a bad one. She heard a rush down the stairs, and saw Blanchette rush out across the street and fling herself upon him. Poor little Blanchette! poor dumb mother, not able even to cry! Their arms met about him, one on each side, as if to tear him out of the hold of fate.
It is terrible when a great calamity happens in the morning; there is such an endless day to realise it in, to turn it over, to see it in every possible light. Ursule came back almost immediately, following Baptiste, with her head bowed upon her breast. “You have heard, mademoiselle?” she said with a sob. “Thebon Dieuhas not thought fit to hear our prayers. There has been a want of faith on our part, or some otherhas prayed more strongly than we. We must not complain, mademoiselle, for if thebon Dieuheard us always, it would be very easy to be Christian. But only for my Blanchette it breaks my heart. Oh! if I were one of the saints in heaven—God forgive me for making so bold—I could not, I would not refuse any one! I would not take a denial! But when you are praying and praying, and there is no answer, heaven seems so far away, mademoiselle.”
“And there is nothing more that can be done?” Helen said, dropping a few tears of sympathy.
“Yes, mademoiselle, there is my coffee to make,” said old Goudron, who made his appearance just then; “which is their duty, what they are put into this world for, these girls—not to say incantations nor make a fuss about young good-for-nothings like theconscrityonder. Mycoffee,petite hypocrite!” he cried, pushing before him the little shrinking figure. Helen felt her countenance flame.
“You are a wicked, horrible old man,” she cried in English, to relieve her mind, “and I hate you! Come in, M. Goudron,” she added, with an effort; “the coffee is made; come in and take it here.”
“Mademoiselle is too good,” said the old man, surprised; but he let Ursule go. Helen had been too late to help in the praying, but perhaps there might be something left which she could do. Mr Goulburn was late. He had not yet come down-stairs; and Margot, though she too had run out to take part in the melancholy excitement, could be brought back more easily than poor little Blanchette. Helen heroically poured out a large basin of coffee for the odious old man, whose sneer made her shiver; and he was so little prepared for thisattention that for the moment he was entirely subdued.
“Mademoiselle is very good to take so much trouble,” he said. “The coffee is excellent. I have always been told that no one understood how to be comfortable like Messieurs the English. Comfort! it is even an English word!”
“We try to be good to each other—that is what makes us comfortable,” said Helen, with youthful severity. The coffee was served in little round basins of thick and heavy white crockery ware, and M. Goudron broke down his bread into it, and ate it with a spoon, which disgusted the English girl much, chiefly because it was not her way of taking the morning meal.
“I perceive,” said M. Goudron, “you think I am not good to my grandchildren, mademoiselle—notwithstanding that I feed them and lodge them, and allow them togive me a great deal of trouble. They cost me more than any one would think. They are not young ladies like mademoiselle. Why should not they go out into the world and gain their living like others? It is because I have a soft heart,” the old man said with a grin. “They are old enough to gain their living, yet I keep them at home. Is not that much? What would you have me do more?”
Helen did not know what to say. “You will not let them do anything they want to do,” she cried, with hot partisanship; but she was aware that there was not much reasonableness in the complaint, and this took away precision from her tone.
“One of them wants—to marry M. Baptiste, who is not what I approve, who is notrangénor serious, but a young good-for-nothing,” said M. Goudron. “Fortunately, mademoiselle, that is put out of the question by this morning’s luck.”
“Fortunately!” (“Janey,” said Helen in English, “I cannot bear him much longer. He is horrible; he is disgusting; he is like the ogre in your fairy tale.”) “Fortunately, M. Goudron! when they love one another! when they will break their hearts! when——”
“Ah, bah! Excuse me, mademoiselle; you are young and romantic, like all the English ladies; but I am prudent. I think of Blanchette’s real welfare; and mademoiselle, who is Protestant, a religion of good sense, does not desire me, I hope, to bury Ursule alive in a convent. Pah!” said M. Goudron, spitting on the floor in sign of his disgust, a proceeding which elicited a restrained shriek from his young hostess.
“Janey, call Margot, call Margot! I cannot put up with him any longer. No one ever does that in England,” she said, turning away with a face of horror.
“Shut a girl up in a convent?” said M. Goudron. “No, you are prudent people; you have too much good sense. A girl who can do all that is necessary in a littleménage—who can make the kitchen very well, and mend my clothes, and do all that is needed, and is cheaper than a servant;—to shut her up in a convent, where she will no longer be of use to any one—and with adot, if you please! Were they to take her with nothing, we might think of it. That is what mademoiselle would wish me to do—to give one, with herdotto the nuns and priests, whom I abhor, and to give another to Baptiste Dupré; and for myself to hire a servant, who would gad about from morning to night, and cost me as much as both put together! Is that what mademoiselle would have me do?”
Helen made no reply, for just then a hurried step had come in at the door, anda new tumult of anxiety, of emotion, seemed to pervade the house. There was a little pause and whispering outside, and then the door was thrown hurriedly open, and Blanchette came in, a fountain of tears.
“Oh, pardon, pardon,chèremademoiselle! It is because I am so unhappy. I think I shall die of grief. Grandpapa! I am come to ask you upon my knees to have a little pity upon us. Oh,ma bonne, douce, gentille demoiselle, help me! perhaps he will hear you. He is so rich, it would be so easy for him to do it. Grandpapa, if you will help us, I will be your slave, I will never complain any more; I will do anything; I will never ask to go out, nor for any toilet, nor for pleasure.Mon Dieu!he turns away his head! he will not even listen. Oh,mes chères demoiselles, help me! He is so rich—what would it do to him? He would never feel it. We should all be happyand pray to God for him—and he, he would never feel it at all!”
“How dare you say I am rich! Do not believe her, mademoiselle; she is talking of things she knows nothing about.Petite sotte!you had better get up and go home, and think of your duty a little.”
“Here is my duty,grandpère,” said poor Blanchette, on her knees. “Oh, help me,mes bonnes demoiselles!He does not care for God, nor for his children; but he cares for hislocataires. If Baptiste goes away, his mother will be ruined, and he will be lost to me, and I shall die. Oh, my poor Baptiste! he never was wicked, only foolish a little, like all the young men; and he knows better, a great deal better now. Grandpapa, if you will only be kind, if you will do what we ask you, we will pray God for you on our knees every day, as Ursule does. Oh, mademoiselle, Ursule is a saint! she prays for him just thesame as if he were the kindest; and so will I. And when you die, which cannot be long, for you are old, you will find the advantage—God will listen to you because you have listened to us. He will not remember the wicked things you have done, nor how hard you have been, nor——”
“This is something which is admirable,” said the old man, grinning more horribly than ever. “Mademoiselle, my granddaughter is of opinion that I am wicked, that I am hard, that I am old and will shortly die.Bien, très-bien!It is to please me she says all these pretty things.Va, petite imbécile!” He put out his foot furiously to push the kneeling girl away.
But Janey, who had been standing by listening all this time in unwonted silence, looking on with very curious eyes, investigating the strange chapter in human affairs thus exhibited to her, stepped in to the rescue.
“Youareold, M. Goudron,” she said, “and you are not good. Papa is good, though he is old, but not you. He would do whatever I ask him. If you will not give Blanchette what she wants, I will ask papa, and he will do it for Janey; and then what Ursule gets from God will be for papa, and not for you; and all the village will say, ‘Down with that old Père Goudron andvive l’Anglais!’ Nobody loves you, M. Goudron,” continued Janey, “not one. You are a very bad old man; you never do anything that is kind. It would be better to be a wolf in the wood than you, for the wolf would not understand, and you hear me talking to you. And when you die, which can’t be long, you will be made into an old cinder” (Janey saidtison). “You are very like one now; I think you must feel the fire burning you already,” cried Janey, vindictively; “you are so dried up and withered and wrinkledand wicked.Tiens, Blanchette, do not ask him any more; I will get it from papa.”
Janey put out her hand majestically, interposing her small person between the old man whom she had denounced and poor Blanchette, who had risen to her feet and turned her large astonished eyes, full of tears, upon the child. Janey, in her four feet of stature, towered over them all, her pretty hair streaming back as on a breeze of indignation, her eyes blazing. No consideration of circumstances or possibilities affected Janey. She was sublime, for she was absolute, above all reasoning. And while Blanchette started to her feet, half in fear of her grandfather, half in wondering hope at the impulse of this little heroine, the old man, on his side, cowered and shrank before her. He had one humanity in him, he was fond of little children; and Janey, the strange little foreign creature, exercised a kind of fascination over him. He tried to change his grin into a conciliatory smile.
“Tenez, tenez, ma petite demoiselle,” he said, with a broken sort of whimper in his voice; “do not speak to an old man so. When you ask me for something in your pretty little voice, I will do it. I am not wicked, as you say; it is they who are wicked, robbing me of everything. But you are a little angel. Naturally your papa will do whatever you ask him. He is amilord; he is rich, very rich, like all the English; and I too will do what you ask me, though I am not rich, but poor. But you must not say ‘À bas le père Goudron!’”cried the old man again with a whimper. He twisted all his lean person into a grimace of deprecating amiability, drawing his long legs under him, clasping his bony hands, putting his grotesque head on one side, whileJaney stood impassive, disapproving, majestic, stretching out one small arm as a shield over Blanchette, who for her part, arrested in the very act of weeping, stood with her pretty lips apart, her eyes very widely opened, and the tears dropping down her cheeks.
Just then Mr Goulburn was heard coming down-stairs. He was in good spirits this morning: first he was heard whistling a favourite tune, then he began to talk to Margot, who had come in and was sweeping loudly, knocking her broom into all the corners by way of blowing off her emotion, as poor Madame Dupré had done. “So poor Baptiste has drawn a bad number,” they heard him say, and at the words Blanchette’s half arrested tears burst violently forth again.
“Oh, monsieur,” cried Margot, outside, “what good one can do when one is rich! If the Père Goudron would but be charitable one time in his life, and give the money for a substitute! Otherwise their hearts will be broken, and it will be ruin to the Mère Dupré.”
“Ah, a substitute!” he said, while the little company within listened with breathless attention. Then there followed a bar or two of Mr Goulburn’s favourite air, and the renewed knocks against the wainscot of Margot’s broom, and the step of the Englishman, lighter than usual, his daughter thought. Had he got good news? He pushed the door open, then stood surprised at the group he saw. “Ah!” he cried, “it is early to receive visitors, Helen.” They all turned their eyes upon him, Blanchette putting her hands together instinctively. Two pairs of entreating feminine eyes caught Mr Goulburn’s first glance; then his own fixed upon the little central figure, whose looks were less entreatingthan commanding. “Why, little Janey, what have you got to do with this?” he said.
“Papa,” said Janey, speaking in French—on the whole, she now spoke in French with more dignity than in English, her utterance in her native tongue being still made sweet to foolish parental ears by a few cherished baby errors—“papa, I have promised that you will give what old M. Goudron is too wicked to give—the money that Blanchette wants for Baptiste. She will tell you how much it is. I have said,” said Janey, with a falter in her small voice, for she began to feel the need of crying, being only six after all—“I have said that my papa would give the money for Janey. I know, I know,” she added, bursting into her native speech, “that you will dive it for Janey, papa.”
Mr Goulburn stood, looking much astonished, while this appeal was addressed to him. He looked at old Goudron, crumpled up in his chair with his deprecating look, and little Blanchette dissolved in tears, turning dim, imploring eyes upon him; and at Helen, who was old enough to know better, who ought to have put a stop to it. But he had not the habit of economy in money, and it did not occur to him, as it might have done to, alas! a better man, to consider a demand of this kind for a considerable sum out of mere kindness, to be at once out of the question. It was not out of the question to Mr Goulburn. When a man’s first quality is to be honourable and just above all things, he has to assume a sternness of self-restraint which sometimes makes him appear less amiable to superficial eyes; but one who is less decided upon such points is free ofthat bondage. He had spent money largely all his life, and he was not startled when he was asked for it, as most of us are who have to gain it by the sweat of our brow. He had never done much more than turn it over in his hands, gaining, yet sometimes losing, by chance, by luck, by hair-breadth hazards, but never by the strain of daily toil; and he had been in the habit of giving it away freely, whether it was his own or others’, all his life. But he was somewhat annoyed by this demand. Helen should have known better. She knew that he was not now a millionaire, that his resources were limited. These hesitations made a cloud over his face when little Janey began to make her little speech. But suddenly the cloud rolled off in a moment, the light broke out. He had not a noble face; a physiognomist would not have trusted it, anartist would have thought nothing of it; there were ignoble lines in it, something which told of cunning, a furtive look—but all at once it was transfigured. He broke out into a half laugh, half sob—
“I oughtn’t to do it; I’ve no right to do it! But I can’t refuse to dive it to Janey!” he cried, with that clamour of mingled feeling in his voice, and drew the child triumphant into his arms.
How hoarse and broken the sound was! Helen took fright. “Papa, you are ill!” she cried.
He went on laughing, not able to stop himself. “Not a bit,” he said, sitting down and panting for breath. “Bonjour, M. Goudron; you are a wise man, you are not led by the nose like me. Janey, my pet, tell your Blanchette to dry her eyes. We can’t have any crying such a bright morning; and let her send thisconscritto me.”
“It would be better, a great deal better, for him to accept the lot he has drawn, and serve as be ought, and give up all follies,” said old Goudron, gathering himself up out of his chair. He stood for a moment balancing himself on his long legs, somewhat crest-fallen, yet recovering his grin. “I have to thank mademoiselle for her excellent coffee,” he said, “and her hospitality, truly English.Tenez, mademoiselle la petite; you will sayau revoirbefore I go?”
Janey put her two hands behind her, and fixed him with two glittering eyes. “I am afraid I shall see you again, but I wish I never might,” she cried. “You are a bad, bad,horribleold man!”
“And you, you are acharmante petite demoiselle,” said M. Goudron, grinning at her till his old face seemed cut in two.