It Began in Vauxhall Gardens - Plaidy Jean - Страница 13

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"You'll catch your death," prophesied Wenna, as she had prophesied a thousand times. But this time she was right.

The next morning her mistress was shivering yet feverish when she went in to her, and two days later she was dead.

There was great excitement in the Auberge Lefevre.

"It is Monsieur himself!" cried Madame. "Ah, Monsieur, it is a long time since we saw you. Come in. Come in. Your room shall be prepared for you. You will drink a glass of wine with my husband, will you not? Then we shall see about food for you. RagoUt ... a little of that crimped sole that you like so much ? Or the roast beef of your own country perhaps?"

"Thank you, thank you," he said.

"We shall make you comfortable here."

"I do not know how long I shall stay."

But Madame was away, calling her servants, preparing the warming pans, arranging for hot water to be carried to his room since he had a passion for the bath.

Madame herself would cook the meal. She would trust no other.

The Englishman drank a glass of wine with Armand.

He has aged, thought Armand. There is silver in his hair now.

They talked of town matters; but Armand was knowledgeable beyond the affairs of his own town. He shook his head. "There is a murmuring in the great cities, Monsieur. We hear it even here in the country. It is like a storm in the distance, you understand, Monsieur? This Louis Philippe and his Marie Amelie—are they going the same way as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette ? There are some who say they are neither for the aristocrats nor for the people. They meddle with the ministers of State, they bribe the juries and they dictate to the press. Frenchmen do not like this, Monsieur, and they are not calm like the people of Monsieur's country. They are

happy, your people. They have a good Queen, have they not, kept in control by her pious German husband?'*

The Englishman might have replied that England had her troubles; he might have mentioned the Luddites and the men of Tolpuddle, the rising struggle over the corn law*, the concession already granted to one class by another in the reform laws; he might have mentioned the terrible inequalities between rich and poor which were—to those who saw it in a certain way, which he did not —a shameful disgrace to any nation; but of course the inequalities in France were even greater. But the Englishman said none of these things. He preferred to listen to the Frenchman, to shake his head and condole.

Moreover he was thinking of the reason for his visit.

But he did not hurry. It was not in his nature to hurry. He had rehearsed what he would say when he was confronted with the girl whom he had not seen since she had dropped her sabot at his feet.

He ate the excellent fish which Madame had prepared for him; he scarcely noticed Madame's special sauce, but he assured her that it was delicious. Then he retired early that he might be fresh for to-morrow's task.

Melisande stood before her class of little children. Outside the sun was shining. There was a butterfly trying to get out of the windows— a white butterfly with touches of green on his wings. She was thinking of the butterfly rather than of the children.

Poor little butterfly! He was imprisoned in the room even as she was imprisoned in the Convent. She knew nothing of the world; she only knew a life which was governed by bells—bells for rising, bells for prayers, bells for petit dejeuner, for the first class, for the second, for the walk through the town and so on through the days; and every day was alike except saint days and Sundays, and any saint day was like any other saint day, any Sunday like another.

What were the excitements of the days ? Little Jeanne-Marie had the colic; little Yvette had learned to read. Melisande loved little Jeanne-Marie; she was delighted in the triumph of little Yvette; but this was not living.

She spent much time in dreaming of wonderful things which would happen to her, of knights who rode to the Convent and

abducted her; she pictured herself riding away with one of them to an enchanted castle, to Paris, to Rome, to London, to Egypt—all the wonderful countries of which she had read in the geography lessons. When she drew maps with the older children she would picture herself sailing up that river, climbing that mountain.

Sometimes when she was sent to the market with the garments or the garden produce which were to be sold, she would loiter and talk to the stall-holders. The eyes of old Henri would light up when he saw her, and she saw in the gaze of his young grandson that she was too pretty a girl to live in a convent all her life. She would linger at the auberge and try a piece of Madame's rich gateau; Armand would let her see how he admired her while he awaited the answers to the questions he asked her with such burning curiosity. "And how long shall you stay at the Convent, Mademoiselle Melisande? Do you never hear news of some relatives in the outside world?"

Now she went to the window and opened it, but the silly butterfly did not seem to know how to get out even then. She seized it gently and released it.

"It is flying away, home to its children," said young Louise.

"To its little house and its baby butterflies," said Yvette.

She looked at the children, her green eyes momentarily sad. These children were obsessed by the thought of homes, of families in which there was a mother and father. They longed for a home— a real home however humble; they longed for brothers and sisters. She had ceased to long for such impossibilities; she wanted to escape into the world because she felt herself to be a prisoner.

As the butterfly flew away the door opened and Sister Eugenie came in.

Melisande sighed. The classroom in an uproar over a butterfly! She would be reprimanded for this. Why was it that her smallest misdemeanours always seemed to be brought home to her?

But Sister Eugenie did not seem to notice the disturbance. She was looking straight at Melisande, and there was a faint colour in her cheeks; her eyes, beneath her stern headdress, looked as excited as they ever could look.

"I will take the class," she said. "You are to go to la Mere at once."

Melisande was astonished. She opened her mouth to speak, but Eugenie went on: "Go at once. Oh, but first tidy your hair. La Mere is waiting."

Melisande hurried out of the classroom along the corridors to the dormitory. Over the bed which was slightly bigger than the others hung a mirror. The bed and the mirror were hers; now that she was nearly sixteen, it was her duty to sleep in the dormitory with the small children.

Her hair, as usual, was untwining itself from the plaits which

hung over her shoulders. No wonder Sister Eugenie had noticed it!

She hastily replaited it. What could the Mother want with her? She had dallied in the market square only yesterday; she had gossiped and laughed and chattered with Henri. Was that it? "Now, now," had said Henri's grandson. "No flirting with the young lady, Grandpapa!"

She had laughed with pleasure at the time; but what if the nuns had overheard ? What a sin! What a penance would be hers!

She began to frame excuses as she went along to that room in which the Mother spent most of her time studying religious books and looking after the affairs of the Convent.

"Come in," said the Mother, when she knocked.

A man was sitting by the table. She caught her breath with surprise and felt the blood rush into her face. She knew that man. She would have recognized him anywhere because he was not like anyone else she had ever known. He was the Englishman who had sat outside the auberge.

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