I.

I have called this Featherston's story, because it was through him that

I heard about it--and, indeed, saw a little of it towards the end.

* * * * *

Buttermead, the wide straggling district to which Featherston enjoyed

the honour of being doctor-in-ordinary, was as rural as any that can be

found in Worcestershire. Featherston's house stood at the end of the

village. Whitney Hall lay close by; as did our school, Dr. Frost's. In

the neighbourhood were scattered a few other substantial residences,

some farmers' homesteads and labourers' cottages. Featherston was a slim

man, with long thin legs and a face grey and careworn. His patients

(like the soldier's steam arm) gave him no rest day or night.

There is no need to go into details here about Featherston's people.

His sister, Mary Ann, lived in his house at one time, and for everyday

ailments was almost as good a doctor as he. She was not at all like

him: a merry, talkative, sociable little woman, with black hair and

quick, kindly dark eyes.

Our resident French master in those days at Dr. Frost's was one Monsieur

Jules Carimon: a small man with honest blue eyes in his clean-shaven

face, and light brown hair cropped close to his head. He was an awful

martinet at study, but a genial little gentleman out of it. To the

surprise of Buttermead, he and Mary Featherston set up a courtship. It

was carried on in sober fashion, as befitted a sober couple who had both

left thirty years, and the rest, behind them; and after a summer or two

of it they laid plans for their marriage and for living in France.

"I'm sure I don't know what on earth I shall do amongst the French,

Johnny Ludlow," Mary said to me in her laughing way, when I and Bill

Whitney were having tea at Featherston's one half-holiday, the week

before the wedding. "Jules protests they are easier to get on with than

the English; not so stiff and formal; but I don't pay attention to all

he says, you know."

Monsieur Jules Carimon was going to settle down at his native place,

Sainteville--a town on the opposite coast, which had a service of

English steamers running to it two or three times a-week. He had

obtained the post of first classical master at the college there, and

meant to eke out his salary (never large in French colleges) by teaching

French and mathematics to as many English pupils as he could obtain out

of hours. Like other northern French seaport towns, Sainteville had its

small colony of British residents.

"We shall get on; I am not afraid," answered Mary Featherston to a

doubting remark made to her by old Mrs. Selby of the Court. "Neither I

nor Jules have been accustomed to luxury, and we don't care for it. We

would as soon make our dinner of bread-and-butter and radishes, as of

chicken and apple-tart."

So the wedding took place, and they departed the same day for

Sainteville. And of the first two or three years after that there's

nothing good or bad to record.

Selby Court lay just outside Buttermead. Its mistress, an ancient lady

now, was related to the Preen family, of whom I spoke in that story

which told of the tragical death of Oliver. Lavinia Preen, sister to

Oliver's father, Gervase Preen, but younger, lived with Mrs. Selby as

a sort of adopted daughter; and when the death of the father, old Mr.

Preen, left nearly all his large family with scarcely any cheese to

their bread, Mrs. Selby told Ann Preen, the youngest of them all, that

she might come to her also. So Lavinia and Ann Preen lived at the Court,

and had no other home.

These two ladies were intimate with Mary Featherston, all three being

much attached to one another. When Mary married and left her country

for France, the Miss Preens openly resented it, saying she ought to

have had more consideration. Did some premonitory instinct prompt that

unreasonable resentment? I cannot say. No one can say. But it is certain

that had Mary Featherston not gone to live abroad, the ominous chain of

events fated to engulf the sisters could not have touched them, and this

account, which is a perfectly true one, would never have been written.

For a short time after the marriage they and Mary Carimon exchanged a

letter now and then; not often, for foreign postage was expensive; and

then it dropped altogether.

Mrs. Selby became an invalid, and died. She left each of the two sisters

seventy pounds a-year for life; if the one died, the other was to enjoy

the whole; when both were dead, it would lapse back to the Selby estate.

"Seventy pounds a-year!" remarked Ann Preen to her sister. "It does not

seem very much, does it, Lavinia? Shall we be able to live upon it?"

They were seated in the wainscoted parlour at Selby Court, talking of

the future. The funeral was over, and they must soon leave; for the

house was waiting to be done up for the reception of its new master, Mr.

Paul Selby, an old bachelor full of nervous fancies.

"We must live upon it, Nancy," said Lavinia in answer to her.

She was the stronger-minded of the two, and she looked it. A keen,

practical woman, of rather more than middle height, with smooth brown

hair, pleasant, dark hazel eyes, and a bright glow in her cheeks. Ann

(or Nancy, as she was more often called) was smaller and lighter, with

a pretty face, a shower of fair ringlets, and mild, light-blue eyes;

altogether not unlike a pink-and-white wax doll.

"We should have been worse off, Nancy, had she not left us anything; and

sometimes I have feared she might not," remarked Lavinia cheerfully. "It

will be a hundred and forty pounds between us, dear; we can live upon

that."

"Of course we can, if you think so, Lavinia," said the other, who deemed

her elder sister wiser than any one in the world, and revered her

accordingly.

"But we should live cheaper abroad than here, I expect," continued

Lavinia. "It's said money goes twice as far in France as in England.

Suppose we were to go over, Nancy, and try? We could come back if we did

not like it."

Nancy's eyes sparkled. "I think it would be delightful," she said.

"Money go further in France--why, to be sure it does! Aunt Emily is able

to live like a princess at Tours, by all accounts. Yes, yes, Lavinia,

let us try France!"

* * * * *

One fine spring morning the Miss Preens packed up their bag and baggage

and started for the Continent. They went direct to Tours, intending to

make that place their pied-à-terre, as the French phrase it; at any

rate, for a time. It was not, perhaps, the wisest thing they could have

done.

For Mrs. Magnus, formerly Emily Preen, and their late father's sister,

did not welcome them warmly. She lived in style herself, one of the

leading stars in the society of Tours; and she did not at all like that

two middle-aged nieces, of straitened means, should take up their abode

in the next street. So Mrs. Magnus met her nieces with the assurance

that Tours would not do for them; it was too expensive a place; they

would be swamped in it. Mrs. Magnus was drawing near to the close of her

life then; had she known it, she might have been kinder, and let them

remain; but she was not able to foresee the hour of that great event

which must happen to us all any more than other people are. Oliver

Preen was with her then, revelling in the sunny days which were flitting

away on gossamer wings.

"Lavinia, do you think we can stay at Tours?"

The Miss Preens had descended at a fourth-rate hotel, picked out of the

guide-book. When Ann asked this question, they were sitting after dinner

in the table d'hôte room, their feet on the sanded floor. Sanded floors

were quite usual at that time in many parts of France.

"Stay here to put up with Aunt Emily's pride and insolence!" quickly

answered Miss Preen. "No. I will tell you what I have done, Ann. I wrote

yesterday to Mary Carimon, asking her about Sainteville; whether she

thinks it will suit us, and so on. As soon as her answer comes--she's

certain to say yes--we will _go_, dear, and leave Mrs. Magnus to her

grandeur. And, once we are safe away, _I shall write her a letter_,"

added Lavinia, in decisive tones; "a letter which she won't like."

Madame Carimon's answer came by return of post. It was as cordial as

herself. Sainteville would be the very place for them, she said, and she

should count the hours until they were there.

The Miss Preens turned their backs upon Tours, shaking its dust off

their shoes. Lavinia had a little nest of accumulated money, so was at

ease in that respect. And when the evening of the following day the

railway terminus at Sainteville was reached, the pleasant, smiling face

of Mary Carimon was the first they saw outside the barrière. She must

have been nearly forty now, but she did not look a day older than when

she had left Buttermead. Miss Lavinia was a year or two older than

Mary; Miss Ann a year or two younger.

"You must put up at the Hôtel des Princes," remarked Madame Carimon. "It

is the only really good one in the town. They won't charge you too much;

my husband has spoken to the landlady. And you must spend to-morrow with

me."

The hotel omnibus was waiting for them and other passengers, the luggage

was piled on the roof, and Madame Carimon accompanied them to the hotel.

A handsome hotel, the sisters thought; quite another thing from the one

at Tours. Mary Carimon introduced them to the landlady, Madame Podevin,

saw them seated down to tea and a cold fowl, and then left for the

night.

With Sainteville the Miss Preens were simply charmed. It was a fresh,

clean town, with wide streets, and good houses and old families, and

some bright shops. The harbour was large, and the pier extended out to

the open sea.

"I _should_ like to live here!" exclaimed Miss Lavinia, sitting down at

Madame Carimon's, in a state of rapture. "I never saw such a nice town,

or such a lovely market."

They had been about all the morning with Madame Carimon. It was

market-day, Wednesday. The market was held on the Grande Place; and

the delicious butter, the eggs, the fresh vegetables, the flowers and

the poultry, took Miss Lavinia's heart by storm. Nancy was more taken

with the picturesque market-women, in their white caps and long gold

ear-rings. Other ladies were doing their marketing as well as Madame

Carimon. She spoke to most of them, in French or in English, as the

case might be. Under the able tuition of her husband, she talked French

fluently now.

Madame Carimon's habitation--very nice, small and compact--was in the

Rue Pomme Cuite. The streets have queer names in some of these old

French towns. It was near the college, which was convenient for Monsieur

Carimon. Here they lived, with their elderly servant, Pauline. The same

routine went on daily in the steady little domicile from year's end to

year's end.

"Jules goes to the college at eight o'clock every week-day, after a cup

of coffee and a petit pain," said madame to her guests, "and he returns

at five to dinner. He takes his déjeûner in the college at twelve, and I

take mine alone at home. On Sundays he has no duty: we attend the French

Protestant Church in a morning, dine at one o'clock, and go for a walk

in the afternoon."

"You have no children, Mary?"

Mary Carimon's lively face turned sad as she answered: "There was one

little one; she stayed with us six months, and then God took her. I

wrote to you of it, you know, Lavinia. No, we have not any children.

Best not, Jules says; and I agree with him. They might only leave us

when we have learnt to love them; and that's a trial hard to bear. Best

as it is."

"I'm sure I should never learn to speak French, though we lived here for

a century," exclaimed Miss Lavinia. "Only to hear you jabbering to your

servant, Mary, quite distracts one's ears."

"Yes, you would. You would soon pick up enough to be understood in the

shops and at market."

At five o'clock, home came Monsieur Carimon. He welcomed the Miss

Preens with honest, genuine pleasure, interspersed with a little French

ceremony; making them about a dozen bows apiece before he met the hands

held out to him.

They had quite a gala dinner. Soup to begin with--broth, the English

ladies inwardly pronounced it--and then fish. A small cod, bought by

Madame Carimon at the fish-market in the morning, with oyster sauce.

Ten sous she had given for the cod, for she knew how to bargain now,

and six sous for a dozen oysters, as large as a five-franc piece.

This was followed by a delicious little fricandeau of veal, and that

by a tarte à la crême from the pastrycook's. She told her guests

unreservedly what all the dishes cost, to show them how reasonably

people might live at Sainteville.

Over the coffee, after dinner, the question of their settling in the

place was fully gone into, for the benefit of Monsieur Carimon's

opinions, who gave them in good English.

"Depend upon it, Lavinia, you could not do better," remarked Mary

Carimon. "If you cannot make your income do here, you cannot anywhere."

"We want to make it do well; not to betray our poverty, but to be able

to maintain a fairly good appearance," said Lavinia. "You understand me,

I am sure, monsieur."

"But certainly, mademoiselle," he answered; "it is what we all like to

do at Sainteville, I reckon."

"And _can_ do, if we are provident," added madame. "French ways are not

English ways. Our own income is small, Lavinia, yet we put by out of

it."

"A fact that goes without saying," confirmed the pleasant little man.

"If we did not put by, where would my wife be when I am no longer able

to work?"

"Provisions being so cheap---- What did you say, Nancy?" asked Madame

Carimon, interrupting herself.

"I was going to say that I could live upon oysters, and should like to,"

replied Nancy, shaking back her flaxen curls with a laugh. "Half-a-dozen

of those great big oysters would make me a lovely dinner any day--and

the cost would be only three halfpence."

"And only fivepence the cost of that beautiful fish," put in her sister.

"In Sainteville our income would amply suffice."

"It seems to me that it would, mesdemoiselles," observed Monsieur

Carimon. "Three thousand five hundred francs yearly! We French should

think it a sufficient sum. Doubtless much would depend upon the way in

which you laid it out."

"What should we have to pay for lodgings, Mary?" inquired Lavinia. "Just

a nice sitting-room and two small bedrooms; or a large room with two

beds in it; and to be waited on?"

"Oh, you won't find that at Sainteville," was the unexpected answer.

"Nobody lets lodgings English fashion: it's not the custom over here.

You can find a furnished apartment, but the people will not wait upon

you. There is always a little kitchen let with the rooms, and you must

have your own servant."

It was the first check the ladies had received. They sat thinking. "Dear

me!" exclaimed Nancy. "No lodgings!"

"Would the apartments you speak of be very dear?" asked Lavinia.

"That depends upon the number of rooms and the situation," replied

Madame Carimon. "I cannot call to mind just now any small apartment that

is vacant. If you like, we will go to-morrow and look about."

It was so arranged. And little Monsieur Carimon attended the ladies

back to the Hôtel des Princes at the sober hour of nine, and bowed them

into the porte cochère with two sweeps of his hat, wishing them the

good-evening and the very good-night.