After this 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 guarded and
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 it
is 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 the
_château_ filled 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 the _château_ till 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, and
read 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
finest _cachet_ of 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 de _sport_,” said Cécile in an undertone to Thérèse.)
“You deceive yourself, _chère_ Hélène,” 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 reading of
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 more _distingué_.”
“Oh, much, much more distinguished,” said Thérèse.
“He had not any title at first,” Cécile continued. “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 you _quite_ belong 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 a
_bronchite_. “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 even _sans cela_---- Do not send for the doctor here; it is a
good-for-nothing; in medicine _bien entendu_, not in life. For his life,
_mon Dieu!_ I know nothing of it,” the Comtesse said, shrugging her
shoulders. “He is not of our _monde_. 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 she had 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. The _château_ gave 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 life which, 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 no _robe de chambre_, however pretty, or _négligé_ of 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 the
Sunday-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 the _château_, 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 true
that 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 a _sou_ before 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 it was, 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 one _sou_. 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 there
are 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 new _sous_
Cécile gave me.” She had forgotten all about other coinage, and now knew
nothing but the _sous_.
“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 we knew 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?” cried Helen, 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 the _château_,” 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
without any 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 the _château_. 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, is _très 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 he pleases 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,
with all 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 so _comme il faut_ as Cécile thought. “A _right_ Englishman 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 a _fête_ to 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 discontented to 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 would be 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 herself replied, “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. The _château_ had 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, the _cabarets_ were 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, and there 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!