Helen had 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 young
_conscrits_ coming 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 favour with the _bon Dieu_ at 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 the _tirage_ began. “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 an _esprit 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 his mother, 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 poor mother, 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 to _tirer_, 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 a _bon Dieu_ wherever 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, but taking 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. The
_conscrits_ were 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 is _ivre-mort_! The _bonne
mère_ has 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 old man 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 the _conscrit_ hanging 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 to the 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. “The _bon Dieu_ has not thought fit
to hear our prayers. There has been a want of faith on our part, or some
other has prayed more strongly than we. We must not complain,
mademoiselle, for if the _bon Dieu_ heard 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 the _conscrit_ yonder. My
coffee, _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 this attention 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 to give 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 not _rangé_ nor 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 little _ménage_--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 a _dot_, 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 her _dot_ to 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, and a 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, _chère_ mademoiselle! 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 happy and 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 his _locataires_. 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 the same 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.
“You _are_ old, 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 and _vive 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 said _tison_). “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 wrinkled and 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 a _milord_; 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, while Janey 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 entreating
than 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 of that 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, an artist 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 this _conscrit_ to 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 say _au revoir_ before 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, _horrible_ old man!”
“And you, you are a _charmante petite demoiselle_,” said M. Goudron,
grinning at her till his old face seemed cut in two.