The day of the _tirage au sort_ was not one which could be spent like
other days, after the supreme excitement of the morning. There was a
great deal of wine consumed in Latour, and a perfect babel of talk. It
soon became known in the village, after a great many excited
communications between the Lion d’Or and M. Goudron’s house, that
_l’Anglais_ had offered to procure a substitute for Baptiste. At first
the little eager world was incredulous of such an extraordinary
announcement. _L’Anglais!_ a stranger, one who had nothing to do with
the Duprés or the Goudrons, or even with the district, or any interest
in the Lion d’Or! but it was very evident that something was going on in
which the stranger and Baptiste and Blanchette and all their respective
families were involved. Madame Dupré, who had been assisted to her room
by a whole assembly of weeping and sympathetic neighbours, had been
disinterred from the midst of them and conducted across the street by
Baptiste, very solemn and pale, yet with an expression quite different
from the despair on his face when he had come home from the Mairie with
his fatal number. It was Blanchette who, laughing, crying, with the
tears on her cheeks and a voice broken with sobs, yet an extraordinary
gleam of happiness about her, had flown across the street, light as a
bird, to call them. They had all disappeared into the rooms on the
ground-floor, where there had been a tumult of talking and crying, two
or three voices audible together, a thing never heard before since the
English family, who spoke, the Latourois thought, almost in whispers,
had taken possession. And then the Curé had been sent for; and M. le
Maire himself, coming home after presiding officially over the business
of the day, still with his scarf on, and in all the pride of office, had
stepped in. This diverted the attention of many from the noisy youths
who had escaped, and who were celebrating their freedom--and from those
who had been drawn, and who were trying to forget it and drown their
despair. And when Madame Dupré came back, a changed woman, her head
high, her countenance radiant, the whole community was stirred. It was
true then? Many were the wistful women who crossed the road after, and
hung about the door, and cast anxious looks at the window. Why should
Baptiste Dupré be the only one to be delivered? _L’Anglais_ probably
did it out of mere eccentricity, they thought, not out of regard to
Baptiste, and no doubt he was enormously rich, and did not know what to
do with his money; and if he bought back Baptiste, why not Jean and
Pierre? The mothers of Jean and Pierre, who had drawn the numbers 2 and
4, could not see the difference. They hung about the door all the day,
thinking if he would but appear they might find courage to speak to him.
The lucky Baptiste to have caught his attention! M. Goudron himself was
not visible. He did not stand at the door and grin as he was in the
habit of doing. The commotion had subdued him at least, and if there had
been nothing else for which to thank _l’Anglais_, this was something,
for these poor women, with their hearts full, felt that they could not
have borne Père Goudron’s grin. And soon it became whispered in the
crowd that it was Antoine who was going to accept Baptiste’s place. He
had served already, being so much older, and most people were very glad
to hear that he was going out of Latour. It would be so much the better
for the other young men. Antoine had announced himself as ready to be
any one’s _remplaçant_; things had been going badly with him all the
winter, and the money tempted him. There had been great bargainings in
the room where so much unusual talking had been going on and so many
people crowded together; and at last, by the help of the Maire and
Curé and old Père Goudron himself--who, now that nobody expected
him to supply the funds, could not keep himself out of the
negotiations--Antoine consented to take fifteen hundred francs as the
price of his service. He was giving himself, as he declared,
“dirt-cheap”; but as Mr Goulburn, though he was so liberal, had his
wits about him, and old Goudron was the keenest at a bargain in all
Burgundy, the whole preliminaries were arranged the same morning, and
the money was to be paid as soon as possible.
“For we are birds of passage,” the Englishman said, “there is no knowing
how long we may stay.” That same night, no later, all guarantees having
been given, Antoine was to get his price; and thus, after thanks and
blessings innumerable, the scene ended. It was a relief to them all when
the outpourings of gratitude were over and all those effusive people
gone. “In England they would have felt it just as much, but they would
not have made such a fuss,” Mr Goulburn said with a sigh of relief.
“You could not have done it in England,” said Helen. “I think it is very
good of you to do it, papa.”
He looked at her with a smile on his face. “Do you know, I think so
too--it was very good of me. But it was all for Janey,” he said; “it
will come off her fortune. I have got her fortune laid by all safe. I
don’t speak of yours, Helen, for you know you have something from your
mother. You have a hundred a-year, and as it has always been left
untouched to accumulate, there should be a good deal more than a hundred
a-year now. It is as well you should know, in case of----”
“In case of what, papa? You said we were birds of passage. Did you mean
anything? Did you--think we might have to go away?”
“Not I! I don’t know why I said it. The fact is we _are_ birds of
passage. What have we to do here? I am very comfortable; I don’t want to
change; but as a matter of fact, things might happen----”
“Papa, perhaps I ought to have told you; they are expecting
visitors--English visitors--at the _château_.”
She looked at him after a moment, and gave a sudden cry of alarm. He had
become not pale, which is one thing, but white to the very lips. “Do you
know who they are?” he said.
“Only their Christian names: one is John and the other Monsieur Charles,
who has been in India.”
She said this with an uneasy feeling once more that M. Charles who had
been in India could be but one person, and looked up with some anxiety
to see if her father would take the same view.
“That does not tell very much,” he said with a laugh; “most men who are
not called John are called Charles. Are they brothers? It is annoying. I
daresay you wonder why I should care; but the fact is, Helen,” he said,
with an uneasy attempt at a careless manner, “I don’t want to come in
contact with Englishmen. Take care not to mention my name at all; ignore
me, that is the best thing to do. I won’t meet any Englishman. I’d
rather, a great deal rather, notwithstanding that things suit me very
well here, go away at once than have English visitors prying upon me.”
“I am afraid you are not well, papa.”
“It is that old Comtesse that has put it into my head. There never was
anything so absurd. I have been quite breathless and queer ever since
she told me I ought to be so. It is the most droll sympathetic
sensation--nothing more. I know I am not ill, not a bit ill--but I feel
it; in the face of my own reason and all the facts of the case. Never
mind, that will all blow over. And Helen, recollect what I say: be on
your guard if you see any Englishmen. Stop; if it should by any chance
be some one we know----”
“That is so unlikely, papa,” said Helen, forcing herself to smile. But
she did not think it was improbable, in her heart.
“It is very improbable; still we must be prepared for all that can
happen. Should it be any one we know, say that we have come here--for a
day or two. Say that we are--just leaving--or better, say that you are
alone, and that where I am you do not know.”
It was Helen’s turn now to be pale. “Papa, how can I say all these
things?” she cried. “If I could, if the truth did not matter, the
Vieux-bois would know I was lying. And, papa! oh, if you would but tell
me! If it was only that you were ruined, why should you be afraid of
English visitors? I think I could bear it better if you would tell me
the truth. Is it only--what you call ruin, papa? meaning that you have
lost your money?” she said.
“It is only--ruin. That is a tolerably big word. I don’t know what you
could wish more.”
“But meaning that you have lost your money? You have not lost all your
money,” she said with some vehemence. “You have given--a great deal, to
poor Baptiste. We are in no want of anything. You cannot have lost it
all--that is not true.”
A dull sort of smile came upon his face. “Such things happen every day,”
he said. “A man may lose all his money and may yet have what will do to
go on with. Besides, it is Janey’s, not mine.”
Helen looked at him with such wistful wonder, with such a pained
entreaty in her face, that he went on with an embarrassed laugh, “The
short and the long of it, if you will know, is this--Ruin means not
starvation, as you may suppose, but owing money which you cannot pay.”
A hopeful gleam flew across her face. “But then, so long as there is any
we can always go on paying. Ah, poor Baptiste! it would be hard to take
it from him now; but we could save a great deal, papa; and you shall
have mine if you like, and welcome. And perhaps they would take it in
instalments, as the poor people used to do at the Fareham Club.”
“Hush!” he said; “you don’t understand anything about it. I want no more
conversation on this subject.”
“But, papa, I do understand: what can be more simple? Take the money we
have, and pay as far as it will go, and then we could go home.”
“You are a little fool,” Mr Goulburn said.
Helen was pained. Did she not understand? and yet it seemed so entirely
simple. She did not insist any more, feeling that her father looked
ill; that it was unkind to press him for the moment. “If any of the
people to whom he owes money should come here,” she said to herself, “I
should know what to do.” It was with this feeling that she set out to
see his friends. Janey was in the garden with Margot’s children,
perfectly happy; her sister was not sorry on this day of emotion to be
alone. She walked away quickly to the _château_, and her story about the
_tirage_ and those upon whom the bad numbers had fallen, was full of
interest for the ladies; they wanted to hear every name, and how the
unfortunates had borne it.
“Pierre Courvoye! Oh, it will not do any harm to Pierre; and I think a
few years’ steady service and discipline will be of use to Jean too.”
“But poor old Elisabeth!” cried Cécile.
“She will be better without him; at least she will not see him going
wrong; and perhaps he will do better in the regiment.”
“But Baptiste? it will ruin Baptiste and poor Mère Dupré, and break
little Blanchette’s heart,” the girls cried.
When they heard that Mr Goulburn had bought him a substitute there were
no bounds to their enthusiasm. “Your papa, then, is a saint, he is a
benefactor, he has a heart of gold!” they cried.
“But, _mon enfant_,” said the Comtesse, “I fear you must have allowed
him to be exposed to emotion. Never forget that there must be no
emotion; you must avoid it as you would avoid poison.”
This flutter of interest and kind, pleasant talk and praise sent all
that was melancholy out of Helen’s head. She was to return home early,
but this was the evening of Madame la Comtesse’s dinner, and they were
then to meet again. “Shall I tell her?” whispered Cécile.
“Oh no, no; let it be a surprise!” cried the more mischievous Thérèse.
They went out with her to show her how all the young larches were
pushing out their tassels, and the crocuses coming up by hundreds in the
grass. Helen returned to the village by the longer way. There was a
grand entrance to the _château_ which was scarcely ever used; a short
avenue with two curious tall bits of building on either side of the
gate, half towers, half houses, three storeys high, giving a
half-ludicrous air of defence in the midst of a line of low and innocent
hedges. When important visitors came this was how they went in; and, as
it happened, she had scarcely emerged from between the two obelisks of
houses which blocked the gateway, when she saw the Comtesse’s great
lumbering old family coach, the _berline_, as they called it, swaying
along the road, drawn by the two long-tailed horses from the farm, with
old Léon on the box, who was called Monsieur l’Intendant in the village
when the people wanted to please him. Helen’s heart began to beat. She
felt sure that the occupants of the _berline_ must be the English
strangers whom she looked for with so much expectation, yet fear. She
gave a hurried glance at them as they lumbered past. She saw two heads,
but her eyes were hazy with over-anxiety, and her excitement confused
her. She could not tell who they were, or if she had seen them before.
The carriage passed her. She breathed more freely. How foolish! she said
to herself. Was she disappointed that after all it was not Charley
Ashton? or was she relieved? or what was it? She could not tell. Her
life had been full of a vague expectation, which had gone to her head,
which had kept her amused, excited, disturbed, alive to everything. And
now it had failed. Was not she glad? She ought to have been; it would
keep safe her father’s secret, and save him from all disturbance. But
Helen’s first sensation was as if she had fallen out of the clouds. The
earth is a very steady, very satisfactory thing to come down upon, and
by far the safest footing; but still, when you drop from a height there
is apt to be a momentary jar.
She was so full of this really involuntary, unwilling sensation, and so
anxious to feel glad that all cause for apprehension on her father’s
part was over, that she did not hear the much louder jarring and
grinding of the wheels with which the big _berline_, as soon as it had
passed her, was stopped. Helen felt slightly unsteady so far as she
herself was concerned. Her steps wavered; there was a ringing in her
ears. It had been, she said to herself, something to look forward to,
and it was over; and she was very glad it was over, and papa happily
escaped from all annoyance. Things were getting steadier before her eyes
every moment, her step was getting more assured. Then all at once she
heard voices in the air. “I certainly will not wait for you,” in a
somewhat severe tone, and in familiar English accents.
“Never mind, you will just have time for your own salutations, and I
will follow directly,” some one said.
Helen’s feet, in spite of her, swerved, stumbled, took her half-way
across the road, like feet that were drunken and beyond guidance. She
had not been mistaken after all. Whatever was to come of it, had she not
known it all from the very first? She was not surprised now, though the
discovery set her heart beating once more as if it would break out of
her breast. Of course it was he. Could anything be more precise than
the description, M. Charles who had been in India? She had been quite
sure of it all along.
“Once more I have to ask, is it you, Miss Goulburn? I am sure it can be
no one but you.”
“Yes, it is me,” said Helen, simply (but nobody pretends that grammar
and nature are the same in respect to this pronoun. She was much
disturbed, and she could no more have said I than she could have flown);
“and I thought it must be you they meant,” she added, with more
simplicity still, “though I heard nothing but your Christian name.”
“Who was it that spoke of me? It is only by accident I have come here. I
was going to Sainte-Barbe to find out if anything had been heard of
you--if I could find any trace of you.”
“Sainte-Barbe! we left that, Mr Ashton, immediately----”
“I know: after you had seen me.”
Helen sighed. It seemed impossible to her to lie as her father had told
her--to say anything to him that was not true. It was very hard even to
say what she did falteringly, “We did not mean to stay there, anyhow.”
“Miss Goulburn,” he said, “I have heard a great deal since I have been
home. When I saw you last I knew nothing. Miss Temple--I mean my
stepmother--is very, very anxious about you. She wants you to go and
live with her, and my father wishes it too.”
“Mr Charles, that is very, very kind,” said Helen, shaking her head.
“Miss Goulburn, nobody in the world can take more interest in you, can
have thought more of you than I, since you were a little girl at the
school feasts. And in India I always wondered how you had grown up--if I
should still find you when I got back. I don’t know if you are aware of
all that has happened?”
“Papa is ruined,” said Helen in a very low voice.
“Ruined! Ah, yes; and something more.”
Helen trembled, tottering along by his side. “I asked him to tell me,
but he wouldn’t. Don’t tell me, I had rather not know. Most likely,” she
said, with a thrill of much pain in her voice, “when he knows you are
here he will go away.”
“I am almost sure he will. And you have friends here?”
“Oh yes; all the people are our friends, every one. But what does that
matter?” cried Helen, with a smile of desperation. “It need not make any
difference. We shall go all the same. We shall not mind. But why you or
any one should want to harm us, Mr Charles, I cannot tell. We never did
harm to any one. Why should we have to fly from one place to another?
We have done nobody any harm.”
Young Ashton looked at her with the tenderest pity in his face. “I
came,” he said, “to take you home, if you would come, if I could find
you, to Mrs Ashton. Every effort has been made to find you. We did not
know what to wish--that he might not be found, or that you might. Pardon
me, it was for this I came.”
“Oh no; for a very, very different purpose, Mr Ashton! I know that quite
well--I know exactly,” said Helen, with a little heat. Then she stopped
confused. What had she to do with it? Whatever he came for, what was it
to Helen? Angry! was she angry? But for what, in the name of heaven?
Then she was angry with herself for her irritation. The tears gathered
thick in her eyes. “It will be better, much better, to let us alone,”
she said; “what does it matter to any one where we go or where we stay?
Never mind us, please. Go the _château_, where they expect you. You can
say I will not come this evening; you need not say why. And let us
alone, Mr Ashton. What can it matter to you if we are here or anywhere
else? We have done no harm to you.”
“Miss Goulburn, you don’t know John; but he has been a sufferer; he is
very bitter, he will not let things alone. If I could have formed the
least idea that you were here--but even if I had known, what could I do
to keep him from the place where his bride is living? And if he has any
suspicion he will not be silenced. When I saw you--you with your open,
candid face--walking so quietly along the road, and he by my side with
the spirit of a bloodhound in him---- And yet how glad I am that you are
here! But your father; good heavens!” cried the young man; “what a
position for you to be in! you, so young, so innocent, knowing nothing!”
Just then they were met by a party of country people going home. “_Bon
soir_, mademoiselle,” they cried with a little acclamation of kindness,
the men taking off their hats; and one old woman paused to say, “You
should be happy to-night if any one should, _ma bonne demoiselle_.”
“You have been doing something kind,” said young Ashton, looking at her,
his face full of tender admiration and sympathy.
“Not I, not I!” Helen cried. The tears came down her cheeks in a
torrent. “It is papa, poor papa, that has been kind. You don’t know how
good he is. He has made some of the poor people very happy; and his
reward,” she cried, “will be to be driven away. Oh, why should that be?
Papa, who used to be so rich, who had everything; and now that he is
quiet here, in a little wretched village, you come and drive him away!”
Young Ashton’s countenance changed. It grew grave, almost severe. “I do
not drive him away,” he said. “If there was anything I could do to make
him safe, I would do it; but he will know better than you do that I
cannot. Tell him that Sir John Harvey is here. He will understand that
better than anything. Not in search of him--not knowingly, but still he
is here. Do they know at the _château_? Can they give any information?
Will they put John on the scent? Pardon me for using such words--he is
my cousin, but he is a hard man. Do they know who you are?”
Helen drooped her head with a bitter sense of shame. Even now she did
not know what the real stigma was; but the shame of a false name bowed
her to the ground. “They do not know us,” she said almost inaudibly, “by
our true name.”
And as she stood before him with her head bent down and that flush of
humiliation on her face, Ashton’s heart was too full to keep silence. A
cry of painful sympathy came from his lips. He took her hand and kissed
it with passionate sympathy and anguish. “My poor child, my poor child!”
he cried. “You, you! to have this burden to bear. Leave him, for God’s
sake, and let me take you home.”
“Leave him! now, when he is badly off and in trouble?” This idea brought
a kind of smile to Helen’s lips. “But, Mr Ashton, I think you mean very
kindly. I will tell him, and you can say to them at the _château_ that
he was not very well, that the excitement had told upon him, and that I
could not leave him to-night. They will understand that. And don’t make
them think any harm of us, not more harm than you can help. They have
been very sweet to me,” Helen said after a pause, her tears dropping
again; “such friends! and Thérèse, Mr Ashton, Thérèse, remember! She is
not Cécile, but she is nearly as good as Cécile.”
“I know nothing about Thérèse or Cécile!” he cried. “Helen, oh, forgive
me, I am almost mad! Are you to be swept away from me once more? Am I to
lose you again?”
She shook her head sadly. “What does it matter? We never did know each
much,” she said.
“I will come to the village after it is dark. I will wait about on the
chance of seeing you; perhaps even I might be of use. Don’t refuse me
this,” he cried; “don’t refuse me so much as this! If it is I that must
drive my own happiness away, at least let me see you once again.”
“Yes; it is true, if you are a friend, you might be of use. You might
help me, perhaps,” Helen said simply, “if you will be so kind. That is
the house, that tall one with the green shutters. It will be very kind
if you will come.”
She turned away, making a gesture to him to go back. They were opposite
the Lion d’Or, where still the _conscrits_ were hanging about with their
coloured ribbons, and Baptiste receiving once again perpetual
congratulation. Antoine, with his hands in his pockets, strolled along
in the middle of the street, biting a straw which he held in his mouth.
He was looking at M. Goudron’s windows with bended brows. Amid all the
peaceful surroundings, he alone caught Charley Ashton’s eyes as a
sinister figure meaning mischief; but he was far too much occupied with
other thoughts to waste any upon the village bully at a moment so full
of heavier trouble and pain.