The Restaurant at Le Trooz.
The train disappeared, and our forlorn little Madelon remained
standing alone on the platform. Forlorn, indeed! It was
raining hard now, a thick, persistent drizzle, through which
everything looked dim and blurred, and which was almost as
dense as the low-hanging mists that hid the tops of the hills.
Madelon stood still and shivered for a minute, clutching her
little bundle under her cloak, and trying to collect her
ideas.
Not a hundred yards off was the village, lying between the
hills in the next valley to Chaudfontaine, and not more than
three miles from that place, but shut out from it by a barrier
of rocky, wooded hill, round which there was only just space
for the road and stream to wind; an amphibious little village,
half in and half out of the water apparently, for it stood
just where the stream spread out in wide shallows, round low
islands, on and amongst which the houses were clustered and
scattered. Madelon instinctively turned towards it; she had
the very vaguest idea in her poor, bewildered little brain as
to where she was, or what she was going to do, only one thing
obvious in the surrounding uncertainties--that she could not
remain standing on the platform in the pouring rain. She gave
up her ticket mechanically, passed through the gate, and
followed the muddy road leading to the cottages. She was very
tired, she had never felt quite so tired before, and her knees
trembled as they had done that day when the fever came on at
the convent; she was so dizzy too, that she had to stop now
and then, to grasp the one fact of her being where she was and
not somewhere else altogether; her single idea was to go on
walking until--until when? That was a question she could not
have answered, only somewhere she must go, where she would be
out of the way of countess or nuns, or any other enemy who
might be lying in wait to pounce upon her. This was all she
thought about as she passed along the village street, which
was dull and deserted-looking enough on this wet, grey
afternoon, till the sight of a church with an open door,
suggested something quite different, and which was a positive
relief after that nightmare motion of walking perpetually with
failing limbs, and a sense of pursuit behind. She would go in
there, and sit down and rest for a little while. By-and-by,
when the giddiness and trembling had gone off, she would be
better able to think of what she should do; she would be out
of the rain, too, there--the cold rain, which had already
drenched her cloak and skirt.
She went in; it was a village church of the simplest
description, very small, with plain wooden benches and
confessionals, and a high altar with inexpensive decorations,
in nowise remarkable. But hardly was Madelon inside the door,
when she stood suddenly motionless, transfixed by a horrible
terror that, weak and exhausted as she was, wholly seized and
gained possession of her; for, raised in the middle of the
aisle, covered with a black velvet pall and with a row of tall
candles on either side, stood a coffin, with white embroidery
of death's heads on the pall, and little banners with painted
death's heads decorating every candle. To the terrified,
speechless child, the skulls seemed to become animated--to
grin; they seemed to move; the whole air was suddenly full of
them, chattering, dancing, swarming round her; she tried to
scream, but could not; she turned to fly from the dreadful,
haunted spot, but with the first step she made, strength and
consciousness gave way altogether, and she sank senseless to
the ground.
Ten minutes later, a woman of the village, coming in to see
the preparations for the funeral of Monsieur N----, lately one
of the great proprietors of the neighbourhood, nearly stumbled
over Madelon's prostrate form. She started back, half uttering
an exclamation of surprise and alarm; then, seeing that it was
a child who was lying so still upon the stone floor, she knelt
down by her, laid her head in her lap, and began rubbing her
hands. Madelon was not quite unconscious, apparently, for she
moved her head uneasily, and uttered a low moan. "She is not
dead, at any rate," muttered the woman, still chafing the cold
little hands, while she studied the small white face, the
short rings of hair just appearing under the hat all crushed
in her fall, the bundle lying at her side, and the worn frock
and cloak soaked with rain. "I wonder if she is alone?" added
the woman to herself. She glances round the empty church, then
gently laying Madelon on the floor again, with a cushion to
support her head, she went to the door, and peered out into
the rain for a few moments; then, returning, without calling
for help, or summoning any one, she stooped down, took Madelon
in her arms--which, indeed, she was well able to do, for she
was a tall, strong woman, between thirty and forty, and the
child was very slight and thin after her recent illness--and
carried her out of the church, down the street, towards the
end of the village. No one was stirring in the pouring rain,
or seemed to notice her, except one or two boys, who ran after
her shouting and singing--"Eh, Jeanne-Marie, Jeanne-Marie--what
have you got to-day, Jeanne-Marie?" And to them she gave no
sort of heed, walking steadily and swiftly on, without even
turning her head, till she paused before a low, white-washed
cottage, standing a little apart from the village, between the
poplars that bordered the road. In front was a bench, and on
one side a vine, all dripping and forlorn, was trained over a
trellis that sloped from the roof, and, with wooden supports,
made a shelter for a row of bee-hives placed on a plank
beneath; under the front gable was a wicker contrivance for
pigeons, and below it, in large gold letters on a blue board,
the words, "Café et Restaurant." The door opened at once into
the little public room of the humblest pretentions, furnished
with a cupboard containing a store of bottles and glasses, a
stove in one corner, above it some bright copper tea-kettles,
a dozen chairs, and a deal table pushed near the one small
window that looked out on the road and the stream beyond, and
then across fields, and meadows, and trees, to the hills. A
man, with a heavy, loutish face and figure, was sitting with
his arms on the table, twirling a glass about in his fingers,
a bottle half full of vine before him. He turned round as
Jeanne-Marie entered with Madelon in her arms, and rising
slowly went towards them.
"Eh, Jeanne-Marie, what have you got there?" he said.
"Does that concern you?" answered the woman sharply enough;
"drink your wine, Jacques Monnier, and do not trouble yourself
with other people's affairs."
"_Est-elle morte, la petite?_" asked Jacques, recoiling at the
sight of Madelon's white face.
"_Est-elle morte?_" repeated Jeanne-Marie, "and with her eyes as
wide open as yours! _Allons, mon enfant, du courage_," she
added, as Madelon opened her eyes for a moment; but she closed
them again, and the woman looking round, said, "There will be
no peace here, with you men coming in and out. Open that door
for me, Jacques," pointing to one nearly opposite the
entrance.
The man obeyed. It opened at the bottom of the ladder-like
staircase, a gleam of light from above, showing where another
door at the top step led into a small bed-room. Jeanne-Marie
carried Madelon upstairs like a baby, took off her hat and
damp cloak, laid her on the bed, and then ran downstairs again
for a glass of cordial.
Madelon, however, was already reviving, and when Jeanne-Marie
went up to her again, she raised herself on the bed, resting
on one elbow, and fixed her large eyes upon the woman, first
with a look of blank unconsciousness, and then with a sudden
light of terror in them, as of some wild hunted thing just
caught by its pursuers.
"Don't take me back to the convent!" she cried in sharp,
piteous accents; "don't take me back; I can't go, I can't--no,
no, no!"
"No one shall take you back," said Jeanne-Marie, trying to
soothe her. But she paid no heed.
"Indeed I can't go. Ah, Madame, you said you knew papa; have
pity upon me! I promised him I would never be a nun. He died,
you know, and sent me to the convent at Liége to be with Aunt
Thérèse; but he made me promise before he died. I can't go
back--I should die too. Ah, Madame, have pity on me!"
She was kneeling on the bed now, her hands clasped with her
pitiful little imploring gesture. Jeanne-Marie came close to
her, and smoothed back her hair caressingly with her rough
work-a-day fingers.
"_Soyez tranquille, mon enfant_," she said, "you shall not be
taken back to the convent, and no one shall make you a nun."
"You promise?" said Madelon, catching hold of her arm, and
looking into her face with eager, suspicious eyes; "you
promise not to take me back?"
"Yes, I promise," said the woman; "fear nothing, _ma petite_."
"And you won't tell Aunt Thérèse that I ran away? For she
would be so angry, you know; she wanted to make me a nun like
herself; you won't tell her--you won't, you won't?"
"No, no," said Jeanne-Marie. "I will tell nothing, you are
quite safe here; now lie down and be quiet, and I will give
you something nice to drink."
But Madelon's eyes wandered; the terrified look came again,
and she clung tighter and tighter to Jeanne-Marie.
"Please ask Aunt Thérèse to go away!" she cried; "she is
standing there in the corner of the room, staring at me; she
will not move--there--there she is, don't you see? Oh, tell her
to go away--she stares at me so, and oh! there is a coffin at
her side, it is all over death's heads; Aunt Thérèse has a
death's head--oh! take me away, take me away!"
With a shriek of terror the child threw herself back on the
bed, covering her eyes with her hands, burying her face in the
pillow.
Jeanne-Marie went to the top of the stairs and called "Jacques
Monnier!"
"_Hein?_" said the man, coming slowly to the door below, and
standing with his broad figure framed in it.
"Jacques," said Jeanne-Marie, "go at once for the doctor, and
tell him to come here, for some one is very ill."
"_Hein?_" said Jacques again, "does that concern me? I must
attend to my own affairs, and finish my wine, Jeanne-Marie."
"If you do not go this moment," said the woman, with a little
stamp of her foot, "you shall never taste my wine again, with
or without payment, Jacques, _et je tiens parole, moi!_"
"There is other wine to be had in Le Trooz," answered the man
sulkily, but moving nevertheless towards the entrance, when
she was recalled by Jeanne-Marie.
"Jacques," she said, coming two or three steps down the
stairs, "if Monsieur le Docteur inquires who is ill, you will
say it is my niece."
"But she is then your niece, _la petite_," said Jacques,
scratching his head as an outward expression of some inward
perplexity.
"You will tell Monsieur le Docteur what I say," repeated
Jeanne-Marie imperiously, "and make haste;" and she went
upstairs again, and closed the bed-room with a certain
emphasis, as though to prevent further discussion.
Madelon was still lying on the bed, with her face buried in
the pillow; a violent shivering of cold or of fear had seized
her, but she resisted Jeanne-Marie's efforts to raise her with
the obstinacy of a strong will acted on by intense physical
alarm. But at length the woman's persuasive words appeared to
have a soothing effect, though she seemed scarcely to take in
their meaning, for she allowed herself to be undressed and put
into bed, and after taking some warm drink, fell into a
restless, starting sleep.
Jeanne-Marie drew a curtain across the small window, so as to
shut out the slanting sunbeams, which were pouring into the
room, on to the patchwork quilt and white pillow where the
little feverish head lay so uneasily; then, taking up her
knitting, she sat down by the bedside, and as she mechanically
added row after row to the blue worsted stocking, she
reflected. From Madelon's few distracted words, she imagined
that she knew the state of the case very well; it was one not
unprecedented, and presented no difficulties to either
comprehension of belief. "They wanted to bring her up as a
nun, and so she ran away. Well, thou hast done wisely, little
one; I also know something of convents and nuns, and if it
depends on me to protect thee, they shall not touch thee, _mon
enfant_." This was her final resolution as she sat knitting and
reflecting, with a great sympathy with, and tenderness for,
the poor little terrified, hunted girl, lying there at her
mercy.
Such tenderness, and power of sympathy with distress, were
indeed amongst Jeanne-Marie's strongest characteristics,
hidden though they were under a harsh, imperious manner and
exterior. For she too had had a strange, sad, troublous life,
with tragedy and sorrow enough in it, which it does not
concern us to relate here, and which were yet of no small
concern to our little Madelon, as she lay there, dependent on
this one woman for freedom, shelter, and even existence. For
if, as is surely the case, in our life of to-day lies a whole
prophecy of our life in the future, if in our most trivial
actions is hidden the germ of our greatest deeds, then our
most momentous decision in some sudden emergency, is but the
sure consummation and fruition of each unnoticed detail, our
action of to-day but the inevitable result of a whole precious
lifetime of preparation for some unforeseen crisis. So, too,
from a present habit of thought, much may be surmised as to
what has been done and suffered in the past; and though little
was known about Jeanne-Marie, some inferences might have been
drawn concerning her former life, had any of her neighbours
been skilled in the inductive method, or been sufficiently
interested in the woman to study her character closely. But in
fact they cared very little about her. It is true that when
she had first come into the village, there had been many
conjectures about her set afloat. She did not belong to that
part of the country, she could not even speak the Liége
_patois_, and never took the trouble to learn it, invariably
using the French language. She had no belongings, and never
spoke of her former life; so that it was not long before a
vague, open-mouthed curiosity, seizing upon a thousand
untested hints and rumours to satisfy itself withal, led the
villagers to whisper among themselves that some strange
history was attached to her; and woe to that woman who, in a
small village, is accredited with a strange history that no
one knows anything about! But Jeanne-Marie had outlived all
this; her secrets, if she had any, were never revealed either
then or later, and in time people had ceased to trouble
themselves about her. She led a silent, solitary life,
resenting perhaps the suspicion with which she had at first
been received, and holding aloof from her neighbours as they
held aloof from her. Her restaurant was well attended, for she
gave the best wine in the village, was liberal, and of an
honesty above suspicion; but even the men who were her most
constant customers did not like her, and were half afraid of
her. She held imperious rule among them, issuing imperative
commands which she expected to be obeyed, and enforcing strict
order and regularity in her house. To the women of the village
her manners were cold, abrupt, and reserved; she never stopped
to gossip or chatter; she would come and go about her business
without an unnecessary word, and the women, looking after her,
had ceased to do more than shrug their shoulders, and resume
the flow of talk her silent presence had checked.
But it was, after all, only the gay, and prosperous, and happy
that she shunned. The poor, the friendless, the erring, the
rejected of this world, were certain to find in Jeanne-Marie a
friend who never failed, one who looked out for the sorrowful
and broken-hearted, and never passed by on the other side.
Even the village children knew to whom to run when hurt, or
unhappy, or in disgrace, sure of getting consolation and
sugar-plums from the sad, lonely woman, though equally sure of
being sent away as soon as their tears were dried, and their
troubles forgotten. If the poor, abused Ugly Duckling of Hans
Andersen's tale had strayed on a wintry day to her door, she
would have taken it in, and nourished, and cherished it all
through the cold, dark weather; but when the summer was come,
and the duckling grown into a swan, spread its broad white
wings against the blue sky, she would have watched it fly away
without word or sign to detain it; she would have had nothing
in common with it then.
So to Jeanne-Marie it seemed the simplest thing in the world,
that, having found Madelon in need of help, she should help
her at the cost of any trouble to herself; that she should
take in, and cherish this poor little stray girl without
inquiry, without hope, or thought of reward. At Madelon,
happy, successful, contented, Jeanne-Marie would not have
looked a second time; but for Madelon, forsaken, shelterless,
dependent on her, she would have been ready almost to lay down
her life.
In about half an hour, Jacques Monnier returned with the
doctor. He knew Jeanne-Marie well, as he knew everyone in the
village, and went at once upstairs to the little bedroom where
Madelon was lying.
"Your niece, I think Jacques Monnier told me?" he said, after
watching Madelon for a minute as she lay in her uneasy sleep.
"Yes," said Jeanne-Marie with a certain sullenness of manner,
which she was apt to display towards her superiors in station.
"Has she been here long?" said the doctor, feeling Madelon's
pulse, but looking steadily at the woman; "when was she taken
ill? How is it you have not called me in before?"
"Look here, Monsieur le Docteur," answered Jeanne-Marie with a
sort of stolid defiance, "I called you in to tell me what to
do for the child, not to put me through a catechism. She
fainted away this morning, and when she came to herself again,
she began to rave and talk nonsense, so I sent for you. Now
tell me what is to be done."
Just then Madelon opened her eyes.
"Do you not know me, Madame?" she said. "I am Madeleine
Linders, and papa is dead; he sent me to be with Aunt Thérèse,
but she is dead too--Oh, save me, save me!" she cried,
springing up with all the old terror upon her; "don't let them
take me, papa, you made me promise that I would not stay
there. Tell Aunt Thérèse to go away, papa; papa, save me!" and
she clung to the doctor's arm. "Besides, you know," she went
on, speaking fast and eagerly, "I promised him--Monsieur
Horace, you know--and I must keep it, I must keep my promise to
Monsieur Horace,--I must, I must!"
"You hear?" said Jeanne-Marie, as Madelon fell back on the
pillow again muttering to herself.
"I hear," answered the doctor, "and I see that she is in a
high fever, and it may go hard with her, poor child! It is
fortunate she is with you, Jeanne-Marie," he went on, kindly,
"for you are a capital nurse, I know; but I am afraid it will
be a long business."
"That is no matter," she answered.
"If you would like to have her removed to the hospital at
Liége," continued the doctor, doubtfully, "it might still be
done. It may injure your business to have her here. Still, as
you say she is your niece----"
"As I say she is my niece," returned Jeanne-Marie, abruptly,
"it is not likely I should turn her out of the house, and that
is enough. My business will take care of itself. And now tell
me what I am to do, doctor?"
He prescribed for Madelon, said he would call again, and left
the house, pondering on the woman who kept so apart from her
neighbours, and on her small visitor, who he knew well enough
was not her niece, for had not Jacques Monnier told him how
Jeanne-Marie had suddenly come in out of the rain, carrying
the girl in her arms, and had taken her upstairs without a
word of explanation?
"There is a mystery somewhere," thought the doctor; "but it is
no concern of mine." And so he went his way to visit his next
patient.
Jeanne-Marie had no fears concerning the doctor's discretion;
he was a man too busy in his scattered district to have much
time or inclination for gossip. But she had far less
confidence in Jacques Monnier's wisdom, and thought it not
inexpedient to go downstairs, after the doctor's departure,
and give her customer a word of exhortation. He was seated at
the table as before, twirling the glass in his fingers, and
gazing vacantly out of window.
"Well, Jacques," said Jeanne-Marie, "and what did you tell the
doctor?"
"I told him what you told me," said the man, in a surly voice.
"What was that?"
"That your niece was ill, and that he was to come and see
her."
"Was that all?"
No answer.
"Was that all?" repeated Jeanne-Marie. "_Allons_, Jacques, don't
keep me waiting. I will know what you said to the doctor."
Jacques, who under other circumstances might have met this
imperative mode of questioning by dogged silence, or an
evasive answer, was too uncertain as to what the doctor
himself might have repeated to Jeanne-Marie, to attempt
equivocation.
"I told him," he said, slowly and reluctantly, "that it was a
queer thing you should have picked up your niece in the
street, and that I didn't believe she was your niece at all;
and no more I do, Jeanne-Marie," he added, gaining courage as
he spoke.
"Ah! you told him that?" said the woman. "Well, look you,
Jacques, if I find you saying any such thing again, this is
the very last time you cross my door-step, and that account of
yours will have to be paid in full next week. You understand?"
"Oh! yes, I understand well enough," he answered sulkily; "but
if I hold my tongue the neighbours will talk; I am not the
only person who saw you come through the street, I will answer
for it."
"Who said I came through the village at all? And what does it
matter to you what the neighbours say?" retorted Jeanne-Marie,
"attend to what I say--that is enough for you, Jacques--and if
you do hear anyone say anything about the child upstairs, tell
them it is my niece come on a visit, and not a word more;
otherwise you understand----"
"Oh! yes, I understand," he repeated grumbling, "but what do I
care? Yours is not the only wine to be had in Le Trooz----"
"Bah!" was Jeanne-Marie's only answer, as she left the room.
She knew her customer too well to be in the least afraid of
his carrying his implied threat into execution. Indeed,
Jacques Monnier, who had no mind to be ousted from the
convenient little restaurant, where he got good wine and long
credit, acted upon the hints he had received, and stuck
manfully to Jeanne-Marie's version of her adventure. And so it
happened, that although for a day or two a few rumours were
afloat in the village, they soon died away; and it was
received as an established fact by those who cared to interest
themselves in Jeanne-Marie's affairs, that it was her niece
whom the doctor went to see so regularly. And so much apart
did Jeanne-Marie keep from her neighbours, that the subject
was soon half-forgotten, and Madelon's very existence seemed
problematic, as she lay in the little upstairs room, and the
woman who sheltered her, appeared to come and go about her
business much the same as usual.
As for Jeanne-Marie, as soon as the house was quiet, on the
evening of that day so eventful for our little Madelon, she
sat down and wrote two letters: one she put into a large
envelope, which she directed to a street in Paris; the other,
inclosed in the first, was addressed to the Superior of the
Convent at Liége, and the letters, with their Paris direction,
were put into the post that very night.