ICI ON PARLE FRANCAIS
THE doctor arrived in good time for dinner, and shook hands with the
Irish lord in excellent spirits.
He looked round the room, and asked where my lady was. Lord Harry's
reply suggested the presence of a cloud on the domestic horizon. He had
been taking a long ride, and had only returned a few minutes since;
Iris would (as he supposed) join them immediately.
The maid put the soup on the table, and delivered a message. Her
mistress was suffering from a headache, and was not well enough to dine
with the gentlemen.
As an old married man, Mr. Vimpany knew what this meant; he begged
leave to send a comforting message to the suffering lady of the house.
Would Fanny be good enough to say that he had made inquiries on the
subject of Mr. Mountjoy's health, before he left London. The report was
still favourable; there was nothing to complain of but the
after-weakness which had followed the fever. On that account only, the
attendance of the nurse was still a matter of necessity. "With my
respects to Lady Harry," he called after Fanny, as she went out in
dogged silence.
"I have begun by making myself agreeable to your wife," the doctor
remarked with a self-approving grin. "Perhaps she will dine with us
to-morrow. Pass the sherry."
The remembrance of what had happened at the breakfast-table, that
morning, seemed to be dwelling disagreeably on Lord Harry's mind. He
said but little--and that little related to the subject on which he had
already written, at full length, to his medical friend.
In an interval, when the service of the table required the attendance
of Fanny in the kitchen, Mr. Vimpany took the opportunity of saying a
few cheering words. He had come (he remarked) prepared with the right
sort of remedy for an ailing state of mind, and he would explain
himself at a fitter opportunity. Lord Harry impatiently asked why the
explanation was deferred. If the presence of the maid was the obstacle
which caused delay, it would be easy to tell her that she was not
wanted to wait.
The wary doctor positively forbade this.
He had observed Fanny, during his previous visit, and had discovered
that she seemed to distrust him. The woman was sly and suspicious.
Since they had sat down to dinner, it was easy to see that she was
lingering in the room to listen to the conversation, on one pretence or
another. If she was told not to wait, there could be no doubt of her
next proceeding: she would listen outside the door. "Take my word for
it," the doctor concluded, "there are all the materials for a spy in
Fanny Mere."
But Lord Harry was obstinate. Chafing under the sense of his helpless
pecuniary position, he was determined to hear, at once, what remedy for
it Vimpany had discovered.
"We can set that woman's curiosity at defiance," he said.
"How?"
"When you were learning your profession, you lived in Paris for some
years, didn't you?
"All right!"
"Well, then, you can't have entirely forgotten your French?"
The doctor at once understood what this meant, and answered
significantly by a wink. He had found an opportunity (he said) of
testing his memory, not very long since. Time had undoubtedly deprived
him of his early mastery over the French language; but he could still
(allowing for a few mistakes) make a shift to understand it and speak
it. There was one thing, however, that he wanted to know first. Could
they be sure that my lady's maid had not picked up French enough to use
her ears to some purpose? Lord Harry easily disposed of this doubt. So
entirely ignorant was the maid of the language of the place in which
she was living, that she was not able to ask the tradespeople for the
simplest article of household use, unless it was written for her in
French before she was sent on an errand.
This was conclusive. When Fanny returned to the dining-room, she found
a surprise waiting for her. The two gentlemen had taken leave of their
nationality, and were talking the language of foreigners.
An hour later, when the dinner-table had been cleared, the maid's
domestic duties took her to Lady Harry's room to make tea. She noticed
the sad careworn look on her mistress's face, and spoke of it at once
in her own downright way.
"I thought it was only an excuse," she said, "when you gave me that
message to the gentlemen, at dinner-time. Are you really ill, my lady?"
"I am a little out of spirits," Iris replied.
Fanny made the tea. "I can understand that," she said to herself, as
she moved away to leave the room; "I'm out of spirits myself."
Iris called her back: "I heard you say just now, Fanny, that you were
out of spirits yourself. If you were speaking of some troubles of your
own, I am sorry for you, and I won't say any more. But if you know what
my anxieties are, and share them--"
"Mine is the biggest share of the two," Fanny broke out abruptly. "It
goes against the grain with me to distress you, my lady; but we are
beginning badly, and you ought to know it. The doctor has beaten me
already."
"Beaten you already?" Iris repeated. "Tell me plainly what you mean?"
"Here it is, if you please, as plainly as words can say it. Mr. Vimpany
has something--something wicked, of course--to say to my master; and he
won't let it pass his lips here, in the cottage."
"Why not?"
"Because he suspects me of listening at the door, and looking through
the keyhole. I don't know, my lady, that he doesn't even suspect You.
'I've learnt something in the course of my life,' he says to my master;
'and it's a rule with me to be careful of what I talk about indoors,
when there are women in the house. What are you going to do
to-morrow?' he says. My lord told him there was to be a meeting at the
newspaper office. The doctor says: 'I'll go to Paris with you. The
newspaper office isn't far from the Luxembourg Gardens. When you have
done your business, you will find me waiting at the gate. What I have
to tell you, you shall hear out of doors in the Gardens--and in an open
part of them, too, where there are no lurking-places among the trees.'
My master seemed to get angry at being put off in this way. 'What is it
you have got to tell me?' he says. 'Is it anything like the proposal
you made, when you were on your last visit here?' The doctor laughed.
'To-morrow won't be long in coming,' he says. 'Patience, my
lord--patience.' There was no getting him to say a word more. Now, what
am I to do? How am I to get a chance of listening to him, out in an
open garden, without being seen? There's what I mean when I say he has
beaten me. It's you, my lady--it's you who will suffer in the end."
"You don't _know_ that, Fanny."
"No, my lady--but I'm certain of it. And here I am, as helpless as
yourself! My temper has been quiet, since my misfortune; it would be
quiet still, but for this." The one animating motive, the one
exasperating influence, in that sad and secret life was still the
mistress's welfare--still the safety of the generous woman who had
befriended and forgiven her. She turned aside from the table, to hide
her ghastly face.
"Pray try to control yourself." As Iris spoke, she pointed kindly to a
chair. "There is something that I want to say when you are composed
again. I won't hurry you; I won't look at you. Sit down, Fanny."
She appeared to shrink from being seated in her mistress's presence.
"Please to let me go to the window," she said; "the air will help me."
To the window she went, and struggled with the passionate self so
steadily kept under at other times; so obstinately conquered now. "What
did you wish to say to me?" she asked.
"You have surprised--you have perplexed me," Iris said. "I am at a loss
to understand how you discovered what seems to have passed between your
master and Mr. Vimpany. You don't surely mean to tell me that they
talked of their private affairs while you were waiting at table?"
"I don't tell lies, my lady," Fanny declared impulsively. "They talked
of nothing else all through the dinner."
"Before _you!"_ Iris exclaimed.
There was a pause. Fear and shame confessed themselves furtively on the
maid's colourless face. Silently, swiftly, she turned to the door. Had
a slip of the tongue hurried her into the betrayal of something which
it was her interest to conceal? "Don't be alarmed," Iris said
compassionately; "I have no wish to intrude on your secrets."
With her hand on the door, Fanny Mere closed it again, and came back.
"I am not so ungrateful," she said, "as to have any secrets from You.
It's hard to confess what may lower me in your good opinion, but it
must be done. I have deceived your ladyship--and I am ashamed of it. I
have deceived the doctor--and I glory in it. My master and Mr. Vimpany
thought they were safe in speaking French, while I was waiting on them.
I know French as well as they do."
Iris could hardly believe what she heard. "Do you really mean what you
say?" she asked.
"There's that much good in me," Fanny replied; "I always mean what I
say."
"Why did you deceive me? Why have you been acting the part of an
ignorant woman?"
"The deceit has been useful in your service," the obstinate maid
declared. "Perhaps it may be useful again."
"Was that what you were thinking of," Iris said, "when you allowed me
to translate English into French for you, and never told me the truth?"
"At any rate, I will tell you the truth, now. No: I was not thinking of
you, when you wrote my errands for me in French--I was thinking again
of some advice that was once given to me."
"Was it advice given by a friend?"
"Given by a man, my lady, who was the worst enemy I have ever had."
Her considerate mistress understood the allusion, and forbade her to
distress herself by saying more. But Fanny felt that atonement, as well
as explanation, was due to her benefactress. Slowly, painfully she
described the person to whom she had referred. He was a Frenchman, who
had been her music-master during the brief period at which she had
attended a school: he had promised her marriage; he had persuaded her
to elope with him. The little money that they had to live on was earned
by her needle, and by his wages as accompanist at a music-hall. While
she was still able to attract him, and to hope for the performance of
his promise, he amused himself by teaching her his own language. When
he deserted her, his letter of farewell contained, among other things
the advice to which she had alluded.
"In your station of life," this man had written, "knowledge of French
is still a rare accomplishment. Keep your knowledge to yourself.
English people of rank have a way of talking French to each other, when
they don't wish to be understood by their inferiors. In the course of
your career, you may surprise secrets which will prove to be a little
fortune, if you play your cards properly. Anyhow, it is the only
fortune I have to leave to you." Such had been the villain's parting
gift to the woman whom he had betrayed.
She had hated him too bitterly to be depraved by his advice.
On the contrary, when the kindness of a friend (now no longer in
England) had helped her to obtain her first employment as a domestic
servant, she had thought it might be to her interest to mention that
she could read, write, and speak French. The result proved to be not
only a disappointment, but a warning to her for the future. Such an
accomplishment as a knowledge of a foreign language possessed by an
Englishwoman, in her humble rank of life, was considered by her
mistress to justify suspicion. Questions were asked, which it was
impossible for her to answer truthfully. Small scandal drew its own
conclusions--her life with the other servants became unendurable--she
left her situation.
From that time, until the happy day when she met with Iris, concealment
of her knowledge of French became a proceeding forced on her by her own
poor interests. Her present mistress would undoubtedly have been taken
into her confidence, if the opportunity had offered itself. But Iris
had never encouraged her to speak of the one darkest scene in her life;
and for that reason, she had kept her own counsel until the date of her
mistress's marriage. Distrusting the husband, and the husband's
confidential friend--for were they not both men?--she had thought of
the vile Frenchman's advice, and had resolved to give it a trial; not
with the degrading motive which he had suggested, but with the vague
presentiment of making a discovery of wickedness, threatening mischief
under a French disguise, which might be of service to her benefactress
at some future time.
"And I may still turn it to your advantage, my lady," Fanny ventured to
add, "if you will consent to say nothing to anybody of your having a
servant who has learnt French."
Iris looked at her coldly and gravely. "Must I remind you," she said,
"that you are asking my help in practicing a deception on my husband?"
"I shall be sent away," Fanny answered, "if you tell my master what I
have told you."
This was indisputably true. Iris hesitated. In her present situation,
the maid was the one friend on whom she could rely. Before her
marriage, she would have recoiled from availing herself, under any
circumstances, of such services as Fanny's reckless gratitude had
offered to her. But the moral atmosphere in which she was living had
begun, as Mrs. Vimpany had foreseen, to exert its baneful influence.
The mistress descended to bargaining with the servant.
"Deceive the doctor," she said, "and I well remember that it may be for
my good." She stopped, and considered for a moment. Her noble nature
rallied its forces, and prompted her next words: "But respect your
master, if you wish me to keep your secret. I forbid you to listen to
what my lord may say, when he speaks with Mr. Vimpany to-morrow."
"I have already told your ladyship that I shall have no chance of
listening to what they say to each other, out of doors," Fanny
rejoined. "But I can watch the doctor at any rate. We don't know what
he may not do when he is left by himself, while my master is at the
meeting. I want to try if I can follow that rogue through the streets,
without his finding me out. Please to send me on an errand to Paris
to-morrow."
"You will be running a terrible risk," her mistress reminded her, "if
Mr. Vimpany discovers you."
"I'll take my chance of that," was the reckless reply.
Iris consented.