In this way it came to pass that two evenings later I was crossing the
Channel to Havre, and found myself about five o'clock in the afternoon
of the next day at Falaise. It was the terminus of the railway in that
direction; and a very ancient conveyance, bearing the name of La Petite
Vitesse, was in waiting to carry on any travellers who were venturesome
enough to explore the regions beyond. There was space inside for six
passengers, but it smelt too musty, and was too full of the fumes of bad
tobacco, for me; and I very much preferred sitting beside the driver, a
red-faced, smooth-cheeked Norman, habited in a blue blouse, who could
crack his long whip with almost the skill of a Parisian omnibus-driver.
We were friends in a trice, for my _patois_ was almost identical with
his own, and he could not believe his own ears that he was talking with
an Englishman.
"La Petite Vitesse" bore out its name admirably, if it were meant to
indicate exceeding slowness. We never advanced beyond a slow trot, and
at the slightest hint of rising ground the trot slackened into a walk,
and eventually subsided into a crawl. By these means the distance we
traversed was made to seem tremendous, and the drowsy jingle of the
collar-bells, intimating that progress was being accomplished, added to
the delusion. But the fresh, sweet air, blowing over leagues of fields
and meadows, untainted with a breath of smoke, gave me a delicious
tingling in the veins. I had not felt such a glow of exhilaration since
that bright morning when I bad crossed the channel to Sark, to ask
Olivia to become mine.
The sun sank below the distant horizon, with the trees showing clearly
against it, for the atmosphere was as transparent as crystal; and the
light of the stars that came out one by one almost cast a defined shadow
upon our path, from the poplar-trees standing in long, straight rows in
the hedges. If I found Olivia at the end of that starlit path my
gladness in it would be completed. Yet if I found her, what then? I
should see her for a few minutes in the dull _salon_ of a school perhaps
with some watchful, spying Frenchwoman present. I should simply satisfy
myself that she was living. There could be nothing more between us. I
dare not tell her how dear she was to me, or ask her if she ever thought
of me in her loneliness and friendlessness. I began to wish that I had
brought Johanna with me, who could have taken her in her arms, and
kissed and comforted her. Why had I not thought of that before?
As we proceeded at our delusive pace along the last stage of our
journey, I began to sound the driver, cautiously wheeling about the
object of my excursion into those remote regions. I had tramped through
Normandy and Brittany three or four times, but there had been no
inducement to visit Noireau, which resembled a Lancashire cotton-town,
and I had never been there.
"There are not many English at Noireau?" I remarked, suggestively.
"Not one," he replied--"not one at this moment. There was one little
English mam'zelle--peste!--a very pretty little English girl, who was
voyaging precisely like you, m'sieur, some months ago. There was a
little child with her, and the two were quite alone. They are very
intrepid, are the English mam'zelles. She did not know a word of our
language. But that was droll, m'sieur! A French demoiselle would never
voyage like that."
The little child puzzled me. Yet I could not help fancying that this
young Englishwoman travelling alone, with no knowledge of French, must
be my Olivia. At any rate it could be no other than Miss Ellen
Martineau.
"Where was she going to?" I asked.
"She came to Noireau to be an instructress in an establishment,"
answered the driver, in a tone of great enjoyment--"an establishment
founded by the wife of Monsieur Emile Perrier, the avocat! He! he! he!
Mon Dieu! how droll that was, m'sieur! An avocat! So they believed that
in England? Bah! Emile Perrier an avocat--mon Dieu!"
"But what is there to laugh at?" I asked, as the man's laughter rang
through the quiet night.
"Am I an avocat?" he inquired derisively, "am I a proprietor? am I even
a curé? Pardon, m'sieur, but I am just as much avocat, proprietor, curé,
as Emile Perrier. He was an impostor. He became bankrupt; he and his
wife ran away to save themselves; the establishment was broken up. It
was a bubble, m'sieur, and it burst comme ça."
My driver clapped his hands together lightly, as though Monsieur
Perrier's bubble needed very little pressure to disperse it.
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "but what became of Oli--of the young
English lady, and the child?"
"Ah, m'sieur!" he said, "I do not know. I do not live in Noireau, but I
pass to and fro from Falaise in La Petite Vitesse. She has not returned
in my omnibus, that is all I know. But she could go to Granville, or to
Caen. There are other omnibuses, you see. Somebody will tell you down
there."
For three or four miles before us there lay a road as straight as a
rule, ending in a small cluster of lights glimmering in the bottom of a
valley, into which we were descending with great precaution on the part
of the driver and his team. That was Noireau. But already my
exhilaration was exchanged for profound anxiety. I extorted from the
Norman all the information he possessed concerning the bankrupt; it was
not much, and it only served to heighten my solicitude.
It was nearly eleven o'clock before we entered the town; but I learned a
few more particulars from the middle-aged woman in the omnibus bureau.
She recollected the name of Miss Ellen Martineau, and her arrival; and
she described her with the accuracy and faithfulness of a woman. If she
were not Olivia herself, she must be her very counterpart. But who was
the child, a girl of nine or ten years of age, who had accompanied her?
It was too late to learn any more about them. The landlady of the hotel
confirmed all I had heard, and added several items of information.
Monsieur Perrier and his wife had imposed upon several English families,
and had succeeded in getting dozens of English pupils, so she assured
me, who had been scattered over the country, Heaven only knew where,
when the school was broken up, about a month ago.
I started out early the next morning to find the Rue de Grâce, where the
inscription on my photographic view of the premises represented them as
situated. The town was in the condition of a provincial town in England
about a century ago. The streets were as dirty as the total absence of
drains and scavengers could make them, and the cleanest path was up the
kennel in the centre. The filth of the houses was washed down into them
by pipes, with little cisterns at each story, and under almost every
window. There were many improprieties, and some indecencies, shocking to
English sensibilities. In the Rue de Grâce I saw two nuns in their hoods
and veils, unloading a cart full of manure. A ladies' school for English
people in a town like this seemed ridiculous.
There was no difficulty in finding the houses in my photographic view.
There were two of them, one standing in the street, the other lying back
beyond a very pleasant garden. A Frenchman was pacing up and down the
broad gravel-path which connected them, smoking a cigar, and examining
critically the vines growing against the walls. Two little children were
gambolling about in close white caps, and with frocks down to their
heels. Upon seeing me, he took his cigar from his lips with two fingers
of one hand, and lifted his hat with the other. I returned the
salutation with a politeness as ceremonious as his own.
"Monsieur is an Englishman?" he said, in a doubtful tone.
"From the Channel Islands," I replied.
"Ah! you belong to us," he said, "but you are hybrid, half English, half
French; a fine race. I also have English blood in my veins."
I paid monsieur a compliment upon the result of the admixture of blood
in his own instance, and then proceeded to unfold my object in visiting
him.
"Ah!" he said, "yes, yes, yes; Perrier was an impostor. These houses are
mine, monsieur. I live in the front, yonder; my daughter and son-in-law
occupy the other. We had the photographs taken for our own pleasure, but
Perrier must have bought them from the artist, no doubt. I have a small
cottage at the back of my house; voilà, monsieur! there it is. Perrier
rented it from me for two hundred francs a year. I permitted him to pass
along this walk, and through our coach-house into a passage which leads
to the street where madame had her school. Permit me, and I will show it
to you."
He led me through a shed, and along a dirty, vaulted passage, into a
mean street at the back. A small, miserable-looking house stood in it,
shut up, with broken _persiennes_ covering the windows. My heart sank at
the idea of Olivia living here, in such discomfort, and neglect, and
sordid poverty.
"Did you ever see a young English lady here, monsieur?" I asked; "she
arrived about the beginning of last November."
"But yes, certainly, monsieur," he replied, "a charming English
demoiselle! One must have been blind not to observe her. A face sweet
and _gracieuse_; with hair of gold, but a little more sombre. Yes, yes!
The ladies might not admire her, but we others--"
He laughed, and shrugged his shoulders in a detestable manner.
"What height was she, monsieur?" I inquired.
"A just height," he answered, "not tall like a camel, nor too short like
a monkey. She would stand an inch or two above your shoulder, monsieur."
It could be no other than my Olivia! She had been living here, then, in
this miserable place, only a month ago; but where could she be now? How
was I to find any trace of her?
"I will make some inquiries from my daughter," said the Frenchman; "when
the establishment was broken up I was ill with the fever, monsieur. We
have fever often here. But she will know--I will ask her."
He returned to me after some time, with the information that the English
demoiselle had been seen in the house of a woman who sold milk,
Mademoiselle Rosalie by name; and he volunteered to accompany me to her
dwelling.
It was a poor-looking house, of one room only, in the same street as the
school; but we found no one there except an old woman, exceedingly deaf,
who told us, after much difficulty in making her understand our object,
that Mademoiselle Rosalie was gone somewhere to nurse a relative, who
was dangerously ill. She had not had any cows of her own, and she had
easily disposed of her small business to this old woman and her
daughter. Did the messieurs want any milk for their families? No. Well,
then, she could not tell us any thing more about Mam'zelle Rosalie; and
she knew nothing of an Englishwoman and a little girl.
I turned away baffled and discouraged; but my new friend was not so
quickly depressed. It was impossible, he maintained, that the English
girl and the child could have left the town unnoticed. He went with me
to all the omnibus bureaus, where we made urgent inquiries concerning
the passengers who had quitted Noireau during the last month. No places
had been taken for Miss Ellen Martineau and the child, for there was no
such name in any of the books. But at each bureau I was recommended to
see the drivers upon their return in the evening; and I was compelled to
give up the pursuit for that day.