I was on the rack all the next day. It was the last day I should be in
England, and I had a nervous dread of being detained. If I should once
more succeed in quitting the country undetected, it seemed as though I
might hope to be in safety in Calvados. Of Calvados I knew even less
than of the Channel Islands; I had never heard the name before. But Mrs.
Wilkinson had given me the route by which we were to reach Noireau: by
steamer to Havre, across the mouth of the Seine to Honfleur, to Falaise
by train, and finally from Falaise to Noireau by omnibus. It was an
utterly unknown region to me; and I had no reason to imagine that
Richard Foster was better acquainted with it than I. My anxiety was
simply to get clear away.
In the afternoon the little girl arrived quite alone, except that a man
had been hired to carry a small box for her, and to deliver her into my
charge. This was a great relief to me, and I paid the shilling he
demanded gladly. The child was thinly and shabbily dressed for our long
journey, and there was a forlorn loneliness about her position, left
thus with a stranger, which touched me to the heart. We were alike poor,
helpless, friendless--I was about to say childish, and in truth I was in
many things little more than a child still. The small elf, with her
sharp, large eyes, which were too big for her thin face, crept up to
me, as the man slammed the door after him and clattered noisily
downstairs.
"I'm so glad!" she said, with a deep-drawn sigh of relief; "I was afraid
I should never go, and school is such a heavenly place!"
The words amused yet troubled me; they were so different from a child's
ordinary opinion.
"It's such a hateful place at Mrs. Wilkinson's," she went on, "everybody
calling me at once, and scolding me; and there are such a many people to
run errands for. You don't know what it is to run errands when you are
tired to death. And it's such a beautiful, splendid place where we're
going to!"
"What is your name, my dear?" I asked, sitting down on my box and taking
her on my lap. Such a thin, stunted little woman, precociously learned
in trouble! Yet she nestled in my arms like a true child, and a tear or
two rolled down her cheeks, as if from very contentment.
"Nobody has nursed me like this since mother died," she said. "I'm
Mary; but father always called me Minima, because I was the least in the
house. He kept a boys' school out of London, in Epping Forest, you know;
and it was so heavenly! All the boys were good to me, and we used to
call father Dominie. Then he died, and mother died just before him; and
he said,'Courage, Minima! God will take care of my little girl.' So the
boys' fathers and mothers made a subscription for me, and they got a
great deal of money, a hundred pounds; and somebody told them about this
school, where I can stay four years for a hundred pounds, and they all
said that was the best thing they could do with me. But I've had to stay
with Mrs. Wilkinson nearly two months, because she could not find a
governess to go with me. I hate her; I detest her; I should like to spit
at her!"
The little face was all aflame, and the large eyes burning.
"Hush! hush!" I said, drawing her head down upon my shoulder again.
"Then there is Mr. Foster," she continued, almost sobbing; "he torments
me so. He likes to make fun of me, and tease me, till I can't bear to go
into his room. Father used to say it was wicked to hate anybody, and I
didn't hate anybody then. I was so happy. But you'd hate Mr. Foster, and
Mrs. Foster, if you only knew them."
"Why?" I asked in a whisper. My voice sounded husky to me, and my throat
felt parched. The child's impotent rage and hatred struck a slumbering
chord within me.
"Oh! they are horrid in every way," she said, with emphasis; "they
frighten me. He is fond of tormenting any thing because he's cruel. We
had a cruel boy in our school once, so I know. But they are very
poor--poor as Job, Mrs. Wilkinson says, and I'm glad. Aren't you glad?"
The question jarred in my memory against a passionate craving after
revenge, which had died away in the quiet and tranquillity of Sark. A
year ago I should have rejoiced in any measure of punishment or
retribution, which had overtaken those who had destroyed my happiness.
But it was not so now; or perhaps I should rather own that it was only
faintly so. It had never occurred to me that my flight would plunge him
into poverty similar to my own. But now that the idea was thrust upon
me. I wondered how I could have overlooked this necessary consequence of
my conduct. Ought I to do any thing for him? Was there any thing I could
do to help him?"
"He is ill, too," pursued the child; "I heard him say once to Mrs.
Foster, he knew he should die like a dog. I was a little tiny bit sorry
for him then; for nobody would like to die like a dog, and not go to
heaven, you know. But I don't care now, I shall never see them
again--never, never! I could jump out of my skin for joy. I sha'n't even
know when he is dead, if he does die like a dog."
Ill! dead! My heart beat faster and faster as I pondered over these
words. Then I should be free indeed; his death would release me from
bondage, from terror, from poverty--those three evils which dogged my
steps. I had never ventured to let my thoughts run that way, but this
child's prattling had forced them into it. Richard Foster ill--dying! O
God! what ought I to do?
I could not make myself known to him; that was impossible. I would ten
thousand times sooner die myself than return to him. He was not alone
either. But yet there came back to my mind the first days when I knew
him, when he was all tenderness and devotion to me, declaring that he
could find no fault in his girl-wife. How happy I had been for a little
while, exchanging my stepmother's harshness for his indulgence! He might
have won my love; he had almost won it. But that happy, golden time was
gone, and could never come back to me. Yet my heart was softened toward
him, as I thought of him ill, perhaps dying. What could I do for him,
without placing myself in his power?
There was one thing only that I could do, only one little sacrifice I
could make for him whom I had vowed, in childish ignorance, to love,
honor, and cherish in sickness and in health, until death parted us. A
home was secured to me for twelve months, and at the end of that time I
should have a better career open to me. I had enough money still to last
me until then. My diamond ring, which had been his own gift to me on our
wedding-day, would be valuable to him. Sixty pounds would be a help to
him, if he were as poor as this child said. He must be poor, or he would
never have gone to live in that mean street and neighborhood.
Perhaps--if he had been alone--I do not know, but possibly if he had
been quite alone, ill, dying in that poor lodging of his, I might have
gone to him. I ask myself again, could you have done this thing? But I
cannot answer it even to myself. Poor and ill he was, but he was not
alone.
It was enough for me, then, that I could do something, some little
service for him. The old flame of vengeance had no spark of heat left in
it. I was free from hatred of him. I set the child gently away from me,
and wrote my last letter to my husband. Both the letter and the ring I
enclosed in a little box. These are the words I wrote, and I put neither
date nor name of place:
"I know that you are poor, and I send you all I can spare--the ring you
once gave to me. I am even poorer than yourself, but I have just enough
for my immediate wants. I forgive you, as I trust God forgives me."
I sat looking at it, thinking of it for some time. There was a vague
doubt somewhere in my mind that this might work some mischief. But at
last I decided that it should go. I must register the packet at a
post-office on our way to the station, and it could not fail to reach
him.
This business settled, I returned to the child, who was sitting, as I
had so often, done, gazing pensively into the fire. Was she to be a sort
of miniature copy of myself?
"Come, Minima," I said, "we must be thinking of tea. Which would you
like best, buns, or cake, or bread-and-butter? We must go out and buy
them, and you shall choose."
"Which would cost the most?" she asked, looking at me with the careworn
expression of a woman. The question sounded so oddly, coming from lips
so young, that it grieved me. How bitterly and heavily must the burden
of poverty have already fallen upon this child! I was almost afraid to
think what it must mean. I put my arm round her, pressing my cheek
against hers, while childish visions, more childish than any in this
little head, flitted before me, of pantomimes, and toys, and sweetmeats,
and the thousand things that children love. If I had been as rich as my
father had planned for me to be, how I would have lavished them upon
this anxious little creature!
We were discussing this question with befitting gravity, when a great
thump against the door brought a host of fears upon me. But before I
could stir the insecure handle gave way, and no one more formidable
appeared than the landlady of the house, carrying before her a tray on
which was set out a sumptuous tea, consisting of buttered crumpets and
shrimps. She put it down on my dressing-table, and stood surveying it
and us with an expression of benign exultation, until she had recovered
her breath sufficiently to speak.
"Those as are going into foring parts," she said, "ought to get a good
English meal afore they start. If you was going to stay in England,
miss, it would be quite a differing thing; but me and my master don't
know what they may give you to eat where you're going to. Therefore we
beg you'll accept of the crumpets, and the shrimps, and the
bread-and-butter, and the tea, and every thing; and we mean no offence
by it. You've been a very quiet, regular lodger, and give no trouble;
and we're sorry to lose you. And this, my master says, is a testimonial
to you."
I could hardly control my laughter, and I could not keep back my tears.
It was a long time now since any one had shown me so much kindness and
sympathy as this. The dull face of the good woman was brightened by her
kind-hearted feeling, and instead of thanking her I put my lips to her
cheek.
"Lor!" she exclaimed, "why! God bless you, my dear! I didn't mean any
offence, you know. Lor! I never thought you'd pay me like that. It's
very pretty of you, it is; for I'm sure you're a lady to the backbone,
as often and often I've said to my master. Be good enough to eat it all,
you and the little miss, for you've a long journey before you. God bless
you both, my dears, and give you a good appetite!"
She backed out of the room as she was speaking, her face beaming upon us
to the last.
There was a pleasant drollery about her conduct, and about the intense
delight of the child, and her hearty enjoyment of the feast, which for
the time effectually dissipated my fears and my melancholy thoughts. It
was the last hour I should spend in my solitary room; my lonely days
were past. This little elf, with her large sharp eyes, and sagacious
womanly face, was to be my companion for the future. I felt closely
drawn to her. Even the hungry appetite with which she ate spoke of the
hard times she had gone through. When she had eaten all she could eat, I
heard her say softly to herself, "Courage, Minima!"