It as little more than twelve months since I had started from the same
station on the same route; but there was no Tardif at hand now. As I
went into the ticket-office, Minima caught me by the dress and whispered
earnestly into my ear.
"We're not to travel first-class," she said; "it costs too much. Mrs.
Wilkinson said we ought to go third, if we could; and you're to pay for
me, please, only half-price, and they'll pay you again when we reach the
school. I'll come with you, and then they'll see I'm only half-price. I
don't look too old, do I?"
"You look very old," I answered, smiling at her anxious face.
"Oh, dear, dear!" she said; "but I sit very small. Perhaps I'd better
not come to the ticket-office; the porters are sure to think me only a
little girl."
She was uneasy until we had fairly started from the station, her right
to a half-ticket unchallenged.
The November night was cold and foggy, and there was little difference
between the darkness of the suburbs and the darkness of the open
country.
Once again the black hulls and masts of two steamers stood before us, at
the end of our journey, and hurrying voices shouted, "This way for
Jersey and Guernsey," "This way to Havre." What would I not have given
to return to Sark, to my quiet room under Tardif's roof, with his true
heart and steadfast friendship to rest upon! But that could not be. My
feet were setting out upon a new track, and I did not know where the
hidden path would lead me.
The next morning found us in France. It was a soft, sunny day, with a
mellow light, which seemed to dwell fondly on the many-tinted leaves of
the trees which covered the banks of the Seine. From Honfleur to Falaise
the same warm, genial sunshine filled the air. The slowly-moving train
carried us through woods where the autumn seemed but a few days old, and
where the slender leaflets of the acacias still fluttered in the
caressing breath of the wind. We passed through miles upon miles of
orchards, where a few red leaves were hanging yet upon the knotted
branches of the apple-trees, beneath which lay huge pyramids of apples.
Truck-loads of them stood at every station. The air was scented by them.
Children were pelting one another with them; and here and there, where
the orchards had been cleared and the trees stripped, flocks of geese
were searching for those scattered among the tufts of grass. The roses
were in blossom, and the chrysanthemums were in their first glory. The
few countrywomen who got into our carriage were still wearing their
snowy muslin caps, as in summer. Nobody appeared cold and pinched yet,
and everybody was living out-of-doors.
It was almost like going into a new world, and I breathed more freely
the farther we travelled down into the interior. At Falaise we exchanged
the train for a small omnibus, which bore the name "Noireau"
conspicuously on its door. I had discovered that the little French I
knew was not of much service, as I could in no way understand the rapid
answers that were given to my questions. A woman came to us, at the door
of a _café_, where the omnibus stopped in Falaise, and made a long and
earnest harangue, of which I did not recognize one word. At length we
started off on the last stage of our journey.
Where could we be going to? I began to ask myself the question anxiously
after we had crept on, at a dog-trot, for what seemed an interminable
time. We had passed through long avenues of trees, and across a series
of wide, flat plains, and down gently-sloping roads into narrow valleys,
and up the opposite ascents; and still the bells upon the horses'
collars jingled sleepily, and their hoof-beats shambled along the roads.
We were seldom in sight of any house, and we passed through very few
villages. I felt as if we were going all the way to Marseilles.
"I'm so hungry!" said Minima, after a very long silence.
I too had been hungry for an hour or two past. We had breakfasted at
mid-day at one of the stations, but we had had nothing to eat since,
except a roll which Minima had brought away from breakfast, with wise
prevision; but this had disappeared long ago.
"Try to go to sleep," I said; "lean against me. We must be there soon."
"Yes," she answered, "and it's such a splendid school! I'm going to stay
there four years, you know, so it's foolish to mind being hungry now.
'Courage, Minima!' I must recollect that."
"Courage, Olivia!" I repeated to myself. "The farther you go, the more
secure will be your hiding-place." The child nestled against me, and
soon fell asleep. I went to sleep myself--an unquiet slumber, broken by
terrifying dreams. Sometimes I was falling from the cliffs in Sark into
the deep, transparent waters below, where the sharp rocks lay like
swords. Then I was in the Gouliot Caves, with Martin Dobrée at my side,
and the tide was coming in too strongly for us; and beyond, in the
opening through which we might have escaped, my husband's face looked in
at us, with a hideous exultation upon it. I woke at last, shivering with
cold and dread, for I had fancied that he had found me, and was carrying
me away again to his old hateful haunts.
Our omnibus was jolting and rumbling down some steep and narrow streets
lighted by oil-lamps swung across them. There were no lights in any of
the houses, save a few in the upper windows, as though the inmates were
all in bed, or going to bed. Only at the inn where we stopped was there
any thing like life. A lamp, which hung over the archway leading to the
yard and stables, lit up a group of people waiting for the arrival of
the omnibus. I woke up Minima from her deep and heavy sleep.
"We are here at Noireau!" I said. "We have reached our home at last!"
The door was opened before the child was fairly awake. A small cluster
of bystanders gathered round us as we alighted, and watched our luggage
put down from the roof; while the driver ran on volubly, and with many
gesticulations, addressed to the little crowd. He, the chamber-maid, the
landlady, and all the rest, surrounded us as solemnly as if they were
assisting at a funeral. There was not a symptom of amusement, but they
all stared at us unflinchingly, as if a single wink of their eyelids
would cause them to lose some extraordinary spectacle. If I had been a
total eclipse of the sun, and they a group of enthusiastic astronomers
bent upon observing every phenomenon, they could not have gazed more
steadily. Minima was leaning against me, half asleep. A narrow vista of
tall houses lay to the right and left, lost in impenetrable darkness.
The strip of sky overhead was black with midnight.
"Noireau?" I asked, in a tone of interrogation.
"Oui, oui, madame," responded a chorus of voices.
"Carry me to the house of Monsieur Emile Perrier, the _avocat_," I said,
speaking slowly and distinctly.
The words, simple as they were, seemed to awaken considerable
excitement. The landlady threw up her hands, with an expression of
astonishment, and the driver recommenced his harangue. Was it possible
that I could have made a mistake in so short and easy a sentence? I
said it over again to myself, and felt sure I was right. With renewed
confidence I repeated it aloud, with a slight variation.
"I wish to go to the house of Monsieur Emile Perrier, the _avocat_," I
said.
But while they still clustered round Minima and me, giving no sign of
compliance with my request, two persons thrust themselves through the
circle. The one was a man, in a threadbare brown greatcoat, with a large
woollen comforter wound several times about his neck; and the other a
woman, in an equally shabby dress, who spoke to me in broken English.
"Mees, I am Madame Perrier, and this my husband," she said; "come on.
The letter was here only an hour ago; but all is ready. Come on; come
on."
She put her hand through my arm, and took hold of Minima's hand, as if
claiming both of us. A dead silence had fallen upon the little crowd, as
if they were trying to catch the meaning of the English words. But as
she pushed on, with us both in her hands, a titter for the first time
ran from lip to lip. I glanced back, and saw Monsieur Perrier, the
_avocat_, hurriedly putting our luggage on a wheelbarrow, and preparing
to follow us with it along the dark streets.
I was too bewildered yet to feel any astonishment. We were in France, in
a remote part of France, and I did not know what Frenchmen would or
would not do. Madame Perrier, exhausted with her effort at speaking
English, had ceased speaking to me, and contented herself with guiding
us along the strange streets. We stopped at last opposite the large,
handsome house, which stood in the front of the photograph I had seen in
London. I could just recognize it in the darkness; and behind lay the
garden and the second range of building. Not a glimmer of light shone in
any of the windows.
"It is midnight nearly," said Madame Perrier, as we came to a
stand-still and waited for her husband, the _avocat_.
Even when he came up with the luggage there seemed some difficulty in
effecting an entrance. He passed through the garden-gate, and
disappeared round the corner of the house, walking softly, as if careful
not to disturb the household. How long the waiting seemed! For we were
hungry, sleepy, and cold--strangers in a very strange land. I heard
Minima sigh weariedly.
At last he reappeared round the corner, carrying a candle, which
flickered in the wind. Not a word was spoken by him or his wife as the
latter conducted us toward him. We were to enter by the back-door, that
was evident. But I did not care what door we entered by, so that we
might soon find rest and food. She led us into a dimly-lighted room,
where I could just make out what appeared to be a carpenter's bench,
with a heap of wood-shavings lying under it. But I was too weary to be
certain about any thing.
"It is a leetle cabinet of work of my husband," said Madame Perrier;
"our chamber is above, and the chamber for you and leetle mees is there
also. But the school is not there. Will you go to bed? Will you sleep?
Come on, mees."
"But we are very hungry," I remonstrated; "we have had nothing to eat
since noon. We could not sleep without food."
"Bah! that is true," she said. "Well, come on. The food is at the
school. Come on."
That must be the house at the back. We went down the broad gravel walk,
with the pretty garden at the side of us, where a fountain was tinkling
and splashing busily in the quiet night. But we passed the front of the
house behind it without stopping, at the door. Madame led us through a
cart-shed into a low, long, vaulted passage, with doors opening on each
side; a black, villanous-looking place, with the feeble, flickering
light of the candle throwing on to the damp walls a sinister gleam.
Minima pressed very close to me, and I felt a strange quiver of
apprehension: but the thought that there was no escape from it, and no
help at hand, nerved me to follow quietly to the end.