December came in with intense severity. Icicles a yard long hung to the
eaves, and the snow lay unmelted for days together on the roofs. More
often than not we were without wood for our fire, and when we had it, it
was green and unseasoned, and only smouldered away with a smoke that
stung and irritated our eyes. Our insufficient and unwholesome food
supplied us with no inward warmth. Coal in that remote district cost too
much for any but the wealthiest people, Now and then I caught a glimpse
of a blazing fire in the houses I had to pass, to get to our chamber
over Monsieur Perrier's workshop; and in an evening the dainty, savory
smell of dinner, cooking in the kitchen adjoining, sometimes filled the
frosty air. Both sight and scent were tantalizing, and my dreams at
night were generally of pleasant food and warm firesides.
At times the pangs of hunger grew too strong for us both, and forced me
to spend a little of the money I was nursing so carefully. As soon as I
could make myself understood, I went out occasionally after dark, to buy
bread-and-milk.
Noireau was a curious town, the streets everywhere steep and narrow, and
the houses, pell-mell, rich and poor, large and small huddled together
without order. Almost opposite the handsome dwelling, the photograph of
which had misled me, stood a little house where I could buy rich, creamy
milk. It was sold by a Mademoiselle Rosalie, an old maid, whom I
generally found solitarily reading a _Journal pour Tous_ with her feet
upon a _chaufferette_, and no light save that of her little oil-lamp.
She had never sat by a fire in her life, she told me, burning her face
and spoiling her _teint_. Her dwelling consisted of a single room, with
a shed opening out of it, where she kept her milkpans. She was the only
person I spoke to out of Madame Perrier's own household.
"Is Monsieur Perrier an avocat?" I asked her one day, as soon as I could
understand what she might say in reply. There was very little doubt in
my mind as to what her answer would be.
"An avocat, mademoiselle?" She repeated, shrugging her shoulders; "who
has told you that? Are the avocats in England like Emile? He is my
relation, and you see me! He is a bailiff; do you understand? If I go in
debt, he comes and takes possession of my goods, you see. It is very
simple. One need not be very learned to do that. Emile Perrier an
avocat? Bah!"
"What is an avocat?" I inquired.
"An avocat is even higher than a notaire," she answered; "he gives
counsel; he pleads before the judges. It is a high _rôle_. One must be
very learned, very eloquent, to be an avocat."
"I suppose he must be a gentleman," I remarked.
"A gentleman, mademoiselle?" she said; "I do not understand you. There
is equality in France. We are all messieurs and mesdames. There is
monsieur the bailiff, and monsieur the duke; and there is madame the
washer-woman, and madame the duchess. We are all gentlemen, all ladies.
It is not the same in your country."
"Not at all," I answered.
"Did my little Emile tell you he was an avocat, mademoiselle?" she
asked.
"No," I said. I was on my guard, even if I had known French well enough
to explain the deception practised upon me. She looked as if she did not
believe me, but smiled and nodded with imperturbable politeness, as I
carried off my jug of milk.
So Monsieur Perrier was nothing higher than a bailiff, and with very
little to do even in that line of the law! He took off his tasselled cap
to me as I passed his workshop, and went up-stairs with the milk to
Minima, who was already gone to bed for the sake of warmth. The
discovery did not affect me with surprise. If he had been an avocat, my
astonishment at French barristers would have been extreme.
Yet there was something galling in the idea of being under the roof of a
man and woman of that class, in some sort in their power and under their
control. The low, vulgar cunning of their nature appeared more clearly
to me. There was no chance of success in any contest with them, for they
were too boorish to be reached by any weapon I could use. All I could do
was to keep as far aloof from them as possible.
This was not difficult to do, for neither of them interfered with the
affairs of the school, and we saw them only at meal times, when they
watched every mouthful we ate with keen eyes.
I found that I had no duties to perform as a teacher, for none of the
three French pupils desired to learn English. English girls, who had
been decoyed into the same snare by the same false photograph and
prospectus which had entrapped me, were all of families too poor to be
able to forfeit the money which had been paid in advance for their
French education. Two of them, however, completed their term at
Christmas, and returned home weak and ill; the third was to leave in the
spring. I did not hear that any more pupils were expected, and why
Madame Perrier should have engaged any English teacher became a problem
to me. The premium I had paid was too small to cover my expenses for a
year, though we were living at so scanty a cost. It was not long before
I understood my engagement better.
I studied the language diligently. I felt myself among foreigners and
foes, and I was helpless till I could comprehend what they were saying
in my presence. Having no other occupation, I made rapid progress,
though Mademoiselle Morel, the head governess, gave me very little
assistance.
She was a dull, heavy, yet crafty-looking woman, who had taken a
first-class diploma as a teacher; yet, as far as I could judge, knew
very much less than most English governesses who are uncertificated. So
far from there being any professors attending the school, I could not
discover that there were any in the town. It was a cotton-manufacturing
town, with a population of six thousand, most of them hand-loom weavers.
There were three or four small factories, built on the banks of the
river, where the hands were at work from six in the morning till ten at
night, Sundays included. There was not much intellectual life here; a
professor would have little chance of making a living.
At first Minima, and I took long walks together into the country
surrounding Noireau, a beautiful country, even in November. Once out of
the vapor lying in the valley, at the bottom of which the town was
built, the atmosphere showed itself as exquisitely clear, with no smoke
in it, except the fine blue smoke of wood-fire. We could distinguish the
shapes of trees standing out against the horizon, miles and miles away;
while between us and it lay slopes of brown woodland and green pastures,
with long rows of slim poplars, the yellow leaves clinging to them
still, and winding round them, like garlands on a May-pole. But this
pleasure was a costly one, for it awoke pangs of hunger, which I was
compelled to appease by drawing upon my rapidly-emptying purse. We
learned that it was necessary to stay in-doors, and cultivate a small
appetite.
"Am I getting very thin?" asked Minima one day, as she held up her
transparent hand against the light; "how thin do you think I could get
without dying, Aunt Nelly?"
"Oh! a great deal thinner, my darling," I said, kissing the little
fingers, My heart was bound up in the child. I had been so lonely
without her, that now her constant companionship, her half-womanly,
half-babyish prattle seemed necessary to me. There was no longer any
question in my mind as to whether I could leave her. I only wondered
what I should do when my year was run out, and only one of those four of
hers, for which these wretches had received the payment.
"Some people can get very thin indeed," she went on, with her shrewd,
quaint smile; "I've heard the boys at school talk about it. One of them
had seen a living skeleton, that was all skin and bone, and no flesh. I
shouldn't like to be a living skeleton, and be made a show of. Do you
think I ever shall be, if I stay here four years? Perhaps they'd take me
about as a show."
"Why, you are talking nonsense, Minima," I answered.
"Am I?" she said, wistfully, as if the idea really troubled her; "I
dream of it often and often. I can feel all my bones now, and count
them, when I'm in bed. Some of them are getting very sharp. The boys
used to say they'd get as sharp as knives sometimes, and cut through the
skin. But father said it was only boys' talk."
"Your father was right," I answered; "you must think of what he said,
not the boys' talk."
"But," she continued, "the boys said sometimes people get so hungry they
bite pieces out of their arms. I don't think I could ever be so hungry
as that; do you?"
"Minima," I said, starting up, "let us run to Mademoiselle Rosalie's for
some bread-and-milk."
"You're afraid of me beginning to eat myself!" she cried, with a little
laugh. But she was the first to reach Mademoiselle Rosalie's door; and I
watched her devouring her bread-and-milk with the eagerness of a
ravenous appetite.
Very fast melted away my money. I could not see the child pining with
hunger, though every sou I spent made our return to England more
difficult. Madame Perrier put no hinderance in my way, for the more food
we purchased ourselves, the less we ate at her table. The bitter cold
and the coarse food told upon Minima's delicate little frame. Yet what
could I do? I dared not write to Mrs. Wilkinson, and I very much doubted
if there would be any benefit to be hoped for if I ran the risk. Minima
did not know the address of any one of the persons who had subscribed
for her education and board; to her they were only the fathers and
mothers of the boys of whom she talked so much. She was as friendless as
I was in the world.
So far away were Dr. Martin Dobrée and Tardif, that I dared not count
them as friends who could have any power to help me. Better for Dr.
Martin Dobrée if he could altogether forget me, and return to his cousin
Julia. Perhaps he had done so already.
How long was this loneliness, this friendlessness to be my lot? I was so
young yet, that my life seemed endless as it stretched before me. Poor,
desolate, hunted, I shrank from life as an evil thing, and longed
impatiently to be rid of it. Yet how could I escape even from its
present phase?