The weeks of convalescence that followed were the happiest Blanche had
ever known. She felt wrapped in the devotion of her husband and her
family, and exalted by her love for her child. At moments she feared
that she could not live through such happiness. Sometimes she would
fancy that all her sufferings had been only a dream, and then she would
turn and find with a thrill of joy the babe lying beside her. Jules
would sit by the bed holding her hand, and making jokes about their
daughter's future. They had decided that she should be called Jeanne,
and no one but Father Dumeny should baptize her.
One morning, when Blanche was sitting up in bed for the first time,
Jules entered the room with a letter in his hand and in his face a look
of exultation.
"It's from Marshall," he said, "from the Hippodrome in London, you know.
He wants me to make a contract for six months, from the first of
January. I was afraid he might back out because we held off so long. But
this makes it all right. You'll have more than a month to get strong
again and to practise in."
Jules was so excited by the prospect that he did not notice the look of
alarm that had appeared in his wife's eyes. She lay still, with one arm
extended on the coverlet, her head leaning to one side, and her dark
hair making a background for her white face.
"'We want you to open on the first,'" Jules read aloud. "'Let us hear
from you as soon as possible and we will send on the contract for your
signature.' Of course," he went on, folding the note, "we must jump at
it. What do you say?"
For a moment she looked at him without speaking. Then she replied
weakly, "Do what you think best, Jules."
"Good!" he said, jumping up. "I'll write now. We've lost a lot of time,
you know, and we must make up for it when we get back to work."
"Do you--do you think I'll be strong enough?" she went on, as if she
hadn't heard him.
"Strong enough!" he laughed. "Of course you'll be strong enough in seven
weeks more. You're nearly your old self now," he added affectionately.
"Don't you worry about that."
When he had closed the door and left her alone, she felt as if her body
were sinking into the bed from weakness. The circus again! That ghastly
plunge! Since the birth of her child she had hardly thought of it. Now
the thought horrified her! How could she leave her babe and risk her
life night after night? Perhaps some night--oh! it was too horrible. She
couldn't, she couldn't! She lifted her hands to her face as if to shut
out the horror of the thought. Then she turned to the little Jeanne who
was sleeping beside her, and drew her close to her bosom.
She had lost courage! It would never come back to her. When Jules
returned she would tell him, and she would beg him, for Jeanne's sake,
to give up that engagement in London till she felt well again. Oh, if
they could only leave the circus forever! If she could only do as other
women did, devote her life to her child. The circus was no place for a
mother.
Then it suddenly flashed upon her that if she said these things to Jules
he would urge her to place Jeanne in her mother's care while they were
in England; but to that she would never consent, never. She would rather
give up performing altogether. Yes, when Jules came back she would speak
of this. He loved the circus, but for Jeanne's sake he would give it up,
she knew he would.
But when Jules did return, he was so enthusiastic about the engagement
in London that she did not dare oppose it. "Think of the sensation we'll
make there!" he said. "How those stupid English will open their eyes!
And then we'll surely have big offers from other places. After a London
success we can make a fortune in America. They say the Americans are
crazy over everything that makes a hit in London. Oh," he went on,
stretching his arms and yawning, "it will be a relief to get out of this
dull old town. Think of the months we've wasted here. I feel rusty
already."
Something in his tone as well as his words frightened her, and a feeling
of helplessness came over her when he put his hand on her forehead and
said gently: "You must try to get strong as soon as possible, dear.
Think of all the practising you'll have to do for your plunge."
She turned her head away, and he observed nothing strange in her manner.
She wanted to speak of taking Jeanne with them, but a fear that he might
object restrained her.
Two days later, when her mother and Jules were in the room together,
Madame Berthier, with apparent carelessness, asked what they were going
to do with the little one while they were travelling. "Of course you
can't carry her about with you. So you'd better leave her with me. I'll
take the best of care of her."
She was startled by the light that flashed into her daughter's eyes.
"No, no!" Blanche cried. "We shall keep her with us always. I couldn't
bear to leave her here. I couldn't--I couldn't go away without her."
Madame Berthier and Jules exchanged glances, and Blanche saw that her
intuition was correct. They had been discussing the project of leaving
the child in Boulogne. She felt as if they were conspiring against her.
"Don't you think it would be better if your mother--" Jules began, but
Blanche cut him short.
"We shall have Madeleine. She will help me to take care of Jeanne. I
couldn't go without her," she repeated, with tears in her voice.
"There, there!" said Madame Berthier, becoming alarmed. "Have your own
way. Perhaps it's better that you should keep the child with you."
Blanche read annoyance in her husband's face, but she said nothing. A
few moments later, Madame Berthier left the room and Jules followed. She
knew they had gone to discuss the little scene that had just taken
place. But she resolved that she would not give up the child! Rather
than do that she would stay in Boulogne.
The fear of being separated from Jeanne, made her decide not to refer in
any way to her terror of the plunge. That might strengthen Jules' belief
that the presence of the child disturbed her, and he might insist on a
separation. Besides, she tried to convince herself that as she grew
stronger her nervousness would disappear. It must of course be due
solely to her weak condition. Once restored to health, the plunge would
be, as it always had been, merely part of her daily routine.
But in spite of her rapidly increasing strength, Blanche found that
after three weeks she was still depressed by the thought of her season
in London. Jules complained that she was devoting herself too much to
Jeanne; she must drive out more, and walk with the girls, and give more
time to her exercises. Her mother, too, grew severe with her. "One would
think there never was another child in the world," she said, and then
Blanche suspected that Jules had been complaining of her. "The little
one is a dear, and I love her," Madame Berthier continued, "but you have
your work to do, and you must think of that too. No wonder Jules is
growing impatient."
Jules had already received the contract for the engagement at the
Hippodrome, and on signing it at his request, Blanche had had a horrible
fancy that she was putting her signature to a warrant for her own doom.
Once she thought of confiding her fear to her mother, but her mother
would be sure to repeat what she said to Jules. At any cost, she felt
she must hide it from him. Then she determined to tell Father Dumeny,
but when the moment came she had not courage to put her feeling into
words, and she was ashamed of it as a superstition. So she decided that
she would keep the miserable secret to herself, finding no relief save
in gusts of weeping when she was alone with the child.
Once Jules found her with traces of tears in her eyes. "What's the
matter?" he asked gently, taking her hand.
She turned her head away. "I don't feel well," she said.
He looked at her closely. "You'll be well when you get back to your
work. That's what the matter is. You aren't used to being idle. The best
thing for us to do is to leave here the day after Christmas. That will
give you nearly a week for practice in London, and we'll have time to
look about for rooms there. Since we are going to have Jeanne with us,
we'll want to take an apartment in some quiet street."
When he went away she sat for a long time without speaking. In a week
they would be far away from this place, among strangers. She wondered
why she had not suffered so on leaving home before. Until now she had
regarded the circus as part of her life; she had not hoped for any other
kind of life. How strange it was that Jules should love it so! Sometimes
it seemed----But it was right that she should go on with her work, for
she must earn money for the little Jeanne now. Perhaps in a few years
she would make a fortune, and then Jules could not object to her leaving
the circus. But before a few years passed she would be obliged to go
through her performance more than a thousand times. At this thought her
heart seemed to stop beating, and then it thumped against her side.
Their Christmas in Boulogne at Monsieur Berthier's house reminded them
of their _fete_ in Paris of the year before. Berthier himself led in the
gayety, and the girls were in the wildest spirits. Blanche sat among
them with the child in her arms, looking, as Jules said, as if she were
posing for a Madonna. In the evening Father Dumeny came to bid his
friends good-bye. He pretended to pinch the little Jeanne on the cheek,
and he made jokes with Blanche about her terror before the child's
birth. "She's the healthiest baby I've ever baptized," he said. "You
should have heard her roar when I poured the water on her head. That's a
good sign. I suppose you'll make a great performer of her too," he
continued, smiling into the face of the mother, but growing serious when
he saw the effect of the question.
"Never!" exclaimed Blanche.
"We're going to earn a fortune for her," said Jules with a smile. "So
she won't have to work at all. We'll settle down in Paris and make a
fine lady of her, and marry her into the nobility."
Blanche did not speak again for a long time. They knew she was depressed
at the thought of leaving home the next day. When Father Dumeny rose, he
took a letter from the pocket of his long black coat.
"I almost forgot about this. Here's the introduction I promised you to
my friends in London. You will like Mrs. Tate, my dear," he said to
Blanche, "and she'll make a great pet of the little one. She hasn't any
children of her own, poor woman. Be sure to go to see them," he
concluded, "and present my compliments to them."
When he was gone, Jules shrugged his shoulders and turned to his wife.
"What do we want to meet those people for?" he said. "What will they
care about us?"
The next day they left Boulogne, after many farewell injunctions from
the Berthiers, and much weeping on the part of Blanche and her sisters.
Blanche stood for a long time with Madeleine, who held the little Jeanne
in her arms, waving farewell to her kindred on the wharf, and watching
the shores of France recede from her gaze. When the last vestige of land
disappeared in the wintry fog and she found herself shut in by the
shoreless sea, she turned away with a feeling of hopeless weariness. She
had a morbid presentiment that she was leaving home forever.