"One Sunday morning, the heat was so great, I had been almost
roasted in going to church. In the afternoon Madame de Trafford
came in. 'Venez, ma chère, venez avec moi à vêpres,' she said. 'Oh,
non, il y a trop de soleil, c'est impossible, et je vous conseille
de vous garder aussi d'un coup de soleil.'--'Moi, je vais à
l'église,' she answered, 'et aussi je vais à pied, parceque je ne
veux pas payer une voiture, et personne ne me menera pour rien; il
n'y a pas de charité dans ce monde.' And she _went_.
"When she came back she said, 'Eh bien, ma chère, je suis allé à
vêpres, mais je ne suis pas allé à pied. Je n'étais que sorti de
l'hôtel, quand je voyais tous ces cochers avec leurs voitures en
face de moi. "Et que feras tu donc, si tu trouveras la charité en
chemin?" me disait la voix. "Je lui donnerai un napoléon." Eh bien,
un de ces cochers, je le sentais, me menerait pour la charité: je
le sentais, mais j'avançais toujours; et voilà que Pierre, qui nous
avait amené avec sa voiture l'autre journée, me poursuivit avec sa
voiture en criant, "Mais, madame, où allez vous donc: venez,
montez, je ne veux pas vous voir vous promener comme cela; je vous
menerai pour rien."--"Mais, Pierre, que voulez vous donc," je dis.
"Mais montez, madame, montez; je vous menerai pour rien," il
repetait, et je montais. Pierre m'emmenait à l'église, et voila la
voix qui me dit, "Et ton napoléon," parceque j'avais dit que si je
trouvais la charité en chemin, je lui donnerais un napoléon. Mais
je n'ai pas voulu lui donner le napoléon de suite, parceque cela
pouvait lui faire tourner la tête, et j'ai dit, "Venez, Pierre,
venez me voir demain au soir. Vous avez fait un acte de la charité:
Dieu vous recompensera."'
"Madame de Trafford always wore a miniature of the Emperor Napoleon
in a ring which she had: the ring opened, and inside was the
miniature. The next morning she showed it to me, and asked me to
get it out of the ring, as she was going to send the ring to a
jeweller to be repaired. I got scissors, &c., and poked, and
thumped, and pulled at the picture, but I could not get it out of
the ring: I could not move it in the least.
"In the morning Mama was with Madame de Trafford when Pierre came.
I was not there. Pierre was a dull stupid Swiss lout of a _cocher_.
'Madame m'a commandé de venir,' he said, and he could say nothing
else.
"Then Madame de Trafford held out a napoleon, saying, 'Tenez,
Pierre, voilà un napoléon pour vous, parceque vous avez voulu faire
un acte de la charité, et ordinairement il n'y a pas de charité
dans ce monde.' ... But as Madame de Trafford stretched forth her
hand, the ring flew open and the portrait vanished. It did not slip
out of the ring, it did not fall--it vanished! it ceased to exist!
'Oh, le portrait, le portrait!' cried Madame de Trafford. She
screamed: she was perfectly frantic. 'Quel portrait?' said Pierre,
for he had seen none: he was stupefied: he could not think what it
all meant. As for Mama, she was so terrified, she rushed out of the
room. She locked her door, she declared nothing should induce her
to remain in the same room with Madame de Trafford again.
"I went down to Madame de Trafford. She offered a napoleon to any
one who would find the portrait. She was wild. I never saw her in
such a state, never. Of course every one hunted, _garçons_,
_filles-de-chambre_, every one, but not a trace of the portrait
could any one find. At last Madame de Trafford became quite calm;
she said, 'Je sens que dans une semaine j'aurai mon portrait, et je
vois que ce sera un des braves du grand Napoléon qui me le
rapportera.'
"I thought this very extraordinary, and really I did not remember
that there was any soldier of the old Napoleon in the house. I was
so accustomed to Félix as our old servant, it never would have
occurred to me to think of him. The week passed. 'C'est la fin de
la semaine,' said Madame de Trafford, 'et demain j'aurai mon
portrait.'
"We had never told Victoire about the portrait, for she was so
superstitious, we thought she might refuse to stay in the house
with Madame de Trafford if we told her. But the next morning she
came to Mama and said that a child who was playing in a garret at
the top of the house had found there, amongst some straw, the
smallest portrait ever seen, and had given it to Félix, and Félix
had shown it to her, saying, 'Voila c'est bien fait çà; çà n'est
pas un bagatelle; çà n'est pas un joujoux çà!' and he had put it
away. 'Why, it is the lost portrait,' said Mama. 'What portrait?'
said Victoire. Then Mama told Victoire how Madame de Trafford had
lost the portrait out of her ring, and Félix took it back to her.
It was when Félix took back the portrait that I first remembered he
had been a soldier of the old Napoleon, and was even then in
receipt of a pension for his services in the Moscow campaign.
"Félix refused the napoleon Madame de Trafford had offered as a
reward; but she insisted on his having it, so he took it, and wears
it on his watchchain always: he almost looks upon it as a
talisman."
* * * * *
As Italima and Esmeralda saw more of Madame de Trafford, they learned
that she was the second wife of Mr. Trafford of Wroxham in Norfolk. He
did not live with her, because he said that when he married her he
intended to marry Mademoiselle Martine Larmignac, but he did not intend
to marry "Maricot," as she called the spirit--the "voice"--which spoke
through her lips, and live with Maricot he would not. He showed his wife
every possible attention, and placed implicit confidence in her. He left
her entire control of her fortune. He constantly visited her, and always
came to take leave of her when she set off on any of her journeys; but
he could not live with her.
One day Italima received a letter from her eldest son Francis, who said
that he knew she would not believe him, but that Mr. B. was a penniless
bankrupt, and that she would receive no more money from him. She did not
believe Francis a bit, still the letter made her anxious and
uncomfortable: no money had come in answer to her repeated letters, and
there were many things at Geneva to be paid for. That day she came down
to the table-d'hôte looking very much harassed. Madame de Trafford said
to my sister, "Your mother looks very much agitated: what is it?"
Esmeralda felt that, whether she told her or not, Madame de Trafford
would know what had happened, and she told her the simple truth. Madame
de Trafford said, "Now, do not be surprised at what I am going to say;
don't be grateful to me; it's my vocation in life. Here is £80: take it
at once. That is the sum you owe in Geneva, and you have no money. I
knew that you wanted that sum, and I brought it down to dinner with me.
Now I know all that is going to happen: it is written before me like an
open book,--and I know how important it is that you should go to England
at once. I have prepared for that, and I am going with you. In an hour
you must start for England." And such was the confidence that Italima
and Esmeralda now had in Madame de Trafford, such was her wonderful
power and influence, that they did all she told them: they paid their
bills at Geneva with the money she gave, they left Félix and Victoire to
pack up and to follow them to Paris, and they started by the night-train
the same evening with Madame de Trafford.
That was an awful night. My sister never lost the horror of it. "Madame
de Trafford had told me that extraordinary things often happened to her
between two and four in the morning," said Esmeralda. "When we went with
her through the night in the coupé of the railway-carriage, she was very
anxious that I should sleep. Mama slept the whole time. 'Mais dormez
donc, ma chère,' she said, 'dormez donc.'--'Oh, je dormirai bientôt,' I
always replied, but I was quite determined to keep awake. It was very
dreadful, I thought, but if anything _did_ happen, I would see what it
was. As it drew near two o'clock I felt the most awful sensation of
horror come over me. Then a cold perspiration broke out all over me.
Then I heard--oh, I cannot describe it! a most awful sound--a voice--a
sort of squeak. It spoke, it was a language; but it was a language I
did not understand,[172] and then something came out of the mouth of
Madame de Trafford--bur-r-r-r! It passed in front of me, black but
misty. I rushed at it. Madame de Trafford seized me and forced me back
upon the seat. I felt as if I should faint. Her expression was quite
awful. No one knows it but Mama. Some time after, Mr. Trafford spoke to
me of a hunchback in Molière, who had a voice speaking inside him, over
which he had no control, and then he said, 'What my wife has is like
that.'"
As they drew near Paris, Madame de Trafford began to describe her
apartments to my sister. It was like a description of Aladdin's palace,
and Esmeralda did not believe it. When they reached the station, Madame
de Trafford said, "I have one peculiarity in my house: I have no
servants. I used to have them, but I did not like them; so now, when I
am at Paris, I never have them: therefore, on our way from the station,
we will stop as we pass through the Rue St. Honoré, and buy the bread,
and milk, and candles--in fact, all the things we want." And so they
did.
The carriage stopped before a _porte cochère_ in the Champs Elysées,
where Madame de Trafford got a key from the concierge, and preceded her
guests up a staircase. When she unlocked the door of the apartment, it
was quite dark, and hot and stuffy, as closed rooms are, but when the
shutters were opened, all that Madame de Trafford had said as to the
magnificence of the furniture, &c., was more than realised--only there
were no servants. Madame de Trafford herself brought down mattresses
from the attics, she aired and made the beds, and she lighted the fire
and boiled the kettle for supper and breakfast.