CHAPTER VIII.

A REVELATION.

I had begun to be ashamed to meet Mrs. Carolus. Ange’s silver earrings had only cost twenty-five francs, but I had not the wherewithal to pay for them, and I felt mean and shabby every time I saw her, and did not broach the subject of remuneration.

At last I resolved to make a second appeal to Mr. Lovett about my money. I did not feel timid this time; I felt angry. It was inconsiderate of the old man to leave me without funds for so long. It was part of the same selfishness which made him so unmindful of his daughters’ feelings, but I was not his daughter, whatever he might call me before strangers, and I determined to put up with it no longer.

I am afraid I had not the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. I never have had. I can endure a great deal when it is accompanied by an open and honest dislike, because we cannot always command our fancies in this world. But anything like shuffling, meanness, or deceit, has ever inspired me with the supremest contempt. So when Mr. Lovett, having recovered his bilious attack, was moving amongst us again. I seized the first occasion of finding myself alone with him to broach the subject.

‘I think you must have forgotten my allowance, Mr. Lovett. I have been obliged to contract a debt in consequence, and am anxious to defray it.’

I did not speak very cordially, nor do I suppose I looked so. The things I had heard and seen lately were beginning to make me feel a species of dislike for my guardian. And his manner had not been as affectionate to me the last two days, either. Whether he suspected me of having had any hand in the Baron’s determination not to play cards again—a determination which hitherto he had faithfully kept—I do not know, but more than once I had caught him looking at me in a suspicious manner, as if he thought me rather a dangerous animal than otherwise; and one or two observations he had let fall with respect to his dislike to see young women mix themselves up with affairs that did not concern them, rather confirmed me in the idea that more had come to his knowledge than I intended.

But that gave me little concern, and I spoke to him now as boldly as was my right to do, considering that I only asked for what was my own. He pretended to have forgotten all about it.

‘Your allowance, my dear! Is it due?’

‘I don’t know, Mr. Lovett; but if not, will you please give me some in advance, as Mrs. Carolus, was kind enough to procure something for me in Rille, and I have not been able to repay her yet?’

He looked up at me, over the number of the _Siècle_ he was perusing, with an air of great concern.

‘I am very sorry to hear that, Hilda. To go in debt is to fall into an error which I have most carefully guarded my own children against. I would rather see them run about with bare feet than wear stockings and shoes for which they were unable to pay.’

‘I dare say, sir, but I could not help it. I wanted something by a certain time—it was those earrings for Ange’s birthday—and as you had not remembered to give me any money, and Mrs. Carolus offered to pay for them till you did, I thought it was no harm to let her do so.’

‘Dear! dear! dear! This sort of reckless expenditure makes me feel very sad. It is a habit that will grow upon you, Hilda, and you must check it at once. And for my child’s birthday, too; I should never have approved of your offering as I seemed to do had I known it was not paid for.’

‘Well, sir, it was not my fault. I would have sent the money at once if I had had it to send. And, I assure you, you need not alarm yourself about my getting into debt; my mother and I contrived to live on our little income without owing a penny to any one. I am not a child, you must remember, first learning the use of money. I was my mother’s housekeeper for years, and paid for everything we had. No one knows better than I do how to economise and make money go to its farthest extent.’

‘I am very glad to hear it, my dear, for, unless you marry well, you will have to live a very frugal life,’ he said, and he was actually returning to the study of his newspaper without another word.

I stood by him for a few minutes in silence, and then I began again:

‘But I _must_ have some money now, if you please, Mr. Lovett. I cannot put off paying Mrs. Carolus any longer.’

‘Well, I suppose you must; but I do hope this is the last time I shall ever hear of your having run into debt, Hilda. It is a terrible habit for a young woman to get into. How much do you owe Mrs. Carolus?’

‘Twenty-five francs for the earrings, but I want a lot of things for my own use, Mr. Lovett, which I really cannot go any longer without.’

‘_Twenty-five francs!_’ he repeated, as if those words were the only ones he had heard, ‘that is a ruinous sum, surely, to expend on a birthday present!’

‘Hardly so, for an ornament. I thought them wonderfully cheap. However, cheap or dear, they have to be paid for.’

‘Twenty-five francs!’ he ejaculated, for the second time. ‘Why, it would keep a poor family for a week, and to think it should be wasted on a mere piece of vanity!’

‘It is better than spending it on champagne or losing it at cards,’ I answered wickedly.

Mr. Lovett flushed up to his handsome brow with anger. I could see the rosy colour mantling there, above the top of the _Siècle_, and I thought for a moment he was about to rebuke me for my impudence. But policy got the better of his annoyance, I suppose, for he elected to say nothing, at all events on that subject.

‘You shall have the money this afternoon,’ he observed coldly, after a pause; ‘I have no change in my pocket at this moment.’

‘I shall have been here three months next week,’ I said, ‘so I suppose you will call that the quarter, will you not, Mr. Lovett?’

But to this question he vouchsafed no reply.

‘You said something, you know,’ I continued, ‘about making it eighty pounds a year instead of fifty; but if that would be inconvenient to you just at present, I am quite willing to take what was first arranged between us—that is twelve pounds ten—at all events to go on with. You could make it up to me next quarter if you thought fit.’

‘You shall have the money this afternoon,’ repeated my guardian, in an offended tone, and leaving me quite uncertain whether he intended to accept my offer or not.

Finding I could get no further satisfaction I slipped out of the room, humming an air as I went. I would not let the old man see how vexed I was, but I remembered that Mr. Warrington had promised to make it a proviso that my actions were to be subjected to no control, and I determined that, if matters went on as they were doing now, I would take advantage of that clause and leave St. Pucelle.

Only for a moment, though—the next I felt that I could never separate myself from Tessie and Ange—and—and others there for such a trifle as an old man’s temper. The hours passed away until the afternoon, when I had agreed to take a walk with Tessie; and as I entered my room to dress, I spied a small round white packet, which decidedly held money, placed upon my toilet-table.

‘Hurrah!’ I mentally ejaculated. ‘It is all right, then! Here is my allowance.’

I quickly unfolded the coins. Inside their wrapper was written in pencil:

‘MY DEAR HILDA,

‘I enclose you the means by which to defray your debt to Mrs. Carolus, and I sincerely trust it may be the last you will ever incur,

‘Yours truly, ‘HORACE LOVETT.’

I counted the money that lay upon the table. Twenty-five francs alone. The exact sum I owed for the earrings, and not a sou over to purchase any necessaries for myself.

It was too bad! I could have cried with vexation and disappointment. All the trouble I had taken had been thrown away, and it was evident that if I wished to get anything more out of the Reverend Horace, the unpleasant scenes I had passed through would have to be enacted over again. But I resolved it should not be so; that I would not subject myself to any further humiliation, but write straight to Mr. Warrington instead, and inform him of the state of affairs and ask him to settle matters with Mr. Lovett for me.

My face was still heated with excitement and annoyance, when Tessie knocked at my door and asked if I were ready to go out. I threw the coins into a drawer and joined her at once.

I was not in a mood to prove very pleasant company, but anything is better than staying at home to brood over trouble. The good influences to which we lay ourselves open, always make it appear less in the fresh air.

Tessie was an excellent sympathiser. She knew when to talk and when to be silent, and on the present occasion she let me walk along in converse with myself only, until shame roused me to be more serviceable and friendly.

‘Where is Ange, Tessie?’

‘Lying down at home with a headache.’

‘That is very unlike the “little maid,” is it not?’

‘Yes! Not that she exactly confessed to a headache; but she was lazy, and preferred reading one of the books Mr. Charteris brought from Rille the other day.’

‘Ah! _c’est autre chose!_ You look as if you had a headache too, Tessie.’

‘Do I? I have been a little worried, that is all.’

‘Poor child! which of us is without worries? Have we any particular end in walking this way?’

We were on the road to the Château des Roses.

‘Yes, I want to call at the Fromards’. Guillaume is worse to-day, and—and papa has sent them a little money.’

‘That is very good of him,’ I remarked sarcastically, wishing that ‘papa’ would be just before he was generous.

We were scarcely prepared, however, for the scene that awaited us in the cottage of the Fromards. It was a poor place, with plastered walls and a deep thatched roof that almost extinguished it.

The sides of the house were yellow and green with dirt and decay, and the smoke of the peat fire was issuing from a hole in the roof, instead of by its legitimate egress, the dilapidated chimney. In front of the entrance door ran a gutter of filthy water, and a large heap of manure and refuse was banked up against the wooden stand which was to be seen outside each door in St. Pucelle, and on which the slaughtered pigs were laid out to be halved and quartered.

A few fowls regaling themselves on the dunghill recalled to my mind the fact that it was here Ange came whenever she wanted fresh eggs for her father’s breakfast; but I had barely had time to take in the surroundings of the place, before we were saluted by a loud howl from the doorway, and the Mère Fromard rushed forward, and, seizing Tessie’s hands, began explaining in her Wallon _patois_ how her good Guillaume had gone to his rest but half an hour before, and she was left a lonely widow, with five poor children to battle for in this hard world alone.

Before we knew what was going to happen to us, we had been dragged into the presence of the defunct Guillaume, who already lay shrouded and stretched out on two planks in a corner of the general sitting-room, whilst his younger children played on the ground beside him, and one or two fowls, more inquisitive or hungry than the rest, were picking up the crumbs of potato that had fallen on the brick floor.

As we entered the house and her eye fell upon the corpse, I saw Tessie’s face turn as white as death itself. Not knowing how far she was accustomed to such scenes, I wanted to draw her back again; but Madame Fromard insisted upon her going forward.

‘Why should she not see him?’ she exclaimed; ‘she has watched him dying for months past; for the want of bread, mamselle, the bread it was his right to have had, and which would have saved him may be from the grave this day. And she was not afraid then—neither she nor Monsieur le Curé—and now that he is silent for ever—that he can no longer speak and ask for his own—why should she be afraid to look on his face, unless it be to remember how it has come to be so still and so silent?’

The woman seemed as if she had gone out of her senses, as she pushed us to the very feet of the corpse and snatched the covering from off its face.

‘Look at him,’ she said loudly, ‘and remember that he died from want! Sixty—a hundred francs would have saved him, mamselle; and he was owed five hundred and fifty, but couldn’t get it. Ah, Guillaume! husband of my youth! father of my children! thou art gone to the judgment-seat of God, to arrange a fearful reckoning for them that sent thee there so long before thy time.’

‘Madame! madame!’ said Tessie, who unaccountably to me had begun to sob in unison with Mère Fromard. ‘Don’t speak like that—pray don’t! We have all felt for you so much, and papa sent you this in hopes it might be of use to poor Guillaume’ (putting something timidly into the woman’s hand); ‘and he would have done more if he could; you know he would, madame.’

Mère Fromard unclasped her hand and displayed a five-franc piece, then, with sudden energy, sent it spinning to the other end of the brick floor.

‘A five-franc piece!’ she cried scornfully; ‘a five-franc piece, when he owes him five hundred and fifty. Oh! it is no use to shake your head at me and cry, mamselle. The time is past for that! I have been very patient for a long, long time, but I didn’t think it would end like this. I thought my poor Guillaume would have got up again to see after that which was his—all his little savings—all the _dot_ I brought him at our marriage of two hundred francs—lent in an evil moment and never returned again—whilst he dies for want of proper warmth and nourishment.’

Madame Fromard had been running on in her usually (to me) incomprehensible dialect, but I gathered enough of her discourse to-day to be curious to learn more.

‘_Who_ has been so wicked as to defraud your family like this?’ I asked.

‘No! no! do not say it!’ cried Tessie, vehemently, as she seized Mère Fromard’s hand and kissed it.

But the woman flung hers away. She seemed to have changed to-day from a patient sufferer into a demon.

‘I _will_ say it!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are his evil deeds always to be covered up with excuses and promises and fair words. It is the Curé Anglais, mamselle,’ she continued, turning to me. ‘It is Monsieur Lovett who borrowed my poor Guillaume’s savings, two, three, five years ago, and has been promising, promising, promising ever since to pay us back again, but never more than a few sous at a time. Who would have doubted him, mamselle, a man so good-intentioned, so benevolent, so charitable to the poor! We thought our money was safer than in a bank. We had lent it to the _Bon Dieu_ to accommodate His servant. It was bound to come back with blessings upon us, and it has come with _that_’, she said pathetically, pointing to her dead husband, ‘with a five-franc piece and a corpse! Bah! there can be no heaven, or such things would not be allowed.’

‘Is this _possible_?’ I said, in a tone of the greatest amazement. ‘Tessie! she must have gone out of her mind. She cannot know what she is saying!’

But this insinuation only stimulated Madame Fromard to make her meaning plainer.

‘_Possible!_’ she screamed, ‘is it possible that Monsieur le Curé owes money all over St. Pucelle and Rille—that there is not a tradesman who has not his name down for a larger sum than he will ever pay whilst living, and that when he dies they will swoop down upon his carcass like birds of prey, to see which can tear it to pieces first! _Bon Dieu!_ Mamselle is not so foolish as she would make herself to be! She _must_ know that if it were not for the Prince Francius von Ritzburg, Monsieur le Curé would have been in prison years ago, and that it is only because of his holy profession he is allowed to walk free about the streets of St. Pucelle! But the day will come—the day will come when my poor Guillaume shall be avenged of his death!’

We could do the raving woman no good, and Tessie was crying so bitterly by this time, that I drew her quickly out of the cottage, and led her to a secluded part of the encircling country where she could sit down and weep in privacy. I did not know what to say to her. If this horrid story were untrue, why did she not deny it—why did she sit there with her face buried in her hands and cry as if her heart would break? And if it were _true_, as I too much feared it must be, what comfort could I give her? For I felt that I would rather have died myself than have heard such words spoken of _my_ father, and been unable to refute them.

I sat by her side in silence, waiting until she should speak to me. The first words she said were confirmatory of my fears.

‘Don’t tell Ange of this—pray don’t tell her, Hilda! She knows nothing of it all. It would break her heart!’

‘It is true then, Tessie?’

She did not answer me except by another convulsive sob.

‘I don’t think it is all his fault,’ she said presently; ‘we have been so very poor, you see, and debts accumulate so fast, it seems impossible to gain ground again when once you have lost it. And I know that his liabilities have weighed heavily upon poor papa’s mind, this one to poor Guillaume especially. We have always been friendly with them, and had our eggs of them for that reason, but what could papa do? Five hundred and fifty francs! it is a positive fortune. We shall never be able to pay it!’

‘Meanwhile they starve,’ I said bitterly.

‘Oh, Hilda! don’t be hard. You don’t know how terribly I feel it. The Prince has been very kind to us, and sometimes I have thought I would beg my way to the Court and tell him all about it, and see if he would help us to pay off papa’s debts.’

‘It would be of no use, Tessie. When men have once got into the habit of debt and learned to look upon it with indifference, they are past cure. He would only start clear, to get into debt again.’

‘I have always pitied him so,’ continued Tessie, in a low voice, ‘because he used to live in such different style, you know, with every comfort about him, and it must have been such a dreadful trial to come down to his present life. And I have thought, sometimes, that he had such a fresh innocent sort of mind, he really did not think how fast money went, nor what trouble he was laying up for himself and us in the future. Sometimes I hardly believe he realises it now. He seems so happy and contented and cheerful under it all.’

I could not say anything to her either in acquiescence or by way of consolation. I thought of the innocent ingenuous Harold Skimpole in ‘Bleak House,’ who cheated everybody, and was too childlike to understand what he was doing, and I felt nothing but contempt and disgust for my reverend guardian. I understood now the farce he had been playing with regard to my little allowance, and felt sure that unless some desperate effort were made on my behalf, I should never see any of it at all.

‘You will not tell Ange?’ reiterated Tessie, pleadingly.

‘No, Tessie! certainly not, since you desire it. But do you think it possible she does not guess the state of affairs?’

‘Oh, I am _sure_ she does not. It would kill Ange to think papa one whit less perfect than she does. You don’t know how she loves him, Hilda. Even Madame Marmoret, who is very spiteful sometimes against poor papa in my presence, has never mentioned a word about him to Ange, because she says she is sure she will never smile again if she once knows it.’

‘I suppose your father owes Madame Marmoret money also then,’ I said bluntly.

I was resolved, now I had ascertained so much, to hear the whole of it. It was best to see the extent of the danger which I ran.

‘Yes,’ replied Tessie, hesitatingly, ‘and her wages must have fallen a long way behind also. Poor Madame has had much to try her, and I do not wonder that sometimes she feels a little sore and angry. Ange is not always so patient with her as she might be. She does not know the reason as I do.’

‘Why does Madame dislike me so much, Tessie?’

‘I don’t think she dislikes you personally, but she thought your coming to live with us would be an extra expense and increase papa’s debts, I suppose. She knows that the goodness of papa’s heart often overbalances the greatness of his mind.’

‘But is she not aware, then, that I pay your father a hundred a year for my board and lodging?’

Tessie looked round at me with a face of astonishment.

‘Hilda! is that so?’ she demanded.

‘Of course it is so! Have you not been told it before?’

‘Never!’

‘And what did you suppose, then? That I was living on your father’s charity?’

‘Oh, dear Hilda!’ cried the girl, embracing me warmly. ‘We should never have called it by a name like that! Ange and I thought that as you were the child of one of papa’s dearest friends, it was the most natural thing in the world that when you were orphaned you should come to live with us and be our sister. We never asked if you had money or not. Our only anxiety was that you should love us.’

‘It is true nevertheless, dear Tessie. My noble income consists of one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and of that Mr. Lovett agreed with Mr. Warrington, my solicitor, to allow me fifty pounds for my private expenses, and to retain the remainder as payment for my board and lodging in St. Pucelle.’

‘And—and—have you had your allowance, Hilda?’ asked Tessie, anxiously.

‘No, dear, I have not, I am sorry to say. After much persuasion, your father has given me twenty-five francs to repay Mrs. Carolus for Ange’s earrings, but for the rest of my pocket-money I expect I may do what is vulgarly termed _whistle_.’

She flung herself in my arms in a fresh burst of tears.

‘Oh, Hilda! don’t love Ange and me less because of this. We have grown so fond of you. We feel just as if you were our sister. Don’t turn against us—it isn’t our fault, dear—we would cut off our right hands to serve you if we could.’

I assured her again and again that I would never be less her friend and her sister’s friend than I was at that moment.

‘I love you too, Tessie—rest sure of that, and we will fight this great trouble out together if we can. I will not turn against you, nor will I forsake you. My lot has not been so unexpectedly cast here without some good reason, and I should feel like a coward if I could run away just as I have heard all, and leave you and Ange to cope with this misery by yourselves.’

‘But remember, she knows nothing,’ said Tessie, with the same anxious tone as before.

‘I do remember it,’ I answered, and I thought at the same moment, that it was a great pity the little maid had been kept in such ignorance. It was blissful ignorance in the present, but if the awakening came suddenly, it might be very terrible in the future.

But I felt that by the foregoing conversation I had bound myself to cleave to the fortunes of these girls until I could do them no further good. Poor patient Tessie, carrying her heavy burthen of disgrace alone, and lighthearted, unconscious Ange, dancing along the path of life as gaily as if it were all flowers and hid no secret mine which might explode at any moment and devastate her whole young, fresh existence: I could not tell which of the two I loved the more, nor which I could have the heart to forsake the sooner.

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]