"No, child, no, you cannot understand, though you have known plenty of trouble in your short life; but you are pretty, and when you have on a fresh white cap, with a little bow of pink ribbon on your hair, and you look at yourself in the gla.s.s, you have a few contented moments, I know."
"But listen, G.o.dmother, I--"
"It is some comfort, I tell you. Come, child, be honest now, and admit that you are pleased, and a little proud too, when people turn to look at you, in spite of your cheap frock and your clumsy laced shoes."
"Oh, so far as that is concerned, G.o.dmother, I always feel ashamed, somehow, when I see people looking at me. When I used to go to the workroom there was a man who came to see Madame Jourdan, and who was always looking at me, but I just hated it."
"Oh, yes, but for all that it pleases you way down in your secret heart; and when you get old you will have something pleasant to think of, while I have not. I can"t even remember that I was ever young, and, so far as looks are concerned, I was always so ugly that I never could bear to look in the gla.s.s, and I could get no husband except an old drunkard who used to beat me within an inch of my life. I didn"t even have a chance to enjoy myself after his death, either, for I had a big bill at the wine-shop to pay for him. Then, as if I had not trouble enough, I must needs lose my health and become unable to work, so I should have died of starvation, but for you."
"Come, come, G.o.dmother, you"re not quite just," said Mariette, anxious to dispel Madame Lacombe"s ill-humour. "To my certain knowledge, you have had at least one happy day in your life."
"Which day, pray?"
"The day when, at my mother"s death, you took me into your home out of charity."
"Well?"
"Well, did not the knowledge that you had done such a n.o.ble deed please you? Wasn"t that a happy day for you, G.o.dmother?"
"You call that a happy day, do you? On the contrary it was one of the very worst days I ever experienced."
"Why, G.o.dmother?" exclaimed the girl, reproachfully.
"It was, for my good-for-nothing husband having died, as soon as his debts were paid I should have had n.o.body to think of but myself; but after I took you, it was exactly the same as if I were a widow with a child to support, and that is no very pleasant situation for a woman who finds it all she can do to support herself. But you were so cute and pretty with your curly head and big blue eyes, and you looked so pitiful kneeling beside your mother"s coffin, that I hadn"t the heart to let you go to the Foundling Asylum. What a night I spent asking myself what I should do about you, and what would become of you if I should get out of work. If I had been your own mother, Mariette, I couldn"t have been more worried, and here you are talking about that having been a happy day for me. No; if I had been well off, it would have been very different! I should have said to myself: "There is no danger, the child will be provided for." But to take a child without any hope of bettering its condition is a very serious thing."
"Poor G.o.dmother!" said the young girl, deeply affected. Then smiling through her tears in the hope of cheering the sick woman, she added:
"Ah, well, we won"t talk of days, then, but of moments, for I"m going to convince you that you have at least been happy for that brief s.p.a.ce of time, as at this present moment, for instance."
"This present moment?"
"Yes, I"m sure you must be pleased to see that I have stopped crying, thanks to the kind things you have been saying to me."
But the sick woman shook her head sadly.
"When I get over a fit of ill-temper like that I had just now, do you know what I say to myself?" she asked.
"What is it, G.o.dmother?"
"I say to myself: "Mariette is a good girl, I know, but I am always so disagreeable and unjust to her that way down in the depths of her heart she must hate me, and I deserve it.""
"Come, come, G.o.dmother, why will you persist in dwelling upon that unpleasant subject, G.o.dmother?" said the girl, reproachfully.
"You must admit that I am right, and I do not say this in any faultfinding way, I a.s.sure you. It would be perfectly natural. You are obliged almost to kill yourself working for me, you nurse me and wait on me, and I repay you with abuse and hard words. My death will, indeed, be a happy release for you, poor child. The sooner the undertaker comes for me, the better."
"You said, just now, that when you were talking of such terrible things it was only in jest, and I take it so now," responded Mariette, again trying to smile, though it made her heart bleed to see the invalid relapsing into this gloomy mood again; but the latter, touched by the grieved expression of the girl"s features, said:
"Well, as I am only jesting, don"t put on such a solemn look. Come, get out the chafing-dish and make me some milk soup. While the milk is warming, you can dress my arm."
Mariette seemed as pleased with these concessions on the part of her G.o.dmother as if the latter had conferred some great favour upon her.
Hastening to the cupboard she took from a shelf the last bit of bread left in the house, crumbled it in a saucepan of milk, lighted the lamp under the chafing-dish, and then returned to the invalid, who now yielded the mutilated arm to her ministrations, and in spite of the repugnance which such a wound could not fail to inspire, Mariette dressed it with as much dexterity as patience.
The amiability and devotion of the young girl, as well as her tender solicitude, touched the heart of Madame Lacombe, and when the unpleasant task was concluded, she remarked:
"Talk about Sisters of Charity, there is not one who deserves half as much praise as you do, child."
"Do not say that, G.o.dmother. Do not the good sisters devote their lives to caring for strangers, while you are like a mother to me? I am only doing my duty. I don"t deserve half as much credit as they do."
"Yes, my poor Mariette, I would talk about my affection for you. It is a delightful thing. I positively made you weep awhile ago, and I shall be sure to do the same thing again to-morrow."
Mariette, to spare herself the pain of replying to her G.o.dmother"s bitter words, went for the soup, which the invalid seemed to eat with considerable enjoyment after all, for it was not until she came to the last spoonful that she exclaimed:
"But now I think of it, child, what are you going to eat?"
"Oh, I have already breakfasted, G.o.dmother," replied the poor little deceiver. "I bought a roll this morning, and ate it as I walked along.
But let me arrange your pillow for you. You may drop off to sleep, perhaps, you had such a bad night."
"But you were awake even more than I was."
"Nonsense! I am no sleepyhead, and being kept awake a little doesn"t hurt me. There, don"t you feel more comfortable now?"
"Yes, very much. Thank you, my child."
"Then I will take my work and sit over there by the window. It is so dark to-day, and my work is particular."
"What are you making?"
"Such an exquisite chemise of the finest linen lawn, G.o.dmother. Madame Jourdan told me I must be very careful with it. The lace alone I am to put on it is worth two hundred francs, which will make the cost of each garment at least three hundred francs, and there are two dozen of them to be made. They are for some kept woman, I believe," added Mariette, navely.
The sick woman gave a sarcastic laugh.
"What are you laughing at, G.o.dmother?" inquired the girl, in surprise.
"A droll idea that just occurred to me."
"And what was it, G.o.dmother?" inquired Mariette, rather apprehensively, for she knew the usual character of Madame Lacombe"s pleasantries.
"I was thinking how encouraging it was to virtue that an honest girl like yourself, who has only two or three patched chemises to her back, should be earning twenty sous a day by making three hundred franc chemises for--Oh, well, work away, child, I"ll try to dream of a rest from my sufferings."
And the sick woman turned her face to the wall and said no more.
Fortunately, Mariette was too pure-hearted, and too preoccupied as well, to feel the bitterness of her G.o.dmother"s remark, and when the sick woman turned her back upon her the girl drew the very urgent letter the portress had given her from her bosom, and laid it in her lap where she could gaze at it now and then as she went on with her sewing.
CHAPTER III.
A SHAMEFUL DECEPTION.