第58章

This Thursday being a school-holiday I had teh chance of meeting the three little Mouton girls in the vicinity of the Rue Demours.After bowing to their mother, I asked the eldest who appears to be about ten years old, how was her playmate, Mademoiselle Jeanne Alexandre.

The little Mouton girl answered me, all in a breath, "Jeanne Alexandre is not my playmate.She is only kept in the school for charity--so they make her sweep the class-rooms.It was Mademoiselle who said so.And Jeanne Alexandre is a bad girl; so they lock her up in the dark room--and it serves her right--and Iam a good girl--and I am never locked up in the dark room."The three little girls resumed their walk, and Madame Mouton followed close behind them, looking back over her broad shoulder at me, in a very suspicious manner.

Alas! I find myself reduced to expedients of a questionable character.Madame de Gabry will not come back to Paris for at least three months more, at the very soonest.Without her, I have no tact, I have no common sense--I am nothing but a cumbersome, clumsy, mischief-making machine.

Nevertheless, I cannot possibly permit them to make Jeanne a boarding-school servant!

December 28.

The idea that Jeanne was obliged to sweep the rooms had become absolutely unbearable.

The weather was dark and cold.Night had already begun.I rang the school-door bell with the tranquillity of a resolute man.The moment that the timid servant opened the door, I slipped a gold piece into her hand, and promised her another if she would arrange matters so that I could see Mademoiselle Alexandre.Her answer was, "In one hour from now, at the grated window."And she slammed the door in my face so rudely that she knocked my hat into the gutter.I waited for one very long hour in a violent snow-storm; then I approached the window.Nothing! The wind raged, and the snow fell heavily.Workmen passing by with their implements on their shoulders, and their heads bent down to keep the snow from coming in their faces, rudely jostled me.Still nothing.I began to fear I had been observed.I knew that I had done wrong in bribing a servant, but I was not a bit sorry for it.Woe to the man who does not know how to break through social regulations in case of necessity! Another quarter of an hour passed.Nothing.At last the window was partly opened.

"Is that you, Monsieur Bonnard?"

Is that you, Jeanne?--tell me at once what has become of you.""I am well--very well."

"But what else!"

"They have put me in the kitchen, and I have to sweep the school-rooms."

"In the kitchen! Sweeping--you! Gracious goodness!""Yes, because my guardian does not pay for my schooling any longer.""Gracious goodness! Your guardian seems to me to be a thorough scoundrel.""Then you know---"

"What?"

"Oh! don't ask me to tell you that!--but I would rather die than find myself alone with him again.""And why did you not write to me?"

"I was watched."

At this instant I formed a resolve which nothing in this world could have induced me to change.I did, indeed, have some idea that Imight be acting contrary to law; but I did not give myself the least concern about that idea.And, being firmly resolved, I was able to be prudent.I acted with remarkable coolness.

"Jeanne," I asked, "tell me! does that room you are in open into the court-yard?""Yes."

"Can you open the street-door from the inside yourself?""Yes,--if there is nobody in the porter's lodge.""Go and see if there is any one there, and be careful that nobody observes you."Then I waited, keeping a watch on the door and window.

In six or seven seconds Jeanne reappeared behind the bars, and said, "The servant is in the porter's lodge.""Very well," I said, "have you a pen and ink?""No."

"A pencil?"

"Yes."

"Pass it out here."

I took an old newspaper out of my pocket, and--in a wind which blew almost hard enough to put the street-lamps out, in a downpour of snow which almost blinded me--I managed to wrap up and address that paper to Mademoiselle Prefere.

While I was writing I asked Jeanne, "When the postman passes he puts the papers and letters in the box, doesn't he? He rings the bell and goes away? Then the servant opens the letter-box and takes whatever she finds there to Mademoiselle Prefere immediately; is not that about the way the thing is managed whenever anything comes by post?"Jeanne thought it was.

"Then we shall soon see.Jeanne, go and watch again; and, as soon as the servant leaves the lodge, open the door and come out here to me."Having said this, I put my newspaper in the box, gave the bell a tremendous pull, and then hid myself in the embrasure of a neighbouring door.

I might have been there several minutes, when the little door quivered, then opened, and a young girl's head made its appearance through the opening.I took hold of it; I pulled it towards me.

"Come, Jeanne! come!"

She stared at me uneasily.Certainly she must have been afraid that I had gone mad; but, on the contrary, I was very rational indeed.

"Come, my child! come!"

"Where?"

"To Madame de Gabry's."

Then she took my arm.For some time we ran like a couple of thieves.

But running is an exercise ill-suited to one as corpulent as I am, and, finding myself out of breath at last, I stopped and leaned upon something which turned out to be the stove of a dealer in roasted chestnuts, who was doing business at the corner of a wine-seller's shop, where a number of cabmen were drinking.One of them asked us if we did not want a cab.Most assuredly we wanted a cab!

The driver, after setting down his glass on the zinc counter, climbed upon his seat and urged his horse forward.We were saved.

"Phew!" I panted, wiping my forehead.For, in spite of the cold, I was perspiring profusely.

What seemed very odd was that Jeanne appeared to be much more conscious than I was of the enormity which we had committed.She looked very serious indeed, and was visibly uneasy.

"In the kitchen!" I cried out, with indignation.