Barbara in Brittany Part 17

"He would surely spare them to me," madame repeated, and buried her face in their fragrance. Then she laid them in her lap.

"Drive on, my dear, I have seen all I wish," she said. She was silent till they pa.s.sed into the main road again. Then she said, with a backward look at the _manoir_--

"I once stayed there for a very happy summer with my father, and a well-beloved friend. They are both in Paradise now, and I hope, by G.o.d's good grace and the intercessions of our Lady, I am nearer them each year."

Her face was perfectly serene, but poor old Jeannette's was all puckered up, and the tears rolled heavily down her cheeks. As for Barbara, she did not speak for a time.

The village was a quaint little place, just a few houses dropped together beside the sea, which sang to them for ever.

"Let us not go in out of the clean, strong air," Mademoiselle Vire said, as they stopped in front of the inn. "May we drink tea at the door?"

They slipped the reins through a ring in the flags in front of the house, and sipped their tea, while the children of the place came and stared solemnly at the strangers.

They drove home in the evening sunlight between the orchards, where the apples hung heavy on the trees, Mademoiselle Vire talking in her happy way as usual, entertaining Barbara with tales of what she had seen and heard. But when they drew up at her door, and the girl helped her out, she looked anxiously into her friend's face. Had it been too tiring for her?

"You are thinking I may be tired!" the old lady said, smiling at her.

"Then I will tell you, my dear. I am just tired enough to go to bed and have dreams, happy dreams. When one is so old, one is so near the end of memory, so near the beginning of realities, that the former ceases to be sad. I thank you for the pleasure you have given Jeannette and myself, it will last us long; and now, good-night."

She kissed her, and Barbara turned back to the pony chaise.

"For her sake," she said softly to herself, "one would like the realities to begin soon."

CHAPTER XVIII.

AUNT ANNE AGAIN.

Barbara had not been so frequently at the bath-house of late, the sea proving more attractive, and she was therefore surprised one day on going there to find a new bath-boy. She missed her old plain-faced friend and wondered what had become of him. "Is he ill?" she asked at the office on her way out.

The woman pursed up her lips; "No, he is not ill," she said. "But we found that he was not of the character that we thought."

"But he had been with you some years," Barbara expostulated, for the boy had confided that fact to her.

"He had, but he had degenerated, we found."

A dreadful doubt seized Barbara that his dismissal might be due to the help he had given her in Alice's escape, and in that case she would be partly responsible for him.

"Will you kindly give me his address?" she said, turning back again to the office. The woman looked doubtful, and said she was not sure if she had it.

"I think if he has been with you several years, you must surely know where he lives," Barbara persisted; and seeing her determined look, the woman apparently thought it would be the quickest way to get rid of her, and did as she was asked. Barbara repeated the name of the street and the number once or twice as she went out, and wondered how she should begin to find her way there, though consoling herself by thinking it was not the first time she had hunted up unknown addresses successfully since she had come to France.

It was very hot, and for a moment she hesitated, wondering whether she would not put off her search till another time; then she decided it was her duty to look the boy up at once. Asking a kindly postman if he could direct her to the address, she found that the house was in one of the streets near the quays. Though rather a long way off, it was not difficult to find, and once found it was not easily forgotten, for the smells were mingled and many.

Barbara wandered down between the high old houses, looking at the numbers--when she could see them--and finally found the one she sought.

She had not to wait long after knocking, and the door was opened by the bath-boy himself, who stared at her in astonishment.

"Ma'm'selle?" he said doubtfully, as if uncertain whether she were a messenger of ill omen or not.

"I have come to call," Barbara explained. "May I please come in?"

His face broadened into the familiar grin, and he shuffled down the pa.s.sage before her, wearing the same heelless list slippers that had first attracted Barbara's attention to him in the bath-house. The room he took her into smelt fresh and clean, and indeed was half full of clean clothes of all descriptions.

"My mother is _blanchisseuse_," the boy said, lifting a heap of pinafores from a chair. "I am desolated that she is out."

"Yes. Guillaume, will you please tell me why you were sent away from the bath-house?"

Guillaume looked uncomfortable, and moved his foot in and out of his slipper.

"Why, ma'm'selle--I was dismissed. They said it was my character, but that is quite good. I do not drink, nor lie, nor steal; my mother was always a good bringer up."

"Then was it because of helping the English lady to escape? Was it that, Guillaume?" The boy swung his slipper dexterously to and fro on his bare toes.

"It was doubtless that, ma'm'selle, for it was after the visit of the lady she belonged to that I was dismissed. My mother warned me at the time. 'It is unwise,' she said, 'for such as you to play thus.' But the little English lady looked so sad."

"I _am_ sorry, Guillaume. I do wish it had not happened."

"So do we, ma'm'selle," said the boy simply, "for my mother, who is _blanchisseuse_, has lost some customers since then, too, and I cannot get anything here. To-morrow I go to St. Malo or Parame to try--but they are much farther away. Yet we must have money to keep the little Helene. She is so beautiful and so tender."

"Who is Helene?" inquired Barbara; and at the question the boy's face glowed with pride and pleasure.

"I will bring her to you, ma'm'selle; she is now in the garden. She is with me while I am at home."

He shuffled off, and returned in a few minutes with a little girl in his arms: so pretty a child that Barbara marvelled at the contrast between them.

"She is not like me, hein?" he asked, laughing. "Helene, greet the lady," and Barbara held out both hands to the little girl, who, after a long stare, ran across to her. In amusing her and being herself amused, Barbara forgot the reason of her visit, and only remembered it when the little girl asked her brother suddenly if he would fetch her a roll that evening.

The boy looked uncomfortable. "Not to-night," he hastened to say, "but the mama, she will bring you something to-night for supper. I used to bring her a white roll on my way home from the baths," he explained to Barbara.

"May I give her one to-night?" the girl asked quickly, putting her hand into her pocket. "I would like to."

But the boy shook his head. "No, no, the mama would not like it--the first time you were in the house. Some other time, if ma'm'selle does us the honour to come again."

"Of course I will. I want to see how you get on at St. Malo or Parame," she said, "and whether Helene's doll gets better from the measles."

"Or whether she grows wings," put in Helene in waving her hand in farewell.

Barbara was very thoughtful on her way back, and before reaching the house, she had determined to give up her riding for the present. One more excursion she would have, in which to say good-bye to Monsieur Pirenne, who had been very kind to her; but it seemed rather selfish to use up any more of the liberal fund which her aunt had supplied her with for that purpose. After all, it was hard that the bath-boy, through her fault, could not even supply his little sister with rolls for her supper.

Mademoiselle Therese was somewhat surprised at the sudden decision, and perhaps a little annoyed by it, for she had grown accustomed to the trips to Dinard, and would miss them greatly. Monsieur Pirenne was also disturbed, because he feared "Mademoiselle had grown tired of his _manege_." Barbara a.s.sured him to the contrary, and tried to satisfy them both with explanations which were as satisfactory as such can be when they are not the real ones. As to connecting the girl's visits to the ex-bath-boy--which Mademoiselle Therese thought were due merely to a pa.s.sing whim--and the cessation of rides, she never dreamed of such a thing.

The result of the boy's inquiries at St. Malo and Parame were fruitless at first, and Barbara had paid several visits, and was beginning to feel almost as anxious as the mother and son themselves before the boy succeeded in his search. But one afternoon when she arrived she found him beaming with happiness, having found at least a temporary job at Parame, and one which probably would become permanent.

"That news," she said, shaking the boy's hand warmly in congratulation, "will send me home quite light-hearted."

But somehow, though she was honestly glad, it did not make her feel as happy as it should have done, and she thought the road back had never seemed so long, nor the sun so hot. She would gladly have missed her evening lesson and supper, but she feared that of the two evils Mademoiselle Therese's questions would probably be the worse. Indeed, when in the best of health, that lady's conversation was apt to be wearisome, but when one felt--as Barbara had for the past few days--that bed was the only satisfactory place, and _that_ even harder than it used to be, then mademoiselle's chatter became a penance not easily borne.

"You are getting tired of us, and beginning to want home," the Frenchwoman said in rather offended tones two days later, when Barbara declined to go with her to Dol. "I am sorry we have not been able to amuse you sufficiently well."