Two Little Waifs Part 14

"Poor little things!" they said. "Why did you not ask them who they were or where they came from, or something?" added Rosamond.

"I don't know. I wish I had," said Walter. "But I'm not sure that I would have ventured on such a freedom with the little girl. I'm not indeed."

"Then they didn't look _frightened_--the maid did not seem cross to them?"

"Oh no, she was good-natured enough. Just a great stupid. No, they didn't look exactly frightened, except of the horses and carriages; but bewildered and unhappy, and out of their element. And yet so plucky! I'm certain they were well-bred children. I can't make it out."

"Nor can I," said Rosamond. "I wonder if we shall ever hear any more about them."

Curiously enough she dreamt that night that she was again in the furniture shop in the Rue Verte, and that she heard again a noise which she thought to be mice, but that pulling back a chair to see, she came upon two little children, who at once started to their feet, crying: "We're the boy and girl he met. Take us home, do. We're not mice, and we are _so_ unhappy."

CHAPTER VIII.

A FALL DOWNSTAIRS.

"Oh! what's the matter? what's the matter?"

GOODY BLAKE.

Some days pa.s.sed; they were much the same as the first, except that the children--children-like--grew used to a certain extent to the things and people and manners and ways of the life in which they found themselves.

Roger now and then seemed pretty contented, almost as if he were forgetting the strange changes that had come over them; so long as every one was kind to him, and he had Gladys at hand ready, so far as was possible for her, to attend to his slightest wish, he did not seem unhappy. But on the other hand, the least cross word, or one of Mademoiselle Anna's sharp looks, or even the want of things that he liked to eat, would set him off crying in a way he had never done before, and which nearly broke Gladys's heart. For she, though she seemed quiet and contented enough, was in reality very anxious and distressed. She was of an age to understand that something really serious must be the matter for her and Roger to be left with strangers in this way--no letters coming, no inquiries of any kind being made, just as if she and her little brother were forgotten by all the world!

She could write a little, and once or twice she said to herself that if it went on very long she would try to send a letter to Miss Susan; but then again, when she remembered how glad that young lady had been to get rid of them, how she had disliked the idea of their staying with Mrs.

Lacy after her marriage--for all this by sc.r.a.ps of conversation, remarks of servants, and so on, Gladys had been quick enough to find out--she felt as if she would rather do anything, stay anywhere, rather than ask Miss Susan to take them back. And then from time to time hope would rise strong in her, and she would wake in the morning firmly convinced that "Papa would come to-day"--hopes, alas, only to be disappointed! She was beginning to understand a little of what was said by those about them.

Madame Nestor was as kind as ever, and her son, who had taken a great fancy to Roger, was decidedly kinder than he had been at first. With them alone Gladys felt she would not have minded anything so much; but she could see that Anna's dislike to them increased, and the child dreaded the hours of the meals, from the feeling of the hard scornful looks that Anna was then sure to cast on her.

One day she overheard some talking between her and Madame Nestor. The young woman seemed angry, and the old one was remonstrating with her.

Gladys heard that they were speaking about money, and also about some one going away, but that was all she could make out, though they were talking quite loud, and did not seem to mind her being there.

"If only Anna was going away," thought Gladys, "I wouldn't mind anything. I wouldn't mind the not having baths, or tea, or bread and b.u.t.ter, or--or all the things we had at home, if only there was n.o.body to look so fierce at us. I'd almost rather be Madame Nestor's little servant, like Francoise, if only Anna would go away."

It almost seemed as if her wishes had been overheard by some fairy, for the next morning, when they were called to the second breakfast--which the children counted their dinner--Anna's place was empty! Gladys squeezed Roger's hand under the table, and whispered to him: "She's gone, I do believe she's gone." Then looking up at Madame Nestor she saw her kind old face looking decidedly jollier than usual.

"Yes," she said, nodding her head; "Anna is away. She has gone away for a few days."

Gladys understood her partly but not altogether, but she did not mind.

She was only too pleased to find it true, and that was the happiest day they had since they came to the Rue Verte. Madame Nestor sent out to the pastry-cook's near by for some nice little cakes of a kind the children had never tasted before, and which they found delicious, and Monsieur Adolphe said he would get them some roasted chestnuts to eat if they liked them. He found the words in a dictionary which he showed Gladys with great pride, and pointed them out to her, and was quite delighted when she told him how to p.r.o.nounce them, and added: "I like roast chestnuts _very_ much."

"Mademoiselle shall give me some lessons of English," he said to his mother, his round face beaming with pleasure. "You are quite right, they are little gentlepeople, there is no doubt of it; and I feel sure the Papa will come to fetch them in a few days. He will be very grateful to us for having taken such care of them--it may be a good thing in the end even from a business point of view, for I should have no objection to extend our English connection."

No thought of gain to themselves in any way had entered Madame Nestor's head; but she was too pleased to see her son in such a good humour about the children to say anything to disagree with him.

"He has a good heart, my Adolphe," she said to herself. "It is only Anna that makes him seem what he is not; if she would but stay away altogether! And yet, it would be difficult to find her equal in other ways."

"Speaking of English," she said aloud, "reminds me that those English ladies will be getting impatient for their curtains. And the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g has not yet come; how slow those makers are! It is a fortnight since they promised it for the end of the week."

"It does not matter much," said Adolphe, "for no one can make them up properly except Anna. She should not have gone away just now; she knows there are several things that require her."

"That is true," said Madame Nestor, and so it was. Mademoiselle Anna seemed purposely to have chosen a most inconvenient time for going off on a visit to her family, and when Madame Nestor reproached her for this she had replied that with all the money the Nestors had received for the two little strangers, they could well afford to engage for the time a first-rate workwoman to replace her. This was the conversation Gladys had heard and a little understood. Poor Madame Nestor, wishing to keep up the children's dignity, had told every one that Mr. Marton had left her plenty of money for them, making the most of the two or three pounds which was all he had been able to spare, and of which she had not as yet touched a farthing.

But whether Anna's absence was inconvenient or not, it was very pleasant to most people concerned. Adolphe himself took the children out a walk, and though Gladys was at first not quite sure that it was not a little beneath her dignity to let the young man be her "chaperon," she ended by enjoying it very much. Thanks to his broken English and the few French words she was now beginning to understand, they got on very well; and when he had taken them some way out of Paris--or out of the centre of the town rather--in an omnibus, she was obliged to own that it was by no means the gray, grim, crowded, noisy, stuffy place it had seemed to her those first days in the Rue Verte. Poor little Roger was delighted! The carriages and horses were to him the most beautiful sight the world could show; and as they walked home down the Champs Elysees it was quite difficult to get him along, he wanted so constantly to stand still and stare about him.

"How glad I am we had on our best things!" said Gladys, as she hung up her dark-blue braided serge jacket and dress--for long ago Madame Nestor had been obliged to open the big trunk to get out a change of attire for the children--"aren't you, Roger?" She smoothed dawn the scarlet breast on her little black felt hat as she spoke. "This hat is very neat, and so is my dress; but still they are very plain compared to the things all the children that we saw had on. Did you see that little girl in green velvet with a sort of very soft fur, like shaded gray fluff, all round it? And another one in a red silky dress, all trimmed with lace, and a white feather as long--as long as----"

"Was it in that pretty big wide street?" asked Roger. "I saw a little boy like me with a 'plendid coat all over gold b.u.t.tons."

"That was a little page, not a gentleman," said Gladys, rather contemptuously. "Don't you remember Mrs. Ffolliot's page? Only perhaps he hadn't so many b.u.t.tons. I'd like to go a walk there every day, wouldn't you?"

But their conversation was interrupted by Madame Nestor's calling them down to have a little roll and a gla.s.s of milk, which she had discovered they liked much better than wine and water.

"If only there would come a letter, or if Papa would come--oh, if Papa would but come before that Anna comes back again, everything would get all right! I do hope when he does come that Papa will let me give a nice present to Mrs. Nest," thought Gladys to herself as she was falling asleep that night.

The next day was so bright and fine, that when the children saw Monsieur Adolphe putting on his coat to go out early in the morning they both wished they might go with him, and they told him so. He smiled, but told them in his funny English that it could not be. He was going out in a hurry, and only about business--some orders he was going to get from the English ladies.

"English ladies," repeated Gladys.

"Yes; have you not seen them? They were here one day."

"We saw them," said Gladys, smiling, "but they did not see _us_. They thought we were mice," but the dictionary had to be fetched before Adolphe could make out what "mice" meant, even though Roger turned it into "mouses" to make it plainer. And then he had to hurry off--it was a long way, he said, in the Avenue Gerard, close to the Champs Elysees, that these ladies lived.

"Avenue Gerard," repeated Gladys, in the idle way children sometimes catch up a name; "that's not hard to say. We say _avenue_ in English too. It means a road with lots of trees. Are there lots of trees where those ladies live, Mr. 'Dolph?"

But "Mr. 'Dolph" had departed.

After these bright days came again some dreary autumn weather. The children "wearied," as Scotch people say, a good deal. They were even glad on the fourth day to be sent out a short walk with Francoise.

"I wonder if we shall see that nice gentleman again if we go up that big street?" said Roger.

"I don't think we shall," said Gladys. "Most likely he doesn't live there. And it's a great many days ago. Perhaps he's gone back to England."

It was indeed by this time nearly a fortnight that the little waifs had found refuge in the Rue Verte.

The walk turned out less disagreeable than their first one with Francoise. They did go up the Boulevard, where the servant had some commissions, but they did not meet the "nice gentleman." They came home, however, in very good spirits; for at the big grocer's shop, where Francoise had bought several things, one of the head men had given them each an orange. And chattering together about how they should eat them--whether it was nicest to suck them, or to cut them with a knife, or to peel them and divide them into what are familiarly called "pigs"--the two children, with Francoise just behind them, reached the shop in the Rue Verte.

The door stood open--that was a little unusual, but they did not stay to wonder at it, but ran in quickly, eager to show their oranges to their kind old friend. The door leading to the room behind the shop stood open also, and the children stopped short, for the room was full of people, all talking eagerly and seemingly much excited. There were all the workpeople and one or two neighbours, but neither Madame Nestor nor her son. Francoise, who had caught sight of the crowd and already overheard something of what they were saying, hurried forward, telling the children as she pa.s.sed them to stay where they were, and frightened of they knew not what, the two little creatures took refuge in their old corner behind the blue sofa.

"What can it be?" said Gladys.

"P'raps Papa's come," suggested Roger.

Gladys's heart gave a great leap, and she sprang up, glancing in the direction of the little crowd of people. But she quickly crouched down again.

"Oh no," she said. "It can't be that. Francoise would not have told us to stay here. I'm afraid somebody's ill. It seems more like that."

Her instinct was right. By degrees the talking subsided, and one or two of the workpeople went off to their business, and a moment or two after, when Adolphe Nestor suddenly made his appearance, there was a general hush, broken only by one or two voices inquiring "how she was."