Mademoiselle Blanche

Then one night he was suddenly aroused from his sleep, and he felt a sensation of mingled horror and awe. He dressed himself quickly, his whole being wrung by the groans he heard from the next room, and tore out of the house to Doctor Brutinière's, five minutes away. After delivering his message, he ran breathlessly to summon Madame Berthier. It took her scarcely five minutes to dress, and then they were in the street together. Madame Berthier went at once to Blanche's room, and Jules paced up and down in the half-lighted salon.

That was the ghastliest night of Jules Le Baron's life. He was overwhelmed by the knowledge that Blanche was in agony, that she was battling for life, that at any moment he might hear she was dead. Why should the burden of suffering fall on her? Oh, how cruel Nature was, how pitiless to women! The poor child, the poor little one, to be tortured so! Several times he listened for a sound, and the silence terrified him. Suddenly he heard a shriek, loud and piercing, that only the most exquisite pain could have wrung, and he clenched his hands in impotent horror and misery.

The stillness that followed made him fear that she was dead, and he could hardly keep from rushing up the stairs and learning the truth. After a few moments, as he stood at the door, he heard another cry, small, timorous, peevish, that changed to a wail and then died away. He turned into the room, clapsed his face in his hands, and cried, "Thank God, thank God! And mercy for her, my God, mercy for my poor little Blanche!"

After what seemed to him a long time, during which he was tortured with suspense, a door opened and shut, and he heard a rustling on the stairs. He stepped out into the hall and saw Madame Berthier descending. She stopped, smiled, and put her hand to her lips; he could see traces of tears in her eyes.

"Come up," she whispered. "It's all over. It's a girl, and Blanche has her in her arms."

Jules bounded up the stairs. "Only a minute, you know," she said softly, "and you must be very quiet."

When she opened the door he almost pushed her aside in his eagerness to enter. The Doctor and Madeleine were standing beside the bed, where Blanche, white but bright-eyed and smiling, was lying with the babe nestling close to her. Jules flung himself by her side, and kissed her passionately, murmuring incoherent words of love and thankfulness.

XII

The weeks of convalescence that followed were the happiest Blanche had ever known. She felt wrapped in the devotion of her husband and her family, and exalted by her love for her child. At moments she feared that she could not live through such happiness. Sometimes she would fancy that all her sufferings had been only a dream, and then she would turn and find with a thrill of joy the babe lying beside her. Jules would sit by the bed holding her hand, and making jokes about their daughter's future. They had decided that she should be called Jeanne, and no one but Father Dumény should baptize her.

One morning, when Blanche was sitting up in bed for the first time, Jules entered the room with a letter in his hand and in his face a look of exultation.

"It's from Marshall," he said, "from the Hippodrome in London, you know. He wants me to make a contract for six months, from the first of January. I was afraid he might back out because we held off so long. But this makes it all right. You'll have more than a month to get strong again and to practise in."

Jules was so excited by the prospect that he did not notice the look of alarm that had appeared in his wife's eyes. She lay still, with one arm extended on the coverlet, her head leaning to one side, and her dark hair making a background for her white face.

"'We want you to open on the first,'" Jules read aloud. "'Let us hear from you as soon as possible and we will send on the contract for your signature.' Of course," he went on, folding the note, "we must jump at it. What do you say?"

For a moment she looked at him without speaking. Then she replied weakly, "Do what you think best, Jules."

"Good!" he said, jumping up. "I'll write now. We've lost a lot of time, you know, and we must make up for it when we get back to work."

"Do you – do you think I'll be strong enough?" she went on, as if she hadn't heard him.

"Strong enough!" he laughed. "Of course you'll be strong enough in seven weeks more. You're nearly your old self now," he added affectionately. "Don't you worry about that."

When he had closed the door and left her alone, she felt as if her body were sinking into the bed from weakness. The circus again! That ghastly plunge! Since the birth of her child she had hardly thought of it. Now the thought horrified her! How could she leave her babe and risk her life night after night? Perhaps some night – oh! it was too horrible. She couldn't, she couldn't! She lifted her hands to her face as if to shut out the horror of the thought. Then she turned to the little Jeanne who was sleeping beside her, and drew her close to her bosom.

She had lost courage! It would never come back to her. When Jules returned she would tell him, and she would beg him, for Jeanne's sake, to give up that engagement in London till she felt well again. Oh, if they could only leave the circus forever! If she could only do as other women did, devote her life to her child. The circus was no place for a mother.

Then it suddenly flashed upon her that if she said these things to Jules he would urge her to place Jeanne in her mother's care while they were in England; but to that she would never consent, never. She would rather give up performing altogether. Yes, when Jules came back she would speak of this. He loved the circus, but for Jeanne's sake he would give it up, she knew he would.

But when Jules did return, he was so enthusiastic about the engagement in London that she did not dare oppose it. "Think of the sensation we'll make there!" he said. "How those stupid English will open their eyes! And then we'll surely have big offers from other places. After a London success we can make a fortune in America. They say the Americans are crazy over everything that makes a hit in London. Oh," he went on, stretching his arms and yawning, "it will be a relief to get out of this dull old town. Think of the months we've wasted here. I feel rusty already."

Something in his tone as well as his words frightened her, and a feeling of helplessness came over her when he put his hand on her forehead and said gently: "You must try to get strong as soon as possible, dear. Think of all the practising you'll have to do for your plunge."

She turned her head away, and he observed nothing strange in her manner. She wanted to speak of taking Jeanne with them, but a fear that he might object restrained her.

Two days later, when her mother and Jules were in the room together, Madame Berthier, with apparent carelessness, asked what they were going to do with the little one while they were travelling. "Of course you can't carry her about with you. So you'd better leave her with me. I'll take the best of care of her."

She was startled by the light that flashed into her daughter's eyes. "No, no!" Blanche cried. "We shall keep her with us always. I couldn't bear to leave her here. I couldn't – I couldn't go away without her."

Madame Berthier and Jules exchanged glances, and Blanche saw that her intuition was correct. They had been discussing the project of leaving the child in Boulogne. She felt as if they were conspiring against her.

"Don't you think it would be better if your mother – " Jules began, but Blanche cut him short.

"We shall have Madeleine. She will help me to take care of Jeanne. I couldn't go without her," she repeated, with tears in her voice.

"There, there!" said Madame Berthier, becoming alarmed. "Have your own way. Perhaps it's better that you should keep the child with you."

Blanche read annoyance in her husband's face, but she said nothing. A few moments later, Madame Berthier left the room and Jules followed. She knew they had gone to discuss the little scene that had just taken place. But she resolved that she would not give up the child! Rather than do that she would stay in Boulogne.

The fear of being separated from Jeanne, made her decide not to refer in any way to her terror of the plunge. That might strengthen Jules' belief that the presence of the child disturbed her, and he might insist on a separation. Besides, she tried to convince herself that as she grew stronger her nervousness would disappear. It must of course be due solely to her weak condition. Once restored to health, the plunge would be, as it always had been, merely part of her daily routine.

But in spite of her rapidly increasing strength, Blanche found that after three weeks she was still depressed by the thought of her season in London. Jules complained that she was devoting herself too much to Jeanne; she must drive out more, and walk with the girls, and give more time to her exercises. Her mother, too, grew severe with her. "One would think there never was another child in the world," she said, and then Blanche suspected that Jules had been complaining of her. "The little one is a dear, and I love her," Madame Berthier continued, "but you have your work to do, and you must think of that too. No wonder Jules is growing impatient."

Jules had already received the contract for the engagement at the Hippodrome, and on signing it at his request, Blanche had had a horrible fancy that she was putting her signature to a warrant for her own doom. Once she thought of confiding her fear to her mother, but her mother would be sure to repeat what she said to Jules. At any cost, she felt she must hide it from him. Then she determined to tell Father Dumény, but when the moment came she had not courage to put her feeling into words, and she was ashamed of it as a superstition. So she decided that she would keep the miserable secret to herself, finding no relief save in gusts of weeping when she was alone with the child.

Once Jules found her with traces of tears in her eyes. "What's the matter?" he asked gently, taking her hand.

She turned her head away. "I don't feel well," she said.

He looked at her closely. "You'll be well when you get back to your work. That's what the matter is. You aren't used to being idle. The best thing for us to do is to leave here the day after Christmas. That will give you nearly a week for practice in London, and we'll have time to look about for rooms there. Since we are going to have Jeanne with us, we'll want to take an apartment in some quiet street."

When he went away she sat for a long time without speaking. In a week they would be far away from this place, among strangers. She wondered why she had not suffered so on leaving home before. Until now she had regarded the circus as part of her life; she had not hoped for any other kind of life. How strange it was that Jules should love it so! Sometimes it seemed – But it was right that she should go on with her work, for she must earn money for the little Jeanne now. Perhaps in a few years she would make a fortune, and then Jules could not object to her leaving the circus. But before a few years passed she would be obliged to go through her performance more than a thousand times. At this thought her heart seemed to stop beating, and then it thumped against her side.

Their Christmas in Boulogne at Monsieur Berthier's house reminded them of their fête in Paris of the year before. Berthier himself led in the gayety, and the girls were in the wildest spirits. Blanche sat among them with the child in her arms, looking, as Jules said, as if she were posing for a Madonna. In the evening Father Dumény came to bid his friends good-bye. He pretended to pinch the little Jeanne on the cheek, and he made jokes with Blanche about her terror before the child's birth. "She's the healthiest baby I've ever baptized," he said. "You should have heard her roar when I poured the water on her head. That's a good sign. I suppose you'll make a great performer of her too," he continued, smiling into the face of the mother, but growing serious when he saw the effect of the question.

"Never!" exclaimed Blanche.

"We're going to earn a fortune for her," said Jules with a smile. "So she won't have to work at all. We'll settle down in Paris and make a fine lady of her, and marry her into the nobility."

Blanche did not speak again for a long time. They knew she was depressed at the thought of leaving home the next day. When Father Dumény rose, he took a letter from the pocket of his long black coat.

"I almost forgot about this. Here's the introduction I promised you to my friends in London. You will like Mrs. Tate, my dear," he said to Blanche, "and she'll make a great pet of the little one. She hasn't any children of her own, poor woman. Be sure to go to see them," he concluded, "and present my compliments to them."

When he was gone, Jules shrugged his shoulders and turned to his wife. "What do we want to meet those people for?" he said. "What will they care about us?"

The next day they left Boulogne, after many farewell injunctions from the Berthiers, and much weeping on the part of Blanche and her sisters. Blanche stood for a long time with Madeleine, who held the little Jeanne in her arms, waving farewell to her kindred on the wharf, and watching the shores of France recede from her gaze. When the last vestige of land disappeared in the wintry fog and she found herself shut in by the shoreless sea, she turned away with a feeling of hopeless weariness. She had a morbid presentiment that she was leaving home forever.

XIII

Mrs. Tate ran her eyes over the pile of letters at her plate on the breakfast-table. She was a large, florid woman of forty, verging on stoutness, with an abundance of reddish-brown hair.

"What a lot of mail!" she said to her husband, who was absorbed in reading the "Daily Telegraph," – a small man, with black hair and moustache tinged with gray, and small black eyes finely wrinkled at the corners. "Here's a letter from Amy dated at Cannes. They must have left Paris sooner than they intended; and here's something from Fanny Mayo, – an invitation to dinner, I suppose. Fanny told me she wanted us to meet the Presbreys next week, – some people she knew in Bournemouth."

"Fanny's always taking up new people," said Tate from behind his paper, "and dropping them in a month."

"And here's something else with a French stamp on it. Let me see. From Boulogne? It must be from Father Dumény. Yes, I recognize the handwriting."

"Another subscription, I suppose," her husband grunted.