Never had I addressed her but as “Mademoiselle” before, andto speak thus was to take up a tone new to both her and me.Her answer surprised me that this language ruffled none of her feelings, woke no discord in her heart:—“Mon ma?tre,” she said, “have you troubled yourself to seek me? I little imagined you would think much of my absence, but I grieved bitterly to be taken away from you.I was sorry for that circumstance when heavier troubles ought to have made me forgetit.”
“Your aunt is dead?”
“Yes, a fortnight since, and she died full of regret, which I could not chase from her mind; she kept repeating, even during the last night of her existence, ‘Frances, you will be so lonely when I am gone, so friendless:’ she wished too that she could have been buried in Switzerland, and it was I who persuaded her in her old age to leave the banks of Lake Leman, and to come, only as it seems to die, in this flat region of Flanders.Willingly would I have observed her last wish, and taken her remains back to our own country, but that was impossible; I was forced to lay her here.”
“She was ill but a short time, I presume?”
“But three weeks.When she began to sink I asked Mdlle Reuter’s leave to stay with her and wait on her; I readily got leave.”
“Do you return to the pensionnat!” I demanded hastily.
“Monsieur, when I had been at home a week Mdlle Reuter called one evening, just after I had got my aunt to bed; she went into her room to speak to her, and was extremely civil and affable, as she always is; afterwards she came and sat with me a long time, and just as she rose to go away, she said: “Mademoiselle, I shall not soon cease to regret your departure from my establishment, though indeed it is true that you have taught your class of pupils so well that they are all quite accomplished in the little works you manage so skilfully, and have not the slightest need of further instruction; my second teacher must in future supply your place, with regard to the younger pupils, as well as she can, though she is indeed an inferior artiste to you, and doubtless it will be your part now to assume a higher position in your calling; I am sure you willeverywhere find schools and families willing to profit by your talents.’ And then she paid me my last quarter’s salary.I asked, as mademoiselle would no doubt think, very bluntly, if she designed to discharge me from the establishment.She smiled at my inelegance of speech, and answered that ‘our connection as employer and employed was certainly dissolved, but that she hoped still to retain the pleasure of my acquaintance; she should always be happy to see me as a friend;’ and then she said something about the excellent condition of the streets, and the long continuance of fine weather, and went away quite cheerful.”
I laughed inwardly; all this was so like the directress—so like what I had expected and guessed of her conduct; and then the exposure and proof of her lie, unconsciously afforded by Frances:—“She had frequently applied for Mdlle Henri’s address,” forsooth; “Mdlle Henri had always evaded giving it,” &c., &c., and here I found her a visitor at the very house of whose locality she had professed absolute ignorance!
Any comments I might have intended to make on my pupil’s communication, were checked by the plashing of large rain-drops on our faces and on the path, and by the muttering of a distant but coming storm.The warning obvious in stagnant air and leaden sky had already induced me to take the road leading back to Brussels, and now I hastened my own steps and those of my companion, and, as our way lay downhill, we got on rapidly.There was an interval after the fall of the first broad drops before heavy rain came on; in the meantime we had passed through the Porte de Louvain, and were again in the city.
“Where do you live?” I asked; “I will see you safe home,”
“Rue Notre Dame aux Neiges,” answered Frances.
It was not far from the Rue de Louvain, and we stood on the doorsteps of the house we sought ere the clouds, severing with loud peal and shattered cataract of lightning, emptied their livid folds in a torrent, heavy, prone, and broad.
“Come in! come in!” said Frances, as, after putting her into the house, I paused ere I followed: the word decided me; I stepped across the threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing, whitening storm, and followed her upstairs to her apartments.Neither she nor I were wet; a projection over the door had warded off the straight-descending flood; none but the first, large drops had touched our garments; one minute more and we should not have had a dry thread on us.
