madame robineau was tall, angular, thin-lipped and devout, and so far as she indulged in social intercourse, loved to mingle with other angular, thin-lipped and devout ladies who belonged to the same lay sisterhood. she dressed in unrelieved black and always wore on her bosom a bronze cross of threatening magnitude. she prayed in the cathedral at inconvenient hours, and fasted as rigorously as her confessor, monsieur l’abbé duloup, himself. monsieur l’abbé regarded her as one of the most pious women in chartres. no doubt she was.
but félise, although a good catholic in her very simple way, and anxious to win favour by observance of the rules of the solitary household, was wicked enough to wish that her aunt were not quite so pious. in religious matters a wide latitudinarianism prevailed at the h?tel des grottes. there, with a serene conscience, one could eat meat on fridays and crack a mild joke at the expense of the good saint peter. but neither forbidden flesh nor jocularity on any subject, let alone on a saint’s minor foibles, mitigated the austerities of the perky, wind-swept little house at chartres. no wonder, thought félise, aunt clothilde had married off a regiment of daughters—four to be exact; it had been an easy matter; she herself would have married any caricature of a man rather than spend her life in an atmosphere so rarefied and so depressing. she pitied her cousins, although, according to her aunt clothilde’s pragmatical account, they were all doing splendidly and had innumerable babies. by the end of the first week of her visit, she consolidated an intense dislike to chartres and everything in it, especially the cathedral. now, it may be thought that any one who can shake the fist of disapprobation at the cathedral of chartres, is beyond the pale of human sympathy. but when you are dragged relentlessly thither in the icy dark of every winter morning, and the bitter gloom of every winter evening, to say nothing of sporadic attendances during the daytime, you may be pardoned if your ?sthetic perceptions are obscured by the sense of outrage inflicted on your personal comfort. to many generations of men the cathedral has been a symbol of glories, revelations and eternities. in such slanting shafts of light, mystically hued, the grail might have been made manifest, the sacred dove might have glided down to the head of the holy one. . . . but what need to tell of its spiritual wonders and of its mystery, the heart of which it is given to every suffering man to pluck out according to his own soul’s needs? it was a little tragedy that to poor félise the cathedral symbolised nothing but an overwhelming tyranny. she hated every stone of it, as much as she hated every shiny plank and every polished chair in her aunt’s frigid salon. even the streets of chartres repelled her by their bleakness. they lacked the smiling homeliness of brant?me; and the whole place was flatter than the sahara. she sighed for the rocks and hills of périgord.
she also ate the unaccustomed bread of idleness. had her aunt permitted, she would delightedly have helped with the house-work. but madame robineau, widow of a dealer in grain who, before his death, had retired on a comfortable fortune, lived, according to her lights, at her ease, her wants being scrupulously administered to by a cook and a maid. there was no place in the domestic machine for félise. her aunt passed long chilly hours over ecclesiastical embroidery, sitting bolt upright in her chair with a chaufferette beneath her feet. félise, unaccustomed needlewoman, passed longer and chillier hours (having no chaufferette) either playing with a grey ascetic cat or reading aloud la croix, the only newspaper allowed to cross the threshold of the house. now and again, madame robineau would drop her thin hands into her lap and regard her disapprovingly. one day she said, interrupting the reading,
“my poor child, how your education has been neglected. you scarcely know how to hold a needle, you can’t read aloud without making faults, and you are ignorant of the elements of our holy religion.”
“my aunt,” félise replied, “i know how to manage an hotel.”
“that would be of little use to your husband.”
félise winced at the unhappy word.
“i am never going to marry, ma tante,” she said.
“you surely do not expect to be admitted into a convent?”
“heaven forbid!” cried félise.
“heaven would forbid,” said madame robineau severely, “seeing that you have not the vocation. but the jeune fille bien élevée”—in the mouth of her aunt clothilde the familiar phrase assumed a detestable significance, implying, to félise’s mind, a pallid young creature from whom all blood and laughter had been driven by undesirable virtues—“the jeune fille bien élevée has only two careers offered to her—the convent or marriage. for you, my dear child, it is marriage.”
“well,” said félise, with a smile, preparing, to resume the article in the newspaper over which she had stumbled, “perhaps the beautiful prince will come along one of these days.”
but madame robineau rebuked her for vain imaginings.
“it is true, what i said, that your education has been neglected. a young girl’s duty is not to look for princes, but to accept the husband chosen by the wisdom of her family.”
“ma tante,” said félise demurely, after a pause during which her aunt took up her work again. “if you would teach me how to embroider, perhaps i might learn to be useful in my future home.”
from this and many other conversations, félise began to be aware of the subtle strategy of bigourdin. on the plea of providing her with pro-maternal consolation, he had delivered her into the hands of the enemy. this became abundantly clear as the days went on. aunt clothilde, incited thereto by her uncle, was opening a deadly campaign in favour of lucien viriot. now, the cathedral, though paralysing, could be borne for a season, and so could the blight that pervaded the house; but the campaign was intolerable. if she could have resented the action of one so beloved as bigourdin, she would have resented his sending her to her aunt clothilde. under the chaperonage of the respectable madame chauvet she had fallen into a pretty trap. she had found none of the promised sympathy. aunt clothilde, although receiving her with the affectionate hospitality due to a sister’s child, had from the first interview frozen the genial current of her little soul. the great bronze cross in itself repelled her. if it had been a nice, gentle little cross, rising and falling on a motherly bosom, it would have worked its all-human, adorable influence. but this was a harsh, aggressive, come-and-be-crucified sort of cross, with no suggestion of pity or understanding. the sallow, austere face above it might have easily been twisted into such a cross. it conveyed no invitation to the sufferer to pour out her troubles. uncle bigourdin was wrong again. rather would félise have poured out her troubles into the portentous ear of the suisse at the cathedral.
her aunt and herself met nowhere on common ground. they were for ever at variance. madame robineau spoke disparagingly of the english, because they were protestants and therefore heretics.
“but i am english, and i am not a heretic,” cried félise.
“you are not english,” replied her aunt, “because you have a french mother and have been brought up in france. and as for not being a heretic, i am not so sure. monsieur l’abbé duloup thinks you must have been brought up among freemasons.”
“ah non, par exemple!” exclaimed félise indignantly. for, in the eyes of the church, french freemasons are dreadful folk, capable of anything sacrilegious, from denying the miracle of saint januarius to slitting the pope’s weasand. so—“ah! non par exemple!” cried félise.
freemasons, indeed! her uncle gaspard, it is true, did not attend church regularly—but yes, he did attend regularly—he went once a year, every easter sunday, and he was the best of friends with monsieur le curé of their paroisse. and as for herself, monsieur le curé, who looked like a venerable saint in the holy pictures, had always a smile and a ma chère enfant for her whenever they met. she was on excellent terms with monsieur le curé; he would no more have dreamed of associating her with freemasons than of accusing her of being in league with devils.
he was a good, common-sensical old curé, like thousands of the secular clergy in france, and knew how to leave well alone. questioned by the ecclesiastically environed abbé duloup as to the spiritual state of félise, he would indubitably have answered with serene conviction:—
“if a soul so pure and so candid, which i have watched from childhood, is not acceptable to the bon dieu, then i know no more about the bon dieu than i know about the emperor of patagonia.”
but félise, disliking the abbé duloup and many of his works, felt a delicacy in dragging her own curé into the argument and contented herself with protesting against the charge of heresy. as a matter of fact, she proclaimed her uncle gaspard was not a freemason. he held in abhorrence all secret political societies as being subversive of the state. no one should attack her uncle gaspard, although he had betrayed her so shabbily.
in vain she sought some link with her aunt. even mimi, the lean old cat, did not form a bond of union. as a vagrant kitten it had been welcomed years ago by the late good-natured robineau, and the widow tolerated its continued presence with christian resignation. félise took the unloved beast to her heart. from aunt clothilde’s caustic remarks she gathered that her four cousins, of whose exemplary acceptance of husbands she had heard so much, had eyed mimi with the coldness of their mother. she began to thank providence that she did not resemble her cousins, which was reprehensible; and now and then manifested a lack of interest in their impeccable doings, which was more reprehensible still, and thus stirred up against her the maternal instincts of madame robineau.
relations grew strained. aunt clothilde spoke to her with sharp impatience. from her recalcitrance in the matter of lucien she deduced every fault conceivable. for the first time in her life félise dwelt in an atmosphere where love was not. she longed for home. she longed especially for her father and his wise tenderness. because she longed so greatly she could not write to him as a father should be written to; and the many-paged letters into which, at night, she put all her aching little heart, in the morning she blushed at the thought of sending. in spite of his lapse from grace she could not be so disloyal to the beloved uncle gaspard. nor could she distress her suffering angel mother by her incoherent account of things. if only she could see her!
at last, one dreary afternoon, madame robineau opened an attack in force.
“put down that cat. i have to talk to you.”
félise obeyed and aunt clothilde talked. the more she talked, the more stubborn front did félise oppose. madame robineau lost her temper. her thin lips twitched.
“i order you,” she said, “to marry lucien viriot.”
“i am sorry to say anything to vex you, ma tante,” replied félise valiantly; “but you have not the power.”
“and i suppose your uncle has not the power to command you?”
“in matters like that, no, ma tante,” said félise.
aunt clothilde rose from her straight-backed chair and shook a long, threatening finger. the nail at the end was also long and not very clean. félise often wondered whether her aunt abhorred a nail-brush by way of mortification.
“when one considers all the benefits my brother has heaped on your head,” she cried in a rasping voice, “you are nothing else than a little monster of ingratitude!”
félise flared up. she did not lack spirit.
“it is false,” she cried. “i adore my uncle gaspard. i would give him my life. i am not ungrateful. it is worse than false.”
“it is true,” retorted madame robineau. “otherwise you would not refuse him the desire of his heart. without him you would have not a rag to your back, or a shoe to your foot, and no more religion than a heathen. it is to him you owe everything—everything. without him you would be in the gutter where he fished you from.”
she ended on a shrill note. félise, very pale, faced her passionately, with a new light in her mild eyes.
“what do you mean? the gutter? my father——?”
“bah! your father! your vagabond, ne’er-do-weel scamp of a father! he’s a scandal to the family, your father. he should never have been born.”
the girl reeled. it was a foul bludgeon blow. madame robineau, with quick realisation of folly, checked further utterance and allowed félise, white, quivering and vanquished, but carrying her little head fiercely in the air, to retire from the scene with all the honours of war.
madame robineau was sorry. she had lost both temper and dignity. her next confession would be an unpleasant matter. possibly, however, the abbé duloup would understand and guess the provocation. she shrugged her lean shoulders. it was good sometimes for hoity-toity damsels to learn humility. so she sat down again, pursing her lips, and continued her embroidered stole until it was the hour of vespers. contrary to custom, she did not summon félise to accompany her to the cathedral. an hour or two of solitude, she thought, not unkindly, would bring her to a more reasonable frame of mind. she went out alone.
when she returned she found that félise had left the house.
it was a very scared young person that presented herself at the guichet at the railway station and asked for a second class ticket to paris. she had never travelled alone in her life before. even on her rare visits to the metropolis of périgueux, in whose vast emporium of fashion she clothed herself, she was attended by euphémie or the chambermaid. she felt lost, a tiny, helpless creature, in the great, high station in which an engine letting off steam produced a bewildering uproar. how much she paid for her ticket, thrifty and practised housekeeper that she was, she did not know. she clutched the change from a hundred franc note which, a present from her uncle before leaving brant?me, she had preserved intact, and scuttled like a little brown rabbit to the door of the salle d’attente.
“le train de paris? a quatre heures cinquante,” said the official at the door, as though this palpitating adventure were the commonplace of every minute.
“and that will be?” she gasped.
he cocked an eye at the clock. “in half an hour.”
a train was on the point of starting. there was a scuttle for seats. she felt sure it was the paris train. from it emanated the magic influence of the great city whither she was bound. a questioned porter informed her it was going in the opposite direction. the paris express left at four-fifty. the train steamed out. it seemed to félise as though she had lost a friend. she looked round helplessly, and seeing a fat peasant woman sitting on a bench, surrounded by bundles and children, she ran to her side for protection. it is the unknown that frightens. in the h?tel des grottes she commanded men with the serenity of a queen elizabeth, and as for commercial travellers and other male visitors, she took no more account of them than of the geese that she plucked. and the terrifying aunt clothilde had terrified in vain. but here, in this cold, glass-roofed, steel-strutted, screeching, ghostly inferno of a place, with men prowling about like roaring lions seeking probably whom they might devour, conditions were terrifyingly unfamiliar.
yet she did not care. under the blasphemous roof of her aunt clothilde she could not have remained. for, in verity, blasphemy had been spoken. her father was loved and honoured by all the world; by her mother, by uncle gaspard, by corinna, by martin. and she herself—did she not know her father? was there ever a man like him? the insulting words rang through her brain. she would have confronted terrors a million fold more grisly than these in order to escape from the blasphemer, whom she could never forgive—no, not for all the curés and abbés in christendom. an intense little soul was that of félise fortinbras. it swept her irresistibly out of the unhallowed villa, with a handbag containing a nightgown, a toothbrush and a faded little photograph of her father and mother standing side by side in wedding garb, on the way to the dread, fascinating whirlpool of paris, where dwelt the worshipped gods of her idolatry. and, as she sat in the comforting lee of the fat and unafraid peasant woman and her bundles and her children, she took herself to task for cowardice.
the journey, under two hours, was but a trifle. had it been to brant?me, an all-night affair, she might have had reason for quailing. but to paris it was practically but a step. . . . the abbé duloup spoke of going to paris as her uncle spoke of going to périgueux. yet her heart thudded violently during the interminable half hour. and there was the grim possibility of the appearance of a pursuing aunt clothilde. she kept a fearful eye upon the doorway of the salle d’attente.
at last the train rushed in, and there was clangour of luggage trucks and clamour of raucous voices announcing the train for paris; and a flow of waiting people, among whom was her neighbour with her varied impedimenta, swept across the lines and scaled the heights of the carriages. by luck, in front of félise loomed a compartment showing second class on the door panel and “dames seules” on the window. she clambered in and sank into a seat. who her lonely lady fellow-travellers were she could not afterwards remember; for she kept her eyes closed, absorbed in the adventure that still lay before her. yet it was comforting to feel that as long as the train went on she was safe in this feminine sanctuary, free from depredations of marauding males.
paris. one of the ladies, seeing that she was about to remain in the carriage, jerked the information over a descending shoulder. félise followed and stood for a moment more confused than ever in the blue glare and ant-hill hurry of the gare de montparnasse. a whole town seemed to have emerged from the train and to stream like a rout of refugees flying from disaster, men, women and children, laden with luggage, towards the barrier. carried along, she arrived there at length, gave up her ticket, and, issuing from the station, found herself in a narrow street, at the end of which, still following the throng, she came to a thundering thoroughfare. never, in all her imaginings of paris, had she pictured such a soul-stunning phantasmagoria of flashing light and flashing movement. there were millions of faces passing her by on the pavement, in the illuminated interiors of omnibuses, in the dimmed recesses of taxi-autos, on waggons, on carts, on bicycles; millions in gaily lit cafés; before her dazzled eyes millions seemed to be reflected even in the quivering, lucent air. she stood at the corner of the place de rennes and the boulevard de montparnasse paralysed with fear, clutching her handbag tight to her side. in that perilous street thousands of thieves must jostle her. she could not move a step, overwhelmed by the immensity of paris. a good-natured sergent de ville, possibly the father of pretty daughters, noticed her agonised distress. it was not his business to perform unsolicited deeds of knight errantry; but having nothing else to do for the moment, he caught her eye and beamed paternal encouragement. now a sergent de ville is a sergent de ville (recognisable by his uniform) all france over. félise held père chavrol, who exercised that function at brant?me, in high esteem. this policeman had a fat, dark, grinning, scrubbily-moustached face which resembled that of père chavrol. she took her courage and her handbag in both hands.
“monsieur,” she said, “can you direct me to the rue maugrabine?”
he couldn’t. he did not know that street. in what quartier was it? félise was ignorant.
“c’est là où demeure mon père,” she added. “c’est monsieur fortinbras. tout le monde le conna?t à paris.”
but alas! the sergent de ville had never heard of the illustrious fortinbras: which was strange, seeing that all brant?me knew him, although he did not live there.
“what then shall i do, monsieur,” asked félise, “to get to my father?”
the sergent de ville pushed his képi to the back of his head and cogitated. then, with uplifted hand, he halted a crawling fiacre. rue de maugrabine? of course the glazed-hatted, muffled-up driver knew it. somewhere between the rue de la roquette and the avenue de la république. the sergent de ville smiled vaingloriously. it was only ces vieux collignons, old drivers of fiacres, that knew their paris, he explained. the chauffeur of a taxi-auto would have been ignorant of the whereabouts of the arc de triomphe. he advised her to engage the omniscient cabman. the rue maugrabine was infinitely distant, on the other side of the river. félise suggested that a cab would cost enormously. in brant?me legends were still current of scandalous exactions levied by paris cabmen on provincials. the driver twisted his head affably and hoarsely murmured that it would not cost a fortune. perhaps two francs, two francs fifty, with a little pourboire. he did not know. the amount would be registered. the sergent de ville pointed out the taximeter.
“be not afraid, mademoiselle. enter. what number?”
“number 29.”
he opened the door of the stuffy little brougham. félise held out her hand as she would have held it out to père chavrol, and thanked him as though he had preserved her from legions of dragons. the last she saw of him as she drove off was in the act of majestically sweeping back a group of idlers who had halted to witness the touching farewell.
the old cab jolted and swerved through blazing vistas of unimagined thoroughfares; over bridges spanning mysterious stretches of dark waters and connecting looming masses of gigantic buildings; and through more streets garish with light and apparent revelry. realisation of its glory came with a little sob of joy. she was in paris, the wonderland of paris transcending all her dreams. brant?me and chartres seemed afar off. she had the sensation of a butterfly escaping from the chrysalis. she had been a butterfly for ages. what unremembered kind of state had been her grub condition? thrills of excitement swept her little body. she was throbbingly happy. and at the end of the magic journey she would meet her father, marvel among men, and her mother, the strange, sweet, mystical being, the enchanted princess of her childish visions, the warm, spiritual, all understanding, all embracing woman of her maiden longings.
the streets grew narrower, less important. they were passing through the poor neighbourhood east of the place de la bastille. fairyland suffered a sinister touch. slight fears again assailed her. some of the streets appeared dark and suspect. evil-looking folk haunted the pavements. she wondered, with a catch of the breath, whither she was being driven. at last the cab swung into a street, darker, more suspect, more ill-odoured than any, and stopped before a large open doorway. she peered through the window. above the door she could just discern the white figures “29” on the blue plaque. her rosy dreams melted into night, her heart sank. she alighted.
“this is really 29 rue maugrabine?”
“bien s?r, mademoiselle.”
she had forgotten to look at the taximeter, but taking three francs from her purse, she asked the driver if that was enough. he thanked her with raised hat for munificence, and, whipping up his old horse, drove off.
félise entered a smelly little paved courtyard and gazed about her helplessly. she had imagined such another decent little house as her aunt’s, at which a ring at the front door would ensure immediate admittance. in this extraordinary dank well she felt more lost than ever. paris was a bewildering mystery. a child emerged from some dark cavern.
“can you tell me where monsieur fortinbras lives?”
the child advised her to ask the concierge, and pointed to the iron bell-pull. félise rang. the frowsy concierge gave the directions.
“au quatrième au coin, à gauche.”
félise entered the corner cavern and came on an evil-smelling stone staircase, lit here and there by naked gas-jets which blackened the walls at intervals. the cold gathered round her heart. on the second landing some noisy, ill-dressed men clattered past her and caused her to shrink back with fear. she mounted the interminable stairs. here and there an open door revealed a squalid interior. the rosy dream became a nightmare. she had made some horrible blunder. it was impossible that her father should live here. but the concierge had confirmed the address. on the fourth floor she paused; then, as directed, turned down a small, ill-lit passage to the left. on a door facing her at the end, she noticed the gleam of a card. she approached. it bore the printed legend,
“daniel fortinbras,
ancien avoué de londres,
agent de famille, &c, &c.”
and written in pencil was the direction: “sonnez, s. v. p.”
the sight reassured and comforted her. behind this thin barrier dwelt those dearest to her on earth, the dimly remembered saintly mother, the wise and tender father. she forgot the squalor of the environment. it was merely a feature of paris mighty and inscrutable, so different from brant?me. she felt a little throb of pride in her daring, in her achievement. without guidance—ungenerously she took no account of the sergent de ville, the cabman and the concierge—she had travelled from chartres to this inmost heart of paris. she had accomplished her stupendous adventure. . . . the card invited her to ring. above it hung a bit of wood attached in the middle to a length of twine. she pulled and an answering clang was heard from within the apartment. her whole being vibrated.
after a moment’s waiting, the door was flung open by a coarse, red-faced, slatternly woman standing in a poverty-stricken little vestibule. she looked at the girl with curiously glazed eyes and slightly swayed as she put up a hand to dishevelled hair.
“vous désirez?”
“monsieur fortinbras,” gasped félise, scared by the abominable apparition.
“monsieur fortinbras?” she mimicked the girl’s clear accent.
“oui, madame,” replied félise.
whereupon the woman withered her with a sudden volley of drunken abuse. she knew how fortinbras occupied himself all day long. she did not complain. but when the gonzesses of the rive gauche had the indecency to come to his house, she would very soon put them across her knee and teach them manners. this is but a paraphrase of what fell upon félise’s terror-stricken ears. it fell like an avalanche; but it did not last long, for suddenly came a voice well known but pitched in an unfamiliar key of anger:
“qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”
and fortinbras appeared.
as he caught sight of his daughter’s white face, he clapped his hands to his head and reeled back, horror in his eyes. then:
“tais-toi!” he thundered, and seizing the woman masterfully by the arms, he pushed her into some inner room, leaving félise shaking on the threshold. in a moment or two he re-appeared, caught overcoat and old silk hat from a peg, and motioning félise back, marched out of his home and slammed the door behind him. father and daughter were now in the neutral ground at the end of the dim, malodorous passage.
“what in the name of god are you doing here, félise?”
“i came to see my mother.”
the fleshy, benign face of the man fell into the sags of old age. his lower lip hung loose. his mild blue eyes, lamping out from beneath noble brows, stared agony.
“your mother?”
“yes. where is she?”
he drew a deep breath. “your mother—well—she is in a nursing home, dear. no one, not even i, can see her.” he took her by the arm and hurried her to the staircase. “come, come, dear, we must get away from this. you understand. i did not tell you your mother was so ill, for fear of making you unhappy.”
“but that dreadful woman, father?” she cried. and the alpine flower from which honey is made looked like a poor little frost-bitten lily of the valley. she faced him on the landing.
“that woman—that——” he waved an arm. “that,” said he, quoting bitterly, “is a woman of no importance.”
“ah!” cried félise.
with some of the elemental grossnesses of life she was acquainted. you cannot manage a hotel in france which is a free, non-puritanical country, and remain in imbecile ignorance. she was shocked to the depths of her being.
“come,” said fortinbras with outstretched hand. but she shrank from him. “come!” he commanded. “there’s no time to lose. we must get out of this.”
“where are we going?” she asked.
“to the gare de montparnasse. you must return at once to chartres.”
“i will never enter the house of aunt clothilde again,” said félise.
“but what has happened? my god! what has happened?” he asked, as they hurried down the stairs.
breathlessly, brokenly, she told him. in the courtyard he paused, put his hand to his head.
“but what can i do with you? my god! what can i do with you in this dreadful city?”
“isn’t there a hotel in paris?” she asked, coldly.
he laughed in a mirthless way. “there are many. there are the ritz and the meurice and the elysée palace. yes—there are hotels enough!”
“i have plenty of money,” she said.
“no, no, my child,” said he. “not an hotel. i should go mad. i have an idea. come.”
they had just reached the evil pavement of the rue maugrabine, when cécile fortinbras, sister of the excellent gaspard bigourdin and the pious clothilde robineau, and mother of félise, recovered from the stupor to which the unprecedented fury of her husband had reduced her, and reeled drunkenly to the flat door.
“je vais arracher les yeux à cette putain-là!”
she started to tear the hussy’s eyes out; but by the time she had accomplished the difficult descent and had expounded her grievances to an unsympathetic concierge, a motor omnibus was conveying father and daughter silent and anguished to the other side of the river seine.
