Читать книгу Mlle. Fouchette - Charles Theodore Murray - Страница 19

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"Là, là, là!" came the cheery but subdued voice of Sister Agnes. She had re-entered the cell to catch the last faint sounds of childish grief coming out of the darkness.

"There! Softly now, petite! Where are you? Oh! If they catch me here at this hour and bringing—sh!"

The good-hearted woman had groped her way to the cot, raised Fouchette to a sitting posture, and, sitting down by her side, pulled the child over in her arms.

Fouchette, who had almost ceased to weep by this time, was at once overcome anew by the motherly caress and broke down completely. She flung her arms wildly about Sister Agnes's neck and buried her face in the ample bosom.

"Là, là, là, là! my little skeleton, there is nothing to be afraid of here. Nothing at all! Don't take on so. God is everywhere, and takes care of us in the night as well as by day. Fear not! And here, my child, see what I've brought you! Feel, rather—taste; you must be half starved. Here is a big, fat sandwich, and here's another. And here's a small flacon of the red wine of Bourgogne. You poor child! You need something for blood. Here's a bit of cheese, too, and, let's see—by the blessed Sainte! I was told to let you have bread and water and I've actually forgotten the water!

"Now eat! The idea of a big girl like you being afraid in the dark!"

"No, it was not that, madame. Mon Dieu, no! I'm used to that. Indeed, I'm not afraid. It——"

"Then what on earth have you been crying about, child?"

"Oh, madame! it is because—because you are so good to me. Yes, that is it. I'm not used to that—no!"

Sister Agnes must have been quite agitated by this frank and unexpected avowal, for she pressed the child to her with still greater fervor, kissing her time and again more affectionately, after which she immediately slipped into the religious rut again below the crucifix.

A single ray of moonlight from the high loophole in the wall fell athwart the sombre cell and rested caressingly upon her bowed head as she knelt and seemed to bless her.

When she had recovered her self-possession she resumed her seat by the side of Fouchette, who, meanwhile, had been making havoc with the provisions.

"Oh! I was afraid—dreadfully afraid—that night, forty years ago," she whispered. "It was in this same place. And when they left me I almost cried my eyes out—and screamed—how I screamed! Yet no one came. The next morning I had bread and water. And the next night and day, too. Ah! Sainte Mère de Dieu! how I suffered!"

Fouchette shuddered.

"And I was a strong, healthy child, but wilful; yet the dark seemed terrible to me—because I was wicked."

Fouchette wondered what dreadful crime this child of forty years ago had committed to have been thus treated. She must have been very, very wicked.

"Yes, forty years ago——"

"How much did they give you, madame?"

"Er—what's that, petite?"

"Pardon, madame, but how much time yet do you have to serve?"

"I don't understand," replied the puzzled woman, unfamiliar with worldly terms.

"Why, I mean, how long did they send you up for?" asked the child.

"Send?—they?—who?"

"The police."

"Police? Mon Dieu! my child, the police had nothing to do with me."

"Well, the gendarmes."

"The gendarmes?"

"No; you could never have been guilty, madame! Never! Whatever it was they charged you with——"

"Charged? Sainte Marie be praised, I never committed any crime in my life—unless it was a crime to be thoughtless and happy."

"I was sure of that!" cried Fouchette, much relieved nevertheless.

"Why, I never was charged with any!" protested the astonished Sister Agnes.

"Then they imprisoned you without trial, as they have me. Ah! mon Dieu! madame, I see it all now! And forty years! Oh!"

"Well, blessed be the saints in heaven!" exclaimed the enlightened religieuse. "What do you think this place is, Fouchette?"

"It is"—she hesitated and changed the form of speech—"is it a—a prison?"

"Why, no! Holy Mother, no!—not a prison, child! You thought it——"

"Yes, madame," faltered Fouchette.

"You poor child! Not so bad as that; yet——"

"I see—a house of correction?"

"No, not that. At least, not—ah! if Sister Angélique had heard you call 'Le Bon Pasteur' a house of correction it would have been worth three days of bread and water!"

"'Le Bon Pasteur?'" repeated Fouchette.

"Yes, my child. Didn't you really know——"

"No, madame."

Sister Agnes pondered.

"Then why should you remain here?" pursued the curious child. "Can't you go away if you want to?"

"But I do not wish to go now—not now."

"But if you had wished it at any time."

Sister Agnes was silent.

"Then what is this place, madame?"

"A retreat for the poor—an orphan asylum—where little girls who have neither father nor mother, and no home, are sent. And where they are brought up to be good and industrious young women."

"D-don't they ever get out again?" asked Fouchette, somewhat doubtfully.

"Oh, yes. They are set free at twenty-one years of age if they wish to go, and even sooner if their friends come for them. If they don't wish to go, they can remain and become members of the order, if they are suitable. I was brought here at ten years of age by my aunt and left temporarily, but my uncle died and she was too poor, or else did not want me, so I was compelled to remain. When I became twenty-one I owed the institution so much from failure to do my tasks and fines, and what my aunt had promised to pay and didn't pay, that I had to stay a long time and work it out, and by that time I had become so accustomed to living here that I was afraid to leave the institution and begged them to let me become one of the community.

"Sometimes girls are bad and so lazy they won't work, and then they are punished. And when they prove incorrigible they are put in the other building, which is a house of correction. But if a girl is good and obedient and industrious she has no trouble, and may save up money against the day when she is set at liberty, besides receives the good recommendation of the Supérieure, on which she may find honest employment."

While the good Sister Agnes spoke truly, she dared not tell this child the whole truth.

She dared not say that Le Bon Pasteur—The Good Shepherd—although ostensibly a charitable institution, under religious auspices and subsidized by the State, for the protection and education of orphan girls during their minority, was practically a great factory which did not come under the legal restrictions governing free labor in France, and where several hundred girls and young women, whose only offence against society had been to lose their natural protectors, were subjected to all the rigors of the most benighted penal institutions.

She dared not warn this poor little novice that her commitment to The Good Shepherd was equivalent to a sentence of nine years at hard labor; that good conduct and industry would not earn a day from that term, but that bad conduct, neglect, or inability to perform allotted tasks would result not only in severe punishments but an extension of imprisonment indefinitely, at the pleasure of those who reaped the financial reward from the product of the sweat of the orphans.

She dared not notify this frail waif that these tasks of the needle were measured by the ability of the most expert, and that the majority of girls were obliged to work overtime in order to accomplish them; that to many this was an impossibility, and to some death.

She dared not add to her recital of the money that might be earned and saved up against the day of liberty that comparatively few were able to perform the extra work necessary; that fines and charges of all kinds were resorted to in order to reduce such earnings to minimum; and that at the close of her nine years of hard labor for Le Bon Pasteur the most she could expect was to be thrust into the street in the clothes she wore, without a cent, without a friend, without a shelter.

She dared not more than hint at the terrible alternatives placed before these young women from their long isolation from the world—to remain here prisoners for life, or to cast themselves into the seething hell of Paris.

More than all, she dared not add that all of this was done in a so-called republic, in the name of Civilization, to the glory of modern Religion, in love of the Redeemer.

Fouchette would learn all of this quite soon enough through her own observation and experience. Why needlessly embitter her present?

And this was well. Besides, the religieuse was ashamed to admit these things, as she would have been afraid to deny them, being divided between the vows of her order and her own private conscience.

Sister Agnes was a plain, honest woman of little sentiment, but this little had been curiously awakened in her breast by the coincidence of the time and place which had recalled minutely the circumstances of her own entrance to the institution.

She had unconsciously adopted Fouchette from that moment. She mentally resolved that she would keep an eye on this child. If it could be so managed, Fouchette should come into her section. And, since the child was ignorant and ambitious, she should receive whatever advantages of instruction were to be had.

Quick to respond to this sympathy, Fouchette, on her part, mentally resolved to deserve it. She would be good and obedient, so that the sweet lady would love her and continue to kiss her. How could girls be wicked if all the women of the community of Le Bon Pasteur were like Sister Agnes?

And it would have been quite unnatural and unchildlike, owing to the marked improvement in her condition, if Fouchette had not gone to sleep forgetting her earlier disappointment.

Five years in such a place are as one year—the same monotonous daily grind in oblivion of the great world outside—and need not be dwelt upon here beyond a brief reference to its results upon Fouchette's character, when we must hurry the reader on to more eventful scenes.

In this life of seclusion there were three saving features in Fouchette's case. First, its worst conditions were very much better than those under which she had formerly lived; second, she had been torn from no family or friendly ties which might have weighed upon her fancy; third, but not least, there was the love of Sister Agnes.

The petite chiffonnière's ideas of life had been cast in a lowly and humble mould, so that from the beginning these new surroundings seemed highly satisfactory, if not in many respects absolutely joyous. For instance, the beds were prison beds, but they were clean and the dormitories fairly well ventilated—luxury to one who was accustomed to sleep in a noisome cellar on filthy and envermined straw. The food was coarse and frugal, but it was regular and almost prodigal to one habituated to disputing her breakfast with vagrant dogs. The clothes were coarse and cheap and often shabby, but to the child of rags they were equivalent to royal gowns. The discipline was severe, but it was unadulterated kindness by the side of the brutality of the Podvin.

The society of respectable young girls of her own age, and constant contact with those who were older and of superior birth and breeding, opened up a new world to Fouchette. That these companions were more or less partakers of similar misfortunes engendered ready sympathies, though the feeling of caste was as powerful among these orphans of the State as in the Boulevard St. Germain. Tacitly acknowledging the lowly origin of the rag-heap, Fouchette was content to fag, to go and come, fetch and carry, and to patiently endure the multitude of petty tyrannies put upon her. She accepted this position from the start as a matter of course.

But it was chiefly in the daily intercourse with the cheerful, ruddy-faced, and rather worldly as well as womanly Sister Agnes that Fouchette found life worth living. It was Sister Agnes who patiently instructed her in the mysteries of reading and writing and spelling and the simple rudiments of language and figures. Sister Agnes smoothed her young protégée's pathway through a sea of new difficulties. Sister Agnes had secret struggles of her own, and had worn away considerable stone before the image of the Virgin in the course of her seclusion; though precisely what the nature of her private troubles was must have been known to nobody else. Sister Agnes was not a favorite with the Supérieure, apparently, since every time she was called before that dreaded female functionary she seemed much agitated and held longer conferences with the image of the Virgin in the little bare chapel. Whatever her mental and moral disturbances, however, Sister Agnes never faltered in her attention to Fouchette.

For the most part these were surreptitious, though to the recipient there did not appear to be any reason for this concealment. As one year followed another Fouchette saw more clearly, and it caused her to redouble her exertions to please the good woman who risked the ill will of her superiors to shower kindnesses upon the otherwise friendless.

Five years to a girl of twelve brings considerable change physically as well as otherwise. The change in Fouchette was really wonderful. She remained still rather stunted and undersized at seventeen, though face and figure had developed to her advantage. The hardness of the first had not wholly disappeared, but it was much modified, while the bones no longer showed through her dress. Her blonde hair had become abundant, and, being of peculiar fineness and sheen, lent an attractiveness to features that only a slightly tigerish fulness of cheeks prevented from being almost classical. This feline expression of jaws became more marked when she smiled, when a rather large mouth displayed two rows of formidable teeth. The pussy-cat and monkey-faces are too common among the French to be called peculiar.

Her hands and feet were small, her frail body and limbs straight and supple as those of a young dancer. While she excelled at lively games in the great playground under the trees, her complexion was extremely delicate, even to paleness. Being naturally a clever imitator and always desirous of the good opinion of Sister Agnes, Fouchette had acquired graceful and lady-like manners that would have been creditable to any fashionable pension of Paris. Continuous happiness had left her light-hearted even to shallowness.

Fouchette latterly was not popular. She had been first a fag and drudge, then had been withdrawn from the work-room to serve in the kitchen; from scullery-maid she had been promoted to the chambers of Sister Angélique, who was the stern right arm of the Supérieure; and, finally, was transferred to the holy of holies of the Supérieure herself.

All through her tractability and adaptability. She was quick to see what was wanted, and lent herself energetically to the task of performance. The good sisters encouraged her. Especially in bringing to them any stray ideas she had picked up among her companions. Sister Angélique, severe to fanaticism in all the forms of religion, early impressed upon the child the importance and imperative duty of the truth. It was not only a service to the community, but a service to the Church and to God for her to keep her superiors posted as to what was going on among the inmates of the institution.

It was a very trivial thing at first, then more trivial things—mere gossip of children. Then her information resulted in the cell and paddle for the unfortunate and began to be talked about on the playground and in the work-room. When she heard what had happened, Fouchette was conscience-stricken and ran to Sister Agnes for consolation. The latter was so confused and contradictory in her definition of right and wrong, as to how far one might go for Christ's sake, that Fouchette was left in doubt. And when Sister Angélique asked her for the name of the girl who committed an offence in the dormitory, Fouchette hesitated and wanted to consult Sister Agnes.

The result was that Sister Agnes was called before the Supérieure, and was compelled to instruct Fouchette that whatever was required of her by those in authority was right and should be done. It is a doctrine as universal as the Christian religion.

So Fouchette told, and the tale brought to the offender five days' diet of bread and water in a cell.

As a tale-bearer who was not afraid to tell the truth Fouchette had in the course of time ingratiated herself into the favor of Sister Angélique, and finally, as has been shown by her transfer to the governing regions, became the factotum of the Supérieure. These services carried privileges.