Читать книгу High Towers - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 21

Table of Contents

The chatelaine of Longueuil was one of those fortunate women who always seem cool and unflustered. As though in defiance of the heat, she was wearing on her shoulders a shawl of lavender damask with an edging of grebe skin, and her cheeks were fresh and there was not a hair out of place on her head. When her husband joined her in the lower hall, however, she was confronting the housekeeper of the château with a look compounded of vexation and dismay.

“Haven’t I told you before, madame,” Tante Seulette was saying, her mouth drawn down at the corners in unrelenting disapproval, “that it’s impossible? There’s a set order of work the servants must follow. They sweep, they dust, they wash. Can they be set to washing when they should be sweeping? Can the sun, madame, rise in the west instead of the east? Madame, what you ask is quite out of the question. I’ve told you the same thing many times.”

“You have indeed.” There was almost a despairing note in the voice of the mistress. “Someday, perhaps, I’ll make a request which you will deign to grant. I was hoping this was the time. Truly, Tante Seulette, it’s important that our clothes be ready to take back to Montreal. We leave in a very few days for Quebec——”

The housekeeper was a tall dragoon of a woman. She had been a King’s girl and had been placed on inspection in the third of the three chambers in Quebec; but although the men who went to the third chamber were so much in need of wives that they were not likely to balk at lack of pulchritude, none had wanted her. The only one of all the King’s girls to fail of selection, she had been nicknamed Mademoiselle Seulette (All Alone), which had been changed in time to Tante Seulette. No one at Longueuil could have told her real name.

“Madame,” said Tante Seulette, drawing herself up to her full angular height, “it is impossible.”

At this point an interruption was provided by a lively cricket of a boy who was perhaps two and a half years old. He appeared suddenly in the doorway and danced about like a little imp of Satan, crying at the housekeeper in a piping voice, “Sans Mari! Sans Mari!”

This reference to her husbandless condition sent Tante Seulette after him in a trice, shaking her apron at him and crying: “You, Bertrand! You little pest, you rascal, you very bad boy! I’ll tell the seigneur about you.”

A feminine voice from the far end of the hall called “Bertrand!” and the boy vanished in that direction after a pause to twiddle his fingers. Tante Seulette returned, her face blotched an angry red.

“She puts him up to it!” she exclaimed. “I know she does! She teaches him what to say to me.”

Madame le Moyne, who had been finding it hard not to laugh, asked, “Who do you mean?”

“His mother. That Madame Malard, the miller’s wife. A lot she has to be proud of when all she could catch was that sniffling old Malard! She married him for his property but, madame, you know the old saying, ‘There are no pockets in a nightgown.’ ”

The seigneur, coming down the winding stone stairs, had seen what was going on. “I’ll speak to that boy’s father, Tante Seulette,” he promised. “There seems to be nothing but trouble about children. I’ve spent the better part of a day trying to find a home for”—he turned toward his wife and added in a low tone—“the child of young Madame Halay. I’ve spoken to every couple in Longueuil and had the same answer each time. No one wants her.”

His wife looked surprised and indignant as well. “But why not? Is it too much to ask when you do so much for them?”

The seigneur seemed reluctant to give the reason. “There were rumors about the mother. I’m convinced there was no truth to any of it but—the stories did get around. No one wants the child on that account.”

“Perhaps there was some truth in the rumors.”

“No. I had the best of authority for believing her innocent, as you know, sweet wife. But the strength of my conviction doesn’t make it possible to find anyone willing to take the child.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll find foster parents for her in Montreal. There’s no great haste in the matter surely.”

“Ah, but there is! I want the mother to leave at once. She’s anxious to get back to France but naturally she won’t leave until the child’s future has been assured.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Don’t you see? I don’t want this woman staying in Montreal while Jean-Baptiste is about.”

“Her permit is arranged?”

“Yes. I’ve seen to that. All that remains is to settle something about the child.”

While husband and wife talked Tante Seulette’s eyes went back and forth from one face to the other. She knew what they were discussing and she seemed to be taking a deep and even excited interest.

“M’sieur Charles,” she said finally.

“Yes, Tante Seulette?”

“This child. Is she healthy?”

“Quite healthy. A normal child in every way.”

“Is she—is she a pretty child?”

“Strangely enough she isn’t pretty at all. She doesn’t seem to take after her mother.”

The answer seemed to provide the housekeeper with a great deal of satisfaction. She nodded her head several times and even smiled, a rare manifestation of feeling on her part. “M’sieur Charles,” she asked in a tone of surprising humility, “would you consider letting me take her?”

“You?” The seigneur was caught off guard. He glanced uncertainly at his wife but received no help there, for Madame le Moyne had been equally surprised.

“Yes, M’sieur Charles. I would be happy to take her. It would be—an interest for me. I’m sure I could look after her without neglecting my work.”

“I’m quite sure of that,” declared Charles le Moyne. “But I confess to some doubts as to the wisdom of it.”

“I know what’s in your mind. You think me too hard. It’s true I keep after these lazy lumps and see to it they do their work or feel the weight of my hand. We’d get nothing done here if I didn’t. But, M’sieur Charles, it would be different with the child. She would be safe from—from my fits of temper. I promise it, I swear it.” She looked at the master of the house with a hint of appeal in her face. “No one else wants her. And she isn’t attractive. I feel drawn to her, M’sieur Charles. I’ll raise her well. I’ll see to it that she grows up to be obedient and sensible and devout. She won’t become one of these flutterheads, these silly coquettes, who think there’s nothing in life but to win the admiration of men. Ah, no, she won’t become that kind at all!”

The seigneur looked questioningly at his wife. “Why not?” he asked. “It is, after all, a solution.”

Madame le Moyne hesitated. “I hoped a home could be found for her elsewhere. Still, as you say, it is a solution.” She was thinking that having a child to care for might result in making the housekeeper herself more human. All other methods had failed. Tante Seulette was an inheritance from Old M’sieur Charles and her husband firmly refused to get rid of her. “If you want to arrange it this way, Charles, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be done.”

“Very well then. Tante Seulette, the child is yours.” The seigneur spoke in a relieved tone of voice. “I’ll have her sent across the river as soon as I return to Montreal.”

The housekeeper did not smile but it was quite evident that she was well pleased. She began to make audible plans. “That bench bed we moved out to the carpentry shop when things were so crowded can be brought back to my room. I looked at it the other day and it’s in good shape still. A scrubbing with soap and water is all it needs. As for clothes, madame, there are plenty of castoffs in that old press at the foot of the east stairs left by Ma’amselle Catherine when she was married. I’ll cut them up and make them over for her if you will say the word.”

“Of course, Tante Seulette, do whatever you believe necessary. But I don’t like to think of the poor child having nothing but made-over clothes. I’ll send you some new materials from Montreal.”

“It won’t be necessary, madame,” said the housekeeper firmly. Her tone of voice left the impression that she wanted no help in the care of the child and no interference.