Volume II Part 92 (1/2)
”What do you say, madame?” cried La Goualeuse, rising.
”Your friends have not forgotten you; they have obtained your liberty.
The director has just received the notice.”
”Can it be possible, madame! Oh! what happiness!” The emotion of Fleur-de-Marie was so violent, that she turned pale, put her hand to her heart, which beat violently, and fell back on her seat.
”Calm yourself, my child,” said Madame Armand, kindly: ”happily, such shocks are without danger.”
”Ah, madame, how grateful I ought to be!”
”It is, doubtless, Madame d'Harville who has obtained your liberty.
There is an old lady here who is charged to conduct you to your friends. Wait for me; I will return for you; I have a few words to say in the workroom.” It would be difficult to describe the expression of deep grief which spread over the features of Mont Saint Jean on learning that her good angel was to leave Saint Lazare.
The grief of this woman was caused less by the fear of a renewal of her torments, than by the sorrow at parting from the sole being who had ever evinced any interest for her. Still seated at the foot of the bench, she took bold of the two tufts of tangled hair which escaped from under her old black cap, as if to tear them out; then, this violent affliction giving way to dejection, she let her head fall, and remained dumb and immovable, with her face buried in her hands.
Notwithstanding her joy at leaving the prison, Fleur-de-Marie could not prevent a shudder at the remembrance of La Chouette and the Maitre d'Ecole; recollecting that these two monsters had made her swear not to inform her benefactors of her sad fate.
But these sad thoughts were soon dispelled at the hope of seeing Bouqueval, Madame George, and Rudolph again; to the latter she wished to recommend La Louve and Martial; it even seemed to her that the sentiment which she reproached herself for having felt towards her benefactor, being no longer nourished by sorrow and by solitude, would be calmed and modified as soon as she should resume the rustic occupations which she loved so much to partake with the good and honest inhabitants of the farm.
Astonished at the silence of her companion, of which she did not suspect the cause, she touched her slightly on the shoulder, and said,
”Mont Saint Jean, since I am now free, can I be of any service to you?”
On feeling the hand of La Goualeuse, the prisoner shuddered, let her arms fall, and turned toward the young girl, her face streaming with tears.
”Listen to me, Mont Saint Jean,” said Fleur-de Marie, touched at the affection of this poor creature. ”I can promise you nothing for yourself, although I know some very charitable people; but for your child it is different; it is innocent of every evil; he, and the persons of whom I speak, would, perhaps, take the charge of it when you can part with it.”
”Part from it--never, oh, never!” cried Mont Saint Jean, with warmth.
”What would become of me then, now that I have counted on him?”
”But how will you support it? son or daughter, it must be honest, and for that----”
”It must eat honest bread, is it not so, La Goualeuse? I think so; it is my ambition. I say it to myself every day, thus: on leaving here I shall not let the gra.s.s grow under my feet. I will become a rag-picker, a crossing-sweeper, but I'll be correct; one owes that, if not to one's self, at least to one's children, when one has the honor of having any,” said she with a kind of pride. ”And who will take care of your child while you work?” answered La Goualeuse; ”would it not be better, if that is possible, as I hope it is, to place it in the country with some good people, who would make it a good farmer's girl or a plowboy? You can come from time to time to see it, and some day, perhaps, you would find the means to remain altogether--in the country it costs so little to live.”
”But to part with it, to part with it! All my joy is in it. I, who have no one to love me!” ”You must think more for it than for yourself, my poor Mont Saint Jean; in two or three days I will write to Madame Armand, and if the demand I mean to make in favor of your child succeeds, you will never have occasion to say again, what you said just now, 'Alas! what will become of it?'”
The inspectress, Madame Armand, interrupted this conversation; she came to seek Fleur-de-Marie.
After having again burst into sobs, and bathed with tears of despair the hands of the girl, Mont Saint Jean fell back on the bench quite overcome with sorrow, not even thinking of the promise just made to her by Fleur-de-Marie.
”Poor creature!” said Madame Armand, leaving the yard, followed by La Goualeuse; ”poor creature, her grat.i.tude toward you gives me a better opinion of her.”
On learning that Fleur-de-Marie was pardoned, the other prisoners, instead of being jealous, expressed their joy; some of them surrounded her, and bade her farewell in a cordial manner, congratulating her frankly on her quick deliverance from prison.
”All the same,” said one of them, ”she has made us do some good; it was when we collected for Mont Saint Jean. This will be remembered in Saint Lazare.”
When Fleur-de-Marie had left the prison buildings under the conduct of the inspectress, the latter said to her, ”Now, my child, go to the wardrobe, where you will leave your prison garments, and resume the peasant's costume, which, from its rustic simplicity, becomes you so well; adieu. You go to be happy, for you go under the protection of worthy people, and you leave this house never to return. But--hold--I am not unreasonable,” said Madame Armand, whose eyes were bathed in tears, ”it is impossible for me to conceal from you how much I am already attached to you, poor child!” Then, seeing Fleur-de-Marie much affected, she added, ”You do not wish me thus to sadden your departure?”