After a while he ran my errands and helped Louise to market. I found that he spoke and wrote very good English, and was a man of some education. I have preserved his daily accounts, written in an unusually neat handwriting, always beginning "Mussy: 1 penny"; and this reminds me that not least in his favour was his success in ingratiating himself with William Penn,—or "Mussy" in Louise's one heroic attempt to cope with the English. M. Auguste, moreover, was quiet and reserved to a degree that would not have discredited the traditional Englishman. Only now and then did the Midi show itself in him: in the gleam of his eye over his gastronomic masterpieces; in his pose as horse-dealer and the scale on which the business he never did was schemed,—Mademoiselle, the French dressmaker from Versailles, who counted in tens and thought herself rich, was dazzled by the way M. Auguste reckoned by thousands; and once, luckily only once, in a frenzied outbreak of passion.
He was called to Paris, I never understood why. When the day came, he was seized with such despair as I had never seen before, as I trust I may never have to see again. He could not leave Louise, he would not. No! No! No! He raved, he swore, he wept. I was terrified, but Louise, when I called her aside to consult her, shrugged her shoulders. "We play the comedy in the kitchen," she laughed, but I noticed that her laughter was low. I fancy when you played the comedy with M. Auguste, tragedy was only just round the corner. With the help of Mademoiselle she got him to the station; he had wanted to throw himself from the train as it started, was her report. And in three days, not a penny the richer for the journey, he had returned to his life of ease in our chambers.
Thus we came to know M. Auguste's virtues and something of his temper, but never M. Auguste himself. The months passed, and we were still conscious of mystery. I did not inspire him with the healthy fear he entertained for J., but I cannot say he ever took me into his confidence. What he was when not in our chambers; what he had been before he moved into them; what turn of fate had stranded him, penniless, in London with Louise, to make us the richer for his coming; why he, a man of education, was married to a woman of none; why he was M. Auguste while Louise was Louise Sorel—I knew as little the day he left us as the day he arrived. J. instinctively distrusted him, convinced that he had committed some monstrous crime and was in hiding. This was also the opinion of the French Quarter, as I learned afterwards. It seems the Quartier held its breath when it heard he was our guest, and waited for the worst, only uncertain what form that worst would take,—whether we should be assassinated in our beds, or a bonfire made of our chambers. M. Auguste, however, spared us and disappointed the Quartier. His crime, to the end, remained as baffling as the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask, or the secret of Kaspar Hauser.
That he was honest, I would wager my own reputation for honesty, even if it was curious the way his fingers gradually covered themselves with rings, a watch-chain dangled from his waistcoat pocket, a pin was stuck jauntily in his necktie. Her last purchases at the Mont de Piété, pawned during those first weeks of starving in London and gradually redeemed, was Louise's explanation; and why should we have suspected M. Auguste of coming by them unlawfully when he never attempted to rob us, though we gave him every opportunity? He knew where I kept my money and my keys. He was alone with Louise in our chambers, not only many a day and evening, but once for a long summer.
We had to cycle down into Italy and William Penn could not be left to care for himself, nor could we board him out without risking the individuality of a cat who had never seen the world except from the top of a four-story house. Louise and M. Auguste, therefore, were retained to look after him, which, I should add, they did in a manner as satisfactory to William as to ourselves. Every week I received a report of his health and appetite from M. Auguste, in whom I discovered a new and delightful talent as correspondent. "Depuis votre départ," said the first, "cette pauvre bête a miaulé après vous tous les jours, et il est constamment à la porte pour voir si vous ne venez pas. Il ne commence vraiment à en prendre son parti que depuis hier. Mais tous ces soucis de chat [for that charming phrase what would one not have forgiven M. Auguste?], mais tous ces soucis de chat ne l'empêchent pas de bien boire son lait le matin et manger sa viande deux fois par jour." Nor was it all colour of rose to be in charge of William. "Figurez-vous," the next report ran, "que Mussy a dévoré et abîmé complêtement une paire de bas tout neufs que Louise s'est achetée hier. C'est un vrai petit diable, mais il est si gentil qu'on ne peut vraiment pas le gronder pour cela." It was consoling to hear eventually that William had returned to normal pursuits. "Mussy est bien sage, il a attrapé une souris hier dans la cuisine—je crois bien que Madame ne trouvera jamais un aussi gentil Mussy." And so the journal of William's movements was continued throughout our absence. When, leaving J. in Italy, I returned to London,—met at midnight at the station by M. Auguste with flattering enthusiasm,—Mussy's condition and behaviour corroborated the weekly bulletins. And not only this. Our chambers were as clean as the proverbial new pin: everything was in its place; not so much as a scrap of paper was missing. The only thing that had disappeared was the sprinkling of gray in Louise's hair, and for this M. Auguste volubly prepared me during our walk from the station; she had dyed it with almost unforeseen success, he told me, so triumphantly that I put down the bottle of dye to his extravagance.
If I know M. Auguste was not a thief, I do not think he was a murderer. How could I see blood on the hands of the man who presided so joyously over my pots and pans? If he were a forger, my trust in him never led to abuse of my cheque book; if a deserter, how came he to be possessed of his livret militaire duly signed, as my own eyes are the witness? how could he venture back to France, as I know he did for I received from him letters with the Paris postmark? An anarchist, J. was inclined to believe. But I could not imagine him dabbling in bombs and fuses. To be a horse-dealer, without horses or money, was much more in his line.
Only of one thing were we sure: however hideous or horrible the evil, M. Auguste had worked "down there," under the hot sun of Provence, Louise had no part in it. She knew—it was the reason of her curious reticences, of her sacrifice of herself to him. That he loved her was inevitable. Who could help loving her? She was so intelligent, so graceful, so gay. But that she should love M. Auguste would have been incomprehensible, were it not in the nature of woman to love the man who is most selfish in his dependence upon her. She did all the work, and he had all the pleasure of it. He was always decently dressed, there was always money in his pocket, though she, who earned it, never had a penny to spend on herself. No matter how busy and hurried she might be, she had always the leisure to talk to him, to amuse him when he came in, always the courage to laugh, like the little Fleurance in the story. What would you? She was made like that. She had always laughed, when she was sad as when she was gay. And while she was making life delightful for him, she was doing for us what three Englishwomen combined could not have done so well, and with a charm that all the Englishwomen in the world could not have mustered among them.
She had been with us about a year when I began to notice that, at moments, her face was clouded and her smile less ready. At first, I put it down to her endless comedy with M. Auguste. But, after a bit, it looked as if the trouble were more serious even than his histrionics. It was nothing, she laughed when I spoke to her; it would pass. And she went on amusing and providing for M. Auguste and working for us. But by the time the dark days of November set in, we were more worried about her than ever. The crisis came with Christmas.
On Christmas Day, friends were to dine with us, and we invited Mademoiselle, the French dressmaker, to eat her Christmas dinner with Louise and M. Auguste. We were very staid in the dining-room,—it turned out rather a dull affair. But in the kitchen it was an uproarious feast. Though she lived some distance away, though on Christmas night London omnibuses are few and far between, Mademoiselle could hardly be persuaded to go home, so much was she enjoying herself. Louise was all laughter. "You have been amused?" I asked, when Mademoiselle, finally and reluctantly, had been bundled off by J. in a hansom.
"Mais oui, mais oui," M. Auguste cried, pleasure in his voice. "Cette pauvre Mademoiselle! Her life, it is so sad, she is so alone. It is good for her to be amused. We have told her many stories,—et des histoires un tout petit peu salées, n'est-ce pas? pour égayer cette pauvre Mademoiselle?"