"Papa was rather unkind," said Audrey, nervously, but relieved by this explanation.
Madame again laughed shortly. "Unkind--rather unkind!" she repeated. "Why, he treated her like a brute. She told me all about it. Fancy the poor soul coming to me to be made young again, in the hope that she could regain Joseph's affections. I told her that she was a fool; but she would waste her money. And perhaps she wanted to help me also," added Madame Coralie, in a softer tone. "Dora was always fond of me."
"She knew that you kept this shop?"
"Yes. In fact, she helped me to set up the shop some years ago. I made her promise that she would never tell Joseph of my existence, and she kept her word. Yet Joseph remembered me. Strange."
"Papa said that you had the brains."
Madame Coralie looked round the room disdainfully. "And to what have my brains brought me? I am simply a renovator of faded women, and had to borrow money from Dora to set up the establishment. Flora Arkwright is lost in Madame Coralie."
"Mrs. Edward Vail, you mean," said Audrey, quietly.
"Oh!"--the woman shrugged her heavy shoulders--"I married Eddy so as to have a companion. He's a handsome fool, and goes about making love to younger women, while he lives on my money. However, he is always good-tempered, and suits me well enough. But in Bleakleigh I believed that my destiny would have been a better one. Dreams, my dear dreams."
"You were born at Bleakleigh?"
Madame Coralie nodded and folded her stout arms. Then, rocking to and fro, she related her story and the story of her sister. It was strange to Audrey, this history of her mother's early life. Lady Branwin had always been too much afraid of her husband to tell about her early struggles.