“Where did you join her?”
“In Australia.”
“In Australia? You lived there?”
“No, monsieur, I did not live there.”
A thought came to my mind—the nearness of New Caledonia to Australia, and New Caledonia was a French colony—a French penal colony! I smiled as I said the word penal to myself. Of course the word could have no connection with a girl like her, but still she might have lived in the colony. So I added quietly: “You perhaps had come from New Caledonia?”
Her look was candid, if sorrowful. “Yes, from New Caledonia.”
Was she, thought I, the good wife of some convict—some political prisoner?—the relative of some refugee of misfortune? Whatever she was, I was sure that she was free from any fault. She evidently thought that I might suspect something uncomplimentary of her, for she said: “My brother was an officer at Noumea. He is dead. I am going to France, when I can.”
I tried to speak gently to her. I saw that her present position must be a trial. I advised her to take more rest, or she would break down altogether, for she was weak and nervous; I hinted that she might have to give up entirely, if she continued to tax herself heedlessly; and, finally, that I would speak to Mrs. Falchion about her. I was scarcely prepared for her action then. Tears came to her eyes, and she said to me, her hand involuntarily clasping my arm: “Oh no, no! I ask you not to speak to madame. I will sleep—I will rest. Indeed, I will. This service is so much to me. She is most generous. It is because I am so altogether hers, night and day, that she pays me well. And the money is so much. It is my honour—my dead brother’s honour. You are kind at heart; you will make me strong with medicine, and I will ask God to bless you. I could not suffer such poverty again. And then, it is my honour!”
I felt that she would not have given way thus had not her nerves been shaken, had she not lived so much alone, and irregularly, so far as her own rest and comfort were concerned, and at such perpetual cost to her energy. Mrs. Falchion, I knew, was selfish, and would not, or could not, see that she was hard upon the girl, by such exactions as midnight reading and loss of sleep. She demanded not merely physical but mental energy—a complete submission of both; and when this occurred with a sensitive, high-strung girl, she was literally feeding on another’s life-blood. If she had been told this, she, no doubt, would have been very much surprised.
I reassured Justine. I told her that I should say nothing directly to Mrs. Falchion, for I saw she was afraid of unpleasantness; but I impressed upon her that she must spare herself, or she would break down, and extorted a promise that she would object to sitting up after midnight to read to Mrs. Falchion.