Charley looked at it musingly, then said “Yes, if you give me a room here.”
“I meant board and lodging too,” said Louis Trudel with an outburst of eager generosity, for, as it was, he had offered about one-half of what Charley was worth to him.
Charley nodded. “Very well, that will do,” he said, and took off his coat and went to work. For a long time they worked silently. The tailor was in great good-humour; for the terrible trial was over, and he now had an assistant who would be a better tailor than himself. There would be more profit, more silver nails for the church door, and more masses for his soul.
“The Cure says you are all right.... When will you come here?” he said at last.
“To-morrow night I shall sleep here,” answered Charley.
So it was arranged that Charley should come to live in the tailor’s house, to sleep in the room which the tailor had provided for a wife twenty-five years before—even for her that was now known as Madame Dauphin.
All morning the tailor chuckled to himself. When they sat down at noon to a piece of venison which Charley had prepared himself—taking the frying-pan out of the hands of Margot Patry, the old servant, and cooking it to a turn—Louis Trudel saw his years lengthen to an indefinite period. He even allowed himself to nervously stand up, bow, shake Charley’s hand jerkingly, and say:
“M’sieu’, I care not what you are or where you come from, or even if you’re a Protestant, perhaps an Englishman. You’re a gentleman and a tailor, and old Louis Trudel will not forget you. It shall be as you said this morning—it is no day for work. We will play, and the clothes for the Manor can go to the devil. Smoke of hell-fire, I will go and have a pipe with that, poor wretch the Notary!”
So, a wonderful thing happened. Louis Trudel, on a week-day and a market-day, went to smoke a pipe with Narcisse Dauphin, and to tell him that M. Mallard was going to stay with him for ever, at fine wages. He also announced that he had paid this whole week’s wages in advance; but he did not tell what he did not know—that half the money had already been given to old Margot, whose son lay ill at home with a broken leg, and whose children were living on bread and water. Charley had slowly drawn from the woman the story of her life as he sat by the kitchen fire and talked to her, while her master was talking to the Notary.