Mademoiselle Blanche: A Novel

by John D. Barry

"We shall have Madeleine. She will help me to take care of Jeanne. I couldn't go without her," she repeated, with tears in her voice.

"There, there!" said Madame Berthier, becoming alarmed. "Have your own way. Perhaps it's better that you should keep the child with you."

Blanche read annoyance in her husband's face, but she said nothing. A few moments later, Madame Berthier left the room and Jules followed. She knew they had gone to discuss the little scene that had just taken place. But she resolved that she would not give up the child! Rather than do that she would stay in Boulogne.

The fear of being separated from Jeanne, made her decide not to refer in any way to her terror of the plunge. That might strengthen Jules' belief that the presence of the child disturbed her, and he might insist on a separation. Besides, she tried to convince herself that as she grew stronger her nervousness would disappear. It must of course be due solely to her weak condition. Once restored to health, the plunge would be, as it always had been, merely part of her daily routine.

But in spite of her rapidly increasing strength, Blanche found that after three weeks she was still depressed by the thought of her season in London. Jules complained that she was devoting herself too much to Jeanne; she must drive out more, and walk with the girls, and give more time to her exercises. Her mother, too, grew severe with her. "One would think there never was another child in the world," she said, and then Blanche suspected that Jules had been complaining of her. "The little one is a dear, and I love her," Madame Berthier continued, "but you have your work to do, and you must think of that too. No wonder Jules is growing impatient."

Jules had already received the contract for the engagement at the Hippodrome, and on signing it at his request, Blanche had had a horrible fancy that she was putting her signature to a warrant for her own doom. Once she thought of confiding her fear to her mother, but her mother would be sure to repeat what she said to Jules. At any cost, she felt she must hide it from him. Then she determined to tell Father Dumény, but when the moment came she had not courage to put her feeling into words, and she was ashamed of it as a superstition. So she decided that she would keep the miserable secret to herself, finding no relief save in gusts of weeping when she was alone with the child.

Once Jules found her with traces of tears in her eyes. "What's the matter?" he asked gently, taking her hand.

She turned her head away. "I don't feel well," she said.

He looked at her closely. "You'll be well when you get back to your work. That's what the matter is. You aren't used to being idle. The best thing for us to do is to leave here the day after Christmas. That will give you nearly a week for practice in London, and we'll have time to look about for rooms there. Since we are going to have Jeanne with us, we'll want to take an apartment in some quiet street."

When he went away she sat for a long time without speaking. In a week they would be far away from this place, among strangers. She wondered why she had not suffered so on leaving home before. Until now she had regarded the circus as part of her life; she had not hoped for any other kind of life. How strange it was that Jules should love it so! Sometimes it seemed——But it was right that she should go on with her work, for she must earn money for the little Jeanne now. Perhaps in a few years she would make a fortune, and then Jules could not object to her leaving the circus. But before a few years passed she would be obliged to go through her performance more than a thousand times. At this thought her heart seemed to stop beating, and then it thumped against her side.