The golden September wore on, and brown October came, and on a glorious morning, early in the month, Monsieur Mazet appeared, by appointment, to take Bess Lukens to Paris. Her few belongings were packed up; Madame Michot had paid her liberally for her two months’ work, and in good, hard, round, solid gold-pieces. The good woman still disapproved of so excellent a cook and laundress trying the uncertain future of an artist, but her experience with Bess for two months had convinced her that there was no danger in Paris or anywhere else for that robust young woman. Jacques, an honest fellow, who would have been in love with Bess had he not been so mortally afraid of her, presented her with a handsome set of ribbons; and Roger Egremont, taking her off privately, gave her two gold louis d’or.
“’Tis all I have to give thee, Bess, except my love and respect, but I give it with a good will.”
“Thank you, Roger,” replied Bess, returning once more to their old familiar way of speaking. “You have given me that which is worth more to me than money. But for you, I should have been still in England, with the words ‘gaoler’s girl’ hanging to me like the ball and chain they put to a felon. But thanks to you, I am beginning a new life in a new country, with all that ugly past behind me; no one but you knows what that past is—but you and Mr. Dicky, and he, good soul, will never tell it any more than you will.”
It did not need Bess’s inadvertent admission for Roger to know that he had been the cause of her coming to France.
Madame Michot was then heard calling excitedly from the orchard, and Bess and Roger appeared. There was a gate at the bottom of the orchard, opening into a lane which led to the highroad, and by that way Bess was to start. She had looked for a saddle with a pillion to take Papa Mazet and herself to Paris, but oh, glory!—there, at the open gate, stood a coach, a great lumbering house of a thing, with a pair of post-horses to it, and a tall, rawboned saddle-horse besides. And there was not only Papa Mazet and Madame Michot and Jacques, but several of the inn servants and five small boys to see Bess get into the imposing equipage provided for her.
Papa Mazet advanced as Bess followed by Roger came running down the orchard.
“This is for you, mademoiselle,” said Papa Mazet. “I go a-horseback to Paris, but I would not have it said that one with so lovely a voice as yours should enter Paris except in a coach.”
Bess was nearly wild with delight.
“A coach!” she cried. “Me going to Paris in a coach! Bess Lukens a-riding in a coach! I never was in one before” (Poor Bess, in her excitement, said “afore,” but quickly corrected herself); and her eyes shone like stars and she almost wept with joy.
“Come, Bess,” cried Roger, happy in the good soul’s happiness, “let me assist you into the coach, so that you may say with truth that you knew how to get in and out of a coach before ever you saw Paris.”