“Well, then, I warn you that it’s of no use your trying to deceive me. I shall go into every room of this house till I find Madame Brown—and if you attempt to stop me, I’ll bring the police up here. Tell her that in French, Johnny.”
“I hear,” said Mathilde, who had a very deliberate way of speaking. “I comprehend. The Messieurs go into the rooms if they like, but I go with, to see they not carry off any of the articles. This is the salon.”
Waiting for no further permission, he was out of the salon like a shot. Mr. Brandon stayed nodding against the wall; he had not the slightest reverence for the Squire’s diplomacy at any time. The girl slipped off her sabots and put her feet into some green worsted slippers that stood in the narrow passage. My belief was she thought we wanted to look over the house with a view to taking it.
“It was small, but great enough for a salle à manger,” she said, showing the room behind—a little place that had literally nothing in it but an oval dining-table, some matting, and six common chairs against the walls. Upstairs were four bedrooms, bare also. As to the fear of our carrying off any of the articles, we might have found a difficulty in doing so. Except beds, chairs, drawers, and wash-hand-stands, there was nothing to carry. Mrs. Brown and the Miss Browns were not there: and the rooms were in as much order as if they had not been occupied for a month. Mathilde had been at them all the morning. The Squire’s face was a picture when he went down: he began to realize the fact that he was once more left in the lurch.
“It is much health up here, and the house fine,” said the girl, leaving her shoes in the passage side by side with the sabots, and walking into the salon in her stockings, without ceremony; “and if the Messieurs thought to let it, and would desire to have a good servant with it, I would be happy to serve them, me. I sleep in the house, or at home, as my patrons please; and I very good to make the kitchen; and I——”
“So you have not found them,” interrupted old Brandon, sarcastically.
The Squire gave a groan. He was put out, and no mistake. Mathilde, in answer to questions, readily told all she knew.
About six weeks ago, she thought it was—but no, it must be seven, now she remembered—Madame Brown and the four Mees Browns took this house of the propriétaire, one Monsieur Bourgeois, marchand d’épicerie, and engaged her as servant, recommended to Madame by M. Bourgeois. Madame and the young ladies had lived very quietly, giving but little trouble; entrusted her to do all the commissions at the butcher’s and elsewhere, and never questioned her fidelity in the matter of the sous received in change at market. The previous day when she got home with some pork and sausages, which she was going after when the young gentlemans spoke to her—nodding to me—Madame was all bouleversée; first because Mees Constance had been down to the town, which Madame did not like her to do; next because of a letter——
At this point the Squire interrupted. Did she mean to imply that the ladies never went out?
No, never, continued Mathilde. Madame found herself not strong to walk out, and it was not proper for the young demoiselles to go walk without her—as the Messieurs would doubtless understand. But Mees Constance had ennui with that, and three or four times she had walked out without Madame’s knowing. Yesterday, par exemple, Madame was storming at her when she (Mathilde) came home with the meat, and the young ladies her sisters stormed at her——