A bitter pill for madame to take. But she could not help herself.
“You will be as well as ever in a little time,” Tamlyn said to Lady Jenkins. “You would have died, had this gone on: it must have induced some malady or other from which you could not have rallied.”
Madame St. Vincent went out of the house that afternoon, and Cattledon entered it. She had offered herself to Lady Jenkins for a few days in the emergency.
It was, perhaps, curious that I should meet Madame St. Vincent before she left the town. Janet was in trouble over a basket of butter and fowls that had been sent her by one of the country patients, and of which the railway people denied the arrival. I went again to the station in the afternoon to see whether they had news of it: and there, seated on the platform bench, her boxes around her, and waiting for the London train, was madame.
I showed myself as respectful to her as ever, for you can’t humiliate fallen people to their faces, telling her, in the pleasantest way I could, that I was sorry things had turned out so. The tone seemed to tell upon her, and she burst into tears. I never saw a woman so subdued in the space of a few hours.
“I have been treated shamefully, Johnny Ludlow,” she said, gulping down her sobs. “Day and night for the past nine months have I been about Lady Jenkins, wearing myself out in attendance on her. The poor old lady had learnt to love me and to depend upon me. I was like a daughter to her.”
“I dare say,” I answered, conveniently ignoring the dosing.
“And what I gave her, I gave her for the best,” went on madame. “It was for the best. People seventy years old need it. Their nerves and system require soothing: to induce sleep now and then is a boon to them. It was a boon to her, poor old thing. And this is my recompense!—turned from the house like a dog!”
“It does seem hard.”
“Seem! It is hard. I have had nothing but hardships all my life,” she continued, lifting her veil to wipe away the tears. “Where I am to go now, or how make a living, I know not. They told me I need not apply to Lady Jenkins for references: and ladies won’t engage a companion who has none.”