“Is she much hurt? Are there any bones broken? Don’t you think you had better not move her till some one can fetch a doctor? Good Heavens, how unfortunate it is! Oh dear! Miss Winter, what will Sir Thomas say?” exclaimed one of the two ladies in the carriage. She was what is euphemistically called “middle-aged,” though to reckon by the old “three score years and ten,” she must a good long time ago have passed the meridian of life. But she was well preserved and well dressed, refined-looking, and on the whole sufficiently pleasing in appearance if not to disarm at least not to suggest criticism. Just now her face was nearly as pale as Geneviève’s own, and as she turned to her companion she seemed on the point of tears.
“Don’t distress yourself so, keep calm, I beseech you, dearest Lady Frederica,” entreated Miss Winter, who, fortunately, had her wits about her; indeed the keeping them well in hand may be said to have been a part of her profession. “Ah! here is some one belonging to the poor girl. What does she say, Mr. Fawcett?”
“I can’t understand her,” replied the gentleman, to whom poor Mathurine had been vainly trying to make herself intelligible. “She talks so confoundedly fast. Can’t you make her out, Miss Winter?”
Miss Winter did her best, but it was no easy matter, for poor Mathurine, in her distress and excitement, unconsciously relapsed at every two or three words, into her native patois. She was begging the young man to lay Geneviève on the ground, for Mr. Fawcett was very tall and Mathurine was very short; in her darling’s present position, therefore, it was almost impossible for the poor woman to obtain a clear view of her face.
“She will soon come to herself, is it not?” Mathurine was saying “She will open her pretty eyes, and will be frightened if she does not see her old Mathurine. If monsieur will but lay her down—see, I can spread my shawl. Ah! but monsieur does not comprehend. What then shall I say?”
She clasped her hands in despair. Miss Winter began a laboured sentence in the most correct French and with the most English of accents. In her turn Mathurine was looking hopelessly puzzled, when, to the amazement of all, a sweet faint voice was suddenly heard in soft tones thanking “monsieur” for his kindness, begging him to deposit its owner beside Mathurine. And to the relief of the English party, the words were in their own tongue, spoken too, without hesitation, and with only the soupçon of a French accent.
“I am not hurt, not wounded at all, I assure monsieur,” said Geneviève, while the bright red rushed to her pale face. “’Twas but the—the shock—is that the word? I can hold myself upright very well at present, and monsieur must be so—géné. Mathurine will take care of me.”
She struggled out of Mr. Fawcett’s arms, as she spoke. He still half held her, however, and but for this she would have fallen. As it was, she grew very pale again and clung to Mathurine’s sturdy figure for support.
“’Tis but a little weakness, my angel,” said the nurse, in her delight at seeing that Geneviève was uninjured, throwing her usual respectful manner to the winds. “She has no pain, mademoiselle chérie, n’est-ce-pas? Only an étourdissement in the head. Naturally, la pauvre enfant! Que le bon dieu soit loué, that it is no worse! If we had only a glass of water; then she could perhaps return to the house!”
Mdlle. Casalis repeated the request in English.