“I know what you would say,” said the too sympathetic lady. “He will not allow that he is ill; it is what they all do. Ah me! to whom do you tell it? Have we not made the experience, my children and I? They are made like that; they will not be advised, they will not take care. Then the only thing, my child, is for you to take so much the more care. Let there be no emotion. That is the chief thing—no emotion. It would be well, perhaps, that you see his letters before they are given to him, and if any is of a character to cause excitement, keep it back. Ah, how much do I regret that I neglected some of these precautions! But, mon enfant, you must profit by our sorrow,” said the Comtesse, with tears in her eyes.
These advices were addressed to her continually, altogether unaltered by the fact that Helen protested, whenever she had a moment given her in which she could do so, against the supposed illness they had attributed to her father. She protested that he was not ill; but it made no difference. The Comtesse paid no attention, but entered with enthusiasm into the minutiæ of care-taking, recollecting now one thing, now another, that Helen could do—surtout point a’émotion! They were so sure they were right that she came at last to listen without any protestation. The château gave Helen an altogether enlarged and widened life. She was there almost every day, leading them into the wintry woods, at which they shivered, but which Cécile boldly braved now and then, on the strong argument that in England, whether it was winter or summer, everybody went out; or sitting with them near the ugly stove which kept their rooms so warm, discoursing now and then in her turn about the English life which, to them, was so unknown. Helen, to tell the truth, did not know very much more about it than the two admiring girls who, on this point, believed all that she said. But she collected all her broken reminiscences, and all that she had heard from Miss Temple, and even, it must be added, some things which she had found in her novels, to instruct the eager mind of Cécile in her new duties. That she would have to walk out every day, whether it rained or snowed or blew a tempest; that she would have to be fully dressed by nine o’clock, in no robe de chambre, however pretty, or négligé of loosely knotted hair, point device, and ready to receive visitors; that she would have to carry puddings to the cottagers, and take a class in the Sunday-school; and that the people would adore her. All this Cécile received with unbounded faith; though she was much disturbed by the Sunday-school, which had not been in her programme.
“But they will know I am a Catholic,” she said.
“All the ladies do it,” said Helen, with steady dogmatism; and the two girls looked at each other with a gasp of dismay, but could not doubt what was so unhesitatingly given forth. There was great trembling about these Sunday-schools, so unnecessarily and boldly introduced, and the Curé was consulted, and even the Vicaire, and Cécile herself wrote to the superior of the convent in which she had been brought up. The Comtesse was of opinion that John should be written to at once, and the thing declared impossible; but Cécile would not consent to this. He would not wish her to do anything against her conscience, she knew; but, nevertheless, her dutiful soul was troubled. Thus Helen had her revenge.
And thus the winter stole on. Mr Goulburn was with difficulty persuaded to pay a visit at the château, where he was very silent, and bowed and listened to all that Madame la Comtesse had to say. He did not protest at all, as Helen did. But he excused himself when it was proposed that he should go again. Excitement was bad for him, he said, with a gravity that filled Helen with the utmost amazement; and when the evening of the weekly dinner-party came, Helen went with M. le Précepteur and his wife, making apologies for her father, which were received in very good part.
“He is right,” said Madame la Comtesse; “excitement is the worst thing in the world for him. I am glad he perceives that it is necessary to guard against it.”
All this confounded Helen, who did not know what to think. Was it true that her father was ill? Was there really anything to fear?
But he did not appear ill, or at all different from his usual condition. He began to get his pines cut at last, confiding the business to the husband of Margot, not to Antoine, with whom, nevertheless, he did not quarrel, employing him in various odd jobs with an impulse of liberality which was very unlike anything to be found in Latour. Mr Goulburn could not forget the habits of a man through whose hands money had streamed in large floods, and who had never had time to be economical. He gave employment with a freedom unknown in the locality, where everybody looked a great many times even at a sou before spending it. He was a new species to the thrifty villagers. He went daily and superintended the wood-cutting, and enjoyed the walk, however cold it was, a thing equally incomprehensible to them; but he would not carry even his own overcoat, calling the first idle lad he could find to do it for him, and throwing him fifty centimes for work which was not worth one sou. He saw everything done to the long straight pine-trunks; and at last, early in the spring, concluded the whole little enterprise, which had given him much satisfaction. They had been sold to an agent who had been at Latour during the winter, and who was as much pleased with his bargain as Mr Goulburn was with his. He came home one day holding in his hand the letter which had contained this agent’s remittances. It was the first letter he had received for months—the first sign of communication with the world which lay outside of Latour. “I have set up in business,” he said; “there is no saying what it may come to. It is a pity there are no shops; I should have bought something for you girls. I have been making money even out here. By the by, it makes my heart beat. I am not framed for excitement, as your old Comtesse says.”
“Do you always make money, papa?” said little Janey. “What do you do it with? I should like to make some nice new money, like the new sous Cécile gave me.” She had forgotten all about other coinage, and now knew nothing but the sous.
“This time, you know, I made it in the wood,” he said. “Don’t you recollect the gold among the trees?”