“That was only sunshine,” said Janey. “I see that often; but you cannot put it in your pocket. Did you dig till you came to it, papa? Was it in a big box or in a jar deep down under the trees? Margot says there is some there, if we knew where to find it. Will you show me how you got yours, papa?”
“No, no, my little girl,” he said; “you shall never soil your pretty fingers with it. There will be plenty for my Janey when I am dead.”
“I don’t want to have plenty when you are dead!” cried the child. “I don’t want to have anything when you are dead. I should like then to be dead too.”
“No, no, my little love. No, no, my Janey; you will live long, and you will be happy, and you will be kind to the poor, and think sometimes of your old father.” He had taken her on his knee, and now leaned his head upon hers. “You will never believe any harm of your father, my little girl. Whatever they say of him, you will always remember that he was very fond of you.”
“You do not feel ill, papa?” cried Helen, alarmed; while Janey, not understanding, but frightened too, peered up in his face with a pair of widely opened eyes.
“I believe it is that old witch at the château,” he said, and laughed. “I must beware of excitement, you know. To dine in her company being too much for me, how should I be able to bear the maddening delight of making a few francs in Latour? It will go off presently,” he added, setting Janey down from his knee. And so it did, to all appearance; there was nothing wonderful in it. But the profit he had made amused him beyond description. It did him good—or harm. It set him thinking of the outside world, and wondering what was going on there. A thirst for a newspaper suddenly came upon him. What were they doing in the world? And he himself, what had been done about him? Had he been allowed to drop without any attempt at pursuit? Had things not turned out so badly as he thought? When a man feels himself pursued, the sense of getting into a place of safety, a close cover, is sweet; but after the pleasure of the security has penetrated into every vein, what man is there who can refrain from poking his head out of the cover to look for his pursuers, and from feeling a kind of disappointment at their total disappearance? To hear them strutting about, poking at every bush, calling to each other, now here, now there, foiled yet pursuing, is more flattering, more consolatory to the fugitive. But there had been nothing of this in Mr Goulburn’s case; he had slipped through their fingers; and after he had been pleased for a long time, now he began to be almost disappointed—he wanted the excitement. He was tired of the too complete safety of his life.
That night there was great news at the château. John was coming. The wedding was to be at Easter; but he could not remain so long without visiting his bride; and with him was coming a relation, a gentleman. “Listen, Hélène,” said Cécile—“we have no secrets for you. This gentleman, Monsieur Charles, is très comme il faut. I cannot say it in English. What words are there in English that say all that? He is not very rich; but mamma seeks to marry Thérèse, and in every other respect he is everything we could desire. John has often spoken of it. He has been in India, like so many of your young Englishmen. But if Thérèse and he please to each other, why should he go back? John says that if some one who is clever, a true man of affairs, an Englishman, were to manage our woods, we should be twice more rich; and if he pleases to Thérèse! Hush! it is a little family arrangement; nothing is to be said of it. But we watch for the eventualities. You will open your English eyes, chère petite, and you will give me your opinion upon him for Thérèse.”
Helen felt a little chill at her heart; she could not tell why. A Monsieur Charles who had been in India! No doubt there were hundreds of them in England. “But,” she said—and probably in any case she would have objected, for she had begun to be very British since she lived in France—“but an Englishman does not understand family arrangements like this. Does he know that he is coming for Thérèse?”
“That is what we cannot tell. We know that the English are very peculiar—very strange in their ideas.”
“I think it is the French who are strange in their ideas,” said Helen, with all the fervour of English prejudice. She was almost pleased to think that if M. Charles was a party to any such arrangement he was not at all so comme il faut as Cécile thought. “A right Englishman would not do it. Come to be looked at, as if he were applying for a situation as a servant!” Helen said to herself indignantly, that these were not English ways. She did not enjoy the evening. She was not herself. She contradicted everybody, even Madame la Comtesse. What was the matter with her?