But Janey, who had been standing by listening all this time in unwonted silence, looking on with very curious eyes, investigating the strange chapter in human affairs thus exhibited to her, stepped in to the rescue.
“You are old, M. Goudron,” she said, “and you are not good. Papa is good, though he is old, but not you. He would do whatever I ask him. If you will not give Blanchette what she wants, I will ask papa, and he will do it for Janey; and then what Ursule gets from God will be for papa, and not for you; and all the village will say, ‘Down with that old Père Goudron and vive l’Anglais!’ Nobody loves you, M. Goudron,” continued Janey, “not one. You are a very bad old man; you never do anything that is kind. It would be better to be a wolf in the wood than you, for the wolf would not understand, and you hear me talking to you. And when you die, which can’t be long, you will be made into an old cinder” (Janey said tison). “You are very like one now; I think you must feel the fire burning you already,” cried Janey, vindictively; “you are so dried up and withered and wrinkled and wicked. Tiens, Blanchette, do not ask him any more; I will get it from papa.”
Janey put out her hand majestically, interposing her small person between the old man whom she had denounced and poor Blanchette, who had risen to her feet and turned her large astonished eyes, full of tears, upon the child. Janey, in her four feet of stature, towered over them all, her pretty hair streaming back as on a breeze of indignation, her eyes blazing. No consideration of circumstances or possibilities affected Janey. She was sublime, for she was absolute, above all reasoning. And while Blanchette started to her feet, half in fear of her grandfather, half in wondering hope at the impulse of this little heroine, the old man, on his side, cowered and shrank before her. He had one humanity in him, he was fond of little children; and Janey, the strange little foreign creature, exercised a kind of fascination over him. He tried to change his grin into a conciliatory smile.
“Tenez, tenez, ma petite demoiselle,” he said, with a broken sort of whimper in his voice; “do not speak to an old man so. When you ask me for something in your pretty little voice, I will do it. I am not wicked, as you say; it is they who are wicked, robbing me of everything. But you are a little angel. Naturally your papa will do whatever you ask him. He is a milord; he is rich, very rich, like all the English; and I too will do what you ask me, though I am not rich, but poor. But you must not say ‘À bas le père Goudron!’” cried the old man again with a whimper. He twisted all his lean person into a grimace of deprecating amiability, drawing his long legs under him, clasping his bony hands, putting his grotesque head on one side, while Janey stood impassive, disapproving, majestic, stretching out one small arm as a shield over Blanchette, who for her part, arrested in the very act of weeping, stood with her pretty lips apart, her eyes very widely opened, and the tears dropping down her cheeks.
Just then Mr Goulburn was heard coming down-stairs. He was in good spirits this morning: first he was heard whistling a favourite tune, then he began to talk to Margot, who had come in and was sweeping loudly, knocking her broom into all the corners by way of blowing off her emotion, as poor Madame Dupré had done. “So poor Baptiste has drawn a bad number,” they heard him say, and at the words Blanchette’s half arrested tears burst violently forth again.
“Oh, monsieur,” cried Margot, outside, “what good one can do when one is rich! If the Père Goudron would but be charitable one time in his life, and give the money for a substitute! Otherwise their hearts will be broken, and it will be ruin to the Mère Dupré.”
“Ah, a substitute!” he said, while the little company within listened with breathless attention. Then there followed a bar or two of Mr Goulburn’s favourite air, and the renewed knocks against the wainscot of Margot’s broom, and the step of the Englishman, lighter than usual, his daughter thought. Had he got good news? He pushed the door open, then stood surprised at the group he saw. “Ah!” he cried, “it is early to receive visitors, Helen.” They all turned their eyes upon him, Blanchette putting her hands together instinctively. Two pairs of entreating feminine eyes caught Mr Goulburn’s first glance; then his own fixed upon the little central figure, whose looks were less entreating than commanding. “Why, little Janey, what have you got to do with this?” he said.
“Papa,” said Janey, speaking in French—on the whole, she now spoke in French with more dignity than in English, her utterance in her native tongue being still made sweet to foolish parental ears by a few cherished baby errors—“papa, I have promised that you will give what old M. Goudron is too wicked to give—the money that Blanchette wants for Baptiste. She will tell you how much it is. I have said,” said Janey, with a falter in her small voice, for she began to feel the need of crying, being only six after all—“I have said that my papa would give the money for Janey. I know, I know,” she added, bursting into her native speech, “that you will dive it for Janey, papa.”
Mr Goulburn stood, looking much astonished, while this appeal was addressed to him. He looked at old Goudron, crumpled up in his chair with his deprecating look, and little Blanchette dissolved in tears, turning dim, imploring eyes upon him; and at Helen, who was old enough to know better, who ought to have put a stop to it. But he had not the habit of economy in money, and it did not occur to him, as it might have done to, alas! a better man, to consider a demand of this kind for a considerable sum out of mere kindness, to be at once out of the question. It was not out of the question to Mr Goulburn. When a man’s first quality is to be honourable and just above all things, he has to assume a sternness of self-restraint which sometimes makes him appear less amiable to superficial eyes; but one who is less decided upon such points is free of that bondage. He had spent money largely all his life, and he was not startled when he was asked for it, as most of us are who have to gain it by the sweat of our brow. He had never done much more than turn it over in his hands, gaining, yet sometimes losing, by chance, by luck, by hair-breadth hazards, but never by the strain of daily toil; and he had been in the habit of giving it away freely, whether it was his own or others’, all his life. But he was somewhat annoyed by this demand. Helen should have known better. She knew that he was not now a millionaire, that his resources were limited. These hesitations made a cloud over his face when little Janey began to make her little speech. But suddenly the cloud rolled off in a moment, the light broke out. He had not a noble face; a physiognomist would not have trusted it, an artist would have thought nothing of it; there were ignoble lines in it, something which told of cunning, a furtive look—but all at once it was transfigured. He broke out into a half laugh, half sob—
“I oughtn’t to do it; I’ve no right to do it! But I can’t refuse to dive it to Janey!” he cried, with that clamour of mingled feeling in his voice, and drew the child triumphant into his arms.