She Stands Accused Part 13

The evidence of M. Roussell, of the Bout-du-Monde hotel, touched on the illnesses of his mother and Perrotte. He knew nothing of the food prepared by Helene; nor had the idea of poison occurred to him until her arrest. Helene's detestable character, her quarrels with other servants, and, above all, the thefts of wine he had found her out in were the sole causes of her dismissal. He had noticed that Helene never ate with the other domestics. She always found an excuse for not doing so. She said she had stomach trouble and could not hold down her food.

The Veuve Roussell had to be helped into court by her son. She dealt with her own illness and with the death of Perrotte. Her illness did not come on until she had scolded Helene for her bad ways.

Dr Revault, confrere of Guyot, regretted the failure to perform a post-mortem on the body of Perrotte. He had said to Roussell that if Perrotte's illness was a.n.a.logous to cholera it was, nevertheless, not that disease. He believed it was due to a poison.

The President: "Chemical a.n.a.lysis has proved the presence of a.r.s.enic in the viscera of Perrotte. Who administered that a.r.s.enic, the existence of which was so shrewdly foreseen by the witness? Who gave her the a.r.s.enic?

[To Helene] Do you know? Was it not you that gave it her, Helene?"

At this Helene murmured something unintelligible, but, gathering her voice, she protested, "I have never had a.r.s.enic in my hands, Monsieur le President--never!"

Something of light relief was provided by Jean Andre, the cabinet-making ostler of Saint-Gilles, he for whose attention Helene had been a rival with Perrotte Mace.

"The service Helene gave was excellent. So was mine. She nursed Perrotte perfectly, but said it was in vain, because the doctors were mishandling the disease. She told me one day that she was tired of service, and that her one wish was to retire."

"Did you attach a certain idea to the confidence about retiring?"

"No!" Andre replied energetically.

"You were in hospital. When you came back, did Helene take good care of you?"

"She gave me bouillon every morning to build me up."

"The bouillon she gave you did you no harm?"

"On the contrary, it did me a lot of good."

"Wasn't the accused jealous of Perrotte--that good-looking girl who gave you so much of her favour?"

"In her life Perrotte was a good girl. She never was out of sorts for a moment--never rubbed one the wrong way."

"Didn't Helene say to you that Perrotte would never recover?"

"Yes, she said that. 'She's a lost woman,' she said; 'the doctors are going the wrong way with the disease.'

"All the same," Andre went on, "Helene never ate with us. She worked night and day, but ate in secret, I believe. Anyhow, a friend of mine told me he'd once seen her eating a crust of bread, and chewing some other sort of food at the same time. As for me--I don't know; but I don't think you can live without eating."

"I couldn't keep down what I ate," Helene interposed. "I took some bouillon here and there; sometimes a mouthful of bread--nothing in secret. I never thought of Andre in marriage--not him more than another.

That was all a joke."

A number of witnesses, friends of Perrotte, who had seen her during her illness, spoke of the extreme dislike the girl had shown for Helene and for the liquids the latter prepared for her. Perrotte would say to Helene, "But you're dirty, you ugly Bretonne!" Perrotte had a horror of bouillon: "Ah--these vegetable soups! I've had enough of them! It was what Helene gave me that night that made me ill!" The witnesses did not understand all this, because the accused seemed to be very good to her fellow-servant. At the bedside Helene cried, "Ah! What can I do that will save you, my poor Perrotte?" When Perrotte was dying she wanted to ask Helene's pardon. Embracing the dying girl, the accused replied, "Ah! There's no need for that, my poor Perrotte. I know you didn't mean anything."

A witness telling of soup Helene had made for Perrotte, which the girl declared to have been poisoned, it was asked what happened to the remainder of it. The President pa.s.sed the question to Helene, who said she had thrown it into the hearth.

IV

The most complete and important testimony in the trial was given by M.

Theophile Bidard, professor to the law faculty of Rennes.

The facts he had to bring forward, he said, had taken no significance in his mind until the last of them transpired. He would have to go back into the past to trace them in their proper order.

He recalled the admission of Helene to his domestic staff and the good recommendations on which he had engaged her. From the first Helene proved herself to have plenty of intelligence, and he had believed that her intelligence was combined with goodness of heart. This was because he had heard that by her work she was supporting two small children, as well as her poor old mother, who had no other means of sustenance.

(The reader will recollect that Helene was orphaned at the age of seven.)

Nevertheless, said M. Bidard, Helene was not long in his household before her companion, Rose Tessier, began to suffer in plenty from the real character of Helene Jegado.

Rose had had a fall, an accident which had left her with pains in her back. There were no very grave symptoms but Helene prognosticated dire results. One night, when the witness was absent in the country, Helene rose from her bed, and, approaching her fellow-servant's room, called several times in a sepulchral voice, "Rose, Rose!" That poor girl took fright, and hid under the bedclothes, trembling.

Next day Rose complained to witness, who took his domestics to task.

Helene pretended it was the farm-boy who had perpetrated the bad joke.

She then declared that she herself had heard some one give a loud knock.

"I thought," she said, "that I was hearing the call for poor Rose."

On Sunday, the 3rd of November, 1850, M. Bidard, who had been in the country, returned to Rennes. After dinner that day, a meal which she had taken in common with Helene, Rose was seized with violent sickness.

Helene lavished on her the most motherly attention. She made tea, and sat up the night with the invalid. In the morning, though she still felt ill, Rose got up. Helene made tea for her again. Rose once more was sick, violently, and her sickness endured until the witness himself had administered copious draughts of tea prepared by himself. Rose pa.s.sed a fairly good night, and Dr Pinault, who was called in, saw nothing more in the sickness than some nervous affection. But on the day of the 5th the vomitings returned. Helene exclaimed, "The doctors do not understand the disease. Rose is going to die!" The prediction seemed foolish as far as immediate appearances were concemed, for Rose had an excellent pulse and no trace of fever.

In the night between Tuesday and Wednesday the patient was calm, but on the morning of Wednesday she had vomitings with intense stomach pains.

From this time on, said the witness, the life of Rose, which was to last only thirty-six hours, was nothing but a long-drawn and heart-rending cry of agony. She drew her last breath on the Thursday evening at half-past five. During her whole illness, added M. Bidard, Rose was attended by none save Helene and himself.

Rose's mother came. In Rose the poor woman had lost a beloved child and her sole support. She was prostrated. Helene's grief seemed to equal the mother's. Tears were ever in her eyes, and her voice trembled. Her expressions of regret almost seemed to be exaggerated.

There was a moment when the witness had his doubts. It was on the way back from the cemetery. For a fleeting instant he thought that the shaking of Helene's body was more from glee than sorrow, and he momentarily accused her in his mind of hypocrisy. But in the following days Helene did nothing but talk of "that poor Rose," and M. Bidard, before her persistence, could only believe he had been mistaken. "Ah!"

Helene said. "I loved her as I did that poor girl who died in the Bout-du-Monde."

The witness wanted to find some one to take Rose's place. Helene tried to dissuade him. "Never mind another femme de chambre," she said. "I will do everything." M. Bidard contented himself with engaging another girl, Francoise Huriaux, strong neither in intelligence nor will, but nevertheless a sweet little creature. Not many days pa.s.sed before Helene began to make the girl unhappy. "It's a lazy-bones," Helene told the witness. "She does not earn her keep." ("Le pain qu'elle mange, elle le vole.") M. Bidard shut her up. That was his affair, he said.

Francoise meantime conceived a fear of Helene. She was so scared of the older woman that she obeyed all her orders without resistance. The witness, going into the kitchen one day, found Helene eating her soup at one end of the table, while Francoise dealt with hers at the other extreme. He told Helene that in future she was to serve the repast in common, on a tablecloth, and that it was to include dessert from his table. This order seemed to vex Helene extremely. "That girl seems to live without eating," she said, "and she never seems to sleep."

One day the witness noticed that the hands and face of Francoise were puffy. He spoke to Helene about it, who became angry. She accused her companion of getting up in the night to make tea, so wasting the sugar, and she swore she would lock the sugar up. M. Bidard told her to do nothing of the sort. He said if Francoise had need of sugar she was to have it. "All right--I see," Helene replied sullenly, obviously put out.

The swelling M. Bidard had seen in the face and hands of Francoise attacked her legs, and all service became impossible for the girl. The witness was obliged to entrust Helene with the job of finding another chambermaid. It was then that she brought Rosalie Sarrazin to him. "A very good girl," she said. "If her dress is poor it is because she gives everything to her mother."

The words, M. Bidard commented, were said by Helene with remarkable sincerity. It was said that Helene had no moral sense. It seemed to him, from her expressions regarding that poor girl, who, like herself, devoted herself to her mother, that Helene was far from lacking in that quality.

Engaging Rosalie, the witness said to his new domestic, "You will find yourself dealing with a difficult companion. Do not let her be insolent to you. You must a.s.sert yourself from the start. I do not want Helene to rule you as she ruled Francoise." At the same time he repeated his order regarding the service of the kitchen meals. Helene manifested a sullen opposition. "Who ever heard of tablecloths for the servants?" she said.

"It is ridiculous!"

In the first days the tenderness between Helene and the new girl was quite touching. But circ.u.mstance arose to end the harmony. Rosalie could write. On the 23rd of May the witness told Helene that he would like her to give him an account of expenses. The request made Helene angry, and increased her spite against the more educated Rosalie. Helene attempting to order Rosalie about, the latter laughingly told her, "M. Bidard pays me to obey him. If I have to obey you also you'll have to pay me too."

From that time Helene conceived an aversion from the girl.

About the time when Helene began to be sour to Rosalie she herself was seized by vomitings. She complained to Mlle Bidard, a cousin of the witness, that Rosalie neglected her. But when the latter went up to her room Helene yelled at her, "Get out, you ugly brute! In you I've brought into the house a stick for my own back!"

This sort of quarrelling went on without ceasing. At the beginning of June the witness said to Helene, "If this continues you'll have to look for another place."

"That's it!" Helene yelled, in reply. "Because of that girl I'll have to go!"

On the 10th of June M. Bidard gave Helene definite notice. It was to take effect on St John's Day. At his evening meal he was served with a roast and some green peas. These last he did not touch. In spite of his prohibition against her serving at table, it was Helene who brought the peas in. "How's this?" she said to him. "You haven't eaten your green peas--and them so good!" Saying this, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the dish and carried it to the kitchen. Rosalie ate some of the peas. No sooner had she taken a few spoonfuls, however, than she grew sick, and presently was seized by vomiting. Helene took no supper. She said she was out of sorts and wanted none.