Two Little Waifs Part 17

"He cries for nothing, Mademoiselle--he is always crying. They are children our good Madame has taken in out of charity; it is very difficult to manage with them just now, poor little things. They have been so neglected and are so troublesome; but we must do our best till our dear Madame gets better," and then she went on into a long description of the accident, how she herself had just gone to spend two days with her sister, whom she had not seen for years, when she had been recalled, etc., etc., all told so cleverly that Rosamond went away, thinking that after all she must be a very good sort of young woman, and that it was not right to yield to prejudice. Yet still she could not quite forget the glimpse she had had of the two little creatures taken in "out of charity," and the sound of Roger's stifled sobs.

Gladys and he stayed upstairs till they were called down to "dejeuner."

It was cold, but they minded the cold less than sharp words and unkind looks. Gladys wrapped Roger up in a shawl and pulled a blanket off the bed for herself, and then they both cuddled down together in a corner, and she told him all the stories she could think of. By twelve o'clock they were very hungry, for in spite of Francoise's endeavours they had had much less breakfast than usual, but they had no idea what time it was, and were too frightened to go down, and there they would have stayed, all day perhaps, if Adolphe, reminded of them by his poor mother's constant questions, had not sent one of the apprentice boys to fetch them down, and meek and trembling the two poor little things entered the long narrow room where all the members of the household were seated round the table.

But there was no kindly welcome for them as at dinner the day before.

Monsieur Adolphe's usually good-humoured face looked worried and vexed.

"Sit down and take your food," he said coldly. "I am very sorry to hear from Mademoiselle Anna how troublesome you have been this morning. I thought you, Mademoiselle, as so much older than your brother, who is really only a baby, would have tried to keep him quiet for the sake of my poor mother."

Gladys's face turned scarlet; at first she could scarcely believe that she had heard aright, for it was very difficult to understand the young man's bad English, but a glance at his face showed her she was not mistaken. She clasped her hands in a sort of despair.

"Oh, Mr. 'Dolph," she said, "how can you think we would be so naughty?

It was only that Roger fell down, and that made him cry."

"Do not listen to her," said Anna in a hard indifferent tone, "naughty children always make excuses."

But the sight of the real misery in Gladys's face was too much for kind-hearted Adolphe. He noticed, too, that both she and Roger were looking pale and pinched with cold, and he had his own doubts as to Anna's truthfulness, though he was too much under her to venture to contradict her.

"Don't cry, my child," he said kindly. "Try to be very good and quiet the rest of the day, and eat your dejeuner now."

Gladys made a valiant effort to choke down her tears.

"Is Mrs. Nest better to-day," she asked.

The son shook his head.

"I fear not," he replied sadly; "she has a great deal of fever. And I am, unfortunately, obliged to go into the country for a day or two about some important business."

"You are going away! oh, Mr. 'Dolph, there will be no one to take care of us," cried Gladys, the tears rus.h.i.+ng to her eyes again.

The young man was touched by her distress.

"Oh yes, yes," he said; "they will all be very kind to you. I will speak to them, and I shall be soon back again, and you and my little Roger will be very good, I am sure."

There was nothing more to be said. Gladys tried to go on eating, though her hunger had quite left her, and it was difficult to swallow anything without crying again. Only one thought grew clearer in her mind--"I must write to Miss Susan."

During the rest of the meal Adolphe kept talking to Anna about the work and other things to be seen to while he was away.

"You must be sure to send to-morrow early to put up those curtains at the English ladies'--9 Avenue Gerard."

"9 Avenue Gerard--that is their new house," said Anna, and the address, which she had already heard twice repeated, caught Gladys's ear.

"And tell the one who goes to ask for the patterns back--those the young lady took away to-day. Oh, by the bye, did she see the children?" asked Adolphe.

"No, you may be sure. That is to say, I hurried them out of the way, forward little things. It was just the moment she was here, that he, the bebe there, chose for bursting out crying," replied Anna.

"I hope she did not go away with the idea they were not kindly treated,"

said Adolphe, looking displeased.

"She thought nothing about them--she hardly caught sight of them."

"She did not see that they were English--her country-people?"

"Certainly not," replied Anna. "Do you think I have no more sense than to bother all your customers with the history of any little beggars your mother chooses to take in?"

"I was not speaking of all the customers--I was speaking of those English ladies who might have taken an interest in these children, because they too are English--or at least have given us some advice what to do. I have already been thinking of asking them. But now it may be too late if they saw the children crying and you scolding them; no doubt, they will either think they are naughty disagreeable children or that we are unkind to them. Either will do harm. You have made a great mistake."

He got up and left the room, afraid perhaps of saying more, for at this moment he could not afford to quarrel with Anna. Poor man, his troubles seemed to be coming on him all at once! Gladys understood very little of what they were saying, but she saw that Adolphe was not pleased with Mademoiselle Anna, and it made her fear that Anna would be still crosser to Roger or her. But she took no notice of them, and when they had finished she called Francoise, and told her to take them into the sitting-room and make up the fire.

"P'raps she's going to be kind now, Gladdie," said Roger, with the happy hopefulness of his age. But Gladys shook her head.

Monsieur Adolphe set off that afternoon.

For the first day or two things went on rather better than Gladys had expected. Anna had had a fright, and did not dare actually to neglect or ill-treat the children. So Gladys put off writing to Miss Susan, which, as you know, she had the greatest dislike to doing till she saw how things went on. Besides this same writing was no such easy matter for her. She had neither pen, ink, nor paper--she was not sure how to spell the address, and she had not a halfpenny of money! Very likely if she had spoken of her idea to Adolphe he would have been only too glad for her to write, but Anna was a very different person to deal with.

"If I asked her for paper and a pen she would very likely scold me--very likely she wouldn't like me to write while Mr. 'Dolph is away, for fear he should think she had been unkind and that that had made me do it,"

reflected Gladys, whose wits were much sharpened by trouble. "And I _daren't_ make her angry while we're alone with her."

Thus the letter was deferred. Things might possibly have gone smoothly till Adolphe's return, for Anna _wished_ to avoid any upset now she saw how strongly the Nestors felt on the subject. But unfortunately bad-tempered people cannot always control themselves to act as their common sense tells them would be best even for themselves. And Mademoiselle Anna had a very bad and violent temper, which often got quite the mastery of her.

So the calm did not last long.

CHAPTER X.

"AVENUE GeRARD, No. 9."

"One foot up and the other foot down, For that is the way to London town.

And just the same, over dale and hill, 'Tis also the way to wherever you will."

OLD RHYME.

It was a very cold day, colder than is usual in Paris in November, where the winter, though intense while it lasts, seldom sets in before the New Year. But though cold, there had been sufficient brightness and suns.h.i.+ne, though of a pale and feeble kind, to encourage the Mammas of Paris either to take out their darlings themselves or to entrust them to the nurses and maids, and nursery governesses of all nations who, on every fairly fine day, may be seen with their little charges walking up and down what Roger called "the pretty wide street," which had so taken his fancy the day of the expedition with Monsieur Adolphe.

Among all the little groups walking up and down pretty steadily, for it was too cold for loitering, or whipping tops, or skipping-ropes, as in finer weather, two small figures hurrying along hand-in-hand, caught the attention of several people. Had they been distinctly of the humbler cla.s.ses n.o.body would have noticed them much, for even in this aristocratic part of the town one sometimes sees quite poor children threading their way among or standing to admire the little richly-dressed pets who, after all, are but children like themselves.

And sometimes a burst of innocent laughter, or bright smiles of pleasure, will spread from the rich to the poor, at the sight of Henri's top having triumphed over Xavier's, or at the solemn dignity of the walking doll of five-year-old Yvonne.

But these two little people were evidently not of the lower cla.s.ses. Not only were they warmly and neatly dressed--though that, indeed, would hardly have settled the question, as it is but very seldom in Paris that one sees the children of even quite humble parents ill or insufficiently clad--but even though their coats and hats were plain and unfas.h.i.+onable, there was about them a decided look of refinement and good-breeding. And yet they were alone!

"Who can they be?" said one lady to another. "Just see how half-frightened and yet determined the little girl looks."

"And how the boy clings to her. They are English, I suppose--English people are so eccentric, and let their children do all sorts of things _we_ would never dream of."

"Not the English of the upper cla.s.ses," replied the first lady, with a slight shade of annoyance. "You forget I am half English myself by my mother's side, so I should know. You take your ideas of the English from anything but the upper cla.s.ses. I am always impressing that on my friends. How would you like if the English judged _us_ by the French they see in Leicester Square, or by the dressmakers and ladies' maids who go over and call themselves governesses?"

"I wouldn't _like_ it, but I daresay it is often done, nevertheless,"