MADAME DE FLEURY
CHAPTER I
"There oft are heard the notes of infant woe, The short thick sob, loud scream, and shriller squall-- How can you, mothers, vex your infants so?"--POPE
"D'abord, madame, c'est impossible!--Madame ne descendra pas ici?" saidFrancois, the footman of Madame de Fleury, with a half expostulatory,half indignant look, as he let down the step of her carriage at theentrance of a dirty passage, that led to one of the mostmiserable-looking houses in Paris.
"But what can be the cause of the cries which I hear in this house?" saidMadame de Fleury.
"'Tis only some child who is crying," replied Francois; and he would haveput up the step, but his lady was not satisfied.
"'Tis nothing in the world," continued he, with a look of appeal to thecoachman, "it _can_ be nothing, but some children who are locked up thereabove. The mother, the workwoman my lady wants, is not at home: that'scertain."
"I must know the cause of these cries; I must see these children" saidMadame de Fleury, getting out of her carriage.
Francois held his arm for his lady as she got out.
"Bon!" cried he, with an air of vexation. "Si madame la vent absolument,a la bonne heure!--Mais madame sera abimee. Madame verra que j'airaison. Madame ne montera jamais ce vilain escalier. D'ailleurs c'estau cinquieme. Mais, madame, c'est impossible."
Notwithstanding the impossibility, Madame de Fleury proceeded; andbidding her talkative footman wait in the entry, made her way up thedark, dirty, broken staircase, the sound of the cries increasing everyinstant, till, as she reached the fifth storey, she heard the shrieks ofone in violent pain. She hastened to the door of the room from which thecries proceeded; the door was fastened, and the noise was so great that,though she knocked as loud as she was able, she could not immediatelymake herself heard. At last the voice of a child from within answered,"The door is locked--mamma has the key in her pocket, and won't be hometill night; and here's Victoire has tumbled from the top of the bigpress, and it is she that is shrieking so."
Madame de Fleury ran down the stairs which she had ascended with so muchdifficulty, called to her footman, who was waiting in the entry,despatched him for a surgeon, and then she returned to obtain from somepeople who lodged in the house assistance to force open the door of theroom in which the children were confined.
On the next floor there was a smith at work, filing so earnestly that hedid not hear the screams of the children. When his door was pushed open,and the bright vision of Madame de Fleury appeared to him, hisastonishment was so great that he seemed incapable of comprehending whatshe said. In a strong provincial accent he repeated, "_Plait-il_?" andstood aghast till she had explained herself three times; then suddenlyexclaiming, "Ah! c'est ca;"--he collected his tools precipitately, andfollowed to obey her orders. The door of the room was at last forcedhalf open, for a press that had been overturned prevented its openingentirely. The horrible smells that issued did not overcome Madame deFleury's humanity: she squeezed her way into the room, and behind thefallen press saw three little children: the youngest, almost an infant,ceased roaring, and ran to a corner; the eldest, a boy of about eightyears old, whose face and clothes were covered with blood, held on hisknee a girl younger than himself, whom he was trying to pacify, but whostruggled most violently and screamed incessantly, regardless of Madamede Fleury, to whose questions she made no answer.
"Where are you hurt, my dear?" repeated Madame de Fleury in a soothingvoice. "Only tell me where you feel pain?"
The boy, showing his sister's arm, said, in a surly tone--"It is thisthat is hurt--but it was not I did it."
"It was, it _was_!" cried the girl as loud as she could vociferate: "itwas Maurice threw me down from the top of the press."
"No--it was you that were pushing me, Victoire, and you fellbackwards.--Have done screeching, and show your arm to the lady."
"I can't," said the girl.
"She won't," said the boy.
"She cannot," said Madame de Fleury, kneeling down to examine it. "Shecannot move it; I am afraid that it is broken."
"Don't touch it! don't touch it!" cried the girl, screaming moreviolently.
"Ma'am, she screams that way for nothing often," said the boy. "Her armis no more broke than mine, I'm sure; she'll move it well enough whenshe's not cross."
"I am afraid," said Madame de Fleury, "that her arm is broken."
"Is it indeed?" said the boy, with a look of terror.
"Oh! don't touch it--you'll kill me; you are killing me," screamed thepoor girl, whilst Madame de Fleury with the greatest care endeavoured tojoin the bones in their proper place, and resolved to hold the arm tillthe arrival of the surgeon.
From the feminine appearance of this lady, no stranger would haveexpected such resolution; but with all the natural sensibility andgraceful delicacy of her sex, she had none of that weakness or affectionwhich incapacitates from being useful in real distress. In most suddenaccidents, and in all domestic misfortunes, female resolution andpresence of mind are indispensably requisite: safety, health, and lifeoften depend upon the fortitude of women. Happy they who, like Madame deFleury, possess strength of mind united with the utmost gentleness ofmanner and tenderness of disposition!
Soothed by this lady's sweet voice, the child's rage subsided; and nolonger struggling, the poor little girl sat quietly on her lap, sometimeswrithing and moaning with pain.
The surgeon at length arrived: her arm was set: and he said "that she hadprobably been saved much future pain by Madame de Fleury's presence ofmind."
"Sir,--will it soon be well?" said Maurice to the surgeon.
"Oh yes, very soon, I dare say," said the little girl. "To-morrow,perhaps; for now that it is tied up it does not hurt me to signify--andafter all, I do believe, Maurice, it was not you threw me down."
As she spoke, she held up her face to kiss her brother.--"That is right,"said Madame de Fleury; "there is a good sister."
The little girl put out her lips, offering a second kiss, but the boyturned hastily away to rub the tears from his eyes with the back of hishand.
"I am not cross now: am I, Maurice?"
"No, Victoire; I was cross myself when I said _that_."
As Victoire was going to speak again, the surgeon imposed silence,observing that she must be put to bed, and should be kept quiet. Madamede Fleury laid her upon the bed, as soon as Maurice had cleared it of thethings with which it was covered; and as they were spreading the raggedblanket over the little girl, she whispered a request to Madame de Fleurythat she would "stay till her mamma came home, to beg Maurice off frombeing whipped, if mamma should be angry."
Touched by this instance of goodness, and compassionating the desolatecondition of these children, Madame de Fleury complied with Victoire'srequest; resolving to remonstrate with their mother for leaving themlocked up in this manner. They did not know to what part of the towntheir mother was gone; they could tell only "that she was to go to agreat many different places to carry back work, and to bring home more,and that she expected to be in by five." It was now half after four.
Whilst Madame de Fleury waited, she asked the boy to give her a fullaccount of the manner in which the accident had happened.
"Why, ma'am," said Maurice, twisting and untwisting a ragged handkerchiefas he spoke, "the first beginning of all the mischief was, we had nothingto do, so we went to the ashes to make dirt pies; but Babet would go soclose that she burnt her petticoat, and threw about all our ashes, andplagued us, and we whipped her. But all would not do, she would not bequiet; so to get out of her reach, we climbed up by this chair on thetable to the top of the press, and there we were well enough for a littlewhile, till somehow we began to quarrel about the old scissors, and westruggled hard for them till I got this cut."
Here he unwound the handkerchief, and for the first time showed thewound, which he had never mentioned before.
"Then," continued he, "when I got the cut, I shoved Victoire, and shepushed at me
again, and I was keeping her off, and her foot slipped, anddown she fell, and caught by the press-door, and pulled it and me afterher, and that's all I know."
"It is well that you were not both killed," said Madame de Fleury. "Areyou often left locked up in this manner by yourselves, and withoutanything to do?"
"Yes, always, when mamma is abroad, except sometimes we are let out uponthe stairs or in the street; but mamma says we get into mischief there."
This dialogue was interrupted by the return of the mother. She cameupstairs slowly, much fatigued, and with a heavy bundle under her arm.
"How now! Maurice, how comes my door open? What's all this?" cried she,in an angry voice; but seeing a lady sitting upon her child's bed, shestopped short in great astonishment. Madame de Fleury related what hadhappened, and averted her anger from Maurice by gently expostulating uponthe hardship and hazard of leaving her young children in this mannerduring so many hours of the day.
"Why, my lady," replied the poor woman, wiping her forehead, "every hard-working woman in Paris does the same with her children; and what can I doelse? I must earn bread for these helpless ones, and to do that I mustbe out backwards and forwards, and to the furthest parts of the town,often from morning till night, with those that employ me; and I cannotafford to send the children to school, or to keep any kind of a servantto look after them; and when I'm away, if I let them run about thesestairs and entries, or go into the sheets, they do get a little exerciseand air, to be sure, such as it is on which account I do let them outsometimes; but then a deal of mischief comes of that, too: they learn allkinds of wickedness, and would grow up to be no better than pickpockets,if they were let often to consort with the little vagabonds they find inthe streets. So what to do better for them I don't know."
The poor mother sat down upon the fallen press, looked at Victoire, andwept bitterly. Madame de Fleury was struck with compassion; but she didnot satisfy her feelings merely by words or comfort or by the easydonation of some money--she resolved to do something more, and somethingbetter.