Two Little Waifs

"It is certainly bitterly cold this morning," she said.

"And we are all so upset – by the sad accident to our poor dear Madame – Mademoiselle must excuse us," said Anna, leading the way to the sitting-room as she spoke.

Rosamond stopped short.

"An accident to that good Madame Nestor. I am very sorry," she exclaimed.

"Ah, yes," Anna went on in her honeyed tones, "it is really too sad. It was – but will not Mademoiselle come out of the cold, and I will tell her about it," she went on, backing towards the glass door. It opened inwards; the children, very much interested in watching the little scene in the shop, and not quite understanding Anna's intention, had not thought of getting out of the way. Anna opened the door sharply, as she did everything, and in so doing overthrew the small person of Roger, whose short fat legs were less agile than the longer and thinner ones of his sister. Gladys sprang away like a kitten, but only to spring back again the next moment, as a doleful cry rose from poor Roger.

"You're not hurt, darling, are you?" she said, as she knelt down to pick him up.

Roger went on crying softly. He preferred to take his time about deciding that he wasn't hurt. And in the meantime the stranger young lady had come into the room and was looking round her in some surprise.

"Has the little boy fallen down?" she asked in French. "Poor little fellow! Are they Madame Nestor's grandchildren?"

"Oh dear, no," replied Anna, casting a contemptuous glance at Gladys and Roger, who, crouching on the floor in a corner of the always dusky little room, could not be very clearly distinguished. "Get up," continued she, turning to them, "get up at once and go to your own room."

Frightened by her tone and by Roger's continued sobbing, Gladys dragged him up from the floor as well as she could, and escaped with him by the door leading upstairs, near to which they happened to be. Something in the sudden change of Anna's tone roused the young lady's suspicions.

"Who are they, then?" she asked again. "And are you sure the little boy is not hurt?"

"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 "déjeûner." 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 Françoise'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 déjeûner 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 rushing 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 Gérard."

"9 Avenue Gérard – 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 bébé 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 Françoise, 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 GÉRARD, 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 sunshine, 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 classes nobody 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 classes. 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 unfashionable, 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 classes," 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 classes. 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," said the other lady good-naturedly. "But very likely those children do not belong to the upper classes."

"I don't know," said the first lady. She stopped as she spoke and looked after the children, who had now passed them, thoughtfully. "No," she went on, "I don't think they are common children. I fancy there must be something peculiar about them. Can they have lost their way? Antoinette," she added suddenly, turning round. "You may think me very foolish and eccentric – 'English,' if you like, but I am going to run after them and see if there is anything the matter. Look after Lili for a moment for me, please."

Antoinette laughed.

"Do as you please, my dear," she said.

So off hastened, in her rich velvet and furs, the other lady. It was not difficult to overtake the children, for the two pairs of legs had trotted a long way and were growing weary. But when close behind them their new friend slackened her pace. How was she to speak to them? She did not know that they were English, or even strangers, and if they were the former that did not much mend matters, for, alas! notwithstanding the half British origin she was rather fond of talking about, the pretty young mother had been an idle little girl in her time, and had consistently declined to learn any language but her own. Now, she wished for her Lili's sake to make up for lost time, and was looking out for an English governess, but as yet she dared not venture on any rash attempts. She summoned up her courage, however, and gently touched the little girl on the shoulder, and all her suspicions that something unusual was in question were awakened again by the start of terror the child gave, and the pallid look of misery, quickly followed by an expression of relief, with which she looked up in her face.

"I thought it was Anna," she half whispered, clutching her little brother's hand more tightly than before.

"Mademoiselle – my child," said the lady, for the dignity on the little face, white and frightened as it was, made her not sure how to address her. "Can I do anything to help you? You are alone – have you perhaps lost your way?"

The last few words Gladys, for she of course it was, did not follow. But the offer of help, thanks to the kind eyes looking down on her, she understood. She gazed for a moment into these same eyes, and then seeming to gather confidence she carefully drew out from the pocket of her ulster – the same new ulster she had so proudly put on for the first time the day of the journey which was to have ended with "Papa" and happiness – a little piece of paper, rather smudgy-looking, it must be owned, which she unfolded and held up to the lady. On it were written the words —

"9 Avenue Gérard."

"Avenue Gérard," repeated the lady; "is that where you want to go? It is not far from here."

But seeing that the child did not take in the meaning of her words, she changed her tactics. Taking Gladys by the hand she led her to one side of the broad walk where they were standing, and pointing to a street at right angles from the rows of houses bordering the Champs Elysées.

"Go along there," she said, "and then turn to the left and you will see the name, 'Avenue Gérard,' at the corner."

She pointed as she spoke; then she stooped, and with the sharp point of the tiny umbrella she carried, traced in lines the directions she had given, in the gravel on which they were standing. Gladys considered for a moment in silence, then she lifted her head and nodded brightly.

"I understand," she said, "and thank you very much."

Then taking Roger's hand, which, while speaking to the lady she had let go, she smiled again, and whispering something to her brother which made him pluck off his little cap, the two small pilgrims set off again on their journey. The lady stood for a moment looking after them, and I think there were tears in her eyes.

"I wonder if I could have done more for them," she said to herself, "Fancy Lili and Jean by themselves like that! But they know where they have to go to – they are not lost."

"How kind she was," said Gladys, as she led her little brother in the direction the lady had pointed out. "It is not far now, Roger, dear – are you very tired?"

Roger made a manful effort to step out more briskly.

"Not so very, Gladdie. But oh, Gladdie, I was so frightened when I felt you stop and when I saw your face. Oh, Gladdie, I thought it was her."

"So did I," said Gladys with a shiver.

"Would she have put us in prison?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Gladys. "I heard her say something to Françoise about the police. I don't know if that means prison. But these ladies won't let her, 'cos you know, Roger, they're English, like us."

"Is all French peoples naughty?" inquired Roger meekly.

"No, you silly little boy," giving him a small shake, "of course not. Think of Mrs. Nest, and Françoise, and even that lady – oh, I didn't mean to make you cry. You're not silly – I didn't mean it, dear."

But Roger could not at once stop his tears, for they were as much the result of tiredness and excitement as of Gladys's words.

"Gladdie," he went on plaintively, "what will you do if those ladies aren't kind to us?"

"They'll help me to send a tele – you know what I mean – a letter in that quick way, to Miss Susan," replied Gladys confidently. "That's all I'm going to ask them. They'd never refuse that."

"And could Miss Susan get here to-day, do you think?"

Gladys hesitated.

"I don't quite know. I don't know how long it takes people to come that way. But I'm afraid it costs a good deal. We must ask the ladies. Perhaps they'll get us a little room somewhere, where Anna can't find us, till Miss Susan sends for us."

"But," continued Roger, "what will you do if they're out, Gladdie?"

Gladys did not answer. Strange to say, practical as she was, this possibility had never occurred to her. Her one idea had been to make her way to the Avenue Gérard at once, then it had seemed to her that all difficulties would be at an end.

"What's the good of saying that, Roger," she said at last. "If they're out we'll – "

"What?"

"Wait till they come in, I suppose."

"It'll be very cold waiting in the street – like beggars," grumbled Roger. But he said it in a low tone, not particularly wishing Gladys to hear. Only he was so tired that he had to grumble a little.

Suddenly Gladys pulled up.

"There it is," she said. "Look up there, Roger; that's the name, 'Av-e-nue Gér-ard.' It's just a street. I thought an avenue would have been all trees, like in the country. Nine – I wonder which is nine?"

Opposite to where they stood was No. 34. Gladys led Roger on a little bit and looked at the number on the other side. It was 31, and the next beyond that was 29.

"It's this way. They get littler this way," she exclaimed. "Come on, Roger, darling – it's not far."

"But if we've to wait in the street," repeated Roger faintly, for he was now possessed by this new idea.

Gladys said nothing – perhaps she did not hear.

"Twenty-seven, twenty-five, twenty-three," she said, as they passed each house, so intent on reaching No. 9 that she did not even feel frightened. Between seventeen and fifteen there was a long space of hoardings shutting off unbuilt-upon ground – nine seemed a very long time of coming. But at last – at last!

It was a large, very handsome house, and Gladys, young as she was, said at once to herself that the English ladies, as she had got into the way of calling them, must be very very rich. For she did not understand that in Paris one enormous house, such as the one she was standing before, contains the dwellings of several families, each of which is often as large as a good-sized English house, only without stairs once you have entered, as all the rooms are on one floor.

"I wonder which is the front door," said Gladys. "There seem so many in there." For the great doors of the entrance-court stood open, and, peeping in, it seemed to her that there was nothing but doors on every side to be seen.

"We must ask," she at last said resolutely, and foraging in her pocket she again drew forth the crumpled piece of paper with "No. 9 Avenue Gérard," and armed with this marched in.

A man started up from somewhere – indeed he had been already watching them, though they had not seen him. He was the porter for the whole house.

"What do you want – whom are you looking for?" he said. At first, thinking they were little beggars or something of the kind, for the courtyard was not very light, he had come out meaning to drive them away. But when he came nearer them he saw they were not what he had thought, and he spoke therefore rather more civilly. Still, he never thought of saying "Mademoiselle" to Gladys – no children of the upper classes would be wandering about alone! Gladys's only answer was to hold out the bit of paper.

"Avenue Gérard, No. 9," read the man. "Yes, it is quite right – it is here. But there is no name. Who is it you want?"

"The English ladies," replied Gladys in her own tongue, which she still seemed to think everybody should understand. She had gathered the meaning of the man's words, helped thereto by his gesticulations.

"The English ladies – I don't know their name."

Only one word was comprehensible by the porter.

"English," he repeated, using of course the French word for "English." "It must be the English ladies on the second floor they want. No doubt they are some of the poor English those ladies are so kind to. And yet – " he looked at them dubiously. They didn't quite suit his description. Anyway, there was but one answer to give. "The ladies were out; the children must come again another day."

Gladys and Roger, too, understood the first four words. Their worst fears had come true!

If Gladys could have spoken French she would perhaps have found courage to ask the man to let them come in and wait a little; for as, speechless, still holding poor Roger by the hand, she slowly moved to go, she caught sight of a cheerful little room where a bright fire was burning, the glass door standing half open, and towards which the porter turned.

"That must be his house," thought Gladys in a sort of half-stupid dreamy way. It was no use trying to ask him to let them go in and wait there. There was nowhere for them – he seemed to think they were beggars, and would perhaps call the police if they didn't go away at once. So she drew Roger out into the street again, out of the shelter of the court, where the wind felt rather less piercing, and, without speaking, wandered a few steps down the street they had two minutes ago toiled along so hopefully.

"Where are you going, Gladdie? What are you going to do? I knew they'd be out," said Roger, breaking into one of his piteous fits of crying.

Gladys's heart seemed as if it was going to stop. What was she going to do?

Wait in the street a little, she had said to Roger. But how could they? The wind seemed to be getting colder and colder; the daylight even was beginning to fade a little; they were not only cold, they were desperately hungry, for they had had nothing to eat except the little bowl of milk and crust of bread – that was all Françoise had been able to give them early that morning. She had been out at the market when the children ran away from Anna in one of her terrible tempers, so Gladys had not even been able to ask her for a few sous with which to get something to eat. Indeed, had Françoise been there, I daresay they would have been persuaded by her to wait till Adolphe came home, for he was expected that evening, though they did not know it!

"Roger, darling, try not to cry so," said Gladys, at last finding her voice. "Wait a moment and I'll try to think. If only there was a shop near, perhaps they'd let us go in; but there are no shops in this street."