"What are honor or dishonor to her? The door of the tomb is at this moment closing behind her.""Yes, it's most awful," moaned Mrs.Bread.
"She has moved off, like her brother Valentin, to give me room to work.
It's as if it were done on purpose."
"Surely," said Mrs.Bread, apparently impressed by the ingenuity of this reflection.She was silent for some moments; then she added, "And would you bring my lady before the courts?""The courts care nothing for my lady," Newman replied.
"If she has committed a crime, she will be nothing for the courts but a wicked old woman.""And will they hang her, Sir?"
"That depends upon what she has done." And Newman eyed Mrs.Bread intently.
"It would break up the family most terribly, sir!""It's time such a family should be broken up!" said Newman, with a laugh.
"And me at my age out of place, sir!" sighed Mrs.Bread.
"Oh, I will take care of you! You shall come and live with me.
You shall be my housekeeper, or anything you like.
I will pension you for life."
"Dear, dear, sir, you think of everything." And she seemed to fall a-brooding.
Newman watched her a while, and then he said suddenly.
"Ah, Mrs.Bread, you are too fond of my lady!"She looked at him as quickly."I wouldn't have you say that, sir.
I don't think it any part of my duty to be fond of my lady.
I have served her faithfully this many a year; but if she were to die to-morrow, I believe, before Heaven I shouldn't shed a tear for her."Then, after a pause, "I have no reason to love her!" Mrs.Bread added.
"The most she has done for me has been not to turn me out of the house."Newman felt that decidedly his companion was more and more confidential--that if luxury is corrupting, Mrs.Bread's conservative habits were already relaxed by the spiritual comfort of this preconcerted interview, in a remarkable locality, with a free-spoken millionaire.
All his native shrewdness admonished him that his part was simply to let her take her time--let the charm of the occasion work.
So he said nothing; he only looked at her kindly.Mrs.Bread sat nursing her lean elbows."My lady once did me a great wrong,"she went on at last."She has a terrible tongue when she is vexed.
It was many a year ago, but I have never forgotten it.I have never mentioned it to a human creature; I have kept my grudge to myself.
I dare say I have been wicked, but my grudge has grown old with me.
It has grown good for nothing, too, I dare say; but it has lived along, as I have lived.It will die when I die,--not before!""And what IS your grudge?" Newman asked.
Mrs.Bread dropped her eyes and hesitated.
"If I were a foreigner, sir, I should make less of telling you; it comes harder to a decent Englishwoman.
But I sometimes think I have picked up too many foreign ways.
What I was telling you belongs to a time when I was much younger and very different looking to what I am now.
I had a very high color, sir, if you can believe it, indeed Iwas a very smart lass.My lady was younger, too, and the late marquis was youngest of all--I mean in the way he went on, sir;he had a very high spirit; he was a magnificent man.
He was fond of his pleasure, like most foreigners, and it must be owned that he sometimes went rather below him to take it.
My lady was often jealous, and, if you'll believe it, sir, she did me the honor to be jealous of me.One day I had a red ribbon in my cap, and my lady flew out at me and ordered me to take it off.
She accused me of putting it on to make the marquis look at me.
I don't know that I was impertinent, but I spoke up like an honest girl and didn't count my words.A red ribbon indeed!
As if it was my ribbons the marquis looked at! My lady knew afterwards that I was perfectly respectable, but she never said a word to show that she believed it.But the marquis did!"Mrs.Bread presently added, "I took off my red ribbon and put it away in a drawer, where I have kept it to this day.
It's faded now, it's a very pale pink; but there it lies.
My grudge has faded, too; the red has all gone out of it; but it lies here yet." And Mrs.Bread stroked her black satin bodice.
Newman listened with interest to this decent narrative, which seemed to have opened up the deeps of memory to his companion.Then, as she remained silent, and seemed to be losing herself in retrospective meditation upon her perfect respectability, he ventured upon a short cut to his goal."So Madame de Bellegarde was jealous; I see.
And M.de Bellegarde admired pretty women, without distinction of class.
I suppose one mustn't be hard upon him, for they probably didn't all behave so properly as you.But years afterwards it could hardly have been jealousy that turned Madame de Bellegarde into a criminal."Mrs.Bread gave a weary sigh."We are using dreadful words, sir, but I don't care now.I see you have your idea, and Ihave no will of my own.My will was the will of my children, as I called them; but I have lost my children now.They are dead--I may say it of both of them; and what should I care for the living?
What is any one in the house to me now--what am I to them?
My lady objects to me--she has objected to me these thirty years.
I should have been glad to be something to young Madame de Bellegarde, though I never was nurse to the present marquis.
When he was a baby I was too young; they wouldn't trust me with him.
But his wife told her own maid, Mamselle Clarisse, the opinion she had of me.Perhaps you would like to hear it, sir.""Oh, immensely," said Newman.
"She said that if I would sit in her children's schoolroom Ishould do very well for a penwiper! When things have come to that I don't think I need stand upon ceremony.""Decidedly not," said Newman."Go on, Mrs.Bread."Mrs.Bread, however, relapsed again into troubled dumbness, and all Newman could do was to fold his arms and wait.
But at last she appeared to have set her memories in order.