The education of Jacqueline.

Chapter I

Francoise Reville was crooning her fatherless daughter to sleep in the dimly lighted room. Her voice sounded soft and rang with sadness as she repeated the familiar lullaby:

Do do, bebe do, L'enfant dormira tantot.

FranQoise looked at the child's peaceful little face and once more noticed with delight the likeness of Jacqueline to her father. Although the child lay restfully in its tiny cot, the mother swayed her body backwards and forwards as she sang, moving with the rhythm of the ticking clock on the mantelpiece of the darkened room.

Do do, bebe do, L'enfant dormira tantot.

A softly-shaded lamp shed its rosy radiance over the writing-desk between the two tall windows opening on to the quiet provincial street that was deserted every evening after seven o'clock. An intense calm reigned around, which was broken only now and again by the noise of crockery being washed in the kitchen.

FranQoise turned from the contemplation of her child and gazed round the room with its high luxurious bed draped with silken hangings — with its lofty mirrored wardrobe of polished walnut wood that matched the bed — with its portieres of silk, like those of the huge bed, half covering a doorway that led to a smaller dressing-room beyond. This room had been hers during the five years of her married life with her dear husband, Adrien Reville, whom death had claimed suddenly, imperatively, without warning, less than a month ago. Here her little girl — ^her fouryear-old baby — Jacqueline had been bom, and here she had prayed by the side of her husband's dead body before they had placed him in his coffin. In this room she had lived the intensest years of her life.

When Adrien had brought her to her new home in Rouen only a few hours after the wedding ceremony at Vitre, she had been a young girl of twenty-two — as totally ignorant of life, of the mysteries of life and of marriage, as only a young French girl can be. Brought up by careful parents in view of a husband who would demand not only an innocent but also an ignorant wife, her convent education had but emphasized her home training. The good nuns had taught her her Catechism, the Lives of the Saints and les bonnes maniires, besides sufficient French grammar and syntax to enable her to write a stilted conventional letter. Her mother had taught her to sew, to embroider and to cook. But of the realities of life or of human nature, she knew nothing.

And now she was a widow, not thirty years of age, alone in the world with her daughter, a child of four, without a single relation, with very few friends and with the entire responsibility of shaping two lives, henceforth upon her shoulders.

Jacqueline! — ^her little child! her only darling — ^the one thing she now had in the world to love ! And she gazed upon the child with hungry eyes. Shortly they would be leaving this roof together — she and Jacqueline— leaving this home, this room, this refuge — to go forth alone in a strange city, among new surroundings and in very reduced circumstances.

Even now Fran^oise could hardly realize what had happened to her during the last month. Events had rushed so quickly since the evening when Adrien had returned from a short business visit to Paris and complained of having caught a chill in the train on the return journey. Two days later the doctor had informed Frangoise that there was very little hope of saving him and three days later Adrien was dead. Her love, her husband, the father of her little Jacqueline— and the one creature who was her very law I Yes; he was dead!

Then had followed terrible days when she had been forced to turn from all her regrets for Adrien and repress her tears to think only of practical issues — for there was no one to turn to for help or even for advice. She had lost both her parents during the first three years of her wifehood, and Adrien's had both died before she had met him. There was Pomm, of course, her husband's great friend; but he was not much good for practical things, and besides he was away in China upon his naval duties. Frangoise, who

Had never thought for herself, who had been as a child in the hands of A'drien, who had never acted in any way except under his direction and with his adyice or sanction, was now forced to rely upon herself, and herself alone — ^to think, to plan, to decide, and to defend her own interests as well as those of her daughter.

In the midst of her sad musings, the sleeping child murmured fretfully and stirred upon her pillows, and mechanically Frangoise chasing away harrowing thoughts, though her heart was heavy as lead, murmured once more the soothing lullaby :

Do do, bebe do.

Like all French mothers of her generation, Fran- ^oise allowed no hireling to tend her child. It was she who bathed and put her to bed every night of her life and sang her to sleep holding her hand. There is little other method or system of education in the French mother's mind for very little children but just the tender ministering from mother to child which creates a link between them that lasts for ever, and that no divergence of opinion or of tastes in after life can ever entirely destroy.

As the child lost consciousness once more and silence again engulfed the room, the gaze of Frangoise penetrating the gloom seemed to see once more before her the form of her beloved. At the foot of the wide bed, between the writing-desk and the white lace-covered dressing-table whence the polished tortoise-shell and crystal ornaments shot fortH scintillating touches through the darkness, she saw Adrien's tall frame as she had seen him living, the night before he had left her for the fatal journey — ^his eyes tender and loving, his white teeth gleaming through his smile.

He left her that last evening so gay and joyous, as if the short journey to Paris were a keen delight to him. She had always been somewhat pained by his evident eagerness to leave Rouen and to take his regular small trips to Paris — the city of charm and allurement. That he was separated from her and from his child during these trips did not seem to affect him, though Frangoise's own tender heart always felt a pang each time he left them both so merrily. On this last journey how she had implored him to take her with him — just this once for a change. But he, smilingly, had put her off as always, saying that a mother's place was with her child ; that, besides, it would be absurd to take one's wife with one to business appointments at the Ministry of Finance.

For after their marriage five years before Adrien Reville, who had been an attache at the Ministry of War for many years, had been appointed Perce pteur — that is to say, an officer of the Inland Revenue — at Rouen, two hours from Paris. And here the young couple had lived, in a charming little house with a large garden on the outskirts of the town, some distance from the office of Adrien's Perception. Here little fair-haired and dark-eyed Jacqueline had been born. All through the five years of his residence in Rouen, Adrien had been forced to go up to Paris about once a week to the Ministry of Finance. But he never allowed his wife to accompany him, notwithstanding her entreaties. His opinion, he explained, was that a young wife does better to keep to the simpler ways and customs of the provinces. Frequent visits to Paris were always demoralising for young married women, and the sight of the luxuries of Paris life might suggest tastes that were not seemly in an economical provincial wife. And of course Frangoise had been subservient to Adrien's judgment. For her, Adrien was always right.

As she dwelt upon these memories of the past, that were still so near her, she stopped crooning her song, and the spoilt babe, already so unconsciously used to its mother's soothing voice as it slumbered, burst out again into an angry cry, as if in protestation. So Frangoise let her vision fade away and took up her singing once more.

Do do, bebe do.

And again the child slept.

Then Frangoise, rising softly so as not to rouse the sleeping child, left the side of the cot and turned again to the writing desk at which she had sat most of the afternoon, sorting old letters, arranging and classing together paid bills, etc., for, leaving the house in a short time, she was anxious to put all her affairs as well as those of her late husband in order. The news occupants of the house were to settle into it in about a fortnight. The wife of Adrien's successor had visited the villa from basement to garret and had declared herself satisfied with her inspection. Her husband had therefore taken on the remaining part of the lease, and Frangoise had already been up to Paris to seek a new abiding-place for herself and her child. She had signed the lease, for three years, of a flat near the Place Wagram. She had also arranged to sell the larger part of her furniture to the new occupants of her present house. The rest she was to take with her to Paris.

The bureau of her dead husband was of a solid Henri 11. design, the top forming a large square writing-table. From the floor at the two sides rose thick square columns that each held six drawers. Each separate drawer was fitted with a strong lock. Fran- Qoise had never touched this bureau during her husband's lifetime. He had told her that the most important papers which concerned the Perception were kept there and that its contents were officially private.

In the strong iron safe — in the left-hand corner of the room close to the writing-desk — ^he kept under lock and key the various sums collected at the Perception, which he paid in to the Ministry at only stated intervals. According to French law, this safe, as well as all the other pieces of household furniture provided with locks and keys had been sealed up by the local authorities after Adrien's death. But when these formalities were over, Frangoise had lo THE EDUCATION OF JACQUELINE

taken into her possession the bunch of keys upon which were those that opened not only the safe but also the drawers of the bureau. During the whole the preceding afternoon she had been clearing out the drawers. She had completely finished arranging those of the right hand with the exception of the very last one. She turned to this one now, and opened it listlessly. The task of arranging and sorting official papers was not congenial to her and she looked forward with some eagerness to finishing the entire righthand column of small drawers before retiring to bed. She intended working upon the drawers of the left-hand column the following day. She therefore inserted the keys into the lock of the last drawer, and pulled the drawer out wide.

Inside, there were three large packets of letters, each neatly packed together and tied with a faded mauve ribbon. The ribbon had been tied twice across each packet and fastened into a bow. Each bow was securely fixed with a large sealing-wax seal. She took up the largest packet which lay in front of the drawer. The top envelope was addressed to her husband at the Perception — in a woman's handwriting. She noticed that the seal that secured the ribbon bow had been sealed with Adrien's own signet ring. Frangoise recognised the design of the two interlaced letters — ^A. R.— only to well. It had been a present from herself to her husband on the first anniversary of their wedding.

There were a goodly number of letters in eacK packet, and perhaps a hundred letters in all. Most

THE EDUCATION OF JACQUELINE ii

of the envelopes were mauve in colour. Frangoise looked again at the handwriting on the top envelope, and then, pressing back several envelopes, saw that the handwriting on each envelope was the same as that on the top one. She inspected the other packets and discovered that the letters they contained were all addressed in the same handwriting. She turned round the parcels in her hands and was just about to break open the seal of the largest when she noticed a small slip of white paper that had been passed through the ribbon at the side of the packet. On this was written in Adrien's own writing, very clearly and distinctly, " All the letters in this drawer are to be burned unopened at my death." And it was signed "Adrien Reville" in the handwriting Frangoise knew so well. Dropping them hurriedly, she thrust the packets back into the drawer. The habit of implicit obedience to her husband's orders was so strong that it almost seemed to her as if Adrien stood there now behind her chair and in his quiet, even voice — gentle as that of an indulgent parent speaking to a child — ^had told her to leave the letters alone. •. „. . Then a sense of the reality of things stole over her once more and she found herself looking down upon the open drawer with wide, startled eyes.

She took up the larger packet of letters once more almost mechanically, and again examined the handwriting of the address. Yes — it was certainly a woman's writing. . . . But the letters were addressed to the Perception — so they were evidently connected with some question of over-taxation. Protestations were often made to the Percepteur of the district by ratepayers, and so many of these came from women. For the French female householder is an eminently thrifty and economical person who does not accept overcharges without protesting.

But — and the thought thrust itself into Fran^oise's mind once more with blinding swiftness — ^why were there so many letters? It seemed incredible that one woman should have so much to say upon the subject. . . . And why had Adrien written the superscription ordering their destruction without perusal in case of his own death? That was strange indeed!

One after the other, she took up the packets of letters once more and examined the postmarks. Curiously enough most of the letters had been posted in Paris — at the post-office of the Rue Jouffroy. The top one of the largest packet — evidently the last received of all — ^bore, quite distinctly, the date of the day before Adrien's journey to Paris — that journey which had ended so fatally. . e . Ah, yes! she was beginning to remember now . . . clearly. That day before Adrien had left Rouen, she had gone to fetch her husband at the Perception, and just as they were leaving to go home together, the six o'clock evening post had come in. Adrien had taken it from the postman's hands himself — and from among several other letters he had drawn out one in a pale mauve envelope, and had put in into his pocket without reading it. As he often did likewise with those letters received at his

Perception with which he wished to deal personally, Frangoise had not been greatly astonished at the time. But she remembered the incident now quite clearly. . . . The top letter of the packet — was that very letter! Yes . . . then he must have classed it, at once, that very evening with its fellows before leaving for Paris the next morning. For after his return from that last journey he had never touched the drawers of his bureau again.

Suddenly a curious, obscure and nameless dread began to grow upon her, and her heart began to beat tumultuously as if it were already conscious of some sudden deep emotion that had not yet reached her brain. . . .

She felt strangely perturbed, all her sensibility was suddenly aroused. The memory of the incidents of that last walk back from the Perception with her husband had evoked so many things in her mind. . . . She looked round the room now, and gazed again over to the spot where her child was sleeping as if trying to confirm the reality of her own being . . . for so many confused thoughts seemed to be whirling through her brain at the same moment. . . . The regular breathing of the child in the warm atmosphere of the room afforded her some reassuring calm. She turned again to the drawer and yet once more picked up the letters. Should she break the seal and open them? Yet Adrien's instructions were most explicit — "to be burned unopened at my death." . . . Frangoise was imdecided. She was suddenly fired with a strange curiosity — yet long years of obedient submission had forged their enslaving chains around her. She could not have said what she experienced. It was not yet conscious fear or foreboding and yet it was a deep emotion. She had had such unquestioning belief in her husband that she had always implicitly obeyed his slightest injunctions. ... If he wished the letters to be burned, he must have his reasons and in the opinion of Frangoise, Adrien's reasons had always been excellent.

So she put the packet down once more inside the drawer, and as she did so, there was suddenly a ring at the door of the house. Momentarily Frangoise forgot the letters as she listened to the tinkling sound, muffled in the distance, which she knew to be the postman's ring. Clemence — the maid who had been with her since her marriage and who was to remain on with her now as the sole bonne-d-tout faire in her new home — entered the room softly and offered her two letters on a salver. One of them, marked Personnelle, had been to the office of the Perception and re-directed to his predecessor's private address by the new Percepteur, who was already settled in at the Perception.

Fran^oise took the two letters mechanically without glancing at them while Clemence went on tiptoe toward the small cot.

"Elle dort?" she inquired in a whisper with all the ease and freedom of a faithful servant who has become part of the family.

".Yes," murmured Frangoise gently, as she moved aside to let Clemence get a glimpse of the sleeping child.

But the sadness of Fran^oise's voice struck keenly on the ear of the faithful servant.

" Voyons, madame, voyons. . . . You must not let your spirits run down like that. Isn't she a comfort to you?" — and she pointed to the child. " Isn't she a great comfort — the darling child, the blessed angel ! " and Clemence's eyes glistened with pride and love as she looked at the sleeping child.

" Yes, Clemence, she is indeed," said Frangoise, laying her hand gently on the kind creature's arm. "But it is a hard thing when one is widowed and alone at my age."

Clemence looked straight at her mistress. She did not wish to show her any personal emotion or tenderness. She did not mind showing her love for the child, but she thought it wiser not to humour the Patronne.

" But you are not alone yet, madame! You've baby — ^bless her heart — and me and Monsieur Pomm. Besides, you are young, and . . ." But Clemence left the room, the rest of her sentence unspoken. Her own eyes were bright with tears which she steadfastly strove to hide from her mistress.

Frangoise remained some moments by the side of the cot contemplating her sleeping child. And as she stood there smiling the adoring smile of the young mother, she represented a fine type of French womanhood. Dark, yet luminious eyes, soft brown hair in great masses coiled up in the shape of a huge eight on the top of her head, as was the fashion of her day, delicate, narrow waist, wide hips, full-curved bosom. She was indeed good to look at. She resumed her seat at the bureau, placing the lamp at her right elbow, and slowly and listlessly began to open the two letters brought by the evening's post.

The first she opened was from Pomm — Adrien's best and, indeed, only friend. As she conjured up her vision of this dear friend of her dead husband, she sighed and tears arose in her eyes. What a blow the news of Adrien's death must have been to the old naval officer who had been as father, mother and brother in one to Adrien Reville from his early youth upwards! How well she remembered the first time she had met him! It was on the very evening that Adrien had been presented to her by her parents as a possible fiance. After she had left the convent-school, her father and mother who adored her — for she was their only child and upon her they had centred all their hopes — ^had sought a husband for her as is the duty of all self-respecting French parents. Through the intermediary of old personal friends — Monsieur and Madame Dumont — Adrien Reville had been suggested as a possible suitor for the hand of Frangoise de Belval. A small party had been given at the house of their friends in order to bring about a meeting. Though Adrien Reville's father had been a great friend of theirs formerly, the Dumonts knew little or nothing of the young man himself. But they had ascertained that he was a *' jeune homme d'avenir," and though he possessed no fortune of his own, they recognised his right — in seeking a wife — to demand a dowry which would enable him to provide the necessary " cautionnement " which went with the nomination to a post in the Finance department.

When first the young and upright Adrien had bowed before Mademoiselle de Belval, she had been immediately struck by his good looks, his easy gracious manner, his charming voice and his long curling moustache. Ass for Adrien's great friend — ^Jean Pommeret — who accompanied him, he had been sympathetic to the young girl immediately. Instinctively and at once she had felt his goodness and his reliability. Pommeret — or rather Pomm, as Adrien when still a child had affectionately rechristened him — was in appearance as in character everything that Adrien was not. He had no good looks, no elegance, no grace; but he was loyal and true to the core and he looked upon Adrien as his son. He possessed no relations in the world and to him Adrien was everything and his indulgence for the young man*s faults was limitless.

As she opened his letter now Frangoise trembled at the thought of the sad brokenhearted words she was about to read. She knew that Pomm's one dream was to retire from the Navy in a few years* time, then freed from all duties, to settle down in his beloved Paris — and among his beloved books — his unique passion — in the tiny flat he rented near the Luxembourg gardens, and to spend nearly all his week-ends with his friends at Rouen. Pomm had been away in Indo-China when she had telegraphed him the terrible news of Adrien*s sudden death and this was his first letter after reception of the news.

The plain, simple missive was characteristic of the man. He was incapable of expressing the depth of his feeling, although his love for Adrien and for his wife and child was the deepest affection of his kind old heart. The news he had just received had quite broken him down; yet he could not express his misery in words.

" My dear Madame Fran^oise," he wrote, " I cannot tell you what a blow your telegram deals me. I can hardly believe the truth of the sad news ! I send you the deepest expression of my condolence. But I know that you have a brave heart, and that the thought of your young child who needs your care and devotion will help you to bear this great blow. You have Faith too — and I am sure that you will find help and consolation in God. I shall be back in Europe in six months. Rely on my help if I can be of any use to you, and let me have more details of the death of my poor Adrien, and hear of all your new plans.

" Your respectful and affectionate friend,

"Jean Pommeret."

Fran^oise brushed away her tears, and, so as not to dwell too long upon her sad thoughts, and to brace herself up against a too-depressing sorrow, she turned her attention to the second letter. She held it in her hand and looked at the lilac envelope. At first sight — her thoughts still intent upon Pomm's missive — she gazed at it vacantly, and did not recognize the writing. The new Percepteur had drawn a thick line in blue pencil through the name and address, and had re-directed it in his own heavy writing to Madame Reville. But through the strong blue lines Frangoise could still read the address of the Perception and the handwriting seemed not unknown to her. It was a gently sloped feminine hand. The envelope bore the Paris postmark.

Several times she turned it over, dwelling lovingly on the name inscribed on it, " Monsieur Adrien Reyille," and reflecting on the irony of a letter being addressed to a dead man. A slightly trembling " Personnelle" was written on the top left-hand corner of the envelope, which explained its having been forwarded to Monsieur Reville's personal address. A faint perfume of violets arose from it.

Again and again Frangoise turned it over and gazed upon it, and then by degrees the conviction was borne into her mind that the handwriting was familiar. But still, for some unaccountable reason, she did not recognise it. She broke open the seal. As she drew out the letter, again a faint odour of violets came forth. She straightened out the folded sheet and read the first line :

"Mon bien aime — my best beloved—^ — "

Immediately she stopped reading and picked up the envelope again to realize more completely whether or not it were really addressed to Adrien. But the writing on the envelope was unmistakable. It was the same as that of the letter, and it distinctly blazoned forth the name " Monsieur Adrien Reville."

Frangoise, not understanding in the least what the letter meant, proceeded to read it :

" Mon bien aime, — Notwithstanding the terrible risk I run in writing to you again, I cannot refrain from doing so, for I am so terribly anxious about you. What can have happened? Since I saw you off at the St. Lazare Station last month I have not had a line from you. Are you ill, my beloved one? I am distraught with fear. Surely you have not ceased to care for me suddenly after all our years of faithful love and devotion? — especially so soon after the two days we spent together last month in such delirious delight? . when the dear early days of our passion seemed renewed once more — re-created? No, you cannot have ceased to love me, for you cannot forget our past and all that I have been to you. Notwithstanding your marriage and my own fetters I feel that I must go to you, if you do not answer my repeated appeals. But I dare not; though if I knew that you were ill and in danger, then I would fling all our patient years of prudence to the winds — ^and go to you, my Beloved!

" I am wondering whether you have written, and if the letters have been intercepted? Perhaps she — the woman who, alas ! has rights over you — ^has begun to suspect something — as my husband began to suspect until we quieted his fears with the announcement of your marriage five years ago. Beloved — Beloved — what can I do? I am half mad with fear and anxiety. And yet, have you not been more than good to her? Have you not more than repaid her for the service she did you when she gave you her dowry for your cautionnementf Alas! I have done all in my power to quell jealousy of her in my tortured heart. O, dearest, there are moments when I wonder whether you do not love her now — ^yes, love her — ^the woman to whom I gave you, and who is now the mother of your child. .

" Darling, darling, answer me. Forgive me the folly of writing thus. My mind is distraught. I am broken-hearted ! I am dying for news of you. If you are ill, find some means of letting me know. For pity's sake — for our love's sake — put me out of this overwhelming — this insupportable — suspense. " Yours ever and ever

"C^CILE."

FranQoise read through this letter to the end as if she read some book or play. It seemed in no way to concern her. At first she was as if petrified. All thought, all reflection, all power of reasoning, seemed crushed out of her. Then slowly she began to realize what this revelation meant to her, and in her dismay and surprise it seemed — before she could coherently grasp the entire meaning of it — that her own inner and more vital self were withering away. It was as if life itself were leaving her. . . .