Nobody's Girl (1893)

26

AFTER the talk his mother had had with Perrine, Casimir, by his looks and manner, gave her every opportunity to confide in him. But she had no intention of telling him about the researches that his uncle was having made both in India and in England. True, they had no positive news of the exile; it was all vague and contradictory, but the blind man still hoped on. He left no stone unturned to find his beloved son.

Mme. Bretoneux's advice had some good effect. Until then Perrine had not taken the liberty of having the hood of the phaeton pulled up, if she thought the day was chilly, nor had she dared advise M. Vulfran to put on an overcoat nor suggest that he have a scarf around his neck; neither did she dare close the window in the study if the evening was too cool, but from the moment that Mme. Bretoneux had warned her that the damp mists and rain would be bad for him she put aside all timidity.

Now, no matter what the weather was like, she never got into the carriage without looking to see that his overcoat was in its place and a silk scarf in the pocket; if a slight breeze came up she put the scarf around his neck or helped him into his coat. If a drop of rain began to fall she stopped at once and put up the hood. When she first walked out with him, she had gone her usual pace and he had followed without a word of complaint. But now that she realized that a brisk walk hurt him and usually made him cough or breathe with difficulty, she walked slowly; in every way she devised means of going about their usual day's routine so that he should feel the least fatigue possible.

Day by day the blind man's affection for little Perrine grew. He was never effusive, but one day while she was carefully attending to his wants he told her that she was like a little daughter to him. She was touched. She took his hand and kissed it.

"Yes," he said, "you are a good girl." Putting his hand on her head, he added: "Even when my son returns you shall not leave us; he will be grateful to you for what you are to me."

"I am so little, and I want to be so much," she said.

"I will tell him what you have been," said the blind man, "and besides he will see for himself; for my son has a good kind heart."

Often he would speak in these terms, and Perrine always wanted to ask him how, if these were his sentiments, he could have been so unforgiving and severe with him, but every time she tried to speak the words would not come, for her throat was closed with emotion. It was a serious matter for her to broach such a subject, but on that particular evening she felt encouraged by what had happened. There could not have been a more opportune moment; she was alone with him in his study where no one came unless summoned. She was seated near him under the lamplight. Ought she to hesitate longer?

She thought not.

"Do you mind," she said, in a little trembling voice, "if I ask you something that I do not understand? I think of it all the time, and yet I have been afraid to speak."

"Speak out," he said.

"What I cannot understand," she said timidly, "is that loving your son as you do, you could be parted from him."

"It is because you are so young you do not understand," he said, "that there is duty as well as love. As a father, it was my duty to send him away; that was to teach him a lesson. I had to show him that my will was stronger than his. That is why I sent him to India where I intended to keep him but a short while. I gave him a position befitting my son and heir. He was the representative of my house. Did I know that he would marry that miserable creature? He was mad!"

"But Father Fields said that she was not a miserable creature," insisted Perrine.

"She was or she would not have contracted a marriage that was not valid in France," retorted the blind man, "and I will not recognize her as my daughter."