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MADEMOISELLE MA M?RE

She was born in Chauville-le-Vieux. Her mother gave piano lessons at the local Lyc?e de Jeunes Filles, and her father had been "professeur de violon" at the little Conservatoire. Music was her destiny. As a hollow-eyed, stunted child, who should have been romping in the unfrequented park, she had been doomed to hours of piano practice in the stuffy salon, where during eight months of the year a window was never opened for longer than it took to shake out the rug. Her name was Marie Lamande.

Because its Lyc?e was widely known, English and American families came to stay in Chauville--the English pupils discovering what it was to be taught with enthusiasm--and Marie knew French girls who had been initiated into the pleasures of tea-parties. Open-mouthed, she heard that the extravagant anglaise or am?ricaine must have spent at least five or six francs on the cakes. But all the foreigners successively grew tired of inviting French children whose astonished mothers sent them trooping as often as they were asked, and, in no case, gave an invitation in return, and Marie herself never had the good luck to be asked.

Like her parents, she had been intended for the groove of tuition, and in due course tuition became her lot. But she was a gifted pianist, and ambitious; she dreamed of glory. Some years after she had been left alone, when her age was twenty-seven, she dared to escape from the melancholy town that she had grown to execrate. A slight little woman, without influence or knowledge of life, she aspired to conquer Paris. She attacked it with a sum sufficient to keep her for twelve months.

She found a lodging now in the rue Honor?-Chevalier, and sought engagements for Soir?es d'Art and Matin?es Artistiques, writing to many people who made no reply, and crossing the bridge to appeal in person to many others, who were inaccessible, or rude.

Among the few letters of introduction that she had brought from Chauville, one served its purpose. Madame Herbelin, the Directrice of the Lyc?e, always kindly disposed towards her, had recommended her to an acquaintance as a teacher. Thanks to this, she earned five francs each Thursday by a lesson.

When nine alarming weeks had slipped away she gained an interview with a fat man who had much knowledge, and who was interested in hearing himself talk. He said to her:

She told him: "I am a poor woman, and the only pupil that I have here is a child in Montparnasse."

The fat man, groaning comically, volunteered to "see what he could do."

He forgot her after five minutes.

Practising, in the feeble lamplight of the attic, she used to wait, through the long evenings, for the postman and news that never came. "For me?" she would call over the banisters. "Nothing, mademoiselle!" Then, back to the hired Pleyel, that barely left space for her to wash. Inexorable technique, cascades of brilliance, while her heart was breaking.

After she shut the piano, the dim light looked dimmer. The narrow street was silent. Only, in the distance sometimes, was the jog-trot of a cab-horse and the minor jangle of its bell.

Her siege of Paris made no progress.

Companionship came to her when ten months had gone. A young widow drifted to the house, and now and then, on the stairs, they met. One day they found themselves seated at the same table, in a little cr?merie close by, and over their oeufs-sur-le-plat they talked. As they walked home together, the widow said:

"I always leave my door open to hear you play."

The answer was, "Won't you come into my room instead?"

Madame Branthonne was a gentlewoman, employed in the Bernstein School of Languages. She was so free-handed with her sous, so generous in the matter of brioche and chocolate, that Marie thought she must be comparatively rich. But madame Branthonne was not rich; and when Marie knew her well it transpired that she remitted every month, out of her slender salary, for the maintenance of a baby son in Amiens.

"How you must miss him! How old is he?"

"Only eleven weeks. Miss him? Mon Dieu! But I had to leave him, or we should both have starved; if I had brought him with me, who would have looked after him all day while I was out? Besides, in this work, there is no telling how long one may remain in any city--I might be packed off to some other branch of the concern to-morrow."

"Really?"

"Oh yes; one never knows. Last week one of oar professors was sent at a day's notice to Russia. What a life! Of course, one need not consent to go, but it is never prudent to refuse. You used to make me cry in there for my baby, when you played the piano. The poor little soul is called 'Paul,' after his father; he is with a person who used to be my servant; she is married now, and has a little business, a dairy. I know she is good to him, but imagine how I suffer--in less than a year I have lost my husband and my child. Alors, vrai! what an egotist I am! How go your own affairs? Still no luck?"

The present lottery had neared its end; only one drawing remained, and the price of tickets was accordingly much reduced. The friends bought their microscopic chance for five francs each.

The prizes that were dangled varied between a mite and a fortune; and now, in the murky lamplight of the garret, the pianist saw visions. Rebuffed, intimidated, she had suddenly a prospect; chimerical as the prospect was, she might gain the means to buy a hearing for her art!

For the woman seeking recognition, opportunity. For the woman divided from her child, a home. Every night they spoke of it. Often while the lamp burnt low, and a horse-bell jangled sadly, they laughed together in a castle-in-the-air.

"As usual! I am sorry I proposed it to you. It is an imbecility to waste one's earnings in such a fashion--one might as well toss money in the Seine. Well, I have had enough! I have finished. I am determined never to gamble any more," cried madame Branthonne, who had made the same resolve a dozen times.

Marie said less. But her disappointment was black; it was only now that she knew how vivid had been her hope. And in the meanwhile her little hoard had dwindled terribly, and she was seeking other pupils.

"What if you get them--you will be no nearer to renown? In Chauville you have a living waiting for you--why wear out shoe-leather to find bread in Paris? Poverty in Paris is no sweeter than poverty elsewhere."

"No," sighed her confidante; "I don't suppose it's so bad as that--men do help one sometimes." But in her heart she felt, "You aren't the kind of woman that men do things for."

And, to a stranger, even pupils at five francs an hour proved hard to find. A pianist of talent--and she couldn't earn a living in Paris, even by elementary lessons. It was one of those cases which the uninitiated call "improbable," and which are happening all the time.

Yet it fell to madame Branthonne to quit Paris first. When Marie Lamande could no longer sleep at night, or slept only to see the desolation of Chauville in her dreams, the teacher of French was required to go to one of the London branches of the school. It occurred abruptly; the news and the good-bye were almost simultaneous.

"You know you can't spare it," urged Marie. "I wouldn't, if I were you!"

Momentarily the widow hesitated; and then she gave a shrug.

"Oh, of course, I'm an idiot," she exclaimed. "But what else have I got to hope for? Yes, get it and send it to me!"

Early in the journey she vacillated again. But her instructions were not revoked, because soon afterwards no more than a third of the train remained on the rails, and madame Branthonne was among the victims killed.

Her aghast friend heard of the catastrophe twelve hours later than multitudes for whom it had no personal interest. Dazed, she wondered whether the ex-servant in Amiens would see the name of "Branthonne" in the list of the dead, and what would become of the baby now. She had a confused notion that she ought to communicate with the woman, but she was ignorant of the address. She went hysterically to the head office of the school, where the manager undertook to make inquiries at the Amiens branch.

When the sickness of horror passed, her thoughts reverted to the ticket that she had been enjoined to buy; and on the way to fulfil the duty, it was as if the dead woman, as she had seen her last, with her hat and coat on, were close to her again. "What name?" inquired the clerk in the big bank. "Lamande," she answered--and asked herself afterwards if it would have been more businesslike to say "Branthonne." But it didn't seem to matter. The point that perplexed her was, in whose charge ought the ticket to be? It belonged to the baby now, and its possibilities extended through the year. "S?rie No. 78, Billet No. 19,333." Ought she to post it confidingly to the dairy-keeper when she learnt where she lived?

The question persisted, as she tramped the streets despondently--as daily she drew nearer to defeat. She had discontinued to hire a piano. Everywhere she was humbled with the same reply, banished with the same gestures, maddened by the same callous unconcern. Paris was brutal! She dropped in her purse the last louis that protracted hope. When this was gone, there would be left nothing but the price of her journey to Chauville and despair.

In the first drawing of the lottery, a few days later, the ticket won a prize of twelve thousand francs.

The thought floated across her mind impersonally. It brought no shock, because it did not present itself as a temptation, even the faintest; it was just as if she had been recognising what somebody in a tale might do. Without purpose, without questioning why the thought fascinated her, she sat seeing how easily she could steal the money.

Recalling her, there sounded, in the dark emptiness again, the minor jangle of a cab-horse bell.

Nothing could quell the voice. It was whispering while she prayed. And the crashing of orchestras could not drown it, when she fled to music for relief.

She learnt that the woman in Amiens was called Gaillard, and had a shop in the rue Puteaux. But now she shrank from writing to her--she didn't know how she meant to act. Once, in desperation, she did begin a letter, an avowal of the prize that had been drawn; but she hesitated again.

There was an evening when, with steps that wavered, like a woman enfeebled by illness, she packed her things to return to Chauville.... She sat wide-eyed, staring at the trunk.

"R?CITAL DONN? PAR MADEMOISELLE MARIE LAMANDE." A blue-and-white poster, with her name staring Paris in the face. The time came when she saw one on a wall, and stopped, thrilling at it in the rain. A week afterwards she saw one on a wall again, and passed it with a sigh, remembering the half-empty salle, and the cheques that she had drawn.

"Patience, mademoiselle, patience. An artist does not arrive in a day; one must persevere." There were plenty of persons to give her encouragement now that it might be advantageous to them.

But the expense of her d?but was a warning, and she proceeded slowly. Though they made her feel very shy and cowardly, she did not succumb to the arguments of vehement people who offered "opportunities the most exceptional" at a big price, and whose attitudes of amazement implied that she must be brainless to decline. She did not waste money in bettering her abode. She did not, when she had given a recital again, continue to imagine that the prize had provided a sum abundant for her purpose.

The knowledge obsessed her that she owed this money, that one day she was to repay it. For a year she told herself, "The road is harder than I thought, but I shall reach the end of it in time!" During the second year she struggled in a panic, while the money was melting, melting without result.

To adventure a concert meant such wearisome, such overwhelming preparation. And within a week it was as if it had never been--she was again forgotten. But she saw a little chorus-girl, who had done something more than ordinarily immodest, launch herself into celebrity in a night.

At last, when she realised that she had wrecked her peace of mind for nothing, when to cross the bridge was to eye the river longingly, she knew that she wasn't free to find oblivion like that. Restitution to the child would be impossible, but it was her destiny to support him. She wrote to madame Herbelin, in Chauville, appealing for influence to regain the footing that she had kicked away. Her bent face was wet and ugly as she detailed the story of her failure; she foresaw the greetings, tactful, but galling, of acquaintances, the half-veiled satisfaction of other music-mistresses in the town.

The reply that reached her made it evident that to recover the position would be a slow process. And her means to wait were limited.

Hitherto the acknowledgments from Amiens had varied but slightly: "The remittance had come; the baby was well," or "the baby had had some infantile ailment, and was better." Now, a partially illegible letter informed her suddenly that the little business was to be given up. Circumstances compelled the woman to take a situation again, and she could not keep the orphan in her care. It was explained that "Mademoiselle should arrange to remove him in a month's time."

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