The Sentimental Adventures of Jimmy Bulstrode. Van Vorst Marie
– 'to breathe,' she says – and she locks me safely in. I play Bostock and dive like maman. And sometimes" – she lowered her voice, and looking back to see if they were alone – confided, "I cry."
"Ah!" sympathized Bulstrode.
"But, yes," she insisted, "when maman forgets to come home, and the night is so black; then the seamstress next door knocks on the wall, and I knock back for company."
"I see," he understood gently, "for company."
He rang for Prosper. "You will conduct mademoiselle home, Prosper, and give her everything she needs for her kitchen always."
"Yes, monsieur; I knew that monsieur would – "
At sight of Prosper the mite gathered up her voluminous skirts and bade her new friend a cordial good-by.
From the corrupted Prosper Bulstrode extracted what he wished to know concerning the child.
"It is of a scandalousness, monsieur! Four nights of the seven the poor little object is alone. The mother appears to have money enough, she pays her rent regularly, and there is therefore nothing to do. She sometimes even fetches her companions home with her, and Simone, when she is not making sport for them, is tied to a chair to keep her from falling off in her sleep."
Bulstrode expressed himself strongly, violently for him, went to see a lawyer and a charitable French countess and found out that so long as the mother did not actually ill-treat the child she could not be replaced by any other guardian.
"Mon cher ami," said the spirituelle lady, "leave the fish to her deviltry, and her child in her care. We are fin de race, if you like, and in direct opposition to your American progressive schemes, but we have a tradition that the family is sacred, and that, however bad it may be, a child is better off in its home than elsewhere. You will find it difficult to replace a mother by a machine or an institution, believe me."
And Bulstrode at the words felt a new sense of failure in philanthropies, and his benevolence seemed pure dilletantism. What was he likely to accomplish in the case of this child? Nothing more than the momentary pleasure a few toys and a few hours of play could secure. "And yet," as he mused he philosophically put it to himself, "isn't it, after all, about the sum total any of us get out of destiny?"
In New York he would have quite known how to proceed in order to help the child, but in the face of French law and strong family prejudice he came up against a stone wall.
"I'm no sort of a real benefactor," he remorsefully acceded, "and I don't believe I'm fit to be trusted alone with the poor."
Nevertheless he did not relinquish his idea entirely, and confided Simone to Prosper's sympathetic care and that of an emotional maid-servant, with the result that a cleaning woman penetrated by hook or crook into the room of "the fish" and treated it to more aqua pura than the piscatory individual had cognizance of outside of the aquarium.
The gentleman in this particular charity was surprised to find how simple it sometimes is to do good. In this case no one had come to him with a petition or a demand; on the contrary, a note of undeserved thanks had, with the strange little creature, been presented to him. It was so pleasantly easy to help a child! There were no arrières pensées– not that they would have troubled him, but there were none; there were no wire-pullings, no time infringements, no suggestion or criticism, no – he believed – expectations. Everything he could do was so annoyingly little! The charwoman cleaned, Simone had a complete wardrobe, the larder was full, and there remained nothing but toys to buy. The little thing was so womanly and capable – he had seen it and marvelled in their interviews at her age and accomplishments – her hands were so apt and almost creative, that toys seemed inadequate. She took her benefits charmingly; rushed over at the least provocation to pour out her gratitude, and Bulstrode, who hated thanks, liked these. Childhood, if it had been for sale on the Boulevard, even that he would have bought Simone if he could! As it was, he found himself pausing before a series of shops other than chemisièrs – florists, and jewellers' – shops where diminutive objects were displayed – and one afternoon had been standing ridiculously long in front of a certain window on the Rue de Rivoli when he was accosted by an agreeable and familiar voice.
"Jimmy! It isn't possible! don't tell me it has come so cruelly soon?"
The gentleman gave a violent, but an entirely happy start. Well, there were rewards then for people who didn't follow speeding motors through France! She was back and in Paris.
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