Mlle. Fouchette Part 15

A single ray of moonlight from the high loophole in the wall fell athwart the sombre cell and rested caressingly upon her bowed head as she knelt and seemed to bless her.

When she had recovered her self-possession she resumed her seat by the side of Fouchette, who, meanwhile, had been making havoc with the provisions.

"Oh! I was afraid--dreadfully afraid--that night, forty years ago,"

she whispered. "It was in this same place. And when they left me I almost cried my eyes out--and screamed,--how I screamed! Yet no one came. The next morning I had bread and water. And the next night and day, too. Ah! Sainte Mere de Dieu! how I suffered!"

Fouchette shuddered.

"And I was a strong, healthy child, but wilful; yet the dark seemed terrible to me--because I was wicked."

Fouchette wondered what dreadful crime this child of forty years ago had committed to have been thus treated. She must have been very, very wicked.

"Yes, forty years ago----"

"How much did they give you, madame?"

"Er--what's that, pet.i.te?"

"Pardon, madame, but how much time yet do you have to serve?"

"I don't understand," replied the puzzled woman, unfamiliar with worldly terms.

"Why, I mean, how long did they send you up for?" asked the child.

"Send?--they?--who?"

"The police."

"Police? Mon Dieu! my child, the police had nothing to do with me."

"Well, the gendarmes."

"The gendarmes?"

"No; you could never have been guilty, madame! Never! Whatever it was they charged you with----"

"Charged? Sainte Marie be praised, I never committed any crime in my life,--unless it was a crime to be thoughtless and happy."

"I was sure of that!" cried Fouchette, much relieved nevertheless.

"Why, I never was charged with any!" protested the astonished Sister Agnes.

"Then they imprisoned you without trial, as they have me. Ah! mon Dieu! madame, I see it all now! And forty years! Oh!"

"Well, blessed be the saints in heaven!" exclaimed the enlightened religieuse. "What do you think this place is, Fouchette?"

"It is"--she hesitated and changed the form of speech--"is it a--a prison?"

"Why, no! Holy Mother, no!--not a prison, child! You thought it----"

"Yes, madame," faltered Fouchette.

"You poor child! Not so bad as that; yet----"

"I see,--a house of correction?"

"No, not that. At least, not--ah! if Sister Angelique had heard you call 'Le Bon Pasteur' a house of correction it would have been worth three days of bread and water!"

"'Le Bon Pasteur?'" repeated Fouchette.

"Yes, my child. Didn't you really know----"

"No, madame."

Sister Agnes pondered.

"Then why should you remain here?" pursued the curious child. "Can't you go away if you want to?"

"But I do not wish to go now,--not now."

"But if you had wished it at any time."

Sister Agnes was silent.

"Then what is this place, madame?"

"A retreat for the poor,--an orphan asylum,--where little girls who have neither father nor mother, and no home, are sent. And where they are brought up to be good and industrious young women."

"D-don't they ever get out again?" asked Fouchette, somewhat doubtfully.

"Oh, yes. They are set free at twenty-one years of age if they wish to go, and even sooner if their friends come for them. If they don't wish to go, they can remain and become members of the order, if they are suitable. I was brought here at ten years of age by my aunt and left temporarily, but my uncle died and she was too poor, or else did not want me, so I was compelled to remain. When I became twenty-one I owed the inst.i.tution so much from failure to do my tasks and fines, and what my aunt had promised to pay and didn't pay, that I had to stay a long time and work it out, and by that time I had become so accustomed to living here that I was afraid to leave the inst.i.tution and begged them to let me become one of the community.

"Sometimes girls are bad and so lazy they won't work, and then they are punished. And when they prove incorrigible they are put in the other building, which is a house of correction. But if a girl is good and obedient and industrious she has no trouble, and may save up money against the day when she is set at liberty, besides receives the good recommendation of the Superieure, on which she may find honest employment."

While the good Sister Agnes spoke truly, she dared not tell this child the whole truth.

She dared not say that Le Bon Pasteur,--The Good Shepherd,--although ostensibly a charitable inst.i.tution, under religious auspices and subsidized by the State, for the protection and education of orphan girls during their minority, was practically a great factory which did not come under the legal restrictions governing free labor in France, and where several hundred girls and young women, whose only offence against society had been to lose their natural protectors, were subjected to all the rigors of the most benighted penal inst.i.tutions.

She dared not warn this poor little novice that her commitment to The Good Shepherd was equivalent to a sentence of nine years at hard labor; that good conduct and industry would not earn a day from that term, but that bad conduct, neglect, or inability to perform allotted tasks would result not only in severe punishments but an extension of imprisonment indefinitely, at the pleasure of those who reaped the financial reward from the product of the sweat of the orphans.

She dared not notify this frail waif that these tasks of the needle were measured by the ability of the most expert, and that the majority of girls were obliged to work overtime in order to accomplish them; that to many this was an impossibility, and to some death.

She dared not add to her recital of the money that might be earned and saved up against the day of liberty that comparatively few were able to perform the extra work necessary; that fines and charges of all kinds were resorted to in order to reduce such earnings to minimum; and that at the close of her nine years of hard labor for Le Bon Pasteur the most she could expect was to be thrust into the street in the clothes she wore, without a cent, without a friend, without a shelter.

She dared not more than hint at the terrible alternatives placed before these young women from their long isolation from the world,--to remain here prisoners for life, or to cast themselves into the seething h.e.l.l of Paris.

More than all, she dared not add that all of this was done in a so-called republic, in the name of Civilization, to the glory of modern Religion, in love of the Redeemer.