



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Unawares
By Frances Peard
Published by Roberts Brothers, Boston.
This edition dated 1872.

Unawares, by Frances Peard.

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UNAWARES, BY FRANCES PEARD.

CHAPTER ONE.

  "Quaint old town of toil and traffic."

  Longfellow.

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"You might tell us something, Madame Angelin, since you know so much!"

"Yes, indeed.  What is the good of knowing if you keep it to yourself?"
cried a younger woman, impatiently, placing, as she spoke, her basket of
herbs and vegetables upon the broad stone edge of the fountain around
which a little group had gathered.

"Was it a fit?"

"Has Monsieur Deshoulieres gone to him?"

"Is he dead?"

"What becomes of her?"

"Holy Virgin! will the town have to bury him?"

The individual upon whom this volley of shrill questions was directed
was a small, thin, pungent-faced Frenchwoman, who had just filled her
pitcher at the fountain, and stood with hands clasped over her waist,
and with ineffable satisfaction in her twinkling black eyes, looking
upon the excited questioners who crowded round her.  It is not given to
everybody to know more than their neighbours, nor, as Veuve Angelin
shrewdly reflected, is it a privilege to be lightly parted with.  There
was something very enchanting in the eager attention with which her
information was awaited, and she looked round upon them all with a
patronising benignity, which was, to say the least, irritating.  The May
sun was shining brightly over old pointed roofs; the tiny streams
running out of three grim carved heads in the stone fountain danced and
sparkled in its light; the horse-chestnuts stiffly standing round the
little "Place" threw deep shadows on the glaring stones; from one side
sounded the soft wash of an unseen river; old, dilapidated houses were
jumbled together, irrespective of height and size; behind the women, the
town with its clustering houses rose abruptly on the side of a steep
hill, crowned by the lovely spires of the Cathedral; and before them,
only hidden from sight by the buildings of a straggling suburb,
stretched the monotonous plains and sunny cornfields of the granary of
France.

Veuve Angelin smiled indulgently and shook her head.  "You young people
think too much of gossip," she said.

"So they do, Marie, so they do," responded an old woman, pushing her
yellow, wizened face through the shoulders of those in front of her.
"In our day things arranged themselves differently: the world was not
the magpie's nest it is now.  The young minded their elders, and
conducted themselves sagely, instead of chattering and idling and
going--the saints know whither!"

Veuve Angelin drew herself up.  She was by no means pleased with this
ally.  "All that may have been in your day, Nannon," she said
spitefully, "but my time was very much the same as this time.
Grandfather Owl always thinks the days grow darker."

"Hear her!" cried the old woman, shrilly.  "Has she forgotten the
cherry-trees we used to shake together, the--"

One of the younger of the group interrupted her unceremoniously, "Ta,
ta, Nannon, never mind that now!  Tell us, Madame Angelin, whether it is
all true which they say about the poor old gentleman and the beautiful
young demoiselle.  _Ciel_! there is the clock striking noon, and I
should have been back from market an hour ago.  Quick! we all die of
curiosity;" and she caught some water in the palm of her hand and
sprinkled it over the drooping herbs in her basket, while the others
pressed round more eagerly than ever.

But Veuve Angelin's temper had been roused by Nannon's reminiscences.

"I am going," she said crossly.  "No one shall ever accuse me of
gossiping.  Monsieur's breakfast has to be prepared by the time he
returns from the Cygne, and with this monster of a pitcher to carry up
the hill, just because the _fille_ who fetches the water is ill--"

"Let me carry your pitcher, Madame Angelin!"

"I will take it to the very door.  _Peste_, it is hard if one can't do
so much for one's friends."

"Yes, yes, Fanchon will carry it like a bird.  And so Monsieur is
absolutely at the hotel?"

"Bon jour, mesdames," said old Nannon, laughing shrilly.  "No one cares
to help me with my basket, I suppose?  It is heavy, too: it contains the
clean clothes of my sister's girl, Toinette, a good, hard-working girl
she is, and _fille_ at the Cygne, as you know.--What, Fanchon, my child,
you would carry it!  How admirable you are with your attentions to a
poor old woman like me!  I was wrong, Madame Angelin, I acknowledge it,
in my estimate of your generation."

There was a hesitating movement among the women: they had forgotten
Toinette, and with such a link it was possible that Nannon might be the
best newsmonger after all.  Veuve Angelin noticed the movement, and it
filled her with dismay.

"I saw it myself, I tell you," she cried loudly, plunging at once into
the heart of her subject.  "I saw them come out of the Cygne, the old
monsieur and the young lady, and walk up and down, up and down, under
the trees before the door, and then just, just as they came towards
me--"

She stopped.  The women pressed closer.  Fanchon was drawn back, and
listened enthralled; old Nannon, whose temper was not so sharp as her
words