Chapter XIV: Lady Jane Visits the D’hautreves

One morning Lady Jane was rewarded for her patient waiting; as usual, she was lingering on the sidewalk near the green fence, when she heard the key turn in the lock, and suddenly the door opened, and an elderly lady, very tall and thin, with a mild, pale face, appeared and beckoned her to approach.

For a moment Lady Jane felt shy, and drew back, fearing that she had been a little rude in haunting the place so persistently; besides, to her knowledge, she had never before stood in the presence of “genuine French nobility,” and the pale, solemn looking woman, who, in spite of her rusty gown, had an air of distinction, rather awed her. However, her good breeding soon got the better of her timidity, and she went forward with a charming smile.

“Would you like to come in, my dear, and look at my flowers?” said the lady, opening the gate a little wider for Lady Jane to enter.

“Yes, thank you,” and Lady Jane smiled and flushed with pleasure when she caught a glimpse of the beautiful vista beyond the dark figure. “May I bring Tony in, too?”

“Certainly, I want to see him very much, but I want to see you more,” and she laid her hand caressingly on the beautiful head of the child. “I’ve been watching you for some time.”

“Have you? Why, how did you see me?” and Lady Jane dimpled with smiles.

“Oh, through a little chink in my fence; I see more than any one would think,” replied the lady smiling.

“And you saw me waiting and waiting; oh, why didn’t you ask me in before? I’ve wanted to come in so much, and did you know I’d been here singing with you?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Are you Mam’selle Diane?”

“Yes, I am Mam’selle Diane; and what is your name?”

“I’m called Lady Jane.”

“_Lady_ Jane,—_Lady?_ Why, do you know that you have a title of nobility?”

“But I’m not one of the nobility. It’s my name, just Lady Jane. Papa always called me Lady Jane. I didn’t know what nobility was, and Mr. Gex told me that you were one. Now I’ll never forget what it is, but I’m not one.”

“You’re a very sweet little girl, all the same,” said Mam’selle Diane, a smile breaking over her grave face. “Come in, I want to show you and your bird to mama.”

Lady Jane followed her guide across a small, spotless side gallery into a tiny room of immaculate cleanliness, where, sitting in an easy-chair near a high bed, was an old, old lady, the oldest person Lady Jane had ever seen, with hair as white as snow, combed back from a delicate, shrunken face and covered with a little black silk cap.

“Mama, this is the little girl with the bird of whom I’ve been telling you,” said Mam’selle Diane, leading her forward. “And, Lady Jane, this is my mother, Madame d’Hautreve.”

The old lady shook hands with the child and patted her head caressingly; then she asked, in a weak, quavering voice, if the bird wasn’t too heavy for the little girl to carry.

“Oh, no, Madame,” replied Lady Jane, brightly. “Tony’s large, he grows very fast, but he isn’t heavy, he’s all feathers, he’s very light; would you like to take him?”

“Oh, no, no, my dear, oh no,” said the old lady, drawing back timidly. “I shouldn’t like to touch it, but I should like to see it walk. I suppose it’s a crane, isn’t it?”

“He’s a blue heron, and he’s not a common bird,” replied Lady Jane, repeating her little formula, readily and politely.

“I see that it’s different from a crane,” said Mam’selle Diane, looking at Tony critically, who, now that his mistress had put him down, stood on one leg very much humped up, and making, on the whole, rather an ungainly figure.

“Tony always will do that before strangers,” observed Lady Jane apologetically. “When I want him to walk about and show his feathers, he just draws himself up and stands on one leg.”

“However, he is very pretty and very odd. Don’t you think I might succeed in copying him?” And Mam’selle Diane turned an anxious glance on her mother.

“I don’t know, my dear,” quavered the old lady, “his legs are so long that they would break easily if they were made of sealing-wax.”

“I think I could use a wire with the sealing-wax,” said Mam’selle Diane, thoughtfully regarding Tony’s leg. “You see there would be only one.”

“I know, my dear, but the wool; you’ve got no wool the color of his feathers.”

“Madame Jourdain would send for it.”

“But, Diane, think of the risk; if you shouldn’t succeed, you’d waste the wool, and you do the ducks so well, really, my dear, I think you’d better be satisfied with the ducks and the canaries.”

“Mama, it would be something new, something original. I’m tired of ducks and canaries.”

“Well, my dear, I sha’n’t oppose you, if you think you can succeed, but it’s a great risk to start out with an entirely new model, and you can’t use the wool for the ducks if you should fail; you must think of that, my dear, whether you can afford to lose the wool, if you fail.”

While this conversation was going on between Mam’selle Diane and her mother, Lady Jane’s bright eyes were taking in the contents of the little room. It was very simply furnished, the floor was bare, and the walls were destitute of adornment, save over the small fireplace, where hung a fine portrait of a very handsome man dressed in a rich court dress of the time of Louis XIV. This elegant courtier was Mam’selle Diane’s grandfather, the Count d’Hautreve, and under this really fine work of art, on the small mantelpiece, was some of the handicraft of his impoverished granddaughter, which fascinated Lady Jane to such a degree that she had neither eyes nor ears for anything else.

The center of the small shelf was ornamented with a tree made of a variety of shades of green wool over a wire frame, and apparently hopping about among the foliage, on little sealing-wax legs, with black bead eyes and sealing-wax bills, were a number of little wool birds of every color under the sun, while at each end of the mantel were similar little trees, one loaded with soft yellow canaries, the other with little fluffy white things of a species to puzzle an ornithologist. Lady Jane thought they were adorable, and her fingers almost ached to caress them.

“Oh, how pretty they are!” she sighed, at length, quite overcome with admiration; “how soft and yellow! Why, they are like real live birds, and they’re ever so much prettier than Tony,” she added, glancing ruefully at her homely pet; “but then they can’t hop and fly and come when you call them.”

Madame d’Hautreve and Mam’selle Diane witnessed her delight with much satisfaction. It seemed a tardy, but genuine, recognition of genius.

“There, you see, my dear, that I was right, I’ve always said it,” quavered the old lady. “I’ve always said that your birds were wonderful, and the child sees it; children tell the truth, they are sincere in their praise, and when they discover merit, they acknowledge it simply and truthfully. I’ve always said that all you needed to give you a reputation was recognition,—I’ve always said it, if you remember; but show her the ducks, my dear, show her the ducks. I think, if possible, that they are more natural than the others.”

Mam’selle Diane’s sad, grave face lighted up a little as she led the child to a table near the side window, which was covered with pieces of colored flannel, sticks of sealing-wax, and bunches of soft yellow wool. In this table was a drawer which she drew out carefully, and there on little scalloped flannel mats of various colors sat a number of small yellow downy ducklings.

“Oh, oh!” exclaimed Lady Jane, not able to find other words at the moment to express her wonder and delight.

“Would you like to hold one?” asked Mam’selle Diane, taking one out.

Lady Jane held out her pink palm, and rapturously smoothed down its little woolly back with her soft fingers. “Oh, how pretty, how pretty!” she repeated in a half-suppressed tone.

“Yes, I think they are rather pretty,” said Mam’selle Diane modestly, “but then they are so useful.”

“What are they for?” asked Lady Jane in surprise; she could not think they were made for any other purpose than for ornament.

“They are pen-wipers, my dear. You see, the pen is wiped with the little cloth mat they are sitting on.”

Yes, they were pen-wipers; Mademoiselle Diane d’Hautreve, granddaughter of the Count d’Hautreve, made little woolen ducklings for pen-wipers, and sold them quite secretly to Madame Jourdain, on the Rue Royale, in order to have bread for her aged mother and herself.

Lady Jane unknowingly had solved the financial mystery connected with the d’Hautreve ladies, and at the same time she had made another valuable friend for herself.