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Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
honestly by so much money; as my hostess observed, the good woman might at least have waited for
corroboration of the child's statement. A box of chocolate, transmitted by a third hand, I have no doubt
acted as a consolation.
Dear kind mademoiselle Jenny M - - How warmly she welcomed me to her homely hearth! My little
purple rosette, insignia of an officer of Public Instruction of France, proved a bond of union. This
excellent woman was the daughter of a schoolmaster who had himself worn the academic ribbon, a
French schoolmaster's crowning ambition. He had left his daughter, in comfortable circumstances, that is
to say, she enjoyed an annuity of L40 a year, the possession of a large, roomy house, part of which she
let, and half an acre of garden full as it could be of flowers, fruit and vegetables. We at once became
excellent friends.
"Now," she said, "I am very sorry that my best bedroom is given up to soldiers, two poor young fellows I
took in the other night out of compassion. You can, however, have the little back room looking on to the
garden, it is rather in disorder, but you will find the bed comfortable. I cannot offer to do much for you in
the way of waiting, having a lame foot, but a woman brings me milk early in the morning and she shall
put a cupful outside your door; bread and butter you will find in the little kitchen next to your room."
I assured her that such an arrangement would suit me very well, as I had my own spirit lamp and could
make tea for myself; then we went downstairs. The great difficulty that night was to get anything to eat.
The soldiers had eaten every body out of house and home, she assured me there was not such a thing as a
chop or an egg to be had in the town for love or money. Fortunately, I had the remains of a cold chicken
in my lunch basket, and this did duty for supper, my hostess pressing upon me some excellent Bordeaux.
As we chatted, she mentioned the fact that two or three friends, much in the same situation as herself,
occupied the little houses running alongside her garden.
"We are all old maids," she informed me.
"Old maids," quoth I, "how is that? I thought there were no single women out of convents in France."
"The thing," she said, "has come about in this way - we have all enough to live upon, and so many
women worsen their condition by marriage, instead of bettering it, that we made up our minds to live
comfortably on what we have got, and not trouble our heads about the men. We live very happily
together, and are all socialists, radicals, libres penseuses and the rest. We read a great deal, and,
as you will see to-morrow, my father left me a good library."
As we sat at table in the somewhat untidy kitchen, my fellow guests, the conscripts, came in, they were
pleasant, civil young fellows belonging to different classes of life. One was a middle-class civilian from
an industrial city of the north, the other a homely peasant, son of the soil.
These conscripts, however poorly fed in barracks, fare like aldermen during these manoeuvres,
everybody giving them to eat and drink of their best. They had just dined plentifully, but for all that,
managed to get down a bumper of wine immediately offered by Mademoiselle Jenny; a hunk of Dijon
gingerbread they did evidently find some difficulty in getting through. We toasted each other in
friendliest fashion, and the civilian, out of compliment to myself, drank to the health of the English army.
Next morning I fared no less sumptuously than a soldier during the manoeuvres. A savoury steam had
announced game for our mid-day meal.
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