Chapter XXVI: Madame Mimi writes a letter to Paddy O’Connell

The Hotel Metropole, Brighton,
Sunday.

Dear Great Big Monsieur Paddy,--I cannot very much write the English as now, but I shall have to say to you what is not proper. Why do you tell me the untrue things about my husband--that he is the poor man and no more shall have any of the moneys? Is it, Monsieur Paddy, because the men always think they are good when they tell the untruth to the lady? But I know, and I am angry, very angry with you. You shall never tell me untrue things again--_jamais de ma vie_.

I would tell you that we have gone away from the Hampstead to the border of the sea. If Harry had not the moneys he could not have led me here in the big motor-car--so big, Monsieur Paddy, that we could have put you in it as well. And we have come to the hotel, and I am so frightened of the people and I think I shall run away. But Harry says no--and I remain, for I could not be, oh, not for a little single hour, away from the place where _mon mari_ dwells. So I stay, but am very sad--dear friend, if you would understand how sad I am!

Why do the men come to my house and watch me? I do not say to my husband half the things I know, for that shall make him afraid also. Is it, Monsieur Paddy, that someone hates me for being his wife? Shall you think that Madame Lea sends the men? She is not the woman who may forget him--how well I remember it, and how often I tell it by myself when no one is in the apartment with me. She will not forget--that clever, wicked Madame Lea who love all the men for moneys but not any at all for the love.

It was because I have been afraid that my husband brought me to the border of the sea. We have put on all our clothes and are very beautiful. I must not sing as I walk to and fro, and if the music makes me want to dance I must hold myself down upon my _banc_. All the afternoons the _monde_ goes up and down in a carriage--such _gros monsieurs_ with fur round their necks, and the English lady who is so sad and makes her shoulders bare before she sits down to dinner.

I like the sun and I like the sea--the great big wild sea, where across so far is my beloved France. I am very happy with my husband, but, oh, so much afraid, that I wake in the night and lay my head upon his breast and cry myself because he is there and I am his wife. Ah, Monsieur Paddy, how unhappy to be no one--never to have known that you were a little child and that you had a home. I am that, and I am ashamed because it has been so--that I am not as the others, and that my husband shall never be proud of me because of what I was when I left my father’s house.

Will you not write to me, my dear Monsieur Paddy, and tell me how wrong I am? Do not refuse Mimi the Simpleton. She is very simple still, dear Monsieur Paddy, and she have no right to believe that her happiness is not the dream which will pass away.

Why did you go from us to your desert country? Why did you leave us? It was not kind, Monsieur--and you have been our friend. All the others is gone away--the Chevalier, the wicked Monsieur Oleander, the kind Monsieur Barrymore. They have taken my husband’s money and gone away--ah, _quel drole du monde!_

_Mais vous_,--Well, I shall forgive you, for you will come back to me. And you will write the letter to say that I am wicked and that I must not be afraid. And please to tell me that it is not Madame Lea, and that my husband will never see her--never as long as we both shall live.

Your devoted,
Mimi Gastonard.