But alas! when I arrived in London, at the address that she had given me, I found there only her old friend the Chevalier d'Ivoy, who told me that my mother was dead, and that what was left of her money, with her jewels and chests, was deposited in the Bank of England. I was more dead than alive; all these things paralyzed me. But my good Joseph took upon himself to do everything for me. He went and drew what had been deposited in the bank. Indeed of money there remained but twelve thousand francs; but there were plate, jewels, pictures, and many vanities in the form of gowns and every sort of attire.
Joseph rented a little house in a suburb of London, engaged an old Frenchwoman to attend me, and he, after all my husband, made himself my servant, my gardener, my factotum. He ate in the kitchen with the maid, waited upon me at table, and slept in the garret on a pallet.
"Am I not very wicked?" said I to myself every day, especially when I saw his pallor and profound sadness. They had taught me in the convent that the ties of marriage were a sacred thing and that one could not break them, no matter how they might have been made; and when my patrician pride revolted at the thought of this union with the son of my nurse my heart pleaded and pleaded hard the cause of poor J Joseph. His (_Evidently torn before Alix care, his wrote on it, as no words presence, became are wanting in the text_.) more and more necessary. I knew not how to do anything myself, but made him my all in all, avoiding myself every shadow of care or trouble. I must say, moreover, that since he had married me I had a kind of fear of him and was afraid that I should hear him speak to me of love; but he scarcely thought of it, poor fellow:
reverence closed his lips. Thus matters stood when one evening Joseph entered the room (_Opposite page of the where I was reading, same torn sheet. Alix and standing has again written upright before around the rent_.) me, his hat in his hand, said to me that he had something to tell me. His expression was so unhappy that I felt the tears mount to my eyes.
"What is it, dear Joseph?" I asked; and when he could answer nothing on account of his emotion, I rose, crying:
"More bad news? What has happened to my nurse-mother? Speak, speak, Joseph!"