Madame Delano had told him unequivocally that she had gone directly to
Rouen after her husband's death ... but again, although Helene
remembered arriving in Rouen with her mother, she must have been left
for a time elsewhere, for Helene had another memory--of a convent, where
she had tarried for what seemed a very long time to her childish mind.
Could she have been sent to a convent from the house in Rouen when she
was so little that her memories of that first sojourn were confused? And
why? The family had apparently been fond of "la petite Americaine," and
even if her devoted mother had been obliged to leave her for several
years it is doubtful if they would have sent so young a child to a
convent. Rack his memory as he would he could recall no allusion to such
a journey, to any separation between mother and child after they were
established in Rouen.
But he did remember one of Madame Delano's few references to the past,
which might suggest that she had left the child somewhere while she went
home to make peace with her family to get her bearings. Her brother had
not approved of her marrying an American. "But," she had added
graciously, "you see I had no such prejudice. Neither now nor then. James
was the best of husbands."
"James!" "Jim."
He had heard the name Jim as he boarded the dummy, uttered in extremely
familiar accents; by Bisbee, of course. Yes, and something else. "We all
felt bad when he croaked."
His feverishly alert memory darted to another pigeon hole and exhumed
another treasure. Some ten or twelve months ago he had been obliged to go
to a northern county on business that involved buying up smaller
concerns, and would keep him away for a fortnight or more. He had taken
Helene, and as they were motoring through one of the old towns she had
leaned forward with a little gasp exclaiming: "How exactly like! If I didn't know that I had never been in California
before except merely to be born here I could vow that is where I lived
with the dear nuns."
He had asked idly: "Where was your convent?" and she had shaken her head.
"Maman says I never was in a convent, that I dreamed it." She had lifted
to Ruyler a puzzled face. "I remember she punished me once, when I was
about seven and persisted in talking about the convent--I suppose I had
forgotten it for a time in the new life, and something brought it back to
me. But it is the most vivid memory of my childhood. Do you think I could
have been one of those uncanny children that live in a dream world? I
hope not. I like to think I am quite normal and full to the brim of
common sense." He had laughed and told her not to worry. He had lived in
a dream world himself when he was little.