"Big enough for a black-eyed imp like you."
A pommelling match followed, ending by Raoul snatching off his father's
straw hat and flinging it into the river, where it sailed slowly down,
Raoul shrieking with delight, and Leon running along the edge to rescue
it at last with difficulty from a clump of flags. He came back
threatening his son, who by this time was worked into wild unruliness,
so that Nathalie was obliged to hold him fast in spite of his struggles.
He grew quiet in time, and they went across the bridge to one or two of
the nearest vineyards, where preparations had already begun, and where
the finest bunch was gathered and offered to the master. The cloud had
lifted again, and Leon was at his kindliest, with a smile and a cheery
word for everybody. Who could wonder that Nathalie was happy?
At the door of her father's house she met Fanchon, who immediately fell
to making mysterious signs with hand and head, implying cautious
communications of importance. Nathalie, vaguely uneasy, inquired
whether her father was ill.
"Mademoiselle ought to know that he is not himself," whispered Fanchon.
"He sits there,"--signalling with her thumb over her right
shoulder--"thinking, thinking, though the saints only know what he has
got to think about! Don't I make him his bouillon, and his salad, and
his coffee, just as he likes them, and leave him to find fault as much
as it pleases him, since that gives him an appetite? But there! ever
since that morning when he left me in the midst of an omelette, and
dashed off to Poissy, hiring a carriage and all--he that I never thought
to see in a hired carriage, unless it was to be taken to his grave--he's
never been the same man. And not once has he been out to the door to
look for mademoiselle--for madame, I should say--and Monsieur Raoul,
though on the days he expected them he was always popping in and out.
Well, I dare say it will do him good to see mademoiselle, and I shall be
back in five minutes to hear what she thinks, for I am only going to run
round to Madame Boucher, and show her what sort of an egg she sold me
this morning."
M. Bourget, indeed, was unlike his usual turbulent self. He greeted
his daughter without effusion, and did not even ask for Raoul, or show
any disappointment at not seeing him. He was sitting near the window, a
newspaper in his hand, but she fancied he had only just unfolded it to
avoid the charge of idleness. He did not look ill, or she might have
felt less uneasy; if it were possible to apply such a word to M.
Bourget's square personality, he looked crushed. Mme. Leon went
quickly up to him and kissed him.
"Have you been expecting us, dear father? I should have come at once on
our return, but that Leon wanted some one to talk matters over with. I
am afraid you have been anxious, and I wish now that I had written."
"Have you anything good to tell?" inquired M. Bourget, brusquely.
He had fastened his eyes upon her determinedly, and bent forward.
"I think so. Leon has agreed to bring an action against this man."
"What for? What for!"
"For slander," said Nathalie, surprised that he should put the question.
"Then he's got evidence to disprove it?"
"His own word," replied the wife, proudly.
"Ah-h--!" M. Bourget's ah-h--! was like a snarl; he fell into his
original position, and fixed his eyes on the ground. She drew back a
step, in her turn holding him with her eyes. "Father! You doubt him!"
He sat silent, gloomy, slowly nodding.
"Oh!" In the word was anger, scorn, incredulity. She had difficulty in
commanding herself from uttering more; but the one exclamation was
eloquent. Her father looked up at her.
"Hum! I see you don't. Well, prove it; prove that he's innocent. That
can't be such a hard matter. Do you think I want it the other way?
Why, I can't even go for my coffee but that little imbecile Leroux
flings a taunt in my face. I tell you that I--I!--after all these
years--walk about the town in dread of what I shall hear."
He began almost inaudibly, ended loudly. There was no softening in her
glance.
"Oh!" she reiterated. "The shame of hearing you say this! You, who
know him!"
"Ask his mother," he muttered. "She can't deny it. She thinks the
same. Do you know what he did! Gave her the receipt, as she supposed,
to keep, and it was a blank sheet of paper."
She burst in: "What of that? She fretted him into it. She can fret, I
tell you! He had no receipt; he has said so throughout Oh!"--she
laughed--"and this is what has persuaded you!"
"Well, I hope you are right." But she could see he was not shaken.
"Leon sent me to know what you thought about it all."
"Sit down, then, and let's hear," he said, gloomily. "There's a chair."
She drew it back, sat down, and said, coldly: "What do you wish to
hear!"
"What line he takes--what he has to go upon."
She looked at him unflinchingly.
"There is no line, as you call it, but the straight one of what
happened. Monsieur de Cadanet lent the money to Leon, not very
willingly, but after some persuasion. Leon thinks that perhaps when it
got to this Lemaire's ears, it enraged him, because he was so jealous;
and that he caught hold of the trifling circumstance--that when Leon was
in the street, he met Monsieur de Cadanet's messenger, and glanced at
the letters he carried--to make up his absurd story."
He raised bloodshot eyes and stared restlessly at her, meeting her own
untroubled by a shadow of doubt. Then he bent his head again--
"What does the lawyer say!"
He did not believe one word of the story. Now that his faith was gone,
it had sunk utterly, crumbled into dry dust, and he was only possessed
with a dull rage against the man who had shattered the dream and delight
of his life, and left him a laughing-stock to Leroux and his fellows.
She tightened the lock of her hands, recognising his antagonism.
"He urged Leon to take the initiative."
"Yes, yes; they will get something out of it!" he cried, wrathfully, and
then muttered to himself, "Collapse, collapse!" She started to her
feet.
"Father, I cannot stay and listen to you! May God forgive you! Oh, my
dear Leon, that it should be any one belonging to me that does you this
dishonour! Father, one day you will be sorry--bitterly sorry. I think
you must be mad--ill! Are you ill? Has anything happened to you! You
have been sitting here alone, and letting yourself get confused. Look
at me. I am his wife. Do you suppose I could stand and smile if I were
not as sure--as sure of him as of my own life!"
Her words fell on his heart as if it had been made of flint, rolling off
the surface. He did not feel them. He did not even pity her. He said,
brutally:
"You had better ask what he was before you married him."
She did not shrink, as he expected. Her breath came quickly, but
unshaken confidence was in her face.
"I know my husband."
"Then, go!" He waved his hand. "Go!"
"I am going, and I shall try not to be angry, because you are not
yourself."
He looked up gloomily.
"No; I am not myself. I don't expect ever to be myself again. Before
this, I have always held up my head; but now--" He drooped again into
depression; and her heart smote her.
"Father, fling away this horrible, unjust suspicion!" she cried, coming
close, and laying her hands on his shoulders. "It does Leon such cruel
harm! Only reflect what it means. One would suppose you were his
enemy." Then she knelt down by his side. "Father!"
"Let him disprove it."
"So he will."
"Not with that cock-and-bull story. There, there, you'd better go.
What's the good of talking? I cannot pardon." He was implacable.
Self-love refused to waste pity on others when he suffered so much
himself. Her steadfastness merely incensed him. He was granite. But
at his words she rose up quickly.
"Do not do him the wrong of supposing I am asking you to pardon him.
May God forgive you!"
"You've said that twice. Now, go."
She went out of the room, looking back. A sign of compunction would
have taken her again to his side, but none came. Fanchon marched out of
the kitchen, wiping the flour from her hands with a cloth.
"But, Mademoiselle Nathalie, you are not going to leave monsieur so
soon! As soon as ever I saw you, I said to myself, `There, now, here
comes the best medicine for monsieur,' and I made up my mind you'd stop
a good bit, and that would cheer him up. Why, you've been here next to
no time! And monsieur not even coming out to see you off! Well, that's
droll! I never knew him not come out."
"I do not think he is quite himself to-day," said his daughter, catching
at straws. "Has any one been here--any one to vex him?"
"Holy Virgin! no, who should come? And as for vexing, there's no one
would dare. Something he's eaten or drunk, but not of my getting, has
just set the world upside-down with him. Oh, he'll be better to-morrow,
you'll see! And Monsieur Raoul, the treasure, how is it with him?"
Nathalie drove home, unshaken but thoughtful. The slander, then, was
more serious in its effects than she had imagined, since her father,
with all his pride in Poissy and the De Beaudrillarts, was affected by
it. To her it had seemed only ludicrous; but she began to perceive that
other people would expect absolute proof that the thing was not. By her
own feelings she was sure this would be agony to Leon. She blamed
herself for having treated his fits of depression too lightly, and
promised herself to be more sympathetic. She would ask him, too, to
explain the incident of the envelope.
As for Mme. de Beaudrillart, that she could really have any doubt, was
impossible, and she smiled again at the bare idea. She could imagine
how it had been struck into her father's mind by her mother-in-law's
impassive manner. Secure, as she would have been, she probably did not
attempt to express her security, and, especially with M. Bourget in the
room, would have been so coldly indifferent that he had misjudged her.
Nathalie understood that her father would have expected indignation and
protestations, and not meeting them, thrust their absence upon
conviction of guilt. She tried to think calmly, justly of him. "Some
chance word has stung him," she thought, wondering that the clang of
rumour had so soon reached the quiet town, and not understanding that it
was M. Bourget's own fear which had given chance words their imaginary
force. She was only thankful that Leon had not accompanied her. If he
had read distrust in M. Bourget's manner, she could scarcely have borne
it. They must be kept apart until the time when the force of the law
obliged her father to admit the shamefulness of his distrust.
Reaching Poissy, she heard that all, even Mme. de Beaudrillart, had gone
down to one of the nearest vineyards. She knew that her husband would
not have expected her to return so soon, and impulse made her long to be
by his side. She lost no time in hurrying after them, crossing the
river by the bridge, and finding them without difficulty, guided, as she
was, by the vibration of voices in the clear air. From out of her
anxious thoughts she came into the gayest of scenes. The grapes were
being picked into great baskets; from a sky of clearest blue, the sun,
now a little low, shone ripeningly upon the mellow clusters, the women's
white head-gear and bright dresses flitting here and there between the
green vines; light, warmth, colour, and gaiety were everywhere. Raoul
was the masterful head of the troop of children whom he had constituted
his regiment, Leon in his grey suit was chatting familiarly with one of
the oldest of his tenants, Mme. de Beaudrillart and Claire stood
graciously regarding the busy scene, and eating from the beautiful bunch
of grapes which had just been presented to them, while Felicie, with her
small steps, moved about from group to group. Almost every one from the
chateau, down to Jean Charpentier, was there, and in all fair France it
would have been difficult to have lit upon a spot more peaceful, more
sunny, and more secure.
Nathalie drew a long breath as she stood for an instant watching it.
This was her home, her peace, her security. Her husband caught sight of
her, and came towards her with his easy smile upon his face.
"Back already, cherie? A thousand welcomes! They say the vintage is
splendid--better than it had been for years. No phyloxera, and
magnificently ripened. Look how the light shoots through those bunches.
Old Felix is delighted."
Surely, her security.