The winter passed and the spring came, but Brulette never went back
to her amusements. She did not even regret them, having seen that
she could still be mistress of all hearts if she chose; but she said
that so many men and women had betrayed her friendship that now she
should care for quality only, not quantity. The poor child did not
then know all the wrong that had been done to her. Everybody had
vilified her, but no one had yet dared to insult her. When they
looked at her they saw virtue written on her face; but when her back
was turned they revenged themselves in words, for the respect which
they could not help feeling, and they yelped at her heels like a
cowardly dog that dares not spring at your face.
Père Brulet was getting old; he grew deafer, and lived so much in
himself, like all aged people, that he paid no attention to the talk
of the town. Father and daughter were therefore less troubled than
people hoped to make them, and my own father, who was of a wise and
Christian spirit (as were the rest of my family), advised me, and
also set me the example, not to worry them about it, saying that the
truth would come to light some day and the wicked tongues be punished.
Time, which is a grand sweeper, began, before long, to get rid of the
vile dust. Brulette, who disdained revenge, would take none but that
of receiving very coldly the advances that were made to her. It
happened, as it usually does, that she found friends among those who
had never been her lovers, and these friends, having no interest of
their own, protected her in a way that she was not aware of. I am
not speaking of Mariton, who was like a mother to her, and who, in
her inn bar-room, came very near flinging the jugs at the heads of
the drinkers when they ventured to sing out "Josette;" but I mean
persons whom no one could accuse of blindly supporting her, and who
shamed her detractors.
Thus it was that Brulette had brought herself down, at first with
difficulty, then, little by little, contentedly, to a quieter life
than in the past. She was visited by sensible persons, and came
often to our house, bringing Charlot, whose swollen face had improved
during the preceding winter, while his temper had grown much more
amiable. The child was really not so ugly as he was coarse, and
after Brulette had tamed him by the winsome force of her gentleness
and affection we saw that his big black eyes were not without
intelligence, and that when his broad mouth was willing to smile it
was really more funny than hideous. He had passed through a drooling
illness, during which Brulette, formerly so easily disgusted, had
nursed him and wiped him and tended him carefully, till he was now
the healthiest little fellow, and the nicest and the cleanest in the
village. His jaws were still too heavy and his nose too short for
beauty, but inasmuch as health is the chief thing with the little
beggars, every one took notice of his size, his strength, and his
determined air.
But the thing that made Brulette proudest of her handiwork was that
Charlot became every day prettier in speech and more generous in
heart. When she first had him he swore in a way to daunt a regiment;
but she had made him forget all that, and had taught him a number of
nice little prayers, and all sorts of amusing and quaint sayings,
which he employed in his own way to the entertainment of everybody.
He was not born affectionate and would never kiss any one willingly,
but for his darling, as he called Brulette, he showed such a violent
attachment that if he had done anything naughty,--such as cutting up
his pinafore to make cravats, or sticking his sabots into the
soup-pot, he would forestall all reproaches and cling to her neck
with such strength that she hadn't the heart to scold him.
In May of that year we were invited to the wedding of a cousin at
Chassin, who sent over a cart the night before to fetch us, with a
message to Brulette that if she did not come and bring Charlot, it
would throw a gloom over the marriage day.
Chassin is a pretty place on the river Gourdon, about six miles
distant from our village. The country reminded me slightly of the
Bourbonnais. Brulette, who was a small eater, soon left the noise of
the feast, and went to walk outside and amuse Charlot. "Indeed," she
said to me, "I should like to take him into some quiet, shady place;
for this is his sleeping-time, and the noise of the party keeps him
awake, and I am afraid he will be very cross this evening."
As it was very hot, I offered to take her into a little wood,
formerly kept as a warren, which adjoins the old castle, and being
chokeful of briers and ditches, is a very sheltered and retired spot.
"Very good," she said, "the little one can sleep on my petticoat, and
you can go back and enjoy yourself."
When we got there I begged her to let me stay.
"I am not so devoted to weddings as I once was," I said to her. "I
shall amuse myself as well, if not better, talking with you. A party
is very tiresome if you are not among your own people and don't know
what to do."
"Very well," she replied, "but I see plainly, my poor cousin, that I
am a weight upon your hands; and yet you take it with such patience
and good-will that I don't know how I shall ever do without it.
However, that time must come, for you are now of an age to settle,
and the wife you choose may cast an evil eye upon me, as so many do,
and might never be brought to believe that I deserve your friendship
and hers."
"It is too soon to worry yourself about that," I replied, settling
the fat Charlot on my blouse, which I laid on the grass while she sat
down beside him to keep off the flies. "I am not thinking of
marriage, and if I were, I swear my wife should keep on good terms
with you or I would be on bad terms with her. She would have a
crooked heart indeed if she could not see that my regard for you is
the most honorable of all friendships, and if she couldn't comprehend
that having followed you through all your joys and all your troubles,
I am so accustomed to your companionship that you and I are one. But
how about you, cousin? are you thinking of marriage, or have you
sworn off on that subject?"
"Oh! as for me, yes, I think so, Tiennet, if it suits the will of
God. I am all but of age, and I think I have waited so long for the
wish to marry that now I have let the time go by."
"Perhaps it is only just beginning, dear. The love of amusement has
gone, and the love of children has come, and I see how you are
settling down to a quiet home life; but nevertheless you are still in
your spring-time, like the earth whose flowers are just blooming.
You know I don't flatter you, and so you may believe me when I tell
you that you have never been so pretty, though you have grown rather
pale--like Thérence, the girl of the woods. You have even caught a
sad little look like hers, which goes very well with your plain caps
and that gray gown. The fact is, I believe your inside being has
changed and you are going to be a sister of charity--if you are not
in love."
"Don't talk about that, my dear friend," cried Brulette. "I might
have turned either to love or piety a year ago. I felt, as you say,
changed within. But now, here I am, tied to the cares of life
without finding either the sweetness of love or the strength of
faith. It seems to me that I am tied to a yoke and can only push
forward by my head, without knowing what sort of cart I am dragging
behind me. You see that I am not very sad under it and that I don't
mean to die of it; and yet, I own that I regret something in my
life--not what has been, but what might have been."
"Come, Brulette," I said, sitting down by her and taking her hand,
"perhaps the time has come for confidence. You can tell me
everything without fear of my feeling grief or jealousy. I am cured
of wishing for anything that you can't give me. But give me one
thing, for it is my due,--give me your confidence about your
troubles."
Brulette became scarlet and made an effort to speak, but could not
say a word. It almost seemed as if I were forcing her to confess to
her own soul, and she had foreborne so long that now she did not know
how to do it.
She raised her beautiful eyes and looked at the country before us,
for we were sitting at the edge of the wood, on a grassy terrace
overlooking a pretty valley broken up into rolling ground green with
cultivation. At our feet flowed the little river, and beyond, the
ground rose rapidly under a fine wood of full-grown oaks, less
extensive but boasting as large trees as any we had seen in the
forest of Alleu. I saw in Brulette's eyes the thoughts she was
thinking, and taking her hand, which she had withdrawn from mine to
press her heart as if it pained her, I said, in a tone that was
neither jest nor mischief,--
"Tell me, is it Huriel or Joseph?"
"It is not Joseph!" she replied, hastily.
"Then it is Huriel; but are you free to follow your inclinations?"
"How can I have any inclinations," she answered, blushing more and
more, "for a person who has doubtless never thought of me?"
"That is no reason."
"Yes it is, I tell you."
"No, I swear it isn't. I had plenty of inclination for you."
"But you got over it."
"And you are trying hard to get over yours; that shows you are still
ill of it. But Joseph?"
"Well, what of Joseph?"
"You were never bound to him?"
"You know that well enough!"
"But--Charlot?"
"Charlot?"
As my eyes turned to the child, hers turned too; then they fell back
on me, so puzzled, so clear with innocence, that I was ashamed of my
suspicions as though I had offered her an insult.
"Oh, nothing," I replied, hastily. "I said 'Charlot' because I
thought he was waking up."
At that moment a sound of bagpipes reached us from the other side of
the river among the oaks, and Brulette trembled like a leaf in the
wind.
"There!" said I, "the bride's dance is beginning, and I do believe
they are sending the music to fetch you."
"No, no," said Brulette, who had grown very pale, "neither the air
nor the instrument belong to this region. Tiennet, Tiennet, either I
am crazy--or he who is down there--"
"Do you see him?" I cried, running to the edge of the terrace and
looking with all my eyes; "can it be Père Bastien?"
"I see no one," she said, having followed me, "but it was not Père
Bastien--neither was it Joseph--it was--"
"Huriel, perhaps! that seems to me less certain than the river that
parts us. But let us go at any rate; we may find a ford, and if he
is there we shall certainly catch him, the gay muleteer, and find out
what he is thinking about."
"No, Tiennet, I can't leave Charlot."
"The devil take that child! Then wait for me here; I am going alone."
"No, no, no! Tiennet," cried Brulette, holding me with both hands;
"it is dangerous to go down that steep place."
"Whether I break my neck or not, I am going to put you out of your
misery."
"What misery?" she exclaimed, still holding me, but recovering from
her first agitation by an effort of pride. "What does it matter to
me whether Huriel or some one else is in the wood? Do you suppose I
want you to run after a man who, knowing I was close by, wanted to
pass on?"
"If that is what you think," said a soft voice behind us, "I think we
had better go away."
We turned round at the first word, and there was Thérence, the
beautiful Thérence, before our eyes.
At the sight Brulette, who had fretted so much at being forgotten by
her, lost all her nerve and fell into Thérence's arms with a great
burst of tears.
"Well, well!" said Thérence, kissing her with the energy of a
daughter of the woods. "Did you think I had forgotten our
friendship? Why do you judge hardly of people who have never passed
a day without thinking of you?"
"Tell her quickly if your brother is here, Thérence," I cried,
"for--" Brulette, turning quickly, put her hand on my lips, and I
caught myself up, adding, with a laugh, "for I am dying to see him."
"My brother is over there," said Thérence, "but he does not know you
are so near. Listen, he is going farther off; you can hardly hear
his music now."
She looked at Brulette, who had grown pale again, and added,
laughing: "He is too far off to call him; but he will soon turn and
come round by the ruined castle. Then, if you don't disdain him,
Brulette, and will not prevent me, I shall give him a surprise he
does not expect; for he did not think of seeing you till to-night.
We were on our way to your village to pay you a visit, and it is a
great happiness to me to have met you here and saved a delay in our
meeting. Let us go under the trees, for if he sees you from where he
is, he is capable of drowning himself in that river in trying to get
to you, not knowing the fords."
We turned back and sat down near Charlot, Thérence asking, with that
grand, simple manner of hers, whether he was mine. "Not unless I
have been married a long time," I answered, "which is not so."
"True," she said, looking closely at the child, "he is already a
little man; but you might have been married before you came to us."
Then she added, laughing, that she knew little about the growth of
babies, never seeing any in the woods where she always lived, and
where few parents ever reared their children. "You will find me as
much of a savage as ever," she continued, "but a good deal less
irritable, and I hope my dear Brulette will have no cause to complain
of my ill-temper."
"I do think," said Brulette, "that you seem gayer, and better in
health,--and so much handsomer that it dazzles my eyes to look at
you."
The same thought had struck my mind on seeing Thérence. She had laid
in a stock of health and fresh clear color in her cheeks which made
her another woman. If her eyes were still too deep sunken, the black
brows no longer lowered over them and hid their fire; and though her
smile was still proud, there was a charming gayety in it at times,
which made her teeth gleam like dewdrops on a flower. The pallor of
fever had left her face, which the May sun had rather burned during
her journey, though it had made the roses bloom; and there was
something, I scarcely know what, so youthful, so strong, so valiant
in her face, that my heart jumped with an idea that came to me,
heaven knows how, as I looked to see if the velvety black mark at the
corner of her mouth was still in the same place.
"Friends," she said, wiping her beautiful hair, which curled
naturally and which the heat had glued to her forehead, "as we have a
little time to talk before my brother joins us, I want to tell you my
story, without any false shame or pretences; for several other
stories hang upon it. Only, before I begin, tell me, Brulette, if
Tiennet, whom you used to think so much of, is, as I think he is,
still the same, so that I can take up the conversation where we left
it--a year ago come next harvest."
"Yes, dear Thérence, that you may," answered my cousin, pleased at
her friend's tone.
"Well, then, Tiennet," continued Thérence, with a valiant sincerity
all her own, which made the difference between her and the reserved
and timid Brulette, "I reveal nothing you did not know in telling you
that before your visit to us last year I attached myself to a poor
fellow, sick and sad in mind and body, very much as a mother is
attached to her child. I did not then know he loved another girl,
and he, seeing my regard for him, which I did not hide, had not the
courage to tell me it was not returned. Why Joseph--for I can name
him, and you see, dear friends, that I don't change color in doing
so--why Joseph, whom I had so often entreated to tell me the causes
of his grief, should have sworn to me it was nothing more than a
longing for his mother and his own country, I do not know. He must
have thought me base, and he did me great injustice; for, had he told
me the truth, I myself would have gone to fetch Brulette without a
murmur, and without making the great mistake of forming a low opinion
of her which I did, and which I now confess, and ask her to pardon."
"You did that long ago, Thérence, and there is nothing to pardon
where friendship is."
"Yes, dear," replied Thérence, "but the wrong which you forget, I
remember, and I would have given the world to repair it by taking
good care of Joseph, and showing him friendship and good-nature after
you left us. Remember, friends, that I had never said or done a
false thing; so that in my childhood, my father, who is a good judge,
used to call me Thérence the Sincere. When I last saw you, on the
banks of your own Indre, half-way to your village, I spoke privately
with Joseph for a moment, begging him to return to us and promising
there should be no change in my interest and care for his health and
well-being. Why, then, did he disbelieve me in his heart; and why,
promising with his lips to return (a lie of which I was not the
dupe),--why did he contemptuously leave me forever, as though I were
a shameless girl who would torment him with love-sick folly?"
"Do you mean to say," I interrupted, "that Joseph, who stayed only
twenty-four hours with us, did not return to your woods,--if only to
tell you his plans and say good-bye? Since he left us that day we
have heard nothing of him."
"If you have had no news of him," replied Thérence, "I have some to
give you. He did return--by night, like a thief who fears the
sunshine. He went to his own lodge and took his clothes and his
bagpipe, and went away without crossing the threshold of my father's
hut, or so much as glancing our way. I was awake and saw it all. I
watched every action, and when he disappeared in the woods, I felt I
was as rigid as death. My father warmed me in the rays of the good
God and his own great heart. He took me away to the open moor, and
talked to me all one day, and all the next night, till I was able to
pray and sleep. You know my father a little, dear friends, but you
cannot know how he loves his children, how he comforts them, how he
finds just the right thing to say to make them like himself, who is
an angel from heaven hidden under the bark of an old oak! My father
cured me. If it were not for him, I should despise Joseph; as it is,
I have only ceased to love him."
Ending thus, Thérence again wiped her fine forehead, wet with
perspiration, drew a long breath, kissed Brulette, and held out to
me, laughing, her large and well-shaped white hand, and shook mine
with the frankness of a young man.