question of Gilberte and me. I shall never persuade my father that he is
wrong. I must say what he does, Jean, and then I shall be free to marry
Gilberte. He will go himself to-morrow and ask her father to give her to
me."
"Really! Why he must be mad indeed to believe that you will echo his
nonsense in good faith! Ah! yes, I see that his brain is really awry,
Emile, and that is what makes you feel so badly; for I see, also, that
you are sad to the bottom of your heart, my poor boy."
Emile shed tears, which relieved him, and, recovering his
self-possession, he explained more clearly to the carpenter what had
taken place between his father and himself.
Jean listened with his eyes on the ground; then, after reflecting for a
long time, he took the young man's hand, saying:
"Emile, you mustn't tell these lies; they are unworthy of a man. I see
that your father is more crafty than crazy, and that he won't be
satisfied with two or three vague words, such as we sometimes say to
soothe a man who has drunk too much and whom we treat like a child. Your
father, when you have lied to him, or made promises that you can't keep,
won't let you breathe, and if you try to become a man again he will say:
'Remember, that you're nobody now?' He is proud and hard; I know it
well. He won't give you one day a week to think in your own way, and,
more than that, he will make your wife unhappy. I can see it all: he
will make you blush before her, and he will play his cards so well that
she will finally blush for you. To the devil with all lies and words you
don't mean! None of that, Emile; I forbid it."
"But Gilberte?"
"Gilberte will say as I do, and so will Antoine and Janille. _Ma mie_
Janille can say what she pleases. For my part, I don't propose that you
shall lie. There's no Gilberte who could make me lie."
"Then I must give her up--not see her any more?"
"That is a misfortune," said Jean, firmly; "but when misfortune is upon
us, we must bear it. Go and see Monsieur de Boisguilbault; he will say
the same as I do, for, according to all you have told me of him, he is a
man who takes a just view of things and whose ideas are good."
"Well, Jean, I have seen Monsieur de Boisguilbault, and he realizes that
the sacrifice is beyond my strength."
"Does he know that you love Gilberte? Oho! did you tell him?"
"He knows that I am in love, but I didn't mention her name."
"And he advised you to lie?"
"He gave me no advice at all."
"For heaven's sake, has he lost his wits too? Come, Emile, you will
listen to me because I am right. I am neither rich nor learned; I don't
know whether that deprives me of the right to eat my fill and sleep in a
bed, but I know well that God never said to me when I prayed to him:
'Get you gone!' and that, when I have asked him what is true or false,
bad or good, he has always told me, without answering: 'Go to school.'
Just reflect a little. There are many of us poor people on earth, and a
small lot of rich men; for, if everybody had a large slice, the earth
would be too small. We are a good deal in the way of one another, and we
can't love one another, try as we will. That is proved by our having to
have police and prisons to keep us on good terms. How could it be
otherwise? I have no idea. You say some very pretty things on that
subject, and when you're on it I could pass days and nights listening to
you, it pleases me so to see how you arrange it all in your head. That
is what makes me love you; but I have never said, my boy, that I had any
hope of seeing it come true. It seems to me to be a long way off, if it
is possible at all, and I, who am accustomed to hard work, ask the good
Lord for nothing more than to leave us as we are, and not allow the rich
and great to make our lot any worse. I know that if everybody was like
you and me and Antoine and Gilberte we should all eat the same soup at
the same table; but I also see that most other people wouldn't care to
hear of such an arrangement, and that it would take too much time and
talk to bring them to it. I am proud myself, and I can get along very
well without people who look down on me; that's my wisdom. I bother my
head very little about politics; I don't understand it; but I don't want
to be eaten, and I detest the people who say: 'Let us devour
everything.' Your father is one of those devourers, and if you were like
him I would split your head open with my axe rather than let you think
of Gilberte. God chose that you should be a good man, and that the truth
should seem to you worth sticking to. Stick to it, therefore, for it is
the only thing the wicked cannot take from this earth. Let your father
say: 'It's this way; it suits me so, and I choose to have it so!' Let
him talk; he is powerful because he is rich, and neither you nor I can
hold him back. But if he is obstinate and angry enough to try to make
you say that it is so, and that God is satisfied to have it so--stop
there! It is contrary to religion to say that God loves evil, and we are
Christians, I believe. Have you been baptized? So have I; and I deny
Satan. At all events my sponsors renounced him for me, and I have
renounced him for others when I have been a sponsor. For that reason we
must take no false oaths, nor blaspheme, nor say that all men are not
equal when they come into the world and do not all deserve happiness,
for that is equivalent to saying that some are condemned to hell before
they are born. I am done, Emile. You won't lie, and you will make your
father abandon that cunning condition!"
"Ah! my friend, if I could see Gilberte once a week! If I were not
dishonored in her father's eyes and banished from his house, I should
not lose hope or courage."
"Dishonored in Antoine's eyes? Pray tell me, what do you take him for?
Do you think he would have a renegade and backslider for a son-in-law?"
"Oh, if he only looked at things as you do, Jean! but he will not
understand my conduct."
"Antoine didn't invent gunpowder, I agree. He has never been able to get
the square of the hypotenuse into his head, whereas I learned it in a
few minutes, simply by watching a schoolmate do it. But you consider him
much simpler than he is. In the matter of honor and worthy sentiments,
that old fellow knows all that any one ought to know. Pray, do you think
that a man must be very sly and very learned to understand that two and
two make four and not five? For my part, I say that, to know that, one
needn't have read a roomful of big books like old Boisguilbault, and
that every unhappy man on this earth knows very well that his lot is
unjust when he has not deserved it. Very good! hasn't friend Antoine
suffered and endured, I should like to know? Did not the rich turn their
backs on him when he became poor? Is there any one who can say that they
were justified in treating him so--a man who never had a crust of bread
that he didn't give three-quarters and sometimes the whole of it to
others! And if you were not a sensible man, would you ever have been
attracted to him? Would you be in love with his daughter to the point of
wanting to marry her, if you had your father's ideas? No, you wouldn't
have looked at her, or else you'd have seduced her; but you would
reflect that she has no dowry, and you would abandon her like a villain.
Courage, Emile, my boy! Honest men will always esteem you, and I will
answer for Antoine; I will take charge of him. If Janille cries out, I
will cry out too, and we will see whether she or I has the loudest voice
and the best-oiled tongue. As for Gilberte, be sure that she will have a
kindly feeling for you all her life, and that she will think well of you
for your straightforwardness. She will never love any other man, I
promise you! I know her; she's a girl who has only one word. But the
time will come when your father will change his tune. That will be when
he is unhappy in his turn, and I have already prophesied that time would
come."
"He doesn't believe it."
"Have you told him what I think about his factory?"
"I was bound to."
"You did wrong, but it's done now, and what must be will be. Come,
Emile, let us go back to the village and to bed, for I see that you are
shivering and I feel that you are feverish. Come, my boy, don't let your
blood boil like this, and rely a little on the good Lord! I will go to
Châteaubrun to-morrow morning; I will say what I have to say, and they
will have to listen to me. I will answer for it that you won't have any
falling out with them, at all events, for doing your duty."
"Good Jean! you do me a deal of good! you give me strength, and I feel
better since you have been talking to me."
"Because I go straight to the point, you see, and don't embarrass myself
with useless things."
"And you will go to Châteaubrun to-morrow? to-morrow? although it's a
working day?"
"To-morrow, to be sure; as I work for nothing, I can begin my day at any
time I please. Whom do you suppose I am going to work for to-morrow?
Let's see you guess, Emile; there's something to divert your thoughts."
"I can't guess. For Monsieur Antoine?"
"No, Antoine hasn't much work to be done, poor fellow, and he can do it
alone; but he has a neighbor who has plenty of it, and who doesn't
haggle over the time of his workmen."
"Who is it? Has Monsieur de Boisguilbault become reconciled to your
features?"
"Not so far as I know; but he never forbade his farmers giving me work.
He is not the man to try to injure me, and almost nobody outside of his
house knows that he has a grudge against me, if indeed he has; the devil
only knows what's at the bottom of it all! However, as I say, I work for
him without his knowing anything about it; for you know that he inspects
his property once a year at the most. It's a little far from our
village; but, thanks to your father, workmen are so rare that they sent
for me; and I didn't wait to be asked twice, although I had some urgent
work elsewhere. It's a pleasure to me to work for that old fellow! But,
as you can imagine, I will never take any pay. I owe him enough, after
what he has done for me."
"He won't allow you to work for him for nothing."
"He must allow it, for he will know nothing of it. Does he know what is
done on his farms? He settles his account at the end of the year, and
pays little heed to details."
"But suppose the farmers charge him for the days you work, as if they
had paid you?"
"To do that they must be rascals, and on the contrary they are honest
men. You see, a man is what other men make him. Old Boisguilbault is
never robbed, although nothing in the world would be easier; but as he
neither worries nor pushes any one, no one has any occasion to deceive
him or to take any more than belongs to him. He isn't like your father.
He reckons and disputes and watches every one closely, and consequently
his people steal from him, and always will: that's the kind of business
he will do all his life."
Jean succeeded in diverting Emile's thoughts, and almost in consoling
him. That upright, bold, decided character had an excellent influence
over him, and he went to bed with a more tranquil mind, after receiving
his promise that he would let him know on the following evening how
Gilberte's people felt toward him. Jean was confident of his ability to
open their eyes concerning his conduct and Monsieur Cardonnet's. Sorrow
makes us weak and trustful, and when our courage fails us, we can find
nothing better to do than place our fate in the hands of an energetic
and resolute person. If he does not solve the embarrassing problems of
our position so easily as he flatters himself that he can do, at all
events the contact with him strengthens and revivifies us; his
confidence insensibly passes into us and makes us capable of assisting
ourselves.
"This peasant, whom my father despises," thought Emile as he fell
asleep, "this poor, ignorant, simple-hearted man has done me more good
than Monsieur de Boisguilbault did; and when I asked God for an adviser,
a support, a savior, He sent the poorest and humblest of His servants to
mark out my duty in two words. Oh! what force the truth has in the
mouths of those men whose instincts are upright and pure! and how
profitless is all our knowledge compared with that of the heart! Father!
father! more than ever I feel that you are blinded, and the lesson I
have received from this peasant condemns you more than all the rest."
Although mentally more tranquil, Emile had a sharp attack of fever in
the night. Amid the violent upheavals of the mind, we forget to care for
and preserve the body. We allow ourselves to be exhausted by hunger,
surprised by cold and dampness, when we are reeking with perspiration or
burning with fever. We do not feel the approach of physical disease, and
when it has fastened itself upon us, there is a sort of relief from the
change from mental suffering. At such times we flatter ourselves that we
cannot be unhappy long without dying of it, and there is some comfort in
believing oneself too weak to endure never-ending sorrow.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault expected his young friend all the following
day, and he became exceedingly anxious at night, when he did not appear.
The marquis had become deeply attached to Emile. While he did not
express himself nearly so strongly as he felt, he could no longer do
without his society. He was immensely grateful to the noble-hearted boy
whom his cold and melancholy nature had never repelled, and who, after
obstinately persisting in reading his heart, had religiously kept the
promise he had made of being a devoted son to him. This dismal old man,
who was reputed to be such a terrible bore, and who, through
discouragement, exaggerated in his own mind his involuntary faults, had
found a friend when he made up his mind that there was nothing left for
him to do but to die alone and unregretted. Emile had almost reconciled
him to life, and sometimes he abandoned himself to a sweet illusion of
paternity, when he saw that young man make himself at home in his house,
share his dismal amusements, arrange his library, turn the leaves of his
books, ride his horses, and sometimes even attend to matters of business
for him, in order to relieve him of a particularly tedious duty; in
short, take his ease under his roof and in his company, as if nature and
the habit of a whole lifetime had neutralized the difference in their
ages and their tastes.
The old man had continued for a long time to have occasional fits of
distrust, and he had tried to make Emile fit in with his curious
misanthropic theories, but he had not succeeded. After he had passed
three days trying to persuade himself that idleness or curiosity had
brought him this new guest, with the thirst for serious conversation and
philosophical discussion, when he saw that amiable face, expansive and
ingenuous in its fearless expression, appear in his solitude, he felt
that hope appeared with it, and he surprised himself in the very act of
loving, at the risk of being more unhappy than ever when doubt returned.
In a word, after passing his whole life, especially the last twenty
years, in guarding against emotions which he deemed himself incapable of
sharing, he fell under their dominion, and could not endure the thought
of being deprived of them.
He wandered, in feverish agitation, through all the avenues of his park,
waited at all the gates, sighing with every step, starting at the
slightest sound, and at last, depressed beyond measure by that silence
and that solitude, heart-broken at the thought that Emile was contending
with a sorrow which he could not lighten, he went out into the road and
turned in the direction of Gargilesse, still hoping to see a black horse
coming toward him.
It very rarely happened that Monsieur de Boisguilbault ventured to make
such a rash sortie from the park, and he could not make up his mind to
follow the beaten roads lest he should fall in with some face with which
he was not familiar. So he walked as the crow flies, through the fields,
without, however, losing sight of the road on which Emile was likely to
be. He walked slowly, at a pace which might have been characterized as
uncertain, but which the prudence and circumspection which marked his
most trivial movements made firmer than it appeared.
As he approached an arm of the stream which, after leaving his park,
followed a winding course through the valley, he heard an axe, and the
sound of several voices attracted his attention. It was his custom
always to turn away from any sound which indicated the presence of man,
and to make a détour to avoid meeting anybody, but he had something on
his mind which led him at this time to adopt the contrary course. He had
a passion for trees, if we may so express it, and did not allow his
tenants to cut any down unless they were entirely dead. Therefore, the
sound of an axe made him prick up his ears, and he could not resist the
desire to go and see with his own eyes if his orders were disobeyed.
So he walked resolutely into the field where the men were at work, and
saw, with a feeling of childlike grief, some thirty or more superb
trees, all covered with foliage, lying at full length on the ground, and
already partly cut up. A farmer, assisted by his men, was at work
loading several huge logs on an ox-cart. The axe which was being plied
so energetically, awaking all the echoes of the valley, was in the
diligent hands of Jean Jappeloup!
Monsieur de Boisguilbault had not exaggerated when he previously told
Emile, in glacial tones, that he was very irascible. That was another of
the anomalous features of his character. At sight of the carpenter,
whose face, or whose name even, always affected him painfully, he turned
pale; then, as he saw him cutting in pieces his fine trees, still young
and perfectly sound, he trembled with anger, flushed scarlet, stammered
some incoherent words, and rushed at him with an impetuosity of which no
one would have deemed him capable who had seen him a moment before,
walking with measured steps, leaning on his stout cane, with its
well-turned head.
XXIX
AN ADVENTURE
The felling which offended Monsieur de Boisguilbault so deeply had been
done on the bank of the little stream, and the slender poplars, the old
willows and the majestic elms, falling in confusion, had formed a sort
of bridge of verdure over that narrow current. While the oxen were
dragging some of the trees with ropes to the carts that were to haul
them away, the sturdy carpenter, running about on the trunks that
blocked the stream, busied himself cutting away the tangled branches
whose resistance neutralized the efforts of the cattle. Intent upon his
task and zealous in the work of destruction of which his trade reaps the
benefit, he exerted his skill and daring with a sort of frenzy. The
river was deep and swift at that point, and Jean's post was so dangerous
that no one else dared to share it with him. Running with a young man's
lightness of foot and self-possession to the flexible extremities of the
trees that lay across the stream, he turned sometimes to cut the very
branch on which he was balancing himself, and, when a loud cracking told
him that his support was on the point of giving way under his feet, he
would jump nimbly to a branch near by, electrified by the danger and the
amazement of his comrades. His gleaming axe whirled in lightning flashes
around his head, and his resonant voice stimulated the other workmen,
surprised to find how simple was a task which the intelligence and
energy of a single man directed, simplified and performed as by a
miracle.
If Monsieur de Boisguilbault had not been excited, he would have admired
with the rest, aye, and would have felt a certain respect for the man
who imported the power of genius into the accomplishment of that
commonplace task. But the sight of a noble tree, full of sap and life,
cut down by the axe in the midst of its development, angered him and
tore his heart, as if he had witnessed a murder, and when that tree
belonged to him, he defended it as if it were a member of his family.
"What are you doing there, you stupid fools!" he cried, brandishing his
cane, and in a high tone which anger made as shrill and ear-piercing as
the note of a fife. "And you, villain!" he shouted to Jean Jappeloup,
"have you taken an oath to wound me and outrage my feelings all the
time?"
The peasant has a dull ear, especially the Berri peasant. The
ox-drivers, excited by their unaccustomed interest in their work, did
not hear the master's voice, especially as the straining of the ropes,
the groaning of the yokes and the carpenter's powerful shouts, rising
above everything, drowned those shrill tones. The weather was
threatening, the horizon was a mass of dark purple clouds which were
rapidly overspreading the sky. Jean, dripping with perspiration, had
kept everybody at work, swearing that the job must be finished before
the rain, which would swell the stream and might carry away the trees
they had felled. A sort of frenzy had taken possession of him, and
despite the true piety which reigned in his heart, he swore like a
heathen, as if he thought that he could in that way increase his
strength tenfold. The blood hummed in his ears; exclamations of
excitement and satisfaction escaped him at every exploit of his muscular
arm, and mingled with the rumbling of the thunder. Violent gusts of wind
enveloped him in leaves and kept his coarse silvery locks flying about
his forehead. With his pale face, his flashing eyes, his leathern apron,
his tall thin figure, his bare arms brandishing the axe, he had the
aspect of a Cyclops, on the sides of Mount Ætna, gathering wood to keep
alight the fire of his infernal forge.
While the marquis exhausted his strength in unavailing cries, the
carpenter, having cleared away the last obstacle, darted back to the
round trunk of a young maple, with an address that would have done
credit to a professional acrobat, leaped to the bank, and, seizing the
draught-rope, was reinforcing the tired oxen with his exuberant muscular
strength, when he felt upon his loins, covered with a coarse shirt only,
the sting of Monsieur de Boisguilbault's flexible bamboo.
The carpenter thought that a branch had swung back against him, as often
happened in such battles with verdure-clad boughs. He uttered a terrible
oath, turned quickly and cut the marquis's cane in two with his axe,
exclaiming:
"I guess that won't strike another man!"
He had no sooner pronounced this apostrophe of extermination, than his
eyes, veiled by the excitement of toil, suddenly shone clear, and, by
the glare of a vivid flash of lightning, he saw his benefactor standing
before him, pale as a ghost. The marquis still held in his hand, which
trembled with rage, the stump of his cane and its gold head. The stump
was so short that it was plain that Jean had narrowly missed striking
off the hand that was rashly raised against him.
"By the five hundred thousand names of the devil, Monsieur de
Boisguilbault!" he cried, throwing away his axe; "if this is your ghost
come here to torment me, I will have a mass said for you; but if it's
yourself, in flesh and blood, speak to me, for I am not patient with
people from the other world."
"What are you doing here? why are you cutting down my trees, you stupid
beast?" replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault, in no wise tranquillized by
the danger which he had escaped as by a miracle.
"Excuse me," retorted Jean, in utter amazement, "you don't seem pleased!
So it was you who struck me, was it? You're no baby when you are angry,
and you don't warn a fellow. Look you, don't do it again, for if you
hadn't done me such a great service I would have cut you in two like a
reed before this."
"Master, master, pardon!" said the farmer, who had hurriedly left his
cattle to place himself between the carpenter and the marquis; "I was
the one who asked Jean to cut down our trees. No one understands it like
him and he does ten men's work all by himself. See if he's wasted his
time! Since noon he has cut down these thirty trees, chopped 'em up as
you see, and helped us haul 'em out of the water. Don't be angry with
him, master! He's a fine workman, and he wouldn't work so well for his
own benefit."
"But why does he cut down my trees? who gave him leave to cut them
down?"
"They are trees that the freshet uprooted, master, and they were
beginning to turn yellow; one more freshet and the water would have
carried them off. See if I am wrong!"
The marquis thereupon calmed down sufficiently to look about him and to
see that the June freshet had partially uprooted the trees. The
disturbed condition of the ground and the exposed roots attested the
truth of what the farmer said. But, unwilling as yet to believe the
testimony of his eyes, he said:
"Why didn't you await my orders to take them away? haven't I forbidden
you a hundred times to put the axe to a single tree without consulting
me?"
"Why, master, don't you remember my coming to tell you of this damage
the very day after the freshet? and you said: 'In that case you must
take 'em away and set out more'? This is the best time to set 'em out
and I was hurrying up to make room, especially as these trees are fine
to make long ladders, and I wouldn't have liked to have you lose 'em. If
you'll just walk as far as our farmyard, you'll see a dozen of 'em under
the shed, and to-morrow we will take the rest there."
"Very well," replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault, ashamed of his
precipitation, "I remember now that I gave you leave to do it. I had
forgotten. I ought to have come sooner and looked at it."
"_Dame!_ you go out so little, master!" said the honest peasant. "The
other day I met Monsieur Emile, as he was going to see you, and I
pointed out the damage to him and asked him to remind you of it. Did he
forget?"
"Apparently," replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault, "but no matter; you had
better go home, for it is dark and the storm is coming."
"But you'll get wet, master; you must come to the house and wait till
the rain's over."
"No," said the marquis, "it may last a long while, and I am not so far
from home that I can't return in time."
"You won't have time, master; here it is beginning now, and it's going
to rain hard!"
"All right, all right, I thank you, I will take care of myself," said
the marquis. And he turned his back and walked away, while his farmers
and their cattle started for the farm.
"This won't do an old man like him any good!" said the farmer to his
son, looking after the marquis, who walked more slowly than ever, not
having the support of his cane.
"If he had been willing to wait," replied the young peasant, "we might
have gone and got his carriage.--Come, Gaillard! Chauvet!" he shouted to
his oxen, "courage, my boys. Gee! steady, boy."
And the father and the son, thinking no more of aught save guiding their
horned team across the wet fields, disappeared behind the bushes,
followed by all their people, without further anxiety concerning the old
master. Such is the peasant's natural heedlessness.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault had reached the end of the field across which
he had come and was just about to pass through the hedge, when he turned
and saw Jean Jappeloup, who was sitting on a stump among the felled
trees, like a conqueror meditating sorrowfully on the battlefield. All
of the powerful workman's gayety and ardor had suddenly vanished; he sat
perfectly still, indifferent to the rain which was beginning to mingle
with the sweat of toil on his brow, and he seemed absorbed in profound
melancholy.
"It is my destiny to insult that man, and not to meet him without
suffering on both sides," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault to himself. And
he hesitated a long while between an ingenuous repentance and a violent
feeling of repugnance.
He decided to motion to him to join him, but Jean did not seem to see
the motion, although there was still a little daylight. Then he called
him in a voice of which the pitch was no longer raised by anger, but
Jean did not seem to hear him.
"Well," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault to himself, "you are to blame;
you must punish yourself."--And he walked straight to the carpenter.
"Why do you stay here?" he said, touching him on the shoulder.
Jean started, and said in a sharp, irritated tone, as if awakened from a
dream:
"What! what do you want of me, I pray you? Have you come back to strike
me again? See, here's the rest of your cane! I intended to bring it to
you to-morrow to remind you of what happened to you this evening."
"I was wrong," faltered Monsieur de Boisguilbault.
"It's very easy to say 'I was wrong,'" retorted the carpenter; "and with
that, when you are old and rich and a marquis, you think that you have
made everything right."
"What reparation do you demand of me?"
"You know very well that I can demand nothing of you. I could break you
in two with a mere tap, and, besides that, I am your debtor. But I shall
bear you a grudge all my life for making gratitude a humiliating and
heavy burden for me to bear. I wouldn't have believed that could ever
happen to me, for my heart is no more ungrateful than any other man's,
and I submitted to the vexation of being unable to thank you. But, mind
you, I had rather go to prison or resume my vagabond life, than put up
with blows. Go away and leave me in peace. I was arguing myself into a
calmer state of mind, and you come and make me angry again. I have to
keep telling myself that you are a little mad to avoid saying something
worse to you."
"Well, Jean, it is true, I am a little mad," rejoined the marquis sadly,
"and this isn't the first time that I have lost control of my reason
about a trifle. That is why I live alone, why I never go out, and show
myself as little as possible. Am I not punished enough?"
Jean made no reply; that distressing confession caused his anger to give
place to compassion.
"Now, tell me what I can do to repair the injury I did you," continued
Monsieur de Boisguilbault, in a trembling voice.
"Nothing," said the carpenter, "I forgive you."
"I thank you, Jean. Will you come and work at my house?"
"What's the use, as I am working for you here? My face disturbs you, and
it depended entirely on yourself to avoid seeing it. I didn't seek you
out. And then, you would want to pay me for my work, and when I work for
your farmers you can't compel me to take their money."
"But your work is of benefit to me, since its results add to the value
of my property. Jean, I cannot agree to that."
"Ah! you can't agree to it? I don't care whether you can or not! you
can't prevent me from paying my debt to you in that way; and since you
have beaten me and insulted me, I will pay it, _mordieu_! just to make
you furious. That humiliates you, doesn't it? Very good, that is my
revenge."
"Take your revenge some other way."
"How then, pray? Shall I strike you? That wouldn't make us square; I
should still be your debtor, and I prefer not to owe you anything."
"Very well, pay your debt, if you choose, as you are so proud and
obstinate," said the marquis, losing patience. "You are blind and cruel,
as you don't see how I suffer. You would be sufficiently revenged if you
understood; but you desire a brutal, cruel revenge. You insist upon
reducing yourself to destitution and upon wearing yourself out with
fatigue in order to make me blush and weep all the days of my life."
"If you take it that way--" said Jean, half-conquered; "no, I am not a
bad man, and I can forgive you for a young man's folly. The devil! your
head is still hot and your hand quick. What did it mean? However, let us
say no more about it; once more, I forgive you."
"You consent to work for me?"
"At half price. Let us arrange it that way to settle the question."
"There is no comparison between my position and yours. There would be
still less between your work and your wages. Be generous; that is the
noblest and most perfect revenge. Come and work for me as you work for
other people; forget that I did you a service which my purse never so
much as discovered, and thus force me to be your debtor, since you will
accept, in satisfaction of an irreparable outrage, the most paltry of
reparations--money."
"I can't understand a word when you twist it about that way. However, we
will see if we can get along together. But suppose I go to your house
and my face makes you angry? Come, can't you tell what you have had
against me all these years? You surely owe me that. It must be that,
without knowing it, I resemble somebody who has injured you. It can't be
hereabout: for I don't know of anybody except the curé of Cuzion's old
horse that I look anything like."
"Ask me no questions; it is impossible for me to answer. Admit that I am
subject to these outbreaks of madness, and love me through pity, as I
cannot be loved otherwise."
"Monsieur de Boisguilbault," said the carpenter warmly, "you mustn't
talk like that; you don't do yourself justice. You have faults, it is
true, crotchets, fits of temper that are a little violent; but you know
well that everybody is obliged to respect you in his heart, because you
are a just man, because you love to do good and have never made any one
about you unhappy; and then you have ideas, which you haven't got from
books simply, ideas that rich men don't often have, and that would make
the world happy if the world chose to think the same as you do. To have
these ideas it isn't enough to be well-educated and sensible, but one
must love everybody in the world and not have a stone in place of a
heart; that is why it is necessary that God should have a hand in it. So
don't talk about loving you through pity; you would have only to put out
your hand to be loved, and you wouldn't have to change much to succeed."
"What must I do, in your opinion?"
"The principal thing would be not to try to prevent people who are
inclined to love you from doing so."
"When did I ever do that?"
"Many a time, and I don't speak of myself alone, as there are others
whose names you surely do not want me to mention----"
"Speak of yourself, Jean," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, with painful
eagerness--"or rather--come and take supper and sleep at my house
to-night. I propose that we shall be entirely reconciled from this day,
but on certain conditions, which I will tell you to-night perhaps, and
which have nothing whatever to do with the cause of our quarrel. The
rain is increasing, and these branches no longer shelter us."
"No, I will not go to your house to-night," said the carpenter, "but I
will go with you to your gate; for yonder's a wicked-looking cloud, and
in a few minutes it won't be pleasant walking. Here, Monsieur de
Boisguilbault, take my advice and put this leather apron of mine over
your shoulders. It isn't handsome, but it never touches anything but
wood--my trade is a clean one, that is what I have always liked about
it--and it isn't afraid of the water."
"On the contrary, I insist on your putting it on your own back; you are
drenched with perspiration, and although you choose to treat me as an
old man, you are no longer young yourself, my friend. Come, no ceremony!
I am warmly clad. Don't take cold on my account; remember that I struck
you to-night."
"You are as sly as the devil! Well, let us be off! It is true, I am no
longer young, although I don't feel my years much as yet. But do you
know that I am hardly ten years younger than you? Do you remember the
time I built the wooden house in your park--your chalet, as you call it?
Well, it was nineteen years ago last St. Jean's Day that I raised the
frame."
"Yes, that is true, only nineteen years. It seems longer to me. By the
way, the little house is very well built, and there are very few repairs
to make. Will you look after them?"
"If there's anything to be done, I don't say no. It's a job that gave me
a lot of trouble in its time. How often I had to look at your devilish
pictures to try to make it look like them!"
"It is your master-piece and you enjoyed it."
"Yes, there were days when I enjoyed it too much, it made me sick; but
when you would come and say: 'Jean, that isn't right; you are making a
mistake;' _dame_! how angry you made me!"
"You lost your temper and almost told me to be off!"
"And you used to let me talk in those days. I would never have believed
that, after being so patient with me for so many years, you would
suddenly fly out at me without telling me why. By the way, what is there
to be done to the wooden house?"
"There's a devil of a door that doesn't shut."
"The wood has warped, I suppose. When shall I come?"
"To-morrow. That's why you must come and sleep at my house; the
weather's too bad for you to go back to Gargilesse."
"It is black enough to break one's neck, that's a fact. Look out where
you step, you are almost in the ditch! But if it rained scythe-blades, I
would go home to sleep to-night."
"Have you important business on hand?"
"Yes. I want to see young Emile Cardonnet, to whom I have something to
say."
"Emile! Have you seen him to-day?"
"No; I started very early to attend to his matters. If you weren't so
peculiar, I would tell you about it, as you know the bulk of his story."
"I don't think he has any secrets for me. However, if he has confided
something more to you than to me, I have no desire to know it."
"Never fear, I have no desire to tell it to you, either."
"And you cannot even give me any news of him? I am anxious about him. I
had hoped to see him to-day; indeed I came away from home to meet him."
"Ah! in that case I understand how it happens that you, who never leave
your park, have strayed so far. But you are wrong to follow the fields
like that. They are all cut up with brooks that are of no mean size, and
I don't know where we are. Ten million devils! How it comes down! This
is just the kind of night that Emile arrived in this region. I met him
under a big rock where he had gone for shelter, and I had no idea that
when I crept in there I put my hand on a friend, a true manly heart, a
treasure!"
"You are very much attached to him, aren't you? He has tried very often
to talk to me about you."
"And you would never let him? I suspected as much. He is a man like you;
no prouder in the depths of his heart and as ready to give his life as
his purse for the unfortunate. But he doesn't lose his temper for
nothing, and when he says a pleasant word to you, you aren't afraid that
he's going to hit you with a club."
"Oh! I know that he's a much better and very much more amiable man than
I am. If you see him to-night or to-morrow morning, tell me how he is.
Tell him to come and see me, for I am overwhelmed by his sorrow."
"And so am I; but I have more hope than you and he. However, if I were
rich like you----"
"What would you do?"
"I don't know; but money makes everything smooth with people of Père
Cardonnet's cut. Suppose you should set him up in some business and
sacrifice a few hundred thousand francs--you who have three or four
millions and no children! He isn't so rich as he seems to be! Perhaps he
may have more income than you, but his capital is smaller, I fancy."
"So you would approve of buying his son's liberty?"
"There are some people who never give anything away, and who sell what
they ought to give away. Why, by the blood of the devil, here we are in
the pond! Stop! stop! that isn't land, it's water. We have gone too far
to the right; but our brains are not fuddled by wine. How are we to get
out of this?"
"I have no idea; we have been walking a long while, and we ought to be
at Boisguilbault."
"Wait! wait! I know where I am," said the carpenter. "There's a little
clearing behind us with one big tree--wait for the flash and look
sharp--there it comes! Yes, I know. There's Mère Marlot's house! The
devil! There are sick children there--two have typhoid fever, they say!
Never mind, she's a good woman, and at all events you are sure of being
well received anywhere on your estates."
"Yes, this woman is a tenant of mine if I am not mistaken."
"Who doesn't pay you very much or very often, I fancy! Come, give me
your hand."
"I didn't know that her children were sick," said the marquis as they
entered the yard in front of the hovel.
"That's natural enough; you seldom go out and never so far as this. But
other people have looked after her. See! there's a horse and wagon that
I know; they may be of use to us."
"Who is that lady?" said the marquis, looking in at the window.
"Why, don't you know her?" said the carpenter, with suppressed
excitement.
"I don't remember that I ever saw her," replied Monsieur de
Boisguilbault, scrutinizing the interior more closely. "Some charitable
person, I presume, who attends to the duties toward the unfortunate
which I neglect."
"It is the curé of Cuzion's sister," replied Jean Jappeloup. "She's a
kind-hearted soul, a young widow, and very charitable, as you say. Wait
until I give her warning of your arrival, for I know her, and she is a
little timid."
He hastened into the hovel, whispered a few hurried words to the old
woman and Gilberte, whom, by a sudden inspiration, he had metamorphosed
into a curé's sister, then returned to Monsieur de Boisguilbault and
led him in, saying:
"Come, monsieur le marquis, come; you won't frighten anybody. The sick
children are better, and there's a brisk little fire to dry your
clothes."
XXX
THE IMPROMPTU SUPPER
The weather must needs have been very bad, or the marquis have
unconsciously undergone some mysterious influence; for he actually made
up his mind to risk a meeting with an entire stranger. He entered, and
saluting the pretended widow with timid courtesy, drew near the fire, on
which the old woman was hastily tossing fresh branches, deploring the
condition of her old master's clothes.
"Oh! good people, is it possible; what a state you're in, monsieur le
marquis! Really, I wouldn't 'a' known you if Jean hadn't told me. Warm
yourself, warm yourself, monsieur, for there's a chance of catching your
death at your age."
And, thinking that she showed great zeal and interest by her sinister
predictions, the good woman, completely bewildered by the arrival of
such a visitor, came near setting fire to her mantelpiece.
"No, my good woman," said the marquis, "I am very thickly dressed at all
times, and I hardly feel the rain."
"Oh! I should say you are well dressed!" she replied, intending to pay
him a compliment which she thought well adapted to flatter him, "for you
have money enough to be!"
"I do not refer to that," said the marquis; "I mean to say that you need
not put yourself out so much or leave your patients for me. I am very
comfortable here, and the life of an old man like me is worth less than
that of your young children. Have they been sick long?"
"About a fortnight, monsieur. But the worst has passed, thank God!"
"Why don't you come to see me when you have sickness in the house?"
"Oh! _nenny_, I should never dare to. I should be afraid of vexing you.
We peasants are so stupid! We can't talk very well and we're afraid to
ask."
"I ought to come and find out about your troubles," said the marquis
with a sigh; "but I see that more active and less selfish hearts do it
in my place!"
Gilberte was sitting at the other side of the room. Dumb with fright,
and not daring to lend her countenance to the carpenter's ruse, she
tried to conceal herself behind the coarse serge curtains of the bed in
which the youngest child lay. She would have been glad to say nothing at
all, and, as she prepared a potion, she kept her face turned to the wall
and pulled her little shawl over her shoulders. A scarf of coarse black
lace, tied under her chin, concealed or at all events dimmed the golden
sheen of her hair, which the marquis might have recognized if he had
ever noticed its brilliancy and luxuriance. But Monsieur de
Boisguilbault had met Gilberte only twice, on her father's arm. He had
recognized Monsieur Antoine in the distance and had turned his head
away. When he had been obliged to pass them at close quarters, he had
shut his eyes to avoid seeing the girl's dreaded features. Therefore he
had no idea of her figure, her face or her carriage.
Jean had lied with so much self-possession and so aptly that the marquis
suspected nothing. The features of Sylvain Charasson, who was lying like
a cat in the ashes, sound asleep, could not be so unfamiliar to him, for
the page of Châteaubrun, a shameless marauder by nature, must have been
caught by him many a time clinging to fruit-laden branches along his
hedges; but he asked so few questions and took such painstaking care to
avoid seeing or knowing anything of what took place outside his park
wall, that he had no idea of the child's name or station in life.
Having no feeling of distrust, therefore, and being impelled by the
mental and physical agitation he had undergone that evening, to open his
heart more than usual, he ventured to follow the charitable lady's
movements with his eyes, and even to approach her and ask some questions
concerning the invalids. The somewhat shy reserve of this friend of the
poor inspired in him profound respect, and it seemed to him worthy of
all praise and in the best of taste that, instead of boasting of her
good works before him, she seemed disturbed and annoyed to have been
taken by surprise in the exercise of her functions as a sister of
charity.
Gilberte was so afraid of being recognized that she was afraid to let
her voice be heard--as if it were not as unfamiliar to the marquis as
her face--and waited for the peasant woman to answer his questions. But
Jean, fearing that the old woman would fail to play her part
intelligently and would betray Gilberte's _incognito_ by her
awkwardness, kept constantly in front of her and edged her toward the
fireplace, glaring savagely at her whenever Monsieur de Boisguilbault's
back was turned. Mère Marlot, trembling from head to foot and having no
comprehension of what was taking place in her house, did not know which
way to turn and prayed fervently that the rain might cease and she be
delivered from the presence of these new guests.
At last, somewhat encouraged by the marquis's soft voice and courteous
manners, Gilberte made bold to answer him; and as he continued to accuse
himself of negligence, she said:
"I have heard, monsieur, that your health is very delicate and that you
read a great deal. I can understand that you are unable to attend to so
many things as you have on hand. For my part I have nothing better to
do, and I live so near that I deserve no great credit for helping to
take care of the sick in the parish."
She glanced at the carpenter as she spoke, as if to call his attention
to the fact that she was entering into the spirit of her part at last;
and Jean hastened to add, in order to give more weight to that pious
sentiment:
"Besides, it is a necessity and a duty of her position. If the curé's
sister didn't look after the poor, who would?"
"I should be a little reconciled with my conscience," said the marquis,
"if madame would kindly apply to me when it happens that I am ignorant
or oblivious of my duties. What my zeal leaves undone, my good will can
supply; and while madame reserved for herself the noblest and most
difficult task, that of nursing the sick with her own hands, I can
increase with my money the limited resources of the priest's charity.
Allow me to join you in your good deeds, madame, I entreat you, or, if
you do not choose to do me that honor, send all your poor to me. A
simple recommendation from you will make them sacred to me."
[Illustration: _GILBERTE AND JAPPELOUP ACCOMPANY
THE MARQUIS TO HIS CHÂTEAU._
_The Marquis took the reins, refusing to allow his charming companion to
have the trouble of driving. Jean armed himself with the whip, to
stimulate poor Lanterne's courage with a sturdy arm._]
"I know that they do not need that, monsieur le marquis," replied
Gilberte, "and that you assist many more than I can hope to do."
"You see that is not so, for I have come here entirely by chance, and
you are here for the express purpose of doing good."
"Oh no! I did not divine that they needed me," replied Gilberte; "this
poor woman came after me; except for that I should probably have known
no more about it than you."
"You try in vain to decry your deserts in order to diminish my
culpability. They send for you, and they dare not come near me: that
fact alone condemns me and glorifies you."
"The deuce! my dear Gilberte," said the carpenter, leading the girl
apart, "in my opinion you are performing miracles and you could tame the
old owl if you would only have the courage. _Ah but_! as Janille says,
all goes well, and if you will act and talk like me, I will answer for
it that you will reconcile him with your father."
"Oh! if I only could! but alas! my father has made me promise, yes,
swear, that I would never try it."
"And yet he would give all he owns to have you succeed! Look, you, when
he made you promise that, he thought that was impossible which is quite
possible to-day--not to-morrow perhaps, but this evening, now! We must
strike the iron while it's hot, and you can see that there has been a
great change already, as he and I came here together and he talks to me
in such a friendly way."
"How on earth did that miracle come about?"
"It was a cane that performed the miracle, on my back; I'll tell you
about it later. Meanwhile you must be very lady-like, a little bold, and
have your wits about you--in a word be like your friend Jean in
everything. Listen, I am going to begin!"
Thereupon, Jean abruptly left Gilberte and went to the old man.
"What do you suppose this young lady just whispered in my ear? That she
absolutely insists on taking you home in her carriage. Ah! Monsieur de
Boisguilbault, you can't refuse a lady; she says that the roads are too
badly washed for you to walk, that you are too wet to wait here for your
own carriage, that she has a cabriolet with a good horse, a genuine
curé's mare that doesn't lose her temper or take fright at anything and
goes fast enough when your arm isn't asleep and there's a lash on the
whip. In quarter of an hour you'll be at home, instead of splashing
through the mud and stones for an hour."
Monsieur de Boisguilbault thanked the lovely widow warmly but would not
accept; but Gilberte herself insisted, with irresistible grace.
"I implore you, monsieur le marquis," she said, turning upon him her
beautiful eyes, still frightened like those of a half-tamed dove, "do
not pain me by refusing; my carriage is ugly, shabby and muddy, and so
is my horse; but they are both strong. I know how to drive and Jean will
take me home."
"But it will delay you a long while," said the marquis; "your folks will
be anxious."
"No," said Jean, "here is monsieur le curé's page, who serves the mass
and rings the bell for him; he's a sure-footed, sharp-eyed rascal, with
no more fear of the water than a frog. He has wooden clogs on his feet a
little stouter than yours, and he will go to Cuzion as straight and fast
as a saw will cut a spruce board. He will tell them not to worry; that
madame's in good company and that old Jean will bring her home. So
that's settled!--Look you, young wide-awake," he said to Charasson, who
yawned as if he would dislocate his jaw and gazed in bewilderment at
Monsieur de Boisguilbault; "just come and let me rouse you a bit in the
fresh air, and start you on your road."
He dragged, almost carried Sylvain to a short distance from the house,
and there, putting his leather apron over his shoulders, he said to him,
pulling his ears briskly to fix his words in his memory:
"Run to Châteaubrun and tell Monsieur Antoine that Gilberte is going to
Boisguilbault with me; tell him to keep quiet, that all goes well in
that direction, and that he needn't worry if she passes the night away
from home. Do you hear? do you understand?"
"I hear well enough, but I don't understand," replied Sylvain. "Will you
let my ears alone, you old villain of a Jean!"
"I'll make them longer than they are, if you argue; and if you make a
botch of my errand, I'll tear them off to-morrow."
"I heard you, that's enough; let me go."
"And if you stop to play on the road, look out!"
"_Pardié_! it's fine weather to play!"
"And if you lose my goatskin apron!"
"I'm no such fool, it won't do me any harm!"
And the child started off at full speed toward the ruins, picking his
way in the darkness with the instinct of a cat.
"Now," said Jean leading the old mare and the _barrow_ out from under
the shed, "it's our turn, honest Lanterne. Oh! don't get excited,
Monsieur Sacripant, it's only me! You came with your young mistress,
good; but monsieur le marquis, who doesn't look at people, isn't afraid
to look at dogs, and he may know you. Do me the favor to follow your
friend Charasson. I am sorry to say you must return home on foot."--He
cracked the whip at the poor beast and drove him away in the direction
Charasson had taken.--"Come, monsieur le marquis, I am waiting for you!"
And the marquis, conquered by Gilberte's persistence, mounted the
barrow, where he sat between her and Jappeloup.
The stars in heaven did not witness this strange association, for heavy
clouds concealed them, and Mère Marlot, the sole witness of this
extraordinary adventure, was not sufficiently clear in her mind to
indulge in any extended comments. The marquis had put his purse in her
hand as he crossed the threshold of her house, and she passed the rest
of the night counting the shining coins it contained and waiting on her
little ones, saying:
"Dear young lady, she brings us good luck!"
The marquis took the reins, refusing to allow his charming companion to
have the trouble of driving. Jean armed himself with the whip, to
stimulate poor Lanterne's courage with a sturdy arm. Gilberte, whom
Janille, anticipating the storm, had provided with a large umbrella and
her father's old cloak when she allowed her to depart on her errand of
mercy, gave her attention to sheltering her companions; and as the wind
fought for the cloak with her, she held it over Monsieur de
Boisguilbault's shoulders with one hand, while she exerted all her
strength to hold the umbrella over the old man's head with the other
hand, with filial solicitude. The marquis was so touched by these
affectionate attentions that he lost all his bashfulness and expressed
his gratitude in the warmest terms that his respect would permit.
Gilberte trembled at the thought that this sympathetic feeling might
change to wrath at any moment, and old Jean laughed in his beard,
relying on Providence.
Although it was only nine o'clock, everybody at the château of
Boisguilbault had retired when our travellers arrived. No one except old
Martin ever paid any attention to the master after sunset, and on this
evening Martin had closed the park after seeing the marquis enter his
chalet, and had no suspicion that he had gone abroad and was travelling
around the country in the rain and thunder, with an old carpenter and a
young woman.
Jean was not particularly anxious to go into the courtyard with
Gilberte; for, living so near Châteaubrun as they did, it was
impossible that some if not all of the servants should not be familiar
with the lovely girl's face, and the first exclamation would betray her.
But the rain was still falling, and there was no plausible excuse for
making the marquis or Gilberte alight at the outer gate, especially as
Monsieur de Boisguilbault absolutely insisted that his companions should
come in and wait by the fire until the rain, which was quite cold and
continuous, had ceased. Jean meanwhile was dying with longing to seize
this pretext for prolonging the interview; but Gilberte refused in
dismay to enter the dreadful manor-house of Boisguilbault, and it was
certain that there was great peril in doing it.
Luckily the marquis's eccentric habits made it impossible for them to
effect an entrance to the château. In vain did they ring the bell again
and again, the wind roared so fiercely that the sound was carried far
away. No servant, male or female, slept in that part of the building,
where a grewsome solitude habitually prevailed; and, as for old Martin,
the only person who ever ventured there, he was too deaf to hear
anything, the bell or the thunder.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault was extremely mortified by his inability to
show the hospitality which all the circumstances combined to impose upon
him as a duty; and he was very angry with himself for having failed to
anticipate what had happened. His wrath was on the point of breaking out
anew and turning against old Martin, who went to bed with the sun. But
at last, suddenly making up his mind what course to pursue, he said:
"I see that I must abandon the idea of getting into my own house, for I
shall never make anybody hear unless I send for cannon to take the house
by assault; but if madame is not afraid to visit an anchorite's cell, I
have another lodging, the key of which never leaves me, where we shall
find all that we need to enable us to warm ourselves and rest."
As he spoke he turned the horse's head toward the park, alighted at the
gate, opened it himself, and led Lanterne in by the bridle, while Jean
squeezed the trembling Gilberte's arm to encourage her to risk the
adventure. "God forgive me!" he muttered, "he is taking us to his wooden
house, where he passes all his nights evoking the devil! Never fear,
Gilberte, I am with you, and this is the day we are going to turn Satan
out-of-doors here!"
Monsieur de Boisguilbault, having closed the gate behind him, bade the
carpenter take the reins and follow him at a foot-pace to a sort of
gardener's shed where Emile often hitched Corbeau when he came late or
expected to stay late; and while Jean busied himself putting poor
Lanterne and Monsieur Antoine's barrow under cover, the marquis offered
Gilberte his arm, saying: "I am distressed to ask you to walk a few
steps on the gravel; but you will not have time to wet your feet, for my
hermitage is right here, behind these rocks."
Gilberte shuddered from head to foot as she entered the chalet, alone
with that strange old man whom she had always believed to be a little
mad, and who now led the way into the darkness. She was somewhat
relieved when he opened a second door, and she saw the corridor lighted
by a lamp which stood in a niche decorated with flowers. That retreat,
so luxurious and comfortable despite its rustic exterior, pleased her
exceedingly, and in her youthful imagination, enamored of poetic
simplicity, she fancied that she had found the sort of palace of which
she had often dreamed.
Since Emile had been admitted to the mysterious chalet, notable
improvements had been made there. He had impressed upon the old man that
the stoical habits by which he undertook to protest against his own
wealth were beginning to be too severe for a man of his years; and,
although Monsieur de Boisguilbault was not as yet attacked by any
serious infirmity he admitted that he had suffered much from the cold
there during the winter. Emile had himself brought from the château
carpets, hangings, thick curtains and suitable furniture; he had
frequently lighted a fire in the huge stove for protection against the
dampness on rainy nights, and the marquis had yielded to the pleasant
sensation of being cared for, a sensation entirely mental to him, in
which he saw the proof of a zealous and delicate affection. The young
man had also rearranged and beautified the room in which he and the old
man often took their evening meal. He had made it into a sort of salon,
and Gilberte was delighted to place her little feet, for the first time
in her life, on superb bearskin rugs, and to gaze in admiration at the
beautiful vases of old Sèvres, filled with the rarest flowers, standing
on a marble console.
The fireplace, filled with very dry pine cones, blazed up as if by
enchantment when the marquis tossed in a piece of burning paper, and the
candles, reflected in a mirror, the oaken frame of which was curiously
carved and twisted, soon filled the room with a brilliant light dazzling
to the eyes of a girl accustomed to the poor little lamp to which
Janille supplied oil with a sparing hand, after the example of the woman
in the Bible.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault, for the first time in his life, exerted
himself with a sort of coquetry to do the honors of his chalet to such a
charming guest. He took an artless pleasure in watching her examine and
admire his flowers, and promised her that on the very next day she
should have all the grafts and all the seeds to replenish the _vicarage
garden_. Resuming momentarily the animation of youth, he ran hither and
thither to find the little curiosities he had brought back from his trip
to Switzerland, and offered them to her with ingenuous joy; and when she
blushingly refused to accept anything, he took the little basket in
which she had taken syrups and sweetmeats to her sick protégés and
filled it with pretty bits of wood-work carved at Fribourg, specimens of
rock-crystal, agates and cornelians set in seals and rings; and lastly
with all the flowers in the vases, of which he made an enormous bouquet
as deftly as he could.
The touching grace with which Gilberte in her confusion thanked the old
man, her artless questions concerning his travels in Switzerland, of
which Monsieur de Boisguilbault retained most enthusiastic
recollections, expressed in terms that were far from classic, the
interest with which she listened to him, her intelligent comments when
she succeeded in recovering her self-possession, the fascinating tones
of her voice, the distinction of her simple, natural manners, her
absence of coquetry, and the mixture of alarm and enthusiasm in her
bearing and her features, which made her beauty even more impressive
than usual, her glowing cheeks, her eyes moist with emotion and fatigue,
her bosom oppressed by unfamiliar agitation, and her angelic smile which
seemed to implore mercy or protection--all combined to produce such a
profound impression on the marquis and took possession of him so
rapidly, that he suddenly felt that he loved her with all his heart;
with a holy love, be it understood, not the base desire of an old man
for youth and beauty, but the love of a father for the pure and adorable
child. And when the carpenter joined them, himself dazzled and overjoyed
to find himself in such a light, warm room, he thought that he was
dreaming when he heard Monsieur de Boisguilbault say to Gilberte: "Put
your feet to the fire, my dear child; I am terribly afraid you have
caught cold to-night, and if you have I shall never forgive myself so
long as I live!"
Thereupon, the marquis, impelled by an extraordinary outburst of
expansiveness, turned to the carpenter and held out his hand, saying:
"Come and sit down by the fire with us. Poor Jean! you were thinly clad
and you are wet to the bone. I am the cause of that too; if you hadn't
insisted on accompanying me, you would have gone to the farmhouse and
you would be there now; you are hungry, too, and you would have had your
supper. How am I to give you anything to eat here? and I am sure that
you are dying of hunger!"
"Faith, Monsieur de Boisguilbault," said the carpenter, with a smile,
thrusting his clogs into the hot ashes, "I snap my fingers at the rain,
but not at hunger. Your wooden house has become deuced fine since I put
my hand to it; but if there was a piece of bread in one of these
closets, in which I once put shelves, I should think them still
prettier. From noon till night I chopped like a deaf man, and I am
weaker than a rat at this moment."
"Bless my soul!" cried Monsieur de Boisguilbault, "now I think of it, I
haven't supped either. I had entirely forgotten it, and I am sure that
there is something here, I don't know where. Come, Jean, let us look and
we shall find it."
"Knock and it shall be opened unto you," said the carpenter, gayly,
shaking the door at the end of the room.
"Not there, Jean!" said the marquis, hastily; "there's nothing but books
there."
"Ah! this is the door that doesn't shut tight," said Jean; "you see, I
put my hand right on it. I'll fix it to-morrow; it's simply a matter of
taking a little off the top so that the bolt will slide. Isn't your old
Martin smart enough to fix that? He was always clumsy and awkward, that
fellow!"
Jean, who was stronger than the two old men at Boisguilbault together,
closed the door without a suspicion of curiosity, and the marquis was
grateful to him for his indifference, having watched him closely and
with evident uneasiness so long as he held the knob in his hand.
"There is ordinarily a small table here with my supper all served," said
Monsieur de Boisguilbault. "I can't imagine what has become of it,
unless Martin forgot me to-night."
"Oh! unless you forgot to wind him up the old clock in his brain has not
stopped," said the carpenter, who recalled with pleasure all the details
of the marquis's home-life with which he was once so familiar. "What is
there behind this screen? Aha! this has a very appetizing and
substantial look!" and he folded the screen, revealing a table laden
with a _galantine_, a loaf of bread, a plate of strawberries and a
bottle of Bordeaux.
"That's a dainty little supper to offer a lady, Monsieur de
Boisguilbault."
"Oh! if I thought that madame would deign to accept it!" said the
marquis, rolling the table toward Gilberte.
"Why not!" laughed Jean. "I'll wager that the dear soul thought of other
people before thinking about the care of her own body. Come, if she will
eat just a few strawberries, and you the meat, Monsieur de
Boisguilbault, I'll take care of the bread and a glass of black wine."
"We will eat as all men should eat," replied the marquis, "each
according to his appetite; and the experiment will prove, I am sure,
that the most solid portion, intended for one person only, will be
enough for several. Oh! I beg you, madame, to let me have the pleasure
of waiting on you."
"I am not at all hungry," said Gilberte, who had been for several days
past too much distressed and excited not to have lost her appetite; "but
to induce you two to eat, I will go through the motions."
Monsieur de Boisguilbault sat beside her and waited upon her with great
zeal. Jean declared that he was too dirty to sit with them, and, when
the marquis insisted, he confessed that he should be very ill at ease in
such soft, deep chairs. He took a wooden stool, a relic of the former
rustic furniture of the chalet, and, planting himself under the mantel,
where he could dry himself from head to foot, began to eat with great
zest. His portion was amply sufficient, for Gilberte simply nibbled at
the strawberries, and the marquis was a phenomenally small eater.
Moreover, even if he had more appetite than usual, he would gladly have
stinted himself for the man he had struck two hours earlier, and who had
forgiven him so frankly.
The peasant eats slowly and in silence. To him it is not the
gratification of a capricious and fugitive craving, but a sort of solemn
function; for on a working-day the meal hour is at the same time an hour
of rest and reflection. Jappeloup became very grave, therefore, as he
methodically cut his bread into small pieces and watched the cones
blazing on the hearth. Monsieur de Boisguilbault, having gradually
exhausted all that one can say to a person one does not know, relapsed
into his usual taciturnity, and Gilberte, overdone by several nights of
sleeplessness and weeping, felt an insurmountable drowsiness creep over
her, the effect of the heat from the fire following the cold and
dampness of the storm. She fought against it as long as she could, but
the poor child was little more accustomed than her friend the carpenter
to luxurious arm-chairs, fur rugs and candle-light. As she tried to
smile and to answer the more and more infrequent remarks of the marquis,
she felt as if she were magnetized; her lovely head gradually sank on
the back of the chair, her pretty foot slipped nearer to the fire, and
her strong, regular breathing suddenly betrayed the victory of sleep
over her will-power.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault, seeing that the carpenter was lost in
thought, began to scrutinize Gilberte's features more closely than he
had as yet dared to do, and a sort of shudder passed over him when he
saw, beneath the black lace which had partly fallen from her head, the
luxuriant dazzling masses of golden hair. But he was roused from his
contemplation by the carpenter, who said to him in an undertone:
"Monsieur de Boisguilbault, I'll bet that you haven't a suspicion of
what I am going to tell you. Look carefully at this pretty little lady,
and then I will tell you who she is."
Monsieur de Boisguilbault turned pale and gazed at the carpenter with a
dismayed expression.
XXXI
UNCERTAINTY
"Well, Monsieur de Boisguilbault, have you looked at her enough,"
continued the carpenter, with a mischievous, self-satisfied air, "and
cannot you yourself guess what should interest you most in her?"
The marquis rose and at once fell back in his chair. A ray of light had
passed through his mind at last, and his penetration, so long at fault,
suddenly went farther than Jean desired. He thought that he had guessed,
and he cried in a tone of intense indignation:
"She shall not stay here an instant longer!"
Gilberte, awakened with a start and terrified beyond words, saw before
her the marquis's angry face. She thought that she was lost, and
reflecting with despair that, instead of bringing her father and
Monsieur de Boisguilbault together, she would be the cause of
embittering their enmity, she had no other thought than to take all the
blame upon herself and to seek pardon for Monsieur Antoine. Falling on
her knees with the grace of a flower bending before the tempest, she
seized the marquis's trembling hand, and, too agitated to speak, bowed
her lovely head and leaned her pallid brow on the old man's arm.
"Well, well," said the carpenter, seizing the marquis's other arm and
shaking it violently, "what are you thinking about, Monsieur de
Boisguilbault, to frighten this child so? Is your mania taking hold of
you again, and shall I have to lose my temper with you, after all?"
"Who is she?" rejoined the marquis, trying to push Gilberte away, but
too nervous to be able to do it; "tell me who she is, I insist upon
knowing!"
"You do know, as I have already told you," said Jean with a shrug; "she
is the sister of a country curé, with no money and no name. Is that why
you speak so roughly to her? Do you want her to know what I know about
you. Try not to let her see you in one of your attacks, Monsieur de
Boisguilbault; you see that your savage airs make her sick with fright!
and it's a devil of a way of entertaining her and doing the honors of
your house! She could hardly expect this after being so polite to you;
and the worst of it is that I can't tell her what the matter is with
you, because I haven't any idea myself."
"I don't know whether you are making sport of me," said the marquis,
deeply distressed; "but what did you mean just now?"
"Something that would have given you pleasure, but which I won't tell
you now, as you are out of your head."
"Speak, Jean; explain yourself; I can't stand this uncertainty."
"I can't stand it either," said Gilberte, bursting into tears. "I don't
know, Jean, what you have said or tried to say about me; I don't know
what my position is here, but it is unendurable to me. Let us go!"
"No--no--" said the marquis, beset by irresolution and shame; "it is
still raining, the weather is horrible and I don't want you to go."
"Well, then, why did you want to turn her out just now?" retorted Jean
with contemptuous tranquillity; "who can understand your whims? For my
part, I give it up, and I am going."
"I will not stay here without you!" cried Gilberte, rising and running
after the carpenter, as he walked toward the door.
"Mademoiselle--or madame," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, stopping her
and detaining the carpenter also, "please listen to me, and if you know
nothing of the strange thoughts that assail me at this moment, forgive
an agitation which must seem very absurd to you, but which is very
painful to me, I assure you! I owe you an explanation of it, however.
Jean just gave me to understand that you were not the person that I
supposed--but another person--whom I do not wish to see or to know. _Mon
Dieu_! I don't know how to tell you. Either you understand me too well
or you cannot understand me at all."
"Ah! I understand you at last," said the crafty carpenter, "and I will
tell madame what you cannot succeed in explaining to her.--Madame Rose,"
he continued, turning to Gilberte and resolutely giving her the name of
the curé of Cuzion's sister, "you know Mademoiselle Gilberte de
Châteaubrun, your young neighbor? Well, monsieur le marquis has a great
grudge against her, so it seems; we must believe that she has offended
him shamefully; and just as I was going to tell him something about you
and Emile----"
"What do you say?" cried the marquis. "Emile?"
"This doesn't concern you," retorted Jean: "I shall tell you nothing
more, I am speaking to Madame Rose. Yes, Madame Rose, Monsieur de
Boisguilbault detests Mademoiselle Gilberte; he has taken it into his
head that you might be she; that is why he wanted to put you out--by the
window in preference to the door."
Gilberte felt a mortal distaste for continuing this extraordinary and
audacious mystification; for some minutes past, she had been conscious
of such a warm feeling of sympathy for the marquis, that she reproached
herself for abusing his error and subjecting him to emotions which
seemed to make him suffer as keenly as she herself suffered. She
determined to disabuse him gradually, and to be bolder than her
facetious companion in daring to face the results of Monsieur de
Boisguilbault's wrath.
"There is at least one enigma for me in what you tell me," she said with
dignified assurance. "I cannot understand how Gilberte de Châteaubrun
can be an object of reprobation on the part of a man so just and so
worthy of respect as Monsieur de Boisguilbault. As I know nothing of her
which can justify such detestation, and as it is important that I should
know what to think about her, I beg monsieur le marquis to tell me all
the evil that he knows of her, so that she may at least have an
opportunity to exculpate herself in the minds of honorable people who
know her."
"I should have preferred," said the marquis, with a profound sigh, "that
the name of Châteaubrun should not be mentioned before me."
"Is it a name upon which there is any stain, I pray to know," demanded
Gilberte, with an irresistible outburst of pride.
"No--no--I never said that," replied the marquis, whose wrath subsided
as quickly as it blazed up. "I accuse nobody, I make no reproach against
anybody. I am on unfriendly terms with the person mentioned; I do not
wish any one to speak of her to me, nor do I speak of her myself--so why
ask me useless questions?"
"Useless questions!" echoed Gilberte; "you cannot deem them such,
monsieur le marquis. It is very strange that a man like you should be on
bad terms with a mere girl, whom he does not know, whom perhaps he has
never seen. Surely she must have been guilty of some detestable action
or have said some hateful thing about him, and that is what I want to
know, that is what I entreat you to tell me: so that, if Gilberte de
Châteaubrun deserves neither esteem nor confidence, I may avoid the
society of so dangerous a person."
"That's what I call talking!" cried Jean, clapping his hands. "Say on! I
too should be very glad to know what to think about her; for this
Gilberte has been very good to me; she has given me food and drink when
I was hungry and thirsty; she has spun her wool to make clothes for me
when I was cold. To my eyes she has always been charitable, gentle,
devoted to her parents, and a good girl if ever there was one! Now, if
she has committed some shameful sin, I shall be ashamed to be her
debtor, and I will never owe her anything more."
"It was your absurd explanation that caused all this useless
discussion," said the marquis to the carpenter. "Where did you pick up
all these foolish ideas that you attribute to me? It is the young
woman's father with whom I am on bad terms, on account of a quarrel of
many years' standing, and not with a child whom I don't know, and
against whom I have nothing to say, absolutely nothing."
"And whom you would have turned out of your house, nevertheless, if she
had dared to appear here!" said Gilberte, looking closely at the
marquis, whose embarrassment was beginning to encourage her materially.
"Turned out?--no; I turn no one out," he replied; "I simply should have
considered it a little cruel, a little strange, that she should think of
coming here."
"Well, she has thought of it many times, none the less," said Gilberte;
"I know it, for I know her thoughts, and I am going to tell you what she
has said to me."
"What is the use?" said the marquis, turning his head away; "why spend
so much time over an impulsive phrase that escaped me without
reflection? I should be distressed beyond words to cause an unkind
thought against the girl in anybody's mind. I say again, I do not know
her and I can in no way reproach her. The only thing that I desire is
that my words may not be repeated, tortured, exaggerated. Do you hear,
Jean? you take it upon yourself to interpret the exclamations that
escape me, and you do it very badly. I beg you, if you have any
affection for me," added the marquis with a painful effort, "never to
utter my name at Châteaubrun, and not to discuss me in any way. I also
request madame to protect me from any indirect contact, any roundabout
explanation, in a word, from every sort of relation with that family;
and if, to make sure that my repose shall still be respected in that
regard, I must give the lie to what I said without reflection in my
excitement, I am ready to protest against anything which could possibly
impair the reputation and character of Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun in
my mind."
The marquis spoke with a measured coldness which restored to his manner
all its customary propriety and dignity. Gilberte would have preferred a
fresh outbreak of wrath, which would have led her to expect a reaction
marked by weakness and emotion. She no longer felt the courage to
insist, and understanding, from the sudden frigidity of the marquis's
manner, that she was half divined, and that an unconquerable distrust
had taken possession of him, she felt so ill at ease, that she wished to
go away at once; but Jean was not at all satisfied with the result of
this explanation, and he determined to strike the last blow.
"Well," he said, "it must be as Monsieur de Boisguilbault pleases. He is
kind and just at the bottom of his heart, Madame Rose; let us go, and
cause him no more pain; but first I would like to have a sort of
understanding between you two. Come, let us open our hearts a little!
You will blush, scold me, perhaps you will cry. But I know what I am
doing, I know that this is an opportunity that may never come again, and
that we must be willing to submit to a little trouble to assist and
comfort those we love. You look at me in surprise! don't you know that
Monsieur de Boisguilbault is our Emile's best friend, that he has his
whole confidence, and that he is perfectly well acquainted with all his
troubles and yours, although he doesn't know that you are the one?--Yes,
Monsieur de Boisguilbault, Madame Rose here is the lady! you understand
me, don't you? So speak to her, encourage her, tell her that Emile has
done right, and she, too, in refusing to yield to Père Cardonnet's
malice. That is what I intended to say to you when you interrupted me
with an outcry about Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun, when God knows if I
was thinking of her!"
Gilberte became so confused that Monsieur de Boisguilbault, who was
beginning to regard her with mingled interest and uneasiness, was
touched by her plight and strove to reassure her. He took her hand and
said, leading her back to her chair:
"Don't be embarrassed before me; I am an old man and it is another old
man who betrays your secrets. Undoubtedly he has a very bold and unusual
way of acting; but as his intentions are good and his exceptional
character endears him to the person in whom you and I are more
interested than in anybody else in the world, let us try to overcome our
mutual embarrassment, and, as he says, to make the most of the
opportunity!"
But Gilberte, confounded by the carpenter's determination, and terrified
to see her heart's secret in the hands of a man who still inspired more
terror than confidence, put both her hands over her face and did not
answer.
"Well, well!" said the carpenter, whom nothing in the world could deter
in his undertakings, whether it was a matter of overcoming a scruple or
of felling a forest, "here she is all covered with mortification, and I
shall be scolded for my indiscretion! but if Emile was here, he wouldn't
disavow me. He would be very glad to have Monsieur de Boisguilbault see
with his own eyes whether he has placed his affections wisely, and he
will feel more than a little proud to-morrow when Monsieur de
Boisguilbault says to him: 'I have seen her, I know her, and I am not
surprised any longer!'--Isn't it true that you'll say that, Monsieur de
Boisguilbault?"
Monsieur de Boisguilbault did not reply. He was still gazing at
Gilberte, struggling between a powerful attraction and a horrible
suspicion. He walked several turns up and down the room to overcome a
terrible feeling of oppression, and after many sighs and internal
conflicts, he returned to Gilberte and took both her hands.
"Whoever you may be," he said, "you have in your hands the destiny of
the noblest boy that I in my old age have ever dared to dream of for my
staff and my consolation. I shall die before long, and I shall leave
this earth without having known an instant's joy, if I do not leave
Emile at peace with himself. Oh! I implore you--you who are destined to
exercise so great an influence, for good or evil, over his whole
future,--retain on the side of truth that heart which is so worthy to be
its sanctuary. You are very young, you do not know yet what a woman's
love is in the life of a man like him! You do not know perhaps that it
depends upon you to make of him a hero or a dastard, a coward or an
apostate. Alas! you probably do not understand the bearing of what I am
saying to you now. No, you are too young; the more I look at you, the
more like a child you seem to me! Poor young thing, without experience
and without strength, you are to determine the future of a noble heart,
to break it or ennoble it. Forgive me for saying this; I am deeply moved
and I cannot find fitting words. I have no desire either to distress you
or to cause you embarrassment; but I am depressed and alarmed, and the
more fully I realize your innocence, the more I feel that Emile no
longer belongs to me."
"Forgive me, monsieur le marquis," said Gilberte, wiping away her tears,
"I understand you very well, and although I am in truth very young, I am
conscious of my responsibility in God's sight; but I am not in question
now, it is not myself whom I wish to defend and justify, but Emile, that
noble heart whom you seem to doubt. Oh! have no fear! Emile will lie
neither to you, nor his father, nor himself, nor other men. I don't know
if I fully understand the importance of his ideas and the depth of
yours; but I adore the truth. I am no philosopher, I am too ignorant.
But I am pious, I was brought up in the precepts of the Gospel, and I
cannot interpret them in a different sense from that Emile gives to
them. I understand that his father, who also invokes the Gospel, by the
way, when the fancy strikes him, wishes him to be false to the faith of
the Gospel, and if I believed that Emile was capable of consenting, I
should blush for having been so grossly misled as to love a man without
intelligence and conscience; but I am not so unfortunate as that. Emile
will be equal to renouncing me, if need be, rather than renounce his own
manhood; and as for myself, I shall know how to be brave, if at times
his courage seems to waver. But I am not afraid of it; I know that he
suffers, and I suffer too; but I will be worthy of his affection, as he
is worthy of yours, and God will help us to bear everything, for He does
not abandon those who suffer for love of Him and for the glory of His
name!"
"Well said!" exclaimed the carpenter; "I wish I could talk like that.
But no matter, I think as she does, and the good Lord gives me as much
credit."
"Yes, you are right," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, impressed by the
depth of conviction revealed by the carpenter's earnest tone; "I did not
know, Jean, that you would be as devoted a friend to Emile as myself and
perhaps a more useful one."
"I don't say that, Monsieur de Boisguilbault; I know that Emile looks
upon you as his real father, in place of the un-Christian father that
fate gave him; but I am something of a friend to him, and last night I
flatter myself that I cheered him up, as I cheered up some other people
this morning. As for her," he said, pointing to Gilberte, "she didn't
need any cheering up. I didn't expect she would! From the first moment
her mind was made up, and in my opinion it's a fine thing for a girl of
her age to be so strong as that, although you don't seem to think very
much of it."
The marquis hesitated and continued to pace the floor without speaking;
then he stopped at the window, opened it, returned to Gilberte, and
said:
"The rain has stopped, and I am afraid your people will be anxious about
you. I--I don't want to keep you any longer to-night, but--but we will
see each other again, and I shall be better prepared to talk with
you,--for I have many things to say to you."
"No, monsieur le marquis," replied Gilberte, rising, "we shall never
meet again; for in that case I must continue to deceive you and that
would be impossible to me. Chance has thrown us together, and I thought
that I was only fulfilling a bounden duty in offering you some trivial
attentions which my heart bade me offer. Thus far I was not blameworthy,
I leave it to you to judge; for in order to induce you to accept them,
it was necessary to tell a falsehood; and furthermore, my father had
made me swear that I would never annoy you with his grief, with his
repentance for an injury he did you long ago, of which I know nothing,
with his affection for you, which has remained like a painful wound in
the depths of his heart! In my dreams as a child I often formed a plan
of coming and throwing myself at your feet and saying to you: 'My father
suffers, he is unhappy on your account. If he has injured you, accept my
tears, my humiliation, my enthusiasm, my life if you will, in expiation
of his fault; give him your hand and trample me under your feet, and I
will bless you, if you remove from my father's heart the grief that
preys upon him and pursues him even in his sleep.'--Yes, that is the
dream that I used to cherish long ago; but I abandoned it because my
father ordered me to, thinking that I should simply add to your anger;
and I abandon it more completely than ever to-night, seeing the coldness
and aversion which my name inspires in you. So I take my leave without
imploring you in his behalf, distressed by a very painful certainty that
my father is the victim of very great injustice on your part; but I will
put forth all my energies to distract his thoughts and comfort him. And
as for you, monsieur le marquis, I leave you the means of punishing me
for the innocent stratagem to which I gave my assent this evening in
order to save the health and perhaps the life of the man whom my father
once loved so dearly! I leave you my secret, which has been disclosed to
you against my will, but which I no longer blush to know is in your
hands; for it is the secret of a proud heart, and of a love that God has
blessed by inspiring it. Have no fear of seeing me again, monsieur le
marquis; and have no fear that Jean, our imprudent but generous friend,
who has exposed himself to your anger by trying to reconcile us, will
ever annoy you by reminding you of us. I shall find a way to make him
abandon the task. I have been honored by your hospitality this evening,
monsieur le marquis, and you will allow me never to forget it. You will
have no reason to repent of it; for you will not have been the victim of
a lie, and if it will be a consolation to your hatred, you still have an
opportunity to drive Antoine de Châteaubrun's daughter from your
presence with insulting touch."
"I would like to see him do it!" cried Jean Jappeloup, taking his stand
beside her and putting her arm through his; "I who have done all the
harm and told all the lies against her wish; I, who got it into my head
that she would succeed in putting her hand in yours! You are obstinate,
Monsieur de Boisguilbault; but, by all the devils! you shall not insult
my Gilberte, for if you did, I should remember that I cut your cane in
two to-night!"
"You talk like a fool, Jean," replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault coldly.
"Mademoiselle," he said to Gilberte, "will you allow me to offer you my
arm to return to your carriage?"
Gilberte accepted tremblingly; but she felt that the marquis's arm
trembled even more. He assisted her into the carriage without speaking;
then, noticing that it was still quite cold, although the sky was clear,
he said:
"You have come from a very warm room and you are not dressed warmly
enough; I will go and get something more for you."
Gilberte thanked him and reminded him that she had her father's cloak.
"But that is damp; it is worse than nothing," said the marquis. And he
returned to the chalet.
"The devil take the old fool!" growled Jean, lashing the mare angrily.
"I have had enough of him; I am out of temper with him; I have had no
sort of success, and I long to get out of his den. I'll never put my
feet inside it again; the man's glance gives me a cold in the head.
Let's be off and not wait for him."
"Nay, we must wait for him, and not make him run after us," said
Gilberte.
"Bah! do you suppose he cares whether you take cold or not? Indeed, he's
forgotten all about it; you'll see if he comes back. Let us go."
But when they reached the gate they found that it was locked, that
Monsieur de Boisguilbault had kept the key, and that they must either
wait for him or go back and ask him for it. Jean was cursing loudly when
the marquis suddenly appeared, carrying a package which he placed on
Gilberte's knees, saying:
"I kept you waiting a little; I had some difficulty in finding what I
wanted. I beg you to keep it for your own use, as well as these little
things which you left with your basket. Don't get down, Jappeloup, I
will open the gate for you. I shall expect you to-morrow, my dear
fellow," he added, when the gate was open.
And he offered the carpenter his hand, which the latter hesitated to
take, understanding nothing of the inconsequent impulses of so uncertain
and perturbed a mind.
"Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun," the marquis then said in an almost
inaudible tone of voice, "will you also shake hands with me before we
part?"
Gilberte leaped lightly to the ground, removed her glove and took the
old man's hand, which trembled terribly. With an impulsive outburst of
respectful compassion she put it to her lips, saying:
"You will not forgive Antoine; do, at least, forgive Gilberte?"
A profound groan issued from the old man's breast. He made a movement as
if to put his lips to Gilberte's brow, but recoiled in dismay. Then he
took her head in both hands, squeezed it a moment as if he would crush
it, and, finally, kissed her hair, which he moistened with a tear as
cold as the drop of water that drips from the glacier. Then he suddenly
pushed her away with all his strength and fled, hiding his face in his
handkerchief. Gilberte fancied that she heard a sob die away in the
distance with the sound of his uncertain footsteps on the gravel and the
whispering of the breeze among the aspens.
XXXII
A WEDDING PRESENT
There was something at once ghastly and heartrending in Monsieur de
Boisguilbault's strange leave-taking, and Gilberte was so affected by it
that she began to weep again herself.
"Well, what's the matter?" said Jean when they were on the road to
Châteaubrun; "are you going to lose your eyes this evening. You are
about as mad as yonder old man, my Gilberte; for sometimes you are
reasonable and talk pure gold, and then suddenly you are as weak and
whining as a baby. Let me tell you this: Monsieur de Boisguilbault has a
kind heart; but, for all Emile and your father may say, he is a little
crack-brained; that's sure. There's no relying on him, but just the
same, we need never despair of him. It may be that you will never hear
of him again, and it may just as well be that he'll jump on your
father's neck some fine day, if he happens to meet him at the right
moment. It will depend on the moon!"
"I don't know what to think of him," said Gilberte, "for I really
believe I should go mad if I lived with him. He frightens me horribly,
and yet I have moments of irresistible affection for him. It's the same
feeling that Emile had for him from the beginning. Emile has ended by
loving him and losing his fear of him. So that his kindness of heart
finally carries the day over the caprice of disease."
"I will tell you more about that later," replied the carpenter, "for I
really must go there again and study him."
"But you knew him so well years ago! Wasn't he the same then?"
"Oh! he has grown much worse! He was habitually sad and silent, and
sometimes a little hot-headed. But it didn't last long, and he was
better after it. The same thing is true now; but it seems to me that it
happens once or twice a day where it used to happen once or twice a
year, and that he is at the same time uglier and gentler."
"How unhappy he seems!" said Gilberte, whose heart ached as she recalled
the sob she heard, which still echoed in her ears.
Janille and Antoine were awaiting Gilberte's return with feverish
impatience. Charasson's report had stricken them dumb and, thinking that
he was daft, or that he was lying to conceal some accident that had
happened to Gilberte, they had hurried to Mère Marlot's to ease their
minds. Her story reassured them but gave them no light. Janille was
angry with the carpenter and augured no good from this crazy enterprise.
Antoine shared her fears at first, and then, in conformity with his
hopeful nature, abandoned himself to pleasant illusions and built
innumerable castles in Spain.
"Janille," he said, "our child and our good old Jean can perform
miracles between them. What would you say if you should see
Boisguilbault come home with them?"
"Ah! that's like your crazy head!" retorted Janille. "You forget that is
impossible, and that the old fox is more capable of wringing our
daughter's neck than of listening to sound arguments. And, then, how can
people who know nothing at all make use of pretexts?"
"That is just my point. All that Boisguilbault fears is that we have
taken our people into our confidence; for it is wounded pride, quite as
much as betrayed friendship, alas! that makes him so timid and so
unhappy. Poor Boisguilbault! Perhaps our child's innocence and Jean's
loyalty will touch him. May he find it possible to forgive me of what I
can never forget!"
"How can you complain when you have a treasure like Gilberte? But don't
expect her to tame him. He will no more come to Châteaubrun than
Cardonnet's handsome son will, and our ruins will never see either of
them again."
"Emile will return with his father's consent or not at all, Janille, I
have promised you; but meanwhile his conduct is worthy of all praise;
Jean proved it to us this morning."
"That is to say, that you didn't understand anything about it, any more
than I did; but, because you are weak, you pretended to be persuaded!
you never do anything different, and you don't see that by praising that
young man's noble conduct you inflame your daughter's mind. You would do
better to disgust her with him by proving to her that he's mad, or that
he doesn't care for her."
Their discussion was interrupted by the sound of Lanterne's hoofs, which
produced a familiar cadence as she trotted over the smooth rock. They
ran to meet Gilberte, and when they had almost dragged her into the
pavilion, amid the hurried questions on one side and the broken replies
on the other, the package which the marquis had handed Gilberte and
which she had not thought of opening, caught Janille's eye.
"What's all this?" she cried, unfolding a superb Indian cashmere,
sky-blue, embroidered with gold thread; "why, it's a cloak fit for a
queen!"
"Ah! great Heaven!" cried Monsieur Antoine, touching the shawl with a
trembling hand and turning pale as death: "I recognize this."
"And what is this box?" said Janille, opening a jewel-case which fell
from the shawl.
"Those are mineral specimens, I believe," replied Gilberte suddenly,
"crystals from Mont-Blanc which he picked up himself."
"No, no, you are mistaken, these shine much brighter; just look at
them!"
And Gilberte to her unbounded amazement saw that it was a necklace of
huge diamonds of dazzling brilliancy.
"_Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_ I recognize that too," stammered Monsieur de
Châteaubrun, overwhelmed by intense emotion.
"Hush, monsieur," said Janille, nudging him with her elbow; "you know
diamonds and cashmere shawls when you see them, that's likely enough;
you have been rich enough to have plenty of 'em. Is that any reason why
you should talk so loud and prevent us from looking at them? _Diantre_!
my girl, you didn't waste your time! They may be worth enough to rebuild
our château, and Monsieur de Boisguilbault is no such skinflint as I
thought."
Gilberte, who had seen very few diamonds in her life, persisted in
believing that the necklace was of rock crystal cut like diamonds; but
Monsieur de Châteaubrun, having examined the stones and the clasp,
replaced them in the box, saying with a sort of pensive melancholy:
"Those diamonds are worth more than a hundred thousand francs. Monsieur
de Boisguilbault has given you a marriage-portion, my child!"
"A hundred thousand francs!" cried Janille, "a hundred thousand francs!
Think of what you are saying, monsieur! is it possible?"
"Those glistening little stones worth so much money!" exclaimed
Jappeloup, in artless amazement entirely free from covetousness; "and
they are kept like that in a little box, and not used for anything?"
"People wear them," said Janille, putting the necklace around Gilberte's
neck, "and they make a woman look lovely, I should say. Put the shawl
over your shoulders, my girl! Not like that! I have seen ladies wearing
them in Paris; but I am blessed if I can remember how they fixed them."
"They are very fine, but very uncomfortable," said Gilberte, "and it
seems to me as if I were disguised with this shawl and these jewels.
Come, let us fold the shawl and put the stones in the box, to send back
to Monsieur de Boisguilbault. He must have felt about in the dark and
made a mistake. He meant to give me some trifle and he has given me the
wedding presents he gave his wife."
"Yes," said the carpenter, "he made a mistake, for sure; for a man
doesn't give his dead wife's things to a stranger. He was so excited,
poor man! You're not the only man whose wits go wool gathering, Monsieur
Antoine."
"No, he made no mistake," said Monsieur Antoine. "He knows what he is
doing, and Gilberte can keep these presents."
"Yes, yes, of course," cried Janille. "They are hers, aren't they,
Monsieur Antoine? They all belong to her rightfully--since Monsieur de
Boisguilbault gives them to her!"
"But it's out of the question, father! I don't want them," said
Gilberte; "what should I do with them? I should cut a ridiculous figure
going out to drive in our barrow in my calico dress, covered with
diamonds and a cashmere shawl!"
"_Dame_! you would rather make people laugh," said the carpenter; "the
ladies of the province would burst with envy. And then, too, all the
moths would come and flutter about your diamonds, for they plunge like
idiots at everything that shines; in that they are like men. If Monsieur
de Boisguilbault chooses to give you a _dot_, to show that he is
reconciled to Monsieur Antoine, he would do much better to give you one
of his small farms with a half interest in eight oxen."
"That is all very fine," said Janille, "but with the little shining
stones, we raise money, we make the pavilion larger, we redeem estates,
we obtain an income of two or three thousand francs, and we find a
husband who brings us as much more. Then we are in comfortable
circumstances for the rest of our days and we snap our fingers at
Messieurs Cardonnet, father and son!"
"True enough," said Monsieur Antoine, "with these your future is
assured, my child. Ah! how nobly Monsieur de Boisguilbault revenges
himself! I knew what I was saying when I stood up for him against you,
Janille! Will you still claim that he's a cruel, unforgiving man?"
"Nenni, monsieur, nenni! he has a good heart, I agree. Come, tell us how
it all came about, you two."
They talked until midnight, recalling the most trivial details,
indulging in innumerable conjectures concerning the marquis's conduct
toward Antoine in the future. As it was too late for Jean Jappeloup to
return to his village, he slept in Châteaubrun. Monsieur Antoine fell
asleep to dream of happiness; Janille, of wealth. She had forgotten
Emile and her recent disappointment. "That will all pass by," she said,
"and the hundred thousand francs will remain. We shall have no more to
do with your Galuchets, when we are possessed of a tidy little fortune
in the country." And she ran over in her mind all the young rustics in
the neighborhood who might aspire to Gilberte's hand.
"If a mere plebeian offers himself," she thought, "he must have at least
two hundred thousand francs' worth of land."--And she placed under her
bolster the key to the cupboard in which she had locked Gilberte's _pot
au lait_.
Gilberte, yielding to extreme fatigue, fell asleep at last, after
forming a momentous resolution. The next morning she talked a long while
with her father, without Janille's knowledge, then asked the latter to
allow her to carry Monsieur de Boisguilbault's presents to her own room,
so that she could look at them at her leisure. The good woman handed
them to her unsuspectingly, for Gilberte felt obliged on this occasion
to resort to dissimulation with her obstinate governess. Then she wrote
a letter which she showed to her father.
"What you are doing is all right, my child," he said, with a profound
sigh, "but look out for Janille when she finds it out!"
"Don't you be afraid, dear father," was the reply; "we won't tell her
that I took you into my confidence, and all her anger will fall on me
alone."
"Now," said Monsieur Antoine, "we must wait for our friend Jean, for we
can't trust things of such value to a hare-brained chap like Master
Charasson."
Gilberte awaited the carpenter's return with the more impatience because
she expected to receive news of Emile from him. She had no idea that
Emile was ill. But at the very thought of his mental suffering she was
so beset by anxiety that she could not think of herself; and these days
of separation, which she had thought that she could endure so
courageously, seemed to her so long and so depressing that she asked
herself in dismay how Emile could endure them. She flattered herself
that he would find a way to write to her, although she would not
authorize him to do it; or, at least, that the carpenter would repeat
their conversation to her, to the most unimportant words.
But the carpenter did not appear, and evening came without bringing any
relief to the girl's painful anxiety. Her secret grief was augmented by
a real annoyance. Monsieur Antoine showed signs of weakening in regard
to the resolution Gilberte had formed--and which he had at first
approved--to refuse Monsieur de Boisguilbault's gifts. He threatened
again and again to consult Janille, without whose advice he had taken no
important step for twenty years, and Gilberte trembled lest her old
nurse's imperative veto should block the proposed restitution.
Jean did not come on the following day either. Doubtless he was working
for Monsieur de Boisguilbault, and Gilberte was surprised that, being
within so short a distance, he did not divine her longing to talk with
him, were it only for a moment. A vague uneasiness guided her in that
direction. She set out for Mère Marlot's hut, and as usual put in her
basket the modest delicacies which she took from her own dinner for her
invalids. But fearing that Monsieur de Châteaubrun would open his heart
to Janille in her absence and that the governess's seal would be affixed
to the jewel-case, she wrapped it up in the shawl, and placed the whole
at the bottom of her basket, determined not to part with them again
except to despatch them to their destination.
Living in the country, in more than modest circumstances, Gilberte was
accustomed to go about alone in the neighborhood of her home. Poverty
dispenses with etiquette, and it would seem that the virtue of wealthy
maidens is more fragile or more precious than that of their poorer
sisters, as the former are never allowed to take a step without an
escort.
Gilberte went about alone on foot with as much security as a young
peasant girl, and she was in reality even less exposed, for she was
known, loved and respected by all whom she was likely to meet.
She was afraid neither of dogs, nor cows, nor snakes, nor of a loose
colt. Children brought up in the country know how to protect themselves
from those trifling dangers, which a little presence of mind and
coolness are sufficient to avert. So she did not take her rustic page,
nor use the family vehicle, except when the weather was threatening or
she was in a hurry. On this afternoon the sun was still shining in a
clear sky, and she started off with a light foot on the path across the
fields. Mère Marlot's hut was almost equidistant from Châteaubrun and
Boisguilbault.
The poor woman's children were fairly convalescent, and Gilberte did not
stay long with them. Mère Marlot told her that Monsieur de
Boisguilbault had left her a hundred francs on the day of their meeting
in her hovel, and that Jean Jappeloup was working at the wooden house in
the park. She had seen him pass in the morning, carrying various tools.
Gilberte thereupon thought that she might hope to meet the carpenter as
he returned to Gargilesse, and she determined to go to wait for him on
the road. But, fearing that she might be seen and recognized loitering
about the park, she borrowed a fustian cape from Mère Marlot, on the
pretext that the air was a little cool and that she felt slightly
indisposed. She put the hood over her fair hair, and, thus enveloped,
walked in a straight line, gliding through the bushes like a fawn, to
the park gate opening on the Gargilesse road. There she hid beneath the
willows on the bank of the stream, not far from the spot where it ran
along the edge of the park. She noticed that the gate was still open, a
proof that Monsieur de Boisguilbault was not yet in the park; for as
soon as he stepped inside all the gates were carefully closed and
locked, and this uncivilized custom of the châtelain was well known
throughout the neighborhood.
This circumstance emboldened her, and she walked as far as the gate, to
try to see Jean Jappeloup. The roof of the chalet caught her eye; it was
very near. The path was in shadow and deserted.
Stealing cautiously forward, Gilberte, who was as light as a bird, could
fly in time, and, disguised as she was, need not fear being recognized.
Jean would be there of course, and if she found him alone she would
beckon to him and satisfy her frantic impatience to have news of Emile.
The chalet was open; there was no one inside; carpenter's tools were
lying about on the floor. Profound silence reigned everywhere. Gilberte
walked forward on tiptoe and placed on the table the package and the
letter she had brought. Then, as she reflected that objects of value
might be too much exposed in a place so ill guarded, she looked about,
placed her hand on a door which seemed to open into a closet, and,
noticing that the lock was removed, said to herself justly enough that
Jean was probably repairing it and would doubtless come and replace it,
and that there was nothing better for her to do than to place her
treasure in the hands of the most faithful of friends. But as she opened
the supposed closet to put the package inside, she found herself on the
threshold of a study, wherein everything was in disorder, facing a large
portrait of a woman.
Gilberte did not need to look long at the portrait to recognize the
original of a miniature which she had seen in her father's hands and had
always supposed to be that of the _unknown_ mother who had brought her
into the world. If the resemblance had not been most striking, at the
first glance, because of the difference in size of the two portraits,
yet the attitude, the costume, the very blue shawl which Gilberte had in
her hand at that moment, would have convinced her that the miniature had
been made at the same time as the large portrait, or rather that it was
a reduced copy of it. She stifled a cry of surprise, and, as her chaste
imagination refused to grasp the possibility of an adulterous
connection, she persuaded herself that, as the result of a secret
marriage, of the sort we read about in novels, she was perhaps a near
kinswoman, the niece or grand-niece, of Monsieur de Boisguilbault. At
that moment she thought that she heard footsteps on the floor above,
and, terror-stricken, she threw the package on the mantel and fled with
the swiftness of an arrow.
XXXIII
THE STORY OF ONE TOLD BY THE OTHER
A few moments after Gilberte's flight, Jean returned to replace the lock
of the study, followed by Monsieur de Boisguilbault, who awaited his
departure to order the park to be closed. The carpenter had noticed the
marquis's uneasiness and how closely he watched all his movements while
he was at work at that door; annoyed by his employer's evident distrust
of his curiosity, he raised his head and said with his accustomed
outspokenness:
"_Pardieu_! Monsieur de Boisguilbault, you are terribly afraid that I
will look at what you have hidden in there! Just remember that I might
have looked at it an hour ago if I had chosen; but I care nothing about
it, and I should prefer to have you say: 'Shut your eyes,' instead of
watching me as you do."