THE waif never told Madeleine what Sévère had given him to understand;
he would not have dared, and indeed dared not even think of it himself.
I cannot say that I should have behaved as discreetly as he in such an
adventure; but a little discretion never does any harm, and then I am
telling things as they happened. This boy was as refined as a
well-brought-up girl.
As Madame Sévère thought over the matter at night, she became incensed
against him, and perceived that he had scorned her and was not the fool
she had taken him for. Chafing at this thought, her spleen rose, and
great projects of revenge passed through her head.
So much so that when Cadet Blanchet, still half drunk, returned to her
next morning, she gave him to understand that his mill-boy was a little
upstart, whom she had been obliged to hold in check and cuff in the
face, because he had taken it into his head to make love to her and kiss
her as they came home together through the wood at night.
This was more than enough to disorder Blanchet's wits; but she was not
yet satisfied, and jeered at him for leaving at home with his wife a
fellow who would be inclined by his age and character to beguile the
dullness of her life.
In the twinkling of an eye, Blanchet was jealous both of his mistress
and his wife. He seized his heavy stick, pulled his hat down over his
eyes, like an extinguisher on a candle, and rushed off to the mill,
without stopping for breath.
Fortunately, the waif was not there. He had gone away to fell and saw up
a tree that Blanchet had bought from Blanchard of Guérin, and was not
to return till evening. Blanchet would have gone to find him at his
work, but he shrank from showing his fury before the young millers of
Guérin, lest they should make sport of him for his jealousy, which was
unreasonable after his long neglect and contempt of his wife.
He would have stayed to wait for his return, but he thought it too
wearisome to stay all day at home, and he knew that the quarrel which he
wished to pick with his wife could not last long enough to occupy him
till evening. It is impossible to be angry very long when the ill-temper
is all on one side.
In spite of this, however, he could have endured all the derision and
the tedium for the pleasure of belaboring the poor waif; but as his walk
had cooled him to some degree, he reflected that this cursed waif was no
longer a child, and that if he were old enough to think of making love,
he was also old enough to defend himself with blows, if provoked. So he
tried to gather his wits together, drinking glass after glass in
silence, revolving in his brain what he was going to say to his wife,
but did not know how to begin.
He had said roughly, on entering, that he wished her to listen to
something; so she sat near him, as usual sad, silent, and with a tinge
of pride in her manner.
"Madame Blanchet," said he at last, "I have a command to give you, but
if you were the woman you pretend to be, and that you have the
reputation of being, you would not wait to be told."
There he halted as if to take breath, but the fact is that he was almost
ashamed of what he was going to say, for virtue was written on his
wife's face as plainly as a prayer in a missal.
Madeleine would not help him to explain himself. She did not breathe a
word, but waited for him to go on, expecting him to find fault with her
for some expenditure, for she had no suspicion of what he was
meditating.
"You behave as if you did not understand me, Madame Blanchet," continued
the miller, "and yet my meaning is clear. You must throw that rubbish
out of doors, the sooner the better, for I have had enough and too much
of all this sort of thing."
"Throw what?" asked Madeleine, in amazement.
"Throw what! Then you do not dare to say throw _whom_?"
"Good God! no; I know nothing about it," said she. "Speak, if you want
me to understand you."
"You will make me lose my temper," cried Cadet Blanchet, bellowing like
a bull. "I tell you that waif is not wanted in my house, and if he is
still here by to-morrow morning, I shall turn him out of doors by main
force, unless he prefer to take a turn under my mill-wheel."
"Your words are cruel, and your purpose is very foolish, Master
Blanchet," said Madeleine, who could not help turning as white as her
cap. "You will ruin your business if you send the boy away; for you will
never find another who will work so well, and be satisfied with such
small wages. What has the poor child done to make you want to drive him
away so cruelly?"
"He makes a fool of me, I tell you, Madame Wife, and I do not intend to
be the laughing-stock of the country. He has made himself master of my
house, and deserves to be paid with a cudgel for what he has done."
It was some time before Madeleine could understand what her husband
meant. She had not the slightest conception of it, and brought forward
all the reasons she could think of to appease him and prevent his
persisting in his caprice.
It was all labor lost, for he only grew the more furious; and when he
saw how grieved she was to lose her good servant François, he had a
fresh access of jealousy, and spoke so brutally that his meaning dawned
on her at last, and she began to cry from mortification, injured pride,
and bitter sorrow.
This did not mend matters; Blanchet swore that she was in love with this
bundle of goods from the asylum, that he blushed for her, and that if
she did not turn the waif out of doors without delay, he would kill him
and grind him to powder.
Thereupon she answered more haughtily than was her wont, that he had the
right to send away whom he chose from his house, but not to wound and
insult his faithful wife, and that she would complain to God and all the
saints of Heaven of his cruel and intolerable injustice. Thus, in spite
of herself, she came gradually to reproach him with his evil behavior,
and confronted him with the plain feet that if a man is dissatisfied
with his own cap, he tries to throw his neighbor's into the mud.
It went from bad to worse, and when Blanchet finally perceived that he
was in the wrong, anger was his only resource. He threatened to shut
Madeleine's mouth with a blow, and would have done so, if Jeannie had
not heard the noise and come running in between them, without
understanding what the matter was, but quite pale and discomfited by so
much wrangling. When Blanchet ordered him away, the child cried, and his
father took occasion to say that he was ill-brought-up, a cry-baby, and
a coward, and that his mother would never be able to make anything out
of him. Then Blanchet plucked up courage, and rose, brandishing his
stick, and swearing that he would kill the waif.
When Madeleine saw that he was mad with passion, she threw herself
boldly in front of him, and he, disconcerted and taken by surprise,
allowed her her way. She snatched his stick out of his hands and threw
it far off into the river, and then, standing her ground, she said:
"You shall not ruin yourself by obeying this wicked impulse. Reflect
that calamity is swift to follow a man who loses his self-control, and
if you have no feeling for others, think of yourself and the probable
consequences of a single bad action. For a long time you have been
guiding your life amiss, my husband, and now you are hastening faster
and faster along a dangerous road. I shall prevent you, at least for
to-day, from committing a worse crime, which would bring its punishment
both in this world and the next. You shall not kill; return to where you
came from, rather than persevere in trying to revenge yourself for an
affront which was not offered. Go away; I command you to do so in your
own interest, and this is the first time in my life that I have ever
commanded you to do anything. You will obey me, because you will see
that I still observe the deference I owe you. I swear to you on my word
and honor that the waif shall not be here to-morrow, and that you may
come back without any fear of meeting him."
Having said this, Madeleine opened the door of the house for her
husband, and Cadet Blanchet, baffled by the novelty of her manner, and
pleased in the main to receive her submission without danger to his
person, clapped his hat upon his head, and without another word, returned
to Sévère. He did not fail to boast to her and to others that he had
administered a sound thrashing to his wife and to the waif; but as this
was not true, Sévère's pleasure evaporated in smoke.
When Madeleine Blanchet was alone again, she sent Jeannie to drive the
sheep and the goat to pasture, and went off to a little lonely nook
beside the mill-dam, where the earth was much eaten away by the force of
the current, and the place so crowded with a fresh growth of branches
above the old tree-stumps that you could not see two steps away from
you. She was in the habit of going there to pray, for nobody could
interrupt her, and she could be as entirely concealed behind the tall
weeds as a water-hen in its nest of green leaves.
As soon as she reached there, she sank on her knees to seek in prayer
the relief she so needed. But though she hoped this would bring great
comfort, she could think of nothing but the poor waif, who was to be
sent sway, and who loved her so that he would die of grief. So nothing
came to her lips, except that she was most unhappy to lose her only
support and separate herself from the child of her heart. Then she cried
so long and so bitterly that she was suffocated, and, falling full
length along the grass, lay unconscious for more than an hour, and it is
a miracle that she ever came to herself.
At nightfall she made an effort to collect her powers; and when she
heard Jeannie come home singing with the flock, she rose with difficulty
and set about preparing supper. Shortly afterward, she heard the noise
of the return of the oxen, who were drawing home the oak-tree that
Blanchet had bought, and Jeannie ran joyfully to meet his friend
François, whose presence he had missed all day. Poor little Jeannie had
been grieved for a moment by his father's cruel behaviour to his dear
mother, and he had run off to cry in the fields, without knowing what
the quarrel could be. But a child's sorrow lasts no longer than the dew
of the morning, and he had already forgotten his trouble. He took
François by the hand, and skipping as gaily as a little partridge,
brought him to Madeleine.
There was no need for the waif to look twice to see that her eyes were
reddened and her face blanched.
"Good God," thought he, "some misfortune has happened." Then he turned
pale too, and trembled, fixing his eyes on Madeleine, and expecting her
to speak to him. She made him sit down, and set his meal before him in
silence, but he could not swallow a mouthful. Jeannie eat and prattled
on by himself; he felt no uneasiness, for his mother kissed him from
time to time and encouraged him to make a good supper.
When he had gone to bed, and the servant was putting the room in order,
Madeleine went out, and beckoned François to follow her. She walked
through the meadow as far as the fountain, and then calling all her
courage to her aid, she said:
"My child, misfortune has fallen upon you and me, and God strikes us
both a heavy blow. You see how much I suffer, and out of love for me,
try to strengthen your own heart, for if you do not uphold me, I cannot
tell what will become of me."
François guessed nothing, although he at once supposed that the trouble
came from Monsieur Blanchet.
"What are you saying?" said he to Madeleine, kissing her hands as if she
were his mother. "How can you think that I shall not have courage to
comfort and sustain you? Am not I your servant for as long as I have to
stay upon the earth? Am not I your child, who will work for you, and is
now strong enough to keep you from want. Leave Monsieur Blanchet alone,
let him squander his money, since it is his choice. I shall feed and
clothe both you and our Jeannie. If I must leave you for a time, I shall
go and hire myself out, though not far from here, so that I can see you
every day, and come and spend Sundays with you. I am strong enough now
to work and earn all the money you need. You are so careful and live on
so little. Now you will not be able to deny yourself so many things for
others, and you will be the better for it. Come, Madame Blanchet, my
dear mother, calm yourself and do not cry, or I think I shall die of
grief."
When Madeleine saw that he had not understood, and that she must tell
him everything, she commended her soul to God, and made up her mind to
inflict this great pain upon him.
[Illustration]