THE MICHELONNES.
"Rousille," said her father, as shortly before noon she went into the
house to help her sister prepare dinner, "you will not take your meals
with us either to-day, or for some days to come. A girl like Eleonore,
who respects herself, would be ashamed to eat her food beside a young
woman who could allow a penniless _Boquin_ to make love to her. A
pretty kind of lover! A fellow from I don't know where, who would not
even have a wardrobe to furnish his house with! All very well for a
serving-maid, such as they are in those parts; but the whole kit of
them are not worth their salt in the Marais, those _dannions_! I am
cured of taking them into my service. There must have been some fine
tales going the round at my expense. And now, Rousille, mind that you
conduct yourself properly; and take yourself out of my sight!"
So the farmer spoke, far more harshly than he felt, because Mathurin
had been talking to him a long time after Nesmy had gone, and had
inspired him with some of his resentment.
Marie-Rose made no reply, shed no tear, but withdrew to her room. She
had no thought of dinner, either with or without them; but began to
dress herself in her best, as for Sunday, taking by turns from the
wardrobe a black skirt, raised from the ground by a broad tuck,
showing the pretty feet beneath; her most dainty coif and embroidered
pyramid of muslin kept in shape by silver paper that rested on her
hair; open-work stockings; sabots, like the prow of a ship, so much
did they turn up. A blue silk kerchief filled in the low bodice, as
was the custom in the Marais; there only remained to smooth the bands
of chestnut hair with a little water, to bathe her red eyes, then
going out into the courtyard she turned off on the road to
Sallertaine.
For the first time in her life she had a feeling of standing alone in
the world. Mathurin did not love her; Francois did not understand her.
Andre himself, the soldier brother so soon coming home, who had always
been kind, only treated her as a child to be teased and petted. And
she felt herself a woman--a woman who was learning to know sorrow, and
one who needed to pour out her trouble to sympathetic ears.
Hitherto, if they were unkind, if they neglected her, she had never
felt the need of telling her troubles to anyone; the thought of Jean
Nesmy had been enough to make her forget them all. But now that he
whom she loved had had to go, and that his going was the sorrow, her
soul cried out for aid--sought some safe place wherein to rest. In her
distress she thought of the sisters Michelonne. Rousille passed close
beside the dwarf orchard; Rousille skirted the edge of the Marais
whence can be seen Sallertaine upon its eminence. No, she had no other
hope save in those two dear old friends; no other regret than that she
had not before been to that little house in the town. The old sisters'
warmth of heart seemed to her just now a thing of priceless worth,
which, hitherto, had not been valued half enough. The mere thought of
their round faces, withered and smiling, was a goal to her. It seemed
as if only to see the Michelonnes, even if she might not speak one
word of her trouble, would be a consolation, because of their kind
hearts, and because, old maids though they were, they were not the
people to gossip about a young girl's red eyes. What excuse could she
make for going to them? Oh, it was very simple. She had promised to
draw out her money and lend it to her father to pay the rent. She had
only to say, "I have come for my money; father needs it." Then if they
guessed the slightest thing, she would tell all, all her trouble, all
the grief she could not endure alone.
It was close upon one o'clock. A mist of heat quivered over the
meadows. Rousille walked fast. Now she had reached the Grand Canal,
smooth as a mirror; there was the bridge across it, the winding road
flanked on either side by the white-washed houses of the outskirts of
Sallertaine, their orchards at the back looking towards the Marais.
Rousille walks faster. She is afraid of being hailed and stopped, for
the Lumineaus are known to everyone in the district. But the good
folks are either taking their noonday sleep, or else without quitting
their shady corners they call to her, "Good day, little one! How fast
you are walking!" "Yes, I am in a hurry. Sometimes one is." "Yes,
indeed," they reply, and on she goes. She has reached the long open
Place that narrows as it reaches the church. Now she has only eyes for
the humble dwelling which stands at the extreme end where the street
is narrowest, facing the side door of the church by which the faithful
enter on Sundays. It is a very little house, one window looks on to
the Place, the other on to a steep lane, the three steps to the
entrance are at the corner; it is also very old, and built under the
shadow of the clock tower, beneath the peal of bells, thus nearer to
Heaven.
The sisters Michelonne have lived there all their lives. Rousille can
picture them within the walls; a half smile, a ray of hope crosses her
sad face. She ascends the three steps, and pauses to regain breath.
When Rousille presses down the iron latch, the door opens to the
tinkle of so tiny a bell that it would need the ears of a cat to hear
it.
But they were true cats, ever on the watch, these two old sisters,
cloak-makers to the whole of Sallertaine. Scarcely did they divine a
visitor from the shadow cast through the glass door, than with
simultaneous movement their chairs, always close together, were pushed
back, their heads turned towards the door, and their busy hands sunk
on their laps. The two sisters were very much alike; the same deep,
arched wrinkles in the rosy faces, round the toothless mouths, round
the short noses, round the blue, childlike eyes that had a light in
them as of a perpetual laugh, and was the reflection of their sixty
years of work, of sisterly affection, and their good consciences.
There was also a twinkle in their eyes of fun without malice; a
something as of the flame of youth economised in the course of their
lives, and leaving a fund for their old age. Poverty had not been
wanting, but it had always been borne by them together. From
childhood's day they had worked side by side in the light of the same
window, day rising and setting on their busy needles never at rest.
There was no one in all Sallertaine, nor in Perrier, nor Saint Gervais
who could cut and make cloaks as skilfully as they could; and they
were general favourites. As soon as the weather was mild enough for
them to stand a pot of ivy geranium on the sill and to sit by the open
window, there was not a person coming down the lane, whether
fisherman, sportsman, drover, or horse-breeder, who did not call in as
he passed "Good day and good luck, _les Michelonnes_." To which they
would make some kind reply in soft voices, so alike that it was
impossible to distinguish one from the other. They were asked to St.
Sylvester gatherings because they had an inexhaustible store of songs,
when young folks had long come to the end of all they knew.
The Cure said of them: "The flower of my flock; it is a pity they have
no successors."
When Rose-Marie entered, they did not get up, but said both together,
Adelaide at the window, Veronique a little away:
"It is you, little Lumineau! Good day, pretty one!"
"Sit down, child," said Adelaide, "you are quite out of breath."
"But not ill?" asked Veronique. "Your eyes are as bright as if you had
fever?"
"Thank you, aunts," answered Marie-Rose. She called them aunts on
account of a distant relationship difficult to establish, but
principally on account of the old ladies' kindness. "I have been
walking quickly, and I do feel a little tired. I have come for some of
my money."
The sisters exchanged a side-look, laughing already at the thought of
the coming marriage, and the eldest, Adelaide, drawing her needle
across her lips as if to smooth out the wrinkles, asked:
"You are about to marry, then?"
"Oh, indeed no!" returned Marie-Rose, "I shall be married like you, my
aunts, to my seat in church and my rosary. It is for father, who has
not money to pay the rent of the farm; he is in arrears."
And as, while speaking, she did not look into her old friends' faces,
but into the shade of the room, somewhere towards the two beds ranged
along the side of the wall, the sisters Michelonne shook their heads
as though to communicate the impression that, all the same, some
disturbing element had entered into Rousille's life. But the sisters
were more instinctively polite than curious. They reserved their
thought for the long hours of chat together, and Adelaide, throwing
down her half-finished work, clasping her white bony hands, and
bending forward her thin body, said gaily:
"Well, my pretty one, you have come just at the right time! I had lent
your money on interest to my nephew, who, you know, breeds foals, and
very good ones, on the Marais. He is a sharp fellow, that Francois.
Would you believe it, yesterday he actually sold his dappled grey
filly--that flies like a plover, and was the envy of all the breeders
and dannions that went by the meadow--and for such a big price that he
would not even tell us the amount. So, you see, it will be quite easy
for him to pay back a good part of the loan. How much will you want?"
"A hundred and twenty pistoles."
"You shall have them. Are they wanted at once?"
"Yes, Aunt Adelaide. I promised them by to-morrow."
"Then, Veronique, my girl, suppose you were to go to our nephew? The
cloak can well wait an hour."
The younger sister rose at once; she was so short standing, that she
did not reach above the head of Marie-Rose sitting. Rapidly shaking
off the threads of cotton from her black apron, she kissed the girl on
both cheeks:
"Good-bye, Rousille. To-morrow the money will be here, and you will
only have to come and fetch it."
In the quiet of the sleepy town, Veronique's gliding steps could be
heard as they went down the lane. No sooner had she gone than Adelaide
went up to Marie-Rose and fixing upon the girl her clear kind eyes,
her eyelids quivering with uneasiness:
"Child," she said hurriedly, "you are in trouble; you have been
crying. Why, you are crying now!" The wrinkled hand seized the girl's
pink palm. "What is it, my Rousille? Tell me, as you would tell your
own mother. I love you as she would do."
Marie-Rose repressed her tears. She would not cry when she could
speak. Trembling at the contact of the hand which touched her own, her
eyes like diamonds, her face set, as though she were addressing those
enemies before whom her tongue had been tied:
"They have sent away Jean Nesmy," she said rising.
"He, my dear? Such a good worker? And why?"
"Because I love him, Aunt Michelonne. They turned him out this
morning. And they think that all is over between us because I shall
not see him again. They little know the girls of these parts."
"Well said, _Maraichine_," exclaimed the old aunt.
"I will give them all my money, yes, readily; but my love--where I
have placed it there I will leave it. It is as sacred as my baptismal
vows. I have no fear of poverty; no fear that he will forget me. The
day he comes back, for he has promised to come back, I will go to meet
him, and no one shall prevent me--had I to cross the Marais, were
there snow and ice, and all the girls of the town to mock at me, did
my father and my brothers forbid me to go, still I would do it!"
Erect, passionate, she made the walls of the little room unused to
loud voices ring with the voice of love and bitterness. It was to
herself, herself only, that she spoke, because she suffered. She was
looking straight before her, vaguely, apparently unaware of the
Michelonne's presence.
Adelaide, however, had risen, and was listening, agitated and excited,
so struck by Rousille's words, so carried out of the restricted circle
of everyday thought, that all the calm had vanished from her face, and
the quiet old maid, oppressed by the small cares of life, seemed
transformed into a woman--a woman who remembered and had regained her
youth to suffer with the other.
"You are right, dear child. I thoroughly approve. Love him truly!"
At these words Rousille, looking down at the old lady, had the
revelation of a being hitherto unknown to her. There was a light in
her face; the poor arms, helpless from rheumatism, were held out
towards Rousille trembling with emotion.
"Yes, love him truly. Your happiness is with him. Leave it to time,
but do not yield, my Rousille, for I know others who in their youth
refused to marry to please their fathers, and who had such difficulty
afterwards to kill their hearts! Do not live alone, it is worse than
death! Your Nesmy, I know him--your Nesmy and you are true lovers of
the soil, such as the land can boast but few nowadays, and if old Aunt
Adelaide can help you, defend you, give you what is wanted to enable
you to marry, come to me, my child, at any time, come!"
She was holding Rousille now in close embrace, the girl bending over
the little black-robed figure and suffering her tears to flow on the
friendly shoulder, now that she had unburdened her heart.
For a moment the room was as silent as was the town slumbering in the
mid-day sun. Then the Michelonne, gently disengaging herself from the
girl's arms, went towards the window, standing where she could not be
seen from outside. Between the roofs of two adjoining houses, looking
westwards, was set, as in a frame, a corner of the Marais, its
reddish-brown rushes finally fading away on the horizon.
"It was Mathurin, was it not, who denounced you?" she asked in a low
voice.
"Yes, he was always watching me."
"He is jealous, you see. He has a grudge against you."
"For what, poor creature!"
"Your youth, my poor child. He is jealous of all who take the place
that should have been his; jealous of Francois, of Andre, of you. He
is like a lost soul when he hears that anyone but himself is to manage
your father's farm. Shall I tell you all?"
Her frail hand uplifted, she pointed to the distant Marais, where the
poplars, tiny as grains of oats, were standing out against the sky.
"Well, he still thinks of Felicite."
"Poor brother!" exclaimed Rousille, nodding her head. "If he is still
thinking of her, she is only making fun of him."
"Innocent," returned the old woman in a whisper, "I know what I know.
Beware of Mathurin, he has drunk too deeply of love to forget. Beware
of Felicite Gauvrit, because she is furious that being an heiress, no
suitors come to her."
Rousille was about to reply. Adelaide made her a sign to keep silence;
she had heard a footstep in the lane. Hastily drying her eyes, the old
lady re-seated herself and picked up her work, like a child surprised
in some fault by her mother. A pair of sabots was heard at the foot of
the wall, they passed the doorsteps, and went on down the Place. It
was not Veronique. Marie-Rose had drawn back; she was looking at her
one friend, so old, so worn, so timid, yet whose heart was so young.
And she thought no more of what she had been about to reply; she only
said simply:
"Good-bye, Aunt Michelonne. If I need help I shall know where to
come."
"Good-bye, dear child. Beware of Mathurin. Beware of the girl out
there!"
They said no more in words, only their eyes were fixed on each
other's, Rousille looking back until she had reached the door; then
the latch was lifted, fell back into its socket, and there only
remained in the silent chamber a little old woman stooping down over
her black work, but who could not see her needle for the mist of tears
in her eyes.