DRIOT'S RETURN.
"Our Driot is coming." For a fortnight La Fromentiere lived on these
words. Work had been resumed the day after the trouble. A
farm-labourer, hired by Lumineau at Saint Jean-de-Mont, a tall, lean
man, with thighs as flat as his cheeks, replaced Jean Nesmy, and slept
in the room beyond the stable. Marie-Rose did, single-handed, the work
before shared by both sisters: housekeeping, cooking, dairy-work, and
bread-making. She rose earlier and went to bed later. Under her coif
she ever had some wise idea in her little head which prevented her
from thinking of the past; and in all her movements was displayed that
silent activity that the farmer had loved in his old Luminette.
Mathurin had of himself offered to look after the "birds," that is to
say, the stock of half-wild turkeys and geese bred at La Fromentiere.
Carrying a sack fastened across his shoulders, he would drag himself
down every morning to the edge of the first canal of the Marais,
where, at a part that widened out, were fastened the two boats
belonging to La Fromentiere. In the shallow water he would scatter his
supply of corn or buck-wheat, and from across the meadows drakes with
blue-tinted wings, ducks, grey, with a double notch cut on the right
side of their beaks to mark them as belonging to Lumineau, would hurry
and dive for their food. For hours Mathurin would find amusement in
watching them, then, lowering himself gently into one of the boats,
seated or kneeling, would try to recover the sure and rapid stroke
which at one time had made him famous among the puntsmen of the
Marais.
Toussaint Lumineau delighted to see him managing his boat near the
farm, thus distracting his mind, as he thought, from the ever present
regret. He would say: "The lad is regaining his old pleasure in
punting. It can but be good for him and for us all." But to Mathurin,
to Rousille, to his man, to the passers-by, sometimes even to his
oxen, often when alone to himself, he would talk of the son so soon to
be home again among them. Help was coming; youth and joy were
returning to sorrow-stricken La Fromentiere. At table nothing else was
talked about:
"Only twelve days; only ten; only seven. I will drive to Chalons to
meet him," said Lumineau.
"And I will make him some porridge," said Rousille, "he used to be so
fond of it before he joined his regiment."
"And I" said Mathurin, "will go in the punt with him the first time
he looks up his friends."
"How much there will be to hear!" exclaimed Rousille. "When he was
home on furlough he had an endless store of tales to tell. As for me,
I shall have no time to listen to them. I shall have to send him to
you, Mathurin. And what a change it will make in the house to have a
chatterbox among us." Then she added, with the grave air of one
entrusted with the household purse: "One change we must make, father,
and that will be to buy a paper on Sunday. He will not like to go
without one; our Andre is sure to want to know the news."
"He is young," said the father, as if to excuse him.
And all Andre's predilections, every recollection connected with him,
all the hopes that centred in his return were incessantly
recapitulated by one and the other in the living-room of La
Fromentiere, where the caress of such discourses must have ascended
more than once to the smoke-stained rafters.
Meanwhile the son thus occupying all their thoughts had not been told
by any of them of the going of Francois and Eleonore. Partly from
dislike to letter-writing, but principally to spare him pain, and to
avoid giving him bad news on the eve of his homecoming, the blow which
had so diminished the number of those he was to rejoin had been
withheld from him. For they could not tell how he would take the
absence of his favourite brother, his childhood's companion; it would
be better to break the news to him gently, when he should have come
back to France, back to his home. Soon a letter came, bearing the
Algiers postmark, giving from day to day the itinerary of the journey;
and under the elms of La Fromentiere would be heard, every successive
four-and-twenty hours, announced by one of the family lovingly,
meditated over by the others, "Now Driot must be leaving Algiers."
"Now Driot is on the sea." "Now Driot is in the train for Marseilles."
"Children, he has reached the soil of France."
So one morning, which chanced to be the last Saturday in September,
Toussaint Lumineau gave La Rousse a double feed of oats, and drew out
from the coach-house a tilbury, the body and wheels of which were
painted red. This tilbury was a relic of former prosperity, and as
well known in all the country side as were the round head, white hair,
and clear eyes of Toussaint Lumineau himself. He, harnessing the mare,
looked so joyous and happy, that Rousille, who had not heard him laugh
for many a day, as she watched him from the doorway, felt her eyes
fill with tears, she knew not wherefore, as though it were the return
of spring. The last strap buckled, the old farmer put on his best coat
with upright collar, fastened the broad blue Sunday belt round his
waist, and slipped two cigars at a halfpenny each into his coat
pocket, a luxury he never indulged in nowadays. Then swinging himself
up into the tilbury with a cheery, "Ohe, La Rousse!" he was off.
The mare started at such a pace that an instant later her headstall,
ornamented with a rosette, looked like a poppy swept along the hedges
by the wind. Bas-Rouge tore along after them. His master had called
out on starting, "Driot is coming, Bas-Rouge! Come to meet him!" and
the dog, all excitement, had dashed after La Rousse in ungainly
gallop. Soon they had reached Chalons. Without slackening speed, the
farmer drove through the streets, responding to the greeting of the
landlord of the Hotel des Voyageurs, and nicely marking by the angle
at which he raised his hat his sense of a tenant farmer's superiority
over shopkeepers as he returned their salutations, then proudly erect
upon the box-seat, tightening the reins, he turned in the direction of
the railway station, some two miles beyond the town.
People looking after him, said:
"He has gone to meet his lad, that's certain. Well, poor fellow, he
has had plenty of trouble, now he is having his share of good luck!"
La Rousse being restive, Lumineau alighted in the railway yard, and
stood at the head of the mare. Thence could be seen the perspective of
lines going towards La Roche--the lines by which one son had left, and
the other was so soon to return to La Fromentiere. He had not long to
wait. The train dashed into the station with a whistle; the farmer was
still quieting the mare, terrified by the noise, when the passengers
came thronging out: townspeople, men-of-war's men on leave,
fishmongers from Saint Gilles or Sables, and lastly a smart Chasseur
d'Afrique, slight and tall, his kepi well balanced, fair moustaches
waxed to a point, his knapsack full to bursting, who, after looking
eagerly round the yard, smiled and ran out with widespread arms:
"Father! Ah! what luck, it's father!"
The bystanders, indifferently looking on, saw the two men embrace each
other with a strong, almost suffocating pressure.
"My Driot!" exclaimed the old man. "How happy I am!"
"And I too, father!"
"No, not so happy as I am! If you only knew!"
"What, then?"
"I will tell you. Oh, my Driot, the joy of seeing you again!"
They disengaged themselves from each other's arms. The young soldier
adjusted his collar, and restored the equilibrium of his kepi on the
point of falling.
"Ah, I expect you will have no end of things to tell me, after all
this long time? Important, perhaps? You will tell me by degrees at La
Fromentiere, while we are at work. Ever so much better than letters,
eh?" And he threw back his fair head with a merry laugh.
His father could only respond with a faint smile; then, going towards
the tilbury, one on either side, they swung themselves up with the
elasticity of two men of the same age.
"Shall I drive?" asked Andre, and taking up the reins he gave a click
with his tongue. La Rousse pricked up her ears, reared playfully to
show that she recognised her young master, and with arched neck and
eyes aflame, she soon left far behind the two empty hotel omnibuses,
which were in the habit of racing each other on their way back from
the station. Those who had exchanged greetings with the farmer on his
way to the train, and many others, watched to see the two men pass by;
clear-starchers looking out as they ironed; the little dressmaker from
Nantes who came at the beginning of each season to take orders from
her ladies at Chalons; shopkeepers standing at their doors; peasants
at their dinners in inn parlours; all attracted by the sight of a
soldier, or gratified to have a sign of recognition from the two
Lumineaus. La Rousse trotted at such speed that the old man had not
time to resume his hat between his salutations. Remarks followed the
tilbury in the vacuum of air made by its rapid course.
"That's the son from Africa. A handsome lad! How well his blue tunic
suits him. And the old man, how happy he looks!"
The farmer sat close to his recovered son. Halfway down the last
street, bordered by an elm hedge shedding its leaves on the road, the
old man plunged his big hand into his pocket and nudged Driot's elbow
to call attention to the two choice cigars he held between finger and
thumb.
"With pleasure," responded the young man, and taking one he lit it,
somewhat slackening the mare's pace as he did so, then, after a few
puffs, as the gorse-covered slopes, golden with blossom, the stony
fields, the crown-topped elms, came in sight, bringing with them the
sweetness of old familiar scenes, Driot, hitherto somewhat silent and
abashed by the attention they had excited, began:
"And all the home-folks, father, how are they?"
A deep furrow lined the farmer's brow. Toussaint Lumineau turned a
little in his seat and looked away towards the landscape, distressed
at having to tell the trouble, and still more by the fear of what his
handsome Driot would think about it.
"My poor boy," he said, "we have only Mathurin and Rousille at home
now."
"And Francois, where is he?"
"Only fancy! Ah! you little think what I am going to tell you. A
fortnight ago yesterday he left La Fromentiere to work on the railway
at La Roche. Eleonore went with him. It seems that she was to keep a
coffee shop. Can you believe it?"
"You sent them away from home?" asked the young man, removing the
cigar from his mouth and looking straight at his father. "They are not
such fools as to have left you for any other reason!"
The words gave the old father a thrill of joy. His Driot understood
him; his Driot was at one with him. Returning the frank gaze, he
answered:
"No; they are a couple of idlers, who want to make money without doing
anything for it ... ungrateful, both of them, leaving their old father
... and then you know that Francois loves pleasure. Since he served
his time he has always had a hankering after town life."
"I know; and I know that town has its attractions," returned Andre,
touching up La Rousse with the point of the whip; "but to grease the
wheels of a railway carriage, or serve out drink! Well, everyone goes
his own way in this world. All the better for them if they succeed.
But I cannot tell you what the fact of Francois' going is to me. I was
so looking forward to our farm-life together."
He remained bending forward awhile as if only intent on the twitching
of the mare's delicate ears, then asked in his caressing voice:
"Things are going badly with us then, father?"
"They have been somewhat, my boy. But they won't now that you are
home."
Andre made no direct reply, nor did he say anything at all just then.
He was scanning the horizon for a slate-covered clock tower and
certain tree-tops not yet distinguishable in the distance; his heart
was already in the old home.
"At any rate," said he, "Rousille is left to us. She had grown a
pretty girl when I was last home on leave, very taking, and with a
will of her own! You cannot imagine how often I used to think of her
when I was out in Africa, and try to sketch her portrait from memory.
Is she as jolly as ever?"
"She is not bad," replied the farmer.
"And a good girl, I hope? She is not the sort to turn herself into a
barmaid."
"No, certainly not."
The good-looking young soldier slackened the mare's pace, partly
because they had reached a turn in the road where there was a steep
descent, partly that he might the better see, at the foot of the
sloping ground, the Marais of La Vendee opening out like a gulf. He
had only been home once before in his three years of service; with
growing emotion he gazed upon the groups of poplars and tiny red roofs
standing out from the waste of marshland; his eyes roved from one to
the other; his lips trembled as he named the farms one by one; all
other emotion was silenced in that of coming home again.
"Paree-du-Mont!" he exclaimed. "What has become of the eldest Ertus?"
"Nothing much; he is in the Customs."
"And Guerineau of la Pinconniere, who was in the 32nd line regiment?"
"Oh, he went off like Francois; is conductor on the tramway to
Nantes."
"And Dominique Perrocheau of Levrelles?"
The farmer shrugged his shoulders with annoyance, for, in
truth, it was aggravating to be obliged constantly to answer
"Gone--left--deserted the Marais." However he had to say:
"You heard, doubtless, that he gained his gold stripes at the end of
his first leave; then he obtained further promotion, and was given
some post, I don't know where, as Government clerk. A set of stupid
fellows, all of them--not worth much, my Driot!"
"Ah, now I see Terre d'Aymont," cried Driot. "It seems nearer than it
used to be; I can distinguish their wind-mill. Tell me, father, there
were two of my playfellows there, sons of Massonneau le Glorieux, one
older, the other younger than me. What are they doing?"
Radiant, Toussaint Lumineau made reply:
"Both on the farm. The eldest exempted his brother. They are fine
fellows who do not mind hard work; you will see them to-morrow at mass
in Sallertaine."
With a light, happy laugh the young soldier said:
"Ah, by-the-bye, one must get into the way of attending mass again, I
suppose. In the army devotion did not trouble us much. Sundays were
rather a favourite day for our chiefs to hold reviews ... they don't
look at things as you do. But you see, father, I will soon accustom
myself to going to mass again--even to high mass--it is not that that
will be the difficulty."
"What then, my lad?"
They were both silent for a moment. Another turn in the road had
revealed La Fromentiere on their left. With a simultaneous movement
father and son had risen and were standing almost upright, one hand on
the front of the carriage, contemplating the property, La Rousse
trotting along, unheeded by the driver.
A great, tender rush of feeling, cruel withal, paled Andre's face. The
land was welcoming a son of its soil; all the scattered recollections
of his childhood awoke and called aloud to him; there was not a
hillock that did not greet him, not a furze-bush, not a lopped elm but
had a friendly look for him. But one and all, too, recalled the
brother and sister he would find there no more.
Without turning his eyes from La Fromentiere Driot replied, after a
silence, and without naming those of whom he was thinking:
"I will go and see them at La Roche ... of course I will ... but
brotherhood is not altogether the same when one has broken from the
old place...."
An instant later he was holding Rousille, who had run out into the
courtyard to meet him, high in his arms, looking her full in the face,
into the very depth of her eyes, with the gaze of a brother whose
military experience has made him somewhat suspicious of maidenly
virtue; but seeing that her eyes met his in all frankness, but with
something of a sad expression, he kissed her, and set her down on
terra firma again.
"Always the same, little sister! That's good; but a little sorry at
having lost Lionore, eh?"
"You can see that?"
"Ah well! But I have come now. We will try to get on without them,
won't we?"
"And I?" put in a thick voice.
The soldier left Rousille, and hastened to Mathurin who was coming
towards them; dragging his limbs after him.
"Do not hurry, old man! I must do the running for both; I have sound
legs."
Stooping over his crutches, and stroking his elder brother's tawny
head, Andre could find no words of comfort. Coming fresh from a
military centre where all was young, active, alert, he could not hide
the distress and a certain feeling of horror with which Mathurin's
infirmity inspired him. However, compelled by the other's anxious
look, which seemed to ask, "What do you think of me?--you who come
back, judge--can I live?" he hastened to say:
"My poor old man, I am so glad to find you like this. So you have not
got any worse?"
With a shrug of the shoulders, the cripple angrily pushed him away.
"I am much better," he returned. "You will see. I walk more easily. I
can stand as firmly as I did three years ago, when I thought I was
getting well ... and, for a beginning, I am going with you to mass at
Sallertaine to-morrow."
To avoid answering, the young soldier turned to meet his father, who,
having unharnessed La Rousse, was coming towards them, with happy,
smiling face, having eyes only for his Driot come home to him again.
The men, one following the other, turned towards the house, and went
in; but on this happy day it was the farmer who held back, and the
returned son who went first. Alert, interested as on a first visit,
rejoiced to be made the object of the eyes and ears of the others, he
did not sit down but wandered from room to room, the blue and red
uniform an unfamiliar sight in this home of the toilers of the field.
To amuse his auditors he made the old walls ring again with words of
command; knocked up against corners to feel the strength of the
massive stones; opened the cupboard, cut himself a slice of bread, and
tasted it, with a, "Better than the bread of Algiers, my friends. This
is Rousille's baking, eh? It is excellent; we shall have a good
farmer's wife in her."
Followed everywhere by his father, Mathurin, and Marie-Rose, he went
from the house into the stables and barns.
"I do not know these oxen," said he.
"No, my boy, I bought them last winter at Beauvoir fair."
"Well, I'll bet that I can tell their names from their faces. This
dun-coloured one, that does not look great shakes, is Noblet, and his
companion, the little tawny one, is Matelot?"
"Right," answered his father.
"As for the others, our old ones, they have not changed much, save to
put on more horn and muscle. The plough ought to work well drawn by
them. Good day, Paladin; good day, Cavalier!"
The good creatures lying in the straw, hearing the young voice that
called to them, thrust out their heads, and with their thoughtful eyes
followed the young master.
A little further, stooping down, he took up a handful of green forage.
"Fine maize for the time of year," he said. "This must have come from
our high land; from La Cailleterie?"
"No."
"From Jobiniere then, where not a grain is lost. Here's a good
specimen!"
The father was ready to join in praise of his oxen, his fields,
everything, so happy was he that the last of his sons, after three
years' absence, still loved the ground.
But the handsome young soldier laughed more than he felt inclined to
do, to hide the sad thoughts that would come during his round, and
when in the shed affected not to see the traps for blackbirds, made by
Francois the preceding winter. In the threshing floor, seeing a bundle
of faded grass lying on the neatly made hayrick, he bent towards
Rousille, and murmured:
"Did Francois gather that? Ah, it pains me more than I could have
believed, Rousille, not to find Francois here. It quite changes La
Fromentiere for me."
But the father heard nothing of this. He only saw that his son was
home again, and the future of La Fromentiere assured. When they had
re-entered the general sitting-room, Lumineau passed his hand over the
blue tunic of the Chasseur d'Afrique, saying:
"I like you in this, but I bet anything that you will not be sorry to
lay aside your soldier's toggery."
"All right, father," returned Andre, laughing at the unwitting affront
to his uniform, and his father's indirect mode of inviting him to
change to civilian dress. "I am not got up in Sallertaine guise; I'll
go and change."
From the bottom of the chest in the end room, beside the bed where he
was to sleep, Andre took the carefully folded work-day suit, laid
there by him the day he left. He took great pains with the waxing of
his moustache, and adjusting the brim of his hat, adorned his
button-hole with a sprig of jasmine; then going the length of the
house, opened the kitchen door, and there, framed against the old
walls, his slim figure clad in cloth suit, was seen the handsomest
young Vendeen of the Marais. Bronzed and fair-haired, his joyous face
reflected the happiness of the others.
"Ah, Driot," exclaimed the farmer merrily, "now you are quite yourself
again! You were my son before, but not so completely my very own as
now," then added: "Now come, and we will drink to your health, and
that you may stay at La Fromentiere; for I am ageing fast, and you
shall take my place."
Mathurin, sitting at table beside his father, became very gloomy. When
the glasses were filled, he raised his with the others, but did not
clink it against that of Andre.