THE DANCE AT LA SEULIERE.
Toussaint Lumineau's uneasiness was well founded. His two sons had
gone down to the meadow, where the dyke, widening, served as a
drinking place for the animals on the farm, and as a harbour for the
two punts belonging to it.
There Andre had offered no resistance when Mathurin had said:
"Take me. I want to see Felicite." Venturesome, imprudent in things
concerning himself, soldier of but yesterday, still impregnated with
barrack maxims, he had merely said:
"There's not a shadow of sense in it; but if it amuses you!"
And he had chosen the best of the boats, and helped the cripple to
stretch himself in the prow; then, standing on the raised part in the
stern, and taking up the pole, had begun to punt, now pressing the
iron point into the bed of the dyke, now into the bank on either side.
Soon they were far out in the middle of the Marais, the night
intensely cold with no moon. Clouds were chasing each other towards
the sea; and yet it was not one unbroken darkness; up above in the
grey firmament were lighter trails, clear patches constantly broken
and effaced by shifting clouds reflected in their passage on the
surface of the waters, not only of the dykes, but of the submerged
meadows which had been changed into a series of lakes by winter rains,
and above which the sloping embankments were scarcely perceptible.
Every light was multiplied. The darkness had eddies of light, which
enabled Andre to keep a right course.
The punt followed the canals, cut at right angles; progress was slow,
impeded by ice needles, that formed by the cold clustered on the
sedges of the bank. Did the wind not rise, the whole Marais would be
one sheet of ice before morning; Andre knew this, and tried to reach
La Seuliere as quickly as possible. He began to realise the imprudence
he had committed in taking Mathurin with him on such a night and so
far. The cripple neither moved nor spoke, anxious not to attract his
brother's attention to himself, lest he should straightway turn back.
But when he saw that they were more than two thousand yards from La
Fromentiere, sure of reaching their destination, he broke the silence.
Lying on his back, his face hidden by the side of the boat, he asked:
"Driot, when you were speaking to-night of land being given to
agricultural emigrants, you were not joking?"
"Of course not."
"Have they proposed to give you some?"
Noiselessly, he had raised his head, and was watching with eyes and
ears for Andre's answer. No reply came. In the vast extent of
inundated meadows there was heard no sound but the swish of the water
parted by the punt and washing up as the tide rose against the hard
mud of the shore with little sharp gurgles. Mathurin resumed:
"You miss Francois, do you not? The house seems different to you with
only me there?"
The young man standing so erect in the stern, his profile scarcely
defined in the darkness, stooped precipitately:
"Look out!" he cried, "lie back, Mathurin!" Perfect darkness was
around them; they were passing under one of the single-arched stone
bridges that intersect the Marais here and there. When they had passed
through Mathurin noticed that the boat was going more slowly, as
though the propeller were absorbed in thought. Encouraged by this,
resolved to be put in possession of the secret that concerned the
future of La Fromentiere, the cripple resumed persuasively:
"We are quite by ourselves here, Andre; why not tell me all you are
pondering? You would like to cultivate newer soil than ours; you, too,
want to go away, but further than Francois, and for another purpose?"
Then the younger brother ceased to punt. He still stood erect on the
raised stern of the boat, and suffered the pole to float aimlessly
behind him.
"As you have discovered it, Mathurin," he said, "keep my secret. It is
true that proposals have been made to me.... With my two thousand
francs I might have, on the other side of the Atlantic, a whole farm
of my own and a brood of horses.... Some friends of mine are looking
into the matter for me ... but I have not made up my mind. I have not
yet consented."
"You are afraid of father?"
"I am afraid of leaving him in difficulties. If I were to go, who
would carry on La Fromentiere? There is certainly Rousille, she might
marry."
"Not that _Boquin_ fellow! That would not do for us at all! But my
father has said No; and he is not the man to go back on his word."
"Then I do not see who is to carry on the farm?"
In a hard, imperious voice, which betrayed the intensity of his
feelings, the cripple cried:
"Then I count for nothing?"
"My poor Mathurin...."
"I am better, I shall recover," continued Mathurin, in the same tone.
"When it comes to be my turn to rule, no one but myself will manage La
Fromentiere, do you understand?"
Not to exasperate him, Andre replied:
"Your recovery would be a happy thing for us all, old man. I, for one,
heartily wish it may come about."
But the cripple's wrath was not to be appeased so easily nor so
quickly. Rising from his recumbent position with an effort which
threatened to capsize the punt, he dragged himself on hands and knees
to the stern, where shouting, "Give me your place, boy, you shall see
me punt," he struggled for possession of the pole; and seating himself
in the stern, began propelling the boat with astonishing force and
steadiness, keeping it clear of the banks, and with a rapidity,
despite ice splinters and sedges, which Andre could not have
accomplished. His huge frame took up the whole width of the boat; his
powerful chest bent and raised itself with all the ease of robust
health. As he went on arms and punt pole worked ever more vigorously;
the banks flew by on either side. Soon he turned off into a canal on
the right for some hundred yards. Now rays of light appeared on the
surface of the water, rendering them more dazzling. They proceeded
from the door of La Seuliere. The farm buildings rose up indistinctly
from out the darkness; sounds of voices singing broke the stillness,
mingled with the noise of footsteps on the paved court. With a couple
of strokes, Mathurin brought up the boat into line with some ten other
punts lying side by side; and before Andre had thought of going to his
help, had rolled with his crutches on to the slope before the house
where he got up unaided.
"Well punted, Mathurin," cried his younger brother, jumping on shore.
He, crimsoned, breathless, pleased as if with a victory won, looked
round:
"Then don't worry yourself!" he said. "A man who can punt a boat as I
do, is capable of managing a farm," and with a blow of his shoulder he
shook the house door. A voice from within called out:
"Gently there! Who wants to break the door in?"
It was flung noisily open, revealing Mathurin standing in the full
glare of the lamplight. The appearance of a ghost could not have
produced greater effect. The noise ceased abruptly, the girls,
frightened, ran away or clustered in groups against the walls. In
their astonishment, many of the lads took off their hats, which they
had kept on while dancing; farmers' wives half rose from the chairs on
which they were sitting. Scarcely did they recognise the new-comer at
such an hour and place.
Tired and crimsoned from his exertions, affected by the hot air of the
room, but proud of the stupefaction he was causing, Mathurin stood
erect on his crutches, and, laughing in his tawny beard, called out in
a stentorian voice:
"How do you do, all of you!"
Then, addressing the group of girls who were retreating to the other
end of the room:
"Who will dance a round with me, my beauties? Why do you look at me
like that? I am not a ghost. I have brought my brother, handsome
Driot, to dance _vis-a-vis_ with me." And they saw him approach,
followed by the youngest son of La Fromentiere, tall and slim, his
hand at his forehead in military salute. Then the room resounded with
merry laughter, questions, and greetings; the girls ran towards them
as precipitately as they had before retreated; men's hands were
extended on all sides. Old Gauvrit's loud voice drowned all others,
as, already somewhat heated with wine, he called out from an inner
room:
"The handsomest girl to dance with Mathurin! the handsomest! Let her
show herself!"
It was not in obedience to her father that Felicite Gauvrit came
forward. But, though for an instant disconcerted by this abrupt entry
before all these men and women, she realised that she must put a bold
face on it, and going up to Mathurin Lumineau, her black eyes looking
into his, she threw her arms round his neck and embraced him.
"I embrace him," she said, "because he has more courage than most of
the lads in the parish. It was I who invited him!"
Stupefied, intoxicated by the memories awakened in him, Mathurin once
more shrank away. They saw him grow livid, and, turning on his
crutches, force a path through the group of men on his left, with:
"Make way, make way, lads. I want to sit down!"
He found a place in the second room, beside some of the elder men, old
Gauvrit among them; who rising, poured him out a bumper of the white
wine of Sallertaine, in token of welcome. Still quite pale, Mathurin
lifted the glass with the customary formula, "I drink to you all with
cordiality and love!"
Soon he appeared to be forgotten, and dancing was resumed.
The farmstead where the gathering was held was a fairly modern
building, the usual large house-place being divided into two rooms of
unequal size. In the smaller of these the elder men, with the master
of the house, were drinking and playing luette. In the larger, that by
which the two Lumineaus had entered, dancing was going on. The tables
had been pushed along the walls beside the beds, the curtains of which
had been spread over the counterpanes to save them from being torn.
Some half-dozen matrons, who had accompanied their daughters, had
collected round the hearth before a fire of dried cow-dung, the fuel
of that treeless district, each having on the mantel-piece her cup of
coffee, with a dash of brandy in it, from which she took an occasional
sip.
Petroleum lamps placed along the wall lighted the narrow space
reserved for dancing. A smoky, heated, vinous atmosphere pervaded the
house. The icy air from without drew in under the door, sometimes
making the young Maraichines, despite their stout woollen gowns,
shiver with cold. But no one minded. The room was filled with
laughter, chatter, and movement. Youths and maidens from isolated
farmhouses, cut off from one another by periodical inundations, they
were tired of solitude and repose. Escaped from their tedium and
restored for a brief space of social intercourse, they seemed
possessed by feverish excitement. Soon all the gay dancers would be
dispersed again over the mute, trembling sheet of water. They knew it;
and made the most of the short reprieve.
So dancing recommenced.
First the Maraichine, a dance for four, a kind of ancient _bourree_,
which the lookers-on accompanied by a rhythmic humming; then _rondes_
sung by a male or female voice, taken up by the others in chorus to
the accompaniment of an accordeon played by a sickly, deformed boy of
twelve; or there were modern dances, polkas and quadrilles, danced to
one and the same tune, the time only made to vary. The girls, for the
most part, danced well, some with a keen sense of rhythm and grace.
Round their waists the most dainty had knotted a white handkerchief,
to preserve their dresses when, after each refrain, their partner
seized his lady round the waist and jumped her as high as possible, to
demonstrate the lightness of the Maraichines and the strength of the
Maraichins. Known to each other, these young people from the same
parish, often neighbours, resumed the flirtations of the preceding
winter; they made love; appointed meetings at Chalons fair, or at
some coming dance at another farm; new-comers were gladly welcomed.
Among these latter Andre Lumineau was the most sought after, the most
cheery, most fertile at inventing nonsense and talking it.
Time passed. Twice Pere Gauvrit had gone through the two rooms, opened
the house door, and said:
"The moon is rising and will soon be visible; the wind is getting up
and it freezes hard," then had gone back to resume his place at the
card-table where the players awaited him. Mathurin Lumineau had taken
a hand, but was playing absently, attending far less to his cards than
to every movement, look, and word of Felicite. Already the artful
beauty had several times contrived to bring her partner to a halt in
the inner room, that she might exchange a few words with Mathurin. She
was radiant with pride; on the bold, regular features that towered
above the greater number of tulle coifs could be read triumphant joy,
that after six whole years, the mad love she had inspired still
endured, and had brought back to her the young men of La Fromentiere.
It was ten o'clock. A little Maraichine, her complexion russet as a
thrush, started the first notes of a _ronde_:
"When as a little child I played,
Light-hearted, never dull;
Down to the spring one day I strayed
The cresses fresh to cull."
Twenty lads and as many girls took up the chorus:
"The ducks, the ducks, the ducklings, oh!
To the Marais forth they go!"
And the _ronde_ invaded both rooms. At the same time Felicite Gauvrit,
who had refused to take her place in the chain of dancers, drew near
the table where Mathurin was sitting. He at once rose, throwing down
his cards to the man sitting next him.
"Stay where you are, Mathurin," she exclaimed. "Do not trouble about
me. I have come to watch the dancers."
But she drew a chair into a corner of the room, assisted Mathurin to
it, and then sat down beside him. Neither spoke. They were sitting in
the half shade of a projecting piece of furniture; the cripple was not
looking at Felicite, nor she at him. Side by side they sat in the
shade of the cherry wood wardrobe, apparently engrossed in watching
the dancers as they passed in and out of the room. But what they
really saw was something very different; one saw the past love
meetings, the plighted troth, the return that night in the waggon, the
awful suffering stretching out through years, the desertion--now at
this very moment--at an end. The other saw the possible, perhaps, near
future; the farmstead of La Fromentiere where she would reign; the
bench in church where she would sit; the greetings that would be hers
from the proudest girls round about; and the husband she would
have--Andre Lumineau--who was now dancing the _ronde_ with the little
girl of fifteen, the singer of the couplets.
Mathurin began speaking in a low voice, words broken by long periods
of silence; he was very pale and in fear that this brief happiness
would too soon come to an end.
Grave and reserved, her hands crossed upon her apron, the daughter of
La Seuliere spoke without haste words heard by none but themselves.
Many eyes were turned upon this strange pair of once betrothed lovers.
The dance went on, the refrain echoed from the walls.
The clear, laughing voice of the little Maraichine sang:
"The spring was deep, alas, alas,
Therein I needs must fall.
Along the road just then did pass
Three barons valiant all.
"'What will you give us, maiden fair,
If to your help we press?'
'An' you do that,' I did declare,
'My gift you'll never guess.'
"Now when the little maid was freed
And home again that day,
Straight to the window she did speed
And sang a merry lay.
"'Not that we ask, oh, maiden fair,
'Tis hard to treat us so,
But tresses of your golden hair,
Or tokens ere we go.'"
The dance grew faster and more furious. The big Maraichins seized
their partners and sprang them so high that their muslin coifs touched
the ceiling. The mothers drank a final cup of coffee. The card-players
watched the _sarabande_ through the dusty atmosphere by the uneven
light of the smoking lamps. Mathurin and Felicite, sitting closer
together, still talked on. But the daughter of La Seuliere had
suffered one of her hands to be taken between those of the cripple,
and it was the huge hairy hands that trembled, and the little white
hand that seemed not to understand, or to be unwilling to respond.
The _ronde_ came to an end:
"'Ah, tokens give I none,' said she,
'To barons gay like you,
For chosen I am proud to be
By Pierre, who serves us true.'"
For the first time Felicite, looking at Mathurin said confidentially,
with a laugh:
"That song is Rousille's story."
"Do you know what she wanted?" returned Mathurin hotly, "to marry our
farm-servant; to become mistress of La Fromentiere! But I was on the
watch. I had that fellow Jean Nesmy turned out, and I swear to you it
will be long before he dare show his face there again. And now...."
Here he lowered his voice and bent forward until the tawny hair
touched the outer rim of the muslin coif, which did not draw
back--"And now, if you will still have me, Felicite, it is you who
shall be the mistress of La Fromentiere." She had not time to answer.
She had risen, the last refrain of the _ronde_ had ended in a murmur
of surprise. A man, whose white head towered above those of the
assembled guests, had abruptly entered and advanced into the middle of
the first room, without removing the hat he wore on his entrance, or
making any salutation. His clothes were coated with ice; on his left
arm he carried an old brown cloak that swept the ground as he walked.
Severe of countenance, with eyes half closed from coming suddenly into
the glare of light, he was evidently seeking someone.
All made way for the farmer of La Fromentiere, "Are my lads here?" he
asked.
"Yes, of course," returned a voice behind him. "Here I am, father."
"That's right, Driot," said the old man without looking back, "I am
not afraid for you, though this is not the place for my sons. But it
is freezing so hard that it seems likely that the whole Marais will be
frozen before sunrise; and it may be the death of Mathurin, crippled
as he is. Why did you bring him?"
In the general silence the farmer's eyes swept the larger room; a
movement of some of those present showed him Mathurin sitting in the
inner one; and the father saw his crippled son, and beside him the
girl who had been the cause of so much suffering and sorrow.
"That girl!" he muttered, "lying in wait for him again!" With
imperious gesture he forced a passage through the dancers, shouldering
them to right and left. "Gauvrit," he exclaimed, nodding to the host,
who had risen and was staggering towards him, "Gauvrit, I have no wish
to offend you; but I must take away my lads. The Marais is a deathtrap
in weather such as this."
"I couldn't prevent your sons coming," stammered Gauvrit. "I assure
you, Toussaint Lumineau...."
Without heeding him, the farmer raised his voice:
"Out of this, Mathurin!" said he. "Take the wrap I have brought you,"
and he threw the shabby old cloak over the cripple's shoulders, who
rising, meek as a child, followed his father without a word. The
guests looked on, some mockingly, others with emotion, at the sight of
the fine old man who had come that bitter night across the Marais to
rescue his son from the wiles of La Seuliere. Some of the girls said
to each other, "He had not a word for Felicite." Others, "How handsome
he must have been as a young man." And one voice murmured, and it was
that of the young girl who had sung the _ronde_, "Andre is the image
of his father."
Toussaint Lumineau and his sons heard nothing of this. The door of La
Seuliere had shut behind them, and they were out in the darkness and
the icy wind.
The clouds were very high; as they scudded along in huge irregular
bodies they formed a succession of black patches, their edges silvered
by the moon. The cold was so intense it seemed to pierce through the
stoutest clothing, and chill to the very marrow of the bones. It was
indeed death to any but the strongest. The farmer, who knew the
danger, hurriedly untied the two punts, and getting into the first
motioned Mathurin to lie down in the bottom of the boat, then pushed
out into the middle of the canal. Again the cripple obeyed, curling
himself up on the boards; wrapped in his brown cloak, motionless, he
looked like a mass of sea-wrack. But, unnoticed by the others, he had
lain down with his face turned towards La Seuliere, and raising his
cloak with one finger, was looking back towards the farm. As long as
distance and the canal banks allowed him to distinguish the light
proceeding from the chinks of the door, he remained with eyes fixed
upon the paling ray that recalled to him a new hope. Then the cloak
fell back into its place, covering the radiant, tearful face of the
crippled man.
Andre followed in the second punt. By the same dykes, past the same
meadows they returned, struggling against the strong gusts of wind
that blew. The storm that had burst had prevented the sheet of ice
from covering the water. The farmer, unaccustomed to punting, did not
make rapid progress. From time to time he would ask:
"You are not too cold, Mathurin?"
Then in a louder voice:
"Are you following, Andre?"
And in their wake a cheery voice would reply:
"I am all right."
The strain was tremendous, but with it was mingled the joy of taking
back his two sons.
Although there was no apparent reason, and he had not thought of her
for weeks, the farmer's thoughts flew to his dead wife: "She would be
pleased with me," he mused, "for taking Mathurin away from La
Seuliere." And at times in the turn of a canal he would seem to see a
pair of blue eyes like those of his old wife smiling upon him, which
gradually sank until they rested among the reeds under the punt. And
he would dry his eyelids with his sleeve, shake himself free from the
overmastering drowsiness, and say again to his youngest son:
"Are you following?"
The younger son was not dreaming. He was thinking over what he had
seen and heard: Mathurin's senseless infatuation, his violence, which,
when their father should be no more, would make life very difficult
to the head at La Fromentiere. The events of that evening had
increased the temptation of pastures new to this disturbed mind. In
course of time both punts had reached the duck meadow.