THE AUCTION.
In the ensuing week the coming sale at the Chateau was the frequent
subject of discussion among the men of La Fromentiere. Andre openly
attacked the masters.
"They are ruined," he said. "All the nobles go the same road, because
they do nothing. So much the worse for them!"
"So much the worse for the farmers," replied his father; "they do not
often gain much by changing masters."
Toussaint Lumineau was painfully hit by the coming event, not only in
his sincere and lifelong affection for the master's family, but in his
honest pride as a peasant.
It was a humiliation to hear people talk of the downfall of the family
to whom the Lumineaus were allied by traditions of generations; he
took his share of the blame, his share of the disgrace; he felt he had
lost stability, that in future he must be exposed to chances and
changes, like so many another; and even found himself envying those
whose farms belonged to wealthy proprietors, clear of mortgage.
"No," he resumed, "you do wrong to speak as you do, Driot. Our masters
may have their reasons for this, of which we know nothing. Perhaps M.
le Marquis is about to marry his daughter, and is in want of ready
money. Rich and poor alike find it an expensive business to settle
their children."
"If that is their only means to obtain money, they must be at a pretty
low ebb!" rejoined Andre. "To think that even family portraits are to
be sold. I remember seeing them one day when I went with you to pay
the rent."
"Bah! Perhaps they were not good likenesses. Besides, the Marquis
probably has others. How are people in our station in life to know all
that families like theirs possess?"
"And personal clothing? Is that usually sold? It is not very
creditable in them to let everything go in a public sale, as if they
were bankrupts."
"I tell you what, Andre, I do not believe that half the things will be
sold that are down in the catalogue; it is merely to draw people." But
all the same, in his heart of hearts, the farmer well knew how poor
were the reasons which respect for the family led him to urge.
Rising from the table, under pretext of having work to do, he
shortened the meal.
Andre's aggressiveness did not lessen, indeed his irritation seemed
to increase as the day fixed for the sale approached. The poor lad
needed to anger himself against something or somebody to gain courage.
February 20th was the date on which he had secretly planned to leave
La Fromentiere, four days before the departure of an emigrant ship
that he was to join at Antwerp. His anger was inspired not by temper,
but by the ever-increasing grief within him. He forced himself to
speak ill of La Fromentiere because he still loved it, and was about
to desert it.
Thus Sunday, the 20th of February, arrived. On that day the silence
that had reigned over La Fromentiere vanished, but to give place to
what noises--what clatter! Visitors were again seen within its walls,
but what visitors! People had come from afar, curiosity dealers from
Nantes, from La Rochelle, even from Paris. Before eight in the morning
they had gathered in groups beside the two flights of steps leading to
the portico. Men, short, stout, red-faced; some with auburn beards,
others with bird-like noses, talking together in subdued voices,
sitting on chairs--to be sold--that had been ranged in rows on the
broad carriage drive, laid with the red gravel that used to crunch so
pleasantly beneath the roll of carriage wheels. On the topmost of the
entrance steps, now converted into an auctioneer's rostrum, were the
notary, Maitre Oulry, his eyes displaying discreet satisfaction behind
his spectacles, the public crier, indifferent as any stone-breaker to
the relics of which he was about to announce the dispersion, and the
furniture removers standing in their shirt-sleeves despite the intense
cold. The two flights of stone steps, stained with mud even to half
way up the balustrades, testified to the crowds admitted on the
previous two days to see the interior of the Chateau. Some had gone
from curiosity, taking advantage of their first opportunity to go over
a seigniorial dwelling; but all within was in disorder, faded, covered
with dust. The battens, which for years had secured the windows of the
rooms on the ground-floor, had been unnailed on one side, and hung
down beside the open _persiennes_. In the dining-hall, and the two
drawing-rooms _en suite_, had been piled the greater part of the
bedroom furniture, cooking utensils, and crockery. Pictures, turned
with their faces to the wall, formed a dado in front of couches and
easy-chairs; there were four clocks on one mantel-piece, candelabras
standing in fireplaces, fire-dogs on occasional tables, book shelves
on the billiard table, baskets of choice wine standing in the boudoir
of the dowager Marquise, hung with its dainty cherry-coloured satin;
silk draperies trailing on a kitchen table. Broken bell-ropes and
strips of torn paper hung from the walls. Everywhere was disorder and
desolation as complete as is produced by Death in the human frame.
Pushing their way through the narrow passages left by all these piles
of costly objects were to be seen coarse men accustomed to the
handling of rags and rubbish, discharged servants, dealers in old
clothes, coffee-house keepers covetously fingering carved oak chests,
scratching the gold off picture frames to see how deep it was laid;
opening cupboards and drawers, and bursting into rude loud laughter
if, perchance, they lighted upon some private token, such as
photographs, letters, missals, rosaries, relics of departed souls thus
exposed to, and profaned by vulgar eyes.
On the upper floors boys in their sabots had perched themselves on the
window-sills with legs hanging out, or were trying the mattresses
still left on their wooden bedsteads. Gradually as the late February
day dispersed the fog, and it was drifted by the wind in heavy masses
over the woods, vehicles of all descriptions--cabriolets, victorias,
tilburys, closed carriages formerly graced with armorial bearings, now
let out on hire, mixed with some few well-appointed turn-outs--drove
into the park. These were unharnessed, the carriages standing upon the
lawns, some of the horses tied to the trees with nosebags of hay;
while others, their feet clogged, were left to graze where they would.
A row of carts stood on the border of a neighbouring copse, their
shafts raised diagonally.
All round the Chateau was like a fair; the stables and coach-houses
had been appropriated; plough horses were to be seen in the loose
boxes; coachmen and stable-boys from inns, in their straw hats, gazed
admiringly at the vast proportions of the stables and dependencies,
or stood hypnotized before the copper appointments of the stalls, the
nickel locks, the iron bars separating one from the other.
"It was a fine place after all," they said to themselves.
The sight of all the careful appointments seemed to give them a vague
insight into the ancient splendours of the domain, while at the same
time it came across them with stupefying force: how could a man have
lost such a fortune? how could there be ruin, with a rental of
hundreds of thousands of pounds? And, as a natural consequence, they
gave the family credit for vices which had but a very small share in
the disaster, for, spitting on the cemented floors, they exclaimed: "A
pleasure-loving set!"
In front of the entrance the crowd increased rapidly, some impelled by
the desire to buy, others by curiosity. Three hundred people, seated
on chairs and benches, formed a compact, immovable, semicircular mass;
outside them was perpetual movement of coming and going. Dealers in
antiquities, sellers of old clothes, occupied the first row; after
them came a number of shopkeepers, former purveyors to the Marquis,
householders of Chalons with their wives, country dames dressed up as
if for Easter Day, with bright eyes and loud voices, wearing little
bunches of spring flowers in their bodices which they themselves had
cut from the hot-houses of La Fromentiere, given up this day to
pillage. They commented derisively to each other on the ill-kept
state of the apartments in the Chateau, the dirty windows, the
grass-grown avenues, the bogs in the cross roads of the park. "We keep
things very differently," said they. "Thank goodness, we know better
what is fitting than your ruined Marquises do!" And with an air of
"knowing all about it," they called up memories of bygone fetes.
Behind them, again, were to be seen peasants of Saint Gervais, of
Soullans, of Saint Urbian, but men only. Very few had come from the
parish itself. The auction was not for them; what should take them
there? To many who had known the family, it had seemed as if it would
have been an insult to assist at the humiliating spectacle. At the
most some ten of the old inhabitants of Sallertaine were there, and
they not the most important, keeping well at the back, not daring to
sit down. Shamefaced, as though the lord of the Chateau were there
before them and sorrowful, they had followed the crowd, having nothing
else to do in their Sunday leisure, and now exchanged recollections of
kind words spoken by "Monsieur Henri," of greetings and girlish smiles
given by Mademoiselle Ambroisine. Alas! after all the money so
lavishly spent, so many a kindly action, so much cordiality and
urbanity shown for centuries past by successive Marquises of La
Fromentiere--after eight years there only remained that slight
expression of regret to be seen in the sad faces of a handful of
farmers.
Still fewer in number were the neighbouring gentry. Hidden among the
throng was the Baron de la Houvelle, whose mania for collecting led
him to forget what was due to his rank; the Comte de Bouart, coarse
and red-faced, attracted by the wine cellar, and young d'Escaron,
whose object was to secure a breeding mare.
But the notary had many commissions to buy; for earlier in the week,
before the day on which the Chateau had been on view to the invasion
of plebeians, chatelaines, young and old, friends of the family, had
driven over and, shown round by the game-keeper, might have been seen
in private apartments and reception rooms, examining old tapestries
and household linen with many an exclamation and regret.
Only one member of the Lumineau family was present at the auction, and
that was Mathurin, to whom every event, even of a painful character,
was a grateful change to his sufferings and weariness. When he had
announced "I shall go," his father had said:
"I could not; it would irritate me too much. Go if you like; and when
they come to selling personal things, send me word, Mathurin, for I
want some little thing as a remembrance of M. le Marquis."
At some distance from the circle of buyers, to the left of the
entrance, Mathurin Lumineau had found a seat under a group of trees.
Wrapped in his brown cloak, more taciturn and brooding than ever, he
had gradually pushed back his chair until he was almost hidden
between the branches of two fir-trees, thence, as if lying in ambush,
he listened to all that was going on, and his blue eyes, ever and anon
lit up with sudden anger, scanned the front of the Chateau, now the
buyers, now the passers-by.
At half-past eight the auction began. The auctioneer, a small
bloodless man, endowed with a strong voice, announced from the top of
the entrance steps to the crowd assembled, to brute nature, to the
forests left for the past eight years to solitude and silence:
"The reception-room furniture of M. le Marquis, comprising six
_fauteuils_, a couch, four ebony chairs upholstered in old gold satin,
Louis XV. style, with gilt nails, for fifteen hundred francs; the
covers will be thrown in. Going at fifteen hundred francs! Fifteen
hundred and twenty; fifteen hundred and fifty; sixteen hundred." He
rolled his eyes as the price augmented.
At sixteen hundred francs, the old gold satin _suite_ was knocked
down; and while the notary was putting the curtains up for auction,
Mathurin's eyes followed the _fauteuils_, couch, and chairs he had
only seen once before and that by chance on a quarter-day, now being
carted away by the furniture removers who fell at once on these the
first spoils. After the contents of the reception rooms followed
tables, wardrobes, beds, these latter especially coveted; crockery,
covered with dust and displayed to view on the steps, clocks, the
billiard table.
The sale lasted the whole day, save a short interval at half-past ten.
The auctioneer's voice was untiring. As people went, their places were
taken by new-comers; the pale rays of the February sun lighted up
clouds of dust issuing from the open windows; the rooms were thronged.
Many of the purchasers were carrying away their lots themselves;
others, who were only later to come into possession of their
acquisitions, were writing their names in chalk on old oak chests, or
pieces of furniture, covered for the time being with heaps of
incongruous articles. Costly hangings, partly unnailed, hung from the
cornices, and streaming over step-ladders, trailed on the dusty
floors.
Towards four o'clock, the number of spectators had diminished;
tethered horses had been taken from under sheltering trees; vehicles
of all kinds and descriptions were on the homeward way to town and
outskirts. Mathurin had not left his nook under the shade of the
fir-trees. An uneasy suspicion was agitating him violently. Twice, at
some distance in the direction of the offices, he had thought to
recognise the eager face of Jean Nesmy. The young man, clad in brown,
his hat drawn over his eyes, who only stealthily advanced, but who had
been seen by Mathurin now here, now there in the copse on the other
side of the lawn, could be no other than the dismissed farm-servant,
Rousille's lover.
Mathurin sat and waited for his father, to whom he had despatched a
village lad, telling him of the approaching close of the sale. In the
bluish mist, to right of the Chateau, Farmer Lumineau appeared, and
with him Marie-Rose. Despite the growing dusk, both were somewhat
shamefaced. Rousille did not go far, at a hundred paces from the front
of the Chateau she stopped, and sitting on the bench of _la Marquise_,
looked on with startled eyes at the scene of devastation, while her
father went up closer to make his purchase. Among the two hundred
people still grouped round the granite steps, women predominated. They
had stayed to see the "wearing apparel and toilet appurtenances,"
given out by the notary as being the next lot. And now the auctioneer
lifted above his head a soft, clinging, pale violet material, that
unfolded and fluttered in the wind.
"A young lady's dress of mauve silk with muslin collarette--ten
francs!" he called.
"Show it!" cried the women's voices.
And Rousille saw the object lowered on to the stone steps, the little
silken gown left behind, forgotten, that still retained something of
the supple grace of its wearer, Mademoiselle Ambroisine de la
Fromentiere. And coarse words and low jests reached her, made by the
brokers as they handled the dainty relics of refinement and purity.
"Can they put up that for sale!" she murmured; she shrank from the
profanation, and would gladly have gone away.
But at that moment two sudden emotions, two surprises nailed her to
her seat. Across the lawn, facing her, in front of a group of
fir-trees, she had seen Mathurin, who had left the protection of the
branches, and was looking over at the bench of _la Marquise_, shaking
his fist; while, quite close behind her, she heard a voice from out
the flowering laurels, say:
"My Rousille, Jean Nesmy has come!"
With perfect self-control she did not turn her head, made no movement;
feeling herself to be spied upon, she had all the courage of her
ancestors whom peril had ever found ready. Scarce opening her lips as
if only breathing to calm her beating heart, she said to him who had
rustled the leaves behind her:
"Beware! Mathurin is watching us."
"I know, he has already seen me."
"Then, go quickly! Come back later."
"When?"
"To-night, in the barn; when I put my candlestick on the window-sill."
Mathurin was hurrying across with the aid of his crutches to satisfy
himself that he had seen a man's figure among the shadows of trees in
that opposite group. Jean Nesmy meanwhile slipped away amid the
undergrowth, and through the lonely copses. Round the steps, already
in darkness, loud talking and laughing rose from the diminished crowd.
"I will have it. That's what I want," was heard in Lumineau's strong
voice. The auctioneer was offering a walking-stick, with horn handle
bound with a gold ring.
"That depends, my good man," was the reply, amid the jibes of the
townspeople of Chalons, "that depends! To say 'I will have it' in an
auction is not enough. What price do you put on it?"
"Two francs," said a broker.
"Five francs!" cried the farmer. Now no one laughed; the bid was an
unusual one. Toussaint Lumineau had made it greatly to prevent
competition, but also, as he would have said, from a spirit of bravado
to prove that the tenant was not ruined like his master. Mounting the
lower steps he reached up a crown piece, seized the cane, and, not
venturing to lean upon it, tucked it under his arm, and slouched away
from the remaining group of bargainers who were greedily snapping up
odd remnants of the furniture of La Fromentiere, hastily priced, given
for next to nothing. Skirting the excited cluster of buyers, he went
towards the group of trees where Mathurin had again taken up his post.
"Let us go," he said, "I have made my purchase. M. Henri's
walking-stick."
"You paid too much for it," said the cripple.
"My poor lad," returned the farmer reproachfully, "he would have
given it to me had he been there. I paid that price that no one should
dispute it with me.... All those fellows would have made game of me,
had I not!--"
And with a movement of the shoulder he signified the notary, the
auctioneer, the invisible agents of the law, who to his excited fancy
had had a hand in the proceedings now coming to an end. Moderating his
pace so as not to hurry Mathurin, whose crutches struck against the
mole-hills on the lawn, the farmer crossed the broad expanse where the
blue mist thickened. They could hear the cracking of whips; see the
red light of lanterns passing along the leafless woods, the frightened
wood-pigeons circling over head. Rousille saw her father coming. She
had remained in the same place sitting on the bench, joyous at heart,
but with somewhat too much of love's dream in her eyes, for her father
asked severely:
"What is it, child? This is no day for laughter."
"Nothing," she answered, rising.
"Then walk on in front," put in Mathurin. "You might be meeting
someone."
And she went down the avenues, then along the path by the leafless
hedges in front as she had been hidden. Her white coif turned neither
to the right nor to the left; but proud as one enduring for her love,
she walked on with elastic step down the hill towards the elm-trees of
the farmstead, and her eyes gazing fixedly into the gathering
night--those eyes which none could read, gazing at everything, seeing
nothing, were filled with tender musings. She entered her domain, and
began to pour over the bread the soup which had been simmering in her
absence. The men stayed without, talking. When they came in she felt
sure that she had been again betrayed by Mathurin, and that her father
was angry with her. Andre came in last, at about eight o'clock. The
farmer had proposed waiting supper until his return, and he and
Mathurin had sat in the chimney-corner warming themselves, by turns
taking and trying the cane of M. Henri as they talked over the sad
events of the day: the men who had come from Sallertaine to bid, how
they had heard the battens nailed up again across the lower windows as
they came away; the lights they had seen wandering along the corridors
of the upper floor as in the good old days when the great white house
was full of guests.
"Our masters will never come back now," said Toussaint Lumineau. "And
I, who always believed in them! This is the end!"
"The end!" repeated Andre, as he came in at the door from the outer
darkness. "I am glad not to have seen it."
The good-looking young Maraichin seemed tired and troubled; his eyes
were brilliant as if about to shed tears. Toussaint Lumineau thought
that the shame of this public auction, so painful to him, had
affected his son in like manner, and had been the sole cause of his
long absence.
"Sit down, Driot," he said, "you must be hungry. The soup is ready."
"No, I am not hungry," replied Andre.
"Nor am I," returned his father.
Mathurin alone, dragging himself to the table, ladled out a plate of
soup; while his father remained sitting beside the fire, and Driot
stood leaning against the projecting chimney-corner, looking
alternately at his father and brother.
"Where did you go?" asked the farmer.
Andre made a sweeping gesture:
"From one to the other. To your friend Guerineau, of La Pinconniere;
to the miller of Moque-Souris; the Levrelles; the Massonneau...."
"A good fellow, le Glorieux," interrupted the farmer; "worthy family
his."
"I saw the Ricolleaus of Malabrit too."
"What, you went as far as that?"
"The Ertus of La Paree du Mont----"
Toussaint Lumineau looked straight into his son's clear eyes, trying
to understand.
"What led you to go and see all these people, my boy?"
"An idea"--no longer able to endure his father's inquiring look, his
eyes sought the dark corner wherein stood the bed--"an idea. Well
then, going along, I thought I would go as far as La Roche and see
Francois."
"Francois?" murmured the farmer. "You are like me then, dear lad, your
thoughts are often with him?"
Slowly the young man nodded his head, as he answered:
"Yes, this evening especially; this evening, more than any evening of
my whole life, I would have liked to have him beside me."
Andre's words were spoken with such strong emotion, with so mournful a
solemnity, that Mathurin, who had not known the date of Andre's
departure, understood that the time had come, and that his brother had
not many more minutes to remain in La Fromentiere.
The blood rushed to his head, his lips half opened, a violent fit of
trembling seized him, while his eyes stared fixedly at Andre. There
was an unwonted animation in those eyes of his, for, while they
expressed triumphant pride, there was also, in that supreme hour,
something of pity and affection, perhaps of remorse. Andre knew that
they bade him farewell. The father, meanwhile, had drawn up his chair
to the table, and raising the cane horizontally to the level of the
lamp, that Andre might the better see it, was caressing the gold ring
with his fingers, none too clean from the day's toil. He imagined that
his son's thoughts were again with the present, or like his own, were
embracing the same future.
"See," said he, "what I bought as a souvenir of M. Henri. How often
he has knocked against my door with the point of this cane, tap! tap!
tap! 'Are you there, my old Lumineau?' Andre, when you are the master
of La Fromentiere----"
At these words the young man, who was standing behind the farmer, felt
all his courage give way. Unable to restrain his tears, and fearing
lest his father should turn towards him, he retreated silently towards
the door.
Toussaint Lumineau had noticed nothing; he continued: "When you are
the master at La Fromentiere, you will see no more of the family. I do
not believe that the farmstead will be sold. I greatly hope not, but
our Marquises will not come amongst us again. My lad, the new times
you will be living in will not be like those I used to know!"
Now Driot's tears fell fast as he looked at the old walls worn with
the shoulders of many a Lumineau past and gone.
"Do not distress yourself, dear boy. If the masters go, the land
remains." Driot's tears fell fast as he looked on the rosary of Mere
Lumineau, hanging at the head of the bed.
"The land is good, though you have spoken ill of it, and so you will
find out."
Driot's tears fell as he looked at Mathurin.
"You will do your best for it; and it will do its best for you!"
Driot's tears fell fast as he looked at his father, still fondling
the light wood cane. He gazed for some time by the light of the lamp
on the tired hands, the horny hands, seamed with scars gained working
for his family for their support and education--the hands that had
never known discouragement, and, impelled by respect and grief, he did
a thing unknown at La Fromentiere, now that the sons were grown up and
the mother dead; he came close in the shadow behind his father, leant
over him, and kissed the old man's wrinkled brow.
"Dear boy!" said Toussaint Lumineau, kissing him in return.
"I will be off to bed," murmured Andre. "I am done up."
He seized Mathurin's hand in a warm, hurried clasp. But he took some
time to go the ten paces which separated him from the door leading
into the kitchen where Rousille was washing up her dishes. As he shut
the door he looked back once more into the room. Then he was heard
talking to his sister. Then he was heard no more.
Deep night enveloped the farmstead, the last on which the roof of La
Fromentiere would shelter Driot. An hour after, any late wanderers
along the road, seeing the mass of buildings standing out from the
trees, darker even than the enveloping fog and as silent, would surely
have thought that all within were sleeping soundly. But, save the
farm-servant, all within were wide-awake.
Mathurin, greatly excited, had not ceased talking and turning
restlessly. The light extinguished, talking still continued between
father and son, whose beds were ranged, near each other, beside the
wall. Not daring to speak of Andre's flight, the idea of which was
ever present with him like a persistent nightmare, the cripple turned
feverishly from one subject to another, and his father found it
impossible to calm him.
"I assure you I did see the _Boquin_. I was some distance from him,
but I detest him too much to make any mistake about the fellow; he has
a sly way of running about like a ferret. He wore a brown suit, and
had something tawny in his hat, like oak leaves."
"Go to sleep, Mathurin, you must be mistaken."
"Yes, of course they were oak leaves. When he was here he used to
stick them in his hat every now and then out of bombast, to show that
his province was richer and more wooded than ours. Ah, the _dannion_!
If I could but have run!"
"You would not have found him, my poor boy! He is at home in his
Bocage. What should have brought him to the Marquis' sale?"
"To see my sister, of course! He may even have spoken to her for all I
know, for it was too dark for me to see Rousille plainly."
The father, lying in his large canopied bed, sighed, and said:
"Always your sister! You worry yourself too much about her. Go to
sleep, Mathurin. They would not dare to speak to each other; they know
I should not allow it."
The cripple was silent for a few seconds, then his mind reverted to
the events of the day; he enumerated the neighbours who had spoken to
him, and what they had said about the probable sale of La Fromentiere;
then, impelled by the one master-thought, he recapitulated the things
to be done for the improvement of the farmstead, the conditions of the
fresh lease to be arranged for with the owners, and added:
"You do think me better, don't you? My back is straighter. I am not so
short of breath. Did yoo notice, as we came home to-night, how at
every step I used my legs without needing my crutches?"
Several times in the middle of a sentence he had stopped short to
listen, seeming to hear that which in imagination he never ceased to
see; Driot for the last time leaving the room at the end of the house;
Driot going stealthily through the courtyard that his footsteps might
not be heard on the gravel; Driot passing the door close by, and going
away for ever.
Towards eleven o'clock, Bas-Rouge, who had growled at times earlier in
the night, began to bark violently to the right of the yard.
"What is the matter with him?" exclaimed Toussaint Lumineau; "one
would think there were people moving about in our lane."
Mathurin, growing cold, silently raised himself on his elbows. After a
minute the farmer resumed:
"Do you hear how our dog is barking? There certainly must be someone
near."
"Father," returned Mathurin, "he is as mad as a March hare at this
time of year. I think he sees bernacles flying in the air." The
barking sounded nearer, not angry but joyous, as of a dog being taken
for a walk. Then a footstep was distinctly heard, and the animal began
to howl.
"They are throwing stones at Bas-Rouge," exclaimed the farmer. "I must
go."
"No; do not go. I will not have you go! Stay, father, stay!"
"Why?" asked Toussaint Lumineau. "I have done it scores of times
before, and have taken no harm."
Sitting on the side of his bed, the old peasant listened yet for a few
seconds, before hastily putting on his breeches and running to the
door. A thought flashed through Mathurin's mind:
"It is Andre. I have but to say one word, and my father will be with
him in time. Shall I?" Six years of suffering and of being in
subordinate position to the younger ones, answered: "No!" and letting
himself fall back on his pillow, he said, as if reassured:
"It is not worth the trouble. The sounds are already further off."
And, in truth, Bas-Rouge must have run out into the lane towards the
main road. His barks were more faintly heard and at intervals; he
evidently was seeing the intruder off the premises.
The farmer lay down again, and no longer hearing Mathurin move, fell
asleep. It was a little past midnight.
At that hour Rousille was still at work in her room, with doors bolted
and window shut, waiting for him who had promised to come. The thought
of seeing her lover once more, of what she should say to him, and the
idea that there might be some danger to Jean Nesmy, were he surprised
by her father, had occupied the long hours during which the murmur of
voices from the adjoining room had not ceased to reach her. "What can
they have to say to each other?" she thought. On the side towards the
barn she had carefully closed the shutter of a narrow little window,
cut in the thickness of the wall, breast high, and protected by an
iron bar. Sitting on the chest at the foot of the bed, she was hemming
some coarse kitchen aprons. The candle standing near lit up the bowed
head of the young girl and the more distant panels of the five
wardrobes, the polished pillars of the bedsteads, and the sides of the
chests, each of which gave a different softened reflection; there was
the violet of wild cherry wood, the dark-red of the cherry-tree, the
golden-brown of walnut and oak, and finally the ghostly reflection of
one, made for a somewhat eccentric great grandmother, of the finest
ash wood; and in the same room and atmosphere that had surrounded her
ancestresses, industrious as was their descendant, now sat Rousille,
the last daughter of the Lumineaus, with eyes modestly bent upon her
needlework.
Rousille was never idle. However, in this self-imposed night-watch, it
sometimes happened that she would pause with thread outstretched, or
would rise and go with slippered feet to listen at the door of the
room nearest to the house-place whence voices were still audible.
When nothing more was heard, neither the barking of the dog, nor the
vague sound of voices, she still listened, but she had ceased to ply
her needle. Looking round the room with the eye of a housekeeper, she
thought:
"Will he find it in good order, and as he would like his house to be
kept?" Rousille tied the kerchief she wore as protection from the cold
more closely; then a little shudder of fear ran through her at the
thought that her father might suddenly appear; and her face grew grave
and stern, as before, when she had had to do battle for Jean Nesmy;
then, rising, she placed her candlestick on the deep window-sill,
which by reason of the thickness of the wall was triangular, like the
loophole of a fortress. After that she opened back the shutter on its
hinges. A breath of icy fog enveloped the flame, nearly extinguishing
it; almost on tip-toe, with both hands shading her eyes, Rousille
endeavoured to distinguish objects from out the darkness. Was he
there? She only saw the bare branches of two gooseberry-bushes trained
against the wall. There was no sound of footsteps; no sign of anyone;
she only heard the dull thud of mist-drops falling from the slates on
to the turf beneath. A minute passed.
Suddenly the branches were pushed aside, a dark head emerging from the
total darkness was framed in the window between the wall and the iron
bar. The face was pale, but the eyes laughing, half-closed, dazzled by
the candle-flame.
"I thought," said Jean Nesmy, "that you were not coming. I was chilled
to the bone. I was going!" He looked so radiant as he said it, his
eyes gradually opening, revealing the rapture of perfect delight.
Rousille, more grave, for she had within her the recollection of her
past meditations, said:
"We must talk quickly. Father has only just fallen asleep. If he were
to awake! If he were to come upon us!"
But Jean Nesmy seemed in nowise to share her fears. Nor did he look
about the room to see if all was in order. He only looked at Rousille,
so agitated under her little coif. The light placed between them
illuminated their eyes to the very depths.
"You are as pretty as ever," replied the lad. "One might well walk
miles to catch a sight of you! Mother Nesmy did not want me to come
on account of the expense; but I said to her: 'I would rather go
without my bread,' and it was true, my Rousille."
She could not help smiling.
"You always know how to pay compliments, Jean Nesmy; and really I see
no change in you."
"There is none," he returned, showing his white teeth.
And now she forgot all her previous uneasiness, and it seemed to them
both, as though they had never been apart, so natural was the
interchange of ideas; the candle quivered under the mutual stream of
question and answer.
"Tell me, Rousille, how are things going? Are you happy?"
"Not very. At La Fromentiere we have more sorrow than happiness. Now,
as you know, our master the Marquis has had all his furniture sold.
Such a pity!"
"Our nobles of Le Bocage would not have done such a thing," said the
_Boquin_, throwing back his head.
"Besides," resumed Rousille, "since Francois left us nothing goes
right. Driot is inconsolable at his absence."
"Even now?"
"Even now. We thought him so lively when he first came home. Well,
this evening he actually cried. Why could it have been? Was it fear
that the farm would be sold over our heads? Was it anything else?
With him one never knows."
"Perhaps he is thinking of a sweetheart about here?"
"I wish indeed it were so, Jean, for his sake and ours, because his
marriage would be the signal for our own. You see, all our hope is in
Andre. I have thought many a time, indeed why not tell you--every day
since the one on which you went: If Andre does not marry, my poor
Jean, I shall be quite white-haired before our banns are published in
your church and mine. Father will not let me go unless there is a
housekeeper here to take my place. And as for our coming to live here
with Mathurin--he hates us both too much. There would be bad blood at
La Fromentiere. Father would never put us on the farm with Mathurin."
"Does he ever speak of me when he is ploughing?" asked Jean.
"I never go into the fields," replied Rousille. "But one evening I
heard him say to my eldest brother, 'Do not speak ill of the _Boquin_,
Lumineau! I refused him my daughter, and in that I did well; but he
was a good worker, he had a love for soil.'"
Behind the iron bar the face of the former farm-hand coloured with
pride.
"It is true that I loved everything about the place for your sake,
Rousille. And so Andre will not marry?"
"I do not say that. He is still in such low spirits; but time will
cure that. We shall have him on our side, that good Andre; he spoke so
kindly to me the day of the letter. He promised to help me; but did
not explain in what way."
"Did he mean soon?"
"I think so," said Rousille, "for his manner was very decided, and he
was very sure about the step he was going to take."
Suddenly she lowered her voice--"Did you hear that?" she asked.
"No, nothing."
"Something moved in the bakery."
"Look at me, Rousille. Nothing moved," returned Jean.
Obedient, victorious over all fear for love of him, she bent once more
towards the window, even began to laugh as she said:
"It is easy to see that you have no fear of anything. Where were you
hidden, just now, before I opened the shutter?"
"Among the layers of straw. The wind was as keen as on one of my worst
wild-fowl expeditions; it stupefied me, and seeing no light I must
have fallen asleep for a while."
"Really? and what woke you?"
"Bas-Rouge, going after your farm-servant."
"Going after the farm-servant?" exclaimed Rousille in astonishment. "I
heard the dog bark, but I thought he was after a tramp, there are so
many about on these roads; or that he had recognised you----"
"You know very well, Rousille, that he never barks at me, since I used
to take him out with me when I went shooting. No, I am certain that it
was the farm-servant.... I heard the latch fall, and the distinct
sound of footsteps on the gravel at the back of the house. I tell you
it was the servant, or else your brother.... I am convinced that a man
went out from here."
She blanched a little and then drew herself up:
"No!" she replied, "Andre does not go out shooting like you; nor does
he go off to Chalons as Francois did! Can Mathurin have got up to spy
upon us while father was asleep? Oh, do take care of yourself, Jean
Nesmy! Listen!"
Seizing the candlestick from the window-sill, she held it out at
arm's-length towards the other end of the room, the light shining on
the polished furniture as she moved it.
"You are right, someone is moving about in the bakery," said Jean
Nesmy. Now the door was gently pushed from the outer side, and the
bolt shaken in its socket. Rousille grew white. But she had brave
blood in her veins, and still holding the light as far forward as
possible, she noiselessly crossed the room, cautiously slid back the
bolt, and flung open the door.
A shadow moving about in the room sprang towards Rousille, and she saw
it was Bas-Rouge. "What are you doing here--where do you come from?"
she said.
A rush of air came whistling in from the adjoining room. Had the outer
door not been fastened? The girl glanced towards the window, and saw
Jean Nesmy still there; then she went into the bakery: the straw
baskets, the kneading trough, the ladder reaching to the hayloft, the
faggots for next baking day, all was there; but the door leading into
the furthermost room, Andre's, was wide open. Rousille went on, the
wind nearly extinguishing the light which she was obliged to shade
with her hand. It blew in unimpeded from the courtyard. Yes, Andre had
gone out.... She ran to the bed; it was untouched.... A doubt seized
her that, at first, she repelled. She thought of Francois; of Andre's
tears that evening--his agitation....
"Oh, my God," she murmured.
Rapidly she stooped and lowered the candle to see under the bed where
Andre kept his boots and shoes; they had gone. She opened his trunk,
it was empty. Going back into the bakery, she clambered up into the
loft. There to the right, beside a heap of wheat, she ought to find a
little black portmanteau he had brought home from Africa. She lifted
the candle, the portmanteau was not there.
Everything pointed to the one fact. There was no manner of doubt
concerning the misfortune that had befallen them. Terrified, she
hastily descended the ladder, and unable to keep the secret, she
screamed:
"Father!"
A voice, muffled by the intervening walls, replied:
"What is it?"
"Driot has gone!" she cried, as she ran through the rooms. Outside the
barred window, her eyes seeking him, she thought she discerned a
shadow.
"Farewell, Jean Nesmy," she called, without stopping. "Never come back
any more. All is lost to us," and she disappeared into the kitchen, to
the door of her father's room.
Toussaint had sprung out of bed, and now came, barefoot, hurriedly
buttoning his work-day clothes over his night-shirt. Startled out of
his first sleep, only half understanding the purport of her words,
stern of countenance, he came forth into the light shed by his
daughter's candle.
"What are you screaming about?" he said. "He cannot be far off."
Then seeing her terrified face he, too, thought of Francois, and
trembling, followed her.
They traversed the whole length of the house, and on into Andre's
room; there Rousille made way for her father to enter first. He did
not go far into the room; he looked at the undisturbed bed, and that
sufficed to make him understand.
For a moment he remained motionless, tears blinding him; then,
staggering, turned towards the courtyard, on the threshold, clinging
to the doorposts for support, he took a long breath, as if to call
into the night, but only a stifled, scarce audible sound escaped him:
"My Driot!"
And the noble old man, struck by the bitter cold, fell backwards in a
swoon.
At that instant from the other end of the house Mathurin, swearing,
and striking head and crutches against the walls and furniture, came
struggling along.
"Lend me a hand, Rousille," he cried, "I must see what is going on!"
Rousille was kneeling beside her father, kissing him amid her tears.
The farm-servant, roused by the noise, came through the yard with a
lantern.