Therese turned and looked at him reproachfully. She thought him cruel,
hard. He was trying to befriend her after his own fashion, but she
found it difficult to believe. There are sore places in our hearts
which others touch all unconsciously, and when the pain darts through us
we feel as if they must know something of what they are doing.
"They were bitter words," she said, her voice faltering. "`I renounce
for ever my country, and the friends I left there.'"
"Bah!" said M. Deshoulieres, irreverently.
The girl flashed round upon him.
"You do not know Fabien!"
"Who were his friends?" he asked, without noticing her little outburst.
And then Therese glanced shyly at him, and calmed down. Here was his
best friend if this man would only understand. But he was terribly
prosaic, he would not understand. His questions travelled relentlessly
along the great dusty high road of facts, while her thoughts danced away
from them into sweet little flowery meadows, river-banks, a sunny
dream-land of what might, have been, what might be yet. In spite of her
trouble, an irrepressible smile quivered on her lips, which would have
puzzled the doctor, had he seen it. She answered demurely that the only
two of whom she knew were a certain Leon Fauchet, whom she believed to
have entered the army; and Claude Lamourette, who went out to China
within a few weeks of Fabien's departure.
It was all unsatisfactory, provoking. Even the doctor's impatient
spirit was forced to acknowledge that nothing could be done for the
present. His hands were tied by the terms of the will, he could only
wait and trust that such little strings as he had set going would some
day tug M. Fabien Saint-Martin into Charville.
Without any particular reason for the feeling, he disliked him heartily,
but, nevertheless, it was to be hoped he would come and deliver them
from this tangle of perplexities. There was no more to be said about
Fabien in this interview, but Therese's future remained to be settled.
M. Deshoulieres fidgeted and fussed on his chair.
"Is this house agreeable to you? Would you like to stay?" he said at
last, shooting out the words quite suddenly. Therese, who had been the
one most troubled in the conversation, grew self-possessed when she
found her own prospects under consideration.
"Do you mean, like to live here?" she asked. "It would do as well as
any other place."
"You would not prefer the convent?"
"Oh, Monsieur, not--not the convent!" she exclaimed, with all the
trouble returning. Her grey eyes dilated, she put out her hands
imploringly.
"No one will force you," said M. Deshoulieres, in a kind, reassuring
voice, but he did not understand this sudden terror. Looking upon it as
a natural retreat for unmarried girls, he had thought it not unlikely
she might herself suggest it. He was sorry that she shrank from it, and
it surprised him a little. Nevertheless, had she but known it, she was
quite safe from any attempt to thwart her inclinations; but she did not
know it. Her early experience of her uncle's unrelenting will led her
to expect everywhere the same harshness, the same determination. What
M. Deshoulieres had once suggested he might at any time attempt to
oblige her to follow out; and to be buried in a convent, to lose all
hope of seeing Fabien, of hearing a word here, a word there, a rumour of
his whereabouts--to lose this was to twenty-year old Therese like losing
life itself. She would have preferred any hardship to this prospect,
which had hung over her while her uncle lived, and was, probably, only
prevented from taking shape by a certain half-contemptuous indulgence of
his wife's wishes, and after her death by a softening consciousness of
his own failing health. Now it surged up before her again; M.
Deshoulieres' words could not calm her fears.
"Only let me stay here," she entreated.
He looked at her a little keenly. It was something new to have any one
dependent upon him, half pleasant, half puzzling--then he thought of his
patients and jumped up.
"That is soon settled, mademoiselle; I will speak to Madame Roulleau,
and then you can arrange things as you please. Pardon me now, for my
time is not my own."
There were no difficulties with the Roulleaus; M. Deshoulieres went
away from the house rather pleased with his own management. Therese was
provided for, for the present; he had satisfied himself upon one or two
points, had learned also that she did not care for Fabien. Poor stupid,
blind Max!
Monsieur and Mme. Roulleau lost no time in going to Therese when once
the doctor had quitted the house; madame led the way of course, but she
was a little changed to Therese, as the latter saw at once. Hitherto
she had been almost cringing in her manner, now she had the air of one
who permits herself to be persuaded against her better judgment. She
was a woman of about fifty, with a sharp, puckered face, a nose pinched
and slightly hooked, a long upper lip, black hair strained tightly
backwards, and hands which were long, lean, covetous-looking. Some
people's hands take you into their owner's secrets, before their faces
have let out any thing. Mme. Roulleau's were of this kind. You might
notice a stretching, a little involuntary curve of the fingers' ends, as
if they longed to be grasping something. It struck Therese again as she
stood before her in the middle of the room in a kind of linen jacket,
drawn in round the waist, and the girl hardly understood at first that
M. Roulleau was speaking, she could not help watching madame's hands
with a sort of fascination. M. Roulleau coughed and spoke a little
louder.
"Our excellent friend, Monsieur Deshoulieres, has made a proposal,
mademoiselle, I had the pleasure to observe, which would relieve him, he
says, from an embarrassment. Without doubt he has confided it to you.
Now, madame and I could receive no pleasure so profound, so grateful to
our hearts," continued the little man, becoming suddenly enthusiastic,
"as that we should experience by assisting our excellent doctor to the
very extent of our means; but--"
"This is impossible," said madame, sharply.
"_Mon amie_!" remonstrated the notary, with an appealing gesture.
"Impossible!" reiterated Mme. Roulleau. "I know you, Ignace; you are
as weak as an infant over your ideas of friendship; but I am a mother.
I think of my Adolphe, of my Octavie, defenceless little ones! I cannot
consent to burden our family with another load. Mademoiselle must seek
a home elsewhere."
Therese started like a guilty thing. Up before her rose the grim walls
of the convent, Fabien seeking her outside, she shut in, separated,
unconscious of his neighbourhood. Peace might be there--repose; her
untrained heart cried out passionately for other things. "There is the
convent," said madame, watching her. She had heard from M.
Deshoulieres how his suggestion had been received.
"Let me stay here. Do not send me away," said poor Therese, with
imploring eyes.
"It is not my heart," answered madame, trying to be pathetic; "it is the
cost, the extras we must provide."
"I can live upon so little," urged the girl, turning towards the little
notary.
"Zenobie!" he exclaimed, as if with a sudden impulse, "it is useless--I
must yield!"
"Imprudent man!" replied madame, keeping up the little farce with great
vigour; "do you forget our miserable means?"
"I forget nothing. We must stint ourselves--I know it. Adolphe and
Octavie must suffer--I know it. What then? When friendship and
compassion call, I cannot shut my heart. Mademoiselle, you have
conquered. Remain."
He spoke with a grandly tragic air. Therese relieved, astonished, all
at once, could not credit her ears. It seemed impossible that the
little man should assert himself in this manner against his wife, who
cast up her hands, and cried out again at his imprudence. She tried to
murmur thanks, but M. Roulleau, in his unwonted energy, waved them
aside.
"There is one point," he went on, "in which I am sure mademoiselle's
delicacy of feeling will unite with our own. It would desolate Mme.
Roulleau and myself, were our admirable M. Deshoulieres to have any
idea of the difficulties this little arrangement may entail upon us.
Whatever the world may say, he has not the means to assist as his
generous heart would desire, yet without a question he would insist upon
doing so. What then? The contest would lacerate us, we should not
consent; mademoiselle would again have to seek a home. No, no, our
friends may blame us--bah! one must follow impulse sometimes!"
"How good you are to do this!" Therese cried out gratefully. She had a
generous heart, and it smote her for not having sufficiently valued the
little man. When the two had gone away, monsieur still heroic, and
madame injured, she felt as if a great dread had gone with them. Her
heart sang a little song without words--a song all about Fabien, and
constancy, and meeting. Wonderful things grew up before her; sober
people would have laughed or cried, as the case might be, could they
have heard her music. Therese was in that enchanter's castle, wherein
most of us wander for a little while, at some time or other, listening
to the songs which are never sung so sweetly elsewhere.