"Behind this eminence the sun
Would drop serenely, long ere day was done;
And one who climbed that height, might see again
A second setting o'er the fertile plain
Beyond the town, and glittering in his beam,
Wind far away that poplar-skirted stream."
Archbishop Trench.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking back afterwards, it seemed to Therese as if that soft July day
had been her last day of liberty; Octavie and Adolphe became terrible
taskmasters. The weather changed, it grew hot, sultry, oppressive; she
used to sit in the stuffy little room at Rue St Servan and gasp for a
breath of fresh air. "Adolphe, must you be all day about your theme?"
she would ask, a little too impatiently perhaps; and then Octavie would
hold her disagreeable little head in the air and reply, "Mamma does not
like you to correct Adolphe, mademoiselle."
She was not patient at all in these days. She hated the lessons and the
eternal mendings, and all the petty humiliations madame visited upon
her, enduring them only as alternatives for worse things. There must
come a day of escape, she thought; but her hope was beginning to grow
restless and feverish. Every morning she got up thinking something must
be heard of Fabien that day, and every day the weight in her heart
became heavier. She could not understand it. She was still so childish
in some things that she thought the good things must come, the hard go
away; I think she pictured Fabien as a kind of beautiful fairy prince,
at whose appearance Madame Roulleau and Monsieur Deshoulieres, and the
terrible children, and the great heaps of worn-out clothes, would die
away out of her life. She painted her own future in these colours until
it seemed absolutely to belong to her. But, although when misgivings of
its certainty obtruded themselves, she rebelled against them, I am
inclined to think that misgivings came more frequently as the weeks went
on.
After all, the mending was not so bad as the teaching. The clothes were
a burden, but they could not contradict her or make disagreeable remarks
like Octavie, or have Adolphe's fits of obstinate sulkiness. She was
not patient, as I have said, but she might have pleaded a certain amount
of excuse when she had but the choice of being called cross by the
children or remiss by their mother. Octavie--who was dressed in the
extreme of fashion, and had a sallow face, high strongly-marked
eyebrows, black eyes, and hair drawn up into a number of little curls at
the back of her head--kept a sharp look-out for poor Therese's
short-comings. "Mamma does not think Adolphe has improved in his
writing;" "Mamma expects that you will see that our rooms are always in
order, mademoiselle." When Therese could not smile at these speeches
they hurt her terribly.
Old Nannon came to Rue St Servan, and was duly acknowledged as the
girl's attendant whenever she went out. She and Madame Roulleau had a
preliminary skirmish, from which madame retired a little discomfited;
for, with all her simplicity, Nannon had no lack of shrewdness. In
spite of the spirit of contradiction which prompted it, Therese had not
made a bad choice. There was a fresh vigorous heart beating in the old
woman's bosom, an unconquerable fidelity, keen humour, clear wit; she
liked any thing young and pretty, and felt a great compassion for this
girl, who was not only young and pretty, but so friendless. Before a
month was over she would have gone through fire and water to serve her.
She served her better by the homely words she let drop. Every life has
its pathos and its poetry, whether we acknowledge it or not; Nannon,
with her hard fare and her weather-beaten face, was like the rest. Her
lover had been a soldier, had fallen out of the ranks in a long march,
and died of typhus in a hut by the roadside. It was months before she
heard of it--months during which she waited, and hungered, and hoped.
"And yet you lived?" asked Therese, looking at the brown face in wonder.
"_Si fait, si fait_," said Nannon, laughing and showing her white teeth.
"If people died of such things, mademoiselle, the world would never go
on as it does. And there was my sister to take care of besides; it
would have been very selfish to talk about dying."
This sister and her children seemed all the world to Nannon. It
appeared to Therese as if the whole burden of their existence fell upon
those broad old willing shoulders. Once she had asked what Mere Belot
did, and Nannon quite ruffled up at the question.
"If Mademoiselle were a mother she would know that is enough," she said,
reproachfully.
Therese could not understand her. Afterwards she found out by some
chance that Mere Belot was one of those incapable women who are always
taken care of, and toiled for, and shielded. There are poor queen bees
as well as rich ones, and her sister brought her as much honey as she
could scrape together, and pinched, and struggled, and fought for the
children, while Mere Belot sat in the street outside the house and spun
a little cotton yarn between her intervals of gossip, and accepted her
good things placidly. They came to her quite as a matter of course;
and, though it be but a poor little hive, it makes a great difference
whether you are the queen or the working bee.
Nannon had taken all the children into her faithful heart, but, perhaps,
she loved Jean-Marie the best. He had been a trouble ever since he was
born. He had been twice as long as the others in cutting his teeth, had
frightened them all out of their wits with croup and small-pox and
fevers, had broken his leg, and set the house on fire, and was for ever
being dragged out of scrapes by Nannon. So many things happened to him
that I believe she looked upon him as a hero at last. He was always
making fresh starts on the road to fortune, and trailing back again
before a week was over. This last start at Gohon's farm had carried him
quite a long way. He had been there more than a month: Nannon's pride
was excessive; she used to walk out through the waving cornfields, and
watch the farm for an hour for the happiness of seeing Jean-Marie bring
out the horses or fetch the cows. It was an innocent little triumph
very dear to her; and, perhaps, it was no wonder that she felt it hard
when M. Deshoulieres brought to light that misdemeanour with the
Cottereaus and Michault, which threatened to put an end to all her
triumphs. She did not know that it was M. Deshoulieres also who had
gone out to the farm the next day, and asked that the boy might have a
longer trial; she accused the doctor of having almost deprived
Jean-Marie of his situation; and Therese had all her baseless prejudices
against him confirmed by the old woman. It was very unfortunate,
because she might have escaped from the Roulleau tyranny if Nannon had
counselled her to appeal to M. Deshoulieres; but since his decision
against her boy, there was no harshness of which Nannon did not believe
him guilty.
So these two used to sit and talk on the hot, dry evenings, when Therese
could get away from her labour in the stifling little house. Nannon and
she would wander through the quaint old town, down the steep streets,
and so to the quiet river, whose murmur fell on her ears like the sound
of a comforting voice before she reached it.
She liked those evenings best when the sky was tender primrose colour,
and the dusky trees stood up against it in soft, shady, mysterious
masses, with strangely bright bars of colour gleaming through them.
There were disused fortifications, an old gateway, and a bridge; above
these houses jumbled oddly together clambering up the side of the hill.
She liked to watch the water slip calmly by, the leaves floating on its
surface, the long grasses under the bank breaking it into little brown
eddies. There were quiet shadows, shadows always comprehensible, never
terrible; shadows which stole gently down to the roots of the willows,
by which the river rolled along, catching their reflection on its
surface, and then suddenly lit up with a sheet of tremulous golden
light. A little rough causeway ran by the waterside, here and there a
stunted sapling thrust itself out as though to kiss the stream
that moved on regardless; here and there were little wooden
standing-places--_lavatoires_--for the washerwomen, who all day long
thumped and gesticulated and chattered shrilly, but in the evening left
the river to its own unceasing songs.
It was a very quiet, out-of-the-way little corner. The cornfields
stretched far away--great flat plains; a bird might cry in the distance,
the church bells clang, a peasant in his blouse go by and wish them good
evening; except these signs of life there was very little to disturb
them. Nannon thought it _triste_; but it seemed to bring refreshment to
Therese, who never before had liked silence and solitude. She was ill
at this time, I think; feverish, restless, and sick with hope deferred.
She had been waiting for two years, at her age a lifetime. Separation
had not before been so cruel as it was now that the great bar between
her and Fabien was gone, and only his presence was needed. Perhaps her
hopefulness would have sunk altogether under the strain if it had not
been for the river and Nannon.
Sitting on a stone by its bank one evening, as I have described their
doing, they were startled by seeing a figure coming along the narrow
causeway towards them. The sun had set behind the upper town; they were
too much under the hill to see the houses or the Cathedral spires, but
the rich autumnal sunset lingered in the sky, crimson patches and dark
purples on a background of tawny gold; there was a soft, breezy rustle
in the air. The figure came out of dusky shadows along the causeway,
and it startled Therese, because she saw at once it was not one of the
blue-shirted labourers, who, at rare intervals, came back into the town
by that path. When it drew nearer she recognised M. Deshoulieres. He
had been detained at a village, which lay not far from Charville, where
a little child had been ill. That afternoon it had died, and M.
Deshoulieres, who loved little children, was coming home touched and
softened. He had chosen this path, perhaps, because, although he did
not think about it in his heart, the river and the long grasses, and the
tremulous golden light, had their attractions also for him. He was
looking at the water, and when he suddenly came upon these two figures
sitting quietly there in the midst of the solitude, he could not refrain
from an exclamation of surprise.
"Mademoiselle Veuillot!" he said.
Therese did not know what to answer. Neither of them had expected to
meet the other here. She was half angry, half-frightened, lest this
innocent little enjoyment of hers should also be pronounced unfitting.
Both she and Nannon had risen, Nannon standing with her arms crossed
defiantly.
"We came here because it is so cool and so pleasant," said Therese,
looking beseechingly at her enemy. Surely the river might be spared to
her! "Is it late?" she said, suddenly conscious of the depth of the
shadows.
"A little," he answered dryly. In his heart he was wondering with a
little amusement at her fancy for solitude, and at the companionship in
which he found her. It seemed to him as if the silence and the shadows
were more fitting for a grave man like himself than for such a child as
Therese. In the waning light, in her black dress, she looked thin and
pale. "This is not a place for you to sit in so late. There is mist
from the river," he said. "You should keep on the higher ground."
"We do not often stay so late, do we, Nannon?" said Therese,
appealingly; "and it is so hot in the town."
Nannon, who represented the opposition to M. Deshoulieres, was nothing
loath to enter upon the field. "There is no harm in the river," she
said, with decision. "Monsieur would know that if he had lived in the
town as long as I have. If mademoiselle prefers the band and a little
distraction, she can always find it above there; but if she likes better
to come and sit in this seclusion, there is nothing to prevent it.
White mist does no one any hurt. It is the stirring up which brings the
fever," added Nannon, with a spiteful allusion to some sanitary measures
of M. Deshoulieres.
"You are coming back now?" he said, addressing himself to Therese,
without taking any notice of Nannon's speech.
Long afterwards she wondered at the clearness with which she remembered
every detail of that walk, the little rough, untidy path, the
rose-bushes growing out of the grey wall, the dog that stood and barked,
then the houses and the steep hot streets. At the time she scarcely
noticed them, but afterwards they came back. M. Deshoulieres was grave
and preoccupied; but once, when Nannon had lingered behind to speak to
some friend, he turned round and said, with a sudden smile and a twinkle
in his blue eyes,--
"So that is the companion you have chosen, mademoiselle?"
Therese murmured something, feeling horribly guilty: she wondered
whether he would guess that her sympathy with Nannon began in the
market.
"She is not a bad old woman," went on the unconscious Max. "She lets
herself be eaten up by that sister of hers, and she does not always tell
the truth; but she will be honest and faithful."
"I am sure she is faithful," said Therese, forcing herself to say
something, and thinking of Fabien.
M. Deshoulieres looked up quickly. "Is faithfulness a favourite virtue
of yours, mademoiselle?"
"It seems to me that it is the anchor of life," answered the girl in a
low voice.
He looked at her again with a little wonder. There was something almost
passionate in the tone with which she spoke those few words. His next
question came out abruptly.
"Does your present residence suit you? Are you sure that you would not
prefer a change?" Therese thought of the convent, and turned sick. "I
do not wish for any change," she said, hurriedly.
"You are content to remain where you are?"
It was a strange sort of contentment, Therese thought, with a quick
flash of self-pity; but the other place of refuge that was open to her
would be unbearable. She said yes to his question, and then despised
herself for the falseness of her answer. "Every place must be a little
sad to me, just now, monsieur," she went on, "for I belong to no one.
But I am glad to stay at Mme. Roulleau's."
He did not answer. She thought, perhaps, he had not listened to her
pathetic little explanation; she did not know that it had gone straight
for his heart. The pity that he had felt once or twice before became
more intense, more personal. Perhaps the time and circumstances helped
the feeling: the evening was soft, quiet, almost solemn; all his
sympathies had been called out that day by the little child's deathbed.
"Let me go to sleep," the little tired voice had said; there was no more
pain afterwards, except in the hearts of the watchers. The words came
back to him continually, with a vision of the tiny, wasted, flushed
face; any appeal would have touched him in his present mood, and Therese
seemed only an older child, with no one, as she said, to care for her.
He walked on, thinking silently, and she made a great effort to put a
question into words.
"Have you heard nothing yet of Monsieur Saint-Martin?"
"Nothing, nothing. One would have supposed that by this time a letter--
a message, at least--might have reached Ardron. It would seem that the
estrangement was serious. Why do people take so much trouble to forge
their own unhappiness, Mademoiselle Veuillot?"
There are many ways of doing that work, innocent, unconscious ways,
sometimes. At this very moment, M. Deshoulieres, with his big, manly,
pitiful heart, was laying it open and making it ready for the sharp
red-hot thrusts that came afterwards. We do the same, all of us, often.
We grind the weapons that are to wound us. But, thank God, the weapons
are not always evil, and such leave no poison in the wound.
"Mademoiselle, did you hear the clock strike?" said Nannon, bustling up.
"We must make haste, the days grow so short, and the virgins up there
do not carry their lamps lit."
"Up there" was the cathedral porch, where the parable is graven, and the
ten stand in their changeless attitudes of despair or bliss. M.
Deshoulieres, Therese, and Nannon passed under them. It was not so dark
as Nannon represented, but a sweet duskiness was veiling all the bright
tints; people sat outside their houses laughing and chattering with
their children; a few lights began to appear; in the distance was heard
the indistinct roll of a drum. Rue St Servan looked gloomy when they
turned into it: the light always left it early. When M. Deshoulieres
wished Therese good evening, he said, with a smile which she did not
see,--"Do not stay so long by the river another evening, mademoiselle."