"Have I not nursed, for two long wretched years,
That miserable hope, that every day
Grew weaker, like a baby sick to death,
Yet dearer for its weakness, day by day?"
Madoc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After that evening walk from the river Therese told Nannon she thought
that M. Deshoulieres was kinder than she had fancied. Nannon, whose
prejudices were invincible, shook her head.
"He may be kind when he pleases, I do not deny it, but he is as hard as
a stone."
"Every one is hard, I think," said Therese, sadly.
Her bright hopefulness was leaving her; there was so much irritation and
fret in her daily life, so much contact with low, mean natures, that it
had not power to hold its own. That future to which she looked forward
was not one which strengthened her to bear the present; it rather added
to the fever of impatience which consumed her. We want something
stronger than props of our own rearing when the dark days come with
their storms. Poor child, it appeared to herself as if she was for ever
stretching out her hands and groping vainly in the darkness for
something by which to hold. There was one figure among those which for
ages had stood outside the great Cathedral and called to the passers-by,
that she had grown almost to identify with herself--a woman who seemed
half in supplication, half in fear. It is probable that no one else had
seen that expression in the attitude. Those beautiful grave statues at
Charville are able to adapt themselves, with something of the power of
the Psalms, to the wants and wishes of those who love them. All around
are the great flat corn plains; every thing is made to speak of crops
and gains, getting and selling, buying of farms, proving of oxen. But
in the midst there rises, like an eternal protest, this glorious
Cathedral, with spires always pointing heavenwards, always typifying
what man's life may be amid all the world's care and turmoil. Life in
the world, not of it. Therese, who did not recognise this, who perhaps
had not lived long enough to search for types and shadows in the things
about her, was yet conscious of an increasing delight in wandering round
the old Cathedral. She fancied she was losing her props when, after
all, she was being trained to hold by those that would never fail her.
Madame Roulleau, in spite of her cleverness, almost endangered her
prospects by her treatment of Therese just now. Even her covetousness
was not so strong as her love of oppression, and her pleasure in
humiliating the girl by all possible means. Therese was made almost a
drudge in the household. Pride prevented her from complaining, but she
felt fierce and bitter against her oppressors. She might have appealed
to M. Deshoulieres, of whom she stood less in awe than before their
last conversation, had she seen him, but for a month or two they did not
meet. He came two or three times to Rue St Servan, but Mme. Roulleau
held there might be dangers in interviews, and contrived that he should
never see Therese. As it happened, also, they never encountered one
another elsewhere. Every one knows how in a large place you may be
months without once crossing the track of your nearest neighbour, and so
it was with Therese and M. Deshoulieres. Had he been resolute, of
course he could have effected it without difficulty, but, in truth, he
was not decided what to do. Deep in his heart that little vision of
Therese in his home, loved and cared for, had never stirred from its
place. If during the day, with its ceaseless toil and battling, there
was a veil drawn across the sweet, homely picture, he suffered his
thoughts to dwell upon it with an ever-deepening tenderness when the
quiet hours came. What held him back was the dread lest he might take
an unfair advantage of the girl's present loneliness. He knew nothing
of all that made it most bitter, of the weariness of her waiting, of the
physical hardship of her lot, but he knew from her own words that a
sense of her desolation was strong upon her, and he feared lest it might
lead her to accept another lot, afterwards to prove more unendurable.
He thought hardly of himself, he was so much older, so grave, so
occupied, that he dreaded hurrying her into a mistake. He longed to see
her, but with the determination which he exercised over longings, he
accepted the separation, believing that each day she might become more
reconciled to her position, or better acquainted with the depths of her
own feelings.
It was a noble, unselfish heart in which the unconscious Therese was set
as in a little shrine.
Does it make life sadder or brighter to think how much of this unknown
treasuring there is in the world around us? People who fancy themselves
least cared for sometimes have a wealth of affection poured out upon
them, of which they may never dream until the day when every thing is
made plain. One does not know whether it is comforting or saddening to
recollect this,--comforting, one hopes, because it is very sure that
such love cannot be wasted, whether it seems so in our eyes or not.
November came. It was not foggy, but there was a good deal of rain, and
the air was damp and chilly. The vines that had been so fresh and
blithe through the summer now disconsolately waved their straggling
helpless branches to and fro from the little balconies. The great
plains, in which lay hid the promise of next year's abundance, looked
brown and dreary without their wealth of golden corn. Therese used to
escape to her own room when the teaching was over, and shiver there
rather than sit with Madame Roulleau in the little ugly room with its
great stove filling up one corner. Her walks with Nannon were
necessarily fewer and interrupted, owing to the shortening days and the
rain, and she suffered for want of them. She grew pale and thin, her
step lost its elasticity, her mouth its smile. Was she never to escape
from this life, this weary, hateful treadmill? When depression seizes
on one point it assails us on all; those cruel words of Fabien's became
much more terrible to her than ever they had seemed before. She was
among those he had renounced; what was her love that it should hold him
through those years, across unknown distances? And then she would
determine that he was dead.
One day--while it was quite early, and Therese was working away at the
children, with a dreary sense of drudgery, which did them and herself no
good--Mme. Roulleau, who had gone to her bedroom to hunt for something
in a great press, was startled by her husband coming in upon her with a
white scared face.
"Zenobie--Zenobie, _mon amie_!" he said piteously.
"Well? What now?"
"That which we dreaded is arriving--Monsieur Saint-Martin! What will
become of us?"
"Is Monsieur Saint-Martin here?" inquired madame with perfect coolness,
although she turned a shade paler.
"Here! The saints forbid!"
"The saints are not likely to be on your side, so that I would not place
much confidence in their protection, if I were you," said his wife,
sarcastically. "Have the goodness, Ignace, to inform me what this great
event may be that you find so disturbing."
"_Mon amie_, do not be angry. I have come to you at once. But it is
ruin. Monsieur Deshoulieres has just been here; he has received a
letter--"
"Well?"
"A letter about our affair."
"Give it to me."
"How did she know I had it?" murmured the little man, half in
admiration, half in fear, as he took it from his pocket. Madame
received it in silence. The note consisted only of a few lines:--"If
Monsieur Deshoulieres desires tidings of Monsieur Fabien Saint-Martin,
nephew of Monsieur Moreau, recently deceased, let him find himself at
the Lion d'Or, at Pont-huine, on the afternoon of the 20th of November,
at three o'clock." No more. The post-mark was Paris.
"The twentieth! That is to-day," remarked madame meditatively. The
paleness had increased a little; her lips were set more tightly.
"One hundred and eighty francs a month," groaned Roulleau.
"And M. Deshoulieres is gone?"
"Gone? No. He has just received a message from the Prefet. Madame is
taken in sharp illness. He came here fretting and fuming on his way to
the Prefecture, as if this horrible Monsieur Saint-Martin were the one
person he most desired to see upon the earth. Did you not understand,
Zenobie? It is I who must go."
"You! I understand! How can I understand?" screamed madame, facing
round upon him in a flame of indignation--"when you come crying out that
you are ruined, all the time having the game placed in your very hands!
You have grown so crooked, you cannot even speak straight to your own
wife. Can you not think even so much as this for yourself! Are you
blind--a dolt--a baby--an imbecile!"
"Zenobie!" implored the little man in an agony.
"Yes!" she said, with a world of scorn in her tone; "that is your
_metier_, and all you are fit for--to take care lest any one should
overhear us. I cannot keep patience always. All the world may know
that Monsieur Saint-Martin is coming, if they will."
"Zenobie!"
"I repeat it. At what time do you go?"
"The train leaves in half an hour."
"Then do not interrupt me."
She turned away from him, and sat down. M. Roulleau, too glad to gain
peace, waited patiently. For five minutes there was silence, broken by
no sound but the heavy drip of rain; a distant rumble of carts; one or
two church clocks striking the hour. Then madame lifted her head, and
spoke in a measured, set voice, very different from her late vehement
outbreak,--
"You will go to the station, and take a ticket for Pont-huine," she
said; "but you will get out at Maury, the village on this side of it.
Make what inquiries you can about strangers at the Lion d'Or, and return
by the last train. It is probable that M. Deshoulieres will meet you
at the station."
"What then?" said the little man breathlessly. "You have seen nothing,
heard nothing, done nothing. No one has appeared at the Lion d'Or. If
you may venture an opinion, the whole affair is a silly hoax. Are you
capable of this?"
"Every day implicates us more," Roulleau said, wiping his face.
"There is no gain without speculation," replied madame, with one of her
scornful glances. "Would you prefer opening your arms to Monsieur
Saint-Martin?"
"He will ask so many questions."
"It is the more easy in such a case to shape your answers."
Little Roulleau was helpless under her inexorable will. His own sordid
nature prompted him one way, while his cowardice held him back. He
would have been a villain without his wife, but he would have dug
underground, putting out all his little crafty resources, to fence
himself round from discovery. She worked more boldly and for larger
ventures. The imprudences she committed kept him in continual alarm.
At the same time there was a fertility of resource, a vigour in her
undertakings, of which he acknowledged the value, and which were strong
enough to carry him along against his judgment. He remonstrated, but he
had never sufficient power to resist. She swept away all his little
terrified suggestions like a whirlwind. Ignace put on his yellow straw
hat, took his thread gloves and his umbrella, and went obediently to the
station. Madame was more polite that day to Therese than she had been
for months.
In the evening, Therese was sitting with the children, who were supposed
to be preparing their lessons for the next day. Octavie, always upright
and suggestive, was at the table, with a book open before her, on the
alert, as usual, to snub Mademoiselle Veuillot or her brother, as the
case might require. He was a very ugly little boy, with his baggy
knickerbockers and cut-away jacket, and a closely cropped little head;
but he was not so utterly detestable in Therese's eyes as Octavie. With
all his obstinacy and provoking ways he was not a worldly, unnatural
little being like her. He had not her patronising, superior ways; he
was not always watching and spying. I am telling you what Therese
thought, and it must be remembered that she was not in a patient mood at
this time: she was eating the bread of poverty, and it was made very
bitter. This evening Adolphe would not attend. He jumped up and down,
upset his chair, danced about the room. "Mamma thinks that Adolphe
already knows less of history than when he began it with you,
mademoiselle," remarked Octavie, pleasantly.
"I know more than you!" shouted Adolphe, indignant at this report, and
still careering round the table. "I know more than you, and more than
mademoiselle, and more than a great many people."
Octavie lifted her arched eyebrows.
"But yes, I do, and I could tell you about it, only I don't choose."
"Adolphe!" said Therese, sharply, "I am waiting."
"She always thinks that mamma tells her every thing," said Adolphe
triumphantly, "but she does not. She is only a little girl, is she,
mademoiselle? I know a great deal more."
"Madame Barry never permitted Adolphe to misbehave himself,
mademoiselle. It is only since you have been our governess," said
Octavie, furiously.
"She will not be our governess long," cried Adolphe, before Therese
could speak, "if M. Saint-Martin is come."
"Monsieur Saint-Martin!"
All the room turned round before Therese; she caught at the table to
steady herself. When she opened her eyes, the children were staring at
her, Octavie's sharp black eyes looking curiously, Adolphe a little
frightened. Therese cried out in a glad tone they had never heard
before from her,--
"Is Monsieur Saint-Martin come, Adolphe?"
Nobody answered. Octavie had nudged her brother, and he began to be
afraid that he might be punished for repeating words he had caught in
his mother's high-pitched voice as he passed the bedroom door. "All the
world may know that Monsieur Saint-Martin is coming," she had said; but
Adolphe remembered one or two sharp calamities which had befallen him
for repeating his mother's sayings when she was "in a tempest." He
would not speak.
"Adolphe, dear Adolphe, is he really come?" said Therese. Her eyes
looked like stars; she put out her hands imploringly; she wanted to hear
it again, but she believed it at once; she was so young that happiness
seemed the most natural thing in the world. Of course he was come; her
troubles were at an end; her heart felt as if it was dancing for joy.
He was come; every thing was changed, forgotten; her youthfulness leaped
up again; she looked kindly even on Octavie. "Where is he, dear
children, is he here?"
Adolphe shook his head emphatically; he did not know what to say.
Octavie, who believed that a great blunder had been committed, said,
patronisingly,--
"You should not listen to him, mademoiselle: he does not understand."
"Mamma said it," cried Adolphe stoutly, determined to assert himself.
But Therese was already flying down the stairs into the little _salon_.
"Perhaps he is there," she thought. Monsieur and madame, who were
standing together in the middle of the room, turned hastily round as
Therese came quickly in. It might have been the light, which was not
burning very brightly or clearly, that made their faces look yellow and
haggard, the notary's especially. Perhaps they, too, believed they
might have seen M. Saint-Martin, when the door opened so abruptly, and
Therese, flushed, smiling, radiant, stood before them.
"Is he here?" she asked joyfully, though a momentary glance showed her
that no one was in the room but monsieur and madame, who were speechless
at a question which seemed to echo back their fears. Madame recovered
herself instantly.
"To whom do you allude, mademoiselle?" she inquired with a politeness,
to which Therese was a stranger.
The girl patted the ground impatiently. "To my cousin--to M.
Saint-Martin. Adolphe tells me that he is come."
"That boy romances--he is a droll," said madame, holding up her hands
and turning to her husband, with a little show of parental interest.
"He means no harm; but he must not be allowed to make announcements so
unfounded without correction. I shall--"
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Therese, with a sharp cry of
disappointment.
"My poor mademoiselle," said madame, taking hold of her hand, "you must
not be angry with him, he is but a child; he has the heart of an angel,
but he talks like a boy without knowing what he is about. Do you not
suppose that I should have flown to tell you, had only Monsieur
Saint-Martin--whom we so desire--arrived?"
"And it is not so? Oh, madame, are you sure?"
All the radiancy had gone; her eyes filled with tears. Madame, who was
not yet sure what a day might bring forth, made her sit down, even kept
her hand. Therese let her hold it, she was too stunned to be altogether
conscious; a dull weight of disappointment had fallen upon her, from
which she could not at once rally.
"I will tell you, my child. Ignace, some one is waiting to see you,"
said madame, significantly; for the little man was still standing under
the yellow light, looking from Therese to the door, as if another person
might yet enter. "Now he is gone, and I will tell you all about it.
There has been a letter from some foolish person--my husband would
assure you that such idle jesters are never wanting--to hint that there
was news to be heard of M. Saint-Martin. Poor Ignace! He has a good
heart; he started off at once. `One should neglect nothing,' he said to
me, and he went away, deserting his business, and spending the day in
leaving not a stone unturned. He has come back so weary! I must go and
give him his soup."
"And he heard nothing?" asked Therese, faintly.
"Absolutely nothing. I guessed how it would be, but I would not
discourage him. You should not have had this disappointment, _chere_
mademoiselle, but who could have expected that little droll to have put
two and two together so cleverly?" said madame, smiling. "You find him
almost too quick, do you not? and he has not Octavie's admirable
discretion. He is impetuous, like me." Therese started up from her
seat. "I will go to my room, since it is all a delusion," she said, in
a harsh, changed voice.
"You must not think too much of this Monsieur Saint-Martin," said
madame, with a little assumption of motherliness. "Men come and go,
like the clouds; one can put no dependence upon them. And you shall not
lose your home, let Monsieur Deshoulieres say what he will. _Allons_, I
have a heart!"
The girl made no answer. She stood motionless until madame had
finished, then turned away, walked heavily out of the apartment, up the
stairs, and into her own little room. There, with a low, bitter cry,
which would no longer be repressed, she flung herself down by her bed.
The cry, which at first was inarticulate, shaped itself into words:
"Fabien, Fabien, I can bear this life no longer! Oh, why, why do you
not come? It is so hard. Why have I all this to endure?"