hateful stream, which I detest now! O my child! I deplore the day that
your father conceived the idea of settling here. We were overflowed more
than once during the winter, and he had to begin his work all over
again. This affects him and injures him more than he is willing to
admit. His temper is becoming soured, and his health will suffer in the
end. And all on account of this river!"
"But don't you think that this new building and this damp air are bad
for your own health, mother?"
"I don't know at all, my child. I consoled myself for everything with my
flowers and the hope of seeing you again. But here you are, and you have
come to a bog, a sewer, when I had looked forward to seeing you walk on
a carpet of flowers and turf as you smoked your cigar and read! Oh! this
cursed river!"
When night came, Emile discovered that the day had seemed immeasurably
long to him, hearing the river cursed by everybody and in all imaginable
tones. His father alone continued to say that it was nothing at all, and
that six feet more of bank would bring the brook to its senses once for
all; but his pale face and his clenched teeth, when he spoke, denoted an
internal passion more painful to see than all the ejaculations of the
others to hear.
The dinner was dull and cold. Monsieur Cardonnet was interrupted and
left the table a score of times to give orders; and as Madame Cardonnet
treated him with boundless respect, the dishes were carried out to be
kept hot and brought back overdone: he declared that they were
detestable; his wife turned pale and red in turn, went herself to the
kitchen, took innumerable pains, being torn between the desire to wait
for her husband and the desire not to keep her son waiting, who decided
that dinner was a very bad and very tedious meal in that wealthy
household.
They left the table so late, and the fords were still so dangerous in
the darkness, that Emile was compelled to abandon the visit to
Châteaubrun which he had planned. He had described his reception there.
"Oh! I would go and call there to thank them!" cried Madame Cardonnet.
But her husband added: "You may as well do nothing of the kind. I don't
care to have you draw me into the society of that old drunkard, who
lives on equal terms with the peasants, and who would get tipsy in my
kitchen with my workmen."
"His daughter is a charming girl," said Madame Cardonnet timidly.
"His daughter!" retorted the master scornfully. "What daughter! the one
he had by his maidservant?"
"He has acknowledged her."
"He did well, for old Janille would have been sadly embarrassed to
acknowledge the child's father! Whether she's charming or not, I hope
that Emile won't take such a journey to-night. It's a dark night and the
roads are in bad condition."
"Oh no! he won't go to-night," cried Madame Cardonnet; "my dear boy will
not cause me such anxiety. To-morrow, at daybreak, if the river has
returned to its usual limits, will be all right."
"To-morrow then," said Emile, sorely vexed, but yielding to his mother;
"for it is very certain that I owe them a call to thank them for the
cordial hospitality I received."
"You certainly do," said Monsieur Cardonnet, "but that, I trust, will be
the extent of your relations with that family, with whom it does not
suit me to associate. Don't make your visit too long: to-morrow evening
I propose to talk with you, Emile."
At daybreak on the following morning, before his parents had risen,
Emile ordered his horse saddled, and riding across the still disturbed
and angry stream, started off at a gallop on the road to Châteaubrun.
VIII
GILBERTE
The weather was superb and the sun was rising when Emile found himself
opposite Châteaubrun. That ruin, which had seemed to him so
awe-inspiring by the glare of the lightning-flashes, bore now an
appearance of majesty and splendor which triumphed over the ravages of
time and the despoiler. The morning sunbeams bathed it in a rosy-white
glow and the vegetation with which it was covered bloomed
coquettishly--a fitting garment to be the virginal shroud of so noble a
monument.
There are in reality few châteaux with entrances so majestically
disposed and so commandingly situated as that of Châteaubrun. The
square structure which contained the gateway and the ogive peristyle is
of a beautiful design; the hewn stone used in the arch and in the frame
of the former portcullis is of imperishable whiteness. The façade of
the château stands at the top of the knoll, covered with turf and
flowers but built on the solid rock which ends in a precipice, at the
foot of which flows a torrential stream. The trees, rocks and patches of
greensward, scattered without order or regularity over these steep
slopes, have a natural charm which the creations of art could never
surpass. In the other direction the view is more extensive and more
grand: the Creuse, crossed diagonally by two dams, forms, among the
fields and the willows, two gentle and melodious waterfalls in its
lovely stream, sometimes so placid, sometimes so frantic in its course,
but everywhere clear as crystal and everywhere bordered by enchanting
landscapes and picturesque ruins. From the top of the large tower of the
château the eye can follow it as it winds in and out among the steep
cliffs and glides like a streak of quicksilver over the dark verdure and
among the rocks covered with pink heather.
When Emile had crossed the bridge which passes over enormous ditches
partly filled, their banks covered with tufts of grass and flowering
brambles, he observed with pleasure the cleanliness of that vast natural
terrace and all the approaches to the ruin, due to the recent downpour
of rain. All the fragments of plaster had been washed away and all the
scattered pieces of wood, and you would have said that some gigantic
fairy had carefully washed the paths and the old walls, screened the
gravel and cleared the passage of all the rubbish of demolition which
the châtelain would never have been able to have removed. The flood,
which had marred, spoiled, destroyed all the beauty of the new Cardonnet
house, had served to clean and renovate the despoiled monument of
Châteaubrun. Its immovable old walls defied the centuries and the
tempest, and the elevated site they occupied seemed destined to dominate
all the transitory works of later generations.
Although he was proud, as befitted a descendant of the ancient
bourgeoisie, that intelligent, revengeful, wilful race, which has made
such a glorious record in history and which would still be so exalted if
it had held out its hand to the people instead of trampling them under
foot, Emile was impressed by the majestic aspect which that feudal abode
retained amid its ruins, and he was conscious of a thrill of respectful
pity as he entered--he, a rich and powerful plebeian--that domain where
only the pride of a great name was left to contend against the real
superiority of his position. This generous compassion was all the easier
to entertain because there was nothing in the feelings and habits of the
châtelain either to invite it or to repel it. The excellent Antoine,
who was occupied in trimming fruit trees at the entrance to his garden,
placid, unconcerned and amiable, greeted him with a fatherly air, ran to
meet him and said with a smile:
"Welcome, once more, my dear Monsieur Emile; for I know who you are now,
and I am very glad to know you. Upon my word your face took my fancy at
the first glance, and since you overthrew the prejudices that Jean tried
to instill in me against your father, I feel that it will be pleasant to
me to see you often in my ruins. Come with me first of all to the
stable, and I will help you to fasten your horse, for Monsieur Charasson
is busy grafting rose-bushes with my daughter and we mustn't interrupt
the little one in such an important occupation. You will breakfast with
me this time; for we owe you a meal that we stole from you the other
day."
"I did not come to cause you more trouble, my generous host," said
Emile, pressing with an irresistible impulse of friendliness the country
gentleman's broad callous hand. "I wished first of all to thank you for
your kindness to me, and in the second place to meet a man who is your
friend and my own, and with whom I made an appointment for last
evening."
"I know, I know about that," said Monsieur Antoine, putting his finger
to his lips: "he told me the whole story. But he exaggerated his
grievances against your father, as usual. We will talk about that later,
however, and I have to thank you, on my own account, for your interest
in him. He went away at daybreak, and I don't know if he will be able to
return to-day, for he is more hotly pursued than ever; but I am sure
that his affairs will soon take a turn for the better, thanks to you.
You must tell me what you finally obtained from your father in the
direction of my poor friend's safety and satisfaction. I am authorized
to listen to you and to reply to you, for I have full powers to arrange
the terms of pacification; I am sure that any terms that pass through
your mouth will be honorable! But the matter is not so pressing that you
cannot breakfast with us, and I tell you frankly that I will not begin
negotiations on an empty stomach. Let us begin by feeding your horse,
for animals don't know how to ask for what they want, and we ought to
look out for them before we look out for ourselves, lest we forget them.
Look you, Janille! bring your apron full of oats, for this noble beast
is in the habit of eating them every day I am sure, and I want him to
neigh in token of good-will every time he passes my gate; indeed I want
him to come in in spite of his master, if he happens to forget me."
Janille, notwithstanding the parsimonious economy that guided all her
actions, unhesitatingly brought a small quantity of oats which she kept
in reserve for great occasions. She was of the opinion that they were a
useless luxury; but she would have sold her last gown for the honor of
her master's house, and on this occasion she said to herself with
generous shrewdness that the present Emile had made her at their last
interview and the one he would not fail to make her to-day would be more
than enough to feed his horse sumptuously as often as he chose to come.
"Eat, my boy, eat," she said, patting the horse with an air which she
strove to render manly and knowing; then, taking a handful of straw, she
set about rubbing him down.
"Hold, Dame Janille," cried Emile, taking the straw from her hands, "I
will do that myself."
"Pray, do you think I wouldn't do it as well as a man?" said the
omni-competent little woman. "Never fear, monsieur, I am as good in the
stable as in the pantry and the laundry; and if I didn't pay my visit to
the hay-rack and the harness-room every day, that little rattle-brain
_jockey_ would never keep monsieur le comte's mare in decent condition.
See how clean and fat she is, poor old _Lanterne_! She isn't handsome,
monsieur, but she's good; she's like everything else here except my
child, who is handsome and good too."
"Your child!" said Emile, suddenly remembering a fact which deprived
Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun's image of something of its poetic charm.
"You have a child here? I have not seen her."
"Fie, monsieur! what are you saying?" cried Janille, her pale and
glistening cheeks mantling with a modest blush, while Monsieur Antoine
smiled with some embarrassment. "Apparently you are not aware that I am
unmarried."
"Excuse me," said Emile, "I have so recently come into this neighborhood
that I am likely to make many absurd mistakes. I thought that you were
married or a widow."
"It is true that at my age I might have buried several husbands,"
rejoined Janille; "for I have not lacked opportunities. But I have
always had a dislike for marriage, because I like to do as I choose.
When I say _our child_, it's on account of my affection for a child whom
I saw born, as you might say, for I had her with me when she was being
weaned, and monsieur le comte allows me to treat his daughter as if she
belonged to me, which doesn't take away any of the respect I owe her.
But if you had seen mademoiselle, you would have noticed that she no
more looks like me than she does like you, and that she has only noble
blood in her veins. _Jour de Dieu_! if I had such a child, where could I
have got her? I should be so proud of her, that I'd tell everybody, even
if it made people speak ill of me. Ha! ha! you are laughing, are you,
Monsieur Antoine? laugh as much as you choose; I am fifteen years older
than you, and evil tongues have nothing to say against me."
"Nonsense, Janille! nobody dreams of such a thing, so far as I know,"
said Monsieur Châteaubrun, affecting an air of gayety. "That would be
doing me too much honor, and I am not conceited enough to boast of it.
As for my daughter, you certainly have the right to call her what you
please, for you have been more than a mother to her, if such a thing is
possible!"
As he uttered these last words in a serious, agitated tone, there
suddenly came into the châtelain's eyes and voice, as it were a cloud,
and an accent of profound melancholy. But it was incompatible with his
character that any depressing sentiment should be of long duration, and
he soon recovered his usual serenity.
"Go and prepare breakfast, young madcap," he said playfully to his
female majordomo; "I still have two trees to trim and Monsieur Emile
will come and keep me company."
The garden of Châteaubrun had formerly been on a vast and magnificent
scale like the rest of the domain; but a large part of it had been sold
with the park, now transformed into a grain-field, and only a few acres
remained. The part nearest the château was lovely in the natural
disorder of its vegetation; the grass and the ornamental trees, left
undisturbed in their vagabond growth, revealed here and there a step or
two and a few fragments of wall, which had been summer-houses and
labyrinths in the days of Louis XV. There, doubtless, mythological
statues, urns, fountains and so-called rustic pavilions had repeated on
a small scale the dainty and affected ornamentation of the royal
palaces. But now it was all shapeless débris, covered with vines and
ivy, lovelier perhaps in the eyes of an artist or a poet than it had
been in the time of its magnificence.
On a higher level, surrounded with a thorn-hedge to confine the two
goats that grazed at will in the former garden, was the orchard, filled
with venerable trees, whose gnarled and knotty branches, escaping from
the constraint of the pruning-knife and the espalier, assumed odd and
fantastic shapes. There was a curious interlacing of monstrous hydras
and dragons writhing under foot and over head, so that it was difficult
to walk there without tripping over huge roots or leaving one's hat
among the branches.
"These are old servants of the family," said Monsieur Antoine, breaking
out a path for Emile through these patriarchs of the orchard; "they bear
only once in five or six years; but then, such magnificent, juicy fruit
comes from that rich, but sluggish sap! When I repurchased _my estate_,
everybody advised me to cut down these old stumps; my daughter pleaded
for them because of their great beauty, and it was a good thing that I
followed her advice, for they give a fine shade, and although some of
them yield mighty little in a year, we are sufficiently supplied with
fruit. See this huge apple-tree! It must have been here when my father
was born, and I'll wager that it will live to see my grand-children.
Wouldn't it be downright murder to cut down such a patriarch? There's a
quince-tree that bears only about a dozen quinces a year. That's very
few for its size; but they're as big as my head and as yellow as pure
gold; and such a flavor, monsieur! You'll see them in the fall! See,
here's a cherry-tree that has a very good crop. Yes, the old fellows are
still good for something, don't you think? It's only a matter of knowing
how to prune them properly. A theoretical horticulturist would tell you
that you must stop all this development of branches, clip and prune, so
as to force the sap to transform itself into buds. But when a man is old
himself, his own experience tells him something different. When the
fruit tree has lived fifty years with everything sacrificed to increase
its bearing qualities, you must give it its liberty and hand it over for
a few years to the care of nature. Then it enters into its second
childhood; it puts out new twigs and leaves and that rests it. And when,
instead of a mere clipped skeleton, it has become a real tree again, it
thanks you and rewards you by bearing all you choose. For instance,
here's a big branch that seems to be of no use," he continued, opening
his pruning-knife. "But I shall respect it, for such an extensive
amputation would weaken the tree. In these old bodies the blood is not
renewed fast enough for them to stand operations which youth can undergo
safely. It's the same with vegetables. I am just going to take away the
dead wood, scratch the moss, and freshen up the extremities. Look, it's
very simple."
The artless gravity with which Monsieur de Châteaubrun immersed himself
in this innocent occupation touched Emile and presented a constant
contrast to what took place in his own home with regard to similar
matters. While a gardener with a large salary, and two assistants,
busily at work from morning till night, were not enough to keep his
mother's garden sufficiently neat and gorgeous, while she worried over a
rose bud that failed to bloom or an unsuccessful graft, Monsieur Antoine
was happy in the proud savagery of his _pupils_, and in his eyes nothing
was more fruitful and more generous than the will of nature. That
old-fashioned orchard, with its fine soft turf, cropped by the
hard-working teeth of a few patient sheep, allowed to wander there
without dog or keeper, with its hardy and capricious vegetation and its
gently undulating slopes, was a beautiful spot where no fear of jealous
surveillance interrupted one's musing.
"Now that I have finished with my trees," said Monsieur Antoine, putting
on his jacket which he had hung on a branch, "let us go and find my
daughter and have breakfast. You haven't seen my daughter yet, I
believe? But she knows you already, for she is admitted to all of our
poor Jean's little secrets; indeed, he is so fond of her that he often
goes to her for advice instead of me. Go on, _Monsieur_," he said to his
dog, "go and tell your young mistress that breakfast time has come. Ah!
that makes you frisky, doesn't it? Your appetite tells you the time as
well as any watch."
Monsieur Antoine's dog answered to the name of _Monsieur_, which he gave
him when he was pleased with him, and that of _Sacripant_, which was his
real name, but which Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun did not like, so that
his master only used it when hunting or by way of stern rebuke, when it
happened, as it very rarely did, that he committed some impropriety,
such as eating gluttonously, snoring when he was asleep, or barking when
Jean came over the wall in the middle of the night. The faithful beast
seemed to understand what his master said, for he began to laugh, an
expression of merriment very strongly marked in some dogs, which gives
to their faces an almost human look of intelligence and kindliness. Then
he ran ahead and disappeared down the slope toward the stream.
As they followed him, Monsieur Antoine called Emile's attention to the
beauty of the landscape that was gradually unfolded before them. "Our
Creuse also took it into its head to overflow the other day," he said;
"but all the hay along the banks had been housed, thanks to Jean's
advice, for he had warned us not to let it get overripe. Everybody
hereabout looks up to him as an oracle, and it's a fact that he has a
great faculty of observation and a prodigious memory. By the aid of
certain signs that nobody else notices, the color of the water or the
clouds, and especially the influence of the moon in the first fortnight
of spring, he can predict infallibly what sort of weather we are to hope
for or fear throughout the year. He would be an invaluable man for your
father, if he would listen to him. He is good at everything, and if I
were in Monsieur Cardonnet's position, nothing would deter me from
trying to make a friend of him; for it's of no use to think of making
him into an assiduous and well-disciplined servant. He has the nature of
the savage, who dies when he is brought into subjection. Jean Jappeloup
will never do anything good except of his own free will; but just get
hold of his heart, which is the biggest heart God ever made, and you
will see how, on important occasions, that man rises above what he seems
to be! Let Monsieur Cardonnet's establishment be endangered by freshet,
fire or any unforeseen catastrophe, and then he will tell you if Jean
Jappeloup's head and arms can be too dearly bought and sheltered!"
Emile did not listen to the end of this eulogy with the interest which
it would have aroused in him under any other circumstances, for his ears
and his thoughts had taken another direction: a fresh young voice was
singing, or rather humming, at a little distance, one of those melodies,
charming in their melancholy and artless sweetness, which are peculiar
to the country. And the châtelain's daughter, the bachelor's child,
whose mother's name was a mystery to the whole neighborhood, appeared at
the corner of a clump of eglantine, as lovely as the loveliest
wild-flower of that charming solitude.
Fair-haired and pale, and about eighteen or nineteen years of age,
Gilberte de Châteaubrun had, in her face as in her character, an
admixture of good sense beyond her years and her childish gayety, which
few young women would have retained in such a position as hers; for it
was impossible for her not to be aware of her poverty and of the future
of isolation and privations which was in store for her in that age of
cold calculation and selfishness. She seemed, however, to be no more
affected by it than her father, whom she resembled, feature by feature,
morally as well as physically; her fearless, amiable glance was marked
by the most touching serenity. She blushed deeply when she saw Emile,
but it was the effect of surprise rather than embarrassment; for she
came forward and bowed to him without awkwardness, without that
constrained and slyly-bashful air which has been too highly extolled in
young women, for lack of knowledge as to what it means. It did not occur
to Gilberte that her father's young guest would devour her with his
eyes, and that she should assume a dignified air in order to place a
curb upon the audacity of his secret desires. On the contrary, she
looked at him, to see if his face appealed to her as it did to her
father, and with ready perspicacity she observed that he was very
handsome without being in the least degree vain; that he followed the
fashions to a moderate extent; that he was neither stiff, nor arrogant,
nor presuming; in short, that his expressive face was instinct with
candor, courage and delicacy. Satisfied with this scrutiny, she at once
felt as much at her ease as if there were no stranger with her and her
father.
"It is true," she said, completing Monsieur de Châteaubrun's sentence
of introduction, "my father was angry with you for running away the
other day without your breakfast. But I understood perfectly that you
were impatient to see your mother, especially in view of the flood when
everyone might well tremble for his friends. Luckily, Madame Cardonnet
didn't get very much of a fright, we were told, and you lost none of
your workmen."
"Thank God, no one was killed at our place or in the village," Emile
replied.
"But your property was damaged a good deal, wasn't it?"
"That is the least interesting point, mademoiselle; the poor people
suffered much more in proportion. Luckily, my father has the power and
the inclination to repair many disasters."
"They say especially--they say _also_," rejoined the girl, blushing a
little at the word that had escaped her involuntarily--"that madame your
mother is exceedingly kind and charitable. I was talking about her just
now with little Sylvain, whom she overwhelmed with kindness."
"My mother is perfect," said Emile; "but, on that occasion, it was quite
natural that she should manifest much good-will toward that poor child,
but for whom I should very likely have lost my life through imprudence.
I am impatient to see him and thank him."