XVIAT HOME AGAIN
“WELL?” asked grandfather, as we drove away, “has everything really gone off well? Have you made a conquest of your aunts and great-grandmother? They dote on you, don’t they? Answer! they really dote on you?”
“Grandfather, they love me dearly; they really do. And I love them; you can’t think how nice and amusing they are, and good and tender, and not solemn a bit.”
“But do you think they realised what a wonderful niece we sent them?”
I remained unembarrassed, being accustomed from my earliest days to the broadest compliments. I answered simply:
“Yes, grandfather, they found your granddaughter wonderful.”
“You must tell us everything in detail. Your grandmother and I wish to know all that happened hour by hour, day by day, word for word, all, in fact, and even what you thought.”
“And dreamed?” I asked. “What an effort of memory I shall have to make!”
“We have been so lonely. Your father came once a week to talk you over with your grandmother.”
“And did the usual ‘family drama’ happen every time?”
“Of course, but it always ended happily, because when your father rose to take leave, either your grandmother or I would always say: ‘Dear me! how we must love that little woman, to be always quarrelling about her,’ and then we all said good-bye with a laugh.”
“I shall have to take seriously in hand the matter of reconciling my grandmother’s and my father’s ideas concerning me,” I answered so gravely that grandfather began to laugh mockingly.
“Nonsense!” said he, moving so suddenly that he dropped the reins. When he had picked them up, I grew angry.
“Who reconciled my aunts and my grandmother, if you please? Was it not I?”
“Beg pardon, my Emperor!” answered grandfather cracking his whip, “I forgot that we are all only simple soldiers.”
Then a rain of amusing jokes began. I was seized with grandfather’s contagious gaiety. He laughed so heartily and unaffectedly at his ownjests, that no one could help laughing with him.
Both my father and mother had come from Blérancourt to welcome me on the evening of my return; all were loud in admiration of my tanned face and hands, and were delighted to see me plumper, as well as much taller and stronger.
My mother, I suppose, was pleased, although she did not show it in her manner. I perceived that in her presence I should have to reduce considerably the report of the success of my mission, and I took good care not to repeat Marguerite’s saying: “Now that the ladies have told me that the money is to be yours, I shall have more courage to work and economise.” I knew from experience that it was best in any conversation with my mother to leave out the money and legacy question. Marguerite’s saying had touched me only in so much as it proved her love and devotion for me.
The moon shone clear, and as the weather was very dry, my father and mother did not fear the fog on Manicamp Common, so they started for home that same evening after dinner, having arrived much earlier than I.
The story of my transformation into a peasant the day after my arrival at Chivres, of the way myaunts worked out of doors, greatly amused my relatives during dinner. It was supposed then they had remained cockneys, for at Chauny they were always called “the fine ladies.”
“They really used to be most affected,” said grandmother. “They took no interest in household matters and would spend their time in the drawing-room, reading, doing fancy-work, and quarrelling among themselves.”
Just then I made a most unlucky speech which very nearly provoked the inevitable “drama.”
“Well,” I said, “I am glad to say that they have improved in every way. They take part in all that goes on, and I never heard a single quarrel or dispute during my two months’ stay; it was a change for me.”
“You are really very amiable to us,” replied my mother in a sharp tone. “If it was you who brought about this miracle, you can repeat it here,” said grandmother, who had no idea of losing her temper.
“Why, Juliette, how can you have such excessive, scandalous, dreadful, criminal audacity as to dare to imply that you have ever heard a single quarrel or witnessed a single dispute in your family either at Chauny or Blérancourt? In truth, you baby, your health is only skin deep; youare still suffering. Go to bed, my child, go to bed.”
You should have heard grandfather say all this in his shrill, lisping voice. He was perfectly serious and solemn, and irresistibly funny.
“I was wrong, I was wrong, a hundred times wrong, Sir Grandfather,” I answered, “I humbly beg pardon, I repeat. I collapse!”
I imitated grandfather’s tone so perfectly that even my mother smiled.
When my parents had left, grandmother instead of questioning me as I had expected, said kindly:
“Go and rest, darling, Arthémise will put you to bed, while we have our game ofImperiale. To-morrow, and the following days, you shall tell us all you have said, all you have done and seen.”
And so it was, for days and days I talked of nothing but Chivres. Grandmother was quite surprised that I should have so enjoyed myself in a place where she would have been bored to death.
During the last remaining month of my holidays I was much oftener in our large garden than in the drawing-room reading stories with grandmother.
A gardener was in the habit of coming three times a week, and, guided by Arthémise, he arrangedthe garden as he pleased. It was I now who looked after all the crops, and from that time he obeyed my orders. I had some autumn sowing done, and I began to read books telling about the culture of vegetables and the raising of fruit. The garden was admirably stocked with both. I chose one of the empty rooms for a fruit-store and had some shelves put up by the carpenter. Grandmother took no interest in these things; so she let me do as I chose with the gardener and Arthémise. During the whole of that winter we had ripe fruit on the table every day, and my grandparents were much pleased.
I suffered greatly in not having a room to myself and being obliged to share grandmother’s. I tried to keep it neat and clean, but grandmother upset it as soon as it was tidy. She cared nothing for the elegance of the frame, although she was so particular about the portrait, that is, herself.
When I was kept indoors by rain or bad weather, I tried to put a little order into the arrangement of the house. I ransacked certain drawers and cupboards, and left them more orderly than they had ever been before. To the rag-bag with all the rubbish! to the poor all that we could no longer use! Neither grandfather nor grandmother made any objections, for they were convinced that my activelife at Chivres had benefited me much, and that, provided I could create for myself a field of physical activity, they could all the better, and with scarcely any danger, set my head to work.
My grandparents’ house underwent a complete change in a fortnight. Fresh air, which was never allowed to enter the hermetically closed rooms, now blew in abundantly, and even broke a few windows. Arthémise and I scrubbed and rubbed and beat from top to bottom. I discovered in the garret some old vases and china, rather soiled by our dear pigeons, which I filled with prettily arranged flowers, and placed about the rooms.
Grandmother at last took some interest in the beautifying of our house. She would sometimes help us—not to clean, for that would have spoiled her beautiful hands, but to arrange.
She opened a cupboard for me on the first floor, and we found it full of beautiful gowns of dead grandmothers. Out of these I made table and bureau covers, to which grandmother added embroidery.
Grandfather enjoyed this luxury. The house seemed much more attractive to him. I owed it to his influence that grandmother allowed me to have a room to myself on the first floor, next toArthémise. A communicating door was made between the two rooms.
I selected from the garret, which was full of furniture, the pieces that I liked. I stole from grandfather a pretty Louis XV. chiffonier, in which I had always kept my dolls and their clothes. So far as I was able, I copied the arrangement of aunt Sophie’s room.
I discovered a large table on which I set out my school books and papers, and many times grandmother left her beloved drawing-room and brought her embroidery to my room while she gave me my lesson.
I would sometimes send her away, saying, “Grandmother, I want to collect my thoughts.”
This made her smile and she would sometimes tease me by staying; at other times she would go, saying to herself that, after all, for a child to think, even of nothing as it were, was still thinking, and that in my father’s mind and her own, their chief desire, as they had said when I was away, was to create in me an individuality, even supposing that individuality might be contrary to their own ideals.
These desires of thinking out my thoughts seldom occurred, however, and I was at that time so active and full of play that grandmother wasnot at all distressed at my occasional love of solitude.
My dreams were explained later on when I began to write poetry.
Thus my dual character was formed. I have always remained very full of life when with other people; yet at times I am eager for solitude.