PART I
ITHE VINTAGE
FROM the summit of the hill the voice of Mr. Francis Roquevillard came down to the grape-gatherers, who, ranged along the vines on the hillside, were lightening the stalks of their dark fruit.
“The night’s coming. All together now! One more good pull.”
It was a benevolent voice, but it had an accent of command. It made every finger nimbler at the sound of it; even the shoulders of those labourers that had begun to loaf bent again to work. Good-humouredly the master added:
“In the morning they are as swift as swallows, and in the afternoon they idle and chatter like a lot of jays.”
The remark called forth general laughter.
“Yes, Squire.”
They never addressed the master of La Vigie in any other way than that, adding oftener than not his title of lawyer. La Vigie was a fine estate, comprising woods, fields and vineyards in a single holding, at the other end of the canton of Coquin, two or three miles from Chambéry. You reached it by following a country road, and crossing an old bridge built on arches over the deep waters of the river Hyère. The grounds commanded a view of the Lyons road which used to join Savoy and France, leading across the freestone hills of the Echelles. Its name, the Look Out, was taken from a tower that once crowned the round hill, but of which now no trace remained. The estate had belonged for several centuries to the family of Roquevillard, who had added to it little by little, as the country house and the outbuildings erected bit by bit testified, a group of somewhat questionable harmony, but expressive nevertheless, like some old face on which the vicissitudes of a long life are traced. Here was written the past history of a strong race, faithful to its native land. The Roquevillards had been, father and son, for generations, people of the law. They had produced judges and leaders of the bar, as well as presidents of the ancient senate of the province, and had given to the new court of appeals a councillor who had refused all advancement to die at home. Nevertheless, the country persisted in regarding them all indifferently as just lawyers, and no doubt found in this title some sense of mutual protection. Nearly forty years of practice, an exact acquaintance with the law, a warm and vigorous eloquence, gave the present proprietor a particular title to this popularity.
The regular alignment of the vineyard made it easy to oversee the gathering of the harvest. Already the tints of the leaves began to hint of October, and on the hills a more vivid earth opposed a paler sky. The various levels were distinguished more clearly than before by their new colours: La Mondeuse green and gold, the Grand Noir and the Douce Noire green and purple. Among the bare branches, the sombre patches of the grapes caught the eye. With knives open and dripping hands, the vintagers, prompt for the work of sacrifice, renewed their efforts, handling the grapes as if they were sacrificial victims, severing them with one sharp stroke and casting them into the baskets. The women one and all had raised their skirts, gathering and fixing them behind in order to be more free in their movements on the heavy soil, and wearing a motley handkerchief or scarf knotted round their heads to keep off the rays of the hot sun. From time to time some one of them, straightening up, would rise from the sea of branches like a salmon coming up to the surface a moment, and then plunge down again. Some among them were old women, knotted and wrinkled, slow and stiff in their joints, capable, nevertheless, of great endurance and with eyes always on the watch; they were not regular employees any longer and were struggling all the more to keep their last jobs. There were young women of twenty, more adroit and lively, exposing their faces and their bare forearms fearlessly, safe in the coat of tan that protects the flesh from a too caressing sky. There were young girls, too, immature as yet, and less persistent, changing their places, disturbing the ranks or sitting back quite simply, with the gaiety of school-girls on vacation, as supple and flexible as the vines they handled. There were even little children under care of mothers who could not leave them at home, gathering grapes on their own account, scampering about and besmearing lips and cheeks with juice like precocious bacchantes.
On the path, about half-way up the hill, which divided the estate and facilitated its cultivation, the waggon, harnessed to two red oxen, with horns trained back in the form of a lyre, waited patiently for the moment of moving toward the wine-press. The men loaded it gravely. You did not hear laughter from them like the women, but only the exchanging of brief directions now and then. The younger of them wore white caps and flannel belts that gave their bodies full play, an Alpine huntsmen’s fashion much imitated among the young people of Savoy. Two of them would pass a staff of strong wood through the handles of the overflowing bushel basket, raise it to their shoulders, and, giving their burden a slight rocking motion, place it in its turn upon the truck. One old man with a grey beard, who stood in the vehicle and directed them, finished the crushing of the grapes in the baskets that were already filled. Every now and then he would raise himself to his full height, his hands red and dripping with the blood of the vines.
Opposite La Vigie the shadows of evening were creeping up the slopes of Vimines and Saint Sulpice, coming nearer to the range of Lepine which received the setting sun, and on down the twisting valley of Saint Thibaud de Coux and the Echelles. But the light flooded the vineyard with purple and gold. It showed forth the lines of the women, turned their plain kerchiefs into aureoles, caressed the oxen’s horns, enveloped the grey beard and the ruddy face of the head cultivator in the waggon, illuminated the energetic features of Mr. Roquevillard beneath his hat brim, and still further up flashed on the proud steeple of Montagnole, to rest at last audaciously, like a crown, on the legendary rock of Mount Granier.
The workers, forming a group round some branches that had been set aside and saved, were busy gathering a few last grapes. One more basket was hoisted up, while the voice of old Jeremiah in the waggon announced in triumph:
“There we are, Squire.”
“How many cart-loads have we?” inquired the master.
“A dozen.”
“It’s a good year.”
As the oxen began to move off, followed by all the band of workers, he added:
“Now it’s my turn. This way, everybody.”
With their baskets on their arms and knives or bill-hooks in their hands, the workers climbed to the top of the hill and gathered round Mr. Roquevillard. He planted his iron-shod cane in the ground, and, taking out of his pocket a little bag, began to count money from it, mostly coppers, with some pieces of silver, whereupon even the most talkative of the women stopped. It was a solemn business, this get ting paid. Behind the gathering the windowpanes and slate-roofs reflected the flame of the sun like mirrors.
Friendly and familiar, Mr. Roquevillard called each worker by name, addressing some of them even with affection, for the oldest of them he had always known by sight, and the younger he had been acquainted with from childhood. To the wages of their day’s work he added a pleasant word in every case, and each acknowledged it in turn with a “Thank you, Squire.”
One or two of them who had seemed a little lazy during the day got a bit of blame, pronounced in a pleasant tone, but showing, nevertheless, that the master kept his two eyes open. Even the children, who had paid themselves with fruit as they played, got a few coppers from Squire Roquevillard, who loved them.
“Those that have received their pay pass to the left,” he said, in the midst of the proceedings. “I don’t want to begin again indefinitely.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea, though,” rejoined a fine-looking young woman of eighteen or twenty years.
She wore no kerchief on her head, as if to face the daylight the more openly with her youth. Her hair, a little disarranged, fell forward. Her mouth was large and her expression rather common, but she had a look of health, bright eyes, and in especial a golden tint, as of full white grapes that are reddened by warmth till they seem full of the elixir of the sun. Mr. Roquevillard stared at her.
“How fast you’ve grown, Catherine!” he said. “When are they going to marry you off?”
She reddened with pleasure at this public notice that was taken of her.
“Wait and see!”
“Well, well! You’re not bad looking, Catherine.”
And with the money that he handed her he joined a bit of counsel, putting it quite seriously:
“Be good, little girl. Virtue’s worth more than beauty.”
She promised it unhesitatingly:
“Yes, Squire.”
As the end of the line was reached the master inspected his troop and demanded:
“Is every one satisfied?”
Twenty happy voices replied, thanking him.
But one of the children pointed with his finger to an old woman who stood apart, embarrassed and discomfited.
“Mother Fauchois.”
The child’s words passed unheeded, and no one interfered, as if the old woman deserved no salutations.
“Well, now, good evening, all of you,” responded the ringing voice of Mr. Roquevillard. “You’ll reach Saint Cassin and Vimines all right before dark.”
“Good-bye, Squire.”
Standing quiet at his post of observation he saw the shadows of the workers, dark against the sunset, grow smaller and then disappear. Their voices rose to him from below. They separated into two groups, those from Vimines and Saint Cassin, respectively. These latter, whose path lay to the left, began to sing: a rustic chorus with a long-drawn close. Already the sun just touched the mountains. At the master’s side old Fauchois never stirred, claiming nothing.
“Pierrette,” said Mr. Roquevillard abruptly.
She thrust her head forward, showing features not so much old as sorrowful and broken.
“Yes, Master Francis,” she murmured.
“Here are one hundred sous. Go home and have some good soup.”
“It’s three days’ work,” said the poor creature, staring at the crown piece that lay white in her shrivelled hand, “and I’ve only earned one.”
“Take your pay, always. And your daughter. How’s she?”
“She’s gone to Lyons.”
“Does she work there?”
The old woman let her two arms fall at her sides, and said nothing.
“She must work,” said Mr. Roquevillard.
“Since her sentence she can’t find a place. Who wants a thief?”
The lawyer pleaded the circumstances of her case in extenuation. “She stole from thoughtlessness, coquetry, vanity. She’s not really bad. At her age she’ll turn over a new leaf. What does she live on?”
“And what do you suppose she lives off? Men, of course.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because once, at first, I sent her a little money order to help her. She sent it back to me, with another, a big one, which I burned up.”
“You burned it?”
“Yes, Master Francis. It was the wages of shame.”
And her anger straightened up her peasant form once more, making it seem menacing in the full light, her hands clenched like an accusing destiny.
“I don’t see how I ever had her. There have never been anything but good people in our family. I’m ashamed now.”
“It isn’t your fault, Pierrette.”
She shook her head, with an air of conviction: “It’s always the fault of the family. You know that. You said so yourself.”
“I? When?”
“Yes, once before me, at Julienne, before the conviction. It worried me even then. And I brought her to see you one day.”
“I remember. And what did I say to her?”
“That when one had the good fortune to belong to an honest family, one ought to respect oneself all the more for it. Because in families everything is common property, land and debts, good conduct and bad.”
“Still, no one can throw a stone at you.”
“People do, though, just the same. And they’re right. Lucky enough I lost my husband before it all happened.”
“He would have protected you.”
“He would have killed her.”
“And you, you love her just the same?”
“She’s my child.”
“Well, well, Pierrette. Don’t be discouraged. So long as one isn’t dead, there’s nothing to be lost. Go on home. I’m going to the presses now, to make sure the vats are all right.”
“Thank you, Master Francis.”
She had worked for the household at the Look Out from time to time, helping with the washing as well as at vintages, or even occasionally in the kitchen, so that she exercised the servants’ privilege of using his first name.
When she had gone Mr. Roquevillard made no haste to move. He lingered, taking in with a loving eye all the fine land that stretched about him: the disburdened vines, whose purple and gold would live for him again in his joyful wines, the fields twice tilled, the orchards, the little nameless stream beyond them that separated the cantons of Coquin and Saint Cassin, the woods of oak and beeches, red and white, their colours shaded off by autumn into a pale bouquet. In these lands and the varied cultivation of them he read in this quiet hour a history not of the seasons, but of his own family. Such and such an ancestor had bought this field here, another had planted that vineyard; and he himself, had he not passed the boundaries of the canton when he acquired those woods that were so crowded now they called for cutting? Turning toward the farm buildings, he could see the first primitive cabin, changed now into a stable, which the first Roquevillards, honest peasants, had built. He contrasted it with the present large and substantial dwelling blazing with Virginia creeper. It was the same race, abiding in the same place, fortified by a past of honest labour and economy. He paid homage to it, recalling the words of old Fauchois:
“It’s always the fault of the family.”
His own race, moreover, had given the country men capable of serving the republic, as useful there as they had been in the administering of their own affairs. Thus the generations helped each other to a common prosperity. Had not the earliest of them all prepared his work for him? This land that he was treading on they had coveted and earned before him. This wide view had thrilled and exalted them as it thrilled him. With some difficulty he detached his gaze from his own domain and prefigured things as they must have seen it, the combination of lines and tints that made up the landscape, and on which their sense of it, like his own, must have depended. For though cultivatism may modify the immediate appearance of the land, men’s hands change nothing of its splendour and extent: they add only certain human marks, a roof with smoke above it, telling of the sweetness of a hearth, a path or hedge, memorials of the social life, a bell tower that speaks of prayer.
Alone on the hillside he joined to the beauty of the evening the pleasure of communion with his race. He felt that the obscure past had given an importance to this corner of the earth. Opposite to him, the chain of Lepine, its monotony broken by the summit of the Signal, was edged with red. His gaze descended to the plain, followed a moment the graceful, flowing range of the Echelles, to which the last spurs of the mountains seemed to act as escorts on either side, then rose again to the indentations of the Corbelet, Joigny and Granier, and returned again to the hills nearer by, to the storeyed valleys and their more harmonious curves. In this bit of broken nature, hard and soft by turns, he retraced the characters of his parentage—the audacity of his grandfather, who bore arms during the Revolution, the nonchalance of his father, lapsing into mere philosophy and contemplation, and letting his sacred patrimony become compromised almost unawares.
“Not one of them,” he was thinking, “but could thus behold the spectacle of the setting sun from this place. One day, when I am no more, one of my children will take up these comparisons again—my children, who will continue our work, people of means and worth.”
From the past that buttressed him he made out the future in security.
Absorbed in these reflections, he did not see the woman’s form that had left the house and was now coming toward him. It was a woman already aged, with a dark shawl thrown over her shoulders, and using a cane as she walked, with an air of great lassitude and exhaustion. Her face, as you saw it in the evening light, must once have been beautiful. The years had chastened it without taking from it a certain expression of purity, which surprised one at first and then attracted. It was the visible imprint of an upright soul, purged of all evil, even a little mystical.
“Are they not coming yet?” asked Mrs. Roquevillard of her husband.
“Yes, Valentine; there they are.”
Both understood that they were speaking of their children. He pointed but for her at the foot of the declivity, on the upward path, a numerous group. At the head of it came two babies, whom their grandmother recognised at once:
“Peter and Adrienne. They are taking the short cut. I don’t see little Julian.”
“He has probably good hold of his Aunt Margaret’s hand. He never leaves her.”
“Of course. I can see him between Margaret and her fiancé. He’s keeping them apart, the naughty boy. And his mother, where is she?”
“She’s coming behind them, quietly as usual, with her brother Hubert.”
“Our oldest son. Can you make out his decoration?”
Mr. Roquevillard smiled, and glanced at his companion. “How could you, from this distance?”
She laughed with him at this, graciously.
“There is a large red ribbon on the mountain.”
“And you read in the sky: ‘Hubert Roquevillard, twenty-eight years old, lieutenant of marines, decorated for bravery in war, recommended for promotion, campaign in China, defence of Pei-Tung.’”
“Indeed, I do,” she agreed: “I can read it all quite distinctly.”
She scrutinised the path again. “And Maurice. I don’t see Maurice.”
“He’s further back, I think, with some one else.”
Mrs. Roquevillard, satisfied, placed her hand on her husband’s shoulder.
“That must be our son-in-law, Charles Marcellaz. The roll is complete. I count them always, just as I did when they were little—Germaine, Hubert, Maurice, Margaret.”
“And Felicie was always absent,” he said.
A shadow darkened his features: he could never accustom himself to the absence of his second daughter, now a Little Sister of the Poor across the seas in Hanoi. Mrs. Roquevillard leant more heavily on her husband’s arm.
“No, Francis, she’s not so far from us. Her thoughts are with us. I know and feel it. Hubert, who saw her on his way back from China, found her happy. And then, one day, we shall all be united.”
He was afraid of his feelings, and began counting the approaching group again.
“That’s not Charles coming with Maurice,” he said. “It’s a woman. They have left the short cut. They’re spreading out.”
“It’s Mrs. Frasne, perhaps. Do you see her husband?”
“Yes, it’s she; but I don’t see the notary.”
“He’ll come up later with Charles. Their studies keep them till six o’clock.”
“The Frasnes dine here this evening, don’t they?” he asked.
She seemed to make excuses for it as for a fault.
“Yes. They often ask Maurice there, and he begged me to invite them.”
They were silent a moment, both with the same concern.
“I don’t like that woman,” she said at last.
“And why?”
Mrs. Roquevillard fixed her clear eyes on the sun set.
“I don’t know. We’ve no idea where she came from, and tremble to think how far she’ll go. She’s not good looking, but just the sight of her makes the mothers worry for their sons, and the wives for their husbands.”
“What a pity,” he said. “Who’s been talking to you about her?”
“Nobody. All I know I have guessed at. Those who pray much are not always the worst informed. She has strange eyes, dark but with fire in them. She frightens me.”
“Ah! I see. Well, people in the village do talk about her and our son.”
“Maurice should be warned,” said his mother. “He should be warned at once.”
“But, my dear, how shall we go about it? We are not certain of anything. Gossip and talk, what do they signify?”
“It isn’t the gossip. I feel trouble coming. I am sure of it. He is in some danger.”
“Sometimes combating a love affair only brings it to a head,” Mr. Roquevillard replied. “You know that. You consented to having the Frasnes asked here. Besides, young people don’t tolerate any meddling in their lives, Maurice least of all. He’s very proud. He’s not twenty-four yet, and a doctor of law. He has complete confidence in himself. He has absurd theories on the right to be happy, the necessity of one’s own personal development. Paris sends them back to us more refined, but rebellious. It takes experience to make them really wise.”
“You’ve been worrying about it, too, then?” said his wife. “And you’ve said nothing about it all to me.”
“What was the use in making you worry? You are already so tired.”
“Yes, when I ought to be strong, too. A mother needs strength. But you have enough for us both.”
He went on:
“We were wrong in having him go into Frasnes’s offices. I wanted him to get into the way of a business practice, especially assignments and liquidations, before he made his début at the bar. Frasne is the successor of Mr. Clairval, who was my friend, and our own solicitor. I respected the tradition of the family, and that’s just where I made my mistake. However, everything will be different very soon now.”
“Soon?”
“Yes. I shall be taking Maurice into my office: he can finish his first stage there. Or else he can study proceedings with Marcellaz. When we move back to town I’ll look round and see.”
“Good,” she said, pressing his hand. “There will be less occasion for him to meet her. But that isn’t enough in itself. You find him reasonable. I think him rather a bit romantic. I should prefer to turn his fancy somewhere else.”
“But how?”
“Well, an early engagement, for instance. Early engagements make young people think and develop character. In France I think we hasten marriage too much, when you consider that marriage disposes of life and family and a future all in one.”
“It’s true.”
“Margaret has thought of little Jeanne Sassenay for Maurice.”
“But she’s only a child yet.”
“A pretty one, though, and brought up by a lovely mother.”
Her last words were cut short by shrill young voices squalling out:
“Good-evening, grandmother! Good-evening, grandfather!”
It was the advance guard, Peter and Adrienne, out of breath with running, just over the edge of the hill, and tumbling out on the level ground. They struggled to make more speed in spite of the “Not so fast, not so fast,” from Mrs. Roquevillard, and their grandfather caught them on the wing.
“You know, grand-dad,” said Adrienne, who was very talkative, and spoke familiarly to everybody, being no respecter of persons, “Julian stayed behind with Aunt Margaret, and mamma ordered him to come with us.”
Half-way down the hill the young people who were coming up cried out in their turn:
“Good-evening!”
Only Maurice and Mrs. Frasne were too far away to join in these family greetings. By tacit consent, they both walked more and more slowly as they approached the summit, and following all the windings of the path they had managed to get a further considerable space between themselves and the others, although Margaret had turned several times and called to them. The mountain was hidden from them by the close angle of the hillside, so that they saw the figures of Mr. and Mrs. Roquevillard in silhouette against the clear sky. Mrs. Frasne turned an enigmatic smile upon her companion, whom their tête-à-tête was making languid.
“Your father must have been handsomer than you,” she said, and added, quite low, as if to herself: “He’ll find out what he wants to, your father.”
The young man maintained a perverse silence.
“How old is your father?” she asked again, smiling at her success in having annoyed him.
“Sixty, I think.”
“Sixty years. Well, he detests me. If he could, he would suppress me with great pleasure.”
“You’re mistaken: he always welcomes you here.”
“Oh, those things can be felt. He detests me, and yet he interests me. I’ve always liked characters, myself.”
Just before the top of the hill the path turned and disclosed a new view framed between the embankment on the right and the border of shrubs on the left, their leaves half coloured and mingling the green of spring with autumnal gold. Le Nivolet came abruptly into view, with its regular architectural lines and gradients, re-echoing the glory of the vanished sun.
The slender thickets that clung to its rocky sides took on a tint of violet like the dregs of wine, while the chain of Margeria behind it showed quite rosy and charming, in its tones of flesh-colour.
“See, what a change in the scene,” murmured Maurice, not noticing that his companion paid heed much sooner to the fact of their being alone than to the marvels of the evening light.
She halted in their walk, and he turned back toward her.
“What’s the matter? Are you tired?”
“Oh, no. I’m only giving you time to admire the landscape.”
“Would you be jealous?”
“Yes, you love your country, and I——”
“And you?”
“I shan’t say the rest——”
“But I’ll say it. I’ll tell you how I love you.”
He took her in his arms. She was a thin, dark woman, with large eyes; her flesh firm and her caresses melting. As she turned her head a little he could see, beneath the half-closed and palpitant pupils, that look of black and gold in which all the voluptuous anguish of the season and the hour were reflected.
“How little she seems against my breast,” he thought, as he clasped her to him; “a little thing, yet more to me than all the world.” Aloud he murmured:
“I love you, Edith.”
“Really?” she said, with her same purposed smile.
“When will you be mine?”
“When I can be only yours.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“Why?
“You are bound.”
“We could go away together.”
“What should we live on?”
“On my dot.”
“I couldn’t do that. And, besides, you haven’t the control of it.”
“I can take it back.”
“No—no!”
“You could work.”
He was silent. She paid him back in irony, almost in irritation.
“Oh, you prefer to mind your father. Well, be like him, then, a big man in a little village, with a lot of children.”
She caught an expression of such sadness on his face at this that she blotted it out against her heart.
“Oh, I love you,” she cried, “and I torment you. But don’t you see, I’m suffocated here in Chambéry. I want to get away from it, to love you freely, to live. I’ve a horror of falsehood. And you, you don’t love me.”
“Edith,” he cried, “how can you say that?”
“No, you don’t,” she repeated. “If you really loved me you would have made me your own a long time ago.”
Heavy hearted with these reproaches, they began their walk again, slowly. The view, taken out of its frame now, grew larger, and in the distance, beyond the last spires of Le Nivolet, disclosed Lake Bourget, its violet-blue merging with graduated tints into the purple mists that rose from its further end. But the two lovers saw nothing of all this. This mortal sweetness of the year, this high inquietude of nature, this enthusiasm of the autumn evening, like one long cry of desire—what need had they for anything of this outside their own hearts?
Near the house they found Mrs. Roquevillard, who came herself to meet Mrs. Frasne, though she was not supposed to be outdoors after sundown.
... Later in the evening Mr. Roquevillard, returning from the wine-presses before he was expected, espied his son and the young woman in a shadowy corner. During the vintage there is much coming and going in a house, and it is easy to creep outside without being noticed.
“He saw us,” said Maurice.
“All the better,” she replied.
And as Mr. Roquevillard passed behind the stable that had been the ancient home of his ancestors, to reach the dwelling that his grandfather had built and he himself enlarged, he tried in vain to shake off the anxiety that weighed upon him.
“I was young once, too,” he reminded himself.
But even youth had not turned him from his duty toward the future of his race. Would this younger son of his, who must continue his father’s work, know in time what it meant in energy and self-denial to be the head of a family? He was not usually very impressionable, Mr. Roquevillard, and yet to-night he felt around him, as if it were a flock of evil birds, a hopelessness like that of old abandoned Mother Fauchois, a sense of melancholy and fragility as of the dying year. Only just now, in the midst of his domain, he had reviewed the rise of the Roquevillards to power and wealth. It was his own pride. A talk with an old woman, the surprising of a kiss, and behold him, with a presentiment that was certainly absurd and unreasonable, remembering how the seasons pass and family fortunes totter and decay.