Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.“As is the woodbine’s, so the woman’s life.”The Lost Tales of Miletus.M. Deshoulières had lived nearly forty years in the world. He still wanted three or four years of that age, it is true, but he looked more, and perhaps this was the reason that he was in the habit of thinking of himself in round numbers as a man of forty. All his life had been comparatively solitary. He was an only child; his mother died while he was at alycée; his father married again; the son had gone out into the world, worked, risen, now he stood high in his profession, and had been pressed by his colleagues to give up the provinces and betake himself to Paris. Why he had not followed their advice he scarcely knew. No tie specially bound him to Charville, but, somehow, he had struck root in the strange old town,—there was always some case in which he was interested, something that kept him from moving. The man was too simple-minded, perhaps, to care for the city life which just stayed within the horizon of his thoughts, and never grew any nearer. He did not think enough about himself to be ambitious. And with his noble, kindly nature, always giving out of its abundance to others, he had lived all these years without any peculiar interest of his own; had lived until certain little habits, and fancies, and opinions had grown upon him,—a dread of women, a love of solitude, somewhat of a dislike to any thing that took him out of his ordinary work. All that had happened in the past week was peculiarly distasteful to him. Here was a girl thrown upon his care, and perhaps an endless sea of troubles rising out of the unwelcome charge; here was a mystery, and he hated, mysteries with all his heart; here were already looks, hints, surmises. “By and by they will say that I poisoned the old man,” reflected the doctor, with a grim laugh. He was not accustomed to have his word doubted; this suspicious curé’s little drop of bitterness vexed him more than he confessed even to himself: it was a sort of forerunner of the world’s opinion; and the world’s opinion affects us all in some degree, say what we will to the contrary.Therefore when little Roulleau made his cautious proposal about Mademoiselle Thérèse, M. Deshoulières jumped at it as an escape from one difficulty. He had been thinking where he could place her, without much satisfaction having grown out of his thoughts, but, oddly enough, the Roulleau household had not presented itself. It was respectable, inoffensive; there was that wife, certainly, but M. Deshoulières had a kind of half-shaped theory that women could not be so objectionable towards women as towards men,—there was no reason that Madame Roulleau should drive Thérèse as she drove Ignace; nay, more than once in that little expedition to Ardron he had felt inclined to sympathise with Madame. Every now and then his wishes, wandered longingly away towards that still safer refuge, a convent; if Thérèse could only feel a vocation in that direction she might be placed at once with the good Sisters in the town. Then his responsibility would be at an end. M. Deshoulières devoutly wished it might be brought to so happy a conclusion.A little soft patter of rain was falling as the two men walked from the station to M. Roulleau’s abode; the young leaves looked a brighter green, the sky had blue patches here and there between the grey; it was one of those spring showers which are full of life and fragrance. Sleepy, picturesque Charville lay and drank it in contentedly; little shallow pools twinkled in the hollows of the excavated house, out of which the workmen were dragging old memories. At the corner, watching them, stood old Nannon: the doctor nodded to her and hurried on,—he wanted to get over this business, to return to his patients. After all, he reflected, the predicament was too absurd to last long. Monsieur Fabien would speedily appear, receive his property, remove himself and his perplexities from the doctor’s mind. Charville would resume its usual peacefulness, its inhabitants come into the world, marry, go out of it again; the Cathedral chimes ring their varying notes; M. Deshoulières take his coffee under the stiff trees before thecafé; the women gossip volubly round the stone fountain on their way from market. All should be as it had been before M. Moreau came to trouble Charville with his strange bequest.But Thérèse?When M. Deshoulières entered the little, bare, unadorned room in the Roulleau’s house—its master having left him at the door to confer with his wife upon the question of the girl’s remaining with them—Thérèse was standing by the table, eagerly watching the door, and the doctor’s heart was touched by the wistful grey eyes, which read his failure in a moment, and sank. She looked so helpless, so young to be left in this strange friendless condition. He went up to her kindly and took her hand.“We are as we were,” he said, answering the look, “but what then? He will come in good time; do not despond. I was not made for police work; and as for Ignace Roulleau, he can creep along on the beaten track, but take him out of it, bah! he is of no more use than a child. We must have patience; something will arise; news will come.”“Do you think so?” Thérèse said, wearily.“I am confident,” he answered.When she looked up at him he was smiling kindly upon her. Her youth, her forlornness, those pathetic eyes, all touched him more than he imagined. His big chivalrous man’s heart answered at once their mute appeal.“News will come,” he repeated, positively. “Monsieur Saint-Martin will appear himself some day.”“Some day!” cried Thérèse, with a harsh ring of anguish in her voice. “Yes, yes, he will come some day, perhaps—but when? Oh, and the days are so long!”She flung herself down by the table and hid her face on her arms; her figure shook, her rapid breathing was broken by sobs. M. Deshoulières looked at her in amazement. Hitherto she had been so quiet that this passionate outbreak startled him. He began to wonder vaguely whether M. Fabien was more to her than her uncle’s nephew—whether the banishment had any thing to do with the grey eyes of Mademoiselle Thérèse? but the moment after he smiled at his own fancy. Had it been so she would have known at once where to find him. M. Deshoulières was little acquainted with women, it is true, and with the acknowledgment there came a little devout ejaculation of gratitude; but he knew enough to have a profound conviction that were this suspicion correct, not all the uncles in the world would have prevented M. Fabien at the Antipodea and Mademoiselle Thérèse in France from communicating with each other. Perhaps what he did know was owing more to romances read in his boyhood than to actual experience. He had lived too busy a life, he would have said, to have had time for watching or making out for himself dreams of that kind. And yet at the bottom of his heart he had a vast, almost childish belief in the power of love. He put away that idea almost angrily, and went and stood by the window until poor Thérèse recovered herself. Naturally she was overdone, upset; that explained it all. He waited patiently, considering all the sick people with whose interests Ardron had interfered; and he looked out of the dull little window at the little that could be seen—the wet blank wall opposite, over the top of which a few garden trees waved feebly backwards and forwards; a cart drawn by stout horses with blue thick woollen fringes on their huge collars, which jerked and rumbled over the uneven stones. Presently, through the rattle, he became aware that Thérèse, sitting upright and keeping her tearful eyes turned away, was speaking.“I beg your pardon,” she said once or twice over again, as if she could not get any further.M. Deshoulières came and sat down by her. There was the same kindness in his eyes, if only Thérèse had looked at them, but his voice was a little quick and peremptory. He had no time to waste in unnecessary words.“Is there really nothing more that you can tell me about Monsieur Saint-Martin?” he asked.“Nothing of the present,” said Thérèse, slowly.“Well, of the past, then?”“What did you hear at Ardron?”“Nothing.”“Ah, that is no wonder,” said Thérèse, speaking with a little more animation. “The people at Ardron scarcely know Fabien; we have been there such a little time, you see. We used to live at Rouen—my uncle, my aunt, Fabien, and I. Fabien has always lived with them; my uncle loved him better than any one else in the world. I went to Rouen when my father and mother died, that was eleven years ago,” said Thérèse, considering; “I was nine years old and Fabien was fourteen.”“And your aunt took you?”“Yes. Poor aunt Ferdinande! she tried to be kind; and my uncle was generous—very generous. He despised women, though, monsieur, and he never professed to like me. Is it not strange that, after all, I should have been the only one left to him now?”She spoke in a questioning dreamy sort of way, clasping her hands over her knee, and looking out of the window at the dropping rain. There was a certain easy grace in her attitude, in the curves of her figure, in the poise of her head. Monsieur Deshoulières was not noticing it, he glanced at the timepiece instead and fidgeted.“Then, as I understand, M. Moreau intended his nephew to enter his house at Rouen?” he asked.“Oh, he had entered it,” Thérèse cried quickly; “he had entered and was doing admirably when—”“Well, when—?””—They had a disagreement.”“Ah, a disagreement. On matters connected with money?”M. Deshoulières thought he was pursuing the examination with great skill; he did not notice the troubled appealing glance which poor Thérèse threw at him before answering slowly,—“Not altogether.”“On business, then? It is much the same thing. Five-eighths of the world permit such matters to wreck their lives. And so the old man was angry, and M. Saint-Martin went off in a headstrong fit?”Poor Thérèse wanted very much to tell her little story—the old, old story—more commonplace even than M. Deshoulières’, yet so new, so beautiful, in her eyes. But how could she? He was so terribly prompt and abrupt, he would not see what she meant, would not help her, his quick manner frightened her, her education had taught her reserve, she needed sympathy to draw out little by little what it was so hard to say in words; after all, it was not necessary that she should relate her share in the matter. She said, sighing,—“The two disagreed, monsieur, as you say.”“And so the young man acted in this wise fashion?”“It was not Fabien’s fault. It was his uncle who was angry. Fabien had done nothing wrong.” Her whole attitude changed; her throat curved, her eyes kindled; evidently she was prepared to do battle for the absent if the opportunity came. M. Deshoulières, however, had relapsed into silence, his elbows on his knees, his hands thrust into his hair. Looking up at last, he suddenly said,—“And you mean to say that you do not know where he went?”“No,” she answered, steadily.“Your aunt, Madame Moreau, has not been dead many months; do you suppose that she was as strangely ignorant?”“I do not know—I cannot tell,” said Thérèse, with agitation.“But you have an idea,” said M. Deshoulières, fixing his keen eyes upon her, and frowning unconsciously.“From something she once let drop I fancied he was in America, but when I begged and prayed her to tell me she became so terrified at her own imprudence that I could not find out any thing more. She was in great awe of my uncle. He never mentioned poor Fabien, except once, when—”She stopped short, tears gathered in her eyes.“Well?” said Deshoulières, impatiently.”—When he showed me a scrap of writing, evidently torn off a letter, and containing only two lines.”M. Deshoulières said, “Well?” once more.Thérèse turned and looked at him reproachfully. She thought him cruel, hard. He was trying to befriend her after his own fashion, but she found it difficult to believe. There are sore places in our hearts which others touch all unconsciously, and when the pain darts through us we feel as if they must know something of what they are doing.“They were bitter words,” she said, her voice faltering. ”‘I renounce for ever my country, and the friends I left there.’”“Bah!” said M. Deshoulières, irreverently.The girl flashed round upon him.“You do not know Fabien!”“Who were his friends?” he asked, without noticing her little outburst. And then Thérèse glanced shyly at him, and calmed down. Here was his best friend if this man would only understand. But he was terribly prosaic, he would not understand. His questions travelled relentlessly along the great dusty high road of facts, while her thoughts danced away from them into sweet little flowery meadows, river-banks, a sunny dream-land of what might, have been, what might be yet. In spite of her trouble, an irrepressible smile quivered on her lips, which would have puzzled the doctor, had he seen it. She answered demurely that the only two of whom she knew were a certain Léon Fauchet, whom she believed to have entered the army; and Claude Lamourette, who went out to China within a few weeks of Fabien’s departure.It was all unsatisfactory, provoking. Even the doctor’s impatient spirit was forced to acknowledge that nothing could be done for the present. His hands were tied by the terms of the will, he could only wait and trust that such little strings as he had set going would some day tug M. Fabien Saint-Martin into Charville.Without any particular reason for the feeling, he disliked him heartily, but, nevertheless, it was to be hoped he would come and deliver them from this tangle of perplexities. There was no more to be said about Fabien in this interview, but Thérèse’s future remained to be settled. M. Deshoulières fidgeted and fussed on his chair.“Is this house agreeable to you? Would you like to stay?” he said at last, shooting out the words quite suddenly. Thérèse, who had been the one most troubled in the conversation, grew self-possessed when she found her own prospects under consideration.“Do you mean, like to live here?” she asked. “It would do as well as any other place.”“You would not prefer the convent?”“Oh, Monsieur, not—not the convent!” she exclaimed, with all the trouble returning. Her grey eyes dilated, she put out her hands imploringly.“No one will force you,” said M. Deshoulières, in a kind, reassuring voice, but he did not understand this sudden terror. Looking upon it as a natural retreat for unmarried girls, he had thought it not unlikely she might herself suggest it. He was sorry that she shrank from it, and it surprised him a little. Nevertheless, had she but known it, she was quite safe from any attempt to thwart her inclinations; but she did not know it. Her early experience of her uncle’s unrelenting will led her to expect everywhere the same harshness, the same determination. What M. Deshoulières had once suggested he might at any time attempt to oblige her to follow out; and to be buried in a convent, to lose all hope of seeing Fabien, of hearing a word here, a word there, a rumour of his whereabouts—to lose this was to twenty-year old Thérèse like losing life itself. She would have preferred any hardship to this prospect, which had hung over her while her uncle lived, and was, probably, only prevented from taking shape by a certain half-contemptuous indulgence of his wife’s wishes, and after her death by a softening consciousness of his own failing health. Now it surged up before her again; M. Deshoulières’ words could not calm her fears.“Only let me stay here,” she entreated.He looked at her a little keenly. It was something new to have any one dependent upon him, half pleasant, half puzzling—then he thought of his patients and jumped up.“That is soon settled, mademoiselle; I will speak to Madame Roulleau, and then you can arrange things as you please. Pardon me now, for my time is not my own.”There were no difficulties with the Roulleaus; M. Deshoulières went away from the house rather pleased with his own management. Thérèse was provided for, for the present; he had satisfied himself upon one or two points, had learned also that she did not care for Fabien. Poor stupid, blind Max!Monsieur and Mme. Roulleau lost no time in going to Thérèse when once the doctor had quitted the house; madame led the way of course, but she was a little changed to Thérèse, as the latter saw at once. Hitherto she had been almost cringing in her manner, now she had the air of one who permits herself to be persuaded against her better judgment. She was a woman of about fifty, with a sharp, puckered face, a nose pinched and slightly hooked, a long upper lip, black hair strained tightly backwards, and hands which were long, lean, covetous-looking. Some people’s hands take you into their owner’s secrets, before their faces have let out any thing. Mme. Roulleau’s were of this kind. You might notice a stretching, a little involuntary curve of the fingers’ ends, as if they longed to be grasping something. It struck Thérèse again as she stood before her in the middle of the room in a kind of linen jacket, drawn in round the waist, and the girl hardly understood at first that M. Roulleau was speaking, she could not help watching madame’s hands with a sort of fascination. M. Roulleau coughed and spoke a little louder.“Our excellent friend, Monsieur Deshoulières, has made a proposal, mademoiselle, I had the pleasure to observe, which would relieve him, he says, from an embarrassment. Without doubt he has confided it to you. Now, madame and I could receive no pleasure so profound, so grateful to our hearts,” continued the little man, becoming suddenly enthusiastic, “as that we should experience by assisting our excellent doctor to the very extent of our means; but—”“This is impossible,” said madame, sharply.“Mon amie!” remonstrated the notary, with an appealing gesture.“Impossible!” reiterated Mme. Roulleau. “I know you, Ignace; you are as weak as an infant over your ideas of friendship; but I am a mother. I think of my Adolphe, of my Octavie, defenceless little ones! I cannot consent to burden our family with another load. Mademoiselle must seek a home elsewhere.”Thérèse started like a guilty thing. Up before her rose the grim walls of the convent, Fabien seeking her outside, she shut in, separated, unconscious of his neighbourhood. Peace might be there—repose; her untrained heart cried out passionately for other things. “There is the convent,” said madame, watching her. She had heard from M. Deshoulières how his suggestion had been received.“Let me stay here. Do not send me away,” said poor Thérèse, with imploring eyes.“It is not my heart,” answered madame, trying to be pathetic; “it is the cost, the extras we must provide.”“I can live upon so little,” urged the girl, turning towards the little notary.“Zénobie!” he exclaimed, as if with a sudden impulse, “it is useless—I must yield!”“Imprudent man!” replied madame, keeping up the little farce with great vigour; “do you forget our miserable means?”“I forget nothing. We must stint ourselves—I know it. Adolphe and Octavie must suffer—I know it. What then? When friendship and compassion call, I cannot shut my heart. Mademoiselle, you have conquered. Remain.”He spoke with a grandly tragic air. Thérèse relieved, astonished, all at once, could not credit her ears. It seemed impossible that the little man should assert himself in this manner against his wife, who cast up her hands, and cried out again at his imprudence. She tried to murmur thanks, but M. Roulleau, in his unwonted energy, waved them aside.“There is one point,” he went on, “in which I am sure mademoiselle’s delicacy of feeling will unite with our own. It would desolate Mme. Roulleau and myself, were our admirable M. Deshoulières to have any idea of the difficulties this little arrangement may entail upon us. Whatever the world may say, he has not the means to assist as his generous heart would desire, yet without a question he would insist upon doing so. What then? The contest would lacerate us, we should not consent; mademoiselle would again have to seek a home. No, no, our friends may blame us—bah! one must follow impulse sometimes!”“How good you are to do this!” Thérèse cried out gratefully. She had a generous heart, and it smote her for not having sufficiently valued the little man. When the two had gone away, monsieur still heroic, and madame injured, she felt as if a great dread had gone with them. Her heart sang a little song without words—a song all about Fabien, and constancy, and meeting. Wonderful things grew up before her; sober people would have laughed or cried, as the case might be, could they have heard her music. Thérèse was in that enchanter’s castle, wherein most of us wander for a little while, at some time or other, listening to the songs which are never sung so sweetly elsewhere.

“As is the woodbine’s, so the woman’s life.”The Lost Tales of Miletus.

“As is the woodbine’s, so the woman’s life.”The Lost Tales of Miletus.

M. Deshoulières had lived nearly forty years in the world. He still wanted three or four years of that age, it is true, but he looked more, and perhaps this was the reason that he was in the habit of thinking of himself in round numbers as a man of forty. All his life had been comparatively solitary. He was an only child; his mother died while he was at alycée; his father married again; the son had gone out into the world, worked, risen, now he stood high in his profession, and had been pressed by his colleagues to give up the provinces and betake himself to Paris. Why he had not followed their advice he scarcely knew. No tie specially bound him to Charville, but, somehow, he had struck root in the strange old town,—there was always some case in which he was interested, something that kept him from moving. The man was too simple-minded, perhaps, to care for the city life which just stayed within the horizon of his thoughts, and never grew any nearer. He did not think enough about himself to be ambitious. And with his noble, kindly nature, always giving out of its abundance to others, he had lived all these years without any peculiar interest of his own; had lived until certain little habits, and fancies, and opinions had grown upon him,—a dread of women, a love of solitude, somewhat of a dislike to any thing that took him out of his ordinary work. All that had happened in the past week was peculiarly distasteful to him. Here was a girl thrown upon his care, and perhaps an endless sea of troubles rising out of the unwelcome charge; here was a mystery, and he hated, mysteries with all his heart; here were already looks, hints, surmises. “By and by they will say that I poisoned the old man,” reflected the doctor, with a grim laugh. He was not accustomed to have his word doubted; this suspicious curé’s little drop of bitterness vexed him more than he confessed even to himself: it was a sort of forerunner of the world’s opinion; and the world’s opinion affects us all in some degree, say what we will to the contrary.

Therefore when little Roulleau made his cautious proposal about Mademoiselle Thérèse, M. Deshoulières jumped at it as an escape from one difficulty. He had been thinking where he could place her, without much satisfaction having grown out of his thoughts, but, oddly enough, the Roulleau household had not presented itself. It was respectable, inoffensive; there was that wife, certainly, but M. Deshoulières had a kind of half-shaped theory that women could not be so objectionable towards women as towards men,—there was no reason that Madame Roulleau should drive Thérèse as she drove Ignace; nay, more than once in that little expedition to Ardron he had felt inclined to sympathise with Madame. Every now and then his wishes, wandered longingly away towards that still safer refuge, a convent; if Thérèse could only feel a vocation in that direction she might be placed at once with the good Sisters in the town. Then his responsibility would be at an end. M. Deshoulières devoutly wished it might be brought to so happy a conclusion.

A little soft patter of rain was falling as the two men walked from the station to M. Roulleau’s abode; the young leaves looked a brighter green, the sky had blue patches here and there between the grey; it was one of those spring showers which are full of life and fragrance. Sleepy, picturesque Charville lay and drank it in contentedly; little shallow pools twinkled in the hollows of the excavated house, out of which the workmen were dragging old memories. At the corner, watching them, stood old Nannon: the doctor nodded to her and hurried on,—he wanted to get over this business, to return to his patients. After all, he reflected, the predicament was too absurd to last long. Monsieur Fabien would speedily appear, receive his property, remove himself and his perplexities from the doctor’s mind. Charville would resume its usual peacefulness, its inhabitants come into the world, marry, go out of it again; the Cathedral chimes ring their varying notes; M. Deshoulières take his coffee under the stiff trees before thecafé; the women gossip volubly round the stone fountain on their way from market. All should be as it had been before M. Moreau came to trouble Charville with his strange bequest.

But Thérèse?

When M. Deshoulières entered the little, bare, unadorned room in the Roulleau’s house—its master having left him at the door to confer with his wife upon the question of the girl’s remaining with them—Thérèse was standing by the table, eagerly watching the door, and the doctor’s heart was touched by the wistful grey eyes, which read his failure in a moment, and sank. She looked so helpless, so young to be left in this strange friendless condition. He went up to her kindly and took her hand.

“We are as we were,” he said, answering the look, “but what then? He will come in good time; do not despond. I was not made for police work; and as for Ignace Roulleau, he can creep along on the beaten track, but take him out of it, bah! he is of no more use than a child. We must have patience; something will arise; news will come.”

“Do you think so?” Thérèse said, wearily.

“I am confident,” he answered.

When she looked up at him he was smiling kindly upon her. Her youth, her forlornness, those pathetic eyes, all touched him more than he imagined. His big chivalrous man’s heart answered at once their mute appeal.

“News will come,” he repeated, positively. “Monsieur Saint-Martin will appear himself some day.”

“Some day!” cried Thérèse, with a harsh ring of anguish in her voice. “Yes, yes, he will come some day, perhaps—but when? Oh, and the days are so long!”

She flung herself down by the table and hid her face on her arms; her figure shook, her rapid breathing was broken by sobs. M. Deshoulières looked at her in amazement. Hitherto she had been so quiet that this passionate outbreak startled him. He began to wonder vaguely whether M. Fabien was more to her than her uncle’s nephew—whether the banishment had any thing to do with the grey eyes of Mademoiselle Thérèse? but the moment after he smiled at his own fancy. Had it been so she would have known at once where to find him. M. Deshoulières was little acquainted with women, it is true, and with the acknowledgment there came a little devout ejaculation of gratitude; but he knew enough to have a profound conviction that were this suspicion correct, not all the uncles in the world would have prevented M. Fabien at the Antipodea and Mademoiselle Thérèse in France from communicating with each other. Perhaps what he did know was owing more to romances read in his boyhood than to actual experience. He had lived too busy a life, he would have said, to have had time for watching or making out for himself dreams of that kind. And yet at the bottom of his heart he had a vast, almost childish belief in the power of love. He put away that idea almost angrily, and went and stood by the window until poor Thérèse recovered herself. Naturally she was overdone, upset; that explained it all. He waited patiently, considering all the sick people with whose interests Ardron had interfered; and he looked out of the dull little window at the little that could be seen—the wet blank wall opposite, over the top of which a few garden trees waved feebly backwards and forwards; a cart drawn by stout horses with blue thick woollen fringes on their huge collars, which jerked and rumbled over the uneven stones. Presently, through the rattle, he became aware that Thérèse, sitting upright and keeping her tearful eyes turned away, was speaking.

“I beg your pardon,” she said once or twice over again, as if she could not get any further.

M. Deshoulières came and sat down by her. There was the same kindness in his eyes, if only Thérèse had looked at them, but his voice was a little quick and peremptory. He had no time to waste in unnecessary words.

“Is there really nothing more that you can tell me about Monsieur Saint-Martin?” he asked.

“Nothing of the present,” said Thérèse, slowly.

“Well, of the past, then?”

“What did you hear at Ardron?”

“Nothing.”

“Ah, that is no wonder,” said Thérèse, speaking with a little more animation. “The people at Ardron scarcely know Fabien; we have been there such a little time, you see. We used to live at Rouen—my uncle, my aunt, Fabien, and I. Fabien has always lived with them; my uncle loved him better than any one else in the world. I went to Rouen when my father and mother died, that was eleven years ago,” said Thérèse, considering; “I was nine years old and Fabien was fourteen.”

“And your aunt took you?”

“Yes. Poor aunt Ferdinande! she tried to be kind; and my uncle was generous—very generous. He despised women, though, monsieur, and he never professed to like me. Is it not strange that, after all, I should have been the only one left to him now?”

She spoke in a questioning dreamy sort of way, clasping her hands over her knee, and looking out of the window at the dropping rain. There was a certain easy grace in her attitude, in the curves of her figure, in the poise of her head. Monsieur Deshoulières was not noticing it, he glanced at the timepiece instead and fidgeted.

“Then, as I understand, M. Moreau intended his nephew to enter his house at Rouen?” he asked.

“Oh, he had entered it,” Thérèse cried quickly; “he had entered and was doing admirably when—”

“Well, when—?”

”—They had a disagreement.”

“Ah, a disagreement. On matters connected with money?”

M. Deshoulières thought he was pursuing the examination with great skill; he did not notice the troubled appealing glance which poor Thérèse threw at him before answering slowly,—

“Not altogether.”

“On business, then? It is much the same thing. Five-eighths of the world permit such matters to wreck their lives. And so the old man was angry, and M. Saint-Martin went off in a headstrong fit?”

Poor Thérèse wanted very much to tell her little story—the old, old story—more commonplace even than M. Deshoulières’, yet so new, so beautiful, in her eyes. But how could she? He was so terribly prompt and abrupt, he would not see what she meant, would not help her, his quick manner frightened her, her education had taught her reserve, she needed sympathy to draw out little by little what it was so hard to say in words; after all, it was not necessary that she should relate her share in the matter. She said, sighing,—“The two disagreed, monsieur, as you say.”

“And so the young man acted in this wise fashion?”

“It was not Fabien’s fault. It was his uncle who was angry. Fabien had done nothing wrong.” Her whole attitude changed; her throat curved, her eyes kindled; evidently she was prepared to do battle for the absent if the opportunity came. M. Deshoulières, however, had relapsed into silence, his elbows on his knees, his hands thrust into his hair. Looking up at last, he suddenly said,—

“And you mean to say that you do not know where he went?”

“No,” she answered, steadily.

“Your aunt, Madame Moreau, has not been dead many months; do you suppose that she was as strangely ignorant?”

“I do not know—I cannot tell,” said Thérèse, with agitation.

“But you have an idea,” said M. Deshoulières, fixing his keen eyes upon her, and frowning unconsciously.

“From something she once let drop I fancied he was in America, but when I begged and prayed her to tell me she became so terrified at her own imprudence that I could not find out any thing more. She was in great awe of my uncle. He never mentioned poor Fabien, except once, when—”

She stopped short, tears gathered in her eyes.

“Well?” said Deshoulières, impatiently.

”—When he showed me a scrap of writing, evidently torn off a letter, and containing only two lines.”

M. Deshoulières said, “Well?” once more.

Thérèse turned and looked at him reproachfully. She thought him cruel, hard. He was trying to befriend her after his own fashion, but she found it difficult to believe. There are sore places in our hearts which others touch all unconsciously, and when the pain darts through us we feel as if they must know something of what they are doing.

“They were bitter words,” she said, her voice faltering. ”‘I renounce for ever my country, and the friends I left there.’”

“Bah!” said M. Deshoulières, irreverently.

The girl flashed round upon him.

“You do not know Fabien!”

“Who were his friends?” he asked, without noticing her little outburst. And then Thérèse glanced shyly at him, and calmed down. Here was his best friend if this man would only understand. But he was terribly prosaic, he would not understand. His questions travelled relentlessly along the great dusty high road of facts, while her thoughts danced away from them into sweet little flowery meadows, river-banks, a sunny dream-land of what might, have been, what might be yet. In spite of her trouble, an irrepressible smile quivered on her lips, which would have puzzled the doctor, had he seen it. She answered demurely that the only two of whom she knew were a certain Léon Fauchet, whom she believed to have entered the army; and Claude Lamourette, who went out to China within a few weeks of Fabien’s departure.

It was all unsatisfactory, provoking. Even the doctor’s impatient spirit was forced to acknowledge that nothing could be done for the present. His hands were tied by the terms of the will, he could only wait and trust that such little strings as he had set going would some day tug M. Fabien Saint-Martin into Charville.

Without any particular reason for the feeling, he disliked him heartily, but, nevertheless, it was to be hoped he would come and deliver them from this tangle of perplexities. There was no more to be said about Fabien in this interview, but Thérèse’s future remained to be settled. M. Deshoulières fidgeted and fussed on his chair.

“Is this house agreeable to you? Would you like to stay?” he said at last, shooting out the words quite suddenly. Thérèse, who had been the one most troubled in the conversation, grew self-possessed when she found her own prospects under consideration.

“Do you mean, like to live here?” she asked. “It would do as well as any other place.”

“You would not prefer the convent?”

“Oh, Monsieur, not—not the convent!” she exclaimed, with all the trouble returning. Her grey eyes dilated, she put out her hands imploringly.

“No one will force you,” said M. Deshoulières, in a kind, reassuring voice, but he did not understand this sudden terror. Looking upon it as a natural retreat for unmarried girls, he had thought it not unlikely she might herself suggest it. He was sorry that she shrank from it, and it surprised him a little. Nevertheless, had she but known it, she was quite safe from any attempt to thwart her inclinations; but she did not know it. Her early experience of her uncle’s unrelenting will led her to expect everywhere the same harshness, the same determination. What M. Deshoulières had once suggested he might at any time attempt to oblige her to follow out; and to be buried in a convent, to lose all hope of seeing Fabien, of hearing a word here, a word there, a rumour of his whereabouts—to lose this was to twenty-year old Thérèse like losing life itself. She would have preferred any hardship to this prospect, which had hung over her while her uncle lived, and was, probably, only prevented from taking shape by a certain half-contemptuous indulgence of his wife’s wishes, and after her death by a softening consciousness of his own failing health. Now it surged up before her again; M. Deshoulières’ words could not calm her fears.

“Only let me stay here,” she entreated.

He looked at her a little keenly. It was something new to have any one dependent upon him, half pleasant, half puzzling—then he thought of his patients and jumped up.

“That is soon settled, mademoiselle; I will speak to Madame Roulleau, and then you can arrange things as you please. Pardon me now, for my time is not my own.”

There were no difficulties with the Roulleaus; M. Deshoulières went away from the house rather pleased with his own management. Thérèse was provided for, for the present; he had satisfied himself upon one or two points, had learned also that she did not care for Fabien. Poor stupid, blind Max!

Monsieur and Mme. Roulleau lost no time in going to Thérèse when once the doctor had quitted the house; madame led the way of course, but she was a little changed to Thérèse, as the latter saw at once. Hitherto she had been almost cringing in her manner, now she had the air of one who permits herself to be persuaded against her better judgment. She was a woman of about fifty, with a sharp, puckered face, a nose pinched and slightly hooked, a long upper lip, black hair strained tightly backwards, and hands which were long, lean, covetous-looking. Some people’s hands take you into their owner’s secrets, before their faces have let out any thing. Mme. Roulleau’s were of this kind. You might notice a stretching, a little involuntary curve of the fingers’ ends, as if they longed to be grasping something. It struck Thérèse again as she stood before her in the middle of the room in a kind of linen jacket, drawn in round the waist, and the girl hardly understood at first that M. Roulleau was speaking, she could not help watching madame’s hands with a sort of fascination. M. Roulleau coughed and spoke a little louder.

“Our excellent friend, Monsieur Deshoulières, has made a proposal, mademoiselle, I had the pleasure to observe, which would relieve him, he says, from an embarrassment. Without doubt he has confided it to you. Now, madame and I could receive no pleasure so profound, so grateful to our hearts,” continued the little man, becoming suddenly enthusiastic, “as that we should experience by assisting our excellent doctor to the very extent of our means; but—”

“This is impossible,” said madame, sharply.

“Mon amie!” remonstrated the notary, with an appealing gesture.

“Impossible!” reiterated Mme. Roulleau. “I know you, Ignace; you are as weak as an infant over your ideas of friendship; but I am a mother. I think of my Adolphe, of my Octavie, defenceless little ones! I cannot consent to burden our family with another load. Mademoiselle must seek a home elsewhere.”

Thérèse started like a guilty thing. Up before her rose the grim walls of the convent, Fabien seeking her outside, she shut in, separated, unconscious of his neighbourhood. Peace might be there—repose; her untrained heart cried out passionately for other things. “There is the convent,” said madame, watching her. She had heard from M. Deshoulières how his suggestion had been received.

“Let me stay here. Do not send me away,” said poor Thérèse, with imploring eyes.

“It is not my heart,” answered madame, trying to be pathetic; “it is the cost, the extras we must provide.”

“I can live upon so little,” urged the girl, turning towards the little notary.

“Zénobie!” he exclaimed, as if with a sudden impulse, “it is useless—I must yield!”

“Imprudent man!” replied madame, keeping up the little farce with great vigour; “do you forget our miserable means?”

“I forget nothing. We must stint ourselves—I know it. Adolphe and Octavie must suffer—I know it. What then? When friendship and compassion call, I cannot shut my heart. Mademoiselle, you have conquered. Remain.”

He spoke with a grandly tragic air. Thérèse relieved, astonished, all at once, could not credit her ears. It seemed impossible that the little man should assert himself in this manner against his wife, who cast up her hands, and cried out again at his imprudence. She tried to murmur thanks, but M. Roulleau, in his unwonted energy, waved them aside.

“There is one point,” he went on, “in which I am sure mademoiselle’s delicacy of feeling will unite with our own. It would desolate Mme. Roulleau and myself, were our admirable M. Deshoulières to have any idea of the difficulties this little arrangement may entail upon us. Whatever the world may say, he has not the means to assist as his generous heart would desire, yet without a question he would insist upon doing so. What then? The contest would lacerate us, we should not consent; mademoiselle would again have to seek a home. No, no, our friends may blame us—bah! one must follow impulse sometimes!”

“How good you are to do this!” Thérèse cried out gratefully. She had a generous heart, and it smote her for not having sufficiently valued the little man. When the two had gone away, monsieur still heroic, and madame injured, she felt as if a great dread had gone with them. Her heart sang a little song without words—a song all about Fabien, and constancy, and meeting. Wonderful things grew up before her; sober people would have laughed or cried, as the case might be, could they have heard her music. Thérèse was in that enchanter’s castle, wherein most of us wander for a little while, at some time or other, listening to the songs which are never sung so sweetly elsewhere.

Chapter Five.“Lo, as some innocent and eager maidenLeans o’er the wistful limit of the world,Dreams of the glow and glory of the distance,Wonderful wooing and the grace of tears,Dreams with what eyes and what a sweet insistanceLovers are waiting in the hidden years.”P.W.H. Myers.Thérèse was really grateful to the Roulleaus for their concession, grateful and a little touched by what seemed honest delicacy of feeling. Madame Roulleau, who could dig like a mole when she wanted to find out a character, had been digging and burrowing while her husband was at Ardron, and knew pretty well by this time what strings to pull. People who have this sort of shrewdness can see a good deal without going far down; she did not reach the depths, but she was quite satisfied. It was not worth her while to study all the complexities of the girl’s nature, if she had tried doing so she would have had a baffling task, for there were plenty of contradictions about it. Probably Thérèse’s education had something to do with all the contrarieties and incongruities which met you at every turn—she was tender and hard, resolute and timid, generous and distrustful; it was impossible to know which of the opposing qualities would come uppermost: a great hopefulness, perhaps, impressed you the most. It was not insensibility to, but an inborn dread of the sadnesses of life which made her cling to the bright side. In spite of what they may say, there are people who find a certain sort of enjoyment in trouble, they like to be made toweepover fictitious distresses, there is a chord in them which responds at once to any call for sympathy. Thérèse was not one of these people to whom we turn in our sorrows, sure at least of being understood, if we are not helped. As yet she was impatient of sorrow, eager for happiness. She hated tragedies, sad books, minor music. As I have said, it was not that such things did not touch her—perhaps if she had been indifferent she would not have minded them so much—but her nature rose up in rebellion against them: they were part of Adam’s curse. She had not learned that, after all, through the Infinite Love that uses sorrow and suffering for instruments, they have caught a Divine beauty, a sweet solemn loveliness which by degrees reveals itself and wins our hearts. Thérèse believed only in one kind of happiness—our wills gratified, our dreams realised, all the little idols we have set up smiling down upon us from their pedestals: as we go on in life we find out sometimes that it was well our idols were shattered for us, or we might have been crushed under their weight; but Thérèse had no fear of this. She thought of herself as if some day all her longings must be satisfied, her troubles ended and laid aside, every thing completed, rounded off, and perfect. After that, I think there came a golden haze. There is something half-pathetic, half-comforting, in this unlimited faith in coming happiness. We see where it fails, but every now and then it acts upon our wearier spirits like a breath of immortality.Thérèse had already met with enough to daunt her in her little life, although it had not had that effect; she looked upon all the roughnesses of the road, so far, as things extraneous, and not altogether belonging to her existence. Whatever part of her they affected it was not her belief in the rose-coloured days that were coming. That stood unshaken. Nor while it lasted could she be said to have lost her courage; yet it had grown to have a strange admixture of timidity since she went—a bold brave child—to live at Rouen. Her heart used to swell, and her cheeks flush, when M. Moreau was harsh to her aunt, to Fabien; but her woman’s nature, though it resented his treatment, quailed before it. Once or twice she had resisted him, but all the time she was terribly frightened. Poor Thérèse! she was only a girl, and he had every thing on his side except right, as she used to say to herself indignantly, half angry at her own weakness.Madame Moreau was a large feeble woman, who scarcely ventured to think without her husband’s permission. She was so passive under his provocations that you were inclined to wonder whether she had been so from the first, or whether, after he had frightened the spirit out of her, nature had avenged herself by giving her this impervious armour. Thérèse’s little fiery outbreaks on her behalf were always wasted. They were much more appreciated by Fabien; he incited her to them, and she was too generous to notice that she was left to bear the consequences alone. He was her hero, over whom she rang her little changes of admiration: when he told her that he loved her, instead of formally beforehand requesting her hand from her uncle, she promised, with her grey eyes shining straight into his, and all her heart in her words, never to give him up. Fabien promised the same. “Every thing,” says an old writer, “has a double handle, or at least we have two hands by which to apprehend it.” I suppose it was so with this promise.Then came the crash, and her hero went away, more of a hero than ever. In her thoughts Thérèse set a crown on his head, and turned him into one of the old champions. Fabien, who was thoroughly nineteenth-century, would have been utterly puzzled what to do with himself if her ideas had come true. And then, with her boundless store of hopefulness, of expectation, she did not find the waiting so weary as it looked. Every now and then, to be sure, there would surge up in her heart a wild longing, a yearning such as had broken out when M. Deshoulières spoke, the days would seem interminable, the distance from Fabien infinite. Such pangs came more acutely after M. Moreau had one day called her into his room.“So you are still thinking of that ungrateful?” said the old man mockingly. “In that case you shall receive his latest news.”And then he showed her Fabien’s lines of renunciation.All the girl’s fear of her uncle vanished: she lifted her head proudly. “When Fabien writes those words to me, I will believe them,” she said, and went away, leaving old Moreau speechless at her presumption. It was her greatest victory among their encounters, but it was one of those victories which cost more than defeats. Not all her buoyancy could rise against the weight which the words left in her heart. How could he write them? How could he? She used to put the question passionately, and then answer it with a hundred fond excuses. All must be right some day,—that was the creed to which she clung; could she only keep free from the convent walls, all must be right. When her aunt died, and she lost the one slender link to her uncle’s affection, her dread of them increased; afterwards, through all the terrible time at the Cygne, she could not altogether repress the sense of liberty which came with the lifting from her the weight of that indomitable will. Whatever happened, she thought she must breathe more freely. She was not at all prepared to find M. Moreau’s intentions echoed back by her new guardian. Madame Roulleau had taken care to impress her with an idea of his inflexible nature, and she began, in her ignorance, to dread that he might have the power to compel her to submit. Any fate seemed preferable, and Madame Roulleau was well aware that in taking her into her house, she might impose what terms she pleased.At first there was not much laid upon her. She had a miserable little room, it is true, bare and dreary, but what then? “If mademoiselle expects another Château Ardron, she must not come to Rue St. Servan,” said Madame, with her disagreeable smile. Thérèse hastened to explain that no such discontented comparison had entered her head. She was in fact too young to care much for the want of comfort round her; she pulled the things about and spread out her little possessions, and wasted no repinings for the blue silk curtains, and the gilding, and theormoluat Château Ardron. Out of her window, beyond the roofs, she could see one of the Cathedral spires, with its delicate stone fretwork; a great expanse of sky over the flat country round; the very roofs were too crooked, too full, of quaint character, to be commonplace. She could make histories out of them, weave romances about the people who lived beneath them—romances into which her own story and Fabien’s stole in some irrepressible way. It seemed like a little time of rest after all the harshness and unkind words of the last years. Surely some intuitive instinct would tell Fabien that she was alone in the world, and that no one need come between them now.But in a little while she found she had no time for dreaming. Things seemed to fell upon her as a matter of course. Mme. Roulleau would come in with a great heap of clothes in her arms, her own, Adolphe’s, Octavie’s, for mademoiselle to exercise her powers ofreparationupon. It was often very difficult to make out of them what madame expected; only Aladdin’s magician with his new lamps for old could have satisfied her, and poor Thérèse darned and turned and patched, and patched and turned and darned, in despair: more than once before she had learned her lesson of economy, she cut up her own things in a vain attempt to perform the impossible. If she could only have pleased by her efforts she would not have disliked the work; she was active-minded, glad to be of use, there would have been a certain enjoyment in her own ingenuity. And if Mme. Roulleau was capable of being touched she must have been conscious of the sweetness with which Thérèse took her rebuffs, the patience with which she tried to follow out her directions. They were the only weapons the girl brought forward at this time. But to certain natures there is nothing so dear as the power of petty tyranny, and neither the money paid by M. Deshoulières, nor the work she extracted from her, were so delightful to Madame Roulleau as the infliction of daily snubs upon Thérèse. Skilfully drawing out her desire to remain free and lead a secular life, skilfully playing upon her fears of a convent, imperceptibly strengthening her dread of M. Deshoulières’ decisions, far more swift than he to fathom the secret of the girl’s heart and to turn it to their purpose, she did her best to make Thérèse’s life a burden.And yet for a time, as I have said, Thérèse bore it all not only with patience but with cheerfulness. She hoped bravely, and this was the elixir which prevented her feeling madame’s sting. It was not pleasant to be found fault with, but she said to herself that it all came from her own stupidity, her want of knowledge about useful things. After all, they were useful, and it was very good for her to be forced into them. She preached vigorous little lectures over her own reluctance and want of gratitude. Monsieur and madame were not charming, certainly, but they had been very generous and only demanded a return. In those days her step was buoyant, her colour bright, her grey eyes sparkling. Madame Roulleau used to look at her and say crossly to her husband,—“She has had some news of thatvaurien.”The little notary used to get into a fever of alarm. “Zénobie,” he would say, with his shrill voice quavering, “if he comes back we are ruined.”“He must not come back,” said madame, quietly.“Must not!” repeated the little man, querulously. “That is very fine, but who is to keep him away? It appears to me that there was never such a world as this for gossip. Instead of minding their own affairs, people talk, talk, like so many parrots, and who is to make sure that their mischievous tongues will not one day carry the news to the wrong person?”His wife darted a contemptuous glance at him. “It is a lottery, as I told you before,” she said coldly. “One or other must lose.”“And you talk of it so calmly! Do you know what a frightful risk I run? If M. Saint-Martin comes home, and the little hindrances I have put in his way are discovered—or if that girl finds out the double payment, I am ruined! I shudder when I think of it.”He was shuddering. It was a hot June day, and he shivered as if he had the ague. Madame looked at him with still the same expression in her face.“You are a coward, Ignace,” at last she said, letting her words drop slowly, “and that makes you a fool. Do you suppose that I have not weighed the risk? Do you suppose that I am not watching?”Under her eyes he shivered more visibly. “I know,” he said in a submissive voice; “I only thought—”“Do not think,” she interrupted contemptuously; “leave thinking to me.”“He might write to her,” M. Roulleau muttered under his breath.“What are you saying?”“Do not be angry, Zénobie; I only remarked that he might write to her.”“Here?”“No; to Château Ardron. In that case,mon amie,” continued the little man, apologetically, “permit me to observe that the letter would be forwarded to Monsieur Deshoulières.”Madame sighed. “I do not think I shall ever be able to educate you,” she said; “I must soon give it up. And you can actually assert that such a danger has only just struck you, and that all this time you have taken no precaution against it.Hein! look here!”Her tone rose peremptory and shrill. M. Roulleau looked obediently at the copy of the letter she flourished before his eyes, and then admiringly at her.“You are a marvel!” he said in his feeble, abject voice.“I made her write it,” she said, still shrilly. “Bah, she is only too easy to manage, there is no satisfaction, one had but to work on her fears. Her letters will be sent here, and I think, monsieur, you will acknowledge that I can arrange who shall be the receiver?”“I acknowledge every thing,” he said, with a deprecating gesture.“Perhaps you may be relieved to know,” she continued, returning to her cold measured tones, “that I took further steps at the same time. It would be inconvenient if other letters reached M. Deshoulières. I requested, therefore, in his name, that all documents which might arrive should be forwarded to you. By this means we control one channel of communication.”“But, Zénobie, my angel—”“Well? more scruples?”“You said in his name?”“Exactly.”“But—suppose he should find it out?”“In that case, and supposing also that you had not the wit to persuade him that such were his orders, our little enterprise is at an end. I have told you that there must be risk. Bah!” she continued, suddenly becoming fierce again, “you do not fear to be a villain, Ignace, provided you may have the profit without the danger. You can creep, but you cannot spring.”She did not look unlike a wild-cat herself, with her round black eyes sparkling, her hands making energetic passes in the air. M. Roulleau was in an agony lest any one should hear her imprudent words.“Hush-h-h,” he said tremulously, “I am not so clever as you, Zénobie, I do not affirm it. Only tell me what you would have me do.”“Do!” she cried in her high-pitched voice. And then, with one of those sudden strange checks by which she controlled her passion, she changed back to her contemptuous manner. “You can never be any thing but what you are, but you may be useful in your own way. Do? Go and creep, Ignace.”

“Lo, as some innocent and eager maidenLeans o’er the wistful limit of the world,Dreams of the glow and glory of the distance,Wonderful wooing and the grace of tears,Dreams with what eyes and what a sweet insistanceLovers are waiting in the hidden years.”P.W.H. Myers.

“Lo, as some innocent and eager maidenLeans o’er the wistful limit of the world,Dreams of the glow and glory of the distance,Wonderful wooing and the grace of tears,Dreams with what eyes and what a sweet insistanceLovers are waiting in the hidden years.”P.W.H. Myers.

Thérèse was really grateful to the Roulleaus for their concession, grateful and a little touched by what seemed honest delicacy of feeling. Madame Roulleau, who could dig like a mole when she wanted to find out a character, had been digging and burrowing while her husband was at Ardron, and knew pretty well by this time what strings to pull. People who have this sort of shrewdness can see a good deal without going far down; she did not reach the depths, but she was quite satisfied. It was not worth her while to study all the complexities of the girl’s nature, if she had tried doing so she would have had a baffling task, for there were plenty of contradictions about it. Probably Thérèse’s education had something to do with all the contrarieties and incongruities which met you at every turn—she was tender and hard, resolute and timid, generous and distrustful; it was impossible to know which of the opposing qualities would come uppermost: a great hopefulness, perhaps, impressed you the most. It was not insensibility to, but an inborn dread of the sadnesses of life which made her cling to the bright side. In spite of what they may say, there are people who find a certain sort of enjoyment in trouble, they like to be made toweepover fictitious distresses, there is a chord in them which responds at once to any call for sympathy. Thérèse was not one of these people to whom we turn in our sorrows, sure at least of being understood, if we are not helped. As yet she was impatient of sorrow, eager for happiness. She hated tragedies, sad books, minor music. As I have said, it was not that such things did not touch her—perhaps if she had been indifferent she would not have minded them so much—but her nature rose up in rebellion against them: they were part of Adam’s curse. She had not learned that, after all, through the Infinite Love that uses sorrow and suffering for instruments, they have caught a Divine beauty, a sweet solemn loveliness which by degrees reveals itself and wins our hearts. Thérèse believed only in one kind of happiness—our wills gratified, our dreams realised, all the little idols we have set up smiling down upon us from their pedestals: as we go on in life we find out sometimes that it was well our idols were shattered for us, or we might have been crushed under their weight; but Thérèse had no fear of this. She thought of herself as if some day all her longings must be satisfied, her troubles ended and laid aside, every thing completed, rounded off, and perfect. After that, I think there came a golden haze. There is something half-pathetic, half-comforting, in this unlimited faith in coming happiness. We see where it fails, but every now and then it acts upon our wearier spirits like a breath of immortality.

Thérèse had already met with enough to daunt her in her little life, although it had not had that effect; she looked upon all the roughnesses of the road, so far, as things extraneous, and not altogether belonging to her existence. Whatever part of her they affected it was not her belief in the rose-coloured days that were coming. That stood unshaken. Nor while it lasted could she be said to have lost her courage; yet it had grown to have a strange admixture of timidity since she went—a bold brave child—to live at Rouen. Her heart used to swell, and her cheeks flush, when M. Moreau was harsh to her aunt, to Fabien; but her woman’s nature, though it resented his treatment, quailed before it. Once or twice she had resisted him, but all the time she was terribly frightened. Poor Thérèse! she was only a girl, and he had every thing on his side except right, as she used to say to herself indignantly, half angry at her own weakness.

Madame Moreau was a large feeble woman, who scarcely ventured to think without her husband’s permission. She was so passive under his provocations that you were inclined to wonder whether she had been so from the first, or whether, after he had frightened the spirit out of her, nature had avenged herself by giving her this impervious armour. Thérèse’s little fiery outbreaks on her behalf were always wasted. They were much more appreciated by Fabien; he incited her to them, and she was too generous to notice that she was left to bear the consequences alone. He was her hero, over whom she rang her little changes of admiration: when he told her that he loved her, instead of formally beforehand requesting her hand from her uncle, she promised, with her grey eyes shining straight into his, and all her heart in her words, never to give him up. Fabien promised the same. “Every thing,” says an old writer, “has a double handle, or at least we have two hands by which to apprehend it.” I suppose it was so with this promise.

Then came the crash, and her hero went away, more of a hero than ever. In her thoughts Thérèse set a crown on his head, and turned him into one of the old champions. Fabien, who was thoroughly nineteenth-century, would have been utterly puzzled what to do with himself if her ideas had come true. And then, with her boundless store of hopefulness, of expectation, she did not find the waiting so weary as it looked. Every now and then, to be sure, there would surge up in her heart a wild longing, a yearning such as had broken out when M. Deshoulières spoke, the days would seem interminable, the distance from Fabien infinite. Such pangs came more acutely after M. Moreau had one day called her into his room.

“So you are still thinking of that ungrateful?” said the old man mockingly. “In that case you shall receive his latest news.”

And then he showed her Fabien’s lines of renunciation.

All the girl’s fear of her uncle vanished: she lifted her head proudly. “When Fabien writes those words to me, I will believe them,” she said, and went away, leaving old Moreau speechless at her presumption. It was her greatest victory among their encounters, but it was one of those victories which cost more than defeats. Not all her buoyancy could rise against the weight which the words left in her heart. How could he write them? How could he? She used to put the question passionately, and then answer it with a hundred fond excuses. All must be right some day,—that was the creed to which she clung; could she only keep free from the convent walls, all must be right. When her aunt died, and she lost the one slender link to her uncle’s affection, her dread of them increased; afterwards, through all the terrible time at the Cygne, she could not altogether repress the sense of liberty which came with the lifting from her the weight of that indomitable will. Whatever happened, she thought she must breathe more freely. She was not at all prepared to find M. Moreau’s intentions echoed back by her new guardian. Madame Roulleau had taken care to impress her with an idea of his inflexible nature, and she began, in her ignorance, to dread that he might have the power to compel her to submit. Any fate seemed preferable, and Madame Roulleau was well aware that in taking her into her house, she might impose what terms she pleased.

At first there was not much laid upon her. She had a miserable little room, it is true, bare and dreary, but what then? “If mademoiselle expects another Château Ardron, she must not come to Rue St. Servan,” said Madame, with her disagreeable smile. Thérèse hastened to explain that no such discontented comparison had entered her head. She was in fact too young to care much for the want of comfort round her; she pulled the things about and spread out her little possessions, and wasted no repinings for the blue silk curtains, and the gilding, and theormoluat Château Ardron. Out of her window, beyond the roofs, she could see one of the Cathedral spires, with its delicate stone fretwork; a great expanse of sky over the flat country round; the very roofs were too crooked, too full, of quaint character, to be commonplace. She could make histories out of them, weave romances about the people who lived beneath them—romances into which her own story and Fabien’s stole in some irrepressible way. It seemed like a little time of rest after all the harshness and unkind words of the last years. Surely some intuitive instinct would tell Fabien that she was alone in the world, and that no one need come between them now.

But in a little while she found she had no time for dreaming. Things seemed to fell upon her as a matter of course. Mme. Roulleau would come in with a great heap of clothes in her arms, her own, Adolphe’s, Octavie’s, for mademoiselle to exercise her powers ofreparationupon. It was often very difficult to make out of them what madame expected; only Aladdin’s magician with his new lamps for old could have satisfied her, and poor Thérèse darned and turned and patched, and patched and turned and darned, in despair: more than once before she had learned her lesson of economy, she cut up her own things in a vain attempt to perform the impossible. If she could only have pleased by her efforts she would not have disliked the work; she was active-minded, glad to be of use, there would have been a certain enjoyment in her own ingenuity. And if Mme. Roulleau was capable of being touched she must have been conscious of the sweetness with which Thérèse took her rebuffs, the patience with which she tried to follow out her directions. They were the only weapons the girl brought forward at this time. But to certain natures there is nothing so dear as the power of petty tyranny, and neither the money paid by M. Deshoulières, nor the work she extracted from her, were so delightful to Madame Roulleau as the infliction of daily snubs upon Thérèse. Skilfully drawing out her desire to remain free and lead a secular life, skilfully playing upon her fears of a convent, imperceptibly strengthening her dread of M. Deshoulières’ decisions, far more swift than he to fathom the secret of the girl’s heart and to turn it to their purpose, she did her best to make Thérèse’s life a burden.

And yet for a time, as I have said, Thérèse bore it all not only with patience but with cheerfulness. She hoped bravely, and this was the elixir which prevented her feeling madame’s sting. It was not pleasant to be found fault with, but she said to herself that it all came from her own stupidity, her want of knowledge about useful things. After all, they were useful, and it was very good for her to be forced into them. She preached vigorous little lectures over her own reluctance and want of gratitude. Monsieur and madame were not charming, certainly, but they had been very generous and only demanded a return. In those days her step was buoyant, her colour bright, her grey eyes sparkling. Madame Roulleau used to look at her and say crossly to her husband,—

“She has had some news of thatvaurien.”

The little notary used to get into a fever of alarm. “Zénobie,” he would say, with his shrill voice quavering, “if he comes back we are ruined.”

“He must not come back,” said madame, quietly.

“Must not!” repeated the little man, querulously. “That is very fine, but who is to keep him away? It appears to me that there was never such a world as this for gossip. Instead of minding their own affairs, people talk, talk, like so many parrots, and who is to make sure that their mischievous tongues will not one day carry the news to the wrong person?”

His wife darted a contemptuous glance at him. “It is a lottery, as I told you before,” she said coldly. “One or other must lose.”

“And you talk of it so calmly! Do you know what a frightful risk I run? If M. Saint-Martin comes home, and the little hindrances I have put in his way are discovered—or if that girl finds out the double payment, I am ruined! I shudder when I think of it.”

He was shuddering. It was a hot June day, and he shivered as if he had the ague. Madame looked at him with still the same expression in her face.

“You are a coward, Ignace,” at last she said, letting her words drop slowly, “and that makes you a fool. Do you suppose that I have not weighed the risk? Do you suppose that I am not watching?”

Under her eyes he shivered more visibly. “I know,” he said in a submissive voice; “I only thought—”

“Do not think,” she interrupted contemptuously; “leave thinking to me.”

“He might write to her,” M. Roulleau muttered under his breath.

“What are you saying?”

“Do not be angry, Zénobie; I only remarked that he might write to her.”

“Here?”

“No; to Château Ardron. In that case,mon amie,” continued the little man, apologetically, “permit me to observe that the letter would be forwarded to Monsieur Deshoulières.”

Madame sighed. “I do not think I shall ever be able to educate you,” she said; “I must soon give it up. And you can actually assert that such a danger has only just struck you, and that all this time you have taken no precaution against it.Hein! look here!”

Her tone rose peremptory and shrill. M. Roulleau looked obediently at the copy of the letter she flourished before his eyes, and then admiringly at her.

“You are a marvel!” he said in his feeble, abject voice.

“I made her write it,” she said, still shrilly. “Bah, she is only too easy to manage, there is no satisfaction, one had but to work on her fears. Her letters will be sent here, and I think, monsieur, you will acknowledge that I can arrange who shall be the receiver?”

“I acknowledge every thing,” he said, with a deprecating gesture.

“Perhaps you may be relieved to know,” she continued, returning to her cold measured tones, “that I took further steps at the same time. It would be inconvenient if other letters reached M. Deshoulières. I requested, therefore, in his name, that all documents which might arrive should be forwarded to you. By this means we control one channel of communication.”

“But, Zénobie, my angel—”

“Well? more scruples?”

“You said in his name?”

“Exactly.”

“But—suppose he should find it out?”

“In that case, and supposing also that you had not the wit to persuade him that such were his orders, our little enterprise is at an end. I have told you that there must be risk. Bah!” she continued, suddenly becoming fierce again, “you do not fear to be a villain, Ignace, provided you may have the profit without the danger. You can creep, but you cannot spring.”

She did not look unlike a wild-cat herself, with her round black eyes sparkling, her hands making energetic passes in the air. M. Roulleau was in an agony lest any one should hear her imprudent words.

“Hush-h-h,” he said tremulously, “I am not so clever as you, Zénobie, I do not affirm it. Only tell me what you would have me do.”

“Do!” she cried in her high-pitched voice. And then, with one of those sudden strange checks by which she controlled her passion, she changed back to her contemptuous manner. “You can never be any thing but what you are, but you may be useful in your own way. Do? Go and creep, Ignace.”

Chapter Six.Cori.—“I have been i’ the market place;......all’s in anger.”Coriolanus.Of all French towns, perhaps Charville is the most under female influence. I do not know how the power has grown up, or whether it is of any great antiquity, but it is so hard to conceive any thing modern in connection with the place, that one supposes it to have existed in remote ages. Women’s rights in France are of a more muscular character than in England; women go out into the fields, dig, reap, and plough: it is a severe training, from which they come out brown and weather-beaten. There is plenty of such work in the great monotonous cornfields round Charville all the year round; but inside the town, a more important, and, in their eyes, a more honourable occupation, is intrusted to women. The measuring and selling the grain in the corn-market is carried on by a corporation of their number. They do their work very quickly and efficiently. Their code of laws is of long standing, and seldom meets with a hitch. The owners leave all in their hands; in fact, their trustworthiness is so proverbial, that as soon might the character of a judge be assailed, as the honesty of one of this corporate body. Saturdays are the days when you may see the carts coming in from the farms laden with little golden grain: the Charville sleepiness seems to rouse itself into action; there is activity, energy, sometimes even a little spice of hurry. Those that enter the town at the lower suburb find it no easy matter to get up the narrow steep streets; the carts jolt and creak, the horses labour, while all the time there is an unceasing chorus of the sharp “Heep, heep!”Inside the market, as I have said, matters move with all imaginable rapidity and gravity. The women receive the grain, weigh it, and the sale goes on so briskly that all is over before the end of an hour. Outside, in the Place, are a crowd of carts, people idling, old women standing about in their stuff gowns and snowy caps; the country people meet their relations; there is a din of good-humoured chatter about the price of corn, the value of samples, the health of the bishop, the ambition of Madame the Préfet’s wife, the chance of gaining a fewsous,—all kinds of matters, great and small, but rarely any more serious disturbance. Monsieur Deshoulières was surprised one morning as he passed through the Place to find himself the centre of a hubbub. Quite a crowd had gathered together at the entrance to the market—men and women with grave excited faces, a torrent of shrill voices. People looked out of their windows; the horses, standing unheeded in the carts, tossed their great manes, and stamped and shook themselves to get rid of the tormenting flies. The time when business usually concluded was past; it was evident that something still hindered it, something unusual.“What is the matter?” asked M. Deshoulières, elbowing his way through a throng of women.So many voices answered him that he lifted his low hat, and said, with an appealing gesture, “One at a time, if you please, mesdames.”“Such an affair has never before happened in our town.”“It is a scandal!”“One will hear next that one sells short measure one’s self!”“Could monsieur conceive the audacity of that unhappy boy!”“Madame Mathurine will assuredly apply to Monsieur le Maire.”Then they all began again. The doctor could not understand it. He saw, however, that there were two parties, each enthusiastic for their own side; and from what he could gather out of the angry waves of talk, he suspected the town and country people were at variance. Old Nannon was passionately declaiming in the centre, alternately scolding her opponents and hugging a white-faced bullet-headed boy in a blouse who seemed the object of attack. A painter would have been pleased with the scene, there was so much colour and animation about it. The houses looked as if each had its history: there were wonderful Gothic arches with great sombre depths, and above them, perhaps, a scarlet or purple flower flaming out of a window; a crowd, with its patches of indigo, olive green, and rich russets, all in harmony with the background; great white horses, carrying their monstrous collars; yellow corn going away to the water-mills, hot sunshine, striped awnings, pigeons flying up and down from the roofs,—while a clear atmosphere brought out all the tints and soft half-tones, so that it made a beautiful glowing picture. A fat, comfortably dressed farmer’s wife had been leaning against the wall of the market, more silent than the rest; she pushed her companions on one side in the midst of the clatter of tongues,—“Tenez,” she said, decidedly. “I will explain the affair to monsieur.”“Is that you, Madame Lemaire?” said the doctor, with a little relief. “Now perhaps there is a chance that I may understand. What is hindering the business to-day? Is the market closed?”“Mesdames are deliberating,” replied Madame Lemaire in a slow, solid voice. “There has been an inconvenient event. The corn was brought in this morning from Gohon’s, as usual, and delivered to Madame Mathurine. When she came to measure the grain, she found, as she says, three of the sacks deficient. She has a theory,” continued Madame Lemaire, ponderously, “that the boy Jean-Marie, who drove the cart, could explain the matter if he chose. There are plenty to take his part, and plenty to take hers.Voilà tout, monsieur!” There had been a slight lull in the din of voices, accorded to the position of the well-to-do farmer’s wife, as she made this explanation. When she stopped it broke out again. Old Nannon had drawn near to listen, dragging the accused after her, and she took up the cudgels immediately.“Voilà tout, madame remarks, but it shall not be all, I say. If Madame Mathurine supposes she is to take away the character of an innocent angel like this, she shall learn her mistake. Speak for thyself, Jean-Marie.”The innocent angel only answered by a howl. The bystanders laughed. Monsieur Deshoulières interposed,—“What have you to do with him, Nannon?” he inquired.“He is her sister’s son.”“He works for Monsieur Gohon,” replied a chorus of shrill voices. At this moment the great doors were flung open, and the people poured into the market. It all looked grey, cool, business-like: sacks heaped about, great measures, a few men in blue blouses, and a small knot of women, in white frilled caps, and little crossed shawls, standing together in the midst. M. Deshoulières looked on with a little quiet amusement, wondering how the women would conduct themselves. A commotion in the corn-market was almost unprecedented. Just then he saw a figure standing behind two others in the sunlit doorway. Something in form or attitude was so unlike the rest, that he looked again and recognised Thérèse. She had already noticed him, so that it did not surprise her when he came back to her and began, in his quick abrupt manner,—“You here, mademoiselle?”She drew back a little, seeing that he was displeased, and lifted her eyes to his face with the expression that always unconsciously touched him. It was quite true that a few months ago she would have shrunk from finding herself among people alone, but since her stay at the Roulleaus, madame had impressed upon her that she was no longer in a position to hold such ideas; she made her useful in this as in every other respect, and Thérèse had been a little proud of overcoming the dislike which all French education and habits implant so strongly that it becomes second nature. She had been passing through the Place, and had paused for a moment at the entrance to the market, to look at the throng within. There the sunlight had betrayed her to M. Deshoulières. The idea of concealing herself from him, or from any one else, would never have entered her head, but now she wished heartily that he had not perceived her. When he went on to ask what had become of her attendant, poor Thérèse coloured crimson with vexation.“I have nobonne, monsieur,” she answered as composedly as she could. “In my position I do not expect one.”It was M. Deshoulières’ turn to colour. He walked up to fat Madame Lemaire, who was standing near, and brought her back with a kind of ceremonious formality. “There has been a mistake about mademoiselle’s servant,” he said, hurriedly; “will you do me the kindness to permit her to remain under your protection?” Then he went a little aside from them, and stood watching the proceedings.The women looked very grave and determined, only Mme. Mathurine was a little pale. She was the most unpopular of her number among the country people, and a good many of them, without any real suspicion of her honesty, were not sorry to inflict a touch of humiliation. Old Nannon, in her wrath, said openly that she had lined her pockets with the price of the corn, and then accused the boy of bringing short measure. Others, who had not the old woman’s personal interest in the matter, would not venture so far, they shook their heads, and shrugged their shoulders. The majority inclined to the belief that the boy had been tampered with, and had sold the grain before he reached the market; but Mme. Mathurine, who was proud and self-reliant, saw only the shakes and shrugs. She was obliged to appear composed and indifferent, but in her heart a fierce indignation was burning. She had made a little mistake in not having at once called one of the other saleswomen to witness the reality of the short measure, and even to have made a mistake was very bitter to her pride. She folded her arms and looked round upon the faces about her with the air of a queen.“There is no more to be done, messieurs and mesdames,” she said. “The business is concluded. Monsieur Gohon will communicate with the corporation, if he desires it.”“And our Jean-Marie?” asked Nannon, pressing up and looking warlike.Madame Mathurine deigned no other answer than a withering glance. Her companions gathered round her; they made a little compact phalanx and moved towards the doors. Old Nannon followed, dragging her reluctant nephew, and pouring out a torrent of words,—“I appeal to the commissary,—to the mayor,” she cried, thrusting herself before Mme. Mathurine. M. Deshoulières began to think the old woman’s rage would lead her to a personal attack upon her enemy, and the other saleswomen thought so too, for the eldest of the group, perceiving him, came quickly up and said in a low voice,—“Pray, monsieur, use your influence to prevent scandal.”“Nannon,” he said, sternly, “this must end. You have been allowed too much licence already. So much as relates to the affair here is finished; for the rest, Jean-Marie and his master must settle it between them.”There was a little murmur of applause among the town-people, an honest admiration for their doctor made his opinion as decisive as the maire’s. Nannon shook her head, and drew herself up with a certain pathetic dignity.“That is easy to say, monsieur,” she answered, her poor old voice tremulous with indignation. “We all know the quantity was just when the corn left the farm, and if the poor boy goes back with this story, it does not require to be a witch to know that my sister will have him on her hands again.”Thérèse, standing rather behind fat Madame Lemaire, and her basket, was in a little flame of excitement. Her colour rose, her eye sparkled, one or two people near looked at her with curiosity and admiration, but she did not remark it. She liked the old woman with her ugly, half comical, half-pathetic face, and wanted her to be proved in the right; M. Deshoulières, who found himself, to his amusement, constituted a kind of judge, little knew what a warm partisan of the accused was watching him from the background with flashing eyes. He asked a few necessary questions; the sacks had been brought tied and marked as usual, the bill of the quantity delivered to Madame Mathurine, Jean-Marie stoutly denied any encounters on the road. M. Deshoulières felt convinced that he denied too much; old Nannon, on the contrary, was in triumph.“Now monsieur sees that he is telling the truth!”“That is just what he is not doing,” said the doctor severely. “If he can give no other account of himself, and Madame Mathurine does not call in the commissary of police, it will be Gohon’s duty to do so. As for you, Nannon, you should know better than to encourage him.”“Oh, monsieur!”Nannon’s face was tragic. Thérèse was altogether on her side against M. Deshoulières’ harshness. No one can be so unjust as a girl when her feelings are brought into the battle-field; Nannon’s young champion would have ridden pell-mell over right and wrong, laws and principles, Madame Mathurine, and the whole corporation, in defence of this old woman with her foolish, unreasonable love. She detested M. Deshoulières when he said:—“It is true. Listen to me, Jean-Marie. You shall have one chance more. Whom did you see on your road here to-day?”Something came out which sounded like “the Simons and Michault.” There was a murmur of indignation.“Imagine the little wicked one vowing that he met no one!”“Did monsieur conceive the road to be a desert?” said Nannon, drawing herself up defiantly.“Where was Michault?” asked M. Deshoulières, disregarding.“He was at Cottereau’s.”Between obstinacy and fright it was difficult to extract the truth from the unhappy Jean-Marie, but the doctor’s questions at last elicited the facts that he had been persuaded to enter the Cottereaus’ cottage—one of those miserable huts which abound in the department—under pretence of receiving a commission from Mère Cottereau to buy some cotton yarn for her in Charville. Then it came out that Michault, who was sitting there, went away, the others gave the boy cider, and detained him for some time, while no doubt the theft was committed. The Cottereaus’ character was well-known in the district; it all seemed clear enough now that Jean-Marie acknowledged this much, and M. Deshoulières did not think the boy knew more. Notice would be given to the police, but it was not likely he would suffer from them. M. Deshoulières bestowed a few sharp words upon him, meaning all the while to say something to Gohon on his behalf. This neither Nannon nor Thérèse guessed; the old woman’s foolish fondness provoked him, and he would not let her see that he had any compassion for the culprit.The crowd poured out into the sunshine again, rich colours flashed about here and there, carts were laden and driven off with great creaks and rumblings. People were tolerably satisfied with the ending of the affair, which left them one object for abuse in the treacherous Michault. The saleswomen congratulated themselves, only Madame Mathurine walked away alone with an angry indignant heart. It was nothing to her that her integrity had been proved, since it had once been doubted. She was not even grateful to M. Deshoulières.Poor Max! He had done a good morning’s work, perhaps warded off a serious evil; if they had been men with whom he had to deal, his good deeds would have held a chance of appreciation. Here, on the contrary, old Nannon walked off, still erect and defiant; Madame Mathurine was unthankful; Thérèse called him unmerciful. Before he had time to look for her she had wished adieu to Madame Lemaire, who wanted to keep her, and had slipped out with the crowd. M. Deshoulières, coming to where he had left her, found her gone. He was obliged to explain something of her story to Madame Lemaire, who, with all her solidity, was curious and a little romantic.“There must be but one conclusion,” she said, laughing good-humouredly when he had finished; “monsieur should marry her.”He started with undisguised amazement. “I!”“But yes. Is it so wonderful?”“I! What could have put that into your head?”Madame Lemaire nodded wisely. “Perhaps it was her pretty face, perhaps it was chance. Who knows? After all it is of monsieur we are talking.”M. Deshoulières shook his head, and went away smiling, yet with a half-hidden sadness in his tone. “You must look for romances elsewhere, madame,” he said. “I have no heart to spare except for my patients.”No one ever entirely realises how much his life is moulded by what we call trifles. We do not want a lion in our path to turn us, a straw will do it as effectually. It is only an indifferent word occasionally that opens the floodgates and lets the torrent in. A look affects a life; perhaps such insignificant instruments are chosen to keep us humble. Looking back, when we have gone further on our journey, we dimly understand it, but at the time the influences seem too small to be admitted. Yet it is the teaching of all creation, whether physical or spiritual. In the drop of water, in the blade of grass, in the moment of time, in the thought of our heart, God teaches us the immensity of little things.

Cori.—“I have been i’ the market place;......all’s in anger.”Coriolanus.

Cori.—“I have been i’ the market place;......all’s in anger.”Coriolanus.

Of all French towns, perhaps Charville is the most under female influence. I do not know how the power has grown up, or whether it is of any great antiquity, but it is so hard to conceive any thing modern in connection with the place, that one supposes it to have existed in remote ages. Women’s rights in France are of a more muscular character than in England; women go out into the fields, dig, reap, and plough: it is a severe training, from which they come out brown and weather-beaten. There is plenty of such work in the great monotonous cornfields round Charville all the year round; but inside the town, a more important, and, in their eyes, a more honourable occupation, is intrusted to women. The measuring and selling the grain in the corn-market is carried on by a corporation of their number. They do their work very quickly and efficiently. Their code of laws is of long standing, and seldom meets with a hitch. The owners leave all in their hands; in fact, their trustworthiness is so proverbial, that as soon might the character of a judge be assailed, as the honesty of one of this corporate body. Saturdays are the days when you may see the carts coming in from the farms laden with little golden grain: the Charville sleepiness seems to rouse itself into action; there is activity, energy, sometimes even a little spice of hurry. Those that enter the town at the lower suburb find it no easy matter to get up the narrow steep streets; the carts jolt and creak, the horses labour, while all the time there is an unceasing chorus of the sharp “Heep, heep!”

Inside the market, as I have said, matters move with all imaginable rapidity and gravity. The women receive the grain, weigh it, and the sale goes on so briskly that all is over before the end of an hour. Outside, in the Place, are a crowd of carts, people idling, old women standing about in their stuff gowns and snowy caps; the country people meet their relations; there is a din of good-humoured chatter about the price of corn, the value of samples, the health of the bishop, the ambition of Madame the Préfet’s wife, the chance of gaining a fewsous,—all kinds of matters, great and small, but rarely any more serious disturbance. Monsieur Deshoulières was surprised one morning as he passed through the Place to find himself the centre of a hubbub. Quite a crowd had gathered together at the entrance to the market—men and women with grave excited faces, a torrent of shrill voices. People looked out of their windows; the horses, standing unheeded in the carts, tossed their great manes, and stamped and shook themselves to get rid of the tormenting flies. The time when business usually concluded was past; it was evident that something still hindered it, something unusual.

“What is the matter?” asked M. Deshoulières, elbowing his way through a throng of women.

So many voices answered him that he lifted his low hat, and said, with an appealing gesture, “One at a time, if you please, mesdames.”

“Such an affair has never before happened in our town.”

“It is a scandal!”

“One will hear next that one sells short measure one’s self!”

“Could monsieur conceive the audacity of that unhappy boy!”

“Madame Mathurine will assuredly apply to Monsieur le Maire.”

Then they all began again. The doctor could not understand it. He saw, however, that there were two parties, each enthusiastic for their own side; and from what he could gather out of the angry waves of talk, he suspected the town and country people were at variance. Old Nannon was passionately declaiming in the centre, alternately scolding her opponents and hugging a white-faced bullet-headed boy in a blouse who seemed the object of attack. A painter would have been pleased with the scene, there was so much colour and animation about it. The houses looked as if each had its history: there were wonderful Gothic arches with great sombre depths, and above them, perhaps, a scarlet or purple flower flaming out of a window; a crowd, with its patches of indigo, olive green, and rich russets, all in harmony with the background; great white horses, carrying their monstrous collars; yellow corn going away to the water-mills, hot sunshine, striped awnings, pigeons flying up and down from the roofs,—while a clear atmosphere brought out all the tints and soft half-tones, so that it made a beautiful glowing picture. A fat, comfortably dressed farmer’s wife had been leaning against the wall of the market, more silent than the rest; she pushed her companions on one side in the midst of the clatter of tongues,—

“Tenez,” she said, decidedly. “I will explain the affair to monsieur.”

“Is that you, Madame Lemaire?” said the doctor, with a little relief. “Now perhaps there is a chance that I may understand. What is hindering the business to-day? Is the market closed?”

“Mesdames are deliberating,” replied Madame Lemaire in a slow, solid voice. “There has been an inconvenient event. The corn was brought in this morning from Gohon’s, as usual, and delivered to Madame Mathurine. When she came to measure the grain, she found, as she says, three of the sacks deficient. She has a theory,” continued Madame Lemaire, ponderously, “that the boy Jean-Marie, who drove the cart, could explain the matter if he chose. There are plenty to take his part, and plenty to take hers.Voilà tout, monsieur!” There had been a slight lull in the din of voices, accorded to the position of the well-to-do farmer’s wife, as she made this explanation. When she stopped it broke out again. Old Nannon had drawn near to listen, dragging the accused after her, and she took up the cudgels immediately.

“Voilà tout, madame remarks, but it shall not be all, I say. If Madame Mathurine supposes she is to take away the character of an innocent angel like this, she shall learn her mistake. Speak for thyself, Jean-Marie.”

The innocent angel only answered by a howl. The bystanders laughed. Monsieur Deshoulières interposed,—

“What have you to do with him, Nannon?” he inquired.

“He is her sister’s son.”

“He works for Monsieur Gohon,” replied a chorus of shrill voices. At this moment the great doors were flung open, and the people poured into the market. It all looked grey, cool, business-like: sacks heaped about, great measures, a few men in blue blouses, and a small knot of women, in white frilled caps, and little crossed shawls, standing together in the midst. M. Deshoulières looked on with a little quiet amusement, wondering how the women would conduct themselves. A commotion in the corn-market was almost unprecedented. Just then he saw a figure standing behind two others in the sunlit doorway. Something in form or attitude was so unlike the rest, that he looked again and recognised Thérèse. She had already noticed him, so that it did not surprise her when he came back to her and began, in his quick abrupt manner,—

“You here, mademoiselle?”

She drew back a little, seeing that he was displeased, and lifted her eyes to his face with the expression that always unconsciously touched him. It was quite true that a few months ago she would have shrunk from finding herself among people alone, but since her stay at the Roulleaus, madame had impressed upon her that she was no longer in a position to hold such ideas; she made her useful in this as in every other respect, and Thérèse had been a little proud of overcoming the dislike which all French education and habits implant so strongly that it becomes second nature. She had been passing through the Place, and had paused for a moment at the entrance to the market, to look at the throng within. There the sunlight had betrayed her to M. Deshoulières. The idea of concealing herself from him, or from any one else, would never have entered her head, but now she wished heartily that he had not perceived her. When he went on to ask what had become of her attendant, poor Thérèse coloured crimson with vexation.

“I have nobonne, monsieur,” she answered as composedly as she could. “In my position I do not expect one.”

It was M. Deshoulières’ turn to colour. He walked up to fat Madame Lemaire, who was standing near, and brought her back with a kind of ceremonious formality. “There has been a mistake about mademoiselle’s servant,” he said, hurriedly; “will you do me the kindness to permit her to remain under your protection?” Then he went a little aside from them, and stood watching the proceedings.

The women looked very grave and determined, only Mme. Mathurine was a little pale. She was the most unpopular of her number among the country people, and a good many of them, without any real suspicion of her honesty, were not sorry to inflict a touch of humiliation. Old Nannon, in her wrath, said openly that she had lined her pockets with the price of the corn, and then accused the boy of bringing short measure. Others, who had not the old woman’s personal interest in the matter, would not venture so far, they shook their heads, and shrugged their shoulders. The majority inclined to the belief that the boy had been tampered with, and had sold the grain before he reached the market; but Mme. Mathurine, who was proud and self-reliant, saw only the shakes and shrugs. She was obliged to appear composed and indifferent, but in her heart a fierce indignation was burning. She had made a little mistake in not having at once called one of the other saleswomen to witness the reality of the short measure, and even to have made a mistake was very bitter to her pride. She folded her arms and looked round upon the faces about her with the air of a queen.

“There is no more to be done, messieurs and mesdames,” she said. “The business is concluded. Monsieur Gohon will communicate with the corporation, if he desires it.”

“And our Jean-Marie?” asked Nannon, pressing up and looking warlike.

Madame Mathurine deigned no other answer than a withering glance. Her companions gathered round her; they made a little compact phalanx and moved towards the doors. Old Nannon followed, dragging her reluctant nephew, and pouring out a torrent of words,—

“I appeal to the commissary,—to the mayor,” she cried, thrusting herself before Mme. Mathurine. M. Deshoulières began to think the old woman’s rage would lead her to a personal attack upon her enemy, and the other saleswomen thought so too, for the eldest of the group, perceiving him, came quickly up and said in a low voice,—

“Pray, monsieur, use your influence to prevent scandal.”

“Nannon,” he said, sternly, “this must end. You have been allowed too much licence already. So much as relates to the affair here is finished; for the rest, Jean-Marie and his master must settle it between them.”

There was a little murmur of applause among the town-people, an honest admiration for their doctor made his opinion as decisive as the maire’s. Nannon shook her head, and drew herself up with a certain pathetic dignity.

“That is easy to say, monsieur,” she answered, her poor old voice tremulous with indignation. “We all know the quantity was just when the corn left the farm, and if the poor boy goes back with this story, it does not require to be a witch to know that my sister will have him on her hands again.”

Thérèse, standing rather behind fat Madame Lemaire, and her basket, was in a little flame of excitement. Her colour rose, her eye sparkled, one or two people near looked at her with curiosity and admiration, but she did not remark it. She liked the old woman with her ugly, half comical, half-pathetic face, and wanted her to be proved in the right; M. Deshoulières, who found himself, to his amusement, constituted a kind of judge, little knew what a warm partisan of the accused was watching him from the background with flashing eyes. He asked a few necessary questions; the sacks had been brought tied and marked as usual, the bill of the quantity delivered to Madame Mathurine, Jean-Marie stoutly denied any encounters on the road. M. Deshoulières felt convinced that he denied too much; old Nannon, on the contrary, was in triumph.

“Now monsieur sees that he is telling the truth!”

“That is just what he is not doing,” said the doctor severely. “If he can give no other account of himself, and Madame Mathurine does not call in the commissary of police, it will be Gohon’s duty to do so. As for you, Nannon, you should know better than to encourage him.”

“Oh, monsieur!”

Nannon’s face was tragic. Thérèse was altogether on her side against M. Deshoulières’ harshness. No one can be so unjust as a girl when her feelings are brought into the battle-field; Nannon’s young champion would have ridden pell-mell over right and wrong, laws and principles, Madame Mathurine, and the whole corporation, in defence of this old woman with her foolish, unreasonable love. She detested M. Deshoulières when he said:—

“It is true. Listen to me, Jean-Marie. You shall have one chance more. Whom did you see on your road here to-day?”

Something came out which sounded like “the Simons and Michault.” There was a murmur of indignation.

“Imagine the little wicked one vowing that he met no one!”

“Did monsieur conceive the road to be a desert?” said Nannon, drawing herself up defiantly.

“Where was Michault?” asked M. Deshoulières, disregarding.

“He was at Cottereau’s.”

Between obstinacy and fright it was difficult to extract the truth from the unhappy Jean-Marie, but the doctor’s questions at last elicited the facts that he had been persuaded to enter the Cottereaus’ cottage—one of those miserable huts which abound in the department—under pretence of receiving a commission from Mère Cottereau to buy some cotton yarn for her in Charville. Then it came out that Michault, who was sitting there, went away, the others gave the boy cider, and detained him for some time, while no doubt the theft was committed. The Cottereaus’ character was well-known in the district; it all seemed clear enough now that Jean-Marie acknowledged this much, and M. Deshoulières did not think the boy knew more. Notice would be given to the police, but it was not likely he would suffer from them. M. Deshoulières bestowed a few sharp words upon him, meaning all the while to say something to Gohon on his behalf. This neither Nannon nor Thérèse guessed; the old woman’s foolish fondness provoked him, and he would not let her see that he had any compassion for the culprit.

The crowd poured out into the sunshine again, rich colours flashed about here and there, carts were laden and driven off with great creaks and rumblings. People were tolerably satisfied with the ending of the affair, which left them one object for abuse in the treacherous Michault. The saleswomen congratulated themselves, only Madame Mathurine walked away alone with an angry indignant heart. It was nothing to her that her integrity had been proved, since it had once been doubted. She was not even grateful to M. Deshoulières.

Poor Max! He had done a good morning’s work, perhaps warded off a serious evil; if they had been men with whom he had to deal, his good deeds would have held a chance of appreciation. Here, on the contrary, old Nannon walked off, still erect and defiant; Madame Mathurine was unthankful; Thérèse called him unmerciful. Before he had time to look for her she had wished adieu to Madame Lemaire, who wanted to keep her, and had slipped out with the crowd. M. Deshoulières, coming to where he had left her, found her gone. He was obliged to explain something of her story to Madame Lemaire, who, with all her solidity, was curious and a little romantic.

“There must be but one conclusion,” she said, laughing good-humouredly when he had finished; “monsieur should marry her.”

He started with undisguised amazement. “I!”

“But yes. Is it so wonderful?”

“I! What could have put that into your head?”

Madame Lemaire nodded wisely. “Perhaps it was her pretty face, perhaps it was chance. Who knows? After all it is of monsieur we are talking.”

M. Deshoulières shook his head, and went away smiling, yet with a half-hidden sadness in his tone. “You must look for romances elsewhere, madame,” he said. “I have no heart to spare except for my patients.”

No one ever entirely realises how much his life is moulded by what we call trifles. We do not want a lion in our path to turn us, a straw will do it as effectually. It is only an indifferent word occasionally that opens the floodgates and lets the torrent in. A look affects a life; perhaps such insignificant instruments are chosen to keep us humble. Looking back, when we have gone further on our journey, we dimly understand it, but at the time the influences seem too small to be admitted. Yet it is the teaching of all creation, whether physical or spiritual. In the drop of water, in the blade of grass, in the moment of time, in the thought of our heart, God teaches us the immensity of little things.

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