_
Chapter XI - The Development of Paul
Jeanne did not leave her room for three months and was so wan and pale
that no one thought she would recover. But she picked up by degrees.
Little father and Aunt Lison never left her; they had both taken up
their abode at "The Poplars." The shock of Julien's death had left her
with a nervous malady. The slightest sound made her faint and she had
long swoons from the most insignificant causes.
She had never asked the details of Julien's death. What did it matter
to her? Did she not know enough already? Every one thought it was an
accident, but she knew better, and she kept to herself this secret
which tortured her: the knowledge of his infidelity and the
remembrance of the abrupt and terrible visit of the comte on the day
of the catastrophe.
And now she was filled with tender, sweet and melancholy recollections
of the brief evidences of love shown her by her husband. She
constantly thrilled at unexpected memories of him, and she seemed to
see him as he was when they were betrothed and as she had known him in
the hours passed beneath the sunlight in Corsica. All his faults
diminished, all his harshness vanished, his very infidelities appeared
less glaring in the widening separation of the closed tomb. And
Jeanne, pervaded by a sort of posthumous gratitude for this man who
had held her in his arms, forgave all the suffering he had caused her,
to remember only moments of happiness they had passed together. Then,
as time went on and month followed month, covering all her grief and
reminiscences with forgetfulness, she devoted herself entirely to her
son.
He became the idol, the one thought of the three beings who surrounded
him, and he ruled as a despot. A kind of jealousy even arose among his
slaves. Jeanne watched with anxiety the great kisses he gave his
grandfather after a ride on his knee, and Aunt Lison, neglected by him
as she had been by every one else and treated often like a servant by
this little tyrant who could scarcely speak as yet, would go to her
room and weep as she compared the slight affection he showed her with
the kisses he gave his mother and the baron.
Two years passed quietly, and at the beginning of the third winter it
was decided that they should go to Rouen to live until spring, and the
whole family set out. But on their arrival in the old damp house, that
had been shut up for some time, Paul had such a severe attack of
bronchitis that his three relatives in despair declared that he could
not do without the air of "The Poplars." They took him back there and
he got well.
Then began a series of quiet, monotonous years. Always around the
little one, they went into raptures at everything he did. His mother
called him Poulet, and as he could not pronounce the word, he said
"Pol," which amused them immensely, and the nickname of "Poulet" stuck
to him.
The favorite occupation of his "three mothers," as the baron called
his relatives, was to see how much he had grown, and for this purpose
they made little notches in the casing of the drawing-room door,
showing his progress from month to month. This ladder was called
"Poulet's ladder," and was an important affair.
A new individual began to play a part in the affairs of the
household--the dog "Massacre," who became Paul's inseparable
companion.
Rare visits were exchanged with the Brisevilles and the Couteliers.
The mayor and the doctor alone were regular visitors. Since the
episode of the mother dog and the suspicion Jeanne had entertained of
the priest on the occasion of the terrible death of the comtesse and
Julien, Jeanne had not entered the church, angry with a divinity that
could tolerate such ministers.
The church was deserted and the priest came to be looked on as a
sorcerer because he had, so they said, driven out an evil spirit from
a woman who was possessed, and although fearing him the peasants came
to respect him for this occult power as well as for the unimpeachable
austerity of his life.
When he met Jeanne he never spoke. This condition of affairs
distressed Aunt Lison, and when she was alone, quite alone with Paul,
she talked to him about God, telling him the wonderful stories of the
early history of the world. But when she told him that he must love
Him very much, the child would say: "Where is He, auntie?" "Up there,"
she would say, pointing to the sky; "up there, Poulet, but do not say
so." She was afraid of the baron.
One day, however, Poulet said to her: "God is everywhere, but He is
not in church." He had told his grandfather of his aunt's wonderful
revelations.
When Paul was twelve years old a great difficulty arose on the subject
of his first communion.
Lison came to Jeanne one morning and told her that the little fellow
should no longer be kept without religious instruction and from his
religious duties. His mother, troubled and undecided, hesitated,
saying that there was time enough. But a month later, as she was
returning a call at the Brisevilles', the comtesse asked her casually
if Paul was going to make his first communion that year. Jeanne,
unprepared for this, answered, "Yes," and this simple word decided
her, and without saying a word to her father, she asked Aunt Lison to
take the boy to the catechism class.
All went well for a month, but one day Paul came home with a
hoarseness and the following day he coughed. On inquiry his mother
learned that the priest had sent him to wait till the lesson was over
at the door of the church, where there was a draught, because he had
misbehaved. So she kept him at home and taught him herself. But the
Abbe Tobiac, despite Aunt Lison's entreaties, refused to admit him as
a communicant on the ground that he was not thoroughly taught.
The same thing occurred the following year, and the baron angrily
swore that the child did not need to believe all that tomfoolery, so
it was decided that he should be brought up as a Christian, but not as
an active Catholic, and when he came of age he could believe as he
pleased.
The Brisevilles ceased to call on her and Jeanne was surprised,
knowing the punctiliousness of these neighbors in returning calls, but
the Marquise de Coutelier haughtily told her the reason. Considering
herself, in virtue of her husband's rank and fortune, a sort of queen
of the Norman nobility, the marquise ruled as a queen, said what she
thought, was gracious or the reverse as occasion demanded,
admonishing, restoring to favor, congratulating whenever she saw fit.
So when Jeanne came to see her, this lady, after a few chilling
remarks, said drily: "Society is divided into two classes: those who
believe in God and those who do not believe in Him. The former, even
the humblest, are our friends, our equals; the latter are nothing to
us."
Jeanne, perceiving the insinuation, replied: "But may one not believe
in God without going to church?"
"No, madame," answered the marquise. "The faithful go to worship God
in His church, just as one goes to see people in their homes."
Jeanne, hurt, replied: "God is everywhere, madame. As for me, who
believes from the bottom of my heart in His goodness, I no longer feel
His presence when certain priests come between Him and me."
The marquise rose. "The priest is the standard bearer of the Church,
madame. Whoever does not follow the standard is opposed to Him and
opposed to us."
Jeanne had risen in her turn and said, trembling: "You believe,
madame, in a partisan God. I believe in the God of upright people."
She bowed and took her leave.
The peasants also blamed her among themselves for not having let
Poulet make his first communion. They themselves never attended
service or took the sacrament unless it might be at Easter, according
to the rule ordained by the Church; but for boys it was quite another
thing, and they would have all shrunk in horror at the audacity of
bringing up a child outside this recognized law, for religion is
religion.
She saw how they felt and was indignant at heart at all these
discriminations, all these compromises with conscience, this general
fear of everything, the real cowardice of all hearts and the mask of
respectability assumed in public.
The baron took charge of Paul's studies and made him study Latin, his
mother merely saying: "Above all things, do not get over tired."
As soon as the boy was at liberty he went down to work in the garden
with his mother and his aunt.
He now loved to dig in the ground, and all three planted young trees
in the spring, sowed seed and watched it growing with the deepest
interest, pruned branches and cut flowers for bouquets.
Poulet was almost fifteen, but was a mere child in intelligence,
ignorant, silly, suppressed between petticoat government and this kind
old man who belonged to another century.
One evening the baron spoke of college, and Jeanne at once began to
sob. Aunt Lison timidly remained in a dark corner.
"Why does he need to know so much?" asked his mother. "We will make a
gentleman farmer of him. He can cultivate his land, as many of the
nobility do. He will live and grow old happily in this house, where we
have lived before him and where we shall die. What more can one do?"
But the baron shook his head. "What would you say to him if he should
say to you when he is twenty-five: 'I amount to nothing, I know
nothing, all through your fault, the fault of your maternal
selfishness. I feel that I am incapable of working, of making
something of myself, and yet I was not intended for a secluded, simple
life, lonely enough to kill one, to which I have been condemned by
your shortsighted affection.'"
She was weeping and said entreatingly: "Tell me, Poulet, you will not
reproach me for having loved you too well?" And the big boy, in
surprise, promised that he never would. "Swear it," she said. "Yes,
mamma." "You want to stay here, don't you?" "Yes, mamma."
Then the baron spoke up loud and decidedly: "Jeanne, you have no right
to make disposition of this life. What you are doing is cowardly and
almost criminal; you are sacrificing your child to your own private
happiness."
She hid her face in her hands, sobbing convulsively, and stammered out
amid her tears: "I have been so unhappy--so unhappy! Now, just as I am
living peacefully with him, they want to take him away from me. What
will become of me now--all by myself?" Her father rose and, sitting
down beside her, put his arms round her. "And how about me, Jeanne?"
She put her arms suddenly round his neck, gave him a hearty kiss and
with her voice full of tears, she said: "Yes, you are right perhaps,
little father. I was foolish, but I have suffered so much. I am quite
willing he should go to college."
And without knowing exactly what they were going to do with him,
Poulet in his turn began to weep.
Then the three mothers began to kiss him and pet him and encourage
him. When they retired to their rooms it was with a weight at their
hearts, and they all wept, even the baron, who had restrained himself
up to that.
It was decided that when the term began to put the young boy to school
at Havre, and during the summer he was petted more than ever; his
mother sighed often as she thought of the separation. She prepared his
wardrobe as if he were going to undertake a ten years' voyage. One
October morning, after a sleepless night, the two women and the baron
got into the carriage with him and set out on their journey.
They had previously selected his place in the dormitory and his desk
in the school room. Jeanne, aided by Aunt Lison, spent the whole day
in arranging his clothes in his little wardrobe. As it did not hold a
quarter of what they had brought, she went to look for the
superintendent to ask for another. The treasurer was called, but he
pointed out that all that amount of clothing would only be in the way
and would never be needed, and he refused, on behalf of the directors,
to let her have another chest of drawers. Jeanne, much annoyed,
decided to hire a room in a small neighboring hotel, begging the
proprietor to go himself and take Poulet whatever he required as soon
as the boy asked for it.
They then took a walk on the pier to look at the ships coming and
going. They went into a restaurant to dine, but they were none of them
able to eat, and looked at one another with moistened eyes as the
dishes were brought on and taken away almost untouched.
They now returned slowly toward the school. Boys of all ages were
arriving from all quarters, accompanied by their families or by
servants. Many of them were crying.
Jeanne held Poulet in a long embrace, while Aunt Lison remained in the
background, her face hidden in her handkerchief. The baron, however,
who was becoming affected, cut short the adieus by dragging his
daughter away. They got into the carriage and went back through the
darkness to "The Poplars," the silence being broken by an occasional
sob.
Jeanne wept all the following day and on the day after drove to Havre
in the phaeton. Poulet seemed to have become reconciled to the
separation. For the first time in his life he now had playmates, and
in his anxiety to join them he could scarcely sit still on his chair
when his mother called. She continued her visits to him every other
day and called to take him home on Sundays. Not knowing what to do
with herself while school was in session until recreation time, she
would remain sitting in the reception room, not having the strength or
the courage to go very far from the school. The superintendent sent to
ask her to come to his office and begged her not to come so
frequently. She paid no attention to his request. He therefore
informed her that if she continued to prevent her son from taking his
recreation at the usual hours, obliging him to work without a change
of occupation, they would be forced to send him back home again, and
the baron was also notified to the same effect. She was consequently
watched like a prisoner at "The Poplars."
She became restless and worried and would ramble about for whole days
in the country, accompanied only by Massacre, dreaming as she walked
along. Sometimes she would remain seated for a whole afternoon,
looking out at the sea from the top of the cliff; at other times she
would go down to Yport through the wood, going over the ground of her
former walks, the memory of which haunted her. How long ago--how long
ago it was--the time when she had gone over these same paths as a
young girl, carried away by her dreams.
Poulet was not very industrious at school; he was kept two years in
the fourth form. The third year's work was only tolerable and he had
to begin the second over again, so that he was in rhetoric when he was
twenty.
He was now a big, fair young man, with downy whiskers and a faint sign
of a mustache. He now came home to "The Poplars" every Sunday, riding
over in a couple of hours, his mother, Aunt Lison and the baron
starting out early to go and meet him.
Although he was a head taller than his mother, she always treated him
as though he were a child, and when he returned to school in the
evening she would charge him anxiously not to go too fast and to think
of his poor mother, who would break her heart if anything happened to
him.
One Saturday morning she received a letter from Paul, saying that he
would not be home on the following day because some friends had
arranged an excursion and had invited him. She was tormented with
anxiety all day Sunday, as though she dreaded some misfortune, and on
Thursday, as she could endure it no longer, she set out for Havre.
He seemed to be changed, though she could not have told in what
manner. He appeared excited and his voice seemed deeper. And suddenly,
as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he said: "I
say, mother, as long as you have come to-day, I want to tell you that
I will not be at 'The Poplars' next Sunday, for we are going to have
another excursion."
She was amazed, smothering, as if he had announced his departure for
America. At last, recovering herself, she said: "Oh, Poulet, what is
the matter with you? Tell me what is going on."
He began to laugh, and kissing her, replied: "Why, nothing, nothing,
mamma. I am going to have a good time with my friends; I am just at
that age."
She had nothing to say, but when she was alone in the carriage all
manner of ideas came into her mind. She no longer recognized him, her
Poulet, her little Poulet of former days. She felt for the first time
that he was grown up, that he no longer belonged to her, that he was
going to live his life without troubling himself about the old people.
It seemed to her that one day had wrought this change in him. Was it
possible that this was her son, her poor little boy who had helped her
to replant the lettuce, this great big bearded youth who had a will of
his own!
For three months Paul came home only occasionally, and always seemed
impatient to get away again, trying to steal off an hour earlier each
evening. Jeanne was alarmed, but the baron consoled her, saying: "Let
him alone; the boy is twenty years old."
One morning, however, an old man, poorly dressed, inquired in
German-French for "Madame la Vicomtesse," and after many ceremonious
bows, he drew from his pocket a dilapidated pocketbook, saying: "Che un
betit bapier bour fous," and unfolding as he handed it to her a piece
of greasy paper. She read and reread it, looked at the Jew, read it
over again and asked: "What does it mean?"
He obsequiously explained: "I will tell you. Your son needed a little
money, and as I knew that you are a good mother, I lent him a trifle
to help him out."
Jeanne was trembling. "But why did he not ask me?" The Jew explained
at length that it was a question of a debt that must be paid before
noon the following day; that Paul not being of age, no one would have
lent him anything, and that his "honor would have been compromised"
without this little service that he had rendered the young man.
Jeanne tried to call the baron, but had not the strength to rise, she
was so overcome by emotion. At length she said to the usurer: "Would
you have the kindness to ring the bell?"
He hesitated, fearing some trap, and then stammered out: "If I am
intruding, I will call again." She shook her head in the negative. He
then rang, and they waited in silence, sitting opposite each other.
When the baron came in he understood the situation at once. The note
was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid one thousand, saying close to
the man's face: "And on no account come back." The other thanked him
and went his way.
The baron and Jeanne set out at once for Havre. On reaching the
college they learned that Paul had not been there for a month. The
principal had received four letters signed by Jeanne saying that his
pupil was not well and then to tell how he was getting along. Each
letter was accompanied by a doctor's certificate. They were, of
course, all forged. They were all dumbfounded, and stood there looking
at each other.
The principal, very much worried, took them to the commissary of
police. Jeanne and her father stayed at a hotel that night. The
following day the young man was found in the apartment of a courtesan
of the town. His grandfather and mother took him back to "The Poplars"
and not a word was exchanged between them during the whole journey.
A week later they discovered that he had contracted fifteen thousand
francs' worth of debts within the last three months. His creditors had
not come forward at first, knowing that he would soon be of age.
They entered into no discussion about it, hoping to win him back by
gentleness. They gave him dainty food, petted him, spoiled him. It was
spring and they hired a boat for him at Yport, in spite of Jeanne's
fears, so that he might amuse himself on the water.
They would not let him have a horse, for fear he should ride to Havre.
He was there with nothing to do and became irritable and occasionally
brutally so. The baron was worried at the discontinuance of his
studies. Jeanne, distracted at the idea of a separation, asked herself
what they could do with him.
One evening he did not come home. They learned that he had gone out in
a boat with two sailors. His mother, beside herself with anxiety, went
down to Yport without a hat in the dark. Some men were on the beach,
waiting for the boat to come in. There was a light on board an
incoming boat, but Paul was not on board. He had made them take him to
Havre.
The police sought him in vain; he could not be found. The woman with
whom he had been found the first time had also disappeared without
leaving any trace; her furniture was sold and her rent paid. In Paul's
room at "The Poplars" were found two letters from this person, who
seemed to be madly in love with him. She spoke of a voyage to England,
having, she said, obtained the necessary funds.
The three dwellers in the chateau lived silently and drearily, their
minds tortured by all kinds of suppositions. Jeanne's hair, which had
become gray, now turned perfectly white. She asked in her innocence
why fate had thus afflicted her.
She received a letter from the Abbe Tolbiac: "Madame, the hand of God
is weighing heavily on you. You refused Him your child; He took him
from you in His turn to cast him into the hands of a prostitute. Will
not you open your eyes at this lesson from Heaven? God's mercy is
infinite. Perhaps He may pardon you if you return and fall on your
knees before Him. I am His humble servant. I will open to you the door
of His dwelling when you come and knock at it."
She sat a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps it was true
what the priest said. And all her religious doubts began to torment
her conscience. And in her cowardly hesitation, which drives to church
the doubting, the sorrowful, she went furtively one evening at
twilight to the parsonage, and kneeling at the feet of the thin abbe,
begged for absolution.
He promised her a conditional pardon, as God could not pour down all
His favors on a roof that sheltered a man like the baron. "You will
soon feel the effects of the divine mercy," he declared.
Two days later she did, indeed, receive a letter from her son, and in
her discouragement and grief she looked upon this as the commencement
of the consolation promised her by the abbe. The letter ran:
"My Dear Mamma: Do not be uneasy. I am in London, in good health, in
very great need of money. We have not a sou left, and we do not have
anything to eat some days. The one who is with me, and whom I love
with all my heart, has spent all that she had so as not to leave
me--five thousand francs--and you see that I am bound in honor to
return her this sum in the first place. So I wish you would be kind
enough to advance me fifteen thousand francs of papa's fortune, for I
shall soon be of age. This will help me out of very serious
difficulties.
"Good-by, my dear mamma. I embrace you with all my heart, and also
grandfather and Aunt Lison. I hope to see you soon.
"Your son,
"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
He had written to her! He had not forgotten her then. She did not care
anything about his asking for money! She would send him some as long
as he had none. What did money matter? He had written to her! And she
ran, weeping for joy, to show this letter to the baron. Aunt Lison was
called and read over word by word this paper that told of him. They
discussed each sentence.
Jeanne, jumping from the most complete despair to a kind of
intoxication of hope, took Paul's part. "He will come back, he will
come back as he has written."
The baron, more calm, said: "All the same he left us for that
creature, so he must love her better than us, as he did not hesitate
about it."
A sudden and frightful pang struck Jeanne's heart, and immediately she
was filled with hatred of this woman who had stolen her son from her,
an unappeasable, savage hate, the hatred of a jealous mother. Until
now all her thoughts had been given to Paul. She scarcely took into
consideration that a girl had been the cause of his vagaries. But the
baron's words had suddenly brought before her this rival, had revealed
her fatal power, and she felt that between herself and this woman a
struggle was about to begin, and she also felt that she would rather
lose her son than share his affection with another. And all her joy
was at an end.
They sent him the fifteen thousand francs and heard nothing more from
him for five months.
Then a business man came to settle the details of Julien's
inheritance. Jeanne and the baron handed over the accounts without any
discussion, even giving up the interest that should come to his
mother. When Paul came back to Paris he had a hundred and twenty
thousand francs. He then wrote four letters in six months, giving his
news in concise terms and ending the letters with coldly affectionate
expressions. "I am working," he said; "I have obtained a position on
the stock exchange. I hope to go and embrace you at 'The Poplars' some
day, my dear parents."
He did not mention his companion, and this silence implied more than
if he had filled four pages with news of her. Jeanne, in these cold
letters, felt this woman in ambush, the implacable, eternal enemy of
mothers, the courtesan.
The three lonely beings discussed the best plan to follow in order to
rescue Paul, but could decide on nothing. A voyage to Paris? What good
would it do?
"Let his passion exhaust itself. He will come back then of his own
accord," said the baron.
Some time passed without any further news. But one morning they were
terrified at the receipt of a despairing letter:
"My Poor Mamma: I am lost. There is nothing left for me to do but to
blow out my brains unless you come to my aid. A speculation that gave
every prospect of success has fallen through, and I am eighty-five
thousand dollars in debt. I shall be dishonored if I do not pay
up--ruined--and it will henceforth be impossible for me to do
anything. I am lost. I repeat that I would rather blow out my brains
than undergo this disgrace. I should have done so already, probably,
but for the encouragement of a woman of whom I never speak to you,
and who is my providence.
"I embrace you from the bottom of my heart, my dear mamma--perhaps for
the last time. Good-by.
"Paul."
A package of business papers accompanying the letter gave the details
of the failure.
The baron answered by return mail that they would see what could be
done. Then he set out for Havre to get advice and he mortgaged some
property to raise the money which was sent to Paul.
The young man wrote three letters full of the most heartfelt thanks
and passionate affection, saying he was coming home at once to see his
dear parents.
But he did not come.
A whole year passed. Jeanne and the baron were about to set out for
Paris to try and make a last effort, when they received a line to say
that he was in London again, setting an enterprise on foot in
connection with steamboats under the name of "Paul de Lamare & Co." He
wrote: "This will give me an assured fortune, and perhaps great
wealth, and I am risking nothing. You can see at once what a splendid
thing it is. When I see you again I shall have a fine position in
society. There is nothing but business these days to help you out of
difficulties."
Three months later the steamboat company failed and the manager was
being sought for on account of certain irregularities in business
methods. Jeanne had a nervous attack that lasted several hours and
then she took to her bed.
The baron again went to Havre to make inquiries, saw some lawyers,
some business men, some solicitors and bailiffs and found that the
liabilities of the De Lamare concern were two hundred and thirty-five
thousand francs, and he once more mortgaged some property. The chateau
of "The Poplars" and the two farms and all that went with them were
mortgaged for a large sum.
One evening as he was arranging the final details in the office of a
business man, he fell over on the floor with a stroke of apoplexy.
A man was sent on horseback to notify Jeanne, but when she arrived he
was dead.
She took his body back to "The Poplars," so overcome that her grief
was numbness rather than despair.
Abbe Tolbiac refused to permit the body to be brought to the church,
despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was
interred at twilight without any religious ceremony.
Paul learned of the event through one of the men who was settling up
his affairs. He was still in hiding in England. He wrote to make
excuses for not having come home, saying that he had learned of his
grandfather's death too late. "However, now that you have helped me
out of my difficulties, my dear mamma, I shall go back to France and
hope to embrace you soon."
Jeanne was so crushed in spirit that she appeared not to understand
anything. Toward the end of the winter Aunt Lison, who was now
sixty-eight, had an attack of bronchitis that developed into pneumonia,
and she died quietly, murmuring with her last breath: "My poor
little Jeanne, I will ask God to take pity on you."
Jeanne followed her to the grave, and as the earth fell on her coffin
she sank to the ground, wishing that she might die also, so as not to
suffer, to think. A strong peasant woman lifted her up and carried her
away as if she had been a child.
When she reached the chateau Jeanne, who had spent the last five
nights at Aunt Lison's bedside, allowed herself to be put to bed
without resistance by this unknown peasant woman, who handled her with
gentleness and firmness, and she fell asleep from exhaustion, overcome
with weariness and suffering.
She awoke about the middle of the night. A night light was burning on
the mantelpiece. A woman was asleep in her easy chair. Who was this
woman? She did not recognize her, and leaning over the edge of her
bed, she sought to examine her features by the dim light of the wick
floating in oil in a tumbler of water.
It seemed to her that she had seen this face. But when, but where? The
woman was sleeping peacefully, her head to one side and her cap on the
floor. She might be about forty or forty-five. She was stout, with a
high color, squarely built and powerful. Her large hands hung down at
either side of the chair. Her hair was turning gray. Jeanne looked at
her fixedly, her mind in the disturbed condition of one awaking from a
feverish sleep after a great sorrow.
She had certainly seen this face! Was it in former days? Was it of
late years? She could not tell, and the idea distressed her, upset her
nerves. She rose noiselessly to take another look at the sleeping
woman, walking over on tiptoe. It was the woman who had lifted her up
in the cemetery and then put her to bed. She remembered this
confusedly.
But had she met her elsewhere at some other time of her life or did
she only imagine she recognized her amid the confused recollections of
the day before? And how did she come to be there in her room and why?
The woman opened her eyes and, seeing Jeanne, she rose to her feet
suddenly. They stood face to face, so close that they touched one
another. The stranger said crossly: "What! are you up? You will be
ill, getting up at this time of night. Go back to bed!"
"Who are you?" asked Jeanne.
But the woman, opening her arms, picked her up and carried her back to
her bed with the strength of a man. And as she laid her down gently
and drew the covers over her, she leaned over close to Jeanne and,
weeping as she did so, she kissed her passionately on the cheeks, her
hair, her eyes, the tears falling on her face as she stammered out:
"My poor mistress, Mam'zelle Jeanne, my poor mistress, don't you
recognize me?"
"Rosalie, my girl!" cried Jeanne, throwing her arms round her neck and
hugging her as she kissed her, and they sobbed together, clasped in
each other's arms.
Rosalie was the first to regain her calmness. "Come," she said, "you
must be sensible and not catch cold." And she covered her up warm and
straightened the pillow under her former mistress' head. The latter
continued to sob, trembling all over at the recollections that were
awakened in her mind. She finally inquired: "How did you come back, my
poor girl?"
"Pardi! do you suppose I was going to leave you all alone like that,
now?" replied Rosalie.
"Light a candle, so I may see you," said Jeanne. And when the candle
was brought to the bedside they looked at each other for some time
without speaking a word. Then Jeanne, holding out her hand to her
former maid, murmured: "I should not have recognized you, my girl, you
have changed greatly; did you know it? But not as much as I have." And
Rosalie, looking at this white-haired woman, thin and faded, whom she
had left a beautiful and fresh young woman, said: "That is true, you
have changed, Madame Jeanne, and more than you should. But remember,
however, that we have not seen each other for twenty-five years."
They were silent, thinking over the past. At length Jeanne said
hesitatingly: "Have you been happy?"
Rosalie, fearful of awakening certain painful souvenirs, stammered
out: "Why--yes--yes--madame. I have nothing much to complain of. I
have been happier than you have--that is sure. There was only one
thing that always weighed on my heart, and that was that I did not
stay here--" And she stopped suddenly, sorry she had referred to that
unintentionally. But Jeanne replied gently: "How could you help it, my
girl? One cannot always do as they wish. You are a widow now, also,
are you not?" Then her voice trembled with emotion as she said: "Have
you other--other children?"
"No, madame."
"And he--your--your boy--what has become of him? Has he turned out
well?"
"Yes, madame, he is a good boy and works industriously. He has been
married for six months, and he can take my farm now, since I have come
back to you."
Jeanne murmured in a trembling voice: "Then you will never leave me
again, my girl?"
"No, indeed, madame, I have arranged all that."
Jeanne, in spite of herself, began to compare their lives, but without
any bitterness, for she was now resigned to the unjust cruelty of
fate. She said: "And your husband, how did he treat you?"
"Oh, he was a good man, madame, and not lazy; he knew how to make
money. He died of consumption."
Then Jeanne, sitting up in bed, filled with a longing to know more,
said: "Come, tell me everything, my girl, all about your life. It will
do me good just now."
Rosalie, drawing up her chair, began to tell about herself, her home,
her people, entering into those minute details dear to country people,
describing her yard, laughing at some old recollection that reminded
her of good times she had had, and raising her voice by degrees like a
farmer's wife accustomed to command. She ended by saying: "Oh, I am
well off now. I don't have to worry." Then she became confused again,
and said in a lower tone: "It is to you that I owe it, anyhow; and you
know I do not want any wages. No, indeed! No, indeed! And if you will
not have it so, I will go."
Jeanne replied: "You do not mean that you are going to serve me for
nothing?"
"Oh, yes, indeed, madame. Money! You give me money! Why, I have almost
as much as you. Do you know what is left to you will all your jumble
of mortgages and borrowing, and interests unpaid which are mounting up
every year? Do you know? No, is it not so? Well, then, I can promise
you that you have not even ten thousand francs income. Not ten
thousand, do you understand? But I will settle all that for you, and
very quickly."
She had begun talking loud again, carried away in her indignation at
these interests left unpaid, at this threatening ruin. And as a faint,
tender smile passed over the face of her mistress, she cried in a tone
of annoyance: "You must not laugh, madame, for without money we are
nothing but laborers."
Jeanne took hold of her hands and kept them in her own; then she said
slowly, still full of the idea that haunted her: "Oh, I have had no
luck. Everything has gone against me. Fate has a grudge against my
life."
But Rosalie shook her head: "You must not say that, madame. You
married badly, that's all. One should not marry like that, anyway,
without knowing anything about one's intended."
And they went on talking about themselves just as two old friends
might have done.
The sun rose while they were still talking.
* * * * *
Content of Chapter XI - The Development of Paul [Guy De Maupassant's novel: Une Vie; or, The History of a Heart]
_