Part 15 (2/2)

”Nom d'un nom, then why doesn't she speak? Is it dumb she is?”

”Neither deaf nor dumb--nor yet a fool,” rapped Grannie, so sharply that the visitor jumped.

And during the remainder of her visit, no matter to whom she was talking or what she was saying, Julie's snapping black eyes would inevitably keep working round to the depths of the big black sun-bonnet, and at times her discourse lost point and trailed to a ragged end.

”It's my belief that old woman next door is a witch,” she said to her husband later on.

”She's an old devil,” he said bluntly. ”She'll put the evil eye on you if you don't take care.”

”She ought to be burnt,” said Mrs. Tom.

”All the same,” said Tom musingly, ”she's got money, so you'd best be as civil to her as she'll let you.”

”Mon Dieu! My flesh creeps still at the way she looked at me. She has the evil eye without a doubt.”

And Grannie?--”Mai grand doux! What does a woman like that want here?”

said she. ”A wide mouth and wanton eyes. La Closerie has never had these before--a Frenchwoman too!”--with withering contempt. For, odd as it may seem, among this people originally French, and still speaking a patois based, like their laws and customs, on the old Norman, there is no term of opprobrium more profound than ”Frenchman.”

Madame Julie flatly refused to subject herself to further peril from Grannie's keen but harmless gaze, and contented herself with such opportunities of enlarging Nance's outlook on life as casual chats about the farm-yard afforded, and found time heavy on her hands.

Ennui, before long, gave place to grumbling, and that to recrimination; and from what the others could not help hearing, through the boarded-up doors and the floor of the loft, Tom and his wife had a cat-and-dog time of it.

Gard had moved over to Plaisance with great regret. But nothing else was possible under the altered circ.u.mstances at La Closerie, so he made the best of it.

It was some consolation to learn that they also missed him.

”Everything's different,” grumbled Bernel, one day when they met. ”Tom and his wife quarrel so that we can hear them through the walls. And Grannie sits by the hour without opening her mouth. And mother and Nance are as quiet as if they were going to be sick. And I'm getting green-mouldy. Seems as if we'd got to the end of things, and nothing was ever going to happen again. I think I'll go to Guernsey.”

”Do you think they'd like--I mean, would they mind if I came in for a chat now and then? It's pretty lonely up at Plaisance too.”

”Oh, they'll mind and so will I. When'll you come?”

”I'll look in to-night as I come from the mines--if you're sure--”

”You come and try, and if you don't like it you needn't come again”--with a twinkle of the eye.

Nance did not strike him as looking as though she were going to be sick, when he went in that night, nor did her mother.

Grannie indeed had little to say, but then she was never over-talkative, and when Gard more than once looked at her, and wondered if she had fallen asleep, he always found the keen old eyes wide open, and eyeing him watchfully as ever out of the depths of the big black sun-bonnet.

Mrs. Hamon asked about his new quarters, and his quiet shake of the head and simple--”They're kindly folk, but it's somehow very different”--told its own tale.

”They're a bit short-handed, you see,” he added, ”and so they're all kept busy, and at times, I'm afraid, they wish me further.”

”And you go all that way back for your dinner each day?” asked Mrs.

Hamon thoughtfully.

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