Part 12 (2/2)
The old farmer shuddered, looking at her with absent eyes that saw not present objects.
”Only think,” he said, ”the Marquis is not here, Rousille. My house is going to ruin, and he is not here to defend me. He should come back when I am in trouble, should he not?”
”Of course, father, but he does not know of it; he is far away, in Paris.”
”The others, the people of Sallertaine, they can do nothing for us because they are humble folks like ourselves, who have no authority beyond their farms. I have been to the Mayor, to Guerineau, to de la Pinconniere, le Glorieux, de la Terre-Aymont. They sent me away with empty words. But the Marquis, Rousille, when he comes back--when he knows all! Perhaps to-morrow?”
”Perhaps.”
”Then he will not leave me alone in my grief. He will help me; he will give me back Francois--eh, child? will he not give me back Francois?”
His voice was raised; the shrill words struck against the walls of the Chateau, that sent them echoing back in softened accents to the avenues, the lawns, until they were lost in the forest. The still, pure night listened as they died away, as it listened to the rustle of insects in the thickets.
Rousille, seeing her father in so great distress, sat down beside him, and talked to him for a while, trying to inspire a hope which she did not feel. And, possibly, a calming influence, a consoling power emanated from her, for when she said: ”There is Mathurin at home, father, waiting for you,” of his own accord he rose, and took his daughter's arm. For a long while he looked into the face of his pretty little Rousille, so pale with emotion and fatigue.
”True,” he replied, ”there is Mathurin. We must go.”
And together they pa.s.sed in front of the Chateau, turned into the avenue leading towards the servants' offices, and thence into the fields belonging to the farm. As they neared La Fromentiere, Rousille felt that the farmer was gradually recovering his self-control, and when they were in the courtyard, with a rush of pity for the cripple, Rousille said:
”Father, Mathurin is very unhappy too. Do not talk much to him of your distress.”
Hereupon the farmer, whose courage and clear reasoning had revived, pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes, and preceding Rousille, pushed open the door of the house-place, where his crippled son lay stretched deep in thought, beside the nearly burnt-out candle.
”Mathurin, my son,” he said, ”do not worry overmuch ... they have gone, but our Driot will soon be home again!”
CHAPTER VII.
DRIOT'S RETURN.
”Our Driot is coming.” For a fortnight La Fromentiere lived on these words. Work had been resumed the day after the trouble. A farm-labourer, hired by Lumineau at Saint Jean-de-Mont, a tall, lean man, with thighs as flat as his cheeks, replaced Jean Nesmy, and slept in the room beyond the stable. Marie-Rose did, single-handed, the work before shared by both sisters: housekeeping, cooking, dairy-work, and bread-making. She rose earlier and went to bed later. Under her coif she ever had some wise idea in her little head which prevented her from thinking of the past; and in all her movements was displayed that silent activity that the farmer had loved in his old Luminette.
Mathurin had of himself offered to look after the ”birds,” that is to say, the stock of half-wild turkeys and geese bred at La Fromentiere.
Carrying a sack fastened across his shoulders, he would drag himself down every morning to the edge of the first ca.n.a.l of the Marais, where, at a part that widened out, were fastened the two boats belonging to La Fromentiere. In the shallow water he would scatter his supply of corn or buck-wheat, and from across the meadows drakes with blue-tinted wings, ducks, grey, with a double notch cut on the right side of their beaks to mark them as belonging to Lumineau, would hurry and dive for their food. For hours Mathurin would find amus.e.m.e.nt in watching them, then, lowering himself gently into one of the boats, seated or kneeling, would try to recover the sure and rapid stroke which at one time had made him famous among the puntsmen of the Marais.
Toussaint Lumineau delighted to see him managing his boat near the farm, thus distracting his mind, as he thought, from the ever present regret. He would say: ”The lad is regaining his old pleasure in punting. It can but be good for him and for us all.” But to Mathurin, to Rousille, to his man, to the pa.s.sers-by, sometimes even to his oxen, often when alone to himself, he would talk of the son so soon to be home again among them. Help was coming; youth and joy were returning to sorrow-stricken La Fromentiere. At table nothing else was talked about:
”Only twelve days; only ten; only seven. I will drive to Chalons to meet him,” said Lumineau.
”And I will make him some porridge,” said Rousille, ”he used to be so fond of it before he joined his regiment.”
”And I” said Mathurin, ”will go in the punt with him the first time he looks up his friends.”
”How much there will be to hear!” exclaimed Rousille. ”When he was home on furlough he had an endless store of tales to tell. As for me, I shall have no time to listen to them. I shall have to send him to you, Mathurin. And what a change it will make in the house to have a chatterbox among us.” Then she added, with the grave air of one entrusted with the household purse: ”One change we must make, father, and that will be to buy a paper on Sunday. He will not like to go without one; our Andre is sure to want to know the news.”
”He is young,” said the father, as if to excuse him.
And all Andre's predilections, every recollection connected with him, all the hopes that centred in his return were incessantly recapitulated by one and the other in the living-room of La Fromentiere, where the caress of such discourses must have ascended more than once to the smoke-stained rafters.
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