Part 23 (2/2)
”A young lady's dress of mauve silk with muslin collarette--ten francs!” he called.
”Show it!” cried the women's voices.
And Rousille saw the object lowered on to the stone steps, the little silken gown left behind, forgotten, that still retained something of the supple grace of its wearer, Mademoiselle Ambroisine de la Fromentiere. And coa.r.s.e words and low jests reached her, made by the brokers as they handled the dainty relics of refinement and purity.
”Can they put up that for sale!” she murmured; she shrank from the profanation, and would gladly have gone away.
But at that moment two sudden emotions, two surprises nailed her to her seat. Across the lawn, facing her, in front of a group of fir-trees, she had seen Mathurin, who had left the protection of the branches, and was looking over at the bench of _la Marquise_, shaking his fist; while, quite close behind her, she heard a voice from out the flowering laurels, say:
”My Rousille, Jean Nesmy has come!”
With perfect self-control she did not turn her head, made no movement; feeling herself to be spied upon, she had all the courage of her ancestors whom peril had ever found ready. Scarce opening her lips as if only breathing to calm her beating heart, she said to him who had rustled the leaves behind her:
”Beware! Mathurin is watching us.”
”I know, he has already seen me.”
”Then, go quickly! Come back later.”
”When?”
”To-night, in the barn; when I put my candlestick on the window-sill.”
Mathurin was hurrying across with the aid of his crutches to satisfy himself that he had seen a man's figure among the shadows of trees in that opposite group. Jean Nesmy meanwhile slipped away amid the undergrowth, and through the lonely copses. Round the steps, already in darkness, loud talking and laughing rose from the diminished crowd.
”I will have it. That's what I want,” was heard in Lumineau's strong voice. The auctioneer was offering a walking-stick, with horn handle bound with a gold ring.
”That depends, my good man,” was the reply, amid the jibes of the townspeople of Chalons, ”that depends! To say 'I will have it' in an auction is not enough. What price do you put on it?”
”Two francs,” said a broker.
”Five francs!” cried the farmer. Now no one laughed; the bid was an unusual one. Toussaint Lumineau had made it greatly to prevent compet.i.tion, but also, as he would have said, from a spirit of bravado to prove that the tenant was not ruined like his master. Mounting the lower steps he reached up a crown piece, seized the cane, and, not venturing to lean upon it, tucked it under his arm, and slouched away from the remaining group of bargainers who were greedily snapping up odd remnants of the furniture of La Fromentiere, hastily priced, given for next to nothing. Skirting the excited cl.u.s.ter of buyers, he went towards the group of trees where Mathurin had again taken up his post.
”Let us go,” he said, ”I have made my purchase. M. Henri's walking-stick.”
”You paid too much for it,” said the cripple.
”My poor lad,” returned the farmer reproachfully, ”he would have given it to me had he been there. I paid that price that no one should dispute it with me.... All those fellows would have made game of me, had I not!--”
And with a movement of the shoulder he signified the notary, the auctioneer, the invisible agents of the law, who to his excited fancy had had a hand in the proceedings now coming to an end. Moderating his pace so as not to hurry Mathurin, whose crutches struck against the mole-hills on the lawn, the farmer crossed the broad expanse where the blue mist thickened. They could hear the cracking of whips; see the red light of lanterns pa.s.sing along the leafless woods, the frightened wood-pigeons circling over head. Rousille saw her father coming. She had remained in the same place sitting on the bench, joyous at heart, but with somewhat too much of love's dream in her eyes, for her father asked severely:
”What is it, child? This is no day for laughter.”
”Nothing,” she answered, rising.
”Then walk on in front,” put in Mathurin. ”You might be meeting someone.”
And she went down the avenues, then along the path by the leafless hedges in front as she had been hidden. Her white coif turned neither to the right nor to the left; but proud as one enduring for her love, she walked on with elastic step down the hill towards the elm-trees of the farmstead, and her eyes gazing fixedly into the gathering night--those eyes which none could read, gazing at everything, seeing nothing, were filled with tender musings. She entered her domain, and began to pour over the bread the soup which had been simmering in her absence. The men stayed without, talking. When they came in she felt sure that she had been again betrayed by Mathurin, and that her father was angry with her. Andre came in last, at about eight o'clock. The farmer had proposed waiting supper until his return, and he and Mathurin had sat in the chimney-corner warming themselves, by turns taking and trying the cane of M. Henri as they talked over the sad events of the day: the men who had come from Sallertaine to bid, how they had heard the battens nailed up again across the lower windows as they came away; the lights they had seen wandering along the corridors of the upper floor as in the good old days when the great white house was full of guests.
”Our masters will never come back now,” said Toussaint Lumineau. ”And I, who always believed in them! This is the end!”
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