Nêne/Part 1/Chapter 16

T the Moulinettes, the accident on threshing day had spread a veil of sadness over everybody. When Madeleine gave news of her brother to the farm folk and the neighbours who came to inquire, a deep pity rang through the words they exchanged.

Even Boiseriot turned pale at such times, and although he had witnessed the accident he disliked to tell about it. But he was too fundamentally evil to have a clean heart about it; his pity was nothing more than a skein of thread tangled all over a thorn bush. Perhaps he felt a vague remorse, or rather the fear of having committed a sin so grievous that no amount of penance could free him of it; in any case there was a sense of satisfied vengeance mingled with the other.

The doctor still encouraged Trooper's hopes about the Insurance Company's payment to him and the Government job he would get when he would be on his feet again. Madeleine never doubted that these promises were on the point of fulfillment and talked freely about it. But Michael struck a note of skepticism—very gently and cautiously, so as not to sadden her prematurely.

"He drank a whole bottle just before going back to the machine.—It's a known fact—and they'll make the most of it. As for a Government job"

He made a vague motion of the hand, not wishing to speak out before Boiseriot who, being on the priests' side, did not vote for Michael's side at elections.

Madeleine listened, surprised at the unusual gentleness of his manner and speech. She felt instinctively that he talked to her in this way so as to avoid shocking her sorrow, and she was grateful to him for it.

She was grateful, too, for his considerateness, his eagerness to arrange for her trips to the hospital in town. He had said to her:

"Any time you feel like going to see your brother, just go and never mind about the work."

Michael was no longer the moody young master with the hard and restless eyes. His passionate outburst had quite passed over and he talked now like a good, sensible comrade with a calm, even temper.

Madeleine liked him better this way. And in spite of his words that she could not forget, there still lived in her heart a quiet hope that fanned it like a lazy summer breeze following after a devastating storm. Later—who could tell?—the thing she must not even think of for the present might come to pass, bit by bit.

She said to herself:

"And to think that I was going to leave—like a stubborn fool!— If I'd run off like that, right away, without thinking, where would I be now? What would I do without Lalie and Jo? I'm sure I couldn't get used to doing without them."

Her affection for the children had, indeed, grown wonderfully vigilant.

She was fond of her mother, of her sister, of Michael—she was quite overcome by her brother's calamity. On the other hand there were those whom she detested or distrusted. Pictures sweet or sad came to her mind and passed away, following each other like travellers at an inn. But for Lalie and Jo the table was always set. Theirs was the softest, warmest corner, stuffed with fine wool,—and never, never should they leave it!

She herself was amazed at it.

"My darlings, you give me a lot of trouble and yet there's none but you!"

Whether she was in the house with them, or at her washing, or at chapel, her mind was always busy thinking up things for them.

"I'll put a blue ribbon in Lalie's hair … She's pale; she's growing too fast; I'll make some rust-water to pick her up. Jo likes to hit me on the head. I'll play with him a quarter of an hour every morning … I'll just get up a little earlier."

She wanted them to be as happy as if their mother were alive. Her love for them made her clever and ingenious. She who could only do coarse knitting had learned a pretty crochet stitch and made for each of them a warm sweater of blue wool, for winter.

On Sundays she dressed Lalie's doll and made whips of braided strips of birchbark for the baby, or else little rush chairs. She also taught Lalie her prayers and the names of the days and counting on her fingers.

The little girl never left her any more than her own shadow. Jo, too, tried his best to follow her around; if she left him behind in the barnyard or in the garden, he caught up with her on the doorstep and jumped at her skirts with a yell that he meant to scare her.

He was a little slow in learning to talk. He was always trying to say everything at once and when he came to a difficult word, he got all mixed up, either bursting out laughing or stamping his feet in a temper, just as he happened to feel.

He could say 'papa' and 'Lalie,' but 'Madeleine' was too long for him even to attempt. But one day he began to call out: "Nêne—Nêne—Nêne!"

Madeleine lifted him to the height of her face in a burst of gladness. And then, all at once, a thought came to her; a cruel thought that drove the blood from her heart. Nêne! It was indeed the abbreviation of her name, but it was also an abbreviation of another name to which she was not entitled.

At Chantepie as at Saint-Ambroise and all about, "Nêne" was short for marraine, or godmother. It was the everyday word, used by young and old alike.

Jo's real 'Nêne' was Georgette, Michael's sister-in-law, whose name was never mentioned in the house and whose place Madeleine had taken.

"Nêne! Nêne!"

The name stirred Madeleine as did that other name that was too sweet and forbidden. It gave her the same rapture, and she hugged the child to her breast passionately.

"I don't know, my baby Jo, if I ought to let you say that." That very evening she spoke to old Corbier, not daring to speak about it to Michael.

"There's something on my mind—it's about the baby. He's calling me 'Nêne,' the darling. … I don't know if you'll like it, nor his father either. … If you don't maybe I can make him say my name some other way."

She was sitting in a dark corner and the old man could not see her anxious face nor her eyes brimming with tears; but he felt the quaver in her voice and answered soothingly:

"You're worrying over a trifle, my dear girl. What does it matter whether you're 'Nêne' or 'Madeleine? If you are good to him that's all that matters, and when he's grown he'll know how you took the place of the other two."

"That's my highest hope—I'm not asking for more!" she said, and ran away.

From that day on she was Nêne for Jo, and for Lalie too.

All day long the name rang out, and it brought a breath of sweetness into the house. The baby lips gave it a caressing sound, like the twitter of a bird. They called it out in joy as in trouble. It grew to be the last resort and appeal to a protector who was infinitely strong and infinitely kind.

Michael had made no objection; he even fell into saying, when Lalie pestered him with questions:

"Don't bother me; ask Nêne."

For this Madeleine forgave him quite all of his past harshness.

She felt that she wasn't treated as a servant, humble girl that she was, used to hiring out her arms here and there, as need befell, among the tillers of the soil. By the grace of the children she had become the active soul of the house, the one who watched and held all together.

Michael no longer thought of protesting. Though the picture of Marguerite was always within him, alive and unconquered, another picture was there too now, and growing from day to day, so that he felt himself held in a grip that was at once firm and gentle.

Winter had come with its long, empty evenings. Boiseriot went to bed early, and Gideon was gadding about at the young people's parties in the villages round about.

Old man Corbier went to sleep in his arm chair right after supper, so that Michael was left to sit up alone with his housekeeper.

His physical agitation had quieted down and those bad dreams were no more troubling him. He looked with calmness at Madeleine as she sat sewing under the lamp, with the light full on the blonde nape of her neck. Sometimes she worked away at the spinning wheel, after lowering the lamp, for economy. They talked very little; no sound but the hum of the spindle. Now and then Madeleine got up and tip-toed to the cradle. And in a minute the wheel was turning again.

Michael thought:

"Women, nowadays, whether mistress or maid, don't find time for spinning. Maybe they don't want to. They aren't brave as they used to be; my father says they aren't, and so do the other old fellows. That's their way of getting back at the young ones, but perhaps they are right, all the same. A thrifty woman means a good deal to a household—everything to mine. She's like a spring shower on a dry meadow. If my house had remained disorganised as it was, before long my children would have gone to ruin. I must consider them.… They're as sheltered as chicks in a warming pan.… It's got to keep on like this. Life isn't just the pleasures of youth. I'm past thirty; and that's the age of reason.

"If I were to make up my mind, it wouldn't be anything like the first time. Then I was twenty-four and the world shone like a lighted chapel … Now all the candles are out!— Still, a man must go trudging on. You can't always have a brush fire to warm your hands by—a little heap of embers helps to pass the evening. If I were to make up my mind I might be doing a right and sensible thing.