Nêne/Part 2/Chapter 11

OISERIOT was having his coffee at Violette's home.

They had lunched alone together, as Violette's mother was out on a day's wash in the village.

With all his wile on the alert, Boiseriot was questioning Violette. In every one of his words he laid a snare that could not fail to catch her—yet, so far, she had side-stepped them all, and of course it was useless to try to read her eyes.

"She's a cool one all right!" thought Boiseriot. "I'll never draw her out, darn her!"

He lost patience and said:

"Well now, my dear girl, I'll say it isn't the easiest thing in the world to confess you; I'm not clever enough for the job."

Then he changed his tone from one of complaint to one of attack.

"It would take a pretty shrewd old parish priest to make you tell what's in your mind,—one who's heard all kinds of stories and knows how to unravel his yarn.… No young abbé for you … eh, little girl?"

Violette gave a startled toss of her head, went pale, and the words came hissing through her teeth:

"Is that what you were trying to get at?"

He looked surprised.

"My goodness, you act as if I'd made your angry! … What did I say? I don't see …"

She fell in petulantly:

"Don't play the innocent! … So you came to eat at my table just to insult me, did you? You'd better make up your mind that I'm not in a mood to stand it!"

She had got up and was noisily moving about some glasses on the sideboard, while he drummed on the table, waiting for the storm to pass.

"You want to read me a lecture, do you? … 'Violette, they're saying this,' and 'Violette, they're saying that!' … I don't care! I don't care! I don't care!"

A glass fell down and broke with a clear tinkle. Violette stopped, suddenly calmed; then she took a few dance steps and burst out laughing:

"After all, my friend, you're right: that little abbé wasn't very clever!"

"I don't follow you," said Boiseriot. "You talk as if there was something. … I don't know a thing!"

She shrugged her shoulders:

"You don't, don't you!"

She came close to him and her eyes lighted up with a flame of reckless impudence. She would have liked to shout at him:

"Come, now! You're lying! You're always lying! I sometimes do tell the truth.— I have that courage! … You don't know a thing, do you? Well then, I'll tell you this: There was a pink little, blond little abbé here, with hair as fine as silk and pretty hands as white as sugar. He saw me often, almost every day. At first he paid no attention to me. But because of his hair and his hands and his innocent eyes, I wanted to wake him up. … So I went shaking my skirts around him, and by and by he grew to have that wild look they all get … and he came along, just like the others. He came along—yes; only, being tormented with ideas of sinfulness, he got to talking a lot of nonsense and doing foolish things … and so he was caught.—He's gone away now, far away somewhere, I don't know where; and I'm left behind with the smirch.—But what do I care!"

Yes, truly, she would have liked to shout this at him, just for bravado.…

"You don't know a thing, you say? Then I suppose you came to hear the news?"

"Just as you like.—They say you've lost your two little helpers?"

"It's true, they've left me, and so have my customers,—and, worst of all, so have my lovers."

"Oh!—as for that"

"It's enough to make me cry my eyes out. But never fear! I'm one of the merry sort!"

"What are you going to do?" inquired Boiseriot. "Become a nun in a far-away land—and all day long I'll pray for you who are in sore need of it. Or then again—here's another possibility: I'll go and get married!"

"Get married?"

"Yes! since all my lovers desert me, I'll get me a husband! I'll just turn the goods; the wrong side has a lot of wear in it yet. What do you think of my plan?"

"I think you're making sport of me."

She burst into another laugh.

"That's true! Of you as well as the rest of them!"

Boiseriot went on, pursuing his idea.

"But is it true your lovers have deserted you? Doesn't Clarandeau watch out for you on the roads any more? And what of Michael Corbier? Are you sure you've stopped listening to him?"

She looked at him squarely without answering.

"You boasted that you'd have that hired girl at the Moulinettes discharged,—she's there yet! You told me she'd insulted you and so I thought"

Violette shot a sharp question at him:

"What about you? What's she done to you, that big lump of a girl?"

Boiseriot drank down the last drop of his coffee and smacked his lips.

"It's real good coffee, this is!" he said. "You know how to make it. You're all ready to settle down to housekeeping, I'd say!"

Violette kept her mocking eyes on him. He began teasing her and pitying her future husband.

"He'll have to be a brave man!—You'll lead him a dance, right enough!—There'll be five hundred devils let loose in his house. I'd like to know the poor fellow.—Perhaps it'll be Clarandeau?"

"Perhaps," said Violette. Her face was set in an unreadable mask.

"If he got a Government job—but those things take time! Besides, he drinks.—Perhaps it'll be Michael Corbier?"

"Perhaps! It'll no doubt be either one of those two—there isn't another one that's brave enough!—Do you know, your former boss isn't at all bad!—If I take him, that hired girl will get out sure enough, and then you'll have your wish."

Boiseriot rose.

"Are you joking, or are you speaking the truth, seriously? I never can tell, with you. If there's anybody can guess what you're going to do"

"… he'll have to be cleverer than you, as you've said before. Well, he'll have to be cleverer than myself, too.—You're going? Good-bye, then!—When you come again, perhaps you'll have better luck; I may have some news for you then."

So he left her.

Along the road Boiseriot thought:

"She'll marry.—What else can she do? She'll take one of those two purblind fellows who know nothing. The one she jilts will think he's in hell, but it's the other one who'll be there, sure enough. I'm going to have some fun!"

And at her window, Violette was thinking:

"I'll get married.—What else can I do? I'll have to take either one of those two fools, who're both blind and deaf. Afterward, I'll manage my life all right." Having cleared the table, she sat down at her sewing machine. Slowly she began to spin a silken thread on to the bobbin. And slowly, too, she spun her thoughts; but being of a coarse and short fibre, they got tangled and knotted and would not run smoothly, like a straight, orderly skein.

Regret had planted its teeth in her. Why had she played at devilling that young priest? And later, when he had grovelled at her feet like one possessed, why had she yielded to his strange supplications? Had she loved this youth with the pink complexion and the dreamy eyes? … Their recklessness had made a scandal inevitable.

And now she was being shunned by everyone in the village. The affair was hushed up, of course, because the Church was involved; everything possible was done to keep it from the ears of Protestants and Dissenters; nevertheless, tongues had been wagging at Chantepie.

The parents of her two young helpers refused to let them work with her any more. Her Catholic customers had looked for another dressmaker. Even her suitors no longer cared to be seen with such a compromising girl.

What could she do? Poverty was on the way. It had not yet knocked at the door, but it would, to-morrow.

Violette turned her thoughts over and over. There was the city, to be sure, always ready to welcome girls of her kind. The city! Fine houses—soft silks—bright lights—festive gatherings.—Her dreams rose up and up like a flight of skylarks.

Yes, but she'd have to take chances, risk destitution! While here, if she married a fool

If she married a fool with a sufficient competence, the road would not be wide, but at least it would be level;—and it would be easy enough, any time she wished, to skip off for a bit along some tempting by-way.

If John Clarandeau had obtained an allowance from the insurance company, and a good Government job.—But no, he'd never be anything but a crippled pauper anyhow.

Then, what of the other one, Michael Corbier? He came of a substantial family; he had broad acres in the sun.—He was a Dissenter—so much the better! She would bring him into the Church and herself return to the fold by his side. She would return, not as a humble penitent despised by all, but proudly, with her head held high. Making such a convert would be indeed a victory and a great feather in her cap; she would be honoured among women throughout the parish.

"I'll marry him. I'll have a big house, with people to work under my orders.—I'd better not wait."

The silken thread was spun on the bobbin; the sewing machine was ready for work. But Violette pushed away the unfinished dress. From an untidy closet she fetched a box of scented notepaper and, resting it on the shelf of the machine, she hurriedly wrote to Michael Corbier.