Nêne/Part 2/Chapter 12

NE Sunday Madeleine took the children to Le Coudray. Her mother had been somewhat ailing during the winter and her rheumatism was still keeping her from work for days at a stretch. She blamed Madeleine for not having come oftener to see her, and then she said:

"There's the little matter of my allowance, too.—You're none too prompt about it, my dear! Your sisters were ahead of you, this time, paying me their shares. Seeing the state I'm in, I do need some help."

Madeleine blushed and took the blame:

"You're right; I deserve to be scolded. But I'm going to give you your money to-day; I've got it right here, Mother."

She drew from her purse first a gold piece, then a silver piece.

"Here are your twelve francs," she said.

The mother looked at her in surprise. Usually Madeleine added something to the agreed sum, because she was the eldest and earned more money than her sisters.

"So you're not in funds just now, are you?" the mother remarked. "You must be spending a lot of money!"

Madeleine blushed again; she opened her purse, took out a five-franc piece, then one of two francs, and finally decided on a one-franc piece.

"I am kind of short," she replied; "however, I can give you this."

She might have said:

"No, indeed, I'm not in funds! I've been giving money to my brother, though he had promised never to ask me for any again.—Then there are the children that you see there: I've bought them so many things that my wages are all spent."

But she would have found it very difficult to say this last thing: it was a secret preciously guarded.

Lalie was on her lap; she hugged the child a little tighter.

"Is this little dear the one who was burned?" asked Mme. Clarandeau. "I hadn't seen her since. She must have suffered a great deal!"

"Oh, if you knew! If you knew!"

That started Madeleine's tongue going. She told all about the accident, all about the visit of the young doctor, about that of the old practitioner and about the anger of Red Julie; then she related other troubles: colds, frostbite and Jo's measles that had looked bad for a while.

Her subject carried her away and it seemed as if she'd go on forever.

Mme. Clarandeau smiled:

"You love them as if you were their mother."

"Yes," said Madeleine, "I do."

"You've been there four years now. You're likely to stay there a long time since Corbier isn't marrying again. You must have your hands full."

"I have, but I like it. The worst of it is that I have so little time to take the children out. You see how it is: even to-day I must hurry back early.—I'd better leave you now; it's time."

"So soon?"

"Yes, I'm alone with just one hand. Michael went away early, I don't know where, to town perhaps, because he was all dressed up. I've got to be home to see to everything."

"Just wait a minute till I get the children some bread and jam."

Madeleine's eyes lighted up and all her face thanked her.

"You're spoiling them, Mother," she said. "They'll keep at me to bring them here again!"

Without another word she hunted in her purse and put one more coin on the table. Then they took their leave.

On the way home the children skipped to right and left, munching their bread and jam. Madeleine went leading them along, smilingly.

For some time now she had begun again to feel happy; her old fortitude and even temper were being restored little by little. "You're likely to stay there a long time," her mother had said. A long time! Why, she was there for always!

"Jo! come on, darling!"

The child had stopped at a cross path and stood up by a low fence.

"Look,Nêne!"

Madeleine looked and saw a young girl hurrying along, weeping; she recognised her little sister Tiennette, and didn't have time to be surprised: the girl vaulted the fence at once to tell her troubles.

"I'm going home!—I've stood it long enough!—I'm not a thief! The rest,—let it pass, but not that! I won't ever go back there! Last year I was all right there, but, at present, I don't know what's come over them!"

Madeleine took her hands and drew her to the side of the road.

"What's happened? Tell me!"

"I'm not a thief!" the girl kept saying; "I won't have them look as if they thought I was! There isn't a thing they can bring up against me!"

"Calm yourself—sit down here."

They sat down on the edge of the ditch, but it was quite a while before Tiennette was herself again. After a bit, Madeleine began to grasp the situation.

Tiennette had been hired out to a Catholic farmer at a hamlet near Chantepie. This was her second year at the place. At first all had gone well between her, the masters and the other servants in the hamlet. But at All-Saints some new farm-hands had come and made mischief all round. They had started by keeping aloof from her because she was the only Dissenter among them; then they had spread all sorts of gossip about her: she'd been seen going to this place, doing that thing—misbehaving herself

"There's a sorry specimen hanging around there a lot now, that Boiseriot who was discharged at the Moulinettes.—They listen to him because he's such a devout Catholic.—I believe it's he who invents all the talk against me."

"You may be sure of it," said Madeleine. "He's a wicked man and not to be trusted."

"From the day he came to the neighbourhood, at All-Saints, my mistress has been horrid to me, and things have been going from bad to worse. They're openly on guard against me now; when I'm left alone in the house, they lock up everything! I can't stand it! Yesterday a pair of scissors got mislaid, and this morning, while I was at rosary prayers, they opened my chest and went through all my things! Would you believe it? Do I look like a thief? I told them what I thought and here I am. Mamma can go for my things if she wants to; but as for me, I'll never set foot in their house again!"

Tiennette burst again into sobs; Madeleine did what she could to comfort her.

"Tiennette, come now! Tiennette! There's no reason to get into such a state."

"Oh, but you don't know!" sobbed the girl. "He'll hear about it and then what'll he think?"

"Whom do you mean?"

"Why—why, Gideon. He's away. I can't talk to him and defend myself. They're capable of writing to him to blacken my character; they tried it once before! And didn't they come and tell me he was sick in hospital? And it wasn't true at all, as I found out!"

Madeleine thought it her duty to say severely:

"Why do you listen to that Protestant?"

Tiennette threw back her head, ready to defend herself against this new attack:

"So you're against him too? What has he done, can you tell me, that you all think less of him than of the others?"

Madeleine replied, this time with great gentleness:

"No, dear, I'm not against him; in fact I like him very much."

"Well, then! What's wrong, since we love each other for ever and ever?—since we're going to be married!"

"A Dissenter marry a Protestant! It would be the first time it happened!"

"What's wrong about it, I'd like to know? What difference is it to you? What difference is it to Mother and Fridoline and John and all the rest of you? If he claims me for his own, you haven't a thing to say about it!—If he doesn't worry about the difference of religion, that's his affair!—When he gets his discharge from the army, I'll be ready: I've pledged myself!"

Madeleine let her go on and it saddened her to find her little sister too, now, as well as her brother, so careless about things that, to her own way of thinking, were so eminently worthy of respect; but she was surprised, also, and a little moved, at seeing this young love rise sovereign above all else.

"Yes," continued her sister, "we both pledged ourselves.—But now—what if he should be made to believe that I'm a thief? Oh, Madeleine, I don't know what to do! I'm so miserable!"

Madeleine gripped her little sister's shoulders very tenderly.

"Come, come, dear! Stop crying and wipe your eyes! There, now!—I know the cause of all this trouble: it's an old grudge, 'way back when—oh, well, there are old things you don't know about.—I'm going to write to Gideon myself; as soon as he knows that Boiseriot was your neighbour at the farm, he'll understand. I promise you he won't doubt you for a single moment."

"Really and truly?"

"I promise you. You've been making a mountain of a molehill, you poor child! That isn't being a sensible girl, now, is it?"

For a while they said nothing further, so that the children ventured to come closer.

Tiennette's smile came back through her tears as she patted Jo's curly head.

"He was the first to see me, the little darling," she said to Madeleine.

Somehow the child brought back a recollection through trie mist of her present trouble, and she blurted out:

"This Boiseriot certainly is a wicked sort of rascal. He doesn't like you any better than he does me, it would seem."

"Why do you say that?" asked Madeleine anxiously.

"Day before yesterday I heard him talking to Jules the natural, telling him the news—and there was one piece of news for you, that no doubt you didn't like to hear.—But, of course, you must have known it long before Boiseriot!"

Madeleine's fingers tightened on Tiennette's shoulders.

"Jules? I haven't seen him lately—he hasn't come around.… What news do you mean? I haven't any news"

"Is that so? At Chantepie everybody's talking about it."

"But go on, tell me! What is it?"

White as death, Madeleine was panting for breath. But the little sister didn't notice it and delivered her news lightly, almost scoffingly:

"Well, it's this: that poor fool, Michael Corbier, is going to marry Violette, the dressmaker. The thing's to take place toward early summer. This very day he's supposed to buy her engagement ring."

Only then Tiennette felt her sister's hands glide off her shoulders. She turned around: Madeleine lay against the slope of the ditch in a faint.