Nêne/Part 1/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
FOR three days they said no word to each other. At meal times Madeleine fed the children and took her own meals standing by the fireplace, without a word.
Corbier spoke to his father or to the hands without ever turning his head toward his housekeeper. Contrary to his habit, Boiseriot grew facetious. From under his peak cap his wolfish eyes glistened with malicious glee.
On the second day, in the barn, Michael had answered a question of his father in a vague way, turning pale:
"There's nothing wrong—but, after you, I'm the only master here."
The master! yes—the one who gave orders to the farm-hands, who planned for the plowing and the sowing, the buying and selling; but he was not master of his own imaginings. In truth, he did not know what was in his heart, whether love or hate, kindness or anger. There was pride, for a certainty, the pride of resisting the surge of his strong young blood; the pride, too, of not going back on a too harsh word.
It was much the same with Madeleine. She had cried with shame; cried with the pain, too, of an unexpected, brutal and secret wound. The unacknowledged dream that had sprung up and flowered in her like a white bush hidden under denser foliage had been hacked down, pulled out by the roots. The hurt was too cruel. Whack! One great blow of the axe at a fragrant hawthorn—one thrust of the spade in the middle of a flowerbed!
All for a bit of playfulness!—for it was all in play, really! Lalie had started the game—he might have inquired, first—then he would have understood!— Such awful words, to her!— Loving the children was no reason why she should be thinking of anything wrong. She did love the children,—very, very much—she had indeed quite lost her heart to them!—and why not? Why shouldn't she show it, too?
"'Mortal sin!' Perhaps you are thinking things, Michael?—because you are good to look at! My Lord, you are not the only one!"
It had come to Wednesday evening, and Madeleine was feverishly clearing the table. The men had gone to their rooms; the children were asleep.
"I'll go away. I can't stay on after what he said. I'd grown used to the place, but all I care about is the children—truly!— I'll miss them, the darlings,—but none of the others!— I'll go to a big farm, like last year; I'll have more freedom there. They are getting me all muddled between them, those I like and those I don't like. In the end, I don't know which way to turn. And work all the time, from sun-up to sun-down, and 'way into the night, and before dawn sometimes, too. Nobody to lay out the work for you, and no thanks to you!— I ought to have left right away. When I see him come in and sit with the others, never looking at me, it's—it's humiliating!— He is angry, of course; but if he'd only speak out, as before, his anger would pass, maybe. But he won't!— All right, then! I quit, Michael Corbier! You can hire somebody else, one that's better looking.— You can marry her, for all I care."
Madeleine threw down the cloth she used for rubbing the furniture; but she picked it up again, thinking:
"I'll quit, but I won't have the blame put on me! I'll do my work to the end and he'll have no fault to find with me. To-morrow he's got to pick a quarrel with me. I'll get angry and then, good-bye! How could I manage it?— Ah! I've got it!"
She jumped on a chair and took down the pistols. Then she went to fetch a large piece of emery paper and started to rub and polish.
"Ah, you old popguns, you! I'm going to make you shine like the candlesticks in the chapel."
Madeleine!— Mortal sin!
"B-rr! Do you think it is? Just because you've served to kill enemies with?"
Madeleine, I forbid you this abomination!
"Or maybe women too, and robbers perhaps, in the time when people were worse than savages?— Say that again, Corbier, that it was an abomination"
A scene would now be inevitable; she would leave on the spot.
That very night she would get her belongings together, so that she could pack them up at a minute's notice. She opened her clothes-press, folded up her skirts, looked about for her handkerchiefs.
The children's things were mixed up with hers. Angry as she was, it wrung her heart to pick them out and lay them away separately.
She took her bottle of scent and set it on the top shelf, right in the centre. She had bought it for them and she'd leave it to them. But the girl who'd take her place would probably use it for herself. Ah, not that! Certainly not!
Then she took out the little vests and stockings, the baby's bibs, and Lalie's pinafores and hair ribbons. When she had them all spread out on the table, she emptied her bottle on them, drop by drop, as if she were sprinkling holy water.
"My little darlings—may it bring you happiness!"
She wanted to do something more for them, but it was late; and so that she might not call attention to her doings, she stepped out of her wooden shoes and went about the room noiselessly.
She found holes in Jo's stockings and mended them. Lalie was growing fast; her Sunday pinafore had become too short. She'd soon have nothing nice to put on of a Sunday, and she wouldn't look as neat and pretty as the other little girls, who hadn't lost their mothers.
Madeleine had an apron of old print, with a red flower pattern; she cut it up and, with a skill that astonished even herself, she made a flounce of it to lengthen the pinafore, and a new belt, too.
It was almost midnight; she worked on with painstaking slowness.
When the pinafore was made as good as new, she looked about to see what else she could do. Nothing. All the poor little clothes were mended and clean and neat.
Her work all done, Madeleine broke down and cried.
In what state would everything be in a couple of weeks? Who would be taking care of Jo? Would anyone think of him, except to stuff him with thick soup? He was still used to getting his bottle when he was put to bed. Twice a day he got a new-laid egg, boiled very soft, and it took some patience to feed it to him in little spoonfuls.
"My poor babies! But after all, it's not impossible that the woman your father will get in my place will be good to you. You'll love her, you'll forget Madeleine,—and when you've grown up you won't even remember me."
Her tears trickled on the garments as she laid them away again in the clothes-press.
"But I can't stay on. Your father is wicked—I am wicked—people grow wicked when they grow up. They don't know how to forgive things. We aren't any better than they were in the old time when they kept fighting each other."
Madeleine wept as she looked at the cradle and at her shiny new-fashioned bed, where Lalie was sleeping.
She had a box where she kept some ribbons, a ring, a pin and a little silver necklace. She slipped the necklace around Lalie's neck, under the hair. As for Jo, she had nothing to give him that would be suitable to his age. And during the four months she had been at the Moulinettes she had not thought of buying a single trifle for him to remember her by.
But then, she had never thought of leaving so soon!
At any rate she'd keep him close to her as long as she could. As soon as she had undressed she lifted the baby out of his cradle and took him with her to bed.
The baby half awoke and grumbled because he had lost the nipple that he was used to go to sleep with. His two little hands fumbled about Madeleine's bosom; he bumped his head into it,—lips parted and searching.
Madeleine had stopped crying. She was not quite asleep yet, but her thoughts were wandering away, escaping her to whence she could not call them back. The baby had nestled against her, and as she slipped away into dreamland she still felt the solace of the moist little mouth against her breast.
Ding! ding! ding!
With a gurgle like running water the old clock in the corner warned that it was three.
Madeleine jumped out of bed. In her bare feet, without stopping to clothe herself, she ran to the fireplace and tried to smudge the shining pistols with a greasy cloth,—stealthily, like someone doing something wrong.
No use! At breakfast everybody noticed the harm that had been done. Michael said nothing, but his father flared up angrily:
"Madeleine, I told you not to do that!"
Madeleine turned very red and apologised, pretending she had forgotten. And, before them all, she humbly let the old man scold her like a silly schoolgirl.