Nêne/Part 1/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
AT Christmas Boiseriot went to confession. He went to the parish priest at St.-Ambroise who was known to lead in the fight against the Dissenters. After confessing the ordinary trifles, he came to the things that really mattered; but, for prudence, he poured them all out in a bunch, very quickly, without details. The priest did not press him.
He wasn't a bad man, this parish priest,—but overzealous and too eager to bring back to the fold all these Dissenters who were, after all, only the very best strayed sheep.
His penitent, who accused himself of wanting to marry a Dissenter—for he was careful to say "marry"—did not seem to him very guilty. It might mean another one won over, another one to be baptised solemnly, one Sunday in the month of Mary. As for having been a little quarrelsome, for the glory of the Church, on threshing day, and having wished evil on one of her detractors, that showed hotheadedness, no doubt, but also a fine, firm faith.
So Boiseriot left the confessional all straightened out, and went back to the Moulinettes as happy as a first communicant.
Madeleine had also gone to St.-Ambroise that day. She had brought back, for Lalie and Jo, a couple of oranges and a loaf of baker's bread. Coming in, Boiseriot saw the basket standing open on the table; impudently, he cornered Madeleine in the hall:
"Stupid, save your pennies, anyhow! You could buy a whole bushel of oranges and a bagful of shortbread for his kids,—that wouldn't get him to make you the real mistress of the house in the eyes of the world!— Listen! If you'd only"
She cut him short by pushing him out of doors. But he came back to his point on the following days. He found ways of cornering her in the barn, in the lean-to, even in the house; and more than once she was thankful for being so strong that she had nothing to fear from a weakling like him.
One Sunday in January he met her on the road to St.-Ambroise and walked along with her. The road was straight and dotted with people on their way to mass or to rosary prayers. She did not want to push him out of her way in sight of so many neighbours and therefore had to listen to his vile proposals and his threats. She'd yield to him or he'd set all the young fellows of the countryside on her—and who'd defend her now that her brother was crippled?
As soon as they were out of sight of the others along the road, she drove him away, throwing stones at him.
From that day on he cooked up his revenge.
He thought Gideon would be a perfect tool for his evil work and he began moulding the boy's mind to his purpose, furbishing it, whetting it like a pruning hook.
Gideon, like himself, was hired up to the first of March. Boiseriot had agreed to stay on another year, but the boy had not yet renewed his contract with Corbier and likely he'd be leaving in a few weeks. He wanted a hundred francs increase for the coming year and Michael was not disposed to give him as much as that. Gideon was neither very handy nor, above all, very biddable. While he did what he was told to do, he was never in a hurry about it and his first impulse was to do the reverse of what he was told. Moreover, while he wasn't exactly lazy, still he lost a lot of time dawdling, his youthful mind finding a thousand things of interest by the wayside.
Boiseriot began to rouse him against Michael in a round-about way, so the boy wouldn't see his purpose.
When Michael grumbled because some piece of work was badly done, Boiseriot would say to Gideon:
"Let him do it himself—he'll see if it is easy!" or "Aren't you getting sick of it yet? For my part, I've never let anybody pester me about the way I do my work.— You don't like it? All right! Good-bye!— If I were you I'd get out of here the minute my time was up."
Gideon had received many a worse scolding without bearing Corbier any grudge for it; but, feeling the lash of the whip, he burst out:
"Gosh darn it! sure, I'm going to get out! And I'll be jiggered if I'm ever sorry I quit!"
Boiseriot nodded approvingly:
"And it's saying no more than the truth, poor boy—he's led you a pretty rotten life!"
When he was satisfied that Gideon had quite made up his mind to leave, he began to talk about Madeleine.
"With Lent coming, when the beasts are better fed than the men, it's a good idea to change cooks. This one here, she eats the pork and leaves us the cabbage."
He made the boy laugh with funny remarks about her. With that big bosom of hers, she must have smothered all her lovers …
"No … not all, though! … She's still got one left …"
"And who's that?" asked the boy, turning from his work the better to listen.
"Well, now … I guess you're too young to hear such things."
Between his teeth he added, pretending to be scandalised:
"It's a shame and a disgrace … such goings-on! …"
But Gideon couldn't be set against Madeleine so easily, for several reasons.
When Boiseriot at last spat out the worst of his insinuations, the lad protested loudly:
"No! That isn't true! You're trying to be funny!"
"It isn't just hearsay— I've seen it myself, I tell you!"
It took him several days to convince the boy. Finally, one afternoon, Boiseriot thought he had him where he wanted him.
They had been hard at work all day and, this being a fast day, the soup was very thin. Moreover, Michael had stormed at Gideon while they were at table. When the two farm-hands went back to their work of cutting down a thorny hedge, Gideon began to voice his resentment more loudly than usual.
Boiseriot let him go on and then launched his scheme. First he recounted everything, Corbier's reprimands, the long weeks of Lenten fasting, the sinful goings-on in the house,—ending up, with a laugh:
"Really now—they deserve to have the neighbours sicced on them!"
"I'm for it, damn it all! I'm game if you are."
The boy's words were mere bravado; but the man took him up instantly:
"Oh, I'm too old for that kind of fun."
That put Gideon, who was by no means slow-witted, on his guard. Boiseriot continued in a low voice, without looking up:
"Besides, I'm going to stay here while you're going away in ten days or so. All you need to do is tell the boys of your age what's going on here; they'll jump at the chance of having some fun, now that the season for your evening parties is over. When I was your age I took part in a great mobbing once. That was at Chantepie: a cobbler who'd played truant with another man's wife. Ten or twelve of us got around to his door every evening and raised a devil of a racket with old kettles, tin pans, buckets, anything. We forced him out of the neighborhood, all right! I never laughed so much in my life!— Everybody was on our side. It'll be just the same here. It's wrong to let such doings pass without punishment, and it's up to you young fellows to stop them."
Gideon shook his head:
"No, no,—it's none of my business. Besides, there's the family to think of"
"What family? The Clarandeaus? Fine family that is! Don't you know anything at all? The youngest girl who was here for the threshing last year—haven't you heard what's being said?— She's even worse than her sister here, though she's nothing but a kid in years"
Gideon, who had been hacking away at a hawthorn with his priming-hook, stopped stock still:
"That's a lie!"
So anxious was Boiseriot to clinch the matter that he took no notice of the boy's angry tone and gesture, but went on:
"A lie? Ask the boys at St.-Ambroise who trailed her into the Beaufrêne woods, a week ago last Sunday"
"What's that you say, Boiseriot? Just you say that again"
Carried away by the flood of his hate, Boiseriot could not stop.
"Yes, in the Beaufrêne woods!—and again last Sunday, at the same place, there were four of them with her!— Hey, there! what's come over you, idiot?"
For Gideon had thrown away his pruning-hook and jumped at him.
"You damn cur, you! I'll teach you to invent such lies! Tiennette, eh?— Both those Sundays, after prayers, she went a little way out on the Valley road and sat down by the roadside, and I was there with her, if you want to know!"
Boiseriot tried to get away, but Gideon pushed him backward into the hedge. Holding him down with one hand, he belaboured him with the other, on which he was wearing a heavy leather glove; all the while yelling, with tears of wrath:
"Take that—and that!— So much for your dirty lies!— Is that so? Tiennette was in the Beaufrêne woods, was she, you filthy liar? The master lives in sin with his housekeeper, does he?— And what's that to you? Take that, you liar!— I'm to sic the boys on them, am I?— I'll sic them on you!—damn your filthy hide!"
When they scrambled to their feet again, Michael was standing behind them. He said:
"Well, are you through?" and to Boiseriot he added: "Come up to the house, you!"
Boiseriot made a gesture of rage, but Michael went on:
"March ahead of me—right now!"
His tone was so cutting that Boiseriot obeyed, for fear of another trouncing.
When he had been paid off and had packed his belongings, he left the farm-hands' lean-to and snooped back toward the house. Seeing that Michael had gone out, he went up to the threshold and hissed between clenched teeth:
"I'm going— Good-bye!— You've bitten me, but I'll rend your flesh!"