Autumn Glory Part 7

"You are right, dear child. I thoroughly approve. Love him truly!"

At these words Rousille, looking down at the old lady, had the revelation of a being hitherto unknown to her. There was a light in her face; the poor arms, helpless from rheumatism, were held out towards Rousille trembling with emotion.

"Yes, love him truly. Your happiness is with him. Leave it to time, but do not yield, my Rousille, for I know others who in their youth refused to marry to please their fathers, and who had such difficulty afterwards to kill their hearts! Do not live alone, it is worse than death! Your Nesmy, I know him--your Nesmy and you are true lovers of the soil, such as the land can boast but few nowadays, and if old Aunt Adelaide can help you, defend you, give you what is wanted to enable you to marry, come to me, my child, at any time, come!"

She was holding Rousille now in close embrace, the girl bending over the little black-robed figure and suffering her tears to flow on the friendly shoulder, now that she had unburdened her heart.

For a moment the room was as silent as was the town slumbering in the mid-day sun. Then the Michelonne, gently disengaging herself from the girl's arms, went towards the window, standing where she could not be seen from outside. Between the roofs of two adjoining houses, looking westwards, was set, as in a frame, a corner of the Marais, its reddish-brown rushes finally fading away on the horizon.

"It was Mathurin, was it not, who denounced you?" she asked in a low voice.

"Yes, he was always watching me."

"He is jealous, you see. He has a grudge against you."

"For what, poor creature!"

"Your youth, my poor child. He is jealous of all who take the place that should have been his; jealous of Francois, of Andre, of you. He is like a lost soul when he hears that anyone but himself is to manage your father's farm. Shall I tell you all?"

Her frail hand uplifted, she pointed to the distant Marais, where the poplars, tiny as grains of oats, were standing out against the sky.

"Well, he still thinks of Felicite."

"Poor brother!" exclaimed Rousille, nodding her head. "If he is still thinking of her, she is only making fun of him."

"Innocent," returned the old woman in a whisper, "I know what I know.

Beware of Mathurin, he has drunk too deeply of love to forget. Beware of Felicite Gauvrit, because she is furious that being an heiress, no suitors come to her."

Rousille was about to reply. Adelaide made her a sign to keep silence; she had heard a footstep in the lane. Hastily drying her eyes, the old lady re-seated herself and picked up her work, like a child surprised in some fault by her mother. A pair of sabots was heard at the foot of the wall, they pa.s.sed the doorsteps, and went on down the Place. It was not Veronique. Marie-Rose had drawn back; she was looking at her one friend, so old, so worn, so timid, yet whose heart was so young.

And she thought no more of what she had been about to reply; she only said simply:

"Good-bye, Aunt Michelonne. If I need help I shall know where to come."

"Good-bye, dear child. Beware of Mathurin. Beware of the girl out there!"

They said no more in words, only their eyes were fixed on each other's, Rousille looking back until she had reached the door; then the latch was lifted, fell back into its socket, and there only remained in the silent chamber a little old woman stooping down over her black work, but who could not see her needle for the mist of tears in her eyes.

CHAPTER V.

PLOUGHING IN SEPTEMBER.

It was Monday, the third day after Rousille had seen the Michelonnes.

On the previous day, from morn till eve, storm clouds, rising out of the sea, had discharged their contents on the arid earth, as pockets full of corn are scattered by the sower. Showers of leaves, mostly from the topmost branches, had fallen; others, heavy with moisture, hung pendant. An aroma of damp earth rose up to the calm, milky sky; there was not a breath stirring, the birds were silenced, the land seemed intent upon the last drops of rain formed during the night, that came crashing down at the foot of the trees with a ring as of falling gla.s.s. Something in Nature seemed to have died with the last breath of summer, and the whole earth to be conscious of its loss.

And in truth, on the hills of Chalons, the most distant area of La Fromentiere, the far-off grinding of a plough, and the calls of the man to his oxen, proclaimed that Autumn labour had begun.

In the farm bakery, left of the building, and dividing their room from that of Francois, Eleonore and Marie-Rose were engaged heating the oven. From the semicircular opening flames were shooting up, now in heavy wreaths, now in groups of red petals set on upright stems.

Eleonore standing before it, in a print gown, was feeding the oven with f.a.ggots of bramble, thrusting them with an iron fork into the furnace. Marie-Rose was busily going backwards and forwards bringing in the baskets of dough. They did not speak; for a long time there had been a coolness between the sisters. But as for the tenth time Eleonore looked towards the door, as if expecting to see some person or thing in the courtyard, Rousille asked:

"What are you expecting, Eleonore?"

"Nothing," was the cross reply. "I am hot. My eyes smart." And she busied herself with separating the burning embers, arranging them in layers at the sides of the oven; this finished:

"Help me to fill the oven," she said.

One by one the loaves of leavened dough were placed by Rousille upon a large flat shovel, which Eleonore slid over the burning bricks, and drew out again with a sharp jerk. Twenty loaves there were of twelve pound each; enough wherewith to feed all at La Fromentiere, and to give to the poor of Monday for a fortnight. The last having been placed, Eleonore closed the mouth of the oven with an iron plate; the sisters had wiped their hot cheeks with their sleeves, the smell of new bread was beginning to be perceptible through the c.h.i.n.ks of the oven, when a loud laughing voice called in from the yard:

"M Francois Lumineau. Is he at home?" and the postman, a visitor who had been seen fairly often at La Fromentiere for some months past, held out a letter with printed heading on it. He added jocosely, for something to say:

"Another letter from the State Railways, Mam'selle Eleonore. Any of you got friends there?"

"Thank you," returned Eleonore, hastily taking the letter and putting it into the pocket of her ap.r.o.n, "I will give it to my brother. Fine weather to-day for your round?"

"Aye, that it is. Better than for heating the oven I should say by the look of you." The man made a half-turn on his well-worn shoes, and went his way in the steady jog-trot of seven leagues a day at thirty sous.

Eleonore, leaning against the doorpost, paid no further attention to him; she was gazing, as if hypnotized, on the corner of white paper that protruded from her pocket. She seemed strangely agitated, her eyelids swelled, her breast heaved beneath the calico bodice all streaked with flour and soot.

"There is some secret, I am sure," exclaimed Marie-Rose from behind her. "I do not ask what it is, I am accustomed at home to be left to myself. But still I cannot help seeing what is going on; only yesterday, after ma.s.s, you and Francois went off by yourselves to read some paper in the lane by the Michelonnes, I was there to fetch my money, and saw you gesticulating.... And now you are crying. It is hard, Eleonore, to see one's sister cry and not to know the reason--not to be able to say one word to comfort her."

To Rousille's intense surprise, Eleonore, without turning, held out a trembling hand towards her, and drew her younger sister tumultuously to her beating heart; and for the first time for many years, overcome with emotion, she leant her cheek on Rousille's, then suddenly broke out into sobs.

"Yes," she sobbed, "there is a secret, my poor Rousille, such a secret that I can never have the like again in all my life. I cannot tell it to you ... it is there in the letter ... but Francois must read it first, and then father--Heavens! what an unhappy girl I am!"

Tenderly Rousille pressed her face against her sister's all bathed in tears.

"But the secret, Eleonore, it only concerns Francois, does it?"

"No, me too; me too! Oh, when you hear it, Rousille.... It was Francois who persuaded me, he talked until I yielded ... and then I signed ... and now it is all done. Still, were it not for him, I feel that even now I could not do it; I would break the agreement--I would refuse."

"You are going, Eleonore?" cried the girl, drawing back.

Her sister's white face was the only answer.

"You are going?" she repeated. "Oh, where? Oh, do not leave us."

Eleonore, stupefied for the moment, now gave way to a feeling of anger, and repulsed the girl whom the instant before she had drawn to her.

"Hold your tongue!" she said roughly. "Do not talk like that. Are you going to tell tales of us?"

"I have no wish to do so."

"They are coming. You heard them. You said it aloud for them to hear, you sneak!"

"Indeed, I did not."