Fruitfulness Part 39

"Your son, I'll send him to the galleys! And you, if you don't go, I'll throw you out! Be off with you, be off!"

Mathieu, who was very pale, slowly retired before this furious madman.

But as he went off he calmly said: "You are an unhappy man. I forgive you, for you are in great grief. Besides, I am quite easy, sensible things always end by taking place."

Again, a month went by. Then, one rainy morning in October, Madame Lepailleur was found hanging in the mill stable. There were folks at Janville who related that Lepailleur had hung her there. The truth was that she had given signs of melancholia ever since the death of Antonin.

Moreover, the life led at the mill was no longer bearable; day by day the husband and wife reproached one another for their son's death and their daughter's flight, battling ragefully together like two abandoned beasts shut up in the same cage. Folks were merely astonished that such a harsh, avaricious woman should have been willing to quit this life without taking her goods and chattels with her.

As soon as Therese heard of her mother's death she hastened home, repentant, and took her place beside her father again, unwilling as she was that he should remain alone in his two-fold bereavement. At first it proved a terrible time for her in the company of that brutal old man who was exasperated by what he termed his bad luck. But she was a girl of sterling courage and prompt decision; and thus, after a few weeks, she had made her father consent to her marriage with Gregoire, which, as Mathieu had said, was the only sensible course. The news gave great relief at the farm whither the prodigal son had not yet dared to return.

It was believed that the young couple, after eloping together, had lived in some out of the way district of Paris, and it was even suspected that Ambroise, who was liberally minded, had, in a brotherly way, helped them with his purse. And if, on the one hand, Lepailleur consented to the marriage in a churlish, distrustful manner--like one who deemed himself robbed, and was simply influenced by the egotistical dread of some day finding himself quite alone again in his gloomy house--Mathieu and Marianne, on the other side, were delighted with an arrangement which put an end to an equivocal situation that had caused them the greatest suffering, grieved as they were by the rebellion of one of their children.

Curiously enough, it came to pa.s.s that Gregoire, once married and installed at the mill in accordance with his wife's desire, agreed with his father-in-law far better than had been antic.i.p.ated. This resulted in particular from a certain discussion during which Lepailleur had wished to make Gregoire swear, that, after his death, he would never dispose of the moorland enclosure, hitherto kept uncultivated with peasant stubbornness, to any of his brothers or sisters of the farm. Gregoire took no oath on the subject, but gayly declared that he was not such a fool as to despoil his wife of the best part of her inheritance, particularly as he proposed to cultivate those moors and, within two or three years' time, make them the most fertile land in the district. That which belonged to him did not belong to others, and people would soon see that he was well able to defend the property which had fallen to his lot. Things took a similar course with respect to the mill, where Gregoire at first contented himself with repairing the old mechanism, for he was unwilling to upset the miller's habits all at once, and therefore postponed until some future time the installation of an engine, and the laying down of a line of rails to Janville station--all those ideas formerly propounded by Mathieu which henceforth fermented in his audacious young mind.

In this wise, then, people found themselves in presence of a new Gregoire. The madcap had become wise, only retaining of his youthful follies the audacity which is needful for successful enterprise. And it must be said that he was admirably seconded by the fair and energetic Therese. They were both enraptured at now being free to love each other in the romantic old mill, garlanded with ivy, pending the time when they would resolutely fling it to the ground to install in its place the great white meal stores and huge new mill-stones, which, with their conquering ambition, they often dreamt of.

During the years that followed, Mathieu and Marianne witnessed other departures. The three daughters, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, in turn took their flight from the family nest. All three found husbands in the district. Louise, a plump brunette, all gayety and health, with abundant hair and large laughing eyes, married notary Mazaud of Janville, a quiet, pensive little man, whose occasional silent smiles alone denoted the perfect satisfaction which he felt at having found a wife of such joyous disposition. Then Madeleine, whose chestnut tresses were tinged with gleaming gold, and who was slimmer than her sister, and of a more dreamy style of beauty, her character and disposition refined by her musical tastes, made a love match which was quite a romance.

Herbette, the architect, who became her husband, was a handsome, elegant man, already celebrated; he owned near Monvel a park-like estate, where he came to rest at times from the fatigue of his labors in Paris.

At last, Marguerite, the least pretty of the girls--indeed, she was quite plain, but derived a charm from her infinite goodness of heart--was chosen in marriage by Dr. Chambouvet, a big, genial, kindly fellow, who had inherited his father's practice at Vieux-Bourg, where he lived in a large white house, which had become the resort of the poor.

And thus the three girls being married, the only ones who remained with Mathieu and Marianne in the slowly emptying nest were their two last boys, Nicolas and Benjamin.

At the same time, however, as the youngsters flew away and installed themselves elsewhere, there came other little ones, a constant swarming due to the many family marriages. In eight years, Denis, who reigned at the factory in Paris, had been presented by his wife with three children, two boys, Lucien and Paul, and a girl, Hortense. Then Leonce, the son of Ambroise, who was conquering such a high position in the commercial world, now had a brother, Charles, and two little sisters, Pauline and Sophie. At the farm, moreover, Gervais was already the father of two boys, Leon and Henri, while Claire, his sister, could count three children, a boy, Joseph, and two daughters, Lucile and Angele. There was also Gregoire, at the mill, with a big boy who had received the name of Robert; and there were also the three last married daughters--Louise, with a girl two years old; Madeleine, with a boy six months of age; and Marguerite, who in antic.i.p.ation of a happy event, had decided to call her child Stanislas, if it were a boy, and Christine, if it should be a girl.

Thus upon every side the family oak spread out its branches, its trunk forking and multiplying, and boughs sprouting from boughs at each successive season. And withal Mathieu was not yet sixty, and Marianne not yet fifty-seven. Both still possessed flourishing health, and strength, and gayety, and were ever in delight at seeing the family, which had sprung from them, thus growing and spreading, invading all the country around, even like a forest born from a single tree.

But the great and glorious festival of Chantebled at that period was the birth of Mathieu and Marianne's first great-grandchild--a girl, called Angeline, daughter of their granddaughter, Berthe. In this little girl, all pink and white, the ever-regretted Blaise seemed to live again.

So closely did she resemble him that Charlotte, his widow, already a grandmother in her forty-second year, wept with emotion at the sight of her. Madame Desvignes had died six months previously, pa.s.sing away, even as she had lived, gently and discreetly, at the termination of her task, which had chiefly consisted in rearing her two daughters on the scanty means at her disposal. Still it was she, who, before quitting the scene, had found a husband for her granddaughter, Berthe, in the person of Philippe Havard, a young engineer who had recently been appointed a.s.sistant-manager at a State factory near Mareuil. It was at Chantebled, however, that Berthe's little Angeline was born; and on the day of the churching, the whole family a.s.sembled together there once more to glorify the great-grandfather and great-grandmother.

"Ah! well," said Marianne gayly, as she stood beside the babe's cradle, "if the young ones fly away there are others born, and so the nest will never be empty."

"Never, never!" repeated Mathieu with emotion, proud as he felt of that continual victory over solitude and death. "We shall never be left alone!"

Yet there came another departure which brought them many tears. Nicolas, the youngest but one of their boys, who was approaching his twentieth birthday, and thus nigh the cross-roads of life, had not yet decided which one he would follow. He was a dark, st.u.r.dy young man, with an open, laughing face. As a child, he had adored tales of travel and far-away adventure, and had always evinced great courage and endurance, returning home enraptured from interminable rambles, and never uttering complaints, however badly his feet might be blistered. And withal he possessed a most orderly mind, ever carefully arranging and cla.s.sifying his little belongings in his drawers, and looking down with contempt on the haphazard way in which his sisters kept their things.

Later on, as he grew up, he became thoughtful, as if he were vainly seeking around him some means of realizing his two-fold craving, that of discovering some new land and organizing it properly. One of the last-born of a numerous family, he no longer found s.p.a.ce enough for the amplitude and force of his desires. His brothers and sisters had already taken all the surrounding lands, and he stifled, threatened also, as it were, with famine, and ever sought the broad expanse that he dreamt of, where he might grow and reap his bread. No more room, no more food! At first he knew not in which direction to turn, but groped and hesitated for some months. Nevertheless, his hearty laughter continued to gladden the house; he wearied neither his father nor his mother with the care of his destiny, for he knew that he was already strong enough to fix it himself.

There was no corner left for him at the farm where Gervais and Claire took up all the room. At the Beauchene works Denis was all sufficient, reigning there like a conscientious toiler, and nothing justified a younger brother in claiming a share beside him. At the mill, too, Gregoire was as yet barely established, and his kingdom was so small that he could not possibly cede half of it. Thus an opening was only possible with Ambroise, and Nicolas ended by accepting an obliging offer which the latter made to take him on trial for a few months, by way of initiating him into the higher branches of commerce. Ambroise's fortune was becoming prodigious since old uncle Du Hordel had died, leaving him his commission business. Year by year the new master increased his trade with all the countries of the world. Thanks to his lucky audacity and broad international views, he was enriching himself with the spoils of the earth. And though Nicolas again began to stifle in Ambroise's huge store-houses, where the riches of distant countries, the most varied climes, were collected together, it was there that his real vocation came to him; for a voice suddenly arose, calling him away yonder to dim, unknown regions, vast stretches of country yet sterile, which needed to be populated, and cleared and sowed with the crops of the future.

For two months Nicolas kept silent respecting the designs which he was now maturing. He was extremely discreet, as are all men of great energy, who reflect before they act. He must go, that was certain, since neither s.p.a.ce nor sufficiency of sunlight remained for him in the cradle of his birth; but if he went off alone, would that not be going in an imperfect state, deficient in the means needed for the heroic task of populating and clearing a new land? He knew a girl of Janville, one Lisbeth Moreau, who was tall and strong, and whose robust health, seriousness, and activity had charmed him. She was nineteen years of age, and, like Nicolas, she stifled in the little nook to which destiny had confined her; for she craved for the free and open air, yonder, afar off. An orphan, and long dependent on an aunt, who was simply a little village haberdasher, she had hitherto, from feelings of affection, remained cloistered in a small and gloomy shop. But her aunt had lately died, leaving her some ten thousand francs, and her dream was to sell the little business, and go away and really live at last. One October evening, when Nicolas and Lisbeth told one another things that they had never previously told anybody, they came to an understanding. They resolutely took each other's hand and plighted their troth for life, for the hard battle of creating a new world, a new family, somewhere on the earth's broad surface, in those mysterious, far away climes of which they knew so little. 'Twas a delightful betrothal, full of courage and faith.

Only then, everything having been settled, did Nicolas speak out, announcing his departure to his father and mother. It was an autumn evening, still mild, but fraught with winter's first shiver, and the twilight was falling. Intense grief wrung the parents' hearts as soon as they understood their son. This time it was not simply a young one flying from the family nest to build his own on some neighboring tree of the common forest; it was flight across the seas forever, severance without hope of return. They would see their other children again, but this one was breathing an eternal farewell. Their consent would be the share of cruel sacrifice, that life demands, their supreme gift to life, the t.i.the levied by life on their affection and their blood. To pursue its victory, life, the perpetual conqueror, demanded this portion of their flesh, this overplus of the numerous family, which was overflowing, spreading, peopling the world. And what could they answer, how could they refuse? The son who was unprovided for took himself off; nothing could be more logical or more sensible. Far beyond the fatherland there were vast continents yet uninhabited, and the seed which is scattered by the breezes of heaven knows no frontiers. Beyond the race there is mankind with that endless spreading of humanity that is leading us to the one fraternal people of the accomplished times, when the whole earth shall be but one sole city of truth and justice.

Moreover, quite apart from the great dream of those seers, the poets, Nicolas, like a practical man, whatever his enthusiasm, gayly gave his reasons for departing. He did not wish to be a parasite; he was setting off to the conquest of another land, where he would grow the bread he needed, since his own country had no field left for him. Besides, he took his country with him in his blood; she it was that he wished to enlarge afar off with unlimited increase of wealth and strength. It was ancient Africa, the mysterious, now explored, traversed from end to end, that attracted him. In the first instance he intended to repair to Senegal, whence he would doubtless push on to the Soudan, to the very heart of the virgin lands where he dreamt of a new France, an immense colonial empire, which would rejuvenate the old Gallic race by endowing it with its due share of the earth. And it was there that he had the ambition of carving out a kingdom for himself, and of founding with Lisbeth another dynasty of Froments, and a new Chantebled, covering under the hot sun a tract ten times as extensive as the old one, and peopled with the people of his own children. And he spoke of all this with such joyous courage that Mathieu and Marianne ended by smiling amid their tears, despite the rending of their poor hearts.

"Go, my lad, we cannot keep you back. Go wherever life calls you, wherever you may live with more health and joy and strength. All that may spring from you yonder will still be health and joy and strength derived from us, of which we shall be proud. You are right, one must not weep, your departure must be a fete, for the family does not separate, it simply extends, invades, and conquers the world."

Nevertheless, on the day of farewell, after the marriage of Nicolas and Lisbeth there was an hour of painful emotion at Chantebled. The family had met to share a last meal all together, and when the time came for the young and adventurous couple to tear themselves from the maternal soil there were those who sobbed although they had vowed to be very brave. Nicolas and Lisbeth were going off with little means, but rich in hopes. Apart from the ten thousand francs of the wife's dowry they had only been willing to take another ten thousand, just enough to provide for the first difficulties. Might courage and labor therefore prove st.u.r.dy artisans of conquest.

Young Benjamin, the last born of the brothers Froment, was particularly upset by this departure. He was a delicate, good-looking child not yet twelve years old, whom his parents greatly spoiled, thinking that he was weak. And they were quite determined that they would at all events keep him with them, so handsome did they find him with his soft limpid eyes and beautiful curly hair. He was growing up in a languid way, dreamy, petted, idle among his mother's skirts, like the one charming weakling of that strong, hardworking family.

"Let me kiss you again, my good Nicolas," said he to his departing brother. "When will you come back?"

"Never, my little Benjamin."

The boy shuddered.

"Never, never!" he repeated. "Oh! that's too long. Come back, come back some day, so that I may kiss you again."

"Never," repeated Nicolas, turning pale himself. "Never, never."

He had lifted up the lad, whose tears were raining fast; and then for all came the supreme grief, the frightful moment of the hatchet-stroke, of the separation which was to be eternal.

"Good-by, little brother! Good-by, good-by, all of you!"

While Mathieu accompanied the future conqueror to the door for the last time wishing him victory, Benjamin in wild grief sought a refuge beside his mother who was blinded by her tears. And she caught him up with a pa.s.sionate clasp, as if seized with fear that he also might leave her.

He was the only one now left to them in the family nest.

XXI

AT the factory, in her luxurious house on the quay, where she had long reigned as sovereign mistress, Constance for twelve years already had been waiting for destiny, remaining rigid and stubborn amid the continual crumbling of her life and hopes.

During those twelve years Beauchene had pursued a downward course, the descent of which was fatal. He was right at the bottom now, in the last state of degradation. After beginning simply as a roving husband, festively inclined, he had ended by living entirely away from his home, princ.i.p.ally in the company of two women, aunt and niece. He was now but a pitiful human rag, fast approaching some shameful death. And large as his fortune had been, it had not sufficed him; as he grew older he had squandered money yet more and more lavishly, immense sums being swallowed up in disreputable adventures, the scandal of which it had been necessary to stifle. Thus he at last found himself poor, receiving but a small portion of the ever-increasing profits of the works, which were in full prosperity.

This was the disaster which brought so much suffering to Constance in her incurable pride. Beauchene, since the death of his son, had quite abandoned himself to a dissolute life, thinking of nothing but his pleasures, and taking no further interest in his establishment. What was the use of defending it, since there was no longer an heir to whom it might be transmitted, enlarged and enriched? And thus he had surrendered it, bit by bit, to Denis, his partner, whom, by degrees, he allowed to become the sole master. On arriving at the works, Denis had possessed but one of the six shares which represented the totality of the property according to the agreement. And Beauchene had even reserved to himself the right of repurchasing that share within a certain period. But far from being in a position to do so before the appointed date was pa.s.sed, he had been obliged to cede yet another share to the young man, in order to free himself of debts which he could not confess.

From that time forward it became a habit with Beauchene to cede Denis a fresh share every two years. A third followed the second, then came the turn of the fourth and the fifth, in such wise, indeed, that after a final arrangement, he had not even kept a whole share for himself; but simply some portion of the sixth. And even that was really fict.i.tious, for Denis had only acknowledged it in order to have a pretext for providing him with a certain income, which, by the way, he subdivided, handing half of it to Constance every month.

She, therefore, was ignorant of nothing. She knew that, as a matter of fact, the works would belong to that son of the hated Froments, whenever he might choose to close the doors on their old master, who, as it happened, was never seen now in the workshops. True, there was a clause in the covenant which admitted, so long as that covenant should not be broken, the possibility of repurchasing all the shares at one and the same time. Was it, then, some mad hope of doing this, a fervent belief in a miracle, in the possibility of some saviour descending from Heaven, that kept Constance thus rigid and stubborn, awaiting destiny? Those twelve years of vain waiting--and increasing decline did not seem to have diminished her conviction that in spite of everything she would some day triumph. No doubt her tears had gushed forth at Chantebled in presence of the victory of Mathieu and Marianne; but she soon recovered her self-possession, and lived on in the hope that some unexpected occurrence would at last prove that she, the childless woman, was in the right.

She could not have said precisely what it was she wished; she was simply bent on remaining alive until misfortune should fall upon the over-numerous family, to exculpate her for what had happened in her own home, the loss of her son who was in the grave, and the downfall of her husband who was in the gutter--all the abomination, indeed, which had been so largely wrought by herself, but which filled her with agony.

However much her heart might bleed over her losses, her vanity as an honest bourgeoise filled her with rebellious thoughts, for she could not admit that she had been in the wrong. And thus she awaited the revenge of destiny in that luxurious house, which was far too large now that she alone inhabited it. She only occupied the rooms on the first floor, where she shut herself up for days together with an old serving woman, the sole domestic that she had retained. Gowned in black, as if bent on wearing eternal mourning for Maurice, always erect, stiff, and haughtily silent, she never complained, although her covert exasperation had greatly affected her heart, in such wise that she experienced at times most terrible attacks of stifling. These she kept as secret as possible, and one day when the old servant ventured to go for Doctor Boutan she threatened her with dismissal. She would not even answer the doctor, and she refused to take any remedies, certain as she felt that she would last as long as the hope which buoyed her up.

Yet what anguish it was when she suddenly began to stifle, all alone in the empty house, without son or husband near her! She called n.o.body since she knew that n.o.body would come. And the attack over, with what unconquerable obstinacy did she rise erect again, repeating that her presence sufficed to prevent Denis from being the master, from reigning alone in full sovereignty, and that in any case he would not have the house and install himself in it like a conqueror, so long as she had not sunk to death under the final collapse of the ceilings.

Amid this retired life, Constance, haunted as she was by her fixed idea, had no other occupation than that of watching the factory, and ascertaining what went on there day by day. Morange, whom she had made her confidant, gave her information in all simplicity almost every evening, when he came to speak to her for a moment after leaving his office. She learnt everything from his lips--the successive sales of the shares into which the property had been divided, their gradual acquisition by Denis, and the fact that Beauchene and herself were henceforth living on the new master's liberality. Moreover, she so organized her system of espionage as to make the old accountant tell her unwittingly all that he knew of the private life led by Denis, his wife Marthe, and their children, Lucien, Paul, and Hortense all, indeed, that was done and said in the modest little pavilion where the young people, in spite of their increasing fortune, were still residing, evincing no ambitious haste to occupy the large house on the quay. They did not even seem to notice what scanty accommodation they had in that pavilion, while she alone dwelt in the gloomy mansion, which was so s.p.a.cious that she seemed quite lost in it. And she was enraged, too, by their deference, by the tranquil way in which they waited for her to be no more; for she had been unable to make them quarrel with her, and was obliged to show herself grateful for the means they gave her, and to kiss their children, whom she hated, when they brought her flowers.

Thus, months and years went by, and almost every evening when Morange for a moment called on Constance, he found her in the same little silent salon, gowned in the same black dress, and stiffened into a posture of obstinate expectancy. Though no sign was given of destiny's revenge, of the patiently hoped-for fall of misfortune upon others, she never seemed to doubt of her ultimate victory. On the contrary, when things fell more and more heavily upon her, she drew herself yet more erect, defying fate, buoyed up by the conviction that it would at last be forced to prove that she was right. Thus, she remained immutable, superior to fatigue, and ever relying on a prodigy.

Each evening, when Morange called during those twelve years, the conversation invariably began in the same way.

"Nothing fresh since yesterday, dear madame?"

"No, my friend, nothing."

"Well, the chief thing is to enjoy good health. One can wait for better days."

"Oh! n.o.body enjoys good health; still one waits all the same."