The winter passed and the spring came, but Brulette never went back to her amusements. She did not even regret them, having seen that she could still be mistress of all hearts if she chose; but she said that so many men and women had betrayed her friendship that now she should care for quality only, not quantity. The poor child did not then know all the wrong that had been done to her. Everybody had vilified her, but no one had yet dared to insult her. When they looked at her they saw virtue written on her face; but when her back was turned they revenged themselves in words, for the respect which they could not help feeling, and they yelped at her heels like a cowardly dog that dares not spring at your face.
Père Brulet was getting old; he grew deafer, and lived so much in himself, like all aged people, that he paid no attention to the talk of the town. Father and daughter were therefore less troubled than people hoped to make them, and my own father, who was of a wise and Christian spirit (as were the rest of my family), advised me, and also set me the example, not to worry them about it, saying that the truth would come to light some day and the wicked tongues be punished.
Time, which is a grand sweeper, began, before long, to get rid of the vile dust. Brulette, who disdained revenge, would take none but that of receiving very coldly the advances that were made to her. It happened, as it usually does, that she found friends among those who had never been her lovers, and these friends, having no interest of their own, protected her in a way that she was not aware of. I am not speaking of Mariton, who was like a mother to her, and who, in her inn bar-room, came very near flinging the jugs at the heads of the drinkers when they ventured to sing out "Josette;" but I mean persons whom no one could accuse of blindly supporting her, and who shamed her detractors.
Thus it was that Brulette had brought herself down, at first with difficulty, then, little by little, contentedly, to a quieter life than in the past. She was visited by sensible persons, and came often to our house, bringing Charlot, whose swollen face had improved during the preceding winter, while his temper had grown much more amiable. The child was really not so ugly as he was coarse, and after Brulette had tamed him by the winsome force of her gentleness and affection we saw that his big black eyes were not without intelligence, and that when his broad mouth was willing to smile it was really more funny than hideous. He had passed through a drooling illness, during which Brulette, formerly so easily disgusted, had nursed him and wiped him and tended him carefully, till he was now the healthiest little fellow, and the nicest and the cleanest in the village. His jaws were still too heavy and his nose too short for beauty, but inasmuch as health is the chief thing with the little beggars, every one took notice of his size, his strength, and his determined air.
But the thing that made Brulette proudest of her handiwork was that Charlot became every day prettier in speech and more generous in heart. When she first had him he swore in a way to daunt a regiment; but she had made him forget all that, and had taught him a number of nice little prayers, and all sorts of amusing and quaint sayings, which he employed in his own way to the entertainment of everybody. He was not born affectionate and would never kiss any one willingly, but for his darling, as he called Brulette, he showed such a violent attachment that if he had done anything naughty,—such as cutting up his pinafore to make cravats, or sticking his sabots into the soup-pot, he would forestall all reproaches and cling to her neck with such strength that she hadn't the heart to scold him.
In May of that year we were invited to the wedding of a cousin at Chassin, who sent over a cart the night before to fetch us, with a message to Brulette that if she did not come and bring Charlot, it would throw a gloom over the marriage day.
Chassin is a pretty place on the river Gourdon, about six miles distant from our village. The country reminded me slightly of the Bourbonnais. Brulette, who was a small eater, soon left the noise of the feast, and went to walk outside and amuse Charlot. "Indeed," she said to me, "I should like to take him into some quiet, shady place; for this is his sleeping-time, and the noise of the party keeps him awake, and I am afraid he will be very cross this evening."
As it was very hot, I offered to take her into a little wood, formerly kept as a warren, which adjoins the old castle, and being chokeful of briers and ditches, is a very sheltered and retired spot. "Very good," she said, "the little one can sleep on my petticoat, and you can go back and enjoy yourself."
When we got there I begged her to let me stay.
"I am not so devoted to weddings as I once was," I said to her. "I shall amuse myself as well, if not better, talking with you. A party is very tiresome if you are not among your own people and don't know what to do."
"Very well," she replied, "but I see plainly, my poor cousin, that I am a weight upon your hands; and yet you take it with such patience and good-will that I don't know how I shall ever do without it. However, that time must come, for you are now of an age to settle, and the wife you choose may cast an evil eye upon me, as so many do, and might never be brought to believe that I deserve your friendship and hers."
"It is too soon to worry yourself about that," I replied, settling the fat Charlot on my blouse, which I laid on the grass while she sat down beside him to keep off the flies. "I am not thinking of marriage, and if I were, I swear my wife should keep on good terms with you or I would be on bad terms with her. She would have a crooked heart indeed if she could not see that my regard for you is the most honorable of all friendships, and if she couldn't comprehend that having followed you through all your joys and all your troubles, I am so accustomed to your companionship that you and I are one. But how about you, cousin? are you thinking of marriage, or have you sworn off on that subject?"
"Oh! as for me, yes, I think so, Tiennet, if it suits the will of God. I am all but of age, and I think I have waited so long for the wish to marry that now I have let the time go by."
"Perhaps it is only just beginning, dear. The love of amusement has gone, and the love of children has come, and I see how you are settling down to a quiet home life; but nevertheless you are still in your spring-time, like the earth whose flowers are just blooming. You know I don't flatter you, and so you may believe me when I tell you that you have never been so pretty, though you have grown rather pale—like Thérence, the girl of the woods. You have even caught a sad little look like hers, which goes very well with your plain caps and that gray gown. The fact is, I believe your inside being has changed and you are going to be a sister of charity—if you are not in love."
"Don't talk about that, my dear friend," cried Brulette. "I might have turned either to love or piety a year ago. I felt, as you say, changed within. But now, here I am, tied to the cares of life without finding either the sweetness of love or the strength of faith. It seems to me that I am tied to a yoke and can only push forward by my head, without knowing what sort of cart I am dragging behind me. You see that I am not very sad under it and that I don't mean to die of it; and yet, I own that I regret something in my life—not what has been, but what might have been."
"Come, Brulette," I said, sitting down by her and taking her hand, "perhaps the time has come for confidence. You can tell me everything without fear of my feeling grief or jealousy. I am cured of wishing for anything that you can't give me. But give me one thing, for it is my due,—give me your confidence about your troubles."
Brulette became scarlet and made an effort to speak, but could not say a word. It almost seemed as if I were forcing her to confess to her own soul, and she had foreborne so long that now she did not know how to do it.
She raised her beautiful eyes and looked at the country before us, for we were sitting at the edge of the wood, on a grassy terrace overlooking a pretty valley broken up into rolling ground green with cultivation. At our feet flowed the little river, and beyond, the ground rose rapidly under a fine wood of full-grown oaks, less extensive but boasting as large trees as any we had seen in the forest of Alleu. I saw in Brulette's eyes the thoughts she was thinking, and taking her hand, which she had withdrawn from mine to press her heart as if it pained her, I said, in a tone that was neither jest nor mischief,—
"Tell me, is it Huriel or Joseph?"
"It is not Joseph!" she replied, hastily.
"Then it is Huriel; but are you free to follow your inclinations?"
"How can I have any inclinations," she answered, blushing more and more, "for a person who has doubtless never thought of me?"
"That is no reason."
"Yes it is, I tell you."
"No, I swear it isn't. I had plenty of inclination for you."
"But you got over it."
"And you are trying hard to get over yours; that shows you are still ill of it. But Joseph?"
"Well, what of Joseph?"
"You were never bound to him?"
"You know that well enough!"
"But—Charlot?"
"Charlot?"
As my eyes turned to the child, hers turned too; then they fell back on me, so puzzled, so clear with innocence, that I was ashamed of my suspicions as though I had offered her an insult.
"Oh, nothing," I replied, hastily. "I said 'Charlot' because I thought he was waking up."
At that moment a sound of bagpipes reached us from the other side of the river among the oaks, and Brulette trembled like a leaf in the wind.
"There!" said I, "the bride's dance is beginning, and I do believe they are sending the music to fetch you."
"No, no," said Brulette, who had grown very pale, "neither the air nor the instrument belong to this region. Tiennet, Tiennet, either I am crazy—or he who is down there—"
"Do you see him?" I cried, running to the edge of the terrace and looking with all my eyes; "can it be Père Bastien?"
"I see no one," she said, having followed me, "but it was not Père Bastien—neither was it Joseph—it was—"
"Huriel, perhaps! that seems to me less certain than the river that parts us. But let us go at any rate; we may find a ford, and if he is there we shall certainly catch him, the gay muleteer, and find out what he is thinking about."
"No, Tiennet, I can't leave Charlot."
"The devil take that child! Then wait for me here; I am going alone."
"No, no, no! Tiennet," cried Brulette, holding me with both hands; "it is dangerous to go down that steep place."
"Whether I break my neck or not, I am going to put you out of your misery."
"What misery?" she exclaimed, still holding me, but recovering from her first agitation by an effort of pride. "What does it matter to me whether Huriel or some one else is in the wood? Do you suppose I want you to run after a man who, knowing I was close by, wanted to pass on?"
"If that is what you think," said a soft voice behind us, "I think we had better go away."
We turned round at the first word, and there was Thérence, the beautiful Thérence, before our eyes.
At the sight Brulette, who had fretted so much at being forgotten by her, lost all her nerve and fell into Thérence's arms with a great burst of tears.
"Well, well!" said Thérence, kissing her with the energy of a daughter of the woods. "Did you think I had forgotten our friendship? Why do you judge hardly of people who have never passed a day without thinking of you?"
"Tell her quickly if your brother is here, Thérence," I cried, "for—" Brulette, turning quickly, put her hand on my lips, and I caught myself up, adding, with a laugh, "for I am dying to see him."
"My brother is over there," said Thérence, "but he does not know you are so near. Listen, he is going farther off; you can hardly hear his music now."
She looked at Brulette, who had grown pale again, and added, laughing: "He is too far off to call him; but he will soon turn and come round by the ruined castle. Then, if you don't disdain him, Brulette, and will not prevent me, I shall give him a surprise he does not expect; for he did not think of seeing you till to-night. We were on our way to your village to pay you a visit, and it is a great happiness to me to have met you here and saved a delay in our meeting. Let us go under the trees, for if he sees you from where he is, he is capable of drowning himself in that river in trying to get to you, not knowing the fords."
We turned back and sat down near Charlot, Thérence asking, with that grand, simple manner of hers, whether he was mine. "Not unless I have been married a long time," I answered, "which is not so."
"True," she said, looking closely at the child, "he is already a little man; but you might have been married before you came to us."
Then she added, laughing, that she knew little about the growth of babies, never seeing any in the woods where she always lived, and where few parents ever reared their children. "You will find me as much of a savage as ever," she continued, "but a good deal less irritable, and I hope my dear Brulette will have no cause to complain of my ill-temper."
"I do think," said Brulette, "that you seem gayer, and better in health,—and so much handsomer that it dazzles my eyes to look at you."
The same thought had struck my mind on seeing Thérence. She had laid in a stock of health and fresh clear color in her cheeks which made her another woman. If her eyes were still too deep sunken, the black brows no longer lowered over them and hid their fire; and though her smile was still proud, there was a charming gayety in it at times, which made her teeth gleam like dewdrops on a flower. The pallor of fever had left her face, which the May sun had rather burned during her journey, though it had made the roses bloom; and there was something, I scarcely know what, so youthful, so strong, so valiant in her face, that my heart jumped with an idea that came to me, heaven knows how, as I looked to see if the velvety black mark at the corner of her mouth was still in the same place.
"Friends," she said, wiping her beautiful hair, which curled naturally and which the heat had glued to her forehead, "as we have a little time to talk before my brother joins us, I want to tell you my story, without any false shame or pretences; for several other stories hang upon it. Only, before I begin, tell me, Brulette, if Tiennet, whom you used to think so much of, is, as I think he is, still the same, so that I can take up the conversation where we left it—a year ago come next harvest."
"Yes, dear Thérence, that you may," answered my cousin, pleased at her friend's tone.
"Well, then, Tiennet," continued Thérence, with a valiant sincerity all her own, which made the difference between her and the reserved and timid Brulette, "I reveal nothing you did not know in telling you that before your visit to us last year I attached myself to a poor fellow, sick and sad in mind and body, very much as a mother is attached to her child. I did not then know he loved another girl, and he, seeing my regard for him, which I did not hide, had not the courage to tell me it was not returned. Why Joseph—for I can name him, and you see, dear friends, that I don't change color in doing so—why Joseph, whom I had so often entreated to tell me the causes of his grief, should have sworn to me it was nothing more than a longing for his mother and his own country, I do not know. He must have thought me base, and he did me great injustice; for, had he told me the truth, I myself would have gone to fetch Brulette without a murmur, and without making the great mistake of forming a low opinion of her which I did, and which I now confess, and ask her to pardon."
"You did that long ago, Thérence, and there is nothing to pardon where friendship is."
"Yes, dear," replied Thérence, "but the wrong which you forget, I remember, and I would have given the world to repair it by taking good care of Joseph, and showing him friendship and good-nature after you left us. Remember, friends, that I had never said or done a false thing; so that in my childhood, my father, who is a good judge, used to call me Thérence the Sincere. When I last saw you, on the banks of your own Indre, half-way to your village, I spoke privately with Joseph for a moment, begging him to return to us and promising there should be no change in my interest and care for his health and well-being. Why, then, did he disbelieve me in his heart; and why, promising with his lips to return (a lie of which I was not the dupe),—why did he contemptuously leave me forever, as though I were a shameless girl who would torment him with love-sick folly?"
"Do you mean to say," I interrupted, "that Joseph, who stayed only twenty-four hours with us, did not return to your woods,—if only to tell you his plans and say good-bye? Since he left us that day we have heard nothing of him.”
"If you have had no news of him," replied Thérence, "I have some to give you. He did return—by night, like a thief who fears the sunshine. He went to his own lodge and took his clothes and his bagpipe, and went away without crossing the threshold of my father's hut, or so much as glancing our way. I was awake and saw it all. I watched every action, and when he disappeared in the woods, I felt I was as rigid as death. My father warmed me in the rays of the good God and his own great heart. He took me away to the open moor, and talked to me all one day, and all the next night, till I was able to pray and sleep. You know my father a little, dear friends, but you cannot know how he loves his children, how he comforts them, how he finds just the right thing to say to make them like himself, who is an angel from heaven hidden under the bark of an old oak! My father cured me. If it were not for him, I should despise Joseph; as it is, I have only ceased to love him."
Ending thus, Thérence again wiped her fine forehead, wet with perspiration, drew a long breath, kissed Brulette, and held out to me, laughing, her large and well-shaped white hand, and shook mine with the frankness of a young man.