HELEN and her little sister were left very much to themselves for some time after they settled in M. Goudron’s house, and the village life going on round them soon became interesting and important to the strangers. Little Janey played all day long with Marie and Petit-Jean, and acquired a Burgundian accent, and an ease of speech much beyond that of Helen, who still talked as with a shadow behind her of her governess, and was tremulous about her genders, and afraid of the subjunctive mood. It was wonderful how soon they came to know the stories which hid under each little thatched roof. Though Helen did not dare in the face of public opinion to unfasten the closely strained curtain that covered her windows, she managed to draw its fulness towards the centre, leaving a little corner by which she could see what was going on. The chief thing she saw, it must be allowed, was old Goudron standing at the door watching everything that went on with his hungry old eyes, and grinning with malicious pleasure at every mishap. Nothing escaped the old man, and his grin was the chief thing in Latour which soured the milk of human kindness, made the good wives cross, they could not tell why, and exasperated the men. He was always there with malignant and mocking words whatever happened, to say that “I told you so”—which makes every misfortune a little more unbearable;—“if you had listened to me.” The house next door was the only house in the village which made any pretensions to gentility. M. le Précepteur who lived in it was not a schoolmaster, as the English reader may suppose, but the collector of taxes, a Government employé, who held on with a very stern clutch to the skirts of the aristocracy, as a man well born, with a wife who found herself sadly out of place in this desert. When madame went by in her pretty toilets, M. Goudron had always a gibe. The public virtue of M. le Précepteur, and his devotion to the country, was his favourite subject. “Quoi, madame! it is too much to have an old Roman for a husband. Again you go out alone,” he would say. Madame knew that her irreproachable husband was playing billiards at the moment, thinking very little of public duty, and still less of the enormity of leaving her to go out alone, but she held up her head and smiled disdainfully. “In our class, monsieur,” she said, “we are trained from our cradles to recognise that each has their share of duty—society for the women, but for the men the country. It is difficult, I am aware, to make it comprehensible among the bourgeois,” she added, sweeping past with the sweetest smile. Old Goudron grinned, but he had his match. Helen watched their passages of arms daily. The employé’s wife was a good mother and an excellent housewife, but neither for home nor children would she have relinquished the grandeur of her caste. She paid visits at the château; she patronised the Curé; and visited the good Sisters, who kept their little school at the other end of the village; and maintained her little social circle with the stateliness of a duchess. Once a-week she had her little reception, which was attended by M. le Curé, M. le Vicaire (for it was a large parish), and the notary. Once a-week she and her husband dined at the château. Regularly as the weeks came round were these social rules observed, for, as she justly remarked, “Without society one vegetates, one does not live.” It was much in the mind of this one representative of high life in Latour, to open her doors to the strangers. The father’s appearance was perfectly comme il faut; and though Helen was shy, she had still the air of a young person who had been instructed, and might have been né, like madame herself.
Nobody else in Latour had a salon or the ghost of a salon. But Helen, peeping from her corner, soon got to know which of the cottage wives looked out anxiously for the return of their husbands, and which reposed with pride and calm upon the certainty of Jean or Jacques’ sobriety and good behaviour. She began to know the different clank of the sabots—from the little patter of the children, in their dark-blue homespun frocks and close little caps, to the heavy resounding tread of the big boys and men. She knew M. le Curé’s measured step, and the pause he made to leave his wooden overshoes behind when he went in to see a sick man; and the brisker little trot of M. le Vicaire, who had been in the war, and who was a fiery little martyr, tramping leagues off to the edge of the parish to see the sick, or any one who called for his aid. On Monday every week M. le Curé went to the château to say a mass for the old Count in the little chapel, and stayed afterwards to take his déjeûner, the second breakfast, which, till all these masses were over, was the first meal for the good Curé. It was on Thursday that the priest and the Précepteur and his wife dined at the Château of Latour, and on Sunday was the reception of madame next door. On Sunday all the village was astir. There was a great deal going on in the church in the morning, and a tolerable amount of people there—a far larger number than was justified by the professions of the villagers, who disowned all the habits of piety, and made themselves out much less Christian than they were. It is the fashion to be religious in the upper classes, and all who would aspire to belong to them in France: and it is the fashion among the peasantry to hate the Church; yet notwithstanding, there were a great many people at High Mass, wherever they came from. M. le Précepteur was there with his wife in her prettiest toilet, and their little girl as fine as a little girl could be; and M. le Maire and the adjoint both thought it expedient to set a good example to the community. But it was only the morning that the best of Catholics thought it necessary to devote to the services of religion. Even Madame la Comtesse at the château, though orthodox to the fingers’ tips, took care to assure her guests that vespers were not a duty, pas obligatoire, and in the afternoon and evening all the merriment of the village, such as it was, was in full swing. The Lion d’Or and the Cheval Blanc were both full; and in a large loft belonging to the former there was dancing, which Helen and Janey watched with a fearful joy through the open window. To be able to see this, even at a distance, was an amusement they had not hoped for; yet Helen was very uneasy as to whether it was justifiable on Sunday even to look on at a dance. But it was not very riotous dancing, or even very gay, as we are led to suppose the amusements of our gayer neighbours are. They took their pleasure very seriously, these Burgundian peasants, just as our own country folks do. The violinist of the village had no great variety of music in his répertoire, and the peasant couples, solemnly circling round and round with their hands on each others’ shoulders, displayed little of that characteristic gaiety of France which we hear so much about.
Down below, in front of the windows on the benches outside, the men drank steadily and talked, till it became too cold, while the women sitting by, knitting their stockings, sometimes threw in a word. They made a great deal more noise than similar assemblies do in England, but there was not much more mirth. Very often a passing show, a travelling establishment of pedlar’s wares—a “Cheap Jack,” or at the worst, a dentist in a triumphal car, making their last rounds before the winter set in, would arrive at Latour, and this made Sunday very piquant, before everything succumbed under the chills of the declining season. Madame Dupré at the Lion d’Or, in her whitest cap, with her long ear-rings, occupied the large chair on these Sundays, leaving the waiting to Auguste, and Baptiste, and Jeanne from the kitchen, whose holiday it was to emerge from that hot and stifling place, putting also long ear-rings in her ears, and a cap that might have been starched in Paris, it was so comme il faut. Jeanne liked to show herself in the salle among all the people on these Sunday nights. But Baptiste for his part was always seeking to get away. He stole up to the dancing-room to have one waltz with his Blanchette, then rushed down to get a chope for Jean Pierre, or a new bottle of piquette for Père Roussel, or the absinthe which the little city clerk, who had come to help M. le Notaire, thought it fine to call for. And thus the Sunday evenings went on. Madame la Comtesse would have liked to shut up the auberges and have Sunday kept as in England, if she could; and Madame Vincent, the Précepteur’s wife, had fixed her reception for Sunday in order to prevent her husband and the notary from patronising the vulgar popular meeting in the Lion d’Or. But neither of these great ladies influenced the village. The first it regarded as a hostile power, whom to thwart was one of the first of its duties, the other as a laughing-stock.
Mr Goulburn walked about the village for the first Sunday evening, and amused himself, while his daughters at the window saw all the rude little frolicking at a distance—the dancing-room with its open windows, the oil-lamps burning hot and smoky in the gloom, the dancers gyrating, not always in time, to the squeak of the village fiddle; and down below, the light in the windows of the salle at the Lion d’Or broken by the figures of the people who sat outside. The girls were not so soon bored as he was. He was a man who liked to be popular, as has been said. He went in to pay his respects to Madame Dupré and made her his little compliments.
“All the world is here,” he said, “to-night. I find you on your throne, madame, the queen of the village.”
Madame Dupré was so pleased that she accorded him a civility shown to few. She got up to offer him a seat, and called to Baptiste to bring her a certain precious little bottle.
“Monsieur must taste it—it is genuine,” she said; “it was brought me from the hands of the monks who have the secret.”
“Ah, the monks!” some one said; “they like to keep all the good things to themselves.”
“And with good reason,” said Mr Goulburn. “Could I make anything so good as this, certainly I should keep it to myself.”
This mot had a little succès in the company which pleased its author. It is hard to say how far down we will go for applause without any sense of lowering ourselves. Praise is always pleasant.
“Monsieur has reason,” said Madame Dupré. “I am not dévote, but now and then I like to hear one who will say a good word for the clergy.”
Old M. Goudron, who was sitting by, took his cigar out of his mouth.
“Madame is too good,” said the old man; “she would say a good word for the devil, if there is such a person, and if he were a customer at the Lion d’Or.”
“The clergy are no customers of mine, nor do I hold with them any more than you do,” Madame Dupré began, with rising colour, when the Englishman poured oil on the waves.
“In my country,” he said, “the clergy are not a separate class as in yours. They marry and live like other men; but no one in England speaks of them as you do here in France. They do a great deal of good among us. They take care of the poor.”
“Pah! a married priest!” cried Madame Dupré, with an expression of disgust. “I am no bigot, but I could not put up with that.”
“And as for what monsieur says about the poor,” cried M. Goudron, “there ought not to be any poor. A man who wants help, who cannot keep himself alive, there is no place for him in the world.”
At this a little murmur rose, and one of the silent spectators spoke. “We are all poor,” he said; “and when there is a bad harvest, or a bad winter, or illness in the house, how are we to live without the help of a kind hand?”
“Ah, it is you, Paul le Roux; every one knows why you speak. There is solidarity between the enemies of mankind,—the priest and the aristocrat; they have but one end. It is for this they wander about the village to take persons at a disadvantage who may happen to be badly off. You do not see how their charity is an impudence. What! give you their crumbs, and their fragments! ‘Take what falls from my table, I am better than thou.’ It is an insult—such an insult,” old Goudron said suddenly, with the grin that divided his face in two, “as I never would venture to offer to any neighbours of mine.”
At this there was a general laugh. “Père Goudron,” said some one from the window, “will never fail in respect to his neighbours in that way.”
“Never!” cried the old man, with his malignant grin.
In the meantime young Baptiste had escaped from the table and the drinking, and had gone back to the dancers, who were now beginning to disperse. He went across the street with his Blanchette and her friends, and secure in the occupation of both their parents, talked for half a happy hour with her at the door. When he bade her good night at last, and little Blanchette went in with the blush on her cheeks, Helen, somewhat pale from her vigil, was standing at the door of the sitting-room. “Will you come in?” she said. She had been sitting there a long time alone, since Janey went to bed, watching the dancers, and listening to the squeak of the fiddle and the hum of all the voices. It was not a kind of merrymaking which Helen could have shared; yet to see people enjoying themselves, and to sit alone and look from a distance at their pleasure, is sad when one is young. She was glad to see the bright countenance of the other girl, who was in the midst of all that little agitation of youthful life from which she was herself shut out. There was but one candle in the bare little salon, and that was put away in a corner not to interrupt the sight of the village gaiety outside. Blanchette came in, proud of the invitation, and looked out with great sympathy upon the scene she had herself left, where now the dancing figures were fewer and more irregular, and the lights more smoky and lurid than ever.
“Was mademoiselle looking at us all the time?” she said; and then she suddenly took and kissed with fervour, to Helen’s great surprise, her unwilling hand. “Mon dieu!” said little Blanchette, “but how sad for mademoiselle!”
“Oh, thanks,” cried Helen, much confused and not knowing what to do. She would have liked to kiss the little girl who felt for her, but she was too shy to do this. “It amused me very much,” she said with a little sigh—perhaps she had scarcely thought that her amusement was sad till Blanchette suggested it. “I think I saw you dancing with Baptiste.”
“Oh yes, mademoiselle. He came as often as he could. Mademoiselle knows that we are fiancés.”
“Yes; but you are too young to be married,” Helen said.
“Does mademoiselle think so? Baptiste is almost twenty. Provided that he draws a good number, that is all we have to hope for. Will mademoiselle say a little prayer for us when the moment comes? Ursule has promised a candle to St Hubert if all goes well. Ursule has no wishes for herself. She is a saint upon earth. All that she asks from heaven is for me.”
“But she is only a very little older than you are. Why should she have no wishes for herself?”
“Mademoiselle, she has a vocation,” said Blanchette with awe; the candle shone back, doubled and reflected in those twin mirrors, from her eyes. The gravity on her face brought out all its sweetness—a little face, all alive with love, and hope, and reverential admiration, and faith. Helen felt her own passiveness all the more from the contrast. She felt half ashamed of her ignorance, and of standing, as she did, outside of all this world so full of life.
“What is a vocation?” she said.
“Does not mademoiselle know? A vocation is something one does not talk of carelessly, as we are talking; it is too sacred, when it is a true vocation. She would have been at the Sacré Cœur now, had not grandpapa been so——Figure to yourself, mademoiselle, that grandpapa is very violent against the Church. He hates even the good Sisters, who are so kind. When M. le Curé passes he spits on the ground. It is terrible,” cried Blanchette, with tears in her eyes, “to be so old and to be like that. If Baptiste draws a good number, he will not be able to refuse that we should marry,” she added very seriously, too grave for blushing, “and then perhaps my poor Ursule—— The holy mother will take her without dot, they have such faith in her; but she would not leave me alone with the grandfather. Provided only that Baptiste draws a good number!” the girl said, clasping her hands.
“Surely, surely he will!” Helen said fervently.
Little Blanchette shook her head. “If things would happen because we wish them to happen!” she said—and then she added, “Baptiste, perhaps, has been a little idle, mademoiselle; but all Latour wishes him well, and the ladies of the Sacré Cœur have promised to make a neuvaine for us. They would do anything for Ursule’s sister. I wish I had a little more faith, mademoiselle,” she said, shaking her head once more.
Helen had that vague confidence that what is desired must happen, which is common to the very young, when their own feelings are not so deeply concerned as to make them despondent; and though she could not possibly know anything about it, and her assurances that all would be well were absolutely worthless, still they consoled Blanchette, who was very grateful for the interest shown in her, and cried, and smiled, and declared mademoiselle to be an angel. This was not unpleasant, on the other hand, to the lonely little Englishwoman. To be sure Blanchette was not a lady, but she was a girl, and the freemasonry of youth is warm. Helen got quite excited as she speculated upon the chances which involved the happiness of this young pair. She herself knew nothing of such agitations. She felt to herself like a very pale little shadow standing by looking on, while the others were involved in all those hopes and fears. She, too, had been plunged into a stormy sea, but it was very different from this one; Helen did not understand the change in her own life, and notwithstanding all that her father had said, could not feel at all sure that this mysterious chapter might not end as it began, and Fareham and its splendours reappear again in her existence. But as she sat down in the semi-darkness after Blanchette had left her, her mind followed an altogether different line of thinking. Blanchette was the perennial heroine of human story. All the romances, all the poetry were occupied with troubles like hers. None of them took any interest in the fate of a girl whose father was the cause of her misfortunes, and with whose griefs no warmer thought of possible happiness was twisted. She was altogether in the shadow, and sympathy was not for her. She had not even a chance of sympathy without a complaint, without, perhaps, betraying her father, which was impossible. But with Blanchette everybody sympathised, even the ladies of the Sacré Cœur, who might be expected to be not too favourable to marriage. Helen knew nothing of this phase of life. She wondered, with a shy alarm at her own thoughts, if, as the novels said, something of the kind happened in everybody’s experience? The thought made her laugh faintly by herself, and made her blush, though without the slightest reason; and then suddenly there came before her, like a scene in a theatre, the table d’hôte at Sainte-Barbe, and the young stranger who had startled her by his recognition, and who had been so glad to see her. Why had he been so glad to see her? A little tremble ran over Helen, a flush to her face, and she laughed again, this time more faintly than ever, then sprang up and took down the candle from the oldfashioned marble-topped sideboard in the corner, and put it on the table, and got her book. She had been reading a pious French book which she had found in her room, because it was Sunday; it was not very engrossing. Her thoughts strayed away from it in spite of herself. But she tried her best to hold them fast and read very steadily. By-and-by the sounds outside lessened and withdrew, and steps could be heard passing, one group after another, taking their way home. The day of leisure was over, and to-morrow the work would begin once more. Helen had begun to watch for her father’s step among the heavier ones outside, when Blanchette suddenly put her head within the door.
“Mademoiselle!” she cried, breathless, “here is monsieur coming home, and Antoine Roussel. Baptiste told me that I ought to warn you. One does not like to say ill of one’s neighbours, but Antoine is a mauvais sujet. All the village says so. One cannot trust him. If mademoiselle were to say as much to monsieur son père?—and good night—good night—and a thousand times thanks, ma bonne et chère demoiselle.”
Her head disappeared as quickly as it had come. Helen was a little confused by the sudden warning, by the complications of the language with which she was still so unfamiliar. To be addressed in the third person still mystified her a little, and so did monsieur son père. But she had a strong youthful prejudice against Antoine, who followed her father about everywhere, and whom Janey could not bear. “But what will papa care?” she said to herself, though indeed it was possible that he might care for the altogether causeless prejudice of little Janey, if not for any remonstrance of hers.