Chapter Ten.
Restraint.
And Poissy?
After the child’s birth the years slipped swiftly, though not always smoothly, by. Léon, who easily forgot, had very nearly succeeded in forgetting that desperate act of his, and the old count’s threat of the future. There were still, however, moments when it flashed upon him, and brought with it a sudden cloud of depression which he attributed to physical ailments. His wife, sure he was not ill, laughed at these fancies, but his mother, perhaps out of opposition, treated them seriously until they generally ended in his laughing at himself. He spent a great deal of time out of doors, rising early, and going all over the estate, which, bit by bit, was being brought together again; coming in to the eleven o’clock breakfast, and then out again, shooting or fishing or loitering about with Nathalie. If a new idea, a new invention, a new arrangement, attracted him, he was possessed by it, and could think and speak of nothing else. His neighbours smiled at his enthusiasms, but liked and excused him; those who had blamed him in old days were vanquished by the sweetness of temper with which he had accepted his new life, and by the unsuspected strength he had shown in renouncing the extravagances of Paris.
His mother was almost content Léon was all she had believed him, Poissy stood in its old position in the neighbourhood, and there was little Raoul, as dear, or dearer, than his father. As for Nathalie, as much as possible she contrived to ignore her, and though M. Bourget was a terrible man, he had the grace seldom to inflict himself upon them.
It was Nathalie herself who was the most changed by the years of her married life, or who gave that impression, for her character had not really changed, although it had developed. She had lost, early, a certain frank open-heartedness; she was reserved—with her mother and sisters in law extremely reserved. She never battled for her rights, and the household had almost ceased to remember that she possessed any. But, in avoiding retorts, she had fallen into a habit of grave silence which did not belong to her years, and of which Léon sometimes laughingly complained.
“It doesn’t matter when we are alone,” he would say, “but with others—I saw Madame de la Ferraye looking at you this afternoon and expecting you to take your part in the discussion.”
She made a laughing excuse.
“Dear, how should I? It was better not to expose my ignorance.”
“You cram that little head of yours with all kinds of learned stuff, and then talk of ignorance? What makes you read so much?”
“Because I will not have Raoul ashamed of me.”
Every now and then—not often, and always suddenly—a gust of passion seemed to sweep through the mask under which she relentlessly hid her more spontaneous self. Such a gust had come now. Léon looked at her, amazed at the tone in which the words were spoken, concentrated will passionately pushing them forward, as if they carried a standard of rebellion. She never now complained to him, never invited a suggestion which should shape her conduct towards his mother and sisters, and though he was quite shrewd enough, if he had chosen, to perceive the slights which she had daily to endure, he preferred to shut his eyes, and tell himself that with him and the child she was so happy as to be indifferent. Such a passionate outcry as this shook his easy-going reflections, and annoyed him. But he marched on silently, aware that she would soon curb her rebel tongue with shame at its weakness.
They were walking towards Poissy; a fine rain had browned the road, and, falling on a sun-baked soil, sent up a pleasant smell of growing things. The sky was stormy, a sweet insistence of blue above changing in the west to pale, mysterious green. Low down lay a horizontal flame-coloured line of clouds, broken by nearer drifts of dark grey, tattered and vaporish at the edges and flecked with red. One small portion, rent from the rest, had drifted lightly across the blue above. Nathalie, fronting the sunset, with its level light on her face, looked a very noble woman. The lines had grown a little harder, but not one was mean or weak. It was a face to which poor sinners would look for help, and never look in vain. Léon, glancing at it, felt its force and began to speak, although he had resolved on silence.
“You can’t say, I’m sure, that I’ve ever been ashamed of you.”
She turned, and her gravity melted into a lovely smile.
“Ah, but Raoul is going to be much cleverer than you. If you doubt it, listen to my father. Besides, my friend, I spoke hastily; I did not really mean that he would ever be ashamed of his mother, but that it would be useful for him if I could help him in his work. For, wonderful as it seems, the monkey will have to work one day.”
He had quickly forgotten the reproach he had made against her silence, for he was always more taken up with his own thoughts or actions than with those of others, and went on:
“They want me to go over to dine with them to-morrow. And sleep.”
“The La Ferrayes?”
“Yes; the prefet is due there, and two or three others. Madame de la Ferraye made a hundred apologies for not asking you. I forget why it was—no room, I think.”
“I hope you accepted, Léon. It is my turn now to scold you, for I don’t think you are so sociable with your neighbours as you might be. Here you have nothing but women, women! It will do you good to be away from us for a little; indeed, I often wish you would run up to Paris for a few days. You must have many friends there.”
“None, now. And I hate Paris,” said Léon, sharply.
“You puzzle me when you say that,” she returned, looking at him with a smile. “And as for friends, at any rate there must be that old Monsieur de Cadanet, whose name your mother suggested as Raoul’s second. Would it not please him if you were to pay him a visit!”
“Hardly.”
“Well, go to the La Ferrayes, then, and Raoul and I, we will do something to amuse ourselves, perhaps drive to Tours and see my father. Happily, those two love each other.”
To say that M. Bourget loved his grandson was not enough—he adored him. From the first moment when he had gazed, awe-struck, at a small red contorted face, lying in the capacious arms of the nurse, his joy, his pride, his self-satisfaction had been almost beyond control. If his acquaintances had avoided him before, they fled from him now. To know that this true, actual Beaudrillart—not Beaudrillart by grace of marriage, but by birth and actual right, was also his—Bourget’s—grandson, proved sufficient to turn his head, and lead him into extravagant follies. He looked at his daughter with reverence; was she not the mother of this phoenix, this wonder? She was obliged to interfere to prevent him—he, M. Bourget, who called himself to account for every penny he spent—from making perpetual gifts to the nurse, and since she objected to the practice, he indulged himself by presenting his gifts by stealth, so delightful was it to him to sit down before his ledger and make an entry of moneys expended “on behalf of my grandson, the Baron Raoul de Beaudrillart.” As for the photograph of Poissy, words cannot describe the look with which he regarded it. Planted squarely on the pavement, his coarse broad hands clasped behind him, his legs a little apart, his solid head advanced as far as a short neck would allow, he would stand in rapt contemplation, knowing already every line of the windows, every fret of the tracery, but devouring them with his eyes, and utterly indifferent to the smiles and nudges of the passers-by. This worship satisfied him as well as a visit to the actual Poissy. Nathalie, in spite of objections raised at the château against the baby being so constantly taken to the town, was absolutely firm in driving him at least once a week to see his grandfather. Once persuaded of the right of an action, she was tenacious of purpose, and weekly the grey ponies rattled merrily along the narrow street to M. Bourget’s door. This quite contented him, and though, by Léon’s desire, she now and then asked her father whether he would not drive back with her, she was always relieved when he declined. The little slights or sharp speeches to which he was subject there stung her almost beyond endurance, even when he appeared absolutely impervious. Nothing that could be said to herself hurt like these vicarious stings.
Oddly enough, he had grown either more indifferent or less suspicious of neglect on her behalf since the birth of the boy. Before this he had evidently resented the attitude of Mme. de Beaudrillart and her daughters, and at intervals shot out a question at Nathalie which she found it difficult to parry. But now, either he believed her position to be assured, or had concentrated his thoughts upon his grandson, for he asked nothing awkward, and seemed profoundly careless of what was done at Poissy by its older inhabitants. They were, after all, only women, and of little importance compared to Nathalie’s child. It would have surprised them amazingly if they had realised the small account in which their bête noir held them.
The pitched battle of the portrait had, through Léon’s skilful management, ended in a compromise. He became extremely full of the idea, and did not rest until the painter on whom he had fixed his mind came down to Poissy. M. Bourget had his way so far, though it displeased him that his daughter absolutely refused to be painted as he would have had her, resplendent in white satin. She insisted upon an every-day dress, the dress in which she generally walked with Léon, and she had her way, with the result that nothing could have been more charming. Compromise also effected her entrance into the gallery, for, although Mme. de Beaudrillart was as stubborn as M. Bourget, Léon suggested that, in place of hanging, the portrait might lean against the wall, a position less assured, and—his mother satisfied herself—more humble.
But, strangely enough, the boy’s birth, which had reconciled his grandfather to anything anomalous in his daughter’s position, produced a contrary effect upon Nathalie. Before the child arrived she had accepted the contemptuous treatment she received with philosophy, almost with indifference; Léon’s love appeared sufficient to satisfy her, and she treated disagreeables lightly, as something of which she had already counted the cost. Now there was a change. The trivial galled. Mme. de Beaudrillart was jealous of any influence which the young wife might have upon her son, and hitherto she had drawn aside with a smile, and been content to efface herself; but she no longer did this with ease. She resented the necessity. It seemed that she had fallen into the position of a mere plaything; that her husband liked her to walk with him, to laugh with him; that he found her pleasant to look at; but that when a cloud came between him and the sun—such a cloud as flung a shadow on his face now and then without visible reason—it was to his mother that he turned. His wife was strong enough to face facts and to meet them without repining or fretfulness. She never complained to her husband or her father. But she suffered.
And she had lost illusions about Léon. She saw that he was weak, that his very sweetness of temper was often mere selfishness, and clinging to what was pleasant. She loved him as passionately as ever, but she wanted to keep her boy from the same faults, and it did not seem as if she would succeed. For she was sure that if ever man had been injured by his bringing up, Léon was that man, and here were all the same influences, and more, at work. Mme. de Beaudrillart spoiled her grandchild outrageously. His father laughed at his naughtiness, and even M. Bourget could see in them nothing but an added charm. All the thwarting, all the reasoning, was left to the mother, forced often into strictness by the indulgence of others. The boy had a fine nature, brave and true; but in him, too, the Beaudrillart will was already asserting itself, and Nathalie, looking at him, trembled and prayed.
On the morning after the young baron’s departure for the La Ferrayes, there was a not infrequent scene in the breakfast-room. Raoul had been rude to his aunt Félicie, and his mother required him to say he was sorry. Mme. de Beaudrillart at once remonstrated.
“It is absurd to expect repentance from a baby. You weaken your authority by making sins out of such trifling matters. Come here, Raoul, and I will give you some melon.”
“No,” said Nathalie, with a firm grasp of the delinquent, “you must pardon me, madame, but Raoul knows that he must do what I have told him.”
“Ne veux pas,” said the small rebel, standing stiff and resolute.
“Pray don’t let us have a scene,” said Félicie, nervously. “I assure you, Nathalie, that I am not in the least vexed with him.”
“But I am,” said her sister-in-law, trying to smile. “Raoul, your aunt Félicie is very kind; will you go and kiss her, and say you are sorry!”
He hesitated, made a step towards her, and caught sight of his grandmother, smiling and signing to him with her head to come for the melon. With a laugh of gleeful mischief he broke from his mother, rushed to Mme. de Beaudrillart, cried out again, “Ne veux pas,” and buried his round black head in her lap.
“Let him alone, Nathalie,” said his grandmother, delightedly. “He has found sanctuary.”
From her! With a pang at her heart, Mme. Léon showed no trace of ill-temper. She followed, however, and lifted him, now kicking and crimson, in her strong young arms. Mme. de Beaudrillart looked much displeased.
“A storm about absolutely nothing!” she exclaimed. “The child would have been perfectly good if he had been let alone.”
“When he is good, he shall come back,” said his mother, calmly, carrying him out of the room.
“Ridiculous!” cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, as they vanished.
“It is just the way to spoil his temper,” Claire remarked, adding seltzer-water to her white wine. “But Nathalie delights in a scene, and in insisting upon her own authority.”
“Poor darling! And he will think I was the cause of it all,” cried Félicie. “I must find something for him, to make up.”
“A medal,” suggested Claire. “I am sure you have a drawer full.”
“Not for playthings,” Félicie said, reproachfully. “If he might wear one always, now, it would make me really happy; but Nathalie is so unsympathetic in those matters that I could not trust to her seeing that it was firmly secured. And as likely as not that dreadful Monsieur Bourget might say something irreverent if he discovered that it hung round the dear child’s neck.”
“He will never believe that you are not deaf,” her sister remarked, with a laugh.
“Thank Heaven, he does not come here often,” acknowledged Mme. de Beaudrillart. “I must say, I feel grateful to him for his forbearance. By-the-way, I have received a letter this morning, and I see there is another for Léon, announcing the death of old Monsieur de Cadanet.”
“Really? A cousin, is he not?”
“A distant cousin, and Léon once was under a certain obligation to him.”
“Ah,” said Claire, “at that time when there was such a panic as to Léon’s affairs? I begin to understand. So it was Monsieur de Cadanet who came to the rescue? Félicie, will you kindly pass the fruit?”
“He had good reason for doing so,” returned her mother. “You know, or perhaps you don’t know, that he was under great obligations to your father, so that he could not very well have refused. And I do not fancy that he behaved very graciously, for Léon does not speak of him with warmth. However—he did his duty, and he is dead.”
Félicie bent her head, and murmured a little prayer for the repose of the soul of M. de Cadanet. When she had finished, Claire said, as she peeled a pear:
“His death is not likely to make much difference to us—ah, here is Raoul! Come to me, treasure!”
“One moment,” interposed Nathalie, firmly. She led the little boy to Félicie. “Now, dear Raoul.”
“Ne veux pas,” whispered Claire in his ear, with a laugh. He looked at her, and glanced at his mother.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not very sorry, Aunt Félie.” Then he threw his arms round Nathalie’s neck. “Will that do? Shall we go to Tours, and may I have the reins?”
Mme. de Beaudrillart said, hastily:
“Not Tours again, I hope. It really is not at all good for the child to pass so much of his time in the close streets of a town. Pray, for once leave him with us. I know, too, that they have fever there.”
“His grandfather expects to see him every week,” replied Nathalie, in a quiet tone.
Mme. de Beaudrillart hated to hear M. Bourget called “his grandfather.”
“That may be,” she said, “but I think my wishes might also be respected. Raoul, would you not rather remain here and let Jean drive you?”
“No,” said Raoul, sturdily. “And I shall go to Tours, because mother promised.”
“Ah, it is a pity your mother spoils you,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, rising, and looking displeased. “May I ask when you start!”
“At once,” Nathalie answered, “so as to be at home when Léon arrives.”
“I shall want him to walk with me.”
“Certainly, madame.” As her mother-in-law left the room, Mme. Léon took up her husband’s letters, which lay on the table. “Such a black border!” she remarked, looking at one of them. “These letters of announcement always give one a shiver.”
“That need not, at any rate, for it does not concern you,” said Claire, carelessly. “I suppose you have scarcely heard of old Monsieur de Cadanet, in Paris?”
“Léon and I were speaking of him only yesterday. Is he dead?”
“So it seems. By-the-way, if Léon had been at home, perhaps he would have run up for the funeral.”
“It appears as if it would require a great deal to drag Léon to Paris,” Nathalie remarked, smiling.
“Perhaps, my dear, he has never informed you of the reasons he has to avoid it.”
Her sister-in-law coloured.
“No,” she said, “he never speaks of his life there.”
“And such a good wife asks no questions! Well, I have often wished to go there myself.”
“Oh, you are quite extraordinary, Claire,” said Félicie, shuddering. “When Paris is such a wicked place!”
“I believe I should like to see a little of the wickedness and judge for myself,” Claire announced, as she followed her mother out of the room.
When Nathalie and her boy reached M. Bourget’s house, he had already been more than once to the door to see if they were coming, although he would not have acknowledged it for worlds. He professed great surprise at their appearing, for, by an established fiction, they were never expected on the days when they arrived, and by another fiction it was supposed to be an extraordinary fact that Raoul should have been allowed to drive in with his mother.
M. Bourget would stand, thumbs in button-holes, and look him up and down with a pride which cannot be described.
“Ta, ta, ta, and this is our baby?” he would say, pursing his lips. “Only the other day he was tied into his chair, and here, if you please, he is driving with his mamma like a gentleman! The times march, upon my word!”
By this time Raoul would have plunged his hands into his grandfather’s pocket.
“Softly, softly, what now!” And, aside to his daughter, “He grows more of a Beaudrillart every day. What he will have, he will, one can see it in everything. Now then, little robber, little brigand, what are you stealing from your poor grandfather!”
And with a shout of delight, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief, Raoul would extract a whip, or a top, or a packet of chocolates, and run round the room chased by M. Bourget with terrific show of indignation. Later on, another ceremony was observed, which Nathalie herself always suggested, having discovered the pleasure it afforded to her father. All three would set forth for a walk through the streets of Tours, M. Bourget with his grandson by his side. The ostensible reason for the promenade was that Raoul should see the shops, and to this end they walked up and down the streets for half an hour. M. Bourget did not, at these times, stop to converse with any of his friends, but he took care that they should see him, passed and repassed the café and his other most usual haunts, and would have been greatly disappointed had he not met Leroux, Docteur Mathurin, and at least one of the principal officials. If they went into the cathedral, where Raoul liked to look at the tomb of the little boy and girl princess with their watching angels, he would even make the concession of lifting him up to dip his small fingers into the stoup for holy-water. Then, while Nathalie knelt and prayed—little knowing, poor soul, how much at that very moment her prayers were needed!—the two would wander off into quiet corners, Raoul putting questions which his grandfather treasured jealously, to be repeated with shaking shoulders to the impatient Leroux.
“He must have an answer for everything,” M. Bourget would declare, and Leroux, who, as a father, suffered under the not unusual infliction himself, was expected to express amazement.
After this, it was necessary to stand in front of the cathedral, and scatter crumbs, brought for the purpose, to the pigeons; returning by way of the Rue Royale, that M. Bourget might be certain Raoul had not forgotten how Balzac was born in Number 39. Raoul knew it as well as his grandfather, by this time, but he would sometimes pretend forgetfulness in order to have his memory jogged by chocolates.
On this day the round was shorter, as Mme. Léon wished to be at home early to meet her husband.
“He will hear of the death of an old cousin,” she said, knowing her father’s interest in all Beaudrillart affairs—“Monsieur de Cadanet. I believe he was very old, but I do not think there had been any news sent of his illness, so that I do not suppose it was expected.”
“Ah,” said M. Bourget, “Cadanet. Yes. A branch. His grandmother was a Beaudrillart. Have they said much about it at Poissy?”
“Not to me,” she replied, briefly. “Léon, you know, is absent.”
“It is too far off, probably, for Raoul to benefit,” remarked his grandfather, gazing at him. “If he could have seen him now! Monsieur de Beaudrillart should have taken him there on a visit.”
“It might have been only another to spoil him,” she said, with a laugh, capturing her son as he was thumping upon the table with both lists.
“Pooh, you are a fidget! He gets no spoiling here. I dare say those women at Poissy don’t know how a boy should be treated. Let him hammer. The table is solid. You lose your authority by always scolding. Come here, Raoul, and tell me how the pony goes. And Jean? Does he do what you tell him?”
Driving back that afternoon, Nathalie reflected, as she reflected often, on the difficulties which lay about the bringing up of her little son. Indulged on all sides, with the strong family will quite ready to develop itself, it seemed as if his path was to be strewn with rose-leaves. She had absolutely no one to help her, except Jacques Charpentier, Jean’s father, an honest, sensible man, devoted to the family, and no less so to Mme. Léon. When Raoul was with him, his mother was at ease. With his grandmother and aunts, she was sure that they often indulged the boy out of opposition to her. His father hated disturbance of any sort, and found it easier to laugh than to rebuke. All the training was left to her. Her own father, usually sensible, here was weak, and, in fact, it was who should gain his love by yielding. Happily, as yet, Raoul adored his mother, and as she thought of this she blamed herself for her misgivings.
She told herself, with a sigh, that she was a very happy woman. And afterwards she stared back at that sigh with amazement at her ignorant discontent.
Léon received the news of M. de Cadanet’s death in silence, which was unusual. He answered Claire’s question whether he would have gone to the funeral briefly in the negative, and was leaving the room, when his mother detained him to say in a low voice:
“It will make no difference to you!”
“No. But it might have.”
“Who will have his money?”
“I imagine he will leave all he can to one Monsieur Charles Lemaire, his wife’s nephew.”
“Ah, well! I am glad things were settled before there could be any complications.”
Léon, who was pale, went out of the room without answering her.